Book picks similar to
The Reckoning by Sarah Pinborough


horror
supernatural
fiction
sarah-pinborough

The Fifth Doll


Charlie N. Holmberg - 2017
    She’s diligent in her chores and has agreed to marry a man of their choosing. But a visit to Slava, the local tradesman, threatens to upend her entire life.Entering his empty house, Matrona discovers a strange collection of painted nesting dolls—one for every villager. Fascinated, she can’t resist the urge to open the doll with her father’s face. But when her father begins acting strangely, she realizes Slava’s dolls are much more than they seem.When he learns what she’s done, Slava seizes the opportunity to give Matrona stewardship over the dolls—whether she wants it or not. Forced to open one of her own dolls every three days, she falls deeper into the grim power of Slava’s creations. But nothing can prepare her for the profound secret hiding inside the fifth doll.

You Come When I Call You


Douglas Clegg - 2000
    In Los Angeles, a woman is tormented by visions from a chilling past, and a man steps into a house of torture. On the steps of a church, a young woman has been sacrificed in a ritual of darkness. In New York, a cab driver dreams of demons while awake.And a man who calls himself the Desolation Angel has returned to draw his old friends back to their hometown -- a town where, two decades earlier, three boys committed the most brutal of rituals, an act of such intense savagery that it has ripped apart their minds. And where, in a cavern in a place called No Man's Land, something has been waiting a long time for those who stole something more precious than life itself.An epic tale of horror, spanning twenty years in the lives of four friends -- witnesses to unearthly terror.

What Big Teeth


Rose Szabo - 2021
    When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together — in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.

The Last Descendant


Megan Haskell - 2015
    The high elves have made that very clear. Even training as an elite fighter isn’t enough to earn the respect she craves. Her only allies are the fierce carnivorous pixies who travel by her side, yet still she clings to the hope of one day earning her place in the Upper Realm.When she's attacked by assassins from the enemy Shadow Realm, Rie's martial prowess keeps her alive...and frames her as a traitor. Facing execution at the hand of a merciless king, Rie must forsake her oaths and flee into enemy lands to prove her innocence. What she uncovers may threaten more than her honor or even her life…for war is looming in the nine faerie realms.

Grasping at Eternity


Karen Amanda Hooper - 2012
    A romantic saga about a supernatural family, reincarnation, and soul mates. Before entering this life, Maryah did the unthinkable—she erased. Now, at seventeen years old, she’s clueless that her new adoptive family has known her for centuries, that they are perpetually reincarnated souls, and that they have supernatural abilities. Oh, and she's supposed to love (not despise) Nathan, the green-eyed daredevil who saved her life.Nathan is convinced his family’s plan to spark Maryah's memory is hopeless, but his love for her is undying. After spending (and remembering) so many lifetimes together, being around an empty version of his soulmate is heart shattering. He hates acting like a stalker, but has no choice because the evil outcast who murdered Maryah in their last lifetime is still after her.While Maryah’s hunter inches closer, she and Nathan make assumptions and hide secrets that rip them further apart. Maryah has to believe in the magic within her, Nathan must have faith in the power of their love. Both need to grasp the truth before they lose each other forever—and discover just how lonely eternity can be.

Blood and Feathers


Lou Morgan - 2012
    Alice shrugged. "I don't know... guns?"Alice isn't having the best of days. She was late for work, she missed her bus, and now she's getting rained on. What she doesn't know is that her day's about to get worse: the epic, grand-scale kind of worse that comes from the arrival of two angels who claim everything about her life is a lie.The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating; the age-old balance is tipping, and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act - or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever.That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory - a disgraced angel with a drinking problem and a whole load of secrets - Alice will learn the truth about her own history… and why the angels want to send her to hell.What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding - and can she trust either side?Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn't just hell's demons that Alice will have to defeat...

Messenger of Fear


Michael Grant - 2014
    But, standing in that ghostly place, faced with the solemn young man in the black coat with silver skulls for buttons, I could recall nothing else about myself.And then the games began.The Messenger sees the darkness in young hearts, and the damage it inflicts upon the world. If they go unpunished, he offers the wicked a game. Win, and they can go free. Lose, and they will live out their greatest fear. But what does any of this have to do with Mara? She is about to find out . . .

