Book picks similar to
Scar Culture by Toni Davidson


fiction
psychology
mental-illness
adult-fiction

The Pride of Lions


Marsha Canham - 1988
    How was the spoiled and pampered Catherine Augustine Ashbrooke to know the handsome stranger with the brooding, midnight eyes would see through her plot and make her the pawn in a dangerous game of his own?Alexander Cameron may have won the highborn English beauty in a duel, but not even the lure of long-forgotten desires could keep him from his meeting with destiny. He had no choice but to carry his reluctant bride off to the Highlands, to a world of ancient blood feuds and a brewing rebellion--a world where fiery passion and breathtaking courage would prove that even legendary warriors could lose their hearts.

Silent Treatment


Michael Palmer - 1995
    Now, in his most harrowing suspense novel yet, Palmer reveals how the power to heal can become a license to kill....With his wife, Evie, scheduled for surgery the next day, Dr. Harry Corbett goes to the hospital for what he hopes will be a quiet evening of reconciliation. In recent weeks Evie, never quick to share her feelings, has been more closed and distant than ever. But when Harry reaches Evie's room, it is too late for reconciliation. Shockingly, without warning, Evie is dead. The police suspect homicide. And their only suspect is Dr. Harry Corbett. Harry is not prepared for the stunning revelations that follow: His bright, beautiful, highly ambitious wife was leading a double life; she may have had dangerous secrets. But what secret could have been explosive enough to die for?Then the killer strikes again, boldly, tauntingly murdering one of Harry's favorite patients in such a way that only Harry knows the death was not natural. This time Harry is certain: The killer, medically sophisticated, coolly arrogant, moving undetected through a busy urban hospital, could only be a doctor. And he wonders—how many more will die? Desperately Harry probes deeper, following the only clue Evie left. What he finds is a sinister pattern that threatens patients in every hospital in the city. Harry is engaged in a life-and-death battle of wits with a chillingly efficient monster. And until the doctor is unmasked, no patient is safe from his lethal silent treatment.Michael Palmer has done it again, delivering a no-holds-barred novel of medical intrigue—a gripping thriller that features the most terrifying physician since Hannibal Lecter. Silent Treatment will keep your pulse racing from beginning to end.

A Note of Madness


Tabitha Suzuma - 2007
    What is wrong with me?Life as a student should be good for Flynn. He's one of the top pianists at the Royal College of Music, he has been put forward for an opportunity-of-a-lifetime concert, and he's got great friends. But beneath the surface, he's falling apart. On a good day he feels full of energy and life, but on a bad day being alive is worse than being dead. Sometimes he wants to compose and practice all night, at other times he can't get out of bed. With the pressure of the forthcoming concert and the growing concern of his family and friends, emotions come to a head. Sometimes things can only get worse before they get better.

The Cry of the Owl


Patricia Highsmith - 1962
    Robert Forester, a depressed but fundamentally decent man, liked to watch Jenny through her kitchen window, a harmless palliative, as he saw it, to his lonely life and failed marriage. As he is drawn into her life, however, the recriminations of his simple pleasure shatter the deceptive calm of this small Pennsylvania town. With striking clarity and horrible inevitability, Forester is caught up in a series of deaths in which he is the innocent bystander, presumed guilty. Highsmith has once again, as Graham Greene wrote "created a world of her own, a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger". And that sense of danger grows from the first page to the sinister and chilling conclusion.

The Poet of Loch Ness


Brian Jay Corrigan - 2005
    Home to her alma mater, Scotland is also the place where seventeen years ago Perdita fell in love with Highland poet Andrew Macgruer. At the bed-and-breakfast where Perdita and Perry are staying lives an eccentric pair of sisters, Kira and Catitlìn. Among the unexpected guests are Breton Trent, Kira's old flame, and Andrew, whose allure has only improved with age. Recognizing in Kira's thwarted love an example of her own, Perdita works to bring the couple together again. In the process she finds herself growing ever closer to Andrew. Perry's subsequent anguish, however, incidentally coincides with an illness that seems to affect her heart. As three sets of love triangles hurtle toward final conclusions, the marine biologist's quest for the legendary creature of Loch Ness becomes the central metaphor for the secrets that glide beneath the surface of us all.

