Books like 'The Shape of Darkness'
Readers who enjoyed The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror mystery supernatural thriller historical-fiction gothic paranormal ghosts spooky
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Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, LHN Books
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe was one of the most original writers in the history of American letters, a genius who was tragically misunderstood in his lifetime... -
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:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal spooky suspense victorian -
The Loch of the Dead by Oscar de Muriel
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA CASE FOR FREY & McGRAY The Scottish Highlands, 1889. When a young heir receives a sinister death threat, Inspectors Frey and 'Nine-Nails' McGray answer a desperate plea to offer him protection.The detectives travel north to the remote and misty Loch Maree, site of an ancient burial ground. They must stay with the mysterious Koloman family - any one of whom might be a suspect...Categorized as:
crime ghosts gothic historical-fiction industrial-era victorian witches-wizards thriller -
Callie by Bill Thompson
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDeep in