en-US Wed, 09 Apr 2025 23:59:10 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 217432723 304 Zoë Schlanger 0063073862 Carmen 0 to-read 2.00 2024
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]]> 218059153 The astonishing story of how animals use medicine and what it can teach us about healing ourselves

Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature’s pharmacy to heal themselves. Doctors by Nature reveals what researchers are now learning about the medical wonders of the animal world. In this visionary book, Jaap de Roode argues that we have underestimated the healing potential of nature for too long and shows how the study of self-medicating animals could impact the practice of human medicine.

Drawing on illuminating interviews with leading scientists from around the globe as well as his own pioneering research on monarch butterflies, de Roode demonstrates how animals of all kinds—from ants to apes, from bees to bears, and from cats to caterpillars—use various forms of medicine to treat their own ailments and those of their relatives. We meet apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin into their hives to combat pathogens. De Roode asks whether these astonishing behaviors are learned or innate and explains why, now more than ever, we need to apply the lessons from medicating animals—it can pave the way for healthier livestock, more sustainable habitats for wild pollinators, and a host of other benefits.

Doctors by Nature takes readers into a realm often thought to be the exclusive domain of humans, exploring how scientists are turning to the medical knowledge of the animal kingdom to improve agriculture, create better lives for our pets, and develop new pharmaceutical drugs.]]> 264 Jaap de Roode 069123924X Carmen 0 to-read 4.76
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]]> 219597952
New Zealand is a unique and fascinating country as a case study for managing invasive species. Because of its history we know a lot about species introductions, and because of its geographical position, as a relatively small remote island, the potential for dealing with invasive species may be more effective than elsewhere. Moreover, the fragility of its ecosystems makes it relatively easy to see the impact of one species upon another. Nature and people shape the country’s from its geological and biological beginnings to the relatively recent arrival of people and the changes wrought, to the wide-ranging efforts of individuals and communities to protect and enhance treasured species and environments. Among them, an ambitious Predator Free 2050 initiative to rid the country of some of its unwanted species.

The issue is a complex and interesting one. There are ethical considerations �� which species are protected, and which destroyed? How are they destroyed? What are the unforeseen consequences? There are also tensions between preservation and the use of natural resources, and ultimately our relationship to the environment, how we live.

A Land Before Humans, a Land After Humans explores these issues. An invaluable resource for environment, ecology, animal welfare and ethics students, researchers and policy makers, the book takes New Zealand as a case study and looks at the practical and ethical considerations of dealing with invasive species.]]> 296 Mark Fisher 1917159056 Carmen 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 216752481
Gray Barker (1925��1984) was an eccentric literary outsider, filled with ideas that were out of step with the world. An author and unreliable narrator of implausible stories, Barker founded and operated Saucerian Books, an independent publisher of books about flying saucers and other ideas at the fringes of popular discourse. In The Saucerian, Gabriel Mckee tells the fascinating story of Barker’s West Virginia–based press, the unique corpus of materials it published, and how office-copying and self-publishing techniques influenced the spread of paranormal beliefs and conspiratorial worldviews over the last century. Following the development of UFO subculture, Mckee explores the life and career of a larger-than-life hoaxer and originator of pseudoscientific ideas. Ever an entertainer, Barker established his reputation with one of the first flying saucer fanzines, The Saucerian, and with his first book, the conspiratorial and sensationalistic They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers. By the close of the 1950s, he had established a publishing imprint that brought out some of the strangest UFO-related books of the era, with a particular emphasis on flying saucer contactees. Saucerian Books became a platform for those whose stories were too unusual, implausible, or crudely written for more mainstream publishers. Though Barker himself was a skeptic, he viewed the world of occult believers as a source of ongoing entertainment. He also may have used the perceived eccentricity of flying saucer research, or “ufology,�� to obscure his homosexuality from his small-town neighbors. From his place on the fringes of midcentury American culture, Barker left an unmatched legacy in conspiratorial concepts that have become prominent pop-cultural folklore, including the Men in Black, the Mothman, and the Philadelphia Experiment. As a mastermind behind the fantastical, Barker’s promotional efforts were the precursor to contemporary conspiracism.]]> 360 Gabriel Mckee 0262049546 Carmen 0 to-read 5.00
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]]> 215363450 From “our most popular guide to the new epoch�� (Guardian), a new edition of the book about ecology without information dumping, guilt inducing, or preaching to the choir.


Don’t care about ecology? You think you don’t, but you might all the same. Ecology books can be confusing information dumps that are out of date by the time they hit you. Slapping you upside the head to make you feel bad. Grabbing you by the lapels while yelling disturbing facts. Handwringing in agony about “What are we going to do?�� This book has none of that. Being Ecological, reissued with a new preface, doesn’t preach to the eco-choir. It’s for you—even, Timothy Morton explains, if you’re not in the choir, even if you have no idea what choirs are. You might already be ecological.

After establishing the approach of the book (no facts allowed!), Morton draws on Kant and Heidegger to help us understand living in an age of mass extinction caused by climate change. He considers the object of ecological awareness and ecological the biosphere and its interconnections. He discusses what sorts of actions count as Starting a revolution? Going to the garden center to smell the plants? And finally, in “Not a Grand Tour of Ecological Thought,�� he explores a variety of current styles of being ecological—a range of overlapping orientations rather than preformatted self-labeling.

Caught up in the us-versus-them (or you-versus-everything else) urgency of ecological crisis, Morton suggests, it’s easy to forget that you are a symbiotic being entangled with other symbiotic beings. Isn’t that being ecological?]]> 220 Timothy Morton 0262551756 Carmen 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 217182458
For millennia, depictions of snakes as alternatively beautiful and menacing creatures have appeared in religious texts, mythology, poetry, and beyond. From the foundational deities of ancient Egypt to the reactions of squeamish schoolchildren today, it is a historically commonplace belief that snakes are devious, dangerous, and even evil. But where there is hatred and fear, there is also fascination and reverence. How is it that creatures so despised and sinister, so foreign of movement and ostensibly devoid of sociality and emotion, have fired the imaginations of poets, prophets, and painters across time and cultures?

In SLITHER, science writer Stephen S. Hall presents a naturalistic, cultural, ecological, and scientific meditation on these loathed yet magnetic creatures. In each chapter, he explores a biological aspect of The Snake, such as their cold blooded metabolism and venomous nature, alongside their mythology, artistic depictions, and cultural veneration. In doing so, he explores not only what neurologically triggers our wary fascination with these limbless creatures, but also how the current generation of snake scientists is using cutting-edge technologies to discover new truths about these evolutionarily ancient creatures—truths that may ultimately affect and enhance human health.]]> 416 Stephen S. Hall 1538741334 Carmen 0 to-read 4.67
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]]> 216751021 This breathtaking, page-turning graphic novel is a supernatural survival story in which a grieving teen finds himself in a haunting alternate reality—the frightening embodiment of his depression.

Theo’s best friend has died, and he can’t pull himself out of his sadness—a sadness that those around him don’t seem to respect or even notice. And then something even more disconcerting His town literally flips upside down and everyone disappears, except for a threatening, shape-shifting monster and a snarky teenage girl who knows her way around this flipped world. Is Theo doomed to spend the rest of his life in this scary state?

Tremendously unique and suspenseful, The Flip Side tackles grief and depression in a fascinating and affecting way.]]> 304 Jason Walz 0593618017 Carmen 0 to-read 3.00 2025
author: Jason Walz
name: Carmen
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]]> 215359001 176 Lomig 1681123525 Carmen 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 230821537 How far would you go to get a redo in life?

Everyone knows making a deal with a demon is a bad idea. Everyone but Mark Dillinger, whose life is crumbling to pieces at He’s trapped in a dead-end job and about to pull the plug on his relationship. Worst of all, his mom is dying of a long illness, while his father is remarrying Jess—the twenty-three-year-old little sister of Mark's childhood buddy.

Desperate, he decides to go to his high school reunion, if only to do something different for once. And different he finds. His old guidance counselor, Helga Chapman, offers him the weirdest he can restart his life at any point, keeping all his knowledge—a chance to make better decisions.

Of course, Mark laughs her off and leaves, convinced she’s pranking him. But later that night, he gets a call from his mom’s hospital with disturbing she's taken a turn for the worse. When Mark meets Helga Chapman again, he must choose between his terrible present and the promise of rebuilding his past.

The catch? To save his life, he must take another’s.]]> 174 Ilia Epifanov Carmen 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 222925690 A young man is haunted by a mythological specter bent on stealing everything he loves in this unsettling horror from the author of Indian Burial Ground and Sisters of the Lost Nation.

For fear of summoning evil spirits, Native superstition says you should never, ever whistle at night.

Henry Hotard was on the verge of fame, gaining a following and traction with his eerie ghost-hunting videos. Then his dreams came to a screeching halt. Now, he's learning to navigate a new life in a wheelchair, back on the reservation where he grew up, relying on his grandparents�� care while he recovers.

And he’s being haunted.

His girlfriend, Jade, insists he just needs time to adjust to his new reality as a quadriplegic, that it’s his traumatized mind playing tricks on him, but Henry knows better. As the specter haunting him creeps closer each night, Henry battles to find a way to endure, to rid himself of the horror stalking him. Worried that this dread might plague him forever, he realizes the only way to exile his phantom is by confronting his troubled past and going back to the events that led to his injury.

