Book picks similar to
Say Yes (CULTured Series Book 2) by Ashleigh Giannoccaro
dark
multiple-read-books-have-or-will
religion
emotional
Rape Van
Tim Miller - 2016
Their windowless van is their home. Speeding across the Texas countryside they pick up hitchhikers and weary travelers who see the pair as a nice couple showing southern hospitality. However, Andy and Bridget are not what they seem. In their plain looking van, there is no telling which town they will pass through or who will they pick up next.
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay - 2015
As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
Skin Trade
Mason Sabre - 2019
They call them Blood Auctions, where vampires auction off blood slaves to the highest bidders. Fresh blood is passed amongst them all. Payton is a blood slave. Seth is a vampire, and as one of the most powerful bloodsuckers in the city, but for some reason, he’s got his eye on Payton and is willing to pay anything for her.
Pay The Ghost
Tim Lebbon - 2015
A girl goes missing ... the father gives up hope ... but the mother never stops searching. Now, a year later and close to Hallowe'en, they have a chance to rescue their child. But to do so they must face something terrible.
Dark Alchemy
Laura Bickle - 2015
What she finds instead is Temperance, a dying Western town with a gold rush past and a meth-infested present. But under the town's dust and quiet, an old power is shifting. When bodies start turning up - desiccated and twisted skeletons that Petra can't scientifically explain - her investigations land her in the middle of a covert war between the town's most powerful interests. Petra's father wasn't the only one searching for the alchemical secrets of Temperance, and those still looking are now ready to kill. Armed with nothing but shaky alliances, a pair of antique guns, and a relic she doesn't understand, the only thing Petra knows for sure is that she and her coyote sidekick are going to have to move fast, or die next.
The Thing Beneath the Bed
Patrick Rothfuss - 2010
It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a dark sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture-book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.Simply said: This is not a book for children.
Cold Blood: Billionaire Vampire's Choice #2
V.M. Black - 2015
The ageless billionaire vampire has finally found his consort in the form of a dying young woman named Cora Shaw. His blood kiss heals Cora’s broken body and unites them in an eternal bond. With her, Dorian is finally complete. But far from enjoying a blissful union, he discovers that the demons inside himself are not as easily laid to rest as he had believed, and his enemies have deadly plans for his consort. A new title in the stunning serial by New York Times bestselling author V. M. Black, Cold Blood includes a complete bonus copy of Taken (The Alpha's Captive #1) Start the series with Blood Lust.
Mary B. Morrison Bundle: Soulmates Dissipate / Never Again Once More / Darius Jones (Soulmates Dissipate, #1-2, 8)
Mary B. Morrison - 2011
Morrison links two beloved series in a riveting tale of envy and seduction that has basketball star Darius Jones up against a woman who takes being a fan to the next level.Darius Jones is living the good life. He's got a chance to become the league's most valuable player, he's crazy in love with his wife, and his relationship with his mom has never been better. But Darius also has a stalker who's determined to be the number one woman in his life. And no matter where he goes, she's there. . .scheming to kill his wife, Fancy; charming his manager and mother, Jada; manipulating his son's mother, Ashlee; and worst of all, dragging new mother Honey Thomas into the mix with one of the most heartless schemes ever. With his life quickly unraveling, Darius must gamble all he's worked for to save his wife, reclaim his son, and stop a madwoman from ruining the lives of everyone around him. . . . Never Again Once MoreIn Soul Mates Dissipate, her phenomenal Essence® and Blackboard bestseller, Mary B. Morrison left readers cheering with her tell-it-like-it-is-and-then-some story of Jada and Wellington, two lovers whose connection is tested, but never broken. Now, in this eagerly awaited sequel, Jada and Wellington find themselves facing new conflicts that will challenge the decisions they made years ago.Do we choose love, or does love choose us? That's the question Jada Diamond Tanner can't seem to stop asking herself after ten years of marriage. She thought she'd chosen the right man in Lawrence Anderson, her steady, reliable husband and the man who helped raise her son Darius. But did she choose the right life when she turned her back on Wellington Jones, the soulmate whose fiery kisses took her body and spirit to a higher level than she ever dreamed possible?For twenty years, Jada has struggled to keep her distance from Wellington, and he's paid her in respect. But now, the cracks in Jada's carefully constructed life are beginning to show. Darius is a young man out of touch and in trouble. When his destructive behavior threatens to destroy him, Jada reluctantly lets Wellington take more control and be the father Darius needs.With each day back in Wellington's company, Jada begins to question the choices she has made in her life--choices made out of fear, out of foolish pride, out of denial. Slowly, she begins to realize that she still has one choice left: to get true to herself. Armed with the courage and the fire she's been missing for years, Jada's out to seize the opportunity she thought she had lost--and this time, she'll say, "never again once more."Soulmates DissipateBringing the soulful, sexy, and totally uncensored voice of black women to readers everywhere, Mary B. Morrison is blazing a new trail in African American erotic fiction that has made her one of the most exciting, and most popular, authors writing today. Exquisite ebony-skinned fashion photographer Jada Diamond Tanner may have her pick of fine men, but no one has captured her heart like gorgeous financial advisor Wellington Jones. From the moment of their first embrace, Jada is sure he is the soul mate she has waited for. But while the love she shares with Wellington is exhilarating, Jada finds herself facing challenges she never could have imagined--from Melanie Thompson, bright, beautiful, and talented, but hungry for the love she has never had. . .and from Cynthia Jones, Wellington's overbearing socialite mother, who believes Jada will never fit into her circle of aristocratic friends. Forced to make difficult choices, Jada will soon learn some painful lessons about love, trust, and commitment. But she will also discover deep emotional strengths in herself, along with the courage to celebrate the joy each day can bring--with or without the man she loves.
