Book picks similar to
The Diary of an Immortal (1945-1959) by David J. Castello
fantasy
abandoned
historical
paranormal
Witch Please
Ann Aguirre - 2021
After a messy breakup that included way too much family “feedback,” Danica made a pact with her cousin: they’ll keep their hearts protected and have fun, without involving any of the overly opinionated Waterhouse matriarchs. Danica is more than a little exhausted navigating a long-standing family feud where Gram thinks the only good mundane is a dead one and Danica’s mother weaves floral crowns for anyone who crosses her path. Three blocks down from the Fix-It Witches, Titus Winnaker, owner of Sugar Daddy’s bakery, has family trouble of his own. After a tragic loss, all he’s got left is his sister, the bakery, and a lifetime of terrible luck in love. Sure, business is sweet, but he can’t seem to shake the romantic curse that’s left him past thirty and still a virgin. He’s decided he’s doomed to be forever alone.Until he meets Danica Waterhouse. The sparks are instant, their attraction irresistible. For him, she’s the one. To her, he’s a firebomb thrown in the middle of a family war. Can a modern witch find love with an old-fashioned mundane who refuses to settle for anything less than forever?
The Strings of Murder
Oscar de Muriel - 2015
A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. Black magic symbols cover the walls. The dead man's maid swears she heard three musicians playing before the murder.But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the puzzle makes no sense...Fearing a national panic over a copycat Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray - actually believes in such nonsense.McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next...
A Sudden Light
Garth Stein - 2014
Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant, whole trees, and is set on a huge estate overlooking Puget Sound. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with his sister, Serena, dispatch Grandpa Samuel—who is flickering in and out of dementia—to a graduated living facility, sell off the house and property for development into “tract housing for millionaires,” divide up the profits, and live happily ever after.But Trevor soon discovers there’s someone else living in Riddell House: a ghost with an agenda of his own. For while the land holds tremendous value, it is also burdened by the final wishes of the family patriarch, Elijah, who mandated it be allowed to return to untamed forestland as a penance for the millions of trees harvested over the decades by the Riddell Timber company. The ghost will not rest until Elijah’s wish is fulfilled, and Trevor’s willingness to face the past holds the key to his family’s future.A Sudden Light is a rich, atmospheric work that is at once a multigenerational family saga, a historical novel, a ghost story, and the story of a contemporary family’s struggle to connect with each other. A tribute to the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, it reflects Garth Stein’s outsized capacity for empathy and keen understanding of human motivation, and his rare ability to see the unseen: the universal threads that connect us all
The Ghost Writer
John Harwood - 2004
There he finds a manuscript, and from the moment his mother catches him in the act, Gerard Freeman's life is irrevocably changed. What is the invisible, ever-present threat from which his mother strives so obsessively to protect him? And why should stories written a century ago entwine themselves ever more closely around events in his own life? Gerard's quest to unveil the mystery that shrouds his family, and his life, will lead him from Mawson to London, to a long-abandoned house and the terror of a ghost story come alive.
Wake of Vultures
Lila Bowen - 2015
She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her. When nothing, not even a sickle to the eye can stop him, Nettie stabs him through the heart with a chunk of wood and he turns to black sand.And just like that, Nettie can see.But her newfound sight is a blessing and a curse. Even if she doesn't understand what's under her own skin, she can sense what everyone else is hiding—at least physically. The world is full of evil, and now she knows the source of all the sand in the desert. Haunted by the spirits, Nettie has no choice but to set out on a quest that might lead her to find her true kin . . . if the monsters along the way don't kill her first.
Kiera Hudson Series One
Tim O'Rourke - 2013
Investigating a series of horrific murders, grave desecrations, and missing persons, Kiera uses her unique ability of seeing, and soon realizes her own life is in danger. When Kiera falls for police officer Luke Bishop, not only are her mind and heart opened to a terrifyingly new world, she comes to suspect that Luke might be involved in the killings. In a race against time to unearth the truth, Kiera must discover the identity of who - or what - is behind the gruesome deaths on her Vampire Shift.Vampire Wake (Book 2): Since escaping from The Ragged Cove and finding herself suspended from the force, Kiera Hudson is hired by the mysterious Lady Hunt to protect her 16-year-old daughter from a stranger she believes is lurking on the moors. But little does Kiera know that it is she who will need protecting. Arriving at the Hallowed Manor on the desolate Welsh Moors, Kiera soon realises that the vampires she has been seeing are not just the stuff of her nightmares, but are very real - and are closing in.Vampire Hunt (Book 3): In search of Kayla and on the run, Kiera and her friends make a race against time across the Cumbria Mountains. With vampires predicting their every move, the trust amongst Kiera and her friends starts to waver. From the desolate monastery set high in the mountains, to the mysterious lake and the caves beneath the fountain, Kiera must discover the connection between the vampires and her mother, Isidor, and Kayla - all while trying to resolve her feelings for Potter and Luke.Vampire Breed (Book 4): Kiera awakens to find herself imprisoned. Experiencing horrific nightmares and visions, she slowly realises that she has been subjected to a series of sinister tests and operations. Now addicted to blood, and in pain, Kiera knows that if she is to survive, she will need to escape from her caged cell. More questions arise: Who is the secretive werewolf visiting her at night - and can she trust him?Wolf House (Book 5): As Potter leaves Kiera and his friends to go in search of Luke, he makes a lonely journey across the snow-capped mountains of Cumbria. Haunted by the death of Murphy, the capture of Luke and the love that he feels for Kiera, Potter reflects on his past life and the disturbing events that took place at the Wolf House.Vampire Hollow (Book 6): With nowhere else to run but The Hollows, Kiera Hudson finds herself in a world like no other. Entrusted with a secret, she has to make her way to the mysterious Lighthouse set hundreds of miles beneath the Earth. As she makes her journey, Kiera's companions are being murdered one by one.
