Book picks similar to
Stations of Shadow by J. Daniel Stone


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The Heartbreak Bakery


A.R. Capetta - 2021
    Then it’s getting undone.Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.

The Commune


Charlie Dalton - 2019
     You’re still alive. Will you be tomorrow? Ten years ago, the world ended. A virus swept the planet clean, wiping out 97% of the world’s population. Only the wary survived. We gather our resources in communes clinging to the harshest environments on Earth. Food is scarce and the well’s running dry. Our days are numbered. Then a girl staggers from the desert, her brains fried by the sun. She rambles about technology, a place of safety the Rages never reached. Only the elders recognize what she describes. A place we call the City Then the Reavers attack. They destroy our home and everything we’ve built. We wander the desert, lost, and without hope. And still the girl remembers that place. Does the City really exist? Can she lead us to it? Can we rebuild what we lost? Our journey begins, but we’re not the only ones making it. You will love The Commune, the first pulse-pounding post-apocalyptic thriller in the After the Fall series. Get it now!

Blood Countess


Lana Popović - 2020
    When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna, she’s vaulted to the dream role of chambermaid, a far cry from the filthy servants’ quarters below. She receives wages generous enough to provide for her family, and the Countess begins to groom Anna as her friend and confidante. It’s not long before Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell—and the Countess takes full advantage. Isolated from her former friends, family, and fiancé, Anna realizes she’s not a friend but a prisoner of the increasingly cruel Elizabeth. Then come the murders, and Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before the Blood Countess turns on her, too.

Alice Isn't Dead


Joseph Fink - 2018
    It’s a road trip."Keisha Taylor lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day that Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn’t dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country.Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job as a long-haul truck driver and begins searching for Alice. She eventually stumbles on an otherworldly conflict being waged in the quiet corners of our nation’s highway system—uncovering a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.

Bodies of Water


V.H. Leslie - 2016
    Years later, Wakewater House is renovated into modern apartments and Kirsten moves in, fresh from a break up and eager for the restorative calm of the Thames. But her archivist neighbour, Manon, fills her head with the river's murky past and with those men of science and art who were obsessed with the drowned women who were washed up on its banks. As Kirsten learns more about Wakewater's secrets, she becomes haunted by a solitary figure in the river and increasingly desperate to understand what the water wants from her.

Insects: The Complete Trilogy (The Insects Trilogy)


John Koloen - 2016
     A scientific expedition journeys deep into the Brazilian jungle in search of a career-making discovery: a carnivorous insect so rare that no team has ever managed to confirm its existence. But surviving the rainforest's many unknown and mysterious dangers will be far more difficult than the team could have imagined. Insects: The Complete Trilogy includes three full-length novels: Insects (Book 1): a team of scientists journey into the uncharted Amazon rainforest in search of a deadly, career-making discovery: the rare carnivorous insect reptilus blaberus. But when rising floodwaters cut the expedition off from civilization, the hunters quickly become the hunted in the terror-filled night. Insects: The Hunted (Book 2): the team returns to a different section of the remote jungle again in pursuit of reptilus blaberus, this time accompanied by a reality TV production crew to fund, document and protect the expedition. Insects: Specimen (Book 3): the team attempts to continue its studies of reptilus blaberus under different circumstances, but the carnivorous insect's lethal instincts aren't dulled by a change of scenery. This exclusive set contains all three full-length novels (1000+ pages) in the Insects Trilogy: Insects, Insects: The Hunted, and Insects: Specimen.

Devil's Call


J. Danielle Dorn - 2017
    Matthew Callahan and shot him dead in front of his pregnant wife. Unfortunately for them, his wife, Li Lian, hails from a long line of women gifted in the dark arts--the witches of the McPherson clan. This diary, written to the child she carries, records her quest from the Nebraska Territory to Louisiana to the frozen shore of Lake Superior, to bring justice to the monsters responsible for shooting her husband in the back. Our long-rifled witch will stop at nothing​--​and risk everything​--​in her showdown with evil.

