Books like 'The Third Parent'

Readers who enjoyed The Third Parent by Elias Witherow also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

horror  psychological  mystery  supernatural  splatterpunk  dark  paranormal

  • Carrie / 'Salem's Lot / The Shining by Stephen King

    Carrie / 'Salem's Lot / The Shining by Stephen King

    Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    Stephen King is a unique and powerful writer without equal for millions of horror fans. His incredible narrative drive ensnares the reader in a web of everyday surroundings, believable situations and recognizable characters that are eventually caught up in a terrifying noose of monumental evil...
  • Zero In by Dean Koontz

    Zero In by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    This could be the most important mission of Nameless’s life. Because it’s putting him on a collision course with his own past and the nation’s future.The target: a fortified redoubt in the golden hills of California, the hub of a new world order that’s unthinkably close at hand. The time has come for Nameless to face its designer: the nihilist mastermind behind the One Solution...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  fiction  mystery  audiobook  horror  suspense  crime
  • Corkscrew by Dean Koontz

    Corkscrew by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    A terrorist attack in the news leaves Nameless reeling from a disturbing vision. But it’s not a glimpse of the future. It’s a recovered memory that’s opening a window into his mysterious past.Uncharacteristically forthcoming—and unexpectedly personal—Nameless’s handlers have no choice but to emerge from the shadows. The indoctrinating factions of his visions are growing in number...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  fiction  audiobook  horror  mystery  suspense  crime
  • Gentle Is the Angel of Death by Dean Koontz

    Gentle Is the Angel of Death by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    To some he’s a medical genius. To others, a twisted angel of mercy with a necessary solution to what he sees as an ugly dilemma. Only one man can help Dr. Death face the evil of his ways.Henry Siphuncle has a selfless mission: releasing his patients forever from their distasteful imperfections. It’s for their own good. And the world’s. Even Henry’s own wife didn’t survive his disgust...
  • The Lost Soul of the City by Dean Koontz

    The Lost Soul of the City by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    A gun. A mission. No memories. Nameless is back to hunt down an architect of chaos in #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz’s return to a landscape of hard-won justice.In a forgotten Cold War bunker, a cold-blooded arms dealer counts his cash and watches from a distance as cities collapse into violence...
    Categorized as:
    paranormal  dark  fiction  audiobook  horror  mystery  suspense  crime
  • John Saul: Hellfire, The Unwanted, Sleepwalk by John Saul

    John Saul: Hellfire, The Unwanted, Sleepwalk by John Saul

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    New York Times bestselling author John Saul is a master at writing psychological terror, with fifteen novels on the bestseller lists. This first-ever hardcover edition of three of his most popular books features Hellfire, The Unwanted and Sleepwalk. All three stories explore supernatural mysteries of suspense and horror.Appearences are definitely deceiving in John Saul's world...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  contemporary  crime  fiction  ghosts
  • Diablo Snuff: A Foreign Evil by C.C. Genovese, Carver Pike

    Diablo Snuff: A Foreign Evil by C.C. Genovese, Carver Pike

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    "Let me tell you about the night I experienced true evil. It started with a gaze. She was eye fucking the shit out of me." Michael is at the tail end of his bachelor party vacation with his buddies and has had enough of all the gambling and flirtatious prostitutes. Then he meets Isabelle, a foreigner herself, and Michael is smitten. But even evil can come in a beautiful package...
  • Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi

    Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Four brand-new horror novellas from “a modern-day Algernon Blackwood” all about books, stories, manuscripts – the written word has never had sharper teeth…From the bestselling author of Come with Me, four standalone horror novellas set in a shared universe! In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel drives people to their deaths. A delivery job turns deadly in The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride...
  • Thunderbird by Chuck Wendig