It all started when he whistled at night....]]> 368 Nick Medina 0593820401 Carmen 0 to-read 5.00 2025
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]]> 222419303 A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.]]> 336 Rachel Harrison 0593642570 Carmen 0 to-read 4.33 2025
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name: Carmen
average rating: 4.33
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]]> 222925674 A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them

Seoul, present day. Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the third and final Anatomical Venus. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students, these eerie wax figures, known as slashed beauties, carry unsavory lore. Legend has it that the figures are bewitched, and come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Now Alys embarks for England, where she knows what she must sever her cursed connection to the Venuses once and for all.

London, 1763. Abandoned and penniless in Covent Garden, wide-eyed Eleanor and another young woman, Emily, are taken under the wing of beautiful and beguiling Elizabeth, one of the city’s most highly desired courtesans among the rich and powerful. But as Eleanor is seduced deeper into a web of money, materialism, and men, it seems that Elizabeth may not be the savior she appears to be.

As the timelines begin to intersect, it becomes clear that the women’s stories are linked in deeper, darker ways than it initially seems. And that the only method for Alys to end the witchcraft that binds her legacy is to gather all three models in one place and destroy them.

However, these haunted, murderous dolls might not be ready to burn.]]> 384 A. Rushby 0593954645 Carmen 0 to-read 4.00
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]]> 230588775
As Margot digs deeper into the manor's history, she finds herself tangled in the chilling legacy of George and Cecilia Hawthorn, a once-beloved couple whose presence still lingers in ways no one dares to explain. Nightmares bleed into reality. Puzzles stretch throughout the sleepy city. And the deeper she searches, the more she realizes the truth—no one is safe here.

Someone is watching—always. As the house's walls close in, Margot must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to answer one "What is the cost of keeping the dead quiet?"

Perfect for fans of psychological thrillers with a haunting twist, The House That Held Her is a gripping tale of obsession, guilt, and the weight of secrets buried just beneath the surface.]]> 340 Ellis Hart Carmen 0 to-read 5.00
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]]> 216973140 A gripping new psychological thriller by author Neal Cassidy, SCHROEDER, weaves together elements of the literary thriller/horror genre, stream-of-consciousness narration, and critical social commentary.

When an ordinary young man wakes up in his quiet neighborhood on a day seemingly like all the others, the city he’s lived in all his life has no idea what’s about to befall it once he sets out on a day-long bike ride carrying a purposefully packed backpack and a definitive plan.

Who is Schroeder, and what motivates his brutal killing spree? As he cycles from one victim’s home to the next, keeping pace with the rhythm of a city that burgeons to life under an increasingly dazzling sun exposing both its beauty and vivacity and its dark, dirty, underbelly, Schroeder lays bare his dreams, disappointments, delights, and dismays, establishing himself as a compelling contemporary antihero. The day rolls ominously towards its climax through hectic city streets, lush suburban gardens, stately mansions, and decrepit housing projects, punctuated by Schroeder’s reflections on a society in shambles and a deeply damaged, if not broken, humanity—but not without revealing life’s boundless wonder and infinite possibilities for joy and redemption through moments that are within—and yet tragically beyond—Schroeder’s grasp. A tell-all denouement brings Schroeder out of the shadows of his actions, the pathos of his questions about the kind of world we live in lingering long after.]]> 202 Neal Cassidy Carmen 0 to-read 3.89
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]]> 222928934 A true crime author helps in a desperate hunt for a killer in this dark and twisted thriller from the deviously inventive horror author that Peter Farris calls the “clear heir to Stephen King.��

Perfect for fans of cat and mouse serial killer thrillers like The Butcher and the Wren and The Jigsaw Man.

Ellie Isles first became obsessed with the I-64 murders when she saw her own face on one of the victims. Identical to every detail, the woman wasn’t her, but she could have been. Compelled to discover the story of her dopplegänger’s death, Ellie wrote a bestselling true crime book about the serial killer, dubbed “the Spider.”��

Four years later, the Spider still hasn't been caught, and his victim count is climbing. Many of the bodies remain unidentified, but with Ellie’s online network of true crime followers, that’s slowly changing. Together they’ve pooled information to create a massive database that tracks people at risk of becoming Jane and John Does–the homeless, the drug addicted, and the downtrodden–with the hopes that if they become victims, they might at least be identified.��

Now that Ellie has successfully identified multiple victims, the law enforcement task force tracking down the Spider pulls her in to help–and after Ellie’s therapist is arrested for the murders, she is more determined than ever to help catch the Spider.��

With striking prose and a horror flair, Spider to the Fly is an engrossing serial killer thriller, perfect for fans of The Whisper Man.]]> 320 J.H. Markert Carmen 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: J.H. Markert
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.10
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]]> 221490948 It's a Midsommar night's Scream in this blood-soaked thriller set at a remote healing retreat from horror author Brian McAuley.

Hannah has been running from her demons ever since she emerged from a harrowing wilderness trip without her fiancé. No one knows exactly what happened the day Ben died, and Hannah would like to keep it that way... even if his ghost still haunts her with vivid waking nightmares that are ruining her life. So when her friend group gets an exclusive invitation to a restorative spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree, Hannah reluctantly agrees in search of a fresh start.

Despite her skepticism of the strange Guru Pax and his belief in the supernatural world, Hannah soon finds healing through all the yoga, sound baths, and hot springs offered at the tech-free haven. But this peaceful journey of self-discovery quickly descends into a violent fight for self-preservation when a mysterious killer starts picking off retreat attendees in increasingly gruesome ways. As the body count rises and Hannah’s sanity frays, she’ll have to confront her dark past and uncover the true nature of a ruthless monster hellbent on killing her vibe for good.]]> 304 Brian McAuley 1464238200 Carmen 0 to-read 4.73
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]]> 212900404 Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin is back with Black Flame, a historical horror about one woman's deadly obsession with a haunted film, perfect for fans of Midsommar and Night Film.

Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in New York City.

When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes over its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.

She’s soon convinced that the acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality. And they’re happening to her…]]> 208 Gretchen Felker-Martin 1250348013 Carmen 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Gretchen Felker-Martin
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.20
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]]> 221251788 In this electric horror novel from the author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster. She’s right.

Thea’s third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn’t consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn’t convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine.��

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she’s always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, “I eat.��

Thea doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface--flashes from Thea’s childhood that won’t release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her.

Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.]]> 192 Rachel Eve Moulton 0593854608 Carmen 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Rachel Eve Moulton
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.10
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]]> 211004045 The next high concept horror novel from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden.

Across Italy, there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild—selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years. It’s a no-brainer for American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi. Both work remotely, and Becchina is the home of Tommy’s grandparents, his closest living relatives.

It feels like a romantic adventure, an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they both feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought.

There are rooms in an annex at the back of the house that they didn’t know were there. The place makes strange noises at night, locked doors are suddenly open, and when they go to a family gathering, they’re certain people are whispering about them, and about their house, which one neighbor refers to as The House of Last Resort. Soon, they learn that the home was owned for generations by the Church, but the real secret, and the true dread, is unlocked when they finally learn what the priests were doing in this house for all those long years…and how many people died in the strange chapel inside.

While down in the catacombs beneath Becchina…something stirs.]]> 320 Christopher Golden 1250879418 Carmen 0 to-read 3.27 2024
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name: Carmen
average rating: 3.27
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]]> 214150787
Together, they escape the prison and return to Saint Domingue, where the smell of rebellion is thick in the air. Edmond, once an enslaved man himself, thought he had escaped the colonized land and his past life for good, only to return as the wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo. In pursuit of his enemies �� including Mercedes, once his fiancée �� he finds his careful rage growing only more reckless and ravenous. Haydee, a young revolutionist, tries to use his fury for good, while Faria, drunk off the misery Edmond has caused, hungers for the fresh taste of innocent blood. As Edmond’s enemies begin to catch on to the count’s true identity, and the fight for liberation from the French colonists swells to a pop, Edmond must reckon with the deal he’s made with Faria. Is it any more sinister �� or any different �� than the pact he’s made with his own inner demons?]]> 208 David Dabel 1524892432 Carmen 0 to-read 4.28
author: David Dabel
name: Carmen
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]]> 220160939 A would-be influencer's dreams of online fame spiral into nightmare territory when she encounters a mysterious and dangerous social media platform.

When a video depicting the brutal murder of a former classmate leaks online, Kylie Bennington’s curiosity gets the better of her, leading to the discovery of an off-the-grid social media app called MonoLife. As it turns out, she must adhere to certain cryptic and frightening rules in MonoLife's user agreement—for this is a platform that primarily rewards the worst in human behavior. Now Kylie’s going to find out just how far she’s willing to go on her unyielding rise to the top—even if that means coming face-to-face with the ruthless forces behind the app.]]> 416 Matt Serafini 1668060973 Carmen 0 to-read 3.50 2025
author: Matt Serafini
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.50
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]]> 220161389 A real-life Latin American haunted mansion. A murky labyrinth of family secrets. A young, aristocratic woman desperate to escape her past. This haunting debut gothic horror novel is perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic and The Shining.

