Here are 93 books that The Perfect Guests fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve loved mysteries since childhood. That passion started with silly attractions like Scooby-Doo, Dark Shadows, and Nancy Drew. As I grew older, my love of mystery expanded to include the “what if” elements of folklore and urban legends. I’ve written two, 3-book series employing dual timelines, each wrapped in multiple layers of folklore. Crafting separate plotlines then weaving them into a tidy ending takes patience. I enjoy reading books that are well-executed and if they include a touch of the supernatural, all the better. My passion for urban legends has led me to give presentations to local community groups and also to engage in travel when needed for on-site research.
My first experience reading a book with dual storylines, this novel held me spellbound cover to cover. McMahon has since become an auto-buy author for me, thanks to this fantastical story that puts a magnifying glass on the life of two sisters, a childhood friend, and an unexplained disappearance. The story moves between past and present and revolves around the Tower Motel in Vermont, now a ruined shell that refuses to yield its secrets. Secrets the girls discovered while playing games there as children.
An unexpected splash of the paranormal and the use of letters from one sister to Mr. Hitchcock (yes, that Hitchcock) add the perfect touch to this disturbing gem.
From the New York Times bestselling author Jennifer McMahon (The Winter People) comes an atmospheric, gripping, and suspenseful tale that probes the bond between sisters and the peril of keeping secrets.
The Tower Motel was once a thriving attraction of rural Vermont. Today it lies in disrepair, alive only in the memories of the three women—Amy, Piper, and Piper’s kid sister, Margot—who played there as children. They loved exploring the abandoned rooms … until the day their innocent games uncovered something dark and twisted that ruined their friendship forever.
Now, Amy stands accused of committing a horrific crime, and the…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve been fascinated with the paranormal since I was a little girl and used to talk to the old lady on the edge of my bed. That old lady turned out to be my grandma, who had passed when I was in my mother’s womb. My entire family is touched by the curiosity and love that comes with the paranormal, so much so my mother is a working psychic medium. For years, I have spent every birthday attending haunted houses with a paranormal team to “investigate.” For some strange reason, I love to be terrified, and I fear I will never stop chasing the thrill.
This was my first peek into the world of paranormal ghost stories through books. Before this spooky thriller, truth be told, I didn’t know there was such a genre as ghost thrillers.
I will forever be grateful to Riley Sager for not only opening me up to such a captivating genre but for writing such an amazing story.
This bookgives you the present perspective of a woman returning to a haunted house that ran her family away 25 years ago, alongside the perspective of what happened 25 years ago when she was a child from the lens of a “NYT-selling novel” written by her father.
In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?
What was it like? Living in that house.
Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later…
For years, I have been a voracious reader of dark psychological thrillers and psychological horror. I read several books every week, and I’m always overjoyed to be knocked sideways by an ingenious twist in a book. As a doctor, I am captivated by people and fascinated by the depths of the human mind. For me, humans are the scariest monsters of them all. In 2020, I decided to have a pop at writing a jaw-dropper myself, and my book was born. I only hope you don’t see that twist coming!
I loved how claustrophobic and creepy this was. This is another story where I thought I had at least some of it figured out. But nope, I was wrong every time. The ending was not only jaw-dropping and ingenious but satisfying, too—something I think is tricky to achieve.
I was so wrong that I had to go back and read some of it again. I was shocked to find that all the breadcrumbs leading to the ending were indeed peppered throughout. So cleverly done.
“Feeney lives up to her reputation as the “queen of the twist”…This page-turner will keep you guessing.” —Real Simple Think you know the person you married? Think again…
Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts--paper, cotton, pottery, tin--and each…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I’ve loved mysteries since childhood. That passion started with silly attractions like Scooby-Doo, Dark Shadows, and Nancy Drew. As I grew older, my love of mystery expanded to include the “what if” elements of folklore and urban legends. I’ve written two, 3-book series employing dual timelines, each wrapped in multiple layers of folklore. Crafting separate plotlines then weaving them into a tidy ending takes patience. I enjoy reading books that are well-executed and if they include a touch of the supernatural, all the better. My passion for urban legends has led me to give presentations to local community groups and also to engage in travel when needed for on-site research.
