Books like 'Beloved'
Readers who enjoyed Beloved by Toni Morrison also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAndy Dufresne, a banker, was convicted of killing his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank Prison. He maintains his innocence over the decades he spends at Shawshank during which time he forms a friendship with "Red", a fellow inmate.Source: stephenking... -
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsOn November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction magical-realism north-america paranormal usa 20th-century -
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn Alabama boy’s innocence is shaken by murder and madness in the 1960s South in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson...Categorized as:
classics drama gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism north-america paranormal -
The Complete Fiction by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Nameless CityThe FestivalThe Colour Out of SpaceThe Call of CthulhuThe Dunwich HorrorThe Whisperer in DarknessThe Dreams in the Witch HouseThe Haunter of the DarkThe Shadow Over InnsmouthDiscarded Draft of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"The Shadow Out of TimeAt the Mountains of MadnessThe Case of Charles Dexter WardAzathothBeyond the Wall of SleepCelephaïsCool AirDagonEx OblivioneFacts...Categorized as:
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Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOriginally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmology that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome presents original versions of many of his most harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, in order of publication...Categorized as:
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The Portable Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe essential collection of the American literary master of terror, death, murder, fantasy, and revengeThe first new edition of this landmark anthology since 1945, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe presents a more complicated, perverse, and culturally engaged Poe...Categorized as:
classics gothic literary-fiction paranormal university 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature by Alberto Manguel, Julio Cortázar
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis huge anthology offers a kaleidoscope of brilliant writing from the Magi of the imagination. Alberto Manguel has selected 72 fantastic tales from life on the edge of the twilight zone, with stories from Marguerite Yourcenar, Herman Hesse, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, and many, many more...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century absurdism adult -
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIncantations of black magic unearthed unspeakable horrors in Providence, Rhode Island...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal 20th-century adult audiobook -
Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsM. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernize a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognizable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal 20th-century adult -
Novels & Stories: The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Other Stories and Sketches by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratings“The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,” writes A. M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse... -
Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsDoro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex--or design. He fears no one--until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu has also died many times. She can absorb bullets and make medicine with a kiss, give birth to tribes, nurture and heal, and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one--until she meets Doro...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal poc-mc slavery 20th-century -
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary...Categorized as:
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The Best Ghost Stories Of Algernon Blackwood by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSelected from the entire body of Algernon Blackwood’s work, this collection contains some of his finest writing. Blackwood’s ability to create and sustain an atmosphere of unrelieved horror is witnessed in ‘The Willows’, a starkly terrifying tale of another dimension impinging on our own. In contrast, ‘The Other Wing’, is a chilling but delicate evocation of the mysteries of childhood... -
The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead. The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices. Missouri, 1955... -
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Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 54 ratingsFifteen-year-old Oscar Drai meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of Barcelona. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave...Categorized as:
classics drama gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal -
The Vanished Bride of Northfield House by Phyllis M. Newman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsEngland, 1922. Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not... -
Tryst by Elswyth Thane
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHilary Shenstone is dead, yet he haunts his old home. Only animals and a young girl Sabrina can sense his presence. The old housekeeper is aware of this, and helps Sabrina to contact the spirit...Categorized as:
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The Haunted Dolls' House by M.R. James
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEvil comes with many different faces. A macabre human drama is re-enacted in a Gothic dolls' house one night; a whistle awakens a force of unspeakable malevolence; an ancient curse is passed from person to person; a grisly crime is avenged from beyond the grave; the tomb of a Swedish count will not rest quietly . M. R...Categorized as:
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The Amazing Mr Blunden by Antonia Barber
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt was such an old house it sometimes seemed to Lucy that all the past was gathered up inside it as if in a great box; as though it had a life of its own that continued to exist just beyond the reach of her eyes and ears...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book -
The Delicate Prey and Other Stories by Paul Bowles
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPaul Bowles once said that a story should remain taut throughout, like a piece of string. That tense, stretched tone is the key to this collection of 17 eerie tales by the author best known for The Sheltering Sky. The Delicate Prey is dedicated: "For my mother, who first read me the stories of Poe... -
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsM. R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre...Categorized as:
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The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsrelates the adventures of Satan, the sinless nephew of the biblical Satan, in Eseldorf, an Austrian village in the year 1702. Twain wrote this version between November 1897 and September 1900. "Eseldorf" is German for "Assville" or "Donkeytown"... -
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century -
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsDuring the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the NightingaleJanuary 1918...Categorized as:
historical-fiction paranormal ghosts gothic magical-realism fantasy historical fiction -
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The Kindred of Darkness by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen James Asher and his wife Lydia's baby daughter Miranda is kidnapped by the Master Vampire of London, the stakes are high: blindly follow the Master Vampire's instructions, keep out of the way of the human networks that serves the vampires, destroy the interloper who seeks to seize control of the London Nest, and find the key to the Nest's tortuous inner workings: The Book of the Kindred of...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal poc-mc 20th-century adult alternate-history -
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier, Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJohn Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTwo women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea... -
The Between by Tananarive Due