In 1923 Soacha, Colombia, La Casona—an opulent mansion perched above the legendary Salto del Tequendama waterfall—was once home to Antonia and her family, who settle in despite their constant nightmares and the house’s malevolent spirit. But tragedy strikes when Antonia’s mother takes a fatal fall into El Salto and her father, consumed by grief, attempts to burn the house down with Antonia still inside.

Three years later, haunted by disturbing dreams and cryptic journal entries from her late mother, Antonia is drawn back to her childhood home when it is converted into a luxurious hotel. As Antonia confronts her fragmented memories and the dark history of the estate, she wrestles with unsettling questions she can no longer Was her mother’s death by her own hands, or was it by someone else’s?

In a riveting quest for answers, Antonia must navigate the shadows of La Casona, unearthing its darkest secrets and confronting a legacy that threatens to swallow her whole.]]> 256 Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro 1668062577 Carmen 0 to-read 3.77 2025
author: Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.77
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]]> 220239087 A lively, hilarious, and entirely truthful look at the druggie side of history’s most famous figures, including Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, and the Beatles, from debut author (and viral historical TikToker with nearly 100K followers) Sam Kelly

Did you know that Alexander the Great was a sloppy drunk, William Shakespeare was a stoner, and George Washington drank a spoonful of opium every night to staunch the pain from his fake teeth? Or how about the fact that China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, ingested liquid mercury in an (ironic) attempt to live forever, or that Alexander Shulgin, inventor of no less than 230 new psychedelic drugs, was an employee of the DEA? 

In Human History on Drugs, historian Sam Kelly introduces us to the history we weren’t taught in school, offering up irreverent and hysterical commentary as he sheds light on some truly shocking aspects of the historical characters we only thought we knew. With chapters spanning from Ancient Greece (“The Oracle of Delphi Was Huffing Fumes��) and the Victorian Era (“Vincent van Gogh Ate Yellow Paint��) to Hollywood’s Golden Age (“Judy Garland Was Drugged by Grown-Ups��) and modern times (“Carl Sagan Got Astronomically High��), Kelly's research spans all manner of eras, places, and, of course, drugs.��

History is rife with drug use and drug users, and Human History on Drugs takes us through those highs (pun intended) and lows on a wittily entertaining ride that uncovers their seriously unexpected impact on our past.]]> 400 Sam Kelly 0593476042 Carmen 0 to-read 4.50
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]]> 220999092 “No one does suburban paranoia like Shari Lapena.”—Ruth Ware

The new gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

When a beloved wife and mother disappears, a luxurious condo building transforms into a potential crime scene, and the investigation begins: can the detectives find her before it's too late?

Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.

Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden–working from home that day–has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.

Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.]]> 352 Shari Lapena 0593832442 Carmen 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Shari Lapena
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
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]]> 205478743 A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world.


When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. And soon Carl and Patricia began to realize that the healing was mutual.


Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom—and her raising of her own wild brood—drew Carl and Patricia across the boundary into Alfie’s world, allowing them a view of existence from Alfie’s perspective. Interwoven with Safina’s reflections on humankind’s relationship with the living world across cultures and throughout history, Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harbored within one upended year.]]> 384 Carl Safina 1324086483 Carmen 0 to-read 4.00 2023
author: Carl Safina
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230269445 Of Flesh And Tears is a genre-bending psychological novel about a woman whose fragile mental health is thrown into turmoil by the aggression of man and beast.��

Following a painful divorce and a stint in a psychiatric hospital, Claire leaves Paris to take over the family farm. With neither support nor experience, she realizes that her fresh start won't be as easy as she'd anticipated.

She searches for meager comfort in Lucien, a vegan activist, who entrusts her with chickens seized from an animal testing research center for her to hide. He even persuades her to participate in his militant group's radical and dangerous activities. Claire's already fragile equilibrium is thrown into turmoil by the aggression of man and of beast. She soon discovers these chickens might be dangerous, threatening any animal and human who gets too close...]]> L.M. Rapp Carmen 0 to-read 5.00
author: L.M. Rapp
name: Carmen
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220481352 She has the recipe for the perfect murder...

Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name, an inspiration, an icon. Her dozens of cookbooks and weekly television show, broadcast from her beautiful Italian-style kitchen, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. And of course there's her history. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after Damien's mysterious disappearance twenty years before. An event she's never spoken about publicly until now, when it is announced that she is looking for a publisher for her memoirs.

Why is Maria willing to finally break her silence? Why does she turn down seven-figure offers from large publishing houses and sign up with a small press? And why does she do so on the condition that it is edited by Thea Woods? Thea is a lifelong fan but has never met Maria and can't figure it out, plus she had been planning to hand in her notice that very day. But when she is invited to Maria's remote farm to work on the manuscript, she can't resist. After all, she may finally learn whether the rumours are that Maria killed Damien for his recipes and the legendary 'secret ingredient'...

A deliciously rich thriller, perfect for readers of Bella Mackie's How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale's The Best Way to Bury Your Husband]]> 352 Danielle Valentine 1728276918 Carmen 0 to-read 4.11 2025
author: Danielle Valentine
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217387959 Dark Matter meets Girl, Interrupted in this gripping psychological thriller about a young woman teetering on the edge of reality.

Virginia 1954. When a young woman wakes on a patient transport bus arriving at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital, she remembers nothing of her life before that moment, none of the dark things she must’ve seen and done that forged her into the skillful and cunning fighter she is. Doctors tell her she’s Dorothy Frasier, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed by the state for her violent delusions. She’s certain they’re wrong �� until disturbing visions of a dystopian future in which frantic scientists urge her to complete “the mission�� and save mankind begin to invade her reality.

Believing it’s Hanover causing the hallucinations, she tells no one and focuses only on escaping �� until there’s a visitor. A man whose loving face �� and touch �� she remembers, a man who knows all about her visions, because he’s spent years helping her cope with them: her husband, Paul Frasier.

Now she’s sure of nothing, caught between two realities. Believe in the future, and she might save the world. Believe in her husband and doctors�� plans for her treatment, and she might save herself. She needs answers, but to get them, she’ll have to face the darkness inside her and use it as she risks her freedom, mind, and ultimately her life in a heart-stopping quest for the truth.]]> 384 Melissa Pace 1250358671 Carmen 0 to-read 4.10
author: Melissa Pace
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 988783
Take a journey into a place unknown to humanity. A space between spaces. When the Mara Corday, an aged freighter, enters the Graveyard of the Atlantic, nightmares become real. The crew finds themselves trapped in a realm where time doesn't exist and unimaginable horrors dwell. Lost in a becalmed sea, in a netherworld where evil manifests itself in hideous forms, the survivors of the Mara Corday have an eternity to find a way out - if they aren't killed first by the creatures stalking them.

(Description from back cover of trade paperback)]]> 328 Tim Curran 0977987655 Carmen 0 to-read 3.86 2007
author: Tim Curran
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61917439 538 J.K. Rowling 1781102430 Carmen 0 currently-reading 4.84 2007
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.84
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 13453029
The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months.

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

Alternate cover for B0071XO8RA]]> 509 Hugh Howey Carmen 0 dnf 4.22 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> 58021522
Collects INVINCIBLE #97-144.]]> 1080 Robert Kirkman Carmen 5 4.69 2018
author: Robert Kirkman
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.69
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 83763
It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.

Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are the prey.]]> 507 Michael Crichton 0061015725 Carmen 4 3.78 2002
author: Michael Crichton
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 195660526
In the Deep South, something evil waits in the darkness . . .

Devour tells the story of the Turner family, who move to Alabama to care for their ailing matriarch, Vassie, when she begins suffering from dementia. But Vassie isn’t just any old lady; she’s the last of a line of powerful root women who have been caring for the community since her ancestors were first captured and enslaved by white plantation owners. Patsy, the eldest daughter in the family, is immediately suspicious; the locals�� fear and superstition of her grandmother leads Patsy to take a closer look at the Turner family home, and what she finds is beyond her wildest nightmares.

In a magical room beneath the house, Patsy discovers the source of her family’s legendary the Ghanaian spider god Anansi. Driven mad by the suffering of the enslaved Africans who worshipped him, Anansi was eventually captured and contained by Patsy’s ancestors. As Patsy learns about her family’s culture and dark past, she also realizes what’s really happening to Vassie; Anansi is eating Vassie’s memories. With their legacy and the god’s imprisonment in the balance, Patsy and her brother, Demetrius, will have to take up their grandmother’s mantle—while she can still remember who they are.

Devour is a terrifying new fable that delivers thrills and chills in equal measure.]]> 208 Jazmine Joyner 1419763067 Carmen 4 3.52
author: Jazmine Joyner
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.52
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
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]]> 61030527 From the macabre mind of Bram Stoker Award nominated author Craig DiLouie, Episode Thirteen is a heart pounding novel of horror and psychological suspense that takes a ghost hunting reality TV crew into a world they could never have imagined possible. 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


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]]> 433 Craig DiLouie 0316443107 Carmen 3 3.46 2023
author: Craig DiLouie
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
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]]> 22878967 It has been twenty years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs—once thought of almost as gods—were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets. A representation of these laws is now written into the flesh of any who use the Gift, forcing those so marked into absolute obedience.

