Book picks similar to
The Key to the Kingdom by Jeff Dixon
disney
fiction
mystery
fantasy
The Fireman
Joe Hill - 2016
Stay cool.No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.
What We Forgot to Bury
Marin Montgomery - 2020
But she’s safe now. She lives in a gated community, protected from danger. When teenager Elle knocks at her door looking for shelter during a particularly severe storm, the woman can’t help but think how lucky Elle’s been to have found someone as friendly as her. Except Elle chose her door on purpose…She knows all about Charlotte’s secrets because they ruined her family and her life. And it is time that everyone else knew. But Charlotte’s past has left a dark void in her life, so she is concocting her own vicious plan, convinced that Elle can help fill that void.As events unfold, the truth unravels and pulls both women into a dangerous game that will leave you wondering, Who’s the villain?
The Second Ship
Richard Phillips - 2006
Now, the American government is ready to share the Rho Project discoveries with the world. But as the world scrambles to adopt the alien technologies, three high schoolers make another shocking discovery: hidden inside a cave in the New Mexico wilderness lies another alien ship. As the friends explore the second ship, they begin to unravel a decades-long secret involving an extraterrestrial war, government cover-ups, and secret experimentation using alien technology on humans. A battle has begun, and the secrets of the second ship may be the key to humanity's last chance for survival.
The Ones We're Meant to Find
Joan He - 2021
All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay, and it’s up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her.In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara lives in an eco-city built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But nevertheless, she decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.
172 Hours on the Moon
Johan Harstad - 2008
Only one is coming back. It's been more than forty years since NASA sent the first men to the moon, and to grab some much-needed funding and attention, they decide to launch an historic international lottery in which three lucky teenagers can win a week-long trip to moon base DARLAH 2 - a place that no one but top government officials even knew existed until now. The three winners, Antoine, Midori, and Mia, come from all over the world. But just before the scheduled launch, the teenagers each experience strange, inexplicable events. Little do they know that there was a reason NASA never sent anyone back there until now-a sinister reason. But the countdown has already begun. . .
Thicker Than Blood
C.J. Darlington - 2009
She’s putting her past behind her and working hard to build her career as a buyer for a large used bookstore. So far she’s been able to keep her drinking problem at bay, but everything changes when she lands a DUI on her thirty-third birthday. When she’s accused of a crime she didn’t commit at work, she has nowhere to turn. She yearns for her estranged family, especially her younger sister May whom she hasn’t seen for fifteen years. Now the owner of a failing cattle ranch in Elk Valley, Colorado, May couldn’t possibly want a relationship with the big sister who didn’t even say good-bye all those years ago, could she? Soon Christy’s fleeing from her shattered dreams, her abusive ex-boyfriend, and God. Could the Triple Cross Ranch be the safe haven she’s searching for, or will May’s new-found faith give her even more reason to reject Christy?
The Passage
Justin Cronin - 2010
government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—toward the time an place where she must finish what should never have begun.With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterly prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.
The Phoenix Series: Books 1-4
Ted Tayler
The system often fails to deliver the correct punishment. He can redress the balance. The Olympus Project Rescued by strangers from a watery grave and given a new identity. The Phoenix is a stone-cold killer. An ideal fit for the Olympus Project, a secret organisation fighting injustice.Gold, Silver, and Bombs The eyes of the world are on London 2012. British security services anticipate an organised terror attack. Safety is paramount. What if the real danger comes from a lone wolf?Nothing Is Ever Forever The action never slows. The tension never slackens. The Phoenix stares death in the face once more. Detectives Phil Hounsell and Zara Wheeler are back, as Colin Bailey’s past threatens to catch up with him.In The Lap Of The Gods Olympus battle vicious gangsters on home soil. The body count rises. Dimitar Marinov cements his reputation as the most brutal criminal ever to have set foot on UK soil. Phoenix and Athena attend their first senior meeting with Zeus and the other Gods. They sense factions within the Project are plotting to take it in a different, more sinister direction. Who can they trust?
Plaza
Shane M. Brown - 2012
If they’d kept it a secret, fewer people would have died. When archaeologists uncover the largest ancient safe in the world, the wrong kinds of people will show up: criminals, mercenaries, treasure hunters. THEIR SECOND MISTAKE was opening it.Why would an ancient culture devote three generations to build a giant stone safe? Why would they bury it so the jungle could hide it from the world? Why ritually sacrifice one hundred thousand people to ensure its secrecy?THEIR LAST MISTAKE proved the biggest.This last mistake hurt the most. Their last mistake was to assume that nothing had been left behind to keep guard….Special note for Kindle format: PLAZA has an active table of contents, is approximately 90,000 words, and displays seamlessly with Kindles and all other eBook reading devices.