    Thunderbird by Chuck Wendig

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    In the fourth installment of the Miriam Black series, Miriam heads to the southwest in search of another psychic who may be able to help her understand her curse, but instead finds a cult of domestic terrorists and the worst vision of death she’s had yet. Miriam Black is being developed as a TV series by Starz with the producers of Breaking Bad...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  audiobook  book  contemporary  crime  fiction
  • Lightning / The Face of Fear / The Vision by Dean Koontz

    Lightning / The Face of Fear / The Vision by Dean Koontz

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    CONTENTS: LIGHTNING THE FACE OF FEAR THE...
  • The Haunting of the Midwife by James Hunt

    The Haunting of the Midwife by James Hunt

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A Riveting Haunted House MysteryWhen the Maples family arrives in the small mountain town of Roster, Colorado, they’re convinced it will be the perfect place to raise their newborn daughter. But their dream home turns into a living nightmare when an otherworldly power abducts their child...
  • The Keeper by T.F. Allen

    The Keeper by T.F. Allen

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    When a famous artist is kidnapped, the only one who can save him has a body no one can see, and a voice few can hear.Angel, spirit, or ghost—the Keeper doesn’t know exactly what he is. But he knows he needs to protect Michael Delacroix, a famous artist who is kidnapped and locked in a windowless room deep beneath a Napa Valley vineyard...
  • The Owlmen: If They See You They Will Come For You by S.E. England

    The Owlmen: If They See You They Will Come For You by S.E. England

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    THE OWLMEN - NEW FROM THE AUTHOR OF BESTSELLING OCCULT HORROR TRILOGY, FATHER OF LIES! IF THEY SEE YOU THEY WILL COME FOR YOU... Ellie Blake is recovering from a mental breakdown. Deciding to move back to her northern roots, she and her psychiatrist husband buy Tanners Dell at auction - an old water mill in the moorland village of Bridesmoor. However, there is disquiet in the village...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  audiobook  book  fiction  ghosts  horror
  • Clive Barker's the Midnight Meat Train Special Definitive Edition by Clive Barker

    Clive Barker's the Midnight Meat Train Special Definitive Edition by Clive Barker

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    In 1984 the Books of Blood by Clive Barker were published and quickly gained a following worldwide. Literary eminences like Stephen King noticed early on the creativity and powerful prose throughout the Books of Blood, bringing Clive Barker's stories to the forefront of horror fiction...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  audiobook  book  crime  fiction  horror
  • My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

    My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    A spine-tingling psychological thriller about a woman who, after taking in her dying, alcoholic mother, begins to suspect demonic possession is haunting her family.Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call...
  • The Neighbor by London Clarke

    The Neighbor by London Clarke

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    Claire Vogel is a recently divorced mother of four girls and a successful counselor living in a planned and prestigious community. She knows all her neighbors, and they know her. But Claire has a secret. To cope with hidden, deep-rooted pain, she often participates in risky, reckless behavior...
  • Intercepts by T.J. Payne

    Intercepts by T.J. Payne

    Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    Joe works at a facility that performs human experimentation.His work just followed him home. The government wanted to unlock hidden abilities in the human mind.They put subjects in extreme sensory deprivation.All the test subjects went violently insane.But the research continued.Today it has been perfected.Almost perfected...
  • The Intruders by Louise Jensen

    The Intruders by Louise Jensen

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    It should be the perfect a manor house available rent free in exchange for a bit of housesitting. But when Cass and James dig deeper, they find the place has been abandoned since a robbery left almost all the inhabitants dead almost thirty years ago. But they’ve got to save for a deposit somehow, so they move in, and things quickly take a strange turn...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  horror  mystery  audiobook  crime  fiction  suspense
  • The Haunting of Leigh Harker by Darcy Coates

    The Haunting of Leigh Harker by Darcy Coates

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Sometimes the dead reach back...Leigh Harker’s quiet suburban home was her sanctuary for more than a decade, until things abruptly changed. Curtains open by themselves. Radios turn off and on. And a dark figure looms in the shadows of her bedroom door at night, watching her, waiting for her to finally let down her guard enough to fall asleep...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  audiobook  book  fiction  ghosts  gothic
  • Terminal by Michaelbrent Collings