As a student of the Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war fought—and lost—before he was born. Despised by most beyond the school walls, he and those around him are all but prisoners as they attempt to learn control of the Gift. Worse, as Davian struggles with his lessons, he knows that there is further to fall if he cannot pass his final tests.

But when Davian discovers he has the ability to wield the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything. To the north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir. And to the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is…]]> 602 James Islington 099258020X Carmen 0 to-read 4.13 2014
author: James Islington
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26114463
Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?]]> 427 Jay Kristoff 1250073022 Carmen 0 to-read 4.19 2016
author: Jay Kristoff
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Carmen 5 4.67 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
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]]> 68488 alternate cover for ISBN 9780006486015

Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Red Ship War with the terrifying Outislanders. Since then, Fitz has wandered the world accompanied only by his wolf and Wit-partner, Nighteyes, finally settling in a tiny cottage as remote from Buckkeep and the Farseers as possible.

But lately the world has come crashing in again. The Witted are being persecuted because of their magical bonds with animals; and young Prince Dutiful has gone missing just before his crucial diplomatic wedding to an Outislander princess. Fitz’s assignment to fetch Dutiful back in time for the ceremony seems very much like a fool’s errand, but the dangers ahead could signal the end of the Farseer reign.

Cover illustration by John Howe

]]> 661 Robin Hobb Carmen 0 to-read 4.35 2001
author: Robin Hobb
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223665373 The forest is hungry, and her family's secrets are tangled in the trees��

Lia Gregg always hoped to outgrow her fear of the woods surrounding her childhood home. The dark, menacing trees have long been the site of whispered legends and disappearances of girls like her. But after a breakup sends her back to live with her family, the woods feel more sinister than ever.

When a teenage girl disappears from their backyard, Lia's childhood fear becomes terrifyingly real. The missing girls are no longer just faces on the news. Now, the danger is closer than she imagined, and her younger sister could be next.

As Lia digs into the disappearances, she begins to suspect her mother knows more about the forest—and the horrors within—than she's letting on. To save her sister and uncover the truth, Lia must confront the secrets lurking in the trees and the darkness they conceal…before it's too late.




"Hauntingly powerful." —Darcy Coates, USA Today bestselling author, for No Child of Mine

"Haunting and eerie…will chill your spine. I highly recommend it." —Amy Lukavics, author of Daughters Unto Devils, for No Child of Mine]]> 384 Nichelle Giraldes 1464247250 Carmen 0 to-read 5.00
author: Nichelle Giraldes
name: Carmen
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 219542927 Seven authors enter the manor

Can they survive the story within?

When legendary horror author Mortimer Queen passes, a group of writers find themselves invited to his last will and testament reading expecting a piece of his massive fortune. Each have their own unique connection to the literary icon, some known, some soon to be discovered, and they've been waiting for their chance to step into the author's shoes for some time.

Instead, they arrive at his grand manor and are invited to play a game. The rules are simple, solve the riddle and progress to the next room. If they don't, the manor will take one of them for itself.

You see, the Queen estate was built on the bones of Mortimer's family, and like any true horror story, the house is still very, very hungry.

With the clever, locked-room thrills of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone with the ghostly horror of The Fall of the House of Usher, How to Survive a Horror Story is a bright, biting, thrill-ride that begs us to contemplate how the best horror stories come to be.]]> 368 Mallory Arnold 1464227403 Carmen 0 to-read 3.75 2025
author: Mallory Arnold
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216970864
This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child.

Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed.

Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something.

Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds—and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place.

As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew—and risk what she holds most dear.]]> 384 C.J. Cooke 0593550226 Carmen 0 to-read 4.36 2022
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221473207 From Dead Eleven author Jimmy Juliano, a twisty, edge-of-your-seat novel about a unique haunting in the early 2000s

Piper Lowery, a public library clerk in charge of liaising with the local middle school, can tell right away there’s something strange about the new girl in eighth grade. Avery Wallace won’t touch any kind of technology, not even the computers at the library, and her mother comes to school with her every day, refusing to leave her side—not even when Avery uses the restroom.

And then there are the rumors, the whispers Piper hears from kids in the hallway and parents around Avery’s mother is a witch. Her sister and father were killed by something supernatural. A strange virus killed them.

Seeing how isolated and lonely Avery is, Piper befriends her but quickly realizes it might just be the worst decision she’s ever made. Because there’s something dark inside Avery Wallace, and it’s spreading . . .]]> 384 Jimmy Juliano 0593475895 Carmen 0 to-read 4.38
author: Jimmy Juliano
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214151502 Horror meets coming-of-age in this thrilling novel in which forgotten Cold War mysteries make a terrifying reappearance, from a writer Stephen King has called “a master.��

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent do not fly today.

There are a few concerning elements to the calls. None of the mothers remember making them—and some of the mothers are dead.

While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a sixteen-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home—a place she loathes. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn.

She’s about to get much more than that.

Her new home is ground zero for a story that begins at a remote naval base in Indiana during the winter of 1962, when a physicist named Martin Hazelton discovered something extraordinary—and deadly. All Hazelton wanted was time to seek an explanation, but pressure from both American and Russian actors forced him into a perilous race.

Moving between the two characters and timelines, Scott Carson deftly weaves Cold War espionage with contemporary terror in a story that explains why #1 New York Times bestseller Joe Hill has declared himself “a fan for life.”]]> 400 Scott Carson 1982191481 Carmen 0 to-read 4.57 2025
author: Scott Carson
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211004203 The Girl in the Creek by Hugo Award winner Wendy N. Wagner is an atmospheric and eerie story about a Pacific Northwest forest that seems to be devouring all who enter. A perfect read for fans of T. Kingfisher and Jeff VanderMeer’s cli-fi cosmic horror.

The Clackamas National Forest has always been a sanctuary for evil—human and alien. The shadows of looming trees and long-abandoned mines shelter poachers and serial killers alike. Then there’s the ruined hotel on the outskirts of picturesque small town Faraday, Oregon, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood. The one drowning in mushrooms and fungus not even the local expert can identify. Not to mention the stacks of missing persons cases. Freelance writer Erin Harper arrives in Faraday to find out what happened to her brother, whose disappearance in the forest has haunted her for years. But someone else has gone missing. And when Erin finds her in the creek, the girl vanishes again �� this time from the morgue, and days later her fingerprints show up at a murder scene. Maybe it’s a serial killer, or maybe it’s the spores infecting the forest and those lost inside. Erin must find answers quickly, before anyone else goes missing. But she might be next��

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 272 Wendy N. Wagner 1250908647 Carmen 0 to-read 3.58 2025
author: Wendy N. Wagner
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 221179063
Nola Strate is being watched, again.

After an encounter with a notorious serial killer in the Pacific Northwest as a child, Nola has grown up and tried her best to forget her traumatizing night with The Hiding Man. She installed security cameras outside her Oregon home, never spoke of her experience, and now hosts Night Watch, a popular radio call-in show her semi‑famous father used to run. When coincidences lead Nola to believe that she is being stalked, and a caller on Night Watch has a live incident with an intruder in the caller's home, the description of whom is chillingly familiar, Nola is convinced that The Hiding Man has resurfaced and is coming for her.

With a mysterious next‑door neighbor lurking in the shadows, more people getting hurt, the police not taking her concerns seriously, and evidence pointing towards her own father, Nola decides to become, like her listeners, a Night Watcher herself, and uncover the monster behind The Hiding Man's mask.]]> 336 Daphne Woolsoncroft 1538770903 Carmen 0 to-read 4.15
author: Daphne Woolsoncroft
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.15
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 216684507 Pitlaw is itching for change. Enter the Freakslaw �� a travelling funfair populated by deviant queers, a contortionist witch, the most powerful fortune teller, and other architects of mayhem. It doesn’t take long for the Freakslaw folk to infiltrate Pitlaw’s grey world, where the town’s teenagers �� none more so than Ruth and Derek �� are seduced by neon charms and the possibility of escape. But beneath it all, these newcomers are harbouring a darker revenge. And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that’s been simmering for centuries is about to be unleashed…]]> 368 Jane Flett 1638932662 Carmen 0 to-read 3.64 2024
author: Jane Flett
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Carmen 0 to-read 3.67 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Carmen 0 to-read 4.20 2012
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220239038 From the bestselling author of The Quiet Tenant comes a propulsive new thriller: Fifteen years ago, Frida and her brother escaped a cult. Now her brother is the prime suspect in a murder investigation—and it isn’t the first time.
Innocence doesn't bail you out; it just makes you easier to trap.

Frida and Gabriel arrive seeking a fresh start at the stunning Ara Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, they’ve grown apart in recent years after a sudden, unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the luxe resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise—until the dead body of a beautiful young woman who was vacationing at the Ara with her powerful, much older husband is discovered.

When the local police arrive and suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel, Frida is forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, their dramatic escape, and the scandal that followed. Frida’s belief in Gabriel’s innocence never wavered at the time, but now even she can’t ignore the evidence mounting against him.

