Books by Carly Black

⚠️ Warning: Aspects of this book are quite dark. See content warnings below.

Alyssa Carter just wanted to fill in the blanks on her family tree. A DNA test was supposed to offer roots, not rot.

When the results arrive, they shatter everything she thought she knew about herself. Her frantic research leads her down a dark path that starts with the FBI at her door, asking questions about a serial killer she's never heard of. But the DNA doesn't lie. The connection is real.

The deeper Alyssa digs, the more the past unearths itself. Gruesome crimes staged like theater. Bodies left as messages. A family she never knew existed.

But someone is watching. And they don't want her to find the truth.

As her research spirals into obsession, strange things begin happening. Objects moved in her home. Threatening tokens left on her doorstep. The line between family history and present danger blurs until Alyssa can no longer tell if she's investigating the past or being hunted by it.

Some family secrets are buried for a reason, and blood ties can kill.

For readers who crave the twisted family dynamics of Sharp Objects, the moral ambiguity of Gone Girl, and the slow-burn dread of The Good Girl.

Derby City Paranormal Investigations takes a job at Hillcrest Sanatorium, a shuttered institution with a disturbing history and a financial trail that doesn't add up.

Inside, they find a rubber ball that moves in a straight line across uneven floors. A child who appears only on camera, never to the naked eye. And paperwork that suggests someone benefited enormously from the patients who died here.

The dead don't stay quiet. And the living aren't asking the right questions yet.

On Tess Davis's 35th birthday, she finds a hidden journal in the back of the library's restricted collection. Inside it: her name. Her mother's name. Her grandmother's name.

And a curse.

One lunar month to break it, or lose everything. The journal doesn't say what she'll lose. It just says she won't want to find out.

Daniel Park retreats to a cabin in rural Kentucky with six weeks to deliver the novel he owes his publisher. No distractions. No excuses. Just him and the work.

On the second night, he finds the journal in the attic. He tells himself he won't open it.

He opens it.

What he reads is either the confession of a killer or the most compelling fiction he's ever encountered. And he can't stop reading long enough to figure out which one it is.