Book picks similar to
The Children God Forgot by Graham Masterton
horror
netgalley
fiction
dnf
The Pilo Family Circus
Will Elliott - 2006
You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?"Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!
Cover Your Eyes
Mary Burton - 2014
Then a torrent of blows rains down upon their bodies until their eyes cloud over in final agony. The killer shows no remorse--just a twisted need to witness each victim's last terrified moments.Don't SpeakPublic defender Rachel Wainwright is struggling to reopen a decades-old case, convinced that the wrong man is in prison. Homicide detective Deke Morgan doesn't want to agree. But if Rachel's hunch is correct, whoever fatally bludgeoned young, beautiful Annie Dawson thirty years ago could be the source of a new string of brutal slayings.Just Prepare To DieRachel's investigation is about to reveal answers--but at a price she never thought to pay. Now she's become the target of a rage honed by years of jealousy and madness. And a murderer is ready to show her just how vicious the truth can be. . .
The Merciless
Danielle Vega - 2014
No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream. Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed. Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls . . . unless she wants to be next. . . . In this chilling debut, Danielle Vega delivers blood-curdling suspense and terror on every page. By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?
The Amityville Horror
Jay Anson - 1977
28 Days of Terror in a House Possessed by Evil SpiritsIn December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their dream home, the same home where Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers and sisters just one year earlier.the psychic phenomena that followed created the most terrifying experience the Lutz family had ever encountered, forcing them to flee the house in 28 days, convinced that it was possessed by evil spirits.Their fantastic story, never before disclosed in full detail, makes for an unforgettable book with all the shocks and gripping suspense of The Exorcist, The Omen or Rosemary's Baby, but with one vital difference...the story is true--back cover
Blame
Jeff Abbott - 2017
At first, everyone was sympathetic. Then they found Jane's note: I wish we were dead together.A girl to blameFrom that day the town turned against her. But even now Jane is filled with questions: Why were they on that road? Why was she with David? Did she really want to die?The secrets she should forgetMost of all, she must find out who has just written her an anonymous message: I know what really happened. I know what you don't remember...
The Haunting on West 10th Street
Helen Phifer - 2018
But a gruesome murder at a Greenwich Village brownstone seems to point straight to a paranormal source. Determined to unearth a rational explanation, she vows to find the culprit before he strikes again… But Maria is about to learn that this atrocious crime is far from unique. An identical slaughter rocked the same house decades ago, and Miller must determine if it’s the same culprit, a copycat, or something much darker… When Miller becomes the killer’s next target, will her stubborn cynicism save her or send her to the other side? The Haunting On West 10th Street is the first book in the chilling Ghosts of New York horror series. If you like terrifying tales, supernatural crime stories, and eerie mysteries that span decades, then you’ll love Helen Phifer’s nail-biting novel. Buy The Haunting to dive into the supernatural today!
Hark! the Herald Angels Scream
Christopher GoldenJames A. Moore - 2018
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. Marley untying the bandage that holds his jaws together. The hideous children--Want and Ignorance--beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The heavy ledgers Marley drags by his chains. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Bestselling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.Absinthe & angels by Kelley Armstrong --Christmas in Barcelona by Scott Smith --Fresh as the new-fallen snow by Seanan McGuire --Love me by Thomas E. Sniegoski --Not just for Christmas by Sarah Lotz --Tenets by Josh Malerman --Good deeds by Jeff Strand --It's a wonderful knife by Christopher Golden --Mistletoe and holly by James A. Moore --Snake's tail by Sarah Langan --The second floor of the Christmas hotel by Joe R. Lansdale --Farrow Street by Elizabeth Hand --Doctor Velocity: a story of the fire zone by Jonathan Maberry --Yankee swap by John M. McIlveen --Honor thy mother by Angela Slatter --Home by Tim Lebbon --Hiking through by Michael Koryta --The hangman's bride by Sarah Pinborough
Death by Dumpling
Vivien Chien - 2018
. .The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal break-up and a dramatic workplace walk-out, she figures that a return to the Cleveland area to help wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead-set on finding her a husband.Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead―after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy? Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy―to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for take-out―it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order. . . before her own number is up.
Strange Magic
Syd Moore - 2017
No, not at all. It’s no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run.Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There’s the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for old bones, those of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there’s curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can’t decide if he’s tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. It all adds up to looking like her plans to sell the museum might need to be delayed, just for a while.Finding herself and Sam embroiled in a most peculiar centuries-old mystery, Rosie is quickly expelled from her comfort zone, where to her horror, the secrets of the past come with their own real, and all too present, danger as a strange magic threatens to envelope them all.
The Sorority Murder
Allison Brennan - 2021
An unsolved murder. A campus podcast with chilling repercussions. Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested.Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise.New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then shockingly one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined—and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast—before the killer silences him forever."Fans of Jeff Abbott and Karin Slaughter will find this crime novel hard to put down." —
Publishers Weekly
on The Third to Die"Downright spectacular… [A] riveting page turner as prescient as it is purposeful." —Providence Journal on Tell No Lies
The Good Son
Jacquelyn Mitchard - 2022
Three years later, he’s released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda’s mother, once Thea’s good friend, galvanizes the community to rally against him to protest in her daughter’s memory. The media paints Stefan as a symbol of white privilege and indifferent justice. Neighbors, employers, even some members of Thea's own family turn away.Meanwhile Thea struggles to understand her son. At times, he is still the sweet boy he has always been; at others, he is a young man tormented by guilt and almost broken by his time in prison. But as his efforts to make amends meet escalating resistance and threats, Thea suspects more forces are at play than just community outrage. And if there is so much she never knew about her own son, what other secrets has she yet to uncover—especially about the night Belinda died?
Not Even Bones
Rebecca Schaeffer - 2018
Nita just dissects the bodies after they’ve been “acquired.” But when her mom brings home a live specimen, Nita decides she wants out — dissecting living people is a step too far.But when she tries to save her mother’s victim, she ends up sold on the black market in his place — because Nita herself is a supernatural being. Now Nita is on the other side of the bars, and there is no line she won’t cross to escape and make sure no one can ever capture her again. Nita did a good deed, and it cost her everything. Now she’s going to do a lot of bad deeds to get it all back.
Everything Is Lies
Helen Callaghan - 2018
At least that is what she's always believed.Everyone has secretsUntil the day she arrives at her childhood home to find a house ringing with silence. Her mother is hanging from a tree. Her father is lying in a pool of his own blood, near to death.Especially those closest to you The police are convinced it is an attempted murder-suicide. But Sophia is sure that the woman who brought her up isn't a killer. As her father is too ill to talk it is up to Sophia to clear her mother's name. And to do this she needs to delve deep into her family's past - a past full of dark secrets she never suspected were there . . .What if your parents had been lying to you since the day you were born?