Books like 'Black Chalk'
Readers who enjoyed Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological horror action / adventure thriller suspense dark-academia literary-fiction dark university
-
Different Seasons by Stephen King
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the Magical Pen of Stephen King, Four Mesmerizing Novellas…“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge…the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age crime dark friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic -
![Billy Summers by Stephen King]()
Billy Summers by Stephen King
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsBilly Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done... -
![After the Fire by Will Hill]()
After the Fire by Will Hill
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe things I've seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade.Before, she lived inside the fence. Before, she was never allowed to leave the property, never allowed to talk to Outsiders, never allowed to speak her mind. Because Father John controlled everything—and Father John liked rules. Disobeying Father John came with terrible consequences... -
![Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter]()
Gallery of the Dead by Chris Carter
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratings‘Thirty-seven years in the force, and if I was allowed to choose just one thing to erase from my mind, what’s inside that room would be it.'That’s what a LAPD Lieutenant tells Detectives Hunter and Garcia of the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit as they arrive at one of the most shocking crime scenes they have ever attended... -
-
![The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child]()
The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAgent Pendergast faces his latest challenge in this next installment of the #1 NYT bestselling series by acclaimed authors Preston and Child, the second in the Leng Trilogy.Following the events of Bloodless, FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast and Constance Greene return. Against all odds, Constance has found a way back to the place of her origins, New York City in the late 1800s... -
![Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh]()
Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe serial killer isn't on trial.He's on the jury.It’s the murder trial of the century. And Joshua Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house – and to be sure the wrong man goes down for the crime. Because this time, the killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury.But there’s someone on his tail... -
![Del tiempo y sus demonios by Diego Armando Arciniegas Malagón]()
Del tiempo y sus demonios by Diego Armando Arciniegas Malagón
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDEL TIEMPO Y SUS DEMONIOS: PERSIGUIENDO LA VERDADEsta novela se desarrolla en un pequeño y misterioso pueblo. En un territorio hermoso, inhóspito a la luz de aquellas certezas que las mayorías consideran irrefutables. Lejos del tiempo que, arbitrariamente, tomara la sabia decisión de separar el bien del mal... -
![The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion]()
The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsA gripping and emotional novel that will leave you wondering about the neighbors next door...On a cold January night, Sharon Lemke heads outside to see a lunar eclipse when she notices something odd at the house behind her backyard. Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night... -
![The Institute by Stephen King]()
The Institute by Stephen King
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 69 ratingsIn the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window... -
![Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke]()
Missed Connections by Alexandria Clarke
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow far would you go for revenge? Veronica Bauer isn’t above homicide. Twelve years after a ruthless attack killed her mother and put her father in prison, she embarks on a mission to bring the real culprits to justice. As bodies start to drop, Detective Sheila Arden is assigned to the gruesome case, but she soon discovers that the truth is more complicated than she thought...Categorized as:
suspense crime literary-fiction thriller mystery fiction law-enforcement police-procedural -
![A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer]()
A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA chilling thriller of serial murder and dark secrets that will leave you wondering, is the past really in the past?Three Chicago women have been found strangled, embalmed, and posed as if still alive. Doubting the findings of the local PD’s profiler, The FBI calls on forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley to investigate... -
![The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison]()
The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsNear an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden.In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens... -
![These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant]()
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNo electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness... -
![The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean]()
The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA woman being held captive is willing to risk everything to save herself, her unborn child, and her captor’s latest victim in this claustrophobic thriller in the tradition of Misery and Room. On an isolated farm in the United Kingdom, a woman is trapped by the monster who kidnapped her seven years ago... -
-
![The Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn]()
The Pretty Dead Girls by Skylar Finn
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen two young girls go missing from a small Georgia town, the crime remains unsolved for nearly thirty years.When Savannah moves home to the small town of Humble, Georgia, she has no intention of getting involved in a kidnapping investigation. But when her older brother Mac becomes the main suspect, Savannah launches a secret investigation in order to clear her brother’s name... -
![A Caller's Game by J.D. Barker]()
A Caller's Game by J.D. Barker
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDIE HARD meets TALK RADIO in this heart-pounding, relentlessly fast-paced thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fourth Monkey—master of suspense, J.D. Barker. "I'm going to offer you a choice." Controversial satellite radio talk show host, Jordan Briggs, has clawed her way to the top of the broadcast world... -
![Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein]()
Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWe don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real. Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing... -
![The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd]()
The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTHE MUST-READ RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK. Chilling, moving and unputdownable, The Memory Wood is a thriller like no other. 'Beautifully told, with two superbly drawn young protagonists, Lloyd is a rare new thriller talent' Daily Mail'Superbly creepy, with an unexpected twist' Guardian'Brilliant writing, a terrifying story, and characters so real it feels like you know them...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime dark friendship literary-fiction season-autumn suspense unreliable-narrator -
![Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor]()
Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPhotographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she’s landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect - a month‘s assignment at the misty, sprawling Scottish Highlands property of brilliant architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But deep in the woods, there is a chilling playhouse... -
![Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk]()
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsIt follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, the protagonist finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting club as radical psychotherapy...Categorized as:
classics crime dark literary-fiction realistic suspense unreliable-narrator thriller -
![Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton]()
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe extraordinary new novel everyone is talking about from the Sunday Times best-selling author of SisterThree hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds.It is a morning's lessons, a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, a snowy trek through the woods.It is an eternity waiting for news. Or a countdown to something terrible.It is 180 minutes to discover who you will die for and what men will kill for...Categorized as:
crime literary-fiction realistic suspense thriller 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy]()
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsIn his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back... -
![Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga]()
Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsJazz Dent has never been closer to catching his father.Jazz has been shot and left to die in New York. His girlfriend, Connie, is in the clutches of Jazz's monstrous father, Billy--the world's most notorious serial killer. And his best friend, Howie, is bleeding to death on the floor of Jazz's new home... -
![The Bachman Books by Richard Bachman, Stephen King]()
The Bachman Books by Richard Bachman, Stephen King
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsOmnibus collection of four early Bachman novels (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man) and the essay "Why I Was... -
-
![The Time Machine/The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells]()
The Time Machine/The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe Time Machine and The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense university action-adventure adult book -
![No Exit by Taylor Adams]()
No Exit by Taylor Adams
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsA brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado... -
![The Last Child by John Hart]()
The Last Child by John Hart
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust... -
![Game by Barry Lyga]()
Game by Barry Lyga
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBilly grinned. “Oh, New York,” he whispered. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history’s most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.In an effort to prove murder didn’t run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo’s Nod to solve a deadly case... -
![Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr., Darren Aronofsky]()
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr., Darren Aronofsky
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn Coney Island, Brooklyn, Sarah Goldfarb, a lonely widow, wants nothing more than to lose weight and appear on a television game show. She becomes addicted to diet pills in her obsessive quest, while her junkie son, Harry, along with his girlfriend, Marion, and his best friend, Tyrone, have devised an illicit shortcut to wealth and leisure by scoring a pound of uncut heroin... -
![Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh]()
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBrace yourself, America, for Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting—the novel and the film that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives. It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age crime dark historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic suspense -
![The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes]()
The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie... -
![The Zombie Room by R.D. Ronald]()
The Zombie Room by R.D. Ronald
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA darkly transgressive tale of criminality and sex-trafficking, but overall a coming together of characters from different worlds, uniting against a common enemy, and fighting for survival and what they believe to be right... -
![Along Came a Spider by James Patterson]()
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsWhat have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher . . . a psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him - even after he's been captured... -
![The Elephant Tree by R.D. Ronald]()
The Elephant Tree by R.D. Ronald
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsMark Fallon is an overworked detective investigating a spate of attacks at a string of high profile city centre nightclubs. Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation... -
-
![Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane]()
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsThe year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance... -
![The Likeness by Tana French, Heather O'Neill]()
The Likeness by Tana French, Heather O'Neill
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsListening length: 22 Hours and 18 MinutesIn this follow-up to Tana French’s runaway bestseller In the Woods, itʼs six months later and Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene... -
![The Blackhouse by Peter May]()
The Blackhouse by Peter May
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsA brutal killing takes place on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland: a land of harsh beauty and inhabitants of deep-rooted faith.A MURDERDetective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.A SECRETSomething lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime dark historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense thriller 21st-century -
![Never Lie by Freida McFadden]()
Never Lie by Freida McFadden
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsNewlyweds Tricia and Ethan are searching for the house of their dreams.But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate… with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end... -
![Room by Emma Donoghue]()
Room by Emma Donoghue
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 85 ratingsTo five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world....Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age crime dark literary-fiction realistic suspense unreliable-narrator -
![Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes]()
Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereWhen young, pretty Catherine Bailey meets Lee Bright-man, she can't believe her luck. Gorgeous, charismatic, and a bit mysterious, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true... -
![The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith]()
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 75 ratingsPrivate investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling.When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home... -
![Digital Velocity by Reily Garrett, Rylan Killian]()
Digital Velocity by Reily Garrett, Rylan Killian
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe deadliest weapons are the ones we never see. Keyboard prodigy, Lexi Donovan has risen from teenage orphan of the streets to complete independence with little help along the way. When a friend is threatened, Lexi’s anonymous message sends police into a firefight, leading to a wounded cop... -
![One Fear by Belle Brooks]()
One Fear by Belle Brooks
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“My one fear is now my reality.” He didn’t offer his name when he fulfilled his need to include me as a player in his game. I’m number thirteen. Just a number given to the bitches who wronged him. I was blindsided. Stolen from my life. In his devilled eyes, I have a debt to pay…he wants my final breath to see us even... -
![Either Side of Midnight by Tori de Clare]()
Either Side of Midnight by Tori de Clare
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWHAT IF THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TURNED INTO YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE? When nineteen-year-old Naomi Stone is snatched from her husband at knifepoint on the night of their wedding and taken to a deserted cemetery, she knows her life is finished. Drugged and disorientated, she loses consciousness as she lies in an open grave with a gun to her head... -
-
![The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry]()
The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“Take her out back and finish her off.”She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two men arguing over whether or not to kill her.And that she must run.In her riveting style, April Henry crafts a nail-biting thriller involving murder, identity theft, and biological warfare... -
![Finders Keepers by Stephen King]()
Finders Keepers by Stephen King
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsWake up, genius. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising... -
![FantasticLand: A Novel by Mike Bockoven, Angela Dawe]()
FantasticLand: A Novel by Mike Bockoven, Angela Dawe
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSince the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where ““Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror... -
![The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent]()
The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTwo sisters raised in fear are about to find out why in a chilling novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Thinnest Air.Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York... -
![The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne]()
The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsProfessor Theo Cray is trained to see patterns where others see chaos. So when mutilated bodies found deep in the Montana woods leave the cops searching blindly for clues, Theo sees something they missed. Something unnatural. Something only he can stop.As a computational biologist, Theo is more familiar with digital code and microbes than the dark arts of forensic sleuthing... -
![Right Behind You by Gail Giles]()
Right Behind You by Gail Giles
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
