Books like 'The Robber Bride'
Readers who enjoyed The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 40 ratings"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12Ashton is just a typical small town... -
Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, John Updike
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsThe only available collection that brings together all of Kafka's storiesthose published during his lifetime and those released after his death...Categorized as:
classics drama literary-fiction magical-realism university 20th-century adult anthologies -
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsFour decades after it first terrified the world, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is back! An extraordinary classic work of horror and dark paranormal suspense. In this stunning 40th Anniversary Edition, a desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a supernatural entity of pure malevolence... -
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders..Categorized as:
classics drama friendship literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult -
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 66 ratings'A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following...Categorized as:
classics crime drama literary-fiction magical-realism university 20th-century action-adventure -
The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsHarry Mulisch's magnum opus, is a rich mosaic of twentieth-century trauma in which many themes—friendship, loyalty, family, art, technology, religion, fate, good, and evil—suffuse a suspenseful and resplendent narrative.The Discovery of Heaven begins with the meeting of Onno and Max, two complicated individuals whom fate has mysteriously and magically brought together... -
Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLibrarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.The post of Diocesan Exorcist in the Church of England has changed to the preferred term Delivery Ministry. It sounds less sinister, more caring, so why not a job for a woman? When offered the post the Rev. Merrily Watkins cannot easily refuse, having suffered uncanny experiences of her own... -
The Magus by John Fowles
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThis daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire... -
The Tenant by Roland Topor
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe Tenant chronicles a harrowing, fascinating descent into madness as the pathologically alienated Trelkovsky is subsumed into Simone Choule, an enigmatic suicide whose presence saturates his new apartment. More than a tale of possession, the novel probes disturbing depths of guilt, paranoia, and sexual obsession with an unsparing detachment... -
One Boy's Shadow by Ross A. McCoubrey
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Fifteen-year-old Caleb Mackenzie doesn’t put up a fight when his father announces the family is moving to Stapeton, Nova Scotia. In fact, Caleb looks forward to a fresh start in the scenic little area. Their new home, Wakefield House, sports large rooms, a big barn where Caleb can work on cars, and acres of forested land for privacy. But it also has a troubling past... -
Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis collection features tormented individuals who play out their doom in various odd little towns, as well as in dark sectors frequented by sinister and often blackly comical eccentrics. The cycle of narratives that includes the title work of this collection, for instance, introduces readers to a freakish community of artists who encounter demonic perils that ultimately engulf their lives...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary -
World of Wonders by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsHailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult -
Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn these dark, disturbing stories Roald Dahl explores the sinister side of human nature: the cunning, sly selfish part of each of us that leads into the territory of the unexpected and unsettling.Originally published in 1960, Kiss Kiss brings together 11 of Roald's macabre adult tales... -
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras... -
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Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsA gallery attendant at the Hermitage. A young jazz buff in Tokyo. A crooked British lawyer in Hong Kong. A disc jockey in Manhattan. A physicist in Ireland. An elderly woman running a tea shack in rural China. A cult-controlled terrorist in Okinawa. A musician in London. A transmigrating spirit in Mongolia...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism realistic 20th-century adult -
Last Call by Tim Powers
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsTwenty years ago Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player and went into hiding, after a weird high-stakes game played with Tarot cards. But now the cards - and the supernatural powers behind them - have found him again.Crane's father killed gangster Bugsy Siegel in 1948 to become the Fisher King, and to keep that power he is determined to kill his son...Categorized as:
crime dark historical-fiction magical-realism retellings suspense 20th-century action-adventure -
Everville by Clive Barker
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsOn the borderland between this world and the world of Quiddity, the sea of our dreams, sits Everville. For years, it has lived in ignorance of the gleaming shore on which it lies. But its ignorance is not bliss...Categorized as:
classics dark literary-fiction retellings suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsIn this brilliant collection of stories, Stephen King takes readers down paths that only he could imagine.A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driver finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil... -
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsIn life, not every sin goes unpunished.GHOST STORYFor four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder... -
Ghost Stories by Henry James
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWith an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield, University of Kent at Canterbury. Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche... -
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsAn alternative cover for this ISBN can be found hereOne day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village... -
Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsA page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print... -
The Double by José Saramago
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsTertuliano Maximo Afonso is a history teacher in a secondary school. He is divorced, involved in a rather one-sided relationship with a bank clerk, and he is depressed. To lift his depression, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film and is unimpressed. During the night, noises in his apartment wake him...Categorized as:
classics drama literary-fiction magical-realism suspense 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
Finding Laura by Kay Hooper, Kate Fleming
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCharming, seductive Peter Kilbourne has been found stabbed to death in a seedy motel room, and Laura Sutherland, the struggling artist who was one of the last people to see Peter alive, is one of the first to be suspected of his murder... -
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The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSam and his friends are like any normal gang of normal young boys—roaming wild around the outskirts of their car-factory town, daring adults to challenge their freedom. Then one day Sam wakes to find the tooth fairy sitting on the edge of his bed—but this is not the benign figure of childhood myth. This is an enigmatic presence that both torments and seduces him, changing his life forever...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark drama friendship literary-fiction magical-realism retellings 20th-century -
The Bridge by Iain Banks
