Book picks similar to
Five Novellas by Jeff Strand
horror
thriller
novellas
novella
You Only Get One Shot
Kevin J. Kennedy - 2017
Four well-known authors receive an email telling them they are responsible for a suicide. Their antagonist makes it clear she is out for revenge and they have no option but to comply. Their task is to post the best story they can imagine online and await judgement. Filled with guilt, anxiety, and even a few murderous tendencies, each writer weaves their tale and hopes for the best. It’ll be the competition of their lives. Who’s story will win? Will anyone survive? If you enjoy tense, fast-paced horror, then you will love Kevin J. Kennedy and J.C. Michael’s You Only Get One Shot! Your shot is now. Read You Only Get One Shot today.
Love by Christmas
Sarah Gay - 2018
She takes a chance and kisses him, only to be rejected. The universe mocks her pain by making him her room mom. Garrett Macey, fire captain at Park City Fire Department, receives bad news and loses his cool in his daughter’s school parking lot. When a pretty teacher calls him out on his unbecoming behavior, he is pulled in by her charm, but with his heart ripped to shreds, the only thing he has to offer his daughter’s teacher is his time as her volunteer. When a little old lady shows up at Garrett’s fire station with a Christmas wish for him to find love by Christmas, Garrett wants to believe that Christmas magic is real. With renewed faith, he reaches out to Maci Bell, hoping he hasn’t lost his chance with her. Will Christmas magic bring love to the fire captain by Christmas? Other books in the series: Her Christmas Miracle by Daniel Banner Snowed-In for Christmas by Cami Checketts Married by Christmas by Taylor Hart Engaged by Christmas by Sarah Gay Yours by Christmas by Jennifer Youngblood
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.
The Houseguest and Other Stories
Amparo Dávila - 2018
With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest—Dávila’s debut collection in English—you’ll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.
Close to the Bone
Kendra Elliot - 2018
The complications pile up as Cate is distracted by the coroner on the case—and by nagging memories that draw her twenty years into the past. The remains suggest eerie similarities between this victim, and Cate and Tessa’s friend Samantha, who disappeared when she was fourteen.Cate finds herself up against closemouthed locals, buried town secrets, and even her own heart. As the case unravels, will she be able to cut through the fog and find justice for the missing and the dead
The One Night
Meghan Quinn - 2021
At first, he’s skeptical. How could a gritty dive bar possibly solve his problems? But then he runs into Nora McHale.Nora isn’t at the bar looking for love. She’s there to unwind after yet another exhausting day at her bakery. And even if she were hoping to meet someone, it sure wouldn’t be Cooper—her best friend’s ex-husband.According to the unwritten rules of romance, Cooper and Nora are completely off limits to each other. But after a fun, flirty night at the bar, they can’t ignore the wild attraction between them.Is this the beginning of something real, or will their passionate night together be their one and only?
One More Step
Lillian SchneiderL.K. Farlow - 2020
Where they took that first sentence was completely up to them.Every story is different.No story is related.The only thing these stories have in common is their starting point.All of the authors showcased in this anthology were featured in The Bookworm Box charity during 2019.Each author has graciously donated their story so that 100% of profits from this anthology will be going to the various charities The Bookworm Box is able to support because of you, the readers.
The Abandoned
Amanda Stevens - 2011
Every grave, its secrets. Enter the world of Amanda Stevens's Graveyard Queen series--where forbidden passion and secrets from the past are as restless as the ghosts--in the series prequel novella, The Abandoned.There are rules for dealing with ghosts. Too bad Ree Hutchins doesn't know them.When her favorite patient at a private mental hospital passes away, psychology student Ree Hutchins mourns the elderly woman's death. But more unsettling is her growing suspicion that something unnatural is shadowing her.Amateur ghost hunter Hayden Priest believes Ree is being haunted. Even Amelia Gray, known in Charleston as the Graveyard Queen, senses a gathering darkness. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ree is compelled to uncover an old secret and put abandoned souls to rest--before she is locked away forever....Look for the other books in The Graveyard Queen series: The Restorer, The Kingdom and The Prophet, available now.
When Angels Fear
P.J. Mordant - 2020
But she cannot rest. A strange sleeping sickness stalks the village, and a young woman has disappeared. Why won't the police investigate? As events unfold, Emma becomes embattled yet again, compelled to fight for her life, against a deadly curse linked to a past about which she had no knowledge. She is the only one able to vanquish the evil, but doing so will entail confronting an horrific and all-too-familiar enemy.The question is, after all she's been through, will she be strong enough?
Vampire Nights and Other Stories
J.R. Rain - 2010
Rain"Vampire Nights" - Samantha Moon, from Moon Dance and Vampire Moon, meets someone unexpected on a late night trip to Denny's, someone who seems to know all her secrets and has all the answers."Book Burning" - Two brothers find themselves on a late-night mission to burn a legendary book of supposed dark powers."The Silo" - The land is dying and crops are failing. The city of Wheatopia is in the middle of the worst drought in recent memory; that is, until a city-slicker and his too-thin wife arrive in town one day with designs to rebuild the town's grain silo into something majestic.
The Blood Beast Mutations
Carl John Lee - 2020
A deadly pandemic throttles the globe. Democracy has crumbled. Armed gangs of militant protestors stalk the streets. Amidst this waking nightmare, a new horror develops. The virus is mutating.Dan Lewis's wife is sick. When he receives a call from the hospital, he's prepared for the worst. Or so he thought. Because that call plunges Dan into an unending spiral of insanity and depravity. Now, he must fight his way through the battle-scarred streets of New York City to find his wife, unprepared for what awaits him out there...in the shadows.Grim and terrifying, but laced with gallows humor and surprising heart, THE BLOOD BEAST MUTATIONS is an all-too-relatable story of courage and gruesome horror.
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories
Mariana Enríquez - 2009
Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.
Revenge
Yōko Ogawa - 1998
Years later, the writer’s stepson reflects upon his stepmother and the strange stories she used to tell him. Meanwhile, a surgeon’s lover vows to kill him if he does not leave his wife. Before she can follow-through on her crime of passion, though, the surgeon will cross paths with another remarkable woman, a cabaret singer whose heart beats delicately outside of her body. But when the surgeon promises to repair her condition, he sparks the jealousy of another man who would like to preserve the heart in a custom tailored bag. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders—their fates converge in a darkly beautiful web that they are each powerless to escape.Macabre, fiendishly clever, and with a touch of the supernatural, Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge creates a haunting tapestry of death—and the afterlife of the living.
To Be Devoured
Sara Tantlinger - 2019
The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the secrets hiding in their banquet of decay. Fascination morphs into an obsessive need to know what the vultures know. Andi turns to Dr. Fawning, but even the therapist cannot help her comprehend the secrets she’s buried beneath anger-induced blackouts.Her girlfriend, Luna, tries to help Andi battle her inner darkness and infatuation with the vultures. However, the desire to taste dead flesh, to stitch together wings of her own and become one with the flock sends Andi down a twisted, unforgivable path. Once she understands the secrets the vultures conceal, she must decide between abandoning the birds of prey or risk turning her loved ones into nothing more than meals to be devoured.
Button, Button: Uncanny Stories
Richard Matheson - 1970
This volume contains a number of stories that were adapted for television, as well as a new introduction by Matheson himself.
This collection of stories features "Button, Button," soon to be a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.