Our Kind of Traitor


John le Carré - 2010
    But the charm begins to pall when a big-time Russian money launderer enlists their help to defect. In exchange for amnesty, Dima is ready to rat out his vory (Russian criminal brotherhood) compatriots and expose corruption throughout the so-called legitimate financial and political worlds. Soon, the guileless couple find themselves pawns in a deadly endgame whose outcome will be determined by the victor of the British Secret Service's ruthless internecine battles.The unrivaled master of spy fiction returns with a taut and suspenseful tale of dirty money and dirtier politics. For nearly half a century, John le Carré's limitless imagination has enthralled millions of readers and moviegoers around the globe. From the cold war to the bitter fruits of colonialism to unrest in the Middle East, he has reinvented the spy novel again and again. Now, le Carré makes his Viking debut with a stunning tour-de- force that only a craftsman of his caliber could pen. As menacing and flawlessly paced as The Little Drummer Girl and as morally complex as The Constant Gardener, Our Kind of Traitor is signature le Carré.

Deception


Philip Roth - 1993
    He is a middle-aged American writer named Philip, living in London, and she is an articulate, intelligent, well-educated Englishwoman compromised by a humiliating marriage to which, in her 30s, she is already nervously half-resigned.The book's action consists of conversation - mainly the lovers talking to each other before and after making love. That dialogue - sharp, rich, playful, inquiring, "moving", as Hermione Lee writes, "on a scale of pain from furious bafflement to stoic gaiety" - is nearly all there is to this audiobook, and all there needs to be.

The Story of Forgetting


Stefan Merrill Block - 2008
    Abel Haggard is an elderly hunchback who haunts the remnants of his family’s farm in the encroaching shadow of the Dallas suburbs, adrift in recollections of those he loved and lost long ago. As a young man, he believed himself to be “the one person too many”; now he is all that remains. Hundreds of miles to the south, in Austin, Seth Waller is a teenage “Master of Nothingness”–a prime specimen of that gangly, pimple-rashed, too-smart breed of adolescent that vanishes in a puff of sarcasm at the slightest threat of human contact. When his mother is diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s, Seth sets out on a quest to find her lost relatives and to conduct an “empirical investigation” that will uncover the truth of her genetic history. Though neither knows of the other’s existence, Abel and Seth are linked by a dual legacy: the disease that destroys the memories of those they love, and the story of Isidora–an edenic fantasy world free from the sorrows of remembrance, a land without memory where nothing is ever possessed, so nothing can be lost. Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers a dazzling illumination of the hard-learned truth that only through the loss of what we consider precious can we understand the value of what remains.

You Are Here: An Owner's Manual for Dangerous Minds


Jenny Lawson - 2017
    Elaborate doodles, beautiful illustrations, often with captions that she posts online. At her signings, fans show up with printouts of these drawings for Jenny to autograph. And inevitably they ask her when will she publish a whole book of them. That moment has arrived.You Are Here is something only Jenny could create. A combination of inspiration, therapy, coloring, humor, and advice, this book is filled with Jenny’s amazingly intricate illustrations, all on perforated pages that can be easily torn out, hung up, and shared. Drawing on the tenets of art therapy—which you can do while hiding in the pillow fort under your bed—You Are Here is ready to be made entirely your own.Some of the material is dark, some is light; some is silly and profane and irreverent. Gathered together, this is life, happening right now, all around, in its messy glory, as only Jenny Lawson could show us.

