Book picks similar to
Lilith's Demons by Julie R. Enszer


poetry
jewish
chapbook
speculative-poetry

What Runs Over


Kayleb Rae Candrilli - 2017
    Unfurling and unrelenting in its delivery, Candrilli has painted “the mountain” in excruciating detail. They show readers a world of Borax cured bear hides and canned peaches, of urine-filled Gatorade bottles and the syringe and all the syringe may carry. They show a violent world and its many personas. What Runs Over, too, is a story of rural queerness, of a transgender boy almost lost to the forest. The miracle of What Runs Over is that Candrilli has lived to write it at all."When Roethke said 'energy is the soul of poetry,' he might have been anticipating a book like What Runs Over, which is so full of energy it practically vibrates in your hand. Here, Candrilli’s speaker sticks their tongue 'into the heads / of venus fly traps just to feel the bite,' then later, burns holy books in the backyard and rolls around in the ashes until they become 'a painted god.' This is the verve of an urgent new poetic voice announcing itself to the world. As Candrilli writes: 'This is what I look like / when I’m trying to save myself.'"-Kaveh Akbar

Small Town Evil 2


Ken Berglund - 2014
    However, after a series of brutal child killings begins in a small Texas town, the ghostly visions begin again. Jennifer, unable to understand how these visions relate to what she went through five years ago, convinces her father to take her on a road trip to Texas to find out answers. On the way she will learn that her powers go far beyond her psychic abilities. AN AMAZON TOP 50 BEST SELLER!!

Into the Dark & Emptying Field


Rachel McKibbens - 2013
    INTO THE DARK & EMPTYING FIELD is an interrogation of loneliness and its many masks. The book explores innocence as the price of knowledge in a host of voices that share an emotional truth. McKibbens offers a monument of understanding for even the bleakest pieces of our human conundrum.

Wilder Girls


Rory Power - 2019
    Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

Out of Bounds


Michelle Woods - 2016
    She’s happy—or is at least she’s willing to tell herself she is.But when a relationship from the past resurfaces, it throws Evelyn’s world into turmoil. Suddenly she finds herself tempted in a way she hasn’t thought about in years.Evelyn wants to do the right thing—but she wants to follow her heart more.As her passion and desires intensify, she’s forced to weigh the cost of stepping out of her old life and into the arms of a new lover—and decide whether she’s willing to lose the things she thought she held dear to reunite with the person she thought she’d lost forever.A riveting page-turner about burning desires and secret passions, Out of Bounds is a smoldering romance that will delight hot-blooded women of all ages.

Such a Pretty Smile


Kristi DeMeester - 2022
    Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waves her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.

Henna House


Nomi Eve - 2014
    After passage of the Orphan’s Decree, any unbetrothed Jewish child left orphaned will be instantly adopted by the local Muslim community. With her parents’ health failing, and no spousal prospects in sight, Adela’s situation looks dire until her uncle arrives from a faraway city, bringing with him a cousin and aunt who introduce Adela to the powerful rituals of henna tattooing. Suddenly, Adela’s eyes are opened to the world, and she begins to understand what it means to love another and one’s heritage. She is imperiled, however, when her parents die and a prolonged drought threatens their long-established way of life. She and her extended family flee to the city of Aden where Adela encounters old loves, discovers her true calling, and is ultimately betrayed by the people and customs she once held dear.Henna House is an intimate family portrait and a panorama of history. From the traditions of the Yemenite Jews, to the far-ranging devastation of the Holocaust, to the birth of the State of Israel, Eve offers an unforgettable coming-of-age story and a textured chronicle of a fascinating period in the twentieth century.Henna House is a rich, spirited, and sensuous tale of love, loss, betrayal, forgiveness, and the dyes that adorn the skin and pierce the heart.

Madness


Sam Sax - 2017
    These brave, formally dexterous poems examine antiquated diagnoses and procedures from hysteria to lobotomy; offer meditations on risky sex; and take up the poet's personal and family histories as mental health patients and practitioners. Ultimately, Madness attempts to build a queer lineage out of inherited language and cultural artifacts; these poems trouble the static categories of sanity, heterosexuality, masculinity, normality, and health. sax's innovative collection embodies the strange and disjunctive workings of the mind as it grapples to make sense of the world around it.

When the Devil Writes


Matt Shaw - 2019
    From best-selling horror author, Matt Shaw, comes a new collection of previously unreleased material direct from his twisted imagination, a collection of twisted short stories and novellas.Within This Collection:Flash Fiction: Hush Little Baby, Man's Best Friend,Short Stories: Change, Cat,Novellas: HIM, A Girl And Her Corpse.Over 200 pages of horror

Creatures


Gareth Ellis - 2018
    Little did Stanley know that his work at Viruson Technologies, creating a vaccine for a newly discovered virus would have such an impact on himself and the rest of the world. Ten years on, Matt lives in Stanley’s home town of Highfield, UK. Life is hard. Mutated Creatures have begun to appear and terrorise the world and its inhabitants. It’s now up to Matt, his friend Sarah, and Ben, the baddest guy in town, to put an end to the Creatures and to find out what really happened to Stanley Figgis.

Horrors Next Door 2: Short Scary Stories to play with your mind


Tom Coleman - 2019
    Some of the stories are inspired by true events. Find out which ones inside this scary collection. "The Girl I Married" Jonathan noticed that after marrying Jeanette, she starts acting strange. As if she is not the same girl he dated. Why is she so different and what secrets is she hiding? "I`m Sorry Daddy" After an accident at work, Mr. Williams starts developing unusual symptoms. He is turning into a monster and there is nothing to stop this. "The House Next Door part 2" Jessica decides to find out what happened to her friend Sarah. What new discoveries will she make and will the same fate befall her?

Primeval Valley


Edward J. McFadden III - 2019
    The town’s peace is shattered when a young boy is taken by a strange creature, and a distraught father goes on a desperate hunt only to uncover a valley that shouldn’t exist. A world where dinosaurs roam hunting prey. A world better left hidden.

We Ride Upon Sticks


Quan Barry - 2020
    Quan Barry weaves together the individual and collective journeys of this enchanted team as they storm their way to the state championship. Helmed by good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam) and her co-captain Jen Fiorenza, whose bleached blond "Claw" sees and knows all, the DHS Falcons prove to be as wily and original as their North of Boston ancestors, flaunting society's stale notions of femininity in order to find their glorious true selves through the crucible of team sport.

Midnight Milkshakes: Ice Cream And Suicide Vol. II


Jack Ray - 2018
    The book features raw, blunt, and in your face poems depicting the darker side of relationships. Readers will find themes such as lies, cheating, and heartache abundant in much of this collection. Midnight Milkshakes, being the second volume of Ray's Ice Cream And Suicide, is great for returning readers to the series. The book focuses on much of the same style and mood that is common in his writings.

The God of Vengeance


Sholem Asch - 1907
    Meanwhile, his daughter has a lesbian affair with one of his prostitutes downstairs. This translation debuted at Show World in Times Square in 1999 and "set Show World aflame" according to the Village Voice.