The Ghost Tree
Christina Henry - 2020
After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids.So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.
The Kingdom
Jess Rothenberg - 2019
where 'Happily Ever After' isn't just a promise, but a rule.
Glimmering like a jewel behind its gateway, The Kingdom is an immersive fantasy theme park where guests soar on virtual dragons, castles loom like giants, and bioengineered species--formerly extinct--roam free.Ana is one of seven Fantasists, beautiful "princesses" engineered to make dreams come true. When she meets park employee Owen, Ana begins to experience emotions beyond her programming including, for the first time... love.But the fairytale becomes a nightmare when Ana is accused of murdering Owen, igniting the trial of the century. Through courtroom testimony, interviews, and Ana's memories of Owen, emerges a tale of love, lies, and cruelty--and what it truly means to be human.
The Man from Primrose Lane
James Renner - 2012
He had no friends and no family; all over town, he was known only as the Man from Primrose Lane. And on a summer day in 2008, someone murdered him.Four years later, David Neff is a broken man. The bestselling author of a true-crime book about an Ohio serial killer, Neff went into exile after his wife’s inexplicable suicide. That is, until an unexpected visit from an old friend introduces him to the strange mystery of “the man with a thousand mittens.” Soon Neff finds himself drawn back into a world he thought he had left behind forever. But the closer he gets to uncovering the true identity of the Man from Primrose Lane, the more he begins to understand the dangerous power of his own obsessions and how they may be connected to the deaths of both his beloved wife and the old hermit.With a deft and singular blend of suspense, literature, and horror, The Man from Primrose Lane boasts as many twists and turns as a roller coaster. It’s a spellbinding journey of redemption and a reflection on the roles of fate, destiny, and obsession when it comes to matters of the heart.
The Messiah Matrix
Kenneth Atchity - 2012
Religious Fiction Christianity, Jesus Christ, Roman Catholic, Christian originsA renowned scholar-monsignor is killed in Rome while a Roman coin is recovered from a wreck off the coast of ancient Judea. It’s up to his young American protégé--a Jesuit priest--and a vivacious, brilliant archaeologist to connect these seemingly disparate events and unravel the tapestry that conceals in plain view the greatest mystery in the ecclesiastical world. Together they pursue their passion for truth—while fighting to control their passion for each other. What they uncover is an ancient Roman imperial stratagem so controversial the Curia fears it could undermine the very foundations of the Roman Catholic faith--much like the secrets emerging from the Vatican in today's news. From the ancient port of Caesarea to Rome's legendary catacombs and the sacred caves of Cumae, this contemporary novel follows their exhilarating quest to uncover the truth about the historical existence of the real "Christian Savior."Classical scholar and Yale Ph.D. Dr. Kenneth John Atchity is the only author alive today capable of creating this literary and historically-based spellbinder.For more information on The Messiah Matrix, including location maps, blog and more please visit: www.messiahmatrix.comJasius? Who or what is it? All Google has to offer is a two-tailed butterfly or the ring finger. Say it again. Jasius. It has the sound of something strange, yet strangely familiar. Something or someone we all know, yet infinitely beyond our comprehension. Kenneth Atchity's The Messiah Matrix explores the mystery in a fast-paced, light-hearted novel that is at the same time profoundly disturbing. The story goes forward at three levels. At the top, a rousing twenty-first century adventure that moves from the wrecks littering the floor of the Mediterranean to the corridors of the Vatican. Below that, a carbon-dated epigraphic revisionist history of the first centuries BCE and CE. And, at the deepest level, a sympathetic, fair-minded rational re-examination of "the greatest story ever told." You may applaud, dispute, chortle, weep, but you will think about this book long after the final page.-Benedict and Nancy Freedman, authors Mrs. Mike, Sappho: The Tenth Muse, The ImmortalsIn a thriller that rivals anything Dan Brown ever wrote, The Messiah Matrix threatens to take all your beliefs and toss them into the wind. A priest is murdered in Rome. His assassin is also shot and killed while with another priest. A message was delivered. An artifact is found on the floor of the sea. A Jesuit questions his faith and the history of his Church. An archaeologist uncovers the find of a lifetime and loses it.A connection between Christ and Augustus Caesar? The wise men following a star in 17 BC? Curiouser and curiouser! Although you know what they say about curiosity. The Monsignor searching for the ashes of Christ--which he was killed before explaining. Does the Holy See condone murder? Damn Skippy it does!This book is amazing! The two main characters of Ryan and Emily are the perfect pair of detectives. Will they be more? You’ll have to read the book! Emily’s coin is vital to the history of Christianity in the world, but will they get it back? On the coin, Augustus was wearing a crown with twel