    Terminal by Michaelbrent Collings

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    "5 stars... another outstanding novel from author Michaelbrent Collings..." - Horror After Dark All passengers, please prepare for departure... An employee, a cop, and six passengers; a prisoner, a stowaway, and a madman. "A great read." - Sci-Fi and Scary These are the people waiting at the Lawton bus terminal...
  • We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

    We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 9 ratings
    The Turn of the Key meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit...
    Categorized as:
    paranormal  dark  horror  mystery  fiction  lgbtq  suspense  spooky
  • Hannahwhere by John M. McIlveen

    Hannahwhere by John M. McIlveen

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Winner of the 2015 Drunken Druid Award (Ireland) for high literary merit.Nominee for the 2015 Bram Stoker Award (HWA) in the First Novel category.In a suburb on Boston’s North Shore, a catatonic little girl is found behind a dumpster. She is a mystery...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  crime  dark-fantasy  fae  fiction
  • Onyx Webb: Book One by Richard Fenton, Andrea Waltz

    Onyx Webb: Book One by Richard Fenton, Andrea Waltz

    Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Who can she trust? What is the truth? Every decision has consequences. What you thought you knew about ghosts is wrong. Sometimes they can walk among the living. In Onyx Webb, the silk of time weaved between lives is generations apart. Follow a billionaire playboy who’s hit rock bottom in 2010, a girl off to prom in 1979, and Onyx Webb in 1906 on her sixth birthday...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  crime  fiction  ghosts  historical
  • Alex by Adam J. Nicolai

    Alex by Adam J. Nicolai

    Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    The Kindle Bestseller, Now Available On All Platforms"A tormented father must decide whether he's seeing the ghost of his dead son or visions brought on by psychosis in this thriller . . . featuring a riveting protagonist haunted by his own guilt." - Kirkus Reviews (Recommended Review)An empty house. A bereaved father. Alone with his loss, Ian Colmes has driven away everyone he loves...
  • Lineage by Joe Hart

    Lineage by Joe Hart

    Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A LIFE FILLED WITH ANGUISH Pain, horror, fear- These are the things that bestselling novelist Lance Metzger's life have been comprised of. His childhood remains a riddled wasteland of abuse by a sadistic father and the abandonment of an apathetic mother. In turn, his only refuge became his writing...
  • The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson

    The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson

    Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school project, he runs across a series of articles from the 1902 New York Times chronicling a vicious murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  crime  fiction  historical  horror
  • Exorcist Falls by Jonathan Janz

    Exorcist Falls by Jonathan Janz

    Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Chicago is gripped by terror. The Sweet Sixteen Killer is brutally murdering young women, and the authorities are baffled.When the police are called to an affluent home in the middle of the night, they learn that a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy has attacked his family...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  audiobook  book  death  demons  fiction
  • Like Death by Tim Waggoner

    Like Death by Tim Waggoner

    Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Haunted by his own past, a writer investigating the disappearance of a young girl instead finds an impossible world of darkness and evil--a world where the dividing line between the living and the dead is blurred. Original...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  cosmic-horror  fiction  horror  mystery
  • Thirty Scary Tales by Rayne Hall

    Thirty Scary Tales by Rayne Hall

    Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Thirty creepy, atmospheric horror stories by Rayne Hall.These stories are 'quiet' horror, not overly violent and gory, although there are some graphic moments. Please note: these stories have been previously published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies as well as in the Six Scary Tales collections.British English...
  • Dark Side of Sunset Pointe by Michael Allan Scott

    Dark Side of Sunset Pointe by Michael Allan Scott

    Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Librarian Note: Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 193870195X / ISBN13: 9781938701955.“An intriguing hook and a sympathetic protagonist in a world that, while seemingly depraved and dark, is clearly recognizable and believable. A well-built mystery…” Kirkus Reviews"You see the crime through the eyes of the victims . .
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  crime  dark-fantasy  drama  fiction
  • The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

