Book picks similar to
Naomi by Douglas Clegg


horror
fiction
douglas-clegg
mystery

The Vision


Dean Koontz - 1977
    He knows what you're doing. He knows what you're thinking. He's coming after you.DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES...He has a knife. The steel blade gleams. Whenever you close your eyes, you can see it--the tip of his knife, pointing at your chest.DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES...He's closing them for you."A master of sheer fright... the tension never lets up, building page by page to a nail-biting, hair-raising finale!" --Florida Times-Union

Bestial


Ray Garton - 2009
    Several residents have died in unexplained, particularly brutal ways, many torn apart in animal attacks. And there's always that eerie howling late at night....You might think there's a werewolf in town. But you'd be wrong. It's not just one werewolf, but the whole town that's gradually transforming. Bit by bit, as the infection spreads, the werewolves are becoming more and more powerful. In fact, humans may soon be the minority, mere prey for their hungry neighbors. Is it too late for the humans to fight back? Did they ever have a chance from the start?

The Dark Chorus


Ashley Meggitt - 2020
    He has never questioned the fact that he can see them. He thinks of them as the Dark Chorus. When he sets out to restore the soul of his dead mother it becomes clear that his ability comes from within him. It is a force that he cannot ignore – the last shard of the shattered soul of an angel. To be restored to the kingdom of light, the shard must be cleansed of the evil that infects it – but this requires the corrupt souls of the living! With the help from Makka, a psychotically violent young man full of hate, and Vee, an abused young woman full of pain, the Boy begins to kill. Psychiatrist Dr Eve Rhodes is seconded to assist the police investigation into the Boy’s apparently random ritualistic killings. As the investigation gathers pace, a pattern emerges. When Eve pulls at the thread from an article in an old psychology journal, what might otherwise have seemed to her a terrible psychotic delusion now feels all too real…Will the Boy succeed in restoring the angel’s soul to the light? Can Eve stop him, or will she be lost to realm of the Dark Chorus?

House of Bones


Dale Bailey - 2003
    Now they'll discover where evil dwells in this bone-chilling return to a classic tradition in horror novels.

Invasion


Aaron Wolfe - 1975
    There were two lights, actually, both a warm amber shade and of dim wattage. They appeared to pulse and to shimmer -- and then they were gone, as if they had never been: blink!I hurried to the barn door, slid it open, and stepped into the snow-filled night. The arctic wind struck me like a mallet swung by a blacksmith who was angry with his wife, and it almost blew me back into the stable row. Switching on the nearly useless flashlight, I bent against the wind and pulled the door shut behind me. Laboriously, cautiously, I inched around the side of the barn in the direction of the window, peering anxiously at the ground ahead of me.I stopped before I reached the window, for I found precisely what I had been afraid that I would find: those odd, eight-pointed tracks which Toby and I had seen on the slope earlier in the day. There were a great many of them, as if the animal had been standing there, moving back and forth as I searched for better vantage points, for a long while -- at least all of the time that I had been inside with the horses.It had been watching me.

The Compleat Crow


Brian Lumley - 1986
    Now his hair had greyed a little and his eyes, though they were still very bright and observant, bore the imprint of many a year spent exploring – and often, I guessed, discovering – along rarely trodden paths of mysterious and obscure learning.’Mysterious, obscure learning...To many thousands of readers all over the world Titus Crow is the occult investigator, psychic sleuth and cosmic voyager of Brian Lumley’s novels of the Cthulhu Mythos from The Burrowers Beneath to Elysia.But before the Burrowers and Crow’s Transition, his exploits were chronicled in a series of short stories and novellas previously uncollected in a British edition. Now these stories can be told. From ‘Inception’, which tells of his origins, to ‘The Black Recalled’, a tale of vengeance from beyond the grave, here in one volume, from the bestselling author of the epic Necroscope series, is THE COMPLEAT CROW.

The Reckoning


Sarah Pinborough - 2005
    It was a summer of fun, of friendship, and of discoveries—including the discovery of Gina's strange abilities. But it all ended in a moment of madness and blood.Now, twenty years later, Robert is still haunted by nightmares of that time. He has returned to his small hometown to confront his past and reclaim his life, but his homecoming is far from happy. Gina moved away long ago. Jason is bitter and resentful. And Carrie-Anne is about to commit an act that will horrify them all. Something unexplainable has infected the town, inhabiting its dreams, bringing with it insanity and terror. Could the secret lie in the past, in Gina's old house, abandoned long ago but never quite empty?

Blood Games


Richard Laymon - 1992
    — They meet for one week every year, five young women, best friends since college, in search of fun and thrills. Each year they choose a different place for their reunion. This year it's Helen's choice, and she chose the Totem Pole Lodge. Bad choice. The Totem Pole Lodge is a deserted resort hotel deep in the woods with a gory, shocking past Helen has a macabre streak and she can't wait to tell her friends all about what happened at the lodge and why it's now abandoned. But Helen and the others are in for a nasty surprise. The resort isn't quite as deserted as they think. And not all the gruesome events at the Totem Pole Lodge are in its past. The worst are still to come....

