Book picks similar to
The Innsmouth Syndrome by Philip Hemplow


horror
lovecraftian
fiction
armchair-new-england

Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom


Magda AlexanderVictoria Barbour - 2015
    Dive into this collection of 10 contemporary romance novels and novellas ranging from sweet to sizzling: Up Close and Personal by MAGDA ALEXANDER NEW RELEASE! Desperate to pay her mother's medical bills, Caitlyn Bennett's thrilled when Sterling MacKay hires her as his personal assistant. But soon the reclusive billionaire demands things no gal Friday should be expected to do. Should she walk away? Or surrender to her desires … and him? Split Decision by USA Today Bestselling Author WENDY ELY NEW RELEASE! Sports reporter Grace Avery is up for a promotion, but only if she gets an interview with the notoriously private, heavy weight champion, Rally Brewer. Grace discovers who Rally is beyond the boxing ring. Little does anyone know, as Grace gets Rally to open up, a two-year-old secret is in jeopardy. Is revealing his secret worth gaining Grace’s love? Stud Unleashed: Barry by KYLIE GILMORE NEW RELEASE! Successful, not-so-great-with-the-ladies, nice guy Barry Furnukle can’t believe his luck when Amber Lewis agrees to date him. But when the world’s most awesome date (birding and fro-yo) lands him in the friend zone, it’s time to unleash his inner stud to win the woman he can’t forget. Setting Sail by ALLIE BONIFACE NEW RELEASE! When real estate agent Jason McClintock discovers his billionaire client’s latest target is the historic diner owned and run by his high school crush, Pearl DeVane, things get more than a little complicated. Does forging a successful career mean giving up everything from his past, including the only woman to ever steal his heart? Tempting Vivi by LIZ KELLY NEW RELEASE! Graduating college and starting her dream job, Vivi DuVal’s confidence is severely shaken, sending her spinning right into the arms of heroic Lane Kettering. But their ultra romantic beach fling may turn into nothing but tabloid fodder when Lane’s secret is revealed, tossing Vivi into some very hot, tempting water. A Masterpiece Of Our Love by NIKKI LYNN BARRETT Their lives are entwined by a tragedy. Now twenty years later, neither Becca or Hunter can deny the deeper feelings they have for the other. Their bond is tested when an unknown face from the past wants them to remember the entire events of the fateful crash that changed their lives. Escape: Part One by SYDNEY HOLMES When beautiful and mysterious Rowan Baker moves upstairs from Shane Adams, he’s instantly captivated, but as an experienced Private Investigator, he can’t shake the suspicion that Rowan is hiding something. Rowan is good at keeping her distance from people, but can’t seem to stay away from Shane. The closer they get, the more she fears he won’t accept her if he learns the truth.Borrowed Stilettos by REBECCA J. CLARK Plans go hilariously awry when mild-mannered Audrey Thompson dresses as Ava, her flamboyant but cowardly twin, in order to break up with Ava's fiancé, Zach Banister. However, as Audrey pretends to be Ava—which means stuffing her bra and tottering around in borrowed stilettos—she can’t help falling for Zach herself. Little does she know he has his own agenda, one that involves a seduction she can’t refuse. Geek God by VICTORIA BARBOUR Looks can be deceiving. Just ask Classics professor Jillian Carew.

Agents of Dreamland


Caitlín R. Kiernan - 2017
    Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman.In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible—the Children of the Next Level—and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming and they will help to usher it in.A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA’s interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.And a woman floating outside of time looks to the future and the past for answers to what can save humanity.

The House on the Borderland


William Hope Hodgson - 1908
    But a still greater horror will face the recluse - more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.A classic of the first water - H. P. Lovecraft

The One


John Marrs - 2016
    Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.