    The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

    Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what. Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere...
  • Asylum by Amy Cross

    Asylum by Amy Cross

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    "No-one ever leaves Lakehurst. The staff, the patients, the ghosts... Once you're here, you're stuck forever."After shooting her little brother dead, Annie Radford is sent to Lakehurst psychiatric hospital for assessment. Hearing voices in her head, Annie is forced to undergo experimental new treatments devised by a mysterious old man who lives in the hospital's attic...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  fiction  ghosts  gothic  horror
  • Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

    Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    A newborn's absent face appears on the back of someone else's head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he's after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception...
  • Blanky by Kealan Patrick Burke

    Blanky by Kealan Patrick Burke

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    In the wake of his infant daughter's tragic death, Steve Brannigan is struggling to keep himself together. Estranged from his wife, who refuses to be inside the house where the unthinkable happened, and unable to work, he seeks solace in an endless parade of old sitcoms and a bottle of bourbon...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  death  fiction  horror  mystery
  • Afraid by Jack Kilborn

    Afraid by Jack Kilborn

    Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? YOU WILL BE . . . Welcome to Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Miles from everything, with one road in and out, this peaceful town has never needed a full-time police force. Until now . . . A helicopter has crashed near Safe Haven and unleashed something horrifying. Now this merciless force is about to do what it does best. Isolate. Terrorize. Annihilate...
  • The Haunting of Styre House by Amy Cross

    The Haunting of Styre House by Amy Cross

    Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    AN ABANDONED ENGLISH COTTAGE... A BLACK CAT GLIMPSED IN SCORES OF OLD PHOTOS... A TERRIBLE MURDER, COVERED UP MANY YEARS AGO.When Parker and her mother move into Styre House, they immediately notice that something's not quite right. They have no key for the garage, and any time they try to get inside they end up distracted...
  • Wetbones by John Shirley

    Wetbones by John Shirley

    Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    A flesh-and-soul-devouring addiction runs rampant through the dark playground of the Hollywood elite Welcome to Los Angeles, where every addiction is encouraged… Struggling Hollywood screenwriter Tom Prentice can hardly believe that the emaciated and mutilated corpse lying on the morgue slab was once his ex-wife...
  • The House of Twelve by Sean Davies

    The House of Twelve by Sean Davies

    Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Twelve strangers wake up in a strange house with no memory of how they got there, and barely any recollection of who they are. They quickly learn that there is no way out, scarcely enough food and water to go around, and eerie music plays constantly in the background of every room...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  book  crime  fiction  horror  mystery  psychological
  • Trapped by Jack Kilborn

    Trapped by Jack Kilborn

    Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars
    · 18 ratings
    TERRIFIED...It was supposed to be a harmless camping trip. Six wayward teenagers who'd run into trouble with the law, and their court-appointed guardians, Sara and Martin Randhurst. Three nights on a small, deserted island off of Michigan's upper peninsula. A time to bond, to learn, to heal.Then Martin told a campfire story about the island's history...
  • The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

    The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    Ten writers are selected for a summer-long writing retreat with the most celebrated and reclusive author in the world. Their host is the legendary Roderick Wells. Handsome, enigmatic, and fiendishly talented, Wells promises to teach his pupils about writing, about magic, about the untapped potential that each of them possesses...
  • Dead by Morning by Kayla Krantz

    Dead by Morning by Kayla Krantz

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Obsession is deadly.It’s a lesson Luna Ketz learns the hard way. With only a month left of high school, she’s determined to make it to her dream college and out from under her stern father’s foot. Not even charming Chance Welfrey can derail her.But after a classmate disappears, Luna is haunted by violent nightmares so real they leave her traumatized...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  audiobook  book  crime  fiction  horror  murder
  • The Slender Man by Dexter Morgenstern

