Book picks similar to
Jackpot by David Bernstein


horror
hardcore-extreme-horror
ebook
adam-cesare

Initium


Courtney Cole - 2015
    I say that like it’s a defense, an excuse. It’s not. It’s simply the truth. I never knew what he would become to me. Through everything, he’s become everything. My rock, my air, my love. My everything. And then….Things changed. Because it was wrong. Because sometimes, our sons must pay for the sins of their fathers. Or their mothers. I’m afraid that I’m lost, that I’m damned. After you read this, you’ll probably agree. Really, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I save him. Because he shouldn’t pay for my sin. Judge me if you like. But keep reading. This is our beginning. This is where the darkness truly starts.

Mantis


Richard La Plante - 1993
    The murderer is a kind of Hannibal Lecter, pure psychopath, a real frightener. Mantis is an unusual and utterly gripping thriller.--Finesse Magazine.

The Girl in the Basement


Wayne Simmons - 2014
    Her captor is insane, his intentions unclear.Now, facing the demons from her past could be the only way to ensure a future…The Girl in the Basement is a fast-paced thriller from the bestselling author of Flu and Plastic Jesus.'Jaw-clenchingly brutal and bitterly unrelenting from start to finish.' —DLS Reviews'...shocking and brilliant...' —Bookbloke‘A stunning read, but not for the faint hearted.' —The Guardian on Plastic Jesus‘With The Girl in the Basement, Simmons gives classic pulp writers a taste of their own plaid.’ —Sion Smith, Skin Deep Tattoo Magazine‘Breathless and unrelenting, you cannot fail to turn the page and see what happens next.’ —JD Gillam, Starburst Magazine‘A short, sharp shock to the system. Simmons grabs you from the first line of the first page and doesn’t let go. You’ll be as trapped as the Girl in the Basement herself: unable to escape or even to stop reading. Highly recommended.’ —David Moody, author of Autumn, Hater and The Cost of Living

Pete, Drinker of Blood


Scott S. Phillips - 2012
    He’s also a vampire. He lives alone and avoids the other vampires in L.A., but Pete’s simple life goes haywire when he falls for Angie, the cute bartender at a Sunset Strip dive -- and when sinister vampire lord Carson Fitzgerald returns to claim his children, Pete learns that nothing's ever easy for a creature of the night.

Gloria


Bentley Little - 2021
    Gloria's mom is... different. She's younger than when she died, dressed in clothes from the 1980s. And nobody else in Gloria's family seems to recognize her.As Gloria tries to figure out the reason for her mother's reappearance ― and the odd behaviors the woman begins to exhibit ― other bizarre events occur. The changes to Gloria's world are small and subtle, at first... then they become much more startling.The freaky situation might just be connected to a mysterious shed in a small California town. The strangers who gather around the shed seem to know Gloria's name... and maybe they aren't strangers after all.With Gloria, Bentley Little presents one of his most complex and compelling novels ― one that is certain to surprise readers on every page.

Six Days


Kelli Owen - 2010
    With no outside stimuli, Jenny naturally turns inward and revisits her guilt-ridden past, desperate to figure out which wronged person would be angry enough, evil enough, to do this to her. She must survive her own demons, and then time itself when she finds remnants of previous captives?a plate, a tooth, a bone. Scratched hashmarks in the stone walls around her, leave her to wonder what happens next. What happens after six days?Maelstrom Volume 1, Book 3

Santa Took Them


William Malmborg - 2015
    No one in Holly Brook, IL has forgotten the horror that unfolded on Christmas Eve all those year ago, and now, as a terrifying blizzard descends upon the small isolated town, and teens begin disappearing one by one, it looks as if that gruesome night was just the beginning.

A Penny For Your Thoughts


Robert Ford - 2019
    He has let go of old habits, especially the ones that turned him into an addict and helped land him in prison.On a hike along the Lowback Trail, Joe stumbles on one of the town's oldest secrets--buried long ago, if not forgotten.It's an unusual but safe enough treasure--a jar of old pennies. What interests Joe isn't the pennies themselves, but the pieces of paper taped to every coin--a child's handwritten wish on each one.When the first few wishes come true, they are simple things. Fun. Harmless.Except as time goes on, Joe realizes they aren't really wishes at all...they're exchanges, and the bill was racking up.Nothing is free in life. Sooner or later, you always pay.

