Book picks similar to
Carolina Daemonic: Confederate Shadows by Brian Barr


alternate-history
steampunk
sci-fi-and-fantasy
fantasy

The Incorruptibles


John Hornor Jacobs - 2014
    Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do.In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable. They are wrong. And with them is a mysterious, beautiful young woman, who is the key to peace between warring nations and survival for the Empire. When a callow mercenary saves the life of the Governor on an ill-fated hunting party, the two groups are thrown together. For Fisk and Shoe - two tough, honourable mercenaries surrounded by corruption, who know they can always and only rely on each other - their young companion appears to be playing with fire. The nobles have the power, and crossing them is always risky.And although love is a wonderful thing, sometimes the best decision is to walk away. Because no matter how untouchable or deadly you may be, the stretchers have other plans.

The Last Citadel


K.M. Ashman - 2011
    A solitary fortress isolated in an endless sea. A city of secrets where the elite dominate with an iron fist and ambition ends at the city walls. Ordinarily the city is surrounded by water but one day a month when the moon is at its highest, the water recedes and uncovers the causeways linking the city to the outer towers. This is Moon-day, the time when the trades bring their specialities to market and the whole Citadel enjoy the celebrations the festival brings, so when the city’s stargazer predicts the water level will drop even further, nobody takes any notice.Soon enough and despite the people's indifference, the predictions are proved correct and as the sea falls it reveals secrets that have never been known before. Secrets that are at first exciting....then disturbing .....and ultimately.....terrifying

Death's Avenger: The Malykant Mysteries, Volume 2


Charlotte E. English - 2018
    But what if a monster isn’t enough? Shadows gather, winter deepens, and Assevan falls farther into the dark. Pitted against monsters and men, Konrad faces deeper challenges. Darker foes. Some can rival even the Malykant’s power. Pushed beyond his endurance, challenged beyond his sanity, at long last Death’s Avenger might need a little help... Konrad Savast returns for another chilling set of adventures in the second volume of the Malykant Mysteries.

Crooked


Austin Grossman - 2015
    Richard Milhous Nixon lived one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century. Our thirty-seventh president's political career spanned the button-down fifties, the Mad Men sixties, and the turbulent seventies. He faced down the Russians, the Chinese, and ultimately his own government. The man went from political mastermind to a national joke, sobbing in the Oval Office, leaving us with one burning question: how could he have lost it all? Here for the first time is the tale told in his own words: the terrifying supernatural secret he stumbled upon as a young man, the truth behind the Cold War, and the truth behind the Watergate cover-up. What if our nation's worst president was actually a pivotal figure caught in a desperate struggle between ordinary life and horrors from another reality? What if the man we call our worst president was, in truth, our greatest? In Crooked, Nixon finally reveals the secret history of modern American politics as only Austin Grossman could reimagine it. Combining Lovecraftian suspense, international intrigue, Russian honey traps, and a presidential marriage whose secrets and battles of attrition were their own heroic saga, Grossman's novel is a masterwork of alternative history, equal parts mesmerizing character study and nail-biting Faustian thriller.

Liberation: A Magi Saga Series


Andrew Dobell - 2017
    Only a zombie infested wasteland remains. Warlords and worse rule over the remains of humanity in a cruel new world where only the strong survive. Nero travels the wasteland in a souped-up V8 charger, barely hanging on as he moves between the scattered remnants of humanity. In return for food and supplies, he offers his services fighting zombies and raiders for those who can pay. Arriving at the Watchtower, Nero meets the abused slave girl Nyx. A beautiful young woman, she’s skilled in the use of a sword - yet held captive by the tower's ruler. When the Watchtower is attacked, events begin to spiral out of control, and Nero discovers the secret Nyx has been hiding from her master. Now he must choose between the life he knows alone in the wastes, or helping the fascinating but vulnerable Nyx, and changing his life forever. What would you do? DISCLAIMER/TRIGGER WARNING: This book contains graphic sex, slavery, violence, girls with no pants on, zombie slaughter and V8 carnage.

