Book picks similar to
Without a Heartbeat by Stuart Meczes


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The Viscount's Son


Aderyn Wood - 2013
    As the diary entries become darker and more mysterious, Emma meets a handsome stranger, and her personal life takes on uncanny parallels to her secret online translations. When her love life grows even stranger, Emma wonders if she should end the blog, but is it too late?The Rise of the Dark Ones Trilogy is perfect for fans of vampire and paranormal mysteries, psychic investigator thrillers, occult suspense, angels, demons, and lovers of a good twist.Alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.

The Lantern's Ember


Colleen Houck - 2018
    It’s difficult for him to remember much about his mortal days. So, he focuses on fulfilling his sentence as a Lantern—one of the watchmen who guard the portals to the Otherworld, a realm crawling with every nightmarish creature imaginable. Jack has spent centuries jumping from town to town, ensuring that nary a mortal—or not-so-mortal—soul slips past him. That is, until he meets beautiful Ember O’Dare. Seventeen, stubborn, and a natural-born witch, Ember feels a strong pull to the Otherworld. Undeterred by Jack’s warnings, she crosses into the forbidden plane with the help of a mysterious and debonair vampire—and the chase through a dazzling, dangerous world is on. Jack must do everything in his power to get Ember back where she belongs before both the earthly and unearthly worlds descend into chaos.

Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter - The First Death #1 (Marvel Comics)


Laurell K. Hamilton
    Hamilton is going to deliver. Laurell K. Hamilton, Dabel Brothers Productions, and Marvel are coming together to give readers a look into Anita Blake's past. Written by Laurell K. Hamilton herself, along with Jonathon Green, this July will see the release of part one of a two issue limited series that takes place almost a year before the events currently being chronicled in Guilty Pleasures. You will get to see the first time Anita and Jean-Claude meet, Anita's first time inside Guilty Pleasures, her first serial killer case, and a very early encounter with Edward. Prepare to be thrilled by this original story produced especially for comics.

Hellboy Omnibus Volume 1: Seed of Destruction


Mike Mignola - 2018
    Avoiding his supposed fate as the herald of the end of the world, Hellboy continues with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting alongside Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and drafting Roger Homunculus into his own ill-fated service with the B.P.R.D. This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,” and “Almost Colossus,” from The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom.

Waking Brigid


Francis Clark - 2008
    Driven by the ravages of the famine, Brigid's family chose to give the girl up to the service of the Church to ensure her survival. But in order to do that she had to reject her people's pagan ways. The Church is all she has known and she seeks to do her duty…all the while fighting the lure of her people’s legacy.   Brigid's resolve is tested when a prominent Savannah citizen is cruelly murdered behind a locked and bolted door in an insane asylum. The last words of the man chilled the blood of all who heard him, and the fact that he was murdered while he was alone in the cell defies all logical reason. What follows is nothing less than an amazing clash between the forces of good and evil—dedicated white magicians versus the entrenched devil worshippers--for the soul of a city.

The Taker


Alma Katsu - 2011
    . . but immortality comes at a price. . . . On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening--until a mysterious woman, Lanore McIlvrae, arrives in his ER, escorted by police. Lanore is a murder suspect, and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her. As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of St. Andrew’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever, but the price she pays is steep--an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate.

Stake


Kevin J. Anderson - 2020
    And Simon Helsing believes he was put on this Earth to do the job. He is on a single-minded crusade to hunt down vampires and kill them in their lairs. But what if vampires aren’t real? The only thing that Detective Todd Carrow believes is that the bodies turning up in Colorado Springs are the work of a lunatic. Are they strange and sadistic gang murders? Or does someone actually believe in the existence of vampires? Lexi Tarada wants to believe. As a teenager, she had an experience she still can’t explain. Now, her website sifts through the bizarre phenomena and the crazy conspiracy theories to find out what is - or might be - real. Who should Lexi believe? The detective on the case of the sadistic murders...or the guy who drives stakes through the hearts of the victims? As Lexi gets drawn deeper into Helsing’s bizarre world, and Carrow follows an increasingly baffling set of clues, fact blends into fiction, and the line blurs between what is imagined and what is real. And that may be exactly what the vampires want.