Awaken His Eyes


Jason Tesar - 2010
    Worshiped as gods for their wisdom and power, they corrupted the realm of the physical and forever altered the course of history.THE PROPHECY: Amidst the chaos of a dying world, a lone voice foretold the awakening of a warrior who would bring an end to this evil perpetrated against all of creation. But with the cataclysmic destruction of earth and rebirth of humanity, the prophecy went unfulfilled and eventually faded from the memory of our kind—until now!THE AWAKENED: The physical dimension is fractured. What remain now are numerous fragmented worlds moving simultaneously through time, sharing a common history, connected only by a guarded portal. On a parallel earth, in the city of Bastul, Colonel Adair Lorus disappears while investigating the death of an informant, triggering a series of events which will tear his family apart and set in motion the resolution of an ancient struggle.Kael, sentenced to death after rising up against the cruel leadership of his new step-father, is rescued from prison and trained in the arts of war by a mystical order of clerics. Excelling in every aspect of his training, Kael inwardly struggles to give himself fully to the methods of his new family, or the god they worship.Maeryn, bitter over the disappearance of her husband and supposed execution of her son, fears for her life at the hands of her newly appointed husband. Finding comfort and purpose in her unborn child, she determines to undermine his authority by reaching out to an underground social movement known as the Resistance.After being forced from his home, Kael’s former mentor, Saba, uncovers a clue to Adair’s disappearance. Sensing a connection to his own forgotten past, Saba begins an investigation which leads to the discovery of a secret military organization operating within the Orudan Empire.In book one of his debut series, Jason Tesar delves into the heart of an ancient legend, embarking on an epic saga that will journey from earth’s mythological past to its post-apocalyptic future, blending the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and military/political suspense.

Corrag


Susan Fletcher - 2010
    In 'Corrag', Susan Fletcher tells us the story of an epic historic event, of the difference a single heart can make - and how deep and lasting relationships can come from the most unlikely places.Other titles:The Highland WitchWitch Light

Too Good To Be True


Ann Cleeves - 2016
    After all, Stonebridge is a quiet country village in the Scottish Borders, where murders just don't happen. But Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez soon arrives from far-away Shetland when his ex-wife, Sarah, asks him to look into the case. The local gossips are saying that her new husband, Tom, was having an affair with Anna. Could Tom have been involved with her death? Sarah refuses to believe it - but needs proof.Anna had been a teacher. She must have loved kids. Would she kill herself knowing there was nobody to look after her daughter? She had seemed happier than ever before she died. And to Perez, this suggests not suicide, but murder . .

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts


Douglas Adams - 1979
    and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

The Shadowy Horses


Susanna Kearsley - 1997
    and then Vanishes from the Pages of History.Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea.Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it—not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.Here on the windswept shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or she may uncover secrets someone buried for a reason.

999: Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense


Al SarrantonioRamsey Campbell - 1999
    From dark fantasy and pure suspense to classic horror tales of vampires and zombies, 999 showcases the extraordinary scope of fantastical fright fiction. The stories in this anthology are a relentless tour de force of fear, which will haunt you, terrify you, and keep the adrenaline rushing all through the night.Amerikanski dead at the Moscow morgue / Kim Newman --The ruins of contracoeur / Joyce Carol Oates --The owl and the pussycat / Thomas M. Disch --The road virus heads north / Stephen King --Keepsakes and treasures: a love story / Neil Gaiman --Growing things / T.E.D. Klein --Good Friday / F. Paul Wilson --Excerpts from the records of the New Zodiac and the diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax / Chet Williamson --An exaltation of termagants / Eric Von Lustbader --Itinerary / Tim Powers --Catfish gal blues / Nancy A. Collins --The entertainment / Ramsey Campell --ICU / Edward Lee --The shadow, the darkness / Thomas Ligotti --Rio Grande Gothic / David Morrell --Des Saucisses, Sans doute / Peter Schneider --Angie / Ed Gorman --The ropy thing / Al Sarrantonio --The tree is my hat / Gene Wolfe --Styx and bones / Edward Bryant --Hemophage / Steven Spurill --The book of irrational numbers / Michael Marshall Smith --Mad dog summer / Joe R. Lansdale --The Theater / Bentley Little --Rehearsals / Thomas F. Monteleone --Darkness / Dennis L. McKiernan --Elsewhere / William Peter Blatty