The Atrocity Archives


Charles Stross - 2004
    While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe - but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out ...This is the first novel in the Laundry Files.

The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium Book 1)


Travis Starnes - 2021
    

Zed's World Book Two: Roads Less Traveled


Rich Baker - 2016
    In the course of one night, mankind teeters on the brink of extinction. Fighting through gathering hordes of undead, a group of friends brave military checkpoints, armed civilians, and forced allegiances in an attempt to reach loved ones. Thwarted at every turn, they press forward. But taking roads less traveled, could cost them everything.

EverRealm


Jake Bible - 2017
    They have created the Domains and there they plan to reside forever. Except, the nightmares of reality have followed them into their new quantum dimension and those nightmares threaten to destroy it all! Now it is up to one of them to help navigate the quantum platform known as EverRealm, a fantasy MMORPG of epic proportions, in order to complete a quest he neither wants to complete nor knows how. With the help of his friends, and a lot of luck, he will have to face trials and tribulations like he's never faced as a player! Because now it is no longer a matter of Game Over, but of life or death! Can he survive it all and come out a winner? The only way he'll know is if he plays the game to the bitter end!

Deathbed


Joshua Williamson - 2018
    Or at least he was until 20 years ago, when he mysteriously vanished from the public eye. Now the ninety-year-old has returned and claims to be on his deathbed. Which is where Valentine Richards, a failed novelist turned reporter, comes in. Val is hired to travel to Luna's remote castle home and uncover where the old star has been all these years, and just how much of what he says is actually true. But once Val starts to hear Luna's tale, she finds herself entering into an insane world of psychedelic violence and explosive supernatural adventure.  This brand-new series is a bold collaboration between Joshua Williamson (The Flash, Frostbite) and Riley Rossmo (The Batman Who Laughs), mixing myth and horror in this new project from DC Vertigo.

The Boys from Brazil


Ira Levin - 1976
    Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project—the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings—Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.

Beginning


V.A. Brandon - 2013
    Their concern turns to horror once they turn on the news and see a live coverage of people eating dead bodies. When the chaos spreads to their street, they and a few neighbors barricade themselves in Justin’s apartment. They are trapped inside, tempers are rising, and food is running out. To survive, they must venture outside. But not all will make it.

Banished


D.L. Harrison - 2017
    She has mental abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, and others. Her parents are supervillains, and she isn’t all that sure she’s cut out for that line of work. Her empathy with others through her power makes it hard to be uncaring, much less mean or evil to people. Problem is, the last thing she wants to do is disappoint mom and dad.Katrina gets caught up in her mother’s supervillain plot to rid the world of the indestructible hero Omega. That’s when it all goes really wrong, and she finds herself on another world. Banished.Will she be able to find her way back home, or even understand this new world of gods and magic, or will she die trying?

Necrotech


K.C. Alexander - 2016
    And the only people who can help are the mercenaries who think she screwed them over.In an apathetic society devoid of ethics or regulation, where fusing tech and flesh can mean a killing edge or a killer conversion, a massive conspiracy is unfolding that will alter the course of the human condition forever. With corporate meatheads on her ass and a necro-tech blight between her and salvation, Riko is going to have to fight meaner, work smarter, and push harder than she’s ever had to. And that’s just to make it through the day.File Under: Science Fiction [ Viral Hitman | Renegade | Nano Shock | Swear On Your Life ]

Legion of the Undead


Michael Whitehead - 2017
     Emperor Vespasian has ordered a push further into Germania than the legions have ever been and an enemy army is gathering to meet them. What neither side is prepared for is the darker force that they will both face. Indiscriminate and incapable of mercy, the new enemy will drive the Romans to the very brink of destruction. The Gates of Hades have opened and the Roman Legions must face what has escaped.