Best Books for Epic Summer Screams
Are you always ready for summer screams? Do you think every day should every day be Halloween? Are you already counting down the days until spooky time? Then do we have the book list for you! Get your summer scream on with these chilling horror, thrillers, and just down right spooky books to tide you over until the big night.
We owe our good health to a humble parasite — a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the Intestinal Bodyguard worm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system — even secretes designer drugs. It’s been successful beyond the scientists’ wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.
But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them.
“A riveting near-future medical thriller that reads like the genetically-engineered love child of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton.” —John Joseph Adams
More from Mira Grant:
Parasitology
Parasite
Symbiont
Chimera
Newsflesh
Feed
Deadline
Blackout
Feedback
Rise
In a chilling blend of folk horror and twisting suspense, this modern masterpiece depicts isolation and dread within a small island community.
There's something in the water…
On the edge of the Northern Atlantic lies a remote island. The islanders are an outwardly harmonious community—but all have their own secrets, some much darker than others. And when a strange disorder begins to infect them all, those secrets come to light.
Ferry service fails and contact with the mainland is lost. Rumors begin to swirl as a temporary inconvenience grows into nightmarish ordeal. The fabric of the once tight-knit island is unnervingly torn apart—and whatever the cause, the question soon stops being how or why it happened, but who, if anyone, will survive.
The most intense novel yet from an unmissable voice in horror fiction, Bram Stoker award-nominated author Craig DiLouie. “Horror readers will be hooked.” (Publishers Weekly)
“A heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life . . . A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay’s Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu’s The Hunger (2018).” – Booklist
They escaped the cult, but are they free?
“A heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life . . . A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay’s Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu’s The Hunger (2018).” – Booklist
They escaped the cult, but are they free?
David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an isolated religious community in the shadow of the mountain Red Peak, and they are among the few who survived its horrific last days.
Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. And when a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their memories of that final night.
But discovering the terrifying truth might put them on a path back to Red Peak, and escaping a second time could be almost impossible….
“A subtle character story and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events.” – Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author.
For more from Craig DiLouie, check out:
Our War
One of Us
For more from Craig DiLouie, check out:
Our War
One of Us
My life is simple, as long as I follow the rules.
1. Don’t leave the apartment. 2. Never let anyone in. 3. Don’t kill anyone.
I’ve obeyed these rules for three years. But rules were made to be broken.
Praise for The Girl in 6E:
“This is a taut, edgy, thrill ride, powerfully gripping and impossible to turn away from.” —David Bell, author of Never Come Back and Cemetery Girl
“Dark, edgy, and thrilling in a completely unexpected way.” —Lisa Renee Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Inside Out series
“Torre has written a beautifully warped thriller that will be staying with this reviewer for a long time to come.” —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
Jason Arnopp – author of acclaimed cult hit The Last Days of Jack Sparks – returns with a razor-sharp thriller for a social-media obsessed world. Prepare to never look at your phone the same way again . . .
Kate Collins has been ghosted.
She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty apartment. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared.
Except for his mobile phone.
Kate knows she shouldn’t hack into Scott’s phone. She shouldn’t look at his Tinder, his calls, his social media. But she can’t quite help herself.
That’s when the trouble starts. Strange, whispering phone calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize. Scratch marks on the walls that she can’t explain. And the growing feeling that she’s being watched.
Kate refuses to leave the apartment – she’s not going anywhere until she’s discovered what happened to Scott. But the deeper she dives into Scott’s digital history the more Kate realizes just how little she really knows about the man she loves.
For more from Jason Arnopp, check out:
The Last Days of Jack Sparks
“Marino offers horrors both existential and visceral. From a stunning opening, the sense of dread just builds and builds.” —M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts
"Odd and dark and fascinating . . . Not quite like anything I've ever read before. A strange, compelling, late-night page-turner. It kept me reading way past my bedtime." —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places
Possession is an addiction.
Sydney's spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her young son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all.
But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel.
She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors' yard and calling the police.
The cops tell her a different story. Because the intruder is now lying dead in her guest room—murdered in a way that looks intimately personal.
Sydney can't remember killing the man. No one believes her.
Back home, as horrific memories surface, an unnatural darkness begins whispering in her ear. Urging her back to old addictions and a past she's buried to build a better life for herself and her son.
