Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

The sole survivor of a time-traveling serial killer who began his murder spree in Depression-era Chicago tries to hunt him down in 1989 along with help from an ex-homicide reporter. (Description from catalog)

In World War Z, life as we know it ends the way many horror fans knew it would: zombies rise up! After the post-war devastation, author Max Brooks "interviews" survivors and records their stories as well as details on what causes zombies, how they spread, what will stop them, and effective strategic warfare methods against them. (Description about NoveList.)

Working to rebuild her law practice after her son commits suicide, Angela Toussaint journeys to the family home where the suicide took place, hoping for answers, and discovers an evil force that is driving locals to acts of violence. (Description from catalog.)

Reluctantly returning to his small hometown when his star football player brother goes missing, Joel Whitley reconnects with the local sheriff, who begins to suspect former classmates in her search for her own missing brother.
(Description from catalog)

While climbing Mount Ararat in Turkey, an avalanche forces a couple to seek shelter inside a massive cave uncovered by the snow fall. The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that they speculate is really Noah's Ark. But when a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses; the cadaver within is an ugly, misshapen thing with horns. Now a massive blizzard has them trapped in the cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain... but the team is not alone. (Description from catalog)

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized-someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again.
(Description from catalog)

They were introduced to their culture but never identified with it, never believed in its power. During an elk hunt, a disturbing event occurs. Ten years later, tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in violent, vengeful ways. Now they are in a desperate struggle for their lives-- and the lives of all they love.
(Description from catalog)

A supernatural reimagining of the Donner Party story follows a group of wagon-train pioneers who navigate sanity-testing misfortunes, including the mysterious death of a little boy and a series of disappearances that cause a beautiful member of the group to be accused of witchcraft. (Description from NoveList.)

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops.
(Description from catalog)

In Bird Box, brilliantly imaginative debut author Josh Malerman captures an apocalyptic near-future world, where a mother and her two small children must make their way down a river, blindfolded. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them -- but is it man, animal, or monster? (Description from catalog.)

When an inspired effort to build her dream home is overshadowed by discoveries about her rural property's violent past, a former history teacher becomes obsessed with the stories of three generations of local women who died under suspicious circumstances. (Description from NoveList.)

Adapted from the author's "Children Stories Made Horrific" series, a collection of darkly whimsical stories based on classic fairy tales updates familiar favorites with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity and feminist mischief. (Description from NoveList)

When the Pied Piper returns, leaving his special calling card on the bodies of his brutally murdered victims, Detective Lauren Medina is torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe and keeping a promise she made long ago to him.
(Description from NoveList)

An ailing woman fights to protect her family from her mute daughter's psychologically manipulative schemes, which are complicated by her doting husband's denial about their daughter's true nature. (Description from NoveList.)

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed"The Lost Village," since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother's entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left-a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn-have plagued her.
(Description from catalog)

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of what at first seems to be acute schizophrenia, a condition which only gets worse, leading them believe its actually demonic possession, as they become the center of a reality TV show. (Description from NoveList.)

An only survivor of her family's massacre, Dixie impulsively moves into her early childhood home, where she begins to question her sanity and the haunted shadows of the past that threaten her future. (Description from NoveList.)

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father and has never told his family what happened. Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have. Long ago, something walked into the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again...and it is happening to Oliver.
(Description from Amazon)

In an isolated village in the Icelandic Westfjords, three friends set to work renovating a rundown house. But soon, they realize they are not as alone as they thought. Something wants them to leave, and it's making its presence felt. Meanwhile, in a town across the fjord, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide, the terrifying truth is uncovered. (Description from catalog)