Square³


Mira Grant - 2021
    We think reality is an immutable monolith, consistent from one end of the universe to the next. We think the square/cube law has actual relevance.We think a lot of things. It was perhaps inevitable that some of them would turn out to be wrong. When the great incursion occurred, no one was prepared. How could they have been? Of all the things physicists had predicted, “the fabric of reality might rip open and giant monsters could come pouring through” had not made the list. But somehow, on a fine morning in May, that was precisely what happened.For sisters Susan and Katharine Black, the day of the incursion was the day they lost everything. Their home, their parents, their sense of normalcy…and each other, because when the rift opened, Susan was on one side and Katharine was on the other, and each sister was stranded in a separate form of reality. For Susan, it was science and study and the struggle to solve the mystery of the altered physics inside the zones transformed by the incursion. For Katharine, it was monsters and mayhem and the fight to stay alive in a world unlike the world of her birth.The world has changed. The laws of physics have changed. The girls have changed. And the one universal truth of all states of changed matter is that nothing can be completely restored to what it was originally, no matter how much you might wish it could be.Nothing goes back.

Sleep Deprived


Dawn Cano - 2016
    The voice provides her with the reason why she can't sleep and tells her what she must do to finally get some rest.

The Beautiful People


Charles Beaumont - 1952
    She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things--like eating and sleeping...This story was the basis for a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone" TV show!

Gone to See the River Man


Kristopher Triana - 2020
    Groupies. Stalkers.These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers.Lori is just such a fanatic. Her obsession is with Edmund Cox, a man of sadistic cruelty who butchered more than twenty women. She’s gone so far as to forge a relationship with him, visiting him in prison and sending him letters on a regular basis. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she eagerly accepts it.She has no idea of the horror that awaits her.Edmund tells her she must go to his cabin in the woods of Killen and retrieve a key to deliver to a mysterious figure known only as The River Man.In her quest, she brings along her handicapped sister, and they journey through the deep, dark valley, beginning their trip upriver. The trip quickly becomes a surreal nightmare, one that digs up Lori’s personal demons, the ones she feels bonds her to Edmund. The river runs with flesh, the cabin is a vault of horrors, and ghostly blues music echoes through the mountains. Soon they will learn that The River Man is not quite fact or folklore, and definitely not human -- at least, not anymore. And the key is just the beginning of what is required of Lori to prove she’s worthy of a madman’s love.

A Game of Firsts


Carrie Ryan - 2014
    As the world crumbles around them, they take refuge in the attic over the garage. But it only takes one small mistake for the illusion of safety to break and for any chance of survival to disappear.

Broken Shells


Michael Patrick Hicks - 2018
    Broke and recently fired, he knows the winning Money Carlo ticket that has landed in his mailbox from a car dealership is nothing more than a scam. The promise of five thousand dollars, though, is too tantalizing to ignore.Jon Dangle is a keeper of secrets, many of which are buried deep beneath his dealership. He works hard to keep them hidden, but occasionally sacrifices are required, sacrifices who are penniless, desperate, and who will not be missed. Sacrifices exactly like DeWitt.When Antoine steps foot on Dangle’s car lot, it is with the hope of easy money. Instead, he finds himself trapped in a deep, dark hole, buried alive. If he is going to survive the nightmare ahead of him, if he has any chance of seeing his wife and child again, Antoine will have to do more than merely hope. He will have to fight his way back to the surface, and pray that Jon Dangle’s secrets do not kill him first.

Birdman


Mo Hayder - 1999
    The Met's crack murder squad, AMIP, is called out by nervous CID detectives to a grim discovery. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped on wasteland near the Dome. As each post-mortem reveals a singular, horrific signature linking the victims, officers realize that they are on the trail of that most dangerous offender: a sexual serial killer. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery - young, driven, unshockable - finds himself facing both hostility within the force and echoes of his past in this, his first case with AMIP. Haunted by the memory of a death long ago, he employs every weapon forensic science can offer for he knows it is only a matter of time before this chaotic, sadistic killer strikes again.