As Sydney searches for truth among the wreckage of a past that won't stay buried for long, the unquiet darkness begins to grow. To change into something unimaginable.
To reveal terrible cravings of its own.
“Admirers of the works of Tana French, Megan Abbott, and Zoje Stage will devour this book.” —Booklist
It’s the house of their dreams. Former marine Harry and his wife, Sasha, have packed up their life and their golden retriever, Dash, and fled the corporate rat race to live off the land in rural Idaho. Their breathtaking new home sits on more than forty acres of meadow, aspen trees, and pine forest in the Teton Valley. Even if their friends and family think it’s a strange choice for an up-and-coming pair of urban professionals, Harry and Sasha couldn’t be happier about the future they’re building, all by their lonesome.
That is, until their nearest neighbors, Dan and Lucy Steiner, come bearing more than housewarming gifts. Dan and Lucy warn Harry and Sasha of a malevolent spirit that lives in the valley, one that with every season will haunt them in fresh, ever-more-diabolical ways. At first, it seems like an old wives’ tale. But when spring arrives, so does the first evil manifestation, challenging everything Harry and Sasha thought they knew about the world.
As each season passes, the spirit grows stronger, the land more sinister, and each encounter more dangerous. Will Harry and Sasha learn the true meaning of a forever home before it’s too late? Haunting and bone-chilling, Old Country is a spellbinding debut in the horror genre.
From the macabre mind of a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, this heart-pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense takes a ghost hunting reality TV crew into a world they could never have imagined.
Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts.
Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter’s holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It’s also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen—and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong.
“An epistolary descent into a living nightmare . . . well-written and genuinely unsettling. Fans of paranormal documentaries, ghost-hunting shows, and found-footage horror will lose their minds over this one.” —Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award winning author of Kin
“A beautiful Russian doll of a story… Episode Thirteen hooks you, creeps you out, and then it overwhelms you. It’s House of Leaves meets Haunting of Hill House, in all the best possible ways.”—Peter Clines, NYT bestselling author of The Broken Room
For more from Craig DiLouie, check out:
The Children of Red Peak
Our War
One of Us
“If you like Grady Hendrix’s novels, Clive Barker, or just a dash of Lovecraftian horror, you’re going to love this one.” – San Francisco Book Review
Peter Larkin — Lark to his friends — is a local hero in the small town of Wofford Falls. The one who went to the big city, found fame in the art world, then returned home to settle down. He’s the kind of guy who becomes fast friends with almost anyone. His sister, Betsy, is talented as well. And eccentric. Unlike Lark, she keeps to herself.
When Lark meets with a fabulously rich client, it seems like a regular transaction. Even being met at the gate of the sprawling, secluded estate by an intimidating security guard seems normal. Until the guard plays him a live feed: Betsy being abducted in real time.
Lark is informed that she’s safe for now, but her well-being is entirely in his hands. He’s given a book. Do what the book says, and Betsy will go free.
“Marino draws readers in quickly, creating sympathy for the characters, unveiling the necessary details to immerse them in a world of art, siblings, deadly intrigue, and a centuries-long nefarious quest. Dread is present from the start, but it quickly escalates into a disorienting cosmic terror that touches everyone.” — Booklist
“Marino offers horrors both existential and visceral.” — M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts, on The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess
“Dark and fascinating . . . Not quite like anything I’ve ever read before. A strange, compelling, late-night page-turner. It kept me reading way past my bedtime.” —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places, on The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess
Also by Andy Marino:
The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess
A man awakes on a boat at sea with no memory of who or where he is. He's not alone – there are six others, each with a unique set of skills. None of them can remember their names. All of them possess a gun.
When a message appears on the onboard computer – Proceeding to Point A – the group agrees to work together to survive whatever is coming.
But as the boat moves through the mist-shrouded waters, divisions begin to form. Who is directing them and to what purpose? Why can't they remember anything?
And what are the screams they can hear beyond the mist?
Internationally bestselling fantasy author Anthony Ryan – writing as A. J. Ryan – delivers a nerve-shredding thriller in which seven strangers must undertake a terrifying journey into the unknown.
“A madly entertaining amalgam of locked-room mystery, heart-racing thriller, and terror-inducing horror show that will keep you up late into the night and darken your dreams long after you turn the last page.”―Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley
More Spooky Season Prep from Our Friends at Novel Suspects
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