Alternating between past and present timelines, Our Last Resort builds toward a shattering climax that uncovers the fate of the murdered Ara guest and poses the question: how well do we ever really know those we love? Taut, gripping, and intense, Clémence Michallon’s latest suspense novel is a nail-biter until the last page, cementing her status as a major new talent in the genre.]]> 320 Clémence Michallon 0593802764 Carmen 0 to-read 3.68 2025
author: Clémence Michallon
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 222254096 Trapped in a house where the walls whisper, and secrets fester beneath the garden soil, Willow Hawthorne teeters on the edge of reality and delusion.

In this haunting psychological horror, Willow’s life has become a fever dream, her days lost in a twisted loop where time no longer flows as it should. Is she held captive by her husband Liam’s iron rules—or by the insidious darkness of her own mind?

Her only connection to the world beyond her walls is a young girl named Sarah, whose unexpected visits to Willow’s garden spark a glimmer of hope. But as cracks form in her carefully controlled existence, horrifying truths seep through, twisting the familiar into something sinister. The floral wallpaper peels back to reveal haunting messages carved into the walls, and the house itself pulses with malevolent life.

When Sarah suddenly vanishes, Willow is forced to confront the dark shadows of her past and the horrors lurking within her fractured psyche. The question remains: is Willow truly a prisoner of her home, or of her own mind?

Some doors, once opened, can never be closed. And some truths are better left buried in the garden.]]> Marie Still 1990253997 Carmen 0 to-read 4.92 2025
author: Marie Still
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> 220223963 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.]]> 400 Holly Jackson 059397705X Carmen 0 to-read 4.43 2025
author: Holly Jackson
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> 217476770 Every woman who has lived on this farm has died. Emily just moved in.

When Emily Hauk's mother dies, it's time for her and her husband, Josh, to finally leave San Francisco. A farm in rural Nebraska is everything they want for a fresh start: clear skies, low costs, and distance from the grief back home.��

They should have asked why the farm was for sale.��

Three years ago a teenage girl went missing from the farm. Soon afterward, the girl's mother mysteriously died. The deeper Emily digs the more stories she uncovers of women connected to her new home who've met their own dark ends.

With each passing day Emily's sanctuary slips further away. The barn seems to move throughout her property as though chasing her. Her mother's favorite music drifts across the cornfield. She swears she saw blood in one of the farmhand's trucks. And the screams that wake her are not fox howls, no matter how many times her husband says they are. If she wants to claim this place as her own she'll have to find out the truth before whatever watches from the cornfield takes her, too.]]> 432 Chelsea Conradt 1464229163 Carmen 0 to-read 3.58
author: Chelsea Conradt
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.58
book published:
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 204169194 The Family Remains, on Two Dead Wives

An exhilarating psychological crime thriller that will have you racing to the finish!

HIS FIRST WIFE DIED. NOW THERE'S A VACANCY��

When Emma meets Matthew, a kind, handsome widower, he seems to be just what she needs.

Yet as their relationship moves fast, Emma’s friends worry she might be exploited. She’s a rich woman after all.

Emma doesn’t care Matthew has no money. But as the memory of his perfect first wife hangs over them, Emma does have one tiny doubt.

If Matthew’s wife hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be with her. And Emma wonders if she’s second best. Can she ever fill the dead woman’s shoes?

As jealousy and suspicion blossom between Emma and Matthew, events take a darker, dangerous turn.

Suddenly Emma doesn’t know who she can trust. Her friends? Her husband? Or even herself��?]]> 368 Adele Parks 0778368130 Carmen 0 to-read 3.92 2024
author: Adele Parks
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 205962540
Lydia Walker is a forensic photographer, trudging through life in the shadow of her traumatic past, when she is assigned a case centered around the gruesome murder of a camping couple. Her personal life begins to improve after a chance encounter that makes her feel like she's finally connected with someone, a fellow tortured soul named Adam.

As more victims are unearthed she discovers she has a personal connection to the case, her commitment to the case grows deeper, but her motives remain opaque to her colleagues. Will she sacrifice her reputation and her morality to explore her darker urges? Or will she uphold the justice system that failed her, and never held space for her.]]> 246 Stephanie Rose Carmen 0 to-read 3.83
author: Stephanie Rose
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 215362444 336 Katy Hays 0593875559 Carmen 0 to-read 3.67 2025
author: Katy Hays
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 228290684
This book reveals a non-dietary, underground healing approach to transform your life and heal your GERD. Whether you’ve tried countless remedies and still battle painful acid reflux symptoms, or you’re starting your GERD journey, hope is here. By uncovering the hidden roots of your disease, you’re ready to unlock your healing potential and reclaim your life!

However you define your struggle, your unbridled well-being is within reach. Emerging whole from the shadows of suffering is possible—and this book is your essential guide!

Breaking free from the cycle of symptoms, medications and dietary restrictions requires three things:

1). Stop seeing GERD as your enemy; It’s a messenger for growth and self-awareness.
2). Identify the connections between your symptoms and personal story.
3). Uncover personal meaning to integrate emotional, psychological and physical healing.

You can do this!

I speak from experience, having suffered from GERD for five years before using the meaning-based story approach in this book to heal permanently. I’ve since lived abundantly and enjoyed my favorite foods without fear.

This self-help guide will empower you with:

1). Little known insights that challenge mainstream perspectives, offering a deeper understanding of your symptoms and enhancing self-awareness.
2). A unique, non-dietary remedy rooted in ageless wisdom and refined by a Ph.D. scientist in immunology to promote emotional, psychological and physical transformation.
3). The hidden truths that facilitate personal growth, enabling you to break free from the cycle of symptoms, diets and medications, and truly take control of your healing journey.

Healing your GERD will bring lasting benefits:
1). Enjoy once more all the foods you love to eat without fear.
2). Sleep soundly through the night, able to perform at your best the next day.
3). Dine out with confidence, and rediscover other passions that enhance your quality of life.

Start living your best life! Pick up your copy to Live, Eat and Heal abundantly.

Experience the Kindle AdvantageGreat Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book.]]> 259 Howard Christian Carmen 0 to-read 4.25
author: Howard Christian
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.25
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rating: 0
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]]> 210191773 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 560 R.F. Kuang 0063021471 Carmen 0 to-read 4.24 2025
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 215989058
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 240 Sierra Greer 0063312700 Carmen 0 to-read 3.89 2024
author: Sierra Greer
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 15793201 531 Adam L.G. Nevill 1250018188 Carmen 3 3.71 2012
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 23043731
Kyle Barnes has been plagued by demonic possession all his life and now he needs answers. Unfortunately, what he uncovers along the way could bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it.

Collects OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #1-6.]]> 152 Robert Kirkman 1632150530 Carmen 0 to-read 3.84 2015
author: Robert Kirkman
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 52694527 Set in a brand-new, Norse-inspired world, and packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance, The Shadow of the Gods begins an epic new fantasy saga from bestselling author John Gwynne.

After the gods warred and drove themselves to extinction, the cataclysm of their fall shattered the land of Vigrið.

Now a new world is rising, where power-hungry jarls feud and monsters stalk the woods and mountains. A world where the bones of the dead gods still hold great power for those brave - or desperate - enough to seek them out.

Now, as whispers of war echo across the mountains and fjords, fate follows in the footsteps of three people: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman who has rejected privilege in pursuit of battle fame, and a thrall who seeks vengeance among the famed mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn.

All three will shape the fate of the world as it once more falls under the shadow of the gods . . .]]> 480 John Gwynne 0356514188 Carmen 5 4.19 2021
author: John Gwynne
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> 218008712 A gripping new psychological thriller by author Neal Cassidy, SCHROEDER, weaves together elements of the literary thriller/horror genre, stream-of-consciousness narration, and critical social commentary.

When an ordinary young man wakes up in his quiet neighborhood on a day seemingly like all the others, the city he’s lived in all his life has no idea what’s about to befall it once he sets out on a day-long bike ride carrying a purposefully packed backpack and a definitive plan.

Who is Schroeder, and what motivates his brutal killing spree? As he cycles from one victim’s home to the next, keeping pace with the rhythm of a city that burgeons to life under an increasingly dazzling sun exposing both its beauty and vivacity and its dark, dirty, underbelly, Schroeder lays bare his dreams, disappointments, delights, and dismays, establishing himself as a compelling contemporary antihero. The day rolls ominously towards its climax through hectic city streets, lush suburban gardens, stately mansions, and decrepit housing projects, punctuated by Schroeder’s reflections on a society in shambles and a deeply damaged, if not broken, humanity—but not without revealing life’s boundless wonder and infinite possibilities for joy and redemption through moments that are within—and yet tragically beyond—Schroeder’s grasp. A tell-all denouement brings Schroeder out of the shadows of his actions, the pathos of his questions about the kind of world we live in lingering long after.]]> 256 Neal Cassidy Carmen 0 to-read 3.62
author: Neal Cassidy
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.62
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> 221502398 When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust�� from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong.

Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them�� and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood grows stronger.]]> 384 Isabel Cañas 0593641078 Carmen 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Carmen
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> 222377146 Horror Movie meets the scope and emotion of Stephen King in this heart-pounding, magnetic tour de force about a woman pulled into a cult horror film that is determined to have a sequel, by critically acclaimed author Michael Wehunt.