Alpha Temptation: Sanmere Shifters Romance Collection
Lola Gabriel - 2020
The Lesser Dead
Christopher Buehlman - 2014
And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him…or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were.And neither are the rest of us.
The White Devil
Justin Evans - 2011
When seventeen-year-old Andrew Taylor is transplanted from his American high school to a British boarding school—a high-profile academy for the sons of England’s finest—his father hopes that the boy’s dark past will not follow him from across the Atlantic. But blood, suspense, and intrigue quickly surround Andrew once again as he finds himself struggling with a deadly mystery left unsolved by a student from Harrow School’s past—the enigmatic poet Lord Byron.
Something Red
Douglas Nicholas - 2010
Molly, her powerful and enigmatic lover, her fey granddaughter, and her young apprentice, soon discover that something terrible prowls the woods. As the group travels from refuge to refuge, it becomes apparent that the mysterious evil force must be faced and defeated - or else they will surely die. An intoxicating and spirited blend of fantasy, mythology, and history, Something Red features the most fascinating of characters including shapeshifters, Irish battle queens, Norman knights, Templars, pilgrims, Saracens, a Lithuanian noblewoman, warrior monks, strong - even dangerous - women, and ten murderous mastiffs, as well as an epic snowstorm that an early reader described as "one of the coldest scenes since Snow Falling on Cedars."
Mob Boss Wolf Daddy
Scarlett Ray - 2020
He’s the son of a mob boss, a professional felon, obscenely rich and totally ruthless. As dangerous as he is, he turns me on more than he scares me. With his fitted suits and his gorgeous, chiseled body, he’s so hot I might just melt. When a rival boss is threatening me, Rhys offers to help. Somehow, I end up a ‘guest’ of the DeMarcos: A mafia family and a wolf shifter pack. I trust Rhys when he says he’ll protect me, but can I trust the rest of his family? Can he defend me from them?
Is their criminal world any place to raise our baby?
Steamy shifter scenes inside!!! 18+
Immanuel's Veins
Ted Dekker - 2010
It is a dangerous tale of times past. A love story full of deep seduction. A story of terrible longing and bold sacrifice. Then as now, evil begins its courtship cloaked in light. And the heart embraces what it should flee. Forgetting it once had a truer lover. With a kiss, evil will ravage body, soul, and mind. Yet there remains hope, because the heart knows no bounds. Love will prove greater than lust. Sacrifice will overcome seduction. And blood will flow. Because the battle for the heart is always violently opposed. For those desperate to drink deep from this fountain of life, enter. But remember, not everyone is for this story.
Deck Z: The Titanic: Unsinkable. Undead.
Chris Pauls - 2012
. . with the walking dead. This fast-paced thriller reimagines the historical events of the fateful Titanic voyage through the lens of zombie mayhem. Captain Edward Smith and his inner circle desperately try to contain a weaponized zombie virus smuggled on board with the 2,200 passengers sailing to New York. Faced with an exploding population of lumbering, flesh-hungry undead, Smith's team is forced into bloody hand-to-hand combat down the narrow halls of the huge steamer. In its few short days at sea, the majestic Titanic turns into a Victorian bloodbath, steaming at top speed toward a cold, blue iceberg. A creepy, tense page-turner, Deck Z will thrill zombie fans and Titanic buffs alike.
Hidden Blade
Pippa DaCosta - 2016
In whispers, they call me Soul Eater. They’re right. I’m all those things—and more."
Kicked out of the underworld and cursed to walk this earth for all eternity, the soul eater known as "Ace Dante" finds solace in helping others avoid the wrath of the gods.But when warrior-bitch, Queen of Cats, and Ace's ex-wife, Bastet, hires him to stop whoever is slaughtering her blessed women, Ace is caught between two of the most powerful deities to have ever existed: Isis and Osiris.The once-revered gods aren’t dead.They’re back.And Ace is in their way.Welcome to a New York where the ancient gods roam.
The Cypress House
Michael Koryta - 2011
He is never wrong.When Arlen awakens on a train one hot Florida night and sees death's telltale sign in the eyes of his fellow passengers, he tries to warn them. Only 19-year-old Paul Brickhill believes him, and the two abandon the train, hoping to escape certain death. They continue south, but soon are stranded at the Cypress House--an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house run by the beautiful Rebecca Cady--directly in the path of an approaching hurricane.The storm isn't the only approaching danger, though. A much deadlier force controls the county and everyone living in it, and Arlen wants out--fast. But Paul refuses to abandon Rebecca to face the threats alone, even though Arlen's eerie gift warns that if they stay too long they may never leave. From its chilling beginning to terrifying end, The Cypress House is a story of relentless suspense from "one of the best of the best" (Michael Connelly).