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA darkly brilliant novel of self-discovery the cutting edge of experimental fiction. It leads from nowhere to nowhere, the mysterious world-spanning structure on which everyone seems to live. Rescued from the sea, devoid of personality or memory, all John Orr knows is the Bridge, his persistent dreams of war, and his desire for Chief Engineer Arrol's provocative daughter, Abberlaine...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary dystopia -
Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Rolfes -- Ben, wife Marian, son David, and Aunt Elizabeth -- are a pleasant family from New York seeking to escape from the doldrums of a summer in their Queens apartment. They find a beautiful old country mansion on Long Island -- restful, secluded, with pool and private beach -- perfect, for the right people. But their "perfect" summer home hides terrors beyond their wildest imaginings... -
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if you didn't believe in God, but then met the Devil? That is precisely the dilemma in the mysterious tale of Gideon Mack. A good man, and, ironically, a good minister despite his atheism, Mack leads a respectable and well-intentioned life in a small Scottish town. There he dutifully tends to his flock and even raises a small fortune for Christian charity running marathons...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook -
Haunted by James Herbert
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThree nights of terror in a house called Edbrook. Three nights in which David Ash, there to investigate a haunting, will be the victim of horrifying and maleficent games. Three nights in which he will face the enigma of his own past. Three nights before Edbrook's dreadful secret will be revealed - and the true nightmare will begin... -
Second Nature by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsSecond Nature tells the story of a suburban woman, Robin Moore, who discovers her own free spirit through a stranger she brings home to her perfectly ordered neighborhood...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction magical-realism suspense 20th-century adult audiobook book -
The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
Rated: 3.74 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsJohn M. Harrison delivers an extraordinary, genre-bending novel that weaves together mythology, sexuality, and the troubled past and present of Eastern Europe. It begins on a hot May night, when three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsIt is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House...Categorized as:
classics dark drama female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense 20th-century -
Insomnia by Stephen King
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsRalph Roberts has a problem: he isn't sleeping so well these days. In fact, he's hardly sleeping at all. Each morning, the news conveyed by the bedside clock is a little worse: 3:15...3:02...2:45...2:15. The books call it "premature waking"; Ralph, who is still learning to be a widower, calls it a season in hell...Categorized as:
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Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCharles and Laura are a young, happily married couple inhabiting the privileged world of Cambridge academia. Brimming with excitement, Charles sets off with his daughter Naomi on a Christmas Eve shopping trip to London. But, by the end of the day, all Charles and his wife have left are cups of tea and police sympathy. For Naomi, their beautiful, angelic only child, has disappeared... -
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Fear by Roald Dahl
Rated: 3.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPERFECT for fans of Roald Dahl.Think you know Dahl? Think again. Discover a collection of deliciously dark ghost stories for adults, picked by Dahl himself . . . Do you enjoy being scared? Featuring fourteen classic spine-chilling stories chosen by Roald Dahl, these terrible tales of ghostly goings-on will have you shivering with fear as you turn the pages...Categorized as:
classics female-mc literary-fiction suspense 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
The Centaur by John Updike
Rated: 3.70 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE PRIX DU MEILLEUR LIVRE ÉTRANGER The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism retellings suspense university -
Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsLock your doors, barricade your windows: Muriel Axon is back in town. It's been ten years since she was locked away for killing her mad old mother. Now she wants to lay Mother's ghost to rest and find her missing child. But above all, she wants revenge... -
The Witch of Exmoor by Margaret Drabble
Rated: 3.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn a “profoundly moving, intellectually acute” novel (Philadelphia Inquirer) that is “as meticulous as Jane Austen, as deadly as Evelyn Waugh” (Los Angeles Times), Margaret Drabble conjures up a retired writer besieged by her three grasping children in this dazzling, wickedly gothic tale... -
Maya by Jostein Gaarder
Rated: 3.60 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA chance meeting on the Fijian island of Taveuni is the trigger for a fascinating and mysterious novel that intertwines the stories of John Spooke, an English author who is grieving for his dead wife; Frank Andersen, a Norwegian evolutionary biologist estranged from his wife Vera; and an enigmatic Spanish couple, Ana and Jose, who are absorbed in their love for each other...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure book contemporary fiction -
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
Rated: 3.61 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsCalcutta: a monstrous city of immense slums, disease and misery, is clasped in the foetid embrace of an ancient cult. At its decaying core is the Goddess Kali: the dark mother of pain, four-armed and eternal, her song the sound of death and destruction... -
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
Rated: 3.68 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsAre three decades of interest in modern physics, ecology, mystical religion and interpersonal psychology finally synthesizing into a new spiritual "common sense"? Are we now beginning to live this new common sense? Can it become the dominant paradigm of the next century?When James Redfield first published this extraordinary book -- an adventure in pursuit of a spiritual mystery -- people picked...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction magical-realism suspense 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams
Rated: 3.52 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsA shy young man meets a beautiful woman in the company of a young girl. He finds himself swept off of his feet and married to her, bringing her with him to live in his family home. She is his erotic dream come true; she does everything she can to bind him to her and join him in his comfortable life.Soon, however, odd things begin to happen...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism suspense 20th-century adult -
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Rated: 3.57 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsLibrarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control.The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult audiobook -
Brida by Paulo Coelho
Rated: 3.49 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThis is the story of Brida, a young Irish girl, and her quest for knowledge. She has long been interested in various aspects of magic but is searching for something more. Her search leads her to people of great wisdom, who begin to teach Brida about the spiritual world...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century audiobook book -
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The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho
Rated: 3.26 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA classic masterwork of spiritual tension and realization from Paulo Coelho, this powerful story of one man’s battle with self-doubt and fear is now available in a beautiful new package from HarperOne...Categorized as:
classics drama literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult angels
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