Ward Against Death


Melanie Card - 2011
    Goddess knows he can’t be a surgeon—the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying—so bringing people back from the dead it is.But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she’s been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can’t bring himself to break his damned physician’s Oath and desert her.However, nothing is as it seems—including Celia. One second, she’s treating Ward like sewage, the next she’s kissing him. And for a nobleman’s daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive…

The Doorknob Society


M.J. Fletcher - 2012
    When she was young Chloe’s mother vanished. Wracked by feelings of abandonment and anger she lost herself traveling with her father's magic act, where illusions were part of her everyday life. Yet everything changes when they are pursued by a mysterious man in black out to kill her father. Touching a doorknob activates abilities she never knew she had and she finds herself thrust into a world of ancient societies and secrets.When her father disappears it is a race against time to find answers before she loses what is left of her family. Now Chloe must choose who to trust, the man who will do anything for her or the one she can’t stop thinking about.

The Scent of Shadows


Vicki Pettersson - 2007
    By rights, she should be dead.Now a photographer by day, she prowls a different Las Vegas after sunset—a grim, secret Sin City where Light battles Shadow—seeking answers to whom or what she really is . . . and revenge for the horrors she was forced to endure.But the nightmare is just beginning—for the demons are hunting Joanna, and the powerful shadows want her for their own . . .

Witches of East End


Melissa de la Cruz - 2011
    Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret--they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there's Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it's time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.With a brand-new cast of characters, a fascinating and fresh world to discover, and a few surprise appearances from some of the Blue Blood fan favorites, this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil.

American Elsewhere


Robert Jackson Bennett - 2013
    Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ...From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.

Super Dark


Tanith Morse - 2013
    Ten years ago on Halloween night, grotesque creatures snatched her best friend Elliot and Sam narrowly escaped with her life. Now a decade on, the police investigation has ground to a halt and Elliot’s whereabouts remains a mystery. Traumatized by her ordeal, Sam finds it hard to make friends. She is mistrustful of authority and changed schools more times than she cares to remember. To her, the world is cruel and unforgiving. Then she meets the enigmatic Lee Weaver. With his gorgeous face and magnetic presence, he turns heads wherever he goes. Sam has never wanted anyone as much as she wants Lee, but there are things about the alluring stranger that don’t add up, leading Sam to ask unsettling questions about her past. Soon she discovers the boy of her dreams is keeping a terrible secret: one that threatens to destroy everything Sam holds dear . . .Super Dark is a seductive love story that will keep you guessing right until the final page ...

Season of the Witch


Natasha Mostert - 2007
    Gabriel Blackstone is a cool, hip, thoroughly twenty-first century Londoner with an unusual talent. A computer hacker by trade, he is also a remote viewer: able to 'slam a ride' through the minds of others. But he uses his gift only reluctantly - until he is asked to find a young man last seen months earlier at Monk House, in the company of two mysterious women. Gabriel becomes increasingly bewitched by the house, and by its owners, the beautiful Monk sisters. But even as he falls in love, he suspects that one of them is a killer. But which one? And what is the secret they are so determined to protect? * World Book Day: Book to Talk About Award 2009

13 Days of Midnight


Leo Hunt - 2015
    Unfortunately, Luke has no clue how to manage them, which the ghosts figure out pretty quickly. Armed with only his father’s indecipherable notes and a locked copy of The Book of Eight, Luke struggles to adapt to his new role as a necromancer. Meanwhile, the increasingly belligerent Host mutinies, possesses Luke’s mother, and forces him out of his own house.Halloween, the night when ghosts reach the height of their power, is fast approaching, and Luke knows his Host is planning something far more trick than treat. With the help of school outcast Elza Moss, who knows a bit about ghosts herself, Luke has just thirteen days to uncover the closely guarded secrets of black magic and send his unquiet spirits to their eternal rest.And if you thought it was going to be easy, you’d be dead wrong.