Ten years ago, Jorie Stroud was the rising star of the October Film Haunt �� a trio of horror enthusiasts who camped out at the filming locations of their favorite scary movies, sharing their love through their popular blog. But after a night in the graveyard from Proof of Demons �� perhaps the most chilling cult film ever made, directed by the enigmatic Hélène Enriquez �� everything unraveled.

Now, Jorie has built an isolated life with her young son in Vermont. In the devastating wake of her viral, truth-stretching Proof of Demons blog entry �� hysteria, internet backlash, and the death of a young woman �� Jorie has put it all, along with her intense love for the horror genre, behind her.

Until a videotape arrives in the mail. Jorie fears someone might be filming her. And the “Rickies�� �� Enriquez obsessives who would do anything for the reclusive director �� begin to cross lines in shocking ways. It seems Hélène Enriquez is making a new kind of sequel…and Jorie is her final girl.

As the dangers grow even more unexpected and strange, Jorie must search for answers before the Proof of the movie’s title finds her and takes everything she loves.

This riveting and layered horror novel unleashes supernatural terror in a world where truth can be manipulated, and nothing is as it seems. Beautiful and horrifying, with an unforgettable cast of characters, The October Film Haunt will shock and delight readers all the way to its breathless final page.

"So unique and steeped in 21st century paranoia and dread you won't be able to read this alone at night." - Paul Tremblay

"The horror in here is palpable, but the writing itself is just as How can one pen have this many good lines in it?" - Stephen Graham Jones]]> 336 Michael Wehunt 1250333695 Carmen 0 to-read 3.49 2025
author: Michael Wehunt
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 216180339
There’s a reason CJ Smith’s hometown of Satterville is known as Slasherville: it was the site of not one, but two Friday the 13th-style massacres. CJ’s dad survived the first attack; only CJ survived the second. And thanks to the mysterious writer Moon Satter’s bestselling novels based on the events, the town—and CJ—will always be defined by this horrific past.

Then a new, unpublished Moon Satter manuscript shows up addressed to CJ. But unlike the others, this story isn’t about the past. Instead, it predicts new murders. On the day the book says the first murder will occur, CJ sets out to stop it. But in saving one classmate, the final girl ends up dead. CJ and their friends have suddenly gone from extras to leads—and they’ll have to use everything they know about the rules of horror to make it out alive.]]> 304 Justine Pucella Winans 1547616318 Carmen 0 to-read 3.87 2025
author: Justine Pucella Winans
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 220458657 Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches��: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.]]> 368 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593874323 Carmen 0 to-read 4.37 2025
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 215562750 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 202 Virginia Feito 1631498649 Carmen 0 to-read 3.64 2025
author: Virginia Feito
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 218460356 A dedicated journalist unearths a generations-old family secret—and a connection to a string of missing girls that hits way too close to home—in this gripping debut novel.

In the wake of her grandmother's passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister, or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six local North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. With her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt and the sinister silence surrounding her.

Unfortunately, this is familiar territory for Sydney. Several years prior, working the crime beat as a journalist on the case of another missing girl, her obsession eventually led to a psychotic break. And now, in the suffocating grip of fertility treatments and a marriage that's beginning to crumble, Sydney’s relentless pursuit might just lead her down the same path of destruction. As she delves deeper into Carol's fate, her own troubled past resurfaces, clawing its way to the surface with a vengeance. The web of secrets and lies entangling her family leaves Sydney questioning everything—her fixation on the missing girls, her future as a mom, and everyone she’s come to trust.

Delving into family, community, secrets, and motherhood, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a gripping and deeply emotional story about overcoming the rotten roots of your family tree—and what we’ll do for those we love.]]> 336 Kristen L. Berry 0593974433 Carmen 0 to-read 4.50
author: Kristen L. Berry
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.50
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]]> 213263148 London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.

One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.

And all of them grow teeth.]]> 544 Victoria E. Schwab 1250320526 Carmen 0 to-read 4.55 2025
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> 214152327 The acclaimed author of the “stirring, definitive, and engrossing�� (NPR) The Woman’s Hour returns with an eye-opening and inspiring account of four activists��Septima Clark, Myles Horton, Esau Jenkins, and Bernice Johnson—and their work to ensure the voting rights of Black Americans.

In the summer of 1954, Esau Jenkins and Septima Clark travelled to Tennessee’s Highlander Center, a rural interracial training school for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white educator with roots in the labor movement. There, the three united behind a shared preparing Black southerners to pass the suppressive literacy tests required to vote in the era of Jim Crow.

Together with beautician-turned-teacher Bernice Johnson, they launched the effort known as the Citizenship Schools project. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, this audacious, grassroots undertaking had grown into a subversive network of nine hundred schools, not only preparing thousands of Black citizens to vote, but creating a generation of activists trained in community organizing, political citizenship, and essential tactics of resistance and struggle.

In the vein of Hidden Figures and Devil in the Grove, Spell Freedom is both a crucial and inspiring lens into our past, and a deeply moving and necessary narrative for our present.]]> 384 Elaine Weiss 1668002698 Carmen 0 to-read 4.52
author: Elaine Weiss
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.52
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date added: 2025/01/31
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]]> 63905551
But in the back room of that ordinary mobile home, there’s an ancient television that’s anything but ordinary. It doesn’t broadcast sitcoms, sports games, news shows, or movies.

No.

It broadcasts only the very worst atrocities in human history.

Follow Farthing down, deeper and deeper as he struggles to reveal the appalling secrets of...

THE TELEVISION

*Trigger All of them. This is a book of extreme horror, not for the faint of heart or stomach*

“Lee has managed to string together the most gruesome atrocities of our history into a cohesive story. And he describes them in cold graphic detail. I had to go intellectual to stay sane. It's the most ... I don't know ... horrifying thing. It's true evil. Factual evil.�� -- Lisa Tone, Editor in Chief, Madness Heart Press

"Okay, so, I just read a paragraph, consisting of but three sentences. I had to put down the Kindle and go into the bathroom, rinse my damn face off. Then I looked at myself in the mirror, and questioned everything about myself, I laughed maniacally for a couple of seconds. I think it's a coping mechanism. But that didn't work so now I'm gonna go for a ride with Birdie and get some fresh air. For real. Three sentences. FML. I Love The Edward Lee." -- Brad Tierny, Extreme Horror book reviewer

]]> 0 Edward Lee Carmen 0 to-read 3.79
author: Edward Lee
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.79
book published:
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date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> 196224526 125 David Pratt Carmen 0 to-read 4.00
author: David Pratt
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.00
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date added: 2025/01/28
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]]> 211143113
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 0063374609 Carmen 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Lucy Rose
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/28
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]]> 213725649
Ethan Dove’s family has moved to a new home in a safe community, and it’s exactly the fresh start they need. Not only is his marriage to Emma hanging by a thread, but his son, Dylan, and twelve-year-old daughter, Rose, deserve to have a happy childhood.

After Rose is bullied by the boys across the road, Ethan is relieved when the woman who lives next door steps in. Fiona Smith has come into their lives at just the right moment, and when she offers to look after Rose during the school holidays, Ethan and Emma can’t believe their luck.

Which is exactly what Fiona wants. Because, far from being the perfect neighbour, Fiona is the last person you should trust with your child. With a vicious plot for revenge, Fiona is happy to train Rose to be her accomplice, especially when she begins to suspect that Rose might not be as innocent as she appears��

The Psychopath Next Door is a gripping and twisted psychological suspense thriller set in the terrifying world of Mark Edwards’s bestselling The Magpies universe.]]> 340 Mark Edwards 1662508964 Carmen 0 to-read 4.00
author: Mark Edwards
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.00
book published:
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 200277129 272 William Friend 1728295130 Carmen 0 to-read 3.29
author: William Friend
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.29
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]]> 219627286 Step into Briar Vale, where ambition masks corruption, and the promise of a fresh start conceals dark and dangerous secrets.

In the seemingly perfect neighborhood of Briar Vale, the Miller family's new home was meant to be their dream come true—a symbol of success and a gateway to a brighter future. But behind the gleaming façades and manicured lawns, something far more sinister waits. What begins as small, eerie occurrences soon spirals into a nightmare of unsettling events, threatening to unravel both the family's sanity and their safety.

Emma Miller senses something is deeply wrong in Briar Vale. The neighbors are acting strangely, shadows lurk where they shouldn't, and her husband John's obsession with their new home grows more unsettling by the day. As tensions rise and the strange phenomena intensify, the Millers find themselves entangled in a web of secrets tied to greed and a community's silent complicity.

Beneath the surface of this picture-perfect community, a restless force is awakening—determined to reclaim what was unjustly taken.

In "The Briar's Veil," Jason M. Bramble delivers a gripping psychological and supernatural thriller that reimagines the haunted house genre with a modern, relevant twist. Exploring themes of capitalism, environmental trespass, and the high cost of ambition, this novel will keep you questioning the true price of paradise.

Enter Briar Vale—if you dare.]]> 272 Jason Bramble Carmen 0 to-read 2.00
author: Jason Bramble
name: Carmen
average rating: 2.00
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 220961958 It was supposed to be the perfect honeymoon, they couldn't have been more wrong.

