Book picks similar to
Blood Kin by Ronald Kelly


horror
vampires
vampire
zebra-horror

The Skull


Shaun Hutson - 1982
    waiting for just one drop of blood to restore it to life. But when Nick Regan discovered the skull on a construction site, he and his archeologist wife Chrissie were more puzzled than alarmed. It was too large to be human, but looked like no animal skull they had ever seen. Their curiosity soon turned to fear when the bones grew a thin covering of gray flesh... and then to frantic terror when they discovered that it had come alive...

Pest


Anna Willett - 2020
    She takes your dreams, and then your life...A NAIL-BITINGLY SCARY SUSPENSE THRILLERSightings of a strange girl on the outskirts of the small Australian town of Thorn Tree coincide with the outbreak of a deadly sickness.The girl appears in people’s nightmares, beckoning them into nothingness.Maggie’s café lies at the heart of the town, and she quickly becomes embroiled in the unfolding events.As more people she knows succumb to the illness, Maggie will have to act fast to root out its cause.Maggie believes that if she understands the girl’s story and finds her, she can save her friends and herself.But maybe she too has merely been lured into the pest’s evil embrace.

Darkness, Tell Us


Richard Laymon - 1991
    Six college kids at a party. Then someone suggested they try the Ouija board. The board that Corie had hidden in the back of her closet and sworn never to touch again. Not after what happened last time. Not after Jake's death...They were only playing around, but the Ouija board worked all right. Maybe too well. A spirit who called himself Butler began to send them messages - and make demands. Butler promised them a hidden treasure if only they would follow his directions and head off to a secluded spot in the mountains... a wild, isolated spot where anything could be waiting for them. Treasure or death. Or Butler himself.

The Strangers


Mort Castle - 1984
    He’s everybody’s buddy, has a great sense of humor, works hard at his typical boring job to provide for the wife and kids. And he is a Stranger. Michael seethes with furious impatience for the coming of the Time of the Strangers, when he and millions like him will be able at last to reveal their true selves to a horrified, helpless world.

Soulstorm


Chet Williamson - 1986
    There they will confront madness, murder, and the ultimate evil so that their billionaire host might find the key to life beyond the grave. But as they learn, dead souls dwell in The Pines. And death is just the beginning...

The Woodwitch


Stephen Gregory - 1988
    But he also has a dark side. When his girlfriend Jennifer laughs at his impotence, he lashes out in a violent rage, knocking her unconscious. At the suggestion of his employer, Andrew heads to an isolated cottage in the dark Welsh countryside to take a break and get a grip on himself. In the woods, he discovers the grotesque stinkhorn mushroom, whose phallic shape seems to rise in obscene mockery of his own shortcomings. But the stinkhorn gives him an idea, a way to win Jennifer back. As the seeds of obsession take root in Andrew’s mind, he embarks on a nightmarish quest, with unexpected and horrifying results. Stephen Gregory earned worldwide acclaim with his first novel, The Cormorant (1986), which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was adapted for a BBC film. In The Woodwitch (1988), his second novel, Gregory once again proves himself a master of disturbing and unsettling horror.

Soul Eater


Dana Brookins - 1985
     The mansion in Pellam Woods had been shipped in, piece by piece, and reconstructed in the forest at the edge of town. The citizens of Edgar Falls wondered who would build such a grand house in their sleepy little backwater. But the house sat vacant…. THEN THE DYING BEGAN…. A mother lights her home ablaze, burning her six children alive… A young boy drowns himself in a lake.... Twelve year old Bobby Topin sensed something evil inside the house. Something that tried to crawl inside his mind. One by one, the townsfolk are falling victim to their darkest impulses. And only Bobby knows that the house where no one lives is home to a malevolent force... SOUL-EATER

The Wolfen


Whitley Strieber - 1978
    The savage killing of two New York City policemen leads two detectives, a man and a woman bound together by a strange, tough passion, to hunt down the wolfen, called werewolves in former days.

The Last Vampire


Kathryn Meyer Griffith - 1992
    Then, for her, everything changed…as the world ended. The earthquakes, the global floods and the devastating fires arrived first. The human race, displaced and panicked, at first fled, migrating to any place there was food and shelter. Then the worldwide plague arrived with its waves of death. And as mankind suffered and died out, vampires, their numbers dwindling from the same sickness, struggled and fought fiercely among themselves to survive in a world where there weren’t enough humans left to feed upon. As the months went by the vampires become fewer, more desperate and ruthless. Emma, as the world disintegrated around her, found herself alone, the old life she’d known, her family and friends all dead…and fighting off an unnatural hunger as she became one of the undead. Defying her unwanted destiny she was determined to resist the increasing bloodlust, the need to kill and feed on human blood, of losing her humanity, for as long as she could bear it, but she was so hungry, and the night, the wolves, called. And then she met Matthew and was no longer alone…but could the love she felt for him protect him from her hunger; could her love protect him from the other vampires?

Berserk


Tim Lebbon - 2005
    When a dangerous military experiment on England's Salisbury Plain goes fatally awry, the authorities hastily and secretly bury the bodies of a dozen soldiers and a few other victims. The body of one soldier, Steven, is supposedly returned to his parents, but the coffin is empty. Ten years later, Steven's still grieving father, Tom, locates the place of burial. But when Tom excavates the site, he discovers not his son's remains but the moldering corpse of a little girl animated by a peculiar form of life. Lots more nastiness follows. Fans who prefer their horror to have a sense of humanity should look elsewhere.

The Pines


Robert Dunbar - 1989
    The boy seems to have a psychic connection to something in the dark forest, something unseen... and evil. The old-timers in the region know the truth of the legendary creature that stalks the Pine Barrens. And they know the savagery it's capable of

Hometown


Matthew Keville - 2014
     It's the Fall of 1994 in the small milltown of Belford, New York. The leaves are turning, the kids are going back to school, and the heat of Summer is giving way to a cool, misty season. It happens every Fall. Only this Fall, people are disappearing into that mist. Some people are found torn apart, some people are found dead for no reason, and some people aren't found at all. Other people see strange things in the mist: ghosts and campfire stories. There's something out there in that mist. Something old. Something that has slept for a long time, but has now woken up hungry. Maybe the people of Belford could resist it, but as the terrible Fall wears on, more and more of them start...changing. Acting bizarre and violent. In the end, only a small group of teenage defenders are left to make their stand.

Shadows


John Saul - 1992
    A secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged Pacific coast. A school for children gifted -- or cursed -- with extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own -- and unspeakably evil. For within this mind a dark plan is taking form. A plan so horrifying, no one will believe it. No one but the children. And for them it is already too late. Too late, unless one young student can resist the seductive invitation that will lead... into the Shadows.

They Thirst


Robert R. McCammon - 1981
    Prince Vulcan and an army of vampires invade the city of Los Angeles, the first step in a plan to conquer the world

The Claw


Ramsey Campbell - 1983
    Beautiful, hypnotic, ancient, it was the sacred -- and deadly -- talisman of the fabled Leopard Men of Africa.Unsuspected, it would crawl its way into his mind, bringing horrifying destruction into his home. And unresisted, it would demand an unbelievable sacrifice. And then -- perhaps -- it would move on...