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Hilton was just a boy, his aged grandmother saved him from drowning by pulling him out of a treacherous ocean current, sacrificing her life for his. Now, thirty years later, Hilton begins to think his borrowed time is running out...Categorized as:
classics gothic literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal poc-mc 20th-century adult -
Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edogawa Rampo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCollected in this chilling volume are some of the famous Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo's best stories—bizarre and blood-curdling expeditions into the fantastic, the perverse, and the strange, in a marvelous homage to Rampo's literary 'mentor', Edgar Allan Poe...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century adult -
Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis masterfully crafted first novel tells the spellbinding story of a contemporary woman who discovers her past life as a 12th-century Welsh noblewoman. Erskine's extraordinary romance has been translated into 17 languages and has sold well over a million copies worldwide...Categorized as:
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The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if the ordinary things in life suddenly…disappeared?Aila Quinn’s mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery: vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila’s reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother Miles are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town far from home--and the place where Juliet grew up.Sterling is a place with mysteries of its own... -
The Color Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsSet in the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, an unnamed narrator investigates a local area known as the “blasted hearth.” After failing to extract any information from the Arkham locals, the narrator encounters an old man, Ammi Pierce, who relates the story of a farmer who once lived there. The hearth, he claims, was caused by a meteorite that fell onto the farmer’s field in 1882...Categorized as:
classics drama ghosts gothic literary-fiction university 20th-century action-adventure -
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism university 20th-century adult -
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick, Josephine Leslie
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsBurdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg...Categorized as:
classics drama ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal 20th-century -
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The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka, Anne Rice
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsTranslated by PEN translation award-winner Joachim Neugroschel, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories has garnered critical acclaim and is widely recognized as the preeminent English-language anthology of Kafka's stories. These translations illuminate one of this century's most controversial writers and have made Kafka's work accessible to a whole new generation...Categorized as:
classics high-school literary-fiction magical-realism university 20th-century adult anthologies -
The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsPeter Straub called Robert Aickman 'this century's most profound writer of what we call horror stories'. Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia. His characters are ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies -
Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, Annie Tucker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead...Categorized as:
classics drama ghosts historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism poc-mc 20th-century -
The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratings"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.The story is narrated by the scion of the Delapore family, who has moved from Massachusetts to his ancestral estate in England, known as Exham Priory. On several occasions, the protagonist and his cats hear the sounds of rats scurrying behind the walls...Categorized as:
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The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsL. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century.There are three children: Toby, who rides the majestic horse Feste; his mischievous little sister, Linnet; and their brother, Alexander, who plays the flute. The children warmly welcome Tolly to Green Knowe..Categorized as:
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The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn the eve of her wedding in 1978, Shay Garrett peers into the antique mirror in her family's longtime home, the famous Victorian Gingerbread House on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado, and falls unconscious only to wake in the body of her own grandmother Brandy on the eve of her wedding—in 1900. The virginal Brandy, in turn, awakes in Shay's body to discover herself pregnant...Categorized as:
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I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé, Angela Y. Davis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Stunning... Maryse Condé's imaginative subversion of historical records forms a critique of contemporary American society and its ingrained racism and sexism." —THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBEAt the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her...Categorized as:
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The Haunting of H. G. Wells by Robert Masello
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA plot against England that even the genius of H. G. Wells could not have imagined. It’s 1914. The Great War grips the world—and from the Western Front a strange story emerges…a story of St. George and a brigade of angels descending from heaven to fight beside the beleaguered British troops. But can there be any truth to it?H. G...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century adult alternate-history audiobook -
The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratings"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe of horror fiction. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales... -
Three Souls by Janie Chang
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAn absorbing novel of romance and revolution, loyalty and family, sacrifice and undying loveWe have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this ... So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife...Categorized as:
drama ghosts historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal poc-mc 20th-century -
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A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThis classic tale from the author of The Last Unicorn is a journey between the realms of the living and the dead, and a testament to the eternal power of love.Michael Morgan was not ready to die, but his funeral was carried out just the same. Trapped in the dark limbo between life and death as a ghost, he searches for an escape. Instead, he discovers the beautiful Laura..Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century -
Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman, Reece Shearsmith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul... -
The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJohnny Dixon doesn't believe that the ghost of mad Father Baart haunts the town church. But then he takes an old scroll and a seemingly harmless figurine from the church basement, accepts a magic ring from a mysterious stranger--and is plunged into a terrifying adventure that may cost him his life...Categorized as:
classics ghosts gothic historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book -
Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late...Categorized as:
drama ghosts gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal southern-gothic 20th-century -
Agnes Cecilia by Maria Gripe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAfter experiencing several inexplicable incidents, lonely Nora receives a strangely lifelike doll, which leads her to discover long-hidden secrets about her family...Categorized as:
classics drama ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century book -
American Supernatural Tales by S.T. Joshi, Thomas Ligotti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAs Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation’s brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P...
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