After newlyweds Lucy and Damien travel to Tuscany for what was supposed to be the perfect honeymoon, they soon discover that their not-so-idyllic surroundings harbour a disturbing, and potentially deadly, secret.

Is there something else with them, something evil, bent on tearing them apart forever? Will the love they share be strong enough to withstand the unseen forces working against them? Or will their lives together be cut short, long before they had truly begun?]]> 87 J.W. Holmes Carmen 0 to-read 3.64
author: J.W. Holmes
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 215583535 Experience the magic of Oz as you’ve never seen it before with this brand-new graphic novel adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s masterpiece �¾�������,��the inspiration for the Broadway show and major motion picture��the first in a two-part series featuring gorgeous full-color illustrations by Scott Hampton.

Like Dorothy when she crash-landed all those years ago, prepare to be swept into a new and colorful world in this first-ever graphic novel adaptation of Wicked. While the long-running Broadway musical and major motion picture take inspiration from this iconic novel, this is Oz as Gregory Maguire wrote it—a fantastical story with dark edges that explores morality and ambition, love and friendship, and discovering one’s inner power.

Elphaba was born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens.

But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.��


]]> 176 Scott Hampton 0063391074 Carmen 0 to-read 3.79
author: Scott Hampton
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 211003956
A gorgeously composed narrative nonfiction book about the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth.

Immaculately framed by ancient stone, the leaves look as if they were pressed between the gray pages of a great geological diary. If we were to see the plant alive, we would simply pass it by, but the fossil is a whisper from a time more than 55 million years ago, when alligators dwelled within the Arctic Circle and gigantic dragonflies buzzed through the air. This little plant is an entry-point into this lost world. Past, present, and future, this ancient specimen has roots in all of them.

We often retell the history of life on Earth as a series of great moments in which fascinating animal life springs forth, all the while forgetting the plants that made these moments possible. But we can’t understand our own history without them. Or, our future. Dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and all mammals would be nothing without the efforts of their leafy counterparts. Even humans would likely not exist had plants not taken root to sow the land for our amphibious ancestors.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.]]> 292 Riley Black 1250288991 Carmen 0 to-read 4.11 2025
author: Riley Black
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> 211004943
The humans are fighting again. Go figure.

As a free A.I., Mal finds the war between the modded and augmented Federals and the puritanical Humanists about as interesting as a battle between rival anthills. He’s not above scouting the battlefield for salvage, though, and when the Humanists abruptly cut off access to infospace he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary, and responsible for the safety of the modded girl she died protecting.

A dark comedy wrapped in a techno thriller’s skin, Mal Goes to War provides a satirical take on war, artificial intelligence, and what it really means to be human.]]> 320 Edward Ashton 1250885760 Carmen 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Edward Ashton
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> 219874871 Nine children travel with their families to their Grandfather's vacation property, where strange things begin to happen: eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms ooze blood, people's faces don't hang right anymore-except they do, once you look more closely. Transformations warp the children's sense of time and place, the very land itself seeming to encroach upon them.
As The Liar watches the children succumb one by one to an unknown fate, she must make sense of absent stars in the night sky, vials of amber liquid that taste of milk, a funny little rope tied in knots. She's faced with a choice: join or resist, only the choice is not so simple.
Set in The Grandfather's Lake House as he continues to extend his property lines and told in the eerie we of the children, Root Rot explores predatory family dynamics, the boundaries of bodies and home, and how individuals choose to participate in or push back against structures that would harm them.]]> 142 Saskia Nislow 1951971256 Carmen 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Saskia Nislow
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> 204593969
For the intrepidly curious comes an essential guide to the cultural origins behind some of your favorite urban legends, superstitions, and ghost stories. Dare to step into the wildwood and traverse the world's folklore from the comfort of your own home!

Sarah J H Powell, author and spooky thrillseeker behind the podcast The Whispering Woods, curates a collection of twenty-one creepy creatures, ghastly ghosts, and paranormal phenomena, including:

The Wild Hunt: A group of ghostly or supernatural beings in search of souls to chase and steal away, variations are found throughout European folklore. It is said witnessing a Wild Hunt is an omen of disaster.
El Silbón: A legendary figure in the countries of Colombia and Venezuela and known for his eerie whistle. Why is it that whistling at night is such a taboo?
The Baubas: An example in a long line of creepy bogeymen intended to scare children into correcting their bad behavior.
Werewolves: These creatures appear everywhere, from ancient Mesopotomia to Viking-era Scandinavia.
Each chapter provides possible explanations for why these creatures, stories, and superstitions came to be. Just looking for frights? This book has got you covered, with stories of possibly true encounters with the creature or phenomenon in question. For the truth seeker, the horror-story connoisseur, or anyone in between, Tales from the Whispering Woods is sure to have something for everyone.]]> 192 Sarah Powell 1577154398 Carmen 0 to-read 5.00
author: Sarah Powell
name: Carmen
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 212342605 Hungerstone is a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood and Emilia Hart’s Weyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage, the relationship has soured and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them out of London and to the imposing Nethershaw manor in the countryside, where Henry aims to host a hunt with society’s finest. Lenore keeps a terrible secret from the last time her husband hunted, and though they never speak of it, it haunts their marriage to this day.

The preparations for the event take a turn when a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night; Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a bloody hunger.

Torn between regaining her husband's affection and Carmilla's ever-growing presence, Lenore begins to unravel her past and in doing so, uncovers a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution, Hungerstone is a compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the book that inspired Dracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932166 Carmen 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Kat Dunn
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> 217432720 The acclaimed USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author returns with a twisty thriller that probes how well we actually know the men in our lives.

Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she's sick of romcoms.

Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch.��The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.

Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.

But Rowan isn’t the only one keeping secrets. As she digs for the truth, she discovers the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past.

Struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him.

Will she be the next to die?]]> 368 Sarina Bowen 0063280647 Carmen 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Sarina Bowen
name: Carmen
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 220458613 A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.]]> 368 Simone St. James 059320039X Carmen 0 to-read 3.61 2024
author: Simone St. James
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 210013841
Bree knew that life married to a beat cop would be tough, especially in the crime-infested city of East Bernheim, but she believes they will be fine living in 'Burner' even after she has their first child. Family life is manageable until one day, crime follows them home, threatening their safety.

At a loss for how to keep his family safe and keep his job, Jake agrees to stretch their finances and move an hour away to a bigger house in a somewhat better neighborhood. Their lives seem to improve until Bree, heavily pregnant with their second child, begins to hear voices and suffer strange nightmares. Then, when tragedy strikes on the job, Jake enters a spiral of guilt and grief that degrades his grip on reality.

Bree, isolated and struggling, must protect her children from the one person she thought would always keep them safe. She and Jake are haunted in every way, and not just by whatever is lurking inside the house. A thriller that tackles trauma and toxicity in police culture, Every Fall will have you on the edge of your seat.

"Angela Douglas writes with verve and insight in this story about family and obsession and the things that haunt us. Thought provoking and atmospheric, Every Fall pulls back the curtain of the thin blue line while simultaneously exploring the isolation of early motherhood. Tana French meets Riley Sager in all the best ways. A winner.��
�� Alex Finlay, Bestselling Author of If Something Happens to Me

“A fast-paced psychological thriller that explores trauma, toxic police culture, and the different ways people can be haunted. A fresh, unique page-turner.��
�� Robyn Harding, Bestselling Author of The Haters]]> 384 Angela Douglas 1998076814 Carmen 0 to-read 3.87 2025
author: Angela Douglas
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 56269832 AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

��I absolutely loved Invisible Girl�� Lisa Jewell has a way of combining furiously twisty, utterly gripping plots with wonderfully rich characterization—she has such compassion for her characters, and we feel we know them utterly�� A triumph!�� —Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.

Young Saffyre Maddox spent three years under the care of renowned child psychologist Roan Fours. When Dr. Fours decides their sessions should end, Saffyre feels abandoned. She begins looking for ways to connect with him, from waiting outside his office to walking through his neighborhood late at night. She soon learns more than she ever wanted to about Roan and his deceptively perfect family life. On a chilly Valentine’s night, Saffyre will disappear, taking any secrets she has learned with her.

Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.

Owen lives across the street from the Fours family. The Fours have a bad feeling about their neighbor; Owen is a bit creepy and suspect and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night. Could Owen be responsible? What happened to the beautiful missing Saffyre, and does her disappearance truly connect them all?

Evocative, vivid, and unputdownable, Lisa Jewell’s latest thriller is another “haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read�� (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).]]> 384 Lisa Jewell 1982137347 Carmen 0 to-read 3.81 2020
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 220160134 In this heartrending spin on the zombie mythos, a brilliant scientist desperately searches for a cure after a devastating epidemic while also hiding a monumental secret—her undead husband.

Having always preferred the company of microbes, British scientist Kesta Shelley has spent her life peering through a microscope rather than cultivating personal relationships. That changed when Kesta met Tim—her cheerleader, her best friend, her absolute everything. So when he was one of the last people in London to be infected with a perplexing virus that left the city ravaged, Kesta went into triage mode.