Edge of Dark Water
Joe R. Lansdale - 2012
Now she's dead - her body dredged up from the Sabine River, bound with wire and weighted down. Her best friend, Sue Ellen, wants to take her ashes to Hollywood. But May Lynn's diary holds a secret: the location of a large sum of money.
Sour Candy
Kealan Patrick Burke - 2015
They take walks in the park together, visit county fairs, museums, and zoos, and eat together overlooking the lake. Some might say the father is a little too accommodating given the lack of discipline when the child loses his temper in public. Some might say he spoils his son by allowing him to set his own bedtimes and eat candy whenever he wants. Some might say that such leniency is starting to take its toll on the father, given how his health has declined.What no one knows is that Phil is a prisoner, and that up until a few weeks ago and a chance encounter at a grocery store, he had never seen the child before in his life.
Ghost Wall
Sarah Moss - 2018
They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie's father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the "primitive minds" of our ancestors.
Scattershot
Jon Athan - 2018
Viola Santoro, a freelance journalist, is tracking Scattershot for her independent investigation in hopes of writing an exposé. After she unwittingly captures the serial killer's attention, she receives the scoop of a lifetime. Scattershot kidnaps Viola, straps her to an iron chair in his dungeon, and forces her to watch his acts of torture—over and over. He doesn't harm her, though. Instead, he gives her what she wants: his motives, his dreams, his life story. Jon Athan, the provocative author of The Good, the Bad, and the Sadistic, invites you into the broken mind of a disturbed serial killer. WARNING: This book contains scenes of graphic violence. This book is not intended for those easily offended or appalled.
The Demonologist
Andrew Pyper - 2013
Professor David Ullman is among the world’s leading authorities on demonic literature, with special expertise in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Not that David is a believer—he sees what he teaches as a branch of the imagination and nothing more. So when the mysterious Thin Woman arrives at his office and invites him to travel to Venice and witness a “phenomenon,” he turns her down. She leaves plane tickets and an address on his desk, advising David that her employer is not often disappointed.That evening, David’s wife announces she is leaving him. With his life suddenly in shambles, he impulsively whisks his beloved twelve-year-old daughter, Tess, off to Venice after all. The girl has recently been stricken by the same melancholy moods David knows so well, and he hopes to cheer her up and distract them both from the troubles at home.But what happens in Venice will change everything.First, in a tiny attic room at the address provided by the Thin Woman, David sees a man restrained in a chair, muttering, clearly insane . . . but could he truly be possessed? Then the man speaks clearly, in the voice of David’s dead father, repeating the last words he ever spoke to his son. Words that have left scars—and a mystery—behind.When David rushes back to the hotel, he discovers Tess perched on the roof’s edge, high above the waters of the Grand Canal. Before she falls, she manages to utter a final plea: Find me.What follows is an unimaginable journey for David Ullman from skeptic to true believer. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David must track the demon that has captured his daughter and discover its name. If he fails, he will lose Tess forever.
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.
One Kick
Chelsea Cain - 2014
Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would never be victimized again. But when two children in the Portland area go missing in the same month, Kick goes into a tailspin. Then an enigmatic man Bishop approaches her with a proposition: he is convinced Kick's experiences and expertise can be used to help rescue the abductees. Little does Kick know the case will lead directly into her terrifying past…