High Planes Drifter


Edward M. Erdelac - 2009
     In this acclaimed first volume, four sequential novellas and one bonus short story chronicle the weird adventures of THE MERKABAH RIDER. In THE BLOOD LIBEL, The Rider fights to save the last survivors of a frontier Jewish settlement not only from a maddened lynch mob, but from a cult of Molech worshippers hiding in their midst. In THE DUST DEVILS, a border town is held hostage by a band of outlaws in league with a powerful Vodoun sorcerer. In HELL'S HIRED GUN, The Rider faces an ex-Confederate sharpshooter who has pledged his allegiance to Hell itself. In THE NIGHTJAR WOMEN, The Rider drifts into a town where children cannot be born. Here an antediluvian being holds the secret to his fugitive master's insidious plan; a plot that threatens all of Creation. Finally, never before collected, THE SHOMER EXPRESS. On a midnight train crossing the desert, a corpse turns up desecrated. Someone stalking the cars has assumed its shape, and only The Rider can stop it.

The Dunfield Terror


William Meikle - 2015
    The old stories tell of a post-war experiment gone wrong, one that opened the way for the fog—or whatever was behind it—to begin its reign of terror.A small team of workmen are the last hope to keep their town alive through the long, storm-filled night. But the many horrors that await them are beyond anyone’s worst nightmares.

Thirteen for Dinner


Denise Daisy - 2013
    But it’s Averie who needs rescuing when all hell begins to break loose. Averie Cooke has never set foot on the old Faulkner plantation. The macabre history surrounding it is what keeps her away; not to mention everyone says the place is haunted. A hundred and fifty years ago Lunar Wilson was hung there. His lifeless body dangled in the breeze along with the gray Spanish moss. Later that same night, the petite southern belle, Emily Faulkner wrapped a thick rope around her delicate neck and joined her lover in the afterlife. Legend says all hell broke loose after that. Unaware that their only daughter was hanging dead up in the cupola, Emily’s parents continued on with their festivities, gorging themselves on prime rib, and guzzling expensive wine. They were pretty drunk by the time the Wilson boys burst inside the house slinging their hatchets, vindicating their brother’s murder. They decapitated James Faulkner, his socialite wife, Elizabeth and dismembered all eleven dinner guest. The massacre was the bloodiest ever recorded. So why does Averie agree to attend a dinner party in the same mansion where the massacre took place? She needs the money that’s why. But, she gets much more than a paycheck when she and another mysterious guest transports back to the year 1859, exactly one month before the gruesome event. Things go from bad to worse when she discovers the only way back home is to stop the murders. But can she put her fears aside long enough to change the past and find life in the place she fears the most?Thirteen for Dinner is a page turning thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat one minute, laughing out loud the next, and crying while you contemplate the meaning of life. Dealing with issues such as racism, slavery, hatred, and fear you’ll discover the only weapon that has the power to damage them all is love.

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.

The Cthulhu Child


David Brian - 2013
    Nevertheless, it is often whispered by those who claim knowledge of such things, that a number of these Elder Gods - the lower rank and file, if you will - decided to hold this ground, so enamored were they by the cults who spilled blood in their names.Those times are all but forgotten, obscured by the shifting mists of history.Fast forward to today, and a wrong turn on a country lane is about to expose Jennifer Bueller, and her daughter Megan, to an unpleasant truth: Yes, times have changed, but ancient deities will adapt in order to thrive.Abandoned space gods, an unfaithful husband, a sociopath rapist, and a broken society with a social welfare system that presents horrors of its own; lastly, though by no means least in this eclectic collection of stories, a flash fiction homage to James Herbert, featuring his most infamous creation.