Although the government rounded up and disposed of all the infected, Kesta is able to keep her husband (un)alive—and hidden—with resources from the hospital where she works. She spends her days reviewing biopsy slides and her evenings caring for him, but he’s clearly declining. The sedatives aren’t working like they used to, and his violent outbursts are becoming more frequent. As Kesta races against the clock, her colleagues start noticing changes in her behavior and appearance. Her care for Tim has spiraled into absolute obsession. Whispers circulate that a top-secret lab is working on a cure, and Kesta clings to the possibility of being recruited, but can she save her husband before he is discovered?]]> 352 Leigh Radford 1668081210 Carmen 0 to-read 3.77 2025
author: Leigh Radford
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 211003781
Emma has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect. But her presence in the house threatens to uncover secrets that have stayed hidden for years, and the sisters are drawn together once again. As they face their memories of the past, rivalries restart, connections are forged, and, for the first time, Emma starts to ask questions about what really happened that night.

The more Emma learns, the more riddles emerge. And Emma begins to wonder just what her siblings will do to keep the past buried, and whether she did the right thing staying quiet about what was whispered that night: “No one can know.”]]> 336 Kate Alice Marshall 1250859921 Carmen 0 to-read 3.65 2024
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 211004028 From the author of White Horse (“Twisty and electric.�� ��The New York Times Book Review) comes a terrifying and resonant novel about a woman who uses her unique gift to learn the truth about her sister’s death.

Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can’t stop seeing and hearing from spirits.

A few years later, she’s the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She’s good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That’s when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can’t explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. As Olivia tries to understand these disturbing deaths, the past and the present collide as Olivia’s investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister’s secret life.

The Haunting of Room 904 is a paranormal thriller that is as edgy as it is heartfelt and simmers with intensity and longing. Erika T. Wurth lives up to her reputation as “a gritty new punkish outsider voice in American horror.”]]> 320 Erika T. Wurth 1250908590 Carmen 0 to-read 3.34 2025
author: Erika T. Wurth
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 217387966 A page-turning, compelling thriller about a woman who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth behind her sister’s disappearance.

Shaw Connolly is no stranger to trauma. As a fingerprints analyst, she’s one of the first on-site for crimes, including murder scenes and a mysterious string of arsons popping up throughout the rural Maine community her department serves. But the tragedy of her little sister’s disappearance sixteen years ago has always weighed on her the most; Thea is never far from her thoughts or dreams, and Shaw knows that her obsession with finding the truth about Thea is driving her husband away and impacting her two boys. Still, she can't let it go and has even started taking disturbing calls from a man named Anders Jansen who all but claims to have committed the crime.

Anders taunts Shaw with hints and innuendo about what supposedly happened all those years ago. His calls go to the next level as he reveals just how much he knows about Shaw’s personal life, like her stalled career and ruined marriage. As his stalking escalates to threats on her and her family's lives, he begins to show just how dangerous he might be. Shaw is too desperate for answers to hang up now, just when she's getting close to finding proof. The only question left is what she must lose to learn the truth.

A taut, atmospheric thriller from Edgar Award-finalist young adult author Gillian French, Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell introduces a compelling new voice in adult suspense fiction.]]> 352 Gillian French 1250358515 Carmen 0 to-read 3.70 2025
author: Gillian French
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 217387677 For fans of the compelling critical and investigative style of best-selling authors Graham Hancock and Brian Muraresku, the first detailed account of the history and science of the world’s strangest and most mysterious drug - DMT.

DMT is the world’s strangest and most mysterious drug, inducing one of the most remarkable and yet least understood of all states of consciousness. This common plant molecule has, from ancient times to the modern day, been used as a tool to gain access to a bizarre alien reality of inordinate complexity and unimaginable strangeness, populated by a panoply of highly advanced, intelligent, and communicative beings entirely not of this world.

In a story that begins in the Amazonian rainforests and ends somewhere beyond the stars, Andrew Gallimore presents the first detailed account of the discovery of DMT and science’s continuing struggle to explain how such a simple and common plant molecule can have such astonishing effects on the human mind. The history of the drug involves many fascinating characters from the scientific and literary worlds �� including legendary ethnobotanist Dr. Richard Schultes; renegade beat writer and drug aficionado William S. Burroughs; philosopher and raconteur Terence McKenna; and the high priest of the 1960s psychedelic revolution, Dr. Timothy Leary. In the end, the story of DMT forces us to reconsider our most basic assumptions about the nature of reality and our place within it.]]> 320 Andrew R. Gallimore 1250357756 Carmen 0 to-read 1.00
author: Andrew R. Gallimore
name: Carmen
average rating: 1.00
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]]> 169082566
It is a hands-on job to chase down this ingenious killer, and Mavis is not afraid to get them dirty. Dirty with the blood of her prostitute philandering husband, and the blood of a problem client that could send her secretary to prison for a war crime. Both detective’s and killer’s paths, have already crossed during their troubled youths, but as the murders pile up, they move towards a final conflict.

Mavis’s hard Australian outback childhood, led to her sexual and gender choices, as well as some questionable racist opinions. Not to mention the drug habit she picked up as a student, while backpacking in South America. This, making her, not your average South London Private Eye.]]> 334 Barry Smythe Carmen 0 to-read 3.00
author: Barry Smythe
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.00
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 212534784
Five old friends . . . One reunion to die for

After years apart, old college friends Aline, Sienna, Rob, Michael, and Brandon reunite in idyllic Dorset, for a weekend at Aline’s beautiful house perched on a cliff above the sea. It should be the perfect chance to relax, rekindle friendships, and meet each other’s partners; plus, there’s a sitter to watch the kids.

What most of the guests don’t know, however, is that Aline has called them all together for a reason: someone has threatened to expose the dark crime they committed at university. Long ago, these old friends swore one another to silence, and have never spoken of the deed since. But now, menacing postcards have begun to appear—and Aline is convinced it’s one of them turning on the rest.

In Liza North’s propulsive and unsettling dual timeline narrative, truths emerge, secrets surface, and long-simmering grudges explode—and by the end of this reunion weekend, at least one of them will be dead . . .]]> 336 Liza North 0063422646 Carmen 0 to-read 3.34 2024
author: Liza North
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> 30724390
Set in a health food dystopia, "Exerice Bike" is an absurd horror tale of domination and submission, power and obedience, desire and desperation, from Wonderland Book Award winner Carlton Mellick III.]]> 126 Carlton Mellick III 1621052222 Carmen 0 to-read 3.83
author: Carlton Mellick III
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.83
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]]> 60018639
Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas' ancestral home in Russia--but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine's blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family's traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide--erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the past and craft a new future.

An enchanted adventure illuminated by Jewish myth and adorned with lyrical prose as tantalizing and sweet as briar berries, Thistlefoot is an immersive modern fantasy saga by a bold new talent.]]> 448 GennaRose Nethercott 059346883X Carmen 0 to-read 3.93 2022
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 23209924
When rumours of a game-changing water source surface, Las Vegas dispatches elite water knife Angel Velasquez to Phoenix to investigate. There, he discovers hardened journalist Lucy Monroe, who holds the secret to the water source Angel seeks. But Angel isn't the only one hunting for water, Lucy is no pushover, and the death of a despised water knife is a small price to pay in return for the life-giving flow of a river.]]> 371 Paolo Bacigalupi 0385352875 Carmen 0 to-read 3.81 2015
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 141236527 A stranger has infiltrated your family…and now he’s taking over.

Paul’s just here to help, or so he claims—sent by a charity for vulnerable people to do odd jobs for elderly widow Gwen. But for Gwen’s daughter Connie, there’s just something about Paul that rings alarm bells from day one. He’s a little too kind, a little too involved…Worse still, Gwen seems to have fallen under his spell.

The last thing Connie wants is a stranger meddling in the safe routine she’s built around Gwen. She loves being the one Gwen turns to for cooking, cleaning and company. But the more Paul visits, the more Gwen is relying on him. By the time he conveniently finds himself between homes and has no choice but to move in, Connie is certain he’s trying to push her out completely.

It’s her word against his, though, and as her attempts to unmask him become ever more desperate she’s not the only one left wondering if she’s lost her grip on reality. But when events start spiralling rapidly out of her control, should Connie wage all-out war on Paul and risk losing Gwen forever—or has that been his plan all along?]]> 347 John Marrs 1662506473 Carmen 0 to-read 3.94 2024
author: John Marrs
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> 52219451
Meanwhile, Joanna has been waiting patiently for Leo, the charismatic man she fell in love with all those years ago, to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though she’s thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self, paying attention again to Evie and Stelli, the children they both love beyond measure, Joanna is shocked to discover that it’s not her loving support that’s sparked his renewed happiness—it’s something else.

Piper. Leo has fallen head over heels for the flaky, New Age-y newcomer, and unrepentant and resolute, he’s more than willing to leave Joanna behind, along with everything they’ve built. Of course, he assures her, she can still see the children.

Joanna is devastated—and determined to find something, anything, to use against this woman who has stolen her life and her true love. As she digs deeper into Piper’s past, Joanna begins to unearth disturbing secrets . . . but when she confides to her therapist that she fears for the lives of her ex-husband and children, her concerns are dismissed as paranoia. Can she find the proof she needs in time to save them?]]> 320 Liv Constantine 0062967282 Carmen 0 to-read 3.71 2020
author: Liv Constantine
name: Carmen
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
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]]>