Book picks similar to
What Lies Below by Mark Lukens
mystery
horror
ebook
novella
Four Widows
Helen MacArthur - 2011
Dead husbands. Unfinished business.When did deception and disappearance suddenly become so fashionable?When Lori Walker discovers her husband's death wasn't an accident her darkest fears come true: the man she married was her greatest love and her biggest mistake.Lori is thrown a lifeline when she forms a tight friendship with other widows who share their own stories highlighted with humour, heartache and mysteries. Questions are raised, answers are challenged and trust falls to pieces. Emotional drama with suspense and intrigue, Four Widows explores the intricacies of love—its greatness and its acute complications.
Humanity's Edge: The Complete Trilogy
Paul B. Kohler - 2018
Can civilization survive ... and escape from the Edge of Humanity?3 books & nearly 800 pages of non-stop zombie action that readers are calling "fresh" with "dollops of violence" to satisfy even the most discriminating post-apocalyptic fan. From an Amazon bestselling author.BOOK 1: Turn -- A town on the run ... The Crazed that wants their flesh. Will they make it out alive?When a meteorite crashes to earth it catapults a small Utopian town into an archaic nightmare. It's up to one man to protect them, not only from the flesh-eating monsters but also from the maniacal colonel who storms in, barking orders for immediate evacuation. Clay Dobbs is the small town sheriff about to, unknowingly, take on the end of the world. When the Crazed come for your flesh, how will you survive?BOOK 2: Detour -- Their escape was certain ... or so they thought. Their survival is, and forever will be, in question.With the nanite epidemic out of control, Clay leads his skeleton crew head first into the aftermath. The nightmare continues as he battles both the Crazed and the rouge, as well as his own inner demons. The once small town sheriff must find order where there is no law until he encounters his near equal at the end of the world. But, is she all that she seems? Will Clay unravel all the clues before it's too late?The road is a dark and chilling place. There is no time to rest if you want to survive.BOOK 3: Reversion -- At the end of the world ... never dismiss the unexpected. A surprise reunion. A forgotten friend. Long odds and determination reward Sheriff Clay Dobbs with a bit of what he wants most. But, he won't rest—he can't rest—not until he's dead. And he has no plans for that until he defeats the insane military General that has caused so much hardship. But, it's not as easy as he thinks, not when there's an even more neurotic psychopath standing in his way. Can Clay learn to control himself, and the undead around him?When the Crazed come for you, where will you hide?
Frozen Charlotte
Alex Bell - 2014
Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lilias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died.
The Estate Hauntings Boxset: A Riveting Haunted House Mystery
Hazel Holmes - 2021
What was thought to be a new beginning for Julia soon devolves into an endless nightmare of hidden secrets and a troubled past best left unturned.The Haunting of Abram MansionA riveting new haunted house mystery that will keep you guessing until the end!When Peyton and Benjamin Fletcher inherit a dilapidated house in the quiet town of Falconwood, Connecticut from Peyton’s grandfather, all they want to do is get rid of it. Unfortunately, the will stipulates that the couple must live in the house for a minimum of six months before they sell it. As Peyton and Ben try to make the best of the situation, Peyton discovers the house is inhabited by ghosts, and they aren’t happy with the mansion’s new occupants.
Choker
Elizabeth Woods - 2011
She eats lunch with the other girls from the track team, but they're not really her friends. Mostly she spends her time watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her, and avoiding the popular girls who call her "Choker" after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria. Then one day Cara comes home to find Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With her best friend back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and next thing she knows, she's getting invited to parties and flirting with Ethan. Best of all, she has her BFF there to confide in. But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect—including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?
The Grownup
Gillian Flynn - 2014
On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan's terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan's teenage stepson, doesn't help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.“The Grownup,” originally appeared as “What Do You Do?” in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.
Shutter
Courtney Alameda - 2015
As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain.As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before . . . or die trying.Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.
The Memory Wood
Sam Lloyd - 2020
Chilling, moving and unputdownable, The Memory Wood is a thriller like no other.
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Elijah has lived in the Memory Wood for as long as he can remember. It’s the only home he’s ever known.
Elissa has only just arrived. And she’ll do everything she can to escape.
When Elijah stumbles across thirteen-year-old Elissa, in the woods where her abductor is hiding her, he refuses to alert the police. Because in his twelve years, Elijah has never had a proper friend. And he doesn’t want Elissa to leave.Not only that, Elijah knows how this can end. After all, Elissa isn’t the first girl he’s found inside the Memory Wood.As her abductor’s behaviour grows more erratic, Elissa realises that outwitting strange, lonely Elijah is her only hope of survival. Their cat-and-mouse game of deception and betrayal will determine both their fates, and whether either of them will ever leave the Memory Wood . . .
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.
Nyctophobia
Christopher Fowler - 2014
One, there's never been an actual authenticated haunted house. Two, it's not the house that's haunted, but the person.Callie is a young architectural student who marries Mateo, a wine importer, and moves to a grand old house in Southern Spain. Hyperion House is flooded with light, it also has a mute gardener, a sinister housekeeper and a sealed, dark servants' quarters that nobody has the keys for. And although initially happy, and taking care of Mateo's daughter, Callie can't help being drawn to the dark empty rooms at the back of the house, and becomes convinced that someone is living in there.Uncovering the house's history, she discovers the shocking truth. As Callie's fear of the darkness returns, she comes to understand the true nature of evil.
Wool
Hugh Howey - 2011
They've lived there so long, there are only legends about people living anywhere else. Such a life requires rules. Strict rules. There are things that must not be discussed. Like going outside. Never mention you might like going outside.Or you'll get what you wish for.
Seed
Ania Ahlborn - 2011
His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head… and smiles.But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: Daddy, I saw it too.And then she begins to change.Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before. But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing. Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along. And it’s hungrier than ever. A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.
The Raising
Laura Kasischke - 2011
The university was mourning the loss of one of its own: Nicole Werner, a blond, beautiful, straight-A sorority sister tragically killed in a car accident that left her boyfriend, who was driving, remarkably—some say suspiciously—unscathed.Although a year has passed, as winter begins and the nights darken, obsession with Nicole and her death reignites: She was so pretty. So sweet-tempered. So innocent. Too young to die.Unless she didn’t.Because rumor has it that she’s back.
The Darkest Corners
Kara Thomas - 2016
Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.