Deep Night


Greg F. Gifune - 2005
    But when a young woman staggers into their camp with her clothes covered in blood, their lives are changed forever. The woman brings with her something ancient and deadly, evil and inhuman, and something secretly familiar to Raymond, a man plagued by inexplicable night terrors as a child, the horrors of which still torment him as an adult. As an unexpected snowstorm moves in, the night will unfold and come alive, changing the very nature of their lives and beliefs, the very nature of time, and the very nature of good and evil.A year later, with only sparse memories of that horrible night, Seth and the others struggle to hold their lives together while being haunted by vague but terrifying flashbacks. Something is pursuing them and their families, their friends, their coworkers, forcing them to question everything they see and hear and feel, everything they hold dear. As they begin to unravel the truth, the answers they find stretch the boundaries of their sanity and put the love of two brothers to the ultimate test of sacrifice and faith. Using fear, lies, deception and relentless paranoia as its weapons, it nests within them, stealing their bodies and minds. Now, it wants their souls. Held in the clutches of something they cannot even begin to fully comprehend, they must fight an all-consuming evil from which there is no escape, an evil born of the darkest corners of human existence--the darkest corners of DEEP NIGHT.

The Graveyard Rats


Henry Kuttner - 1936
    they had other plans... (note: very short story!)

All the Fabulous Beasts


Priya Sharma - 2018
    writer Priya Sharma, All the Fabulous Beasts collects 16 stunning and monstrous tales of love, rebirth, nature, and sexuality. A heady mix of myth and ontology, horror and the modern macabre.

The Man on Table Ten


Luke Smitherd - 2013
    But then, he hasn't touched a single drop of booze since one, fateful day, and alcohol loosens bar room lips at the best of times; so today, his decision to have three drinks will change the life of bright young waitress Lisa Willoughby forever…because now, the The Man On Table Ten wants to share his incredible tale.It's afterwards when she has to worry; afterwards, when she knows the unbelievable burden that The Man On Table Ten has had to carry throughout the years. When she knows the truth, and is left powerless to do anything except watch for the signs...This is an alternative cover edition. The original ISBN (ASIN) is ASIN: B00CXFH4MC.

Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea


Michael Shea - 2017
    P. Lovecraft—an entire universe of gods and monsters that hundreds of writers have imitated. But Shea has done a lot more than merely mimic Lovecraft’s prose or add a new god or “forbidden book” to the Mythos. In his Mythos tales, Shea has infused his own unique vision and perspective. The much-reprinted “Fat Face” takes us into the seedy underworld of prostitutes and drug dealers in San Francisco, while other tales such as “Dagoniad,” “Copping Squid,” and “Tsathoggua” vividly meld Lovecraftian cosmic horror with the contemporary world of California, with its swimming pools and beachcombers. Shea was also fascinated with Lovecraft’s novel of Antarctic horror, At the Mountains of Madness, and his stories “Under the Shelf” and “Beneath the Beardmore” take us to that frozen land of death and terror. The title story, “Demiurge,” is a previously unpublished novella that draws upon Lovecraft’s tales of psychic possession in its chilling portrayal of a nameless monster who may be the harbinger of the overthrow of the entire human race. Michael Shea (1946–2014) was the award-winning author of The Color out of Time, the Nifft the Lean series of fantasy novels, and the classic tales “Polyphemus” and “The Autopsy.” This volume of his complete Cthulhu Mythos tales has been assembled by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft and the Mythos. This volume features wraparound cover artwork and five interior illustrations by renowned artist Aeron Alfrey (MADHOUSE).

The Cannibals of Candyland


Carlton Mellick III - 2009
    They live in an underground world filled with lollipop forests and gumdrop goblins. During the day, while you are away at work, they come above ground and prowl our streets for food. Their prey: your children. They lure young boys and girls to them with their sweet scent and bright colorful candy coating, then rip them apart with razor sharp teeth and claws. When he was a child, Franklin Pierce witnessed the death of his siblings at the hands of a candy woman with pink cotton candy hair. Since that day, the candy people have become his obsession. He has spent his entire life trying to prove that they exist. And after discovering the entrance to the underground world of the candy people, Franklin finds himself venturing into their sugary domain. His mission: capture one of them and bring it back, dead or alive. Cannibals of Candyland is an erotic horror story for the bizarro reader. Dark, disturbing, and absurd; this isn't the board game version of candy land you used to play as a kid.