This small-town mystery is the first in a new series. Set in Madeira, New Mexico, newly arrived Tami Montgomery learns the old Victorian home she and her husband purchased has an unsettling history—a number of Madeira’s police chiefs lived in the property, and most met with untimely deaths. Tami’s husband, Jason, is Madeira’s new police chief.
A former newspaper editor, Tami becomes involved with Madeira’s historical society, a commitment that has her digging into her home’s past and the lives of the people who lived there. Hall weaves elements from the 1800s with the present, sprinkling her plot with lunar legends, dusty history, old grudges, and murder. Though the first in a series, Cold Dark Night delivers a complete story with a satisfying ending.
New husband, new house, new town… and a new mystery to solve.
Tami Montgomery thought her police chief husband was going to be the only investigator in the family when she gave up her journalism career and moved with him to Madeira, New Mexico.
But after the historical society asks her to write stories for a book celebrating the town’s one-hundred fiftieth year, she becomes embroiled in a new mystery. If she can’t solve this one, she could lose everything. Her research uncovers a spate of untimely deaths of local law enforcement officials. Further digging reveals a common link—they all…
I write what I see. Dark Fantasy has been the escape I have needed my entire life. It helped me understand hard topics such as war, greed, and loss. Working through a character's struggles has saved me from the darkest parts of my mind and guided me to where I can love myself.
The strongest creatures have tried and failed to fulfill their destiny. Rather than succumb to the fallout of their actions, they ran away and hid amongst the world separately. All it took was one glance from a stranger to turn their world upside down. Can love break the curse that is their existence?
I found that the bond of family, found or born, can create a bearable existence when all hope is lost.
Seven sons, each with a bloodline of supernaturals that can be traced back to them, but where did they go? Humiliation, pain and hunger become Dabria’s everyday life as a captive but when she is forced to watch the one person in the world she loves die...what will she become?Rising from the blood and ashes, Dabria is tossed into a cell and left to rot...only she isn’t alone. A monster so feared they locked him up and threw away the key...and now, he has his sights set on her. Nothing is safe from him, not her body nor her mind,…
I’ve been fascinated by the link between golf and the Eastern arts since I heard the great Jack Nicklaus say that golf is played with the feet. This immediately struck a chord with me as my background spans over thirty years of Tai Chi training and I have understood from this art that all movement comes from the ground upwards. The early training of Nicklaus in fact echoes that of the ancient warriors who understood the link between intention and action, which is a very different approach to the modern way of over-thinking technique. The simplicity of flow cancels out the need to separate the golf swing into individual positions.
I have always been interested in Vedic philosophy and have greatly enjoyed the film The Legend of Bagger Vance. While there has been much watering down of ancient truths to fit with our 21st Century lifestyle (the plethora of mindfulness apps being one example) the author of this book has a depth of literary and spiritual knowledge that helps unlock the mysteries of golf and allies them with the epic tale, The Bhagavad Gita. Rosen explains that Rannulph Junuh, (played by Matt Damon in the film) is really Arjuna, the charioteer who is instructed by the Supreme Being, Bhagavan (Bagger Vance, the caddie played by Will Smith). It is an approach to the game that brings us face to face with the eternal battles within and how to overcome them.
In 1995, Steven Pressfield decided to introduce the Bhagavad-Gita to a contemporary audience, so he restructured the Gita in terms of a golf novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Now a major motion picture directed by Robert Redford and starring Matt Damon and Will Smith, The Legend of Bagger Vance is loosely based on the ancient Hindu epic, The Bhagavad-gita. Steven Rosen, in Gita on the Green: The Mystical Tradition Behind Bagger Vance, draws the story out further using some thirty years of Gita scholarship and a writing style that is both eloquent and thorough.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I have been a fan of the horror genre since I was a kid. Even though sometimes I was so scared, I had to sleep with the light on or not sleep at all. Something about the darkness and the unknown has always seemed so alluring. I can't even count the number of horror movies I've watched or books I've read. That feel of the hair standing up on your arms or the back of your neck is a thrill like no other.
