Book picks similar to
The Damaged by Simon Law
horror
dark
thriller
psychological-thriller
Finding Claire Fletcher
Lisa Regan - 2012
By morning she’s gone, and the one clue she left behind sends Connor on a desperate mission to unravel a decade-old mystery—her abduction.Presumed dead for the last ten years, Claire Fletcher has been living her life as “Lynn,” a woman in the terrifying grip of her captor. After her unforgettable night with Connor, Claire clings to the hope that she’ll see him again, that he’ll follow her into the dark. But anyone who gets close to Claire has a way of turning up dead…and she’s unwittingly made Connor next on the list.Before long, it becomes disturbingly clear: finding Claire Fletcher isn’t just going to be dangerous—it could be deadly.Revised edition: This edition of Finding Claire Fletcher includes editorial revisions.>
Emma in the Night
Wendy Walker - 2017
Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn't add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway. And where one sister's return might just be the beginning of the crime.
A Stranger on the Beach
Michele Campbell - 2019
But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aiden, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she's built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aiden for comfort...and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aiden's obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline's husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband's murder.
The Look-Alike
Erica Spindler - 2020
Now, she's returned home to confront her past and the unsolved murder that altered the course of her life. In her mother’s shuttered house, an old fear that has haunted Sienna for years rears its ugly head —that it was she who had been the killer’s target that night. And now, with it, a new fear—that the killer not only intended to remedy his past mistake—he’s already begun. But are these fears any different from the ones that torment her mother?As the walls close in, the line between truth and lie, reality and delusion disintegrate. Has Sienna’s worst nightmare come true? Or will she unmask a killer and finally prove she may be her mother’s look-alike, but she’s not her clone?
Deliver Her
Patricia Perry Donovan - 2016
Alex survives; Cass doesn’t. Consumed by grief, Alex starts cutting school and partying, growing increasingly detached. The future she’d planned with her friend is now meaningless to her.Meg Carmody is heartbroken for her daughter, even as she’s desperate to get Alex’s life back on track. The Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire, promises to do just that, yet Alex refuses to go. But when Meg finds a bag of pills hidden in the house, she makes a fateful call to a transporter whose company specializes in shuttling troubled teens to places like The Birches, under strict supervision. Meg knows Alex will feel betrayed—as will her estranged husband, who knows nothing of Meg’s plans for their daughter.When the transport goes wrong—and Alex goes missing—Meg must face the consequences of her decision and her deception. But the hunt for Alex reveals that Meg is not the only one keeping secrets.
Safe With Me
K.L. Slater - 2016
Now it’s her turn to get even …Anna lives a solitary existence, taking solace in order and routine. Her only friend is the lonely old lady next door. She doesn’t like to let people get too close – she knows how much damage they can do.Then one ordinary day Anna witnesses a devastating road accident and recognises the driver as Carla, the woman who ruined her life all those years ago. Now it’s Anna’s chance to set things straight but her revenge needs to be executed carefully …First she needs to get to know Liam, the man injured in the accident. She needs to follow the police investigation. She needs to watch Carla from the shadows…But as Anna’s obsession with Carla escalates, her own secrets start to unravel. Is Carla really dangerous or does Anna need to worry about someone far closer to home?
Dark Things I Adore
Katie Lattari - 2021
But in the hands of fierce women, men will be brought to their knees.Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay.1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed.2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protégé's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web.Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay.A searing thriller of trauma, dark academia, complicity, and revenge, Dark Things I Adore unravels the realities behind campfire legends―the horrors that happen in the dark, the girls who become cautionary tales, and the guilty who go unpunished. Until now.
Almost Gone
Blake Pierce - 2019
But she soon discovers that behind the gilded gates lies a dysfunctional family, a twisted marriage, troubled children, and secrets too dark to air.Cassandra is convinced she's finally found a fresh start when she takes a job as an au pair in the idyllic French countryside. Just beyond the Paris city limits, the Dubois manor is a grand relic of the past, the family its picture-perfect occupants. It's the escape Cassandra needs-until she uncovers dark secrets that prove things aren't as glamorous as they seem.Beneath the opulence lies a dark web of malice, one Cassandra finds all too familiar, triggering dreams from her own violent and tortured past, one from which she desperately runs. And when a grisly murder tears the house apart, it threatens to take down her own fragile psyche with it.
