In The Middle of Middle America


David B. Lyons - 2021
    

Marshland


D.R. Bell - 2016
    Years ago he was a popular athlete in the local school, then a successful mid-level executive, father, husband. Now Ben is a loner, content to spend his free time in the "reality" of the internet.Ben reluctantly snaps out of his seclusion when he tries to understand why an old friend and neighbor killed himself and realizes that this is no longer the same neighborhood he grew up in. It's as if someone used resources of social media, internet and surveillance to strip away a layer of civilization, exposing a nightmare of conflicts and betrayals. When Ben is threatened by the same forces, he has to re-discover his own strengths to fight back against a shadow opponent.

Blood on the Chesapeake


Randy Overbeck - 2019
    That is, until he learns the town hides an ugly secret. A thirty-year-old murder in the high school. And a frightening ghost stalking his new office. Burned by an earlier encounter with the spirit world, Darrell doesn't want to get involved, but when the desperate ghost hounds him, he concedes. Assisted by his new love, he follows a trail that leads to the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and even the Klu Klux Klan. Then, when two locals who try to help are murdered, Darrell is forced to decide if he's willing to risk his life--and the life of the woman he loves--to expose the killers of a young man he never knew.

The Patient


Jasper DeWitt - 2020
    In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient. We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility’s most difficult, profoundly dangerous case—a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat him has been driven to madness or suicide. Desperate and fearful, the hospital’s directors keep him strictly confined and allow minimal contact with staff for their own safety, convinced that releasing him would unleash catastrophe on the outside world. Parker, brilliant and overconfident, takes it upon himself to discover what ails this mystery patient and finally cure him. But from his first encounter with the mystery patient, things spiral out of control, and, facing a possibility beyond his wildest imaginings, Parker is forced to question everything he thought he knew. Fans of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes and Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World will be riveted by Jasper DeWitt’s astonishing debut.

The Wicked Sister


Karen Dionne - 2020
    But what if it's been hunting her this whole time? From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Marsh King's Daughter comes a startling novel of psychological suspense as two generations of sisters try to unravel their tangled relationships between nature and nurture, guilt and betrayal, love and evil.You have been cut off from society for fifteen years, shut away in a mental hospital in self-imposed exile as punishment for the terrible thing you did when you were a child.But what if nothing about your past is as it seems?And if you didn't accidentally shoot and kill your mother, then whoever did is still out there. Waiting for you.For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents' deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns, in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family's sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns—as her mother did years earlier—that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.

Heads Will Roll: A Medical Thriller


Joanie Chevalier - 2017
    We’d be able to choose the body we wanted, purchase it, have an operation, and wham bam! wake up with our new body. Dr. Farkis begins his head transplant operations in secret in Oakland, California and Tokyo, Japan. When news filters out about his revolutionary surgery, individuals from all walks of life come forward, desperate for a new body and an improved life that only Dr. Farkis can offer. We meet: Barry, so frantic for a new body, he stalks the doctor and bargains with a menacing ultimatum; Aiko, father of 19-year-old Kaneko, who demands that she undergo the operation to become more attractive to snag a husband; and finally, Baby, who finds out the hard way that demanding a new body may end up being fatal. Choosing the perfect physique from a smorgasbord of available bodies seems like a dream . . . or is it a nightmare?

Freeks


Amanda Hocking - 2017
    But is that possible?Mara has become used to the extraordinary. Roaming from place to place with Gideon Davorin’s Traveling Carnival, she longs for an ordinary life where no one has the ability to levitate or predict the future.She gets her chance when the struggling sideshow sets up camp in the small town of Caudry and she meets a gorgeous local guy named Gabe. But before long, Mara realizes there’s a dark presence lurking in the town that’s threatening the lives of her friends. She has seven days to take control of a power she didn’t know she had in order to save everyone she cares about—and change the future forever.

The Writhing: A Horror Novel


Abe Moss - 2019
    Sometimes it's better not to. Sometimes the truth is downright haunting. Alex watches from her bedroom window as the small, secluded town of Amberton sleeps: a bright, pleasant town with a dark, disturbing secret. Helen, her foster mother, is gone all hours of the night with no explanation. The neighbors, always friendly, always smiling, are also always watching. They know something Alex doesn’t. Something she shouldn’t… When three outsiders become ensnared in the town’s dark conspiracies, Alex witnesses for herself the nightmare hiding in plain sight. Together, haunted by their own pasts, these outsiders threaten to unstitch the town at its rotten seams, uncovering the gruesome truth writhing beneath the surface.