Most people know Anson from The Amityville Horror, but this is a whole other horror, and gratefully, totally fictional this time. A couple moves into their dream home (sound familiar?), soon, strange and frightening things begin to happen at the house with the ominous address. Things that have happened in the same house, at other locations, in other times. I read this book years ago and the imagery of the final chapters still unnerves me.
An innocent-looking but evil-filled house mysteriously appears at different times in different cities, each time waiting for the unwitting victim to rent it and then unleashing the terrifying force of the devil
Reading certain texts in the Bible growing up began my love for all things supernatural. The more I studied the subject and understood the worldview of the biblical authors and of other ancient cultures, the more I began to see these scenes in vivid color. With my passion for theological study (personally and as part of a master’s program), my work as a police officer, and my love for fantasy fiction perfectly positions me to write stories in which deep supernatural elements intersect with the gritty and real space of everyday life.
I’ve always wondered what an apocalyptic battle between angels and demons would look like.
Though this book is a theological non-fiction piece, it vastly expanded my imagination, in that realm, as I came to learn more about the supernatural worldview of the biblical authors and of other ancient religions.
What I loved most about the book was the exploration of this theme that hidden, divine beings walk among us.
It captures the fascinating image of the ordinary world being interrupted by that which is extraordinary—and these extraordinary phenomena are a lot closer than we think.
Angelic beings taking human wives. Ancient giants. God holding royal court among other gods. In Supernatural, Dr. Michael S. Heiser tackles these remarkable biblical themes and many more, based on his fifteen years of research into what the Bible really says about the unseen realm. Heiser shines a bright light on the supernatural world--not a new light, but rather the same light in which the original, ancient readers and writers of Scripture would have seen it.
I love jewelry that calls to me. When I make jewelry, I believe some of my spirit is infused in it. Later, the buyer’s spirit takes over the piece. I believe in life after death, and I interviewed a medium who performed spirit releases, which helped me build my ghost framework. A cold case of a missing teen I knew gave me a scene I still cry about. The best mysteries have revelations of the heart. My book, even after revising many times, still makes me laugh and cry too. In my opinion, there is no clock or calendar dictating forgiveness for the living or dead. There is only hope.
This book had a very dramatic “reveal” that would make HGTV jealous.
I liked not immediately guessing the doer of bad things and blaming others only to learn I was wrong and also when Mother Nature threw obstacles. I could identify with the husband and wife who are building a new future and a new house for themselves after teaching. I also liked the interplay between the locals and the land and the use of research to get to the heart of the problem.
Most of all, I loved the ending with a twist, and I vowed to read more books by McMahon.
A chilling ghost story with a twist: the New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don't simply move into a haunted house--they build one....
In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history…
Even before I found Lovecraft and Stephen King and my world turned, I was raised on Doyle, Wells, Hodgson, and Robert Louis Stevenson which gave me both a love of the "gentleman detective" era and a deep love of the late Victorian/early Edwardian historical period in general. Once you merge that with my abiding interest in all things weird and spooky, you can see where a lot of my stories come from. There seems to be quite a burgeoning market for this kind of mixing of detection and supernatural, and I intend to write more... maybe even a lot more.
Silver John, a balladeer with a silver-stringed guitar, crisscrosses rural USA encountering all manner of supernatural entities, and does it with a song in his heart. There's a deep love of ancient folklore that shines through in this wonderful collection. It's far removed from Carnacki or Silence's cozy sitting rooms and libraries, but every bit as tied to a desire to get to the root of ancient mysteries. There's an almost Bradburyesque sense of wonder in these tales that lifts you up and carries you alongside John on his travels.
There's a traveling man the Carolina mountain folk call Silver John for the silver strings strung on his guitar. In his wanderings, John encounters a parade of benighted forest creatures, mountain spirits, and shapeless horrors from the void of history with only his enduring spirit, playful wit, and the magic of his guitar to preserve him. Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John is one of the most beloved figures in fantasy, a true American folk hero of the literary age. For the first time the "Planet Stories" edition of "Who Fears the Devil?" collects all of John's adventures published throughout Wellman's…