For Today I Am a Boy


Kim Fu - 2014
    Peter’s own journey is obstructed by playground bullies, masochistic lovers, Christian ex-gays, and the ever-present shadow of his Chinese father.At birth, Peter had been given the Chinese name Juan Chaun, powerful king. The exalted only son in the middle of three daughters, Peter was the one who would finally embody his immigrant father's ideal of power and masculinity. But Peter has different dreams: he is certain he is a girl.Sensitive, witty, and stunningly assured, Kim Fu’s debut novel lays bare the costs of forsaking one’s own path in deference to one laid out by others. For Today I Am a Boy is a coming-of-age tale like no other, and marks the emergence of an astonishing new literary voice.

Between Perfect and Real


Ray Stoeve - 2021
    He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

Dead Collections


Isaac Fellman - 2022
    But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the "vampire disease." Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job. DEAD COLLECTIONS is a wry novel full of heart and empathy, that celebrates the journey, the difficulties and joys, in finding love and comfort within our own bodies.

The Aging: A Novel


Jack Hunt - 2021
    . .One touch and a person begins aging rapidly. Years in a single day. Before anyone can react or stop it, entire cities are crippled.As survivors flee to their homes, Elizabeth and her children watch with an increasing sense of dread as the death toll climbs. Then, when a terrifying way to slow the aging is witnessed online, the enormity of the event becomes clear. Now, waiting it out is no longer an option, finding safety is. But venturing outside is deadly. Come in contact with the wrong person and their days are numbered. Ignore the warnings and it’s over.Three weeks later as the event escalates, Elizabeth must trust the survival of her children to the one person who others trust the least. As they embark on a frightening journey through a hostile country with more questions than answers, they’ll soon discover that reaching safety will be more difficult than imagined. In a desperate world where age isn’t a number but a death sentence, can anyone be trusted?With tension and suspense, unlike any other, The Aging is a high-octane, post-apocalyptic thriller, that weaves the chaotic world of the past and present together to keep you on the edge-of-your-seat until the last page.

In the Beginning


Charmain Marie Mitchell - 2013
    The 'Vampires' series begins in Tudor England and continues through each novella until present time. EXTRACT FROM VAMPIRE - IN THE BEGINNING 'Tom’s mother Martha was sprawled across the large kitchen table, her clothes ripped, and in places, torn completely away; her ageing breasts fell from her laced bodice, flaccid and drooping to the sides of her lifeless body. Her legs were at a strange angle, and her skirts bunched up into a ball at her waist. I could see, even from where I was standing, that she was dead! Martha’s eyes were open, staring into nothingness and devoid of life, but it was her throat that caught my attention, it gaped open, and it looked like, what I imagined, the huge black cavern of hell to look like.'

When We Were Magic


Sarah Gailey - 2020
    Being in love with your best friend is harder. Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable—even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love. That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn't change on prom night. When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong. Their first attempt fails—and their second attempt fails even harder. Left with the remains of their failed spells and more consequences than anyone could have predicted, each of them must find a way to live with their part of the story.

निर्मनुष्य [Nirmanushya]


Ratnakar Matkari - 2005
    The universe of an imaginative mind stands on the foundation of facts. This is based on the psychology of a scary mind. The main stream of his stories is always the uncanny fear, the eagerness to find the truth, pity for all the living things, and the insistence for justice with a touch of politics. These inscrutable stories do not intend to scare anyone, on the contrary they are just a way to look at life, to reveal the truth of life

Homesick


Richard Simms - 2013
    There was nobody watching her at cheerleading practice. Or as she walked home. Or when she was stopping her handsy boyfriend at second base. It was just her overactive imagination, that was all.Or was it?She had heard the stories about what went on in her house generations before her family took up residence. But that was all they were—just stories, tall tales told and retold for the singular purpose of giving gullible young girls goosebumps.Right?They had to be. If they weren’t, what could she do? Who could she tell? Where could she hide? If even half of what she had heard was true… God. The thought alone made her sick. And, scarier still, it also made her home sick!