Three Incidents at Foster Manor


P.T. Phronk - 2019
    An apocalyptic storm. Whispering voices in the air. She was right to fear the worst-case scenario. Amy Burnett has been buried in her work as a security expert. She likes it that way—her dark past can’t invade her thoughts as long as she stays holed up in her office. So why the heck has she ended up at a gothic mansion’s doorstep in the middle of the night? It’s because Craig Foster summoned her there. Amy’s company built the sealed chamber in his basement, for any worrisome worst-case scenario, but now the safe room has presented a scenario of its own: Craig’s daughter is trapped inside. It should be a quick fix. After all, what’s the worst thing that can happen when a stranger arrives at a remote mansion on a stormy night? An impossible mystery? A haunting? A visit from the lurking strangers in the woods? Surely not all three—that would require extraordinarily bad luck. Unfortunately, Amy’s been short on luck lately. Three Incidents at Foster Manor will keep you guessing until the end with a twist-filled, fast-paced, genre-blending mix of mystery, ghost story, thriller, and cosmic horror that will chill you to the core. This is a standalone story, but also acts as a sequel to P.T. Phronk's previous mystery, The Arborist. "Full of interesting characters, twists and scares, it will keep you off-balance all the way to the end!" —Franny "I'm always down some ghostly fun but then the fun dial twisted and wow." —Amazon Reviewer "If you like reading stories somewhat reminiscent of The Twilight Zone this is for you." —Alanna Patterson

Tuesday's Socks


Alison Ragsdale - 2014
    He has spent his entire life close to home, in the picturesque Scottish town of Pitlochry. After sixty-four years of playing it safe, with retirement looming, Jeffrey resolves to climb Ben Macdhui, Britain's second highest peak. His decision sets off a chain of events that changes his life forever. Challenging weather on the mountain, and an encounter with a mysterious stray dog, leave him exhilarated and inspired. When he gets home to share the news of his achievements with his ninety-one year old mother Agnes, who lives in the old-folks home in town, Jeffrey discovers that nothing is as he left it. When a fire threatens the street where he lives Jeffrey’s selfless act of bravery transforms him from a no-body to a local hero. His renewed confidence nudges him towards Mary Ferguson, Agnes’s favorite nurse at the home, a trip to the ancient streets of Rome and a brush with the Italian underworld. Facing the possibility of losing the only woman he has ever loved, Jeffrey takes a leap of faith towards a future that he could never have imagined for himself.

Beneath the Stairs


Jennifer Fawcett - 2022
    Even fewer are brave enough to trespass. A man had killed his wife and two young daughters there, a shocking, gruesome crime that the sleepy upstate New York town tried to bury. One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the Octagon House. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did. Twenty years later, an adult Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose and still grieving after a personal tragedy, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for Abby’s accident.

Listen to Me Now


A.I. Nasser - 2018
    On a spur of the moment decision, John leaves his suburban married life to spend six months in an abandoned house in the quiet eerie town of Cafeville, where secrets lurk in every corner. The town's biggest source of gossip is the Greens who live right next door. As John attempts to put his finger on what it is about the house that has everyone steering clear, he finds himself captivated by the seductively charming Eva Green who is as dangerous as she is irresistible. A gruesome story begins to take form in his mind. As the lines between fiction and reality become blurred, something sinister emerges from the shadows and demands to be heard...

Imaginary Friend


Stephen Chbosky - 2019
    Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with her child. Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It's as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out.At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. For six long days, no one can find him. Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on.

The Return


Rachel Harrison - 2020
    But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there, and that one day she'll come back. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she's been or what happened to her.

Insanity Never Sleeps


Anthony Hulse - 2012
    Due to mass interest, I have published it again, and also have written a sequel. A normally mild mannered man becomes the most notorious serial killer of modern times. Billy Woods unconsciously murders the daughter of a local gangster and he is pursued across Turkey and Crete by the vengeful family and the police. Ruth Vickers, a detective with CID becomes infatuated with catching Woods and joins the manhunt. A brutally, blood curdling read that is a guaranteed page turner.