The Shadow Man
Helen Sarah Fields - 2021
But he doesn’t keep them safe.Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go. Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth. Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real. And he’s watching. Helen Fields is back with a heart-pounding new book, perfect for fans of Cara Hunter and Stuart MacBride.
The Elizas
Sara Shepard - 2018
But Eliza swears she was pushed, and her rescuer is the only witness.Desperate to find out who attacked her, Eliza takes it upon herself to investigate. But as the publication date for her novel draws closer, Eliza finds more questions than answers. Like why are her editor, agent, and family mixing up events from her novel with events from her life? Her novel is completely fictional, isn’t it?The deeper Eliza goes into her investigation while struggling with memory loss, the closer her life starts to resemble her novel until the line between reality and fiction starts to blur and she can no longer tell where her protagonist’s life ends and hers begins.
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.
Carrion
Betsy Reavley - 2014
what else is there left to lose? Carrion: an international best seller you won't be able to put down. Amazon Reviews:
"Walks you though all the dark depths a mind can wander when someone loses people they have loved"
"The hairs on the back of my neck stood up from the very beginning until the very end of the book"
"Haunting tense and utterly absorbing"
Book Description: After surviving a fatal accident Monica is left wondering what happened to her life.Why did the car crash and why is she being haunted by a crow?Unable to remember the events that led to that fateful day and plagued by frightening visions Monica is determined to get some answers.But sometimes the truth is best left buried.From the critically acclaimed psychological thriller writer comes Betsy Reavley's chilling second novel.
If you like books like Gone Girl and Before I go to Sleep and you love authors like Angela Marsons, Kathryn Croft or Rachel Abbott you will be gripped by this brilliant and dark psychological thriller.
Look out for Betsy Reavley's third novel The Quiet Ones which will be out in March 2016.
Malevolent
Jana Deleon - 2015
Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any. And maybe someday, answers for herself. Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her and tormenting her with mementos from her past. With no evidence to support her claims, the police dismiss her claims as post-traumatic stress, but Shaye is convinced that someone is deliberately terrorizing Emma…playing a cat and mouse game with only one goal in mind. To kill Emma.
The New Husband
D.J. Palmer - 2020
-Her son adores him. He was there when she needed him most. -He anticipates her every need. -He would never betray her like her first husband.The perfect husband. He checks all the boxes.The question is, why? Nina Garrity learned the hard way that her missing husband, Glen, had been leading a double life with another woman. But with Glen gone—presumably drowned while fishing on his boat—she couldn't confront him about the affair or find closure to the life he blew apart. Now, a year and a half later, Nina has found love again and hopes she can put her shattered world back together. Simon, a widower still grieving the death of his first wife, thinks he has found his dream girl in Nina, and his charm and affections help break through to a heart hardened by betrayal. Nina's teenage son, Connor, embraces Simon as the father he wishes his dad could have been, while her friends see a different side to him, and they aren't afraid to use the word obsession.Nina works hard to bridge the divide that’s come between her daughter and Simon. She wants so badly to believe her life is finally getting back on track, but she’ll soon discover that the greatest danger to herself and her children are the lies people tell themselves.
A Dark and Secret Place
Jen Williams - 2021
The "Red Wolf," as he was dubbed by the press, has been in prison for over twenty years, serving a life sentence for the gruesome and ritualistic murders of several women across the country, although he has always protested his innocence. The police have had no reason to listen, yet Heather isn't the only one to have cause to re-examine the murders. The body of a young woman has just been found, dismembered and placed inside a tree, the corpse planted with flowers. Just as the Red Wolf once did.What did Heather's mother know? Why did she kill herself? And with the monstrous Red Wolf safely locked inside a maximum security prison, who is stalking young women now? Teaming up with DI Ben Parker, Heather hopes to get some answers for herself and for the newest victims of this depraved murderer. Yet to do that, she must speak to Michael Reave herself, and expose herself to truths she may not be ready to face. Something dark is walking in the woods, and it knows her all too well.