Sands of Time


Christine Church - 2015
    Secrets dug up from the grave. The truth about vampires has been unearthed. These are the journals of an ageless woman, a hybrid half human, half "Pet Mer," (Sky Gods in ancient Egypt). A blood drinker from the ancients. Their story is scarce told, but Kesi's is all too clear... She appears a delusive goddess, wanting more than anything a family. Unable to bear children, and after the death of her husband, she travels the world searching for a way to share her bloodline ("creating" children, later known as "Vampyre"). She offers aid to those who need her. But her deep desire to have kin of her own blood is not met, until she comes across a Chinese alchemist named Yin - another of her race. Hope for a life with him is banished, however, by his dark desires to destroy all the world's hybrid offspring, to find a "cure" for the "blood drinking aberrations" created by those of his and Kesi's kind. Taking what she needs and leaving behind chaos, Kesi runs, always searching. Her everlasting quest takes her through history, from one continent to the next; from her home in Egypt, to China, Rome, Scotland, and finally France. But she is never able to outrun Yin, and eventually she must face her enemy and the darkness within herself in order to have that which she truly desires. Read her story, learn the truth behind the "myth" of what humans call the vampire, read about Kesi’s unique take on her species and those they create, and discover the mayhem and bloodshed caused by a man determined to put an end to vampires forever.

Beware The Boogerman


D. Glenn Casey - 2018
    Hopefully.They have to look after the peace and quiet in a small town that has the unfortunate nickname “Monster Town.” Why in the world would the town be called that? Well, let’s just say that the residents of this little burg are a bit unusual and leave it at that.Anyway, what would happen if a terror came drifting into town that could scare the bejeezus out of any law abiding monster? Find out when the sheriff and his deputies go on the hunt for the Boogerman.

Jane Bites Back


Michael Thomas Ford - 2009
    Every day she watches her novels fly off the shelves—along with dozens of unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Jane may be undead, but her books have taken on a life of their own.To make matters worse, the manuscript she finished just before being turned into a vampire has been rejected by publishers—116 times. Jane longs to let the world know who she is, but when a sudden twist of fate thrusts her back into the spotlight, she must hide her real identity—and fend off a dark man from her past while juggling two modern suitors. Will the inimitable Jane Austen be able to keep her cool in this comedy of manners, or will she show everyone what a woman with a sharp wit and an even sharper set of fangs can do?

Dark Dreams: Daughters of Darkness 2


Chrissy Peebles - 2015
    WARNING: 18+ due to sexual situations and language. This is an adult paranormal romance. Griffin has left her old life as everything crashes down around her. She's leaving the safety of her coven for the first time as bounty hunters chase her down. When she meets a mysterious stranger, she hopes he can hide her from all the immortals chasing her. When love blossoms, she hopes to start a new life. But when you're a witch with amazing powers and your father just happens to be Vlad Montour, the Prince of Darkness, life isn't easy. Especially when he puts a hit out on you and wants you dead. Is a new life really possible? 4 authors will each take a different daughter born from the Prince of Darkness, Vlad Montour. (Also known as Vlad the Impaler, an evil villain from history) Blair – Chrissy Peebles Jezebel – Kristen Middleton Victoria – W.J. May Lotus – C.J. Pinard

Blood Ninja


Nick Lake - 2009
    Someone wants Taro dead, but who -- and why? With his best friend, Hiro, and their ninja guide Shusaku, Taro gets caught in the crossfire of a bitter conflict between rival lords for control of imperial Japan. As Taro trains to become a ninja himself, he's less and less sure that he wants to be one. But when his real identity is revealed, it becomes impossible for Taro to turn his back on his fate.

Mission: Improper


Bec McMaster - 2016
    Humans, verwulfen and mechs are no longer considered the lesser classes, but not everybody is happy with the new order…Standing between London and a deadly plot against the throne, are the dangerous spies and femme fatales that form the Company of Rogues... that's if they don't kill each other first.Entire families have gone missing in the East End. When Caleb Byrnes receives an invitation to join the Company of Rogues as an undercover agent pledged to protect the crown, he jumps at the chance to find out who, or what, is behind the disappearances. Hunting criminals is what the darkly driven blue blood does best, and though he prefers to work alone, the opportunity is too good to resist.The problem? He’s partnered with Ingrid Miller, the fiery and passionate verwulfen woman who won a private bet against him a year ago. Byrnes has a score to settle, but one stolen kiss and suddenly the killer is not the only thing Byrnes is interested in hunting.Soon they’re chasing whispered rumours of a secret project gone wrong, and a monster that just might be more dangerous than either of them combined. The only way to find out more is to go undercover among the blue blood elite… But when their hunt uncovers a mysterious conspiracy, Byrnes and Ingrid must set aside their age-old rivalry if they have any chance at surviving a treacherous plot.

A Night in the Lonesome October


Roger Zelazny - 1993
    For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.