Book picks similar to
Witch Hunt by Juliet Escoria


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Temptation


K.M. Scott - 2014
    Scott. Cassian March, the public face of Tampa's most exclusive nightspot, Club X, has a great life. Women, sex, and money are his for the taking, and no man indulges his desires more. Life is short, and he plays hard. He lives by only one rule—never let a woman get close. Olivia Lucas needs a job, and if that means working at a club that specializes in making members' wildest fantasies come true, then that's what she'll do. A girl's got to pay the rent, right? She never expected to fall for the gorgeous owner of Club X, though, but a man like him would never go for someone like her. Or would he?

The Girl Next Door


Jack Ketchum - 1989
    Shady, tree-lined streets, well-tended lawns and cozy homes. A nice, quiet place to grow up. Unless you are teenage Meg or her crippled sister, Susan. On a dead-end street, in the dark, damp basement of the Chandler house, Meg and Susan are left captive to the savage whims and rages of a distant aunt who is rapidly descending into madness. It is a madness that infects all three of her sons and finally the entire neighborhood. Only one troubled boy stands hesitantly between Meg and Susan and their cruel, torturous deaths. A boy with a very adult decision to make.

Fludd


Hilary Mantel - 1989
    He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.

Live or Die


Anne Sexton - 1966
    Live or Die, her third volume, consists of poems written from January 25, 1962 to February, 1966, many of them published in such leading periodicals as The New Yorker, Harper's and Encounter.These poems are arranged chronologically and compose a fierce and intimate autobiography. The poet speaks with total frankness, her imagery and reference brilliant and hard as diamonds. It is impossible for her to be banal. Much of her experience is rendered as nightmarish, but it is significant that the final poem is stunningly affirmative, its title the single command "Live."This collection is a striking body of work by a poet whose experience is intensely female, whose poetry is strong and powerful.

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish


David Rakoff - 2013
    Here the characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A critic once called Rakoff "magnificent," a word which perfectly describes this wonderful novel in verse.

Three Seconds to Rush


Danielle Stewart - 2016
    She’s positive she’s a good mother and hard worker. So why is she in an alley with a needle in her arm? Waking up in the hospital without her son is terrifying. Being told she can’t have him back nearly crushes her. With her memory spotty and the circumstances incriminating, Tara must fight to learn the truth and wrestle with the idea that maybe her son is better off without her. Reid Holliston defends guilty people for a living and it's slowly killing him. He’s certain there is no such thing as a truly blameless client anymore. When his phone rings with a voice from his childhood his jaded views make him certain Tara is just one more criminal claiming innocence. But even his skepticism isn’t enough to keep him away. Best friends from a lifetime ago, the two must find a way to trust each other again in spite of how the years apart have changed them. Can a promise made in childhood be enough to save them both?

Negative Space


B.R. Yeager - 2020
    Four teens in a New Hampshire mill town abuse a bizarre hallucinogen called WHORL in order to cope with a devastating suicide epidemic.

In Too Deep


Mara Jacobs - 2014
    Turns out one of the kids was Lucas’s little brother. So, I’d be seeing a lot more of Lucas. And that was just fine with me.I had a lot going on—a freshman at an elite college, first time away from home, and, oh yeah, roommates with a girl I’d been sent to spy on. I wasn’t exactly looking for anything exclusive. Something casual, though, would be great. But there was nothing casual about my feelings for Lucas.He was a townie, hiding a secret, and I knew better than to get involved. I was always the sensible one, the peacekeeper.Before I knew it…I was In Too Deep.

Cult of Loretta


Kevin Maloney - 2015
    Cult of Loretta captures the manic fury of Richard Brautigan writing a sequel to The Outsiders during a ketamine binge.”- Jim Ruland, author of Forest of Fortune“I haven’t read a book this great, this funny, this original, this emotional, this bonkers in quite some time. It’s a little like Bukowski and Sam Lipsyte and the drug scene in Beavis and Butthead Do America all smashed together, but also completely and totally Kevin Maloney.”- Aaron Burch, author of Backswing“Cult of Loretta is a hot dose of pleasure. It whistles with the wit of Brautigan, stings with the heart of badly dissolved romance. If a modern day mountain man came out of the wilderness with a story in his eye, this might be the thing he’d tell. Kevin Maloney is that kind of treasure–a wild thing that’s come in from the war of life, lived to tell the tale.”- Brian Allen Carr, author of The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World“Cult of Loretta is a book about a man named Nelson who gets his ass kicked over and over again by the world, and his heart pulverized over and over by the same enigmatic woman. It’s about what happens to love when both halves of a couple are whacked out on the most powerful drug of all time. It’s about the tragedies that parents can make for us, and the tragedies we make for ourselves. Kevin Maloney is an exceptional talent, someone capable of weaving all of these nasty little ingredients into something that is as tender as it is bleak, something that makes you laugh out loud as it rips open your skin and pulls out your veins.”- Juliet Escoria, author of Black Cloud“Kevin Maloney drags the lake of our subconscious, revealing the often startling but always mesmerizing grit that becomes human memory. Cult of Loretta is an impressive debut, a confident showcase of an exciting new literary talent.”- Michael J Seidlinger, author of The Fun We’ve Had

Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis


Scott R. JonesDon Raymond - 2016
    there is no madness. Is there wisdom in insanity? Enlightenment in blackest despair? Higher consciousness in the depths of chaos? These are the stories of the men and women who choose to cast off from the shores of our placid island of ignorance and sail the black seas of infinity beyond. Those who would dive into primeval consciousness in search of dark treasures. Thos who would risk the Deadly Light for one reason: it is still light. Martian Migraine Press presents fifteen diverse tales of enlightenment and horror from some of the best new voices working in Weird Fiction today. Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis features poetry from Bryan Thao Worra, stories by Gord Sellar, Kristi DeMeester, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, and the groundbreaking Mythos novella from Ruthanna Emrys, The Litany of Earth. With cover art by Alix Branwyn, interior illustrations by Michael Lee Macdonald, and an introduction by editor Scott R Jones (author of When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R'lyehian Spirituality), Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis will plunge readers into a seriously entertaining contemplation of the mysticism and magic inherent to Lovecraft's fantastical world of cosmic horror and dread. Take the Cthulhusattva Vow! Enter the Black Gnosis! Table of Contents The Pearl in the Shadows -- Bryan Thao WorraKeys in Stranger Deserts -- Vrai KaiserMr Johnson and the Old Ones -- Jamie MasonAntinomia -- Erica RuppertHeiros Gamos -- Gord SellarMother's Nature -- Stefanie ElrickAt the Left Hand of Nothing -- Jayaprakash SatyamurthyThe Litany of Earth -- Ruthanna EmrysEmperor Eternal -- Konstantine ParadiasThe Wicked Shall Come Upon Him -- Kristi DeMeesterMessages -- John Linwood GrantThat Most Foreign of Veils -- Luke R J MaynardWe Three Kings -- Don RaymondFeeding the Abyss -- Rhoads BrazosAfter Randolph Carter -- Noah Wareness Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis edited by Scott R Jones 5.58.5″ trade paperback and electronic book formats ISBN 978-1-927673-16-4 Publication date: May 23, 2016 Distributed to the trade by Ingram

Aphrodite Made Me Do It


Trista Mateer - 2019
    In this empowering retelling, she uses the mythology of the goddess to weave a common thread through the past and present. By the end of this book, Aphrodite make you believe in the possibility of your own healing.

The Taiga Syndrome


Cristina Rivera Garza - 2012
    A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down—that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into a snowy, hostile forest where strange things happen and translation betrays both sense and one’s senses. Tales of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood haunt the Ex-Detective’s quest into a territory overrun with the primitive excesses of Capitalism—accumulation and expulsion, corruption and cruelty—though the lessons of her journey are more experiential than moral: that just as love can fly away, sometimes unloving flies away as well. That sometimes leaving everything behind is the only thing left to do.

There Is No Year


Blake Butler - 2011
    Suitably forewarned, the reader is introduced to an unexceptional no-name family. All should be idyllic in their newly purchased home, but they are shadowed by an unwelcome "copy family." In the face of the copy mother, the mother sees her heretofore unrealized deterioration. Things only get worse as the father forgets how to get home from work; the mother starts hiding in the closet, plagued by an omnipresent egg; while the son gets a female "special friend" and receives a mysterious package containing photos of dead celebrities. The territory of domestic disillusion and postmodern dystopia is familiar from other tales, but Butler's an endlessly surprising, funny, and subversive writer. This subversion extends to the book's design: very short titled chapters with an abundance of white space. Not so much a novel as a literary tapestry, the book's eight parts are separated by blank gray pages. To Butler (Scorch Atlas), everything in the world, even the physical world, is gray and ever-changing, and potentially menacing.

The House of Discarded Dreams


Ekaterina Sedia - 2010
    and discovers that one of her new roommates has a pocket universe instead of hair, there's a psychic energy baby living in the telephone wires, and her dead Zimbabwean grandmother is doing dishes in the kitchen. When the house gets lost at sea and creatures of African urban legends all but take it over, Vimbai turns to horseshoe crabs in the ocean to ask for their help in getting home to New Jersey.

Malevolent


Jana Deleon - 2015
     Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any. And maybe someday, answers for herself. Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her and tormenting her with mementos from her past. With no evidence to support her claims, the police dismiss her claims as post-traumatic stress, but Shaye is convinced that someone is deliberately terrorizing Emma…playing a cat and mouse game with only one goal in mind. To kill Emma.