Top Ten Tuesday-Holiday Reads #2

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

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Now I'm not a person who enjoys reading holiday romances or cozy Christmas mysteries so of course I'm putting my own spin on things! I'm looking at another ten scary books with a winter setting that I haven't read yet. What could be better holiday reads than that!

1) Vaughn C Hardacker-Wendigo
Algonquin legend tells of the Wendigo, an evil spirit sent to punish mankind. It can possess a person and turn them into a monstrous creature consumed by a need to eat human flesh. For John Bear the Wendigo was merely a scary story his grandfather used to tell him. That is, until a man is found dead in the deep northern woods of Maine, butchered like an animal and with his heart cut out. And the only tracks they can find are massive footprints that couldn’t possibly be human. Now, John is sure that what is stalking the inhabitants of their remote outpost is a Wendigo, even if no one else believes it. He must stop a monster he once thought was nothing more than a tale to warn children.

2) David Haynes-Black Pine Creek
Gold is all Scott Draper knows. Gold and darkness. A lifetime of mining has broken his life, estranged him from his daughter and left two dead men behind. One last opportunity might turn things around – an abandoned mine in the icy Alaskan wilderlands. If he can bring his old crew together to help, they could all end up rich.

Draper knows that darkness always follows the gold. What he doesn’t know is that something even darker than his past, something nightmarish and ravenous, is waiting for them all in the shadows of Black Pine Creek.

3) Ronald Malfi-Snow
Todd Curry wants nothing more than to spend Christmas with his son. But when a brutal snowstorm cancels his flight from Chicago to Des Moines, Todd and a few other stranded passengers decide to rent a Jeep and make the trip on their own. During the drive, they pick up a man wandering through the snow, who claims to be searching for his lost daughter. He is disoriented and his story seems peculiar. Strangest of all are the mysterious slashes cut into the back of the man’s coat, straight down to the flesh…

When they arrive at the nearest town, it appears deserted. Windows dark, car abandoned, fired burning unattended. But Todd and the rest of the travelers soon learn the town is far from deserted, and that they are being watched…

4) William Meikle-Operation Siberia
When Captain John Banks and his squad are sent to investigate a zoo in Siberia, he expects to find tigers, bears, maybe elk But there is something there that is new, yet very, very old.

Beasts that haven't walked the Earth since the last Ice Age have been cloned, revived, and set loose to roam free.

And some of them are very hungry.

5) William Meikle-Night Of The Wendigo
Ice Zombies take Manhattan!

Four hundred years ago, a Scottish cargo ship fell prey to a Wendigo at an early settlement on the Hudson River. Now a team of archaeologists have uncovered the boat, and let loose the evil. Soon Manhattan is hit by an ice storm like no other. Besides the wind and ice, there is something else moving in the storm. Blue, cold things, with razor sharp teeth.

6) Adam Nevill-The Ritual
Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.

Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. A place of dark ritual and home to a bestial presence that is still present in the ancient forest, and now they’re the prey. As the four friends struggle toward salvation they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees...

7) Mary SanGiovanni-Chills
It begins with a freak snowstorm in May. Hit hardest is the rural town of Colby, Connecticut. Schools and businesses are closed, powerlines are down, and police detective Jack Glazier has found a body in the snow. It appears to be the victim of a bizarre ritual murder. It won’t be the last. As the snow piles up, so do the sacrifices. Cut off from the rest of the world, Glazier teams up with occult crime specialist, Kathy Ryan, to uncover a secret society hiding in their midst.

The gods they worship are unthinkable. The powers they summon are unstoppable. And the things they will do to the good people of Colby are utterly, horribly unspeakable…

8) Gerry Griffiths-Terror Mountain
When Marcus Pike inherits his grandfather’s farm and moves his family out to the country, he has no idea there’s an unholy terror running rampant about the mountainous farming community.

Sheriff Avery Anderson has seen the heinous carnage and the mutilated bodies. He’s also seen the giant footprints left in the snow—Bigfoot tracks. Meanwhile, Cole Wagner, and his wife, Kate, are prospecting their gold claim farther up the valley, unaware of the impending dangers lurking in the woods as an early winter storm sets in.

9) Ryan W Aslesen-Existential
Buried deep in the rugged Alaskan wilderness lies a secret that could alter the future of mankind—a secret that billionaire Elizabeth Grey has invested millions in solving. But when the dig goes silent and all attempts at making contact fail, an elite team of battle hardened military contractors is brought in led by former Marine Max Ahlgren, a warrior haunted by his past.

While the mission to make contact and rescue a team of scientists and engineers working on an “archeological” project seems like an easy payday, Once on ground, the team discovers the grizzly truth that this is no ordinary rescue. Max and his men find themselves in the fight of their lives against a nightmarish enemy like nothing they have ever seen. In what quickly becomes a struggle for survival, the world’s greatest soldiers will encounter the universe’s ultimate terror in a battle that puts all of humanity at stake.

10) Greig Beck-Beneath The Dark Ice
When a plane crashes into the Antarctic ice, exposing a massive cave beneath, a rescue and research team is dispatched. Twenty-four hours later, all contact is lost. Captain Alex Hunter and his highly trained squad of commandos are fast tracked to the hot zone to find out what went wrong – and to follow up the detection of a vast underground reservoir. Accompanying the team is an assortment of researchers, including petrobiologist Aimee Weir. If the unidentified substance proves to be an energy source, every country in the world will want to know about it – some would even kill for it.

Once inserted into the cave system, they don't find any survivors – not even a trace of their bodies. Primeval hieroglyphs hint at an ancient civilisation, and an ancient danger. Spectres of the dead haunt the tunnels. Within hours, one of the party will die. To bring his team out alive, Alex will need every one of his mysterious abilities beneath the dark ice.