Bad Ronald


John Holbrook Vance - 1973
    Perhaps that was the trouble--no one really took a good look at Ronald. Except for his devoted mother, who saw only the son she wanted to see. Who, then, is Ronald? Ronald is that faceless unknown who waits - to take, to grab what he needs, to become the ultimate invader.

Breed


Owl Goingback - 2002
    Augustine, Florida. An ancient evil is awakened in the Tolomato Cemetery, and is intent on stalking and destroying the citizens of the town. The evil creature, a Shiru, was believed to be a mythical beast from ancient Indian legend. The legend says the Shiru once roamed the earth attempting to mate with the women of the local Indian tribes in an effort to breed, but the Indians recognized the danger and hunted them down, destroying their hideous deformed offspring. But this legend is so old, that almost no one in modern day St. Augustine knows of it, and if they did they wouldn't believe it...that is until one, summoned by three women dabbling in black magic, crosses over from the dead. Now the Shiru is determined to get revenge on the human race, and to breed with a strong woman with an ancient blood line. Unbeknownst to her, local tour-guide, half Cherokee Ssabra Onih, is the Shiru's target. Fortunately for her, and the rest of the town, the spirit of Chief Tolomato comes to guide her, and enlist her help to hunt down the evil Shiru and send it back to the underworld. At the same time city police officer, Jack Colvin is working hard to track down the perpetrator of a series of grisly murders. Soon Colvin's and Onih's paths cross, and they join forces with the help of Chief Tolomato and other friendly spirits, in a desperate attempt to stop the seemingly invincible Shiru.

Street Magic


Caitlin Kittredge - 2009
    She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life  mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft. Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete’s eyes—or so she thought. Now a detective , Pete is investigating the case of a young girl kidnapped from the streets of London. A tipster’s chilling prediction has led police directly to the child…but when Pete meets the informant, she’s shocked to learn he is none other than Jack. Strung out on heroin, Jack a shadow of his former self.  But he’s able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget’s kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow-world of the fey.  Even though she’s spent years disavowing the supernatural, Pete follows Jack into the invisible fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget—and what happened to Jack on that dark day so long ago…

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos


Jim TurnerFritz Leiber - 1990
    His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes - dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness - have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre.In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition.Contents:- Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! (1990) by Jim Turner [as by James Turner] - The Call of Cthulhu (1928) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Return of the Sorcerer (1931) by Clark Ashton Smith- Ubbo-Sathla (1933) by Clark Ashton Smith- The Black Stone (1931) by Robert E. Howard- The Hounds of Tindalos (1929) by Frank Belknap Long- The Space-Eaters (1928) by Frank Belknap Long- The Dweller in Darkness (1944) by August Derleth- Beyond the Threshold (1941) by August Derleth- The Shambler from the Stars (1935) by Robert Bloch- The Haunter of the Dark (1936) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Shadow from the Steeple (1950) by Robert Bloch- Notebook Found in a Deserted House (1951) by Robert Bloch- The Salem Horror (1937) by Henry Kuttner- The Terror from the Depths (1976) by Fritz Leiber- Rising with Surtsey (1971) by Brian Lumley- Cold Print (1969) by Ramsey Campbell- The Return of the Lloigor (1969) by Colin Wilson- My Boat (1976) by Joanna Russ- Sticks (1974) by Karl Edward Wagner- The Freshman (1979) by Philip José Farmer- Jerusalem's Lot (1978) by Stephen King- Discovery of the Ghooric Zone (1977) by Richard A. LupoffCover illustration by John Jude Palencar

The Dulwich Horror and Others


David Hambling - 2013
    P. Lovecraft, this stylish new collection of adventure stories fizzes with wit and invention. They can be enjoyed separately, but read them in one sitting and the pieces fit horribly together into a larger and more terrible nightmare. †These tales constitute David Hambling’s initial foray into the realm of Lovecraftian fiction. The fertility of imagination, the crisp character delineations, and the smooth-flowing prose that we find in these seven tales leave us wishing for more of the same, and Hambling will no doubt oblige in the coming years. For now, we can sit back and relish a brace of stories that not only evoke the shade of the dreamer from Providence, but which that dreamer himself would have enjoyed to the full. —S. T. Joshi(from his foreword)

The Pilo Family Circus


Will Elliott - 2006
    You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?"Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

Toxic Bachelors


Danielle Steel - 2005
    By autumn all three will fall precipitously into relationships they never saw coming. Charlie begins dating a crusading social worker who couldn't be further from his ideal--until he makes a stunning discovery about her. Adam gets involved with his usual twenty-something bombshell--only this one has a remarkable mind of her own. And Gray, who has avoided both business and family like the plague, has managed to fall head over heels for a successful career woman--who just happens to be a mother as well.As another holiday on the yacht approaches, and with it a turning point in each man's life, the three bachelors are forced to face the things that scare them most: their phobias about relationships, the wounds of the past--and the kind of women who challenge their deepest terrors. What happens next will spark big changes for Charlie, Adam, and Gray--and might just put an end to their carousing days forever. For as the once-carefree trio is about to discover, love is the most unpredictable adventure of all.Filled with all the joy, complexity, and unexpected surprises of life, Toxic Bachelors is Danielle Steel at her poignant and penetrating best.