    The Slender Man by Dexter Morgenstern

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    In Murphy, North Carolina, a tragic accident occurs claiming the lives of several elementary school children. Alyssa’s brother Adam is the only child spared, and what seems like a tragic ending is merely invitation to an ancient horror as the town’s remaining children begin disappearing...
  • Sargasso by Kathy George

    Sargasso by Kathy George

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    An empty house, a lonely shore, an enigmatic, brooding man-child waiting for her return ... a trip to the dark lands of Australian Gothic, for readers of Kate Morton and Hannah Richell. Last night I dreamt I went to Sargasso again ...As a child, Hannah lived at Sargasso, the isolated beachside home designed by her father, a brilliant architect...
  • Beyond Evidence by Emma L. Clapperton

    Beyond Evidence by Emma L. Clapperton

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    In an alley way of the back streets of Glasgow there lies a decomposing corpse of a slain female baking in the midday heat. No one has found her yet, but medium Patrick McLaughlin knows she is there. It is not the first time he has dreamt of death... and he soon finds out that it is not to be the last...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  crime  fiction  ghosts  horror
  • The Maddening by Andrew Neiderman

    The Maddening by Andrew Neiderman

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    A woman driving upstate with her five-year-old daughter takes a shortcut that leads to disaster when her car breaks down in a rainstorm. When they seek refuge in a nearby farmhouse, she and her daughter become "playmates" in a violent whirlpool of unrelenting terror...
  • Beneath the Boards by David Haynes

    Beneath the Boards by David Haynes

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Alternative cover edition of ASIN B00T55085SBeneath Jim Stokes’s shirt is a scar, one last horrific reminder of his old job in the police force. Beneath the everyday normality of the village Stormark is a shameful secret, haunting people’s dreams. Beneath the floorboards of the lake house is a hatch, sealed and forgotten for years until Stokes opens it up...
  • The Inside-Out Man by Fred Strydom

    The Inside-Out Man by Fred Strydom

    Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars
    · 6 ratings
    Brilliant jazz pianist Bent lives from gig to gig in a city of dead ends. He is plagued by fragmented visions of the past, and has resigned himself to a life of quiet desolation. That is, until the night he meets wealthy and eccentric jazz fan Leonard Fry.In the days that follow, Leonard makes Bent a devilish deal, proposing a bizarre experiment in which Bent will play a vital part...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  anthologies  fiction  ghosts  gothic  horror
  • Forsaken: A Novel of Horror by Andrew Van Wey

    Forsaken: A Novel of Horror by Andrew Van Wey

    Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    "Finally! A True Horror Novel!" YOU'RE LIVING THE DREAM... A beautiful house, a loving wife. Two kids, a dog, and a professorship teaching art restoration at the local university. Your name is Dan Rineheart. You've got it all. ...BUT ALL DREAMS MUST END. On the cusp of autumn a mysterious painting arrives. No name. No date. No signature or frame. Only a note that reads: Here in art, denial...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  book  contemporary  fiction  ghosts  horror
  • Guardian by John Saul

    Guardian by John Saul

    Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    "All the right scares in all the right places." The Seattle Times A telephone rings in the dead of night with shocking news for single mother MaryAnne Carpenter: her friends the Wilkensons are suddenly, inexplicably dead, their only child, Joey, a sad and silent adolescent and MaryAnne's godchild, abruptly orphaned...
    Categorized as:
    dark  paranormal  adult  anthologies  fiction  ghosts  horror  mystery
  • The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon

    The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon

    Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    On a hot August morning in 1963, the rural town of Grandville is covered with fliers announcing the coming of something extraordinary - a one-night-only performance of The Travelling Vampire Show, featuring Valeria, the only known vampire in captivity. For three local teenagers, it's a show they don't want to miss...
Fantastic book recommendations by book lovers for book lovers.
Find out more about thebooknaut.com.



Looking for more inspiration? Enter another book title to get more suggestions on what to read next.


Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.