Book picks similar to
The Epitaph of Jonas Barloff by Calvin Dean
mystery
horror
reordering
thrillers
In the Graveyard Antemortem
Stephen Stromp - 2016
But before she can investigate in her own small town, she is forced to spend the summer with her Uncle Clayton, the owner of Grand Hallow--a massive funeral and mortuary operation the size of a small city. Her move to Grand Hallow only deepens the mystery as she begins to suspect the strange and chilling occurrences there are linked to her father's death. With the help of her acid-tongued best friend and deadbeat brother, Lisa must unravel the secrets of Grand Hallow--before it's too late. Mystery/Suspense/Horror
The Dead and the Dark
Courtney Gould - 2021
Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there's more secrets buried here than they originally let on.Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.
Alone
Cyn Balog - 2017
The grounds are beautiful and it’s fun to explore the sprawling house with its creepy rooms and secret passages. Except now her mom wants to renovate, rather than sell the estate—which means they're not going back to the city…or Seda's friends and school. As the days grow shorter, Seda is filled with dread. They’re about to be cut off from the outside world, and she’s not sure she can handle the solitude or the darkness it brings out in her.Then a group of teens get stranded near the mansion during a blizzard. Seda has no choice but to offer them shelter, even though she knows danger lurks in the dilapidated mansion—and in herself. And as the snow continues to fall, what Seda fears most is about to become her reality…
The Girl from the Well
Rin Chupeco - 2014
But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night. A dead girl walks the streets.She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out. The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as "Dexter" meets "The Grudge", based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.
The Archived
Victoria Schwab - 2013
The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous—it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost, Da's death was hard enough, but now that her little brother is gone too, Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself may crumble and fall.In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.
The Killer in Me
Margot Harrison - 2016
She’s intimately familiar with his hunting methods: how he stalks and kills at random, how he disposes of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mine in the deepest, most desolate part of a desert.Now, for the first time, Nina has the chance to do something about the serial killer that no one else knows exists. With the help of her former best friend, Warren, she tracks the Thief two thousand miles, to his home turf—the deserts of New Mexico.But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?
House of Dark Shadows
Robert Liparulo - 2008
. . or bad dream?When the Kings move from L.A. to a secluded small town, fifteen-year-old Xander is beyond disappointed. He and his friends loved to create amateur films . . . but the tiny town of Pinedale is the last place a movie buff and future filmmaker wants to land.But he, David, and Toria are captivated by the many rooms in the old Victorian fixer-upper they moved into--as well as the heavy woods surrounding the house. They soon discover there's something odd about the house. Sounds come from the wrong directions. Prints of giant, bare feet appear in the dust. And when David tries to hide in the linen closet, he winds up in locker 119 at his new school.Then the really weird stuff kicks in: they find a hidden hallway with portals leading off to far-off places--in long-ago times. Xander is starting to wonder if this kind of travel is a teen's dream come true . . . or his worst nightmare.
In the Shadow of Blackbirds
Cat Winters - 2013
Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she’s forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?Featuring haunting archival early-twentieth-century photographs, this is a tense, romantic story set in a past that is eerily like our own time.
The Disappearance of Emily Downs (The Renegades of Black River Falls, Book 1
C.J. Redwine - 2021
RedwineNarrated by: Mia JennessSeries: The Renegades of Black River Falls, Book 1Length: 4 hrs and 56 minsOriginal Recording AudiobookRelease date: 09-30-21Language: EnglishPublisher: Audible OriginalsCategories: Children's Audiobooks, Mystery & SuspenseAbout This Audible OriginalA riveting, action-packed sci-fi thriller about a young girl on a mission to rescue her best friend, from C.J. Redwine, the New York Times best-selling author of The Shadow Queen.There are three rules in Black River Falls:1. Don’t break curfew unless you want the monsters to find you.2. Don’t ask questions, no matter what.3. When someone goes missing, don’t go looking.Joey Barnes obeyed those rules, until the day her mother vanished without a trace. She’s spent two years secretly hunting for clues, and she’s discovered plenty of things that don’t make sense, even for Black River Falls. Like the fact that Harrison Pelt keeps a chest full of weapons under a loose floorboard in his porch. Or that there’s a steel door hidden behind a shelf of old books in the library. She's become so good at snooping, she’s found enough strange facts to fill up her favorite purple journal. What she hasn’t found is her mother.When her best friend, Emily, goes missing, too, and the grown-ups seem ready to accept it, Joey decides enough is enough. Relying on unlikely friendships and a streak of stubbornness, Joey is determined to find her friend, solve the mystery that plagues Black River Falls, and, if she’s lucky, find her mother, too.That is, if the monsters don’t find her first.©2021 C.J. Redwine (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.
Under the Willows
Pamela McCord - 2020
Dealing with her overwhelming grief is a struggle as she adjusts to life in a small town. And, just as she’s beginning to feel more comfortable, life takes another unexpected turn. The Alexa unit in her son’s bedroom starts to cry, and a little girl’s voice comes out of it asking for help. At first Kelly is unnerved by the presence of the voice. After ruling out all the other likely possibilities, she begins to put the pieces together, and suspects the girl is a ghost. Unwilling to be uprooted from another home, she decides to find out what the child wants. Maybe she can help. Kelly isn’t the only one interested in the voice. Detective Rob Porter is investigating the disappearance of a child named Marilee. As the two cross paths, Porter is taken aback when Kelly’s ghost mentions Marilee’s name. In fact, the ghost says “Marilee’s with me.” Whether that means the child is a ghost as well is a question Rob and Kelly hope to answer.
What Big Teeth
Rose Szabo - 2021
When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together — in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.
Beware the Night
Ralph Sarchie - 2001
But it is his other job that he calls "the Work": investigating cases of demonic possession and assisting in the exorcisms of humanity's most ancient--and most dangerous--foes. Now he discloses for the first time his investigation into incredible true crimes an inhuman evil that were never explained, solved, or understood except by Sarchie and his partner. Schooled in the rituals of exorcism, and an eyewitness to the reality of demonic possession, Ralph Sarchie has documented a riveting chronicle of the inexplicable that gives a new shape to the shadows in the dark.In Beware the Night, he takes readers into the very hierarchy of a hell on earth to expose the grisly rituals of a Palo Mayombe priest; a young girl whose innocence is violated by an incubus; a home invaded by the malevolent spirit of a supposedly murdered ninteenth-century bride; the dark side of a couple who were literally, the neighbors from hell; and more. Ralph Sarchie's NYPD revelations are a powerful and disturbing documented link between the true-crime realities of life and the blood-chilling ice-grip of a supernatural terror.
The Haunting of Clandestine House
Celina Myers - 2019
It is known as the haunted house that swallows people whole. It isn’t until an out of town buyer Hannah Watts purchases Clandestine house that the the dark past of the time capsule home will come to light. What happened to the Clandestine family? What is going to happen to Hannah?
Kevin O'Brien Bundle: Disturbed, The Last Victim, Watch Them Die
Kevin O'Brien - 2011
The Perfect Place to Die
Bryce Moore - 2021
In order to save her sister, Zuretta takes a job at a notorious house of horrors—but she might never escape.
Zuretta never thought she’d encounter a monster—one of the world’s most notorious serial killers. She had resigned herself to a quiet life in Utah. But when her younger sister, Ruby, travels to Chicago during the World’s Fair, and disappears, Zuretta leaves home to find her.But 1890s Chicago is more dangerous and chaotic than she imagined. She doesn’t know where to start until she learns of her sister’s last place of employment…a mysterious hotel known as The Castle.Zuretta takes a job there hoping to learn more. And before long she realizes the hotel isn’t what it seems. Women disappear at an alarming rate, she hears crying from the walls, and terrifying whispers follow her at night. In the end, she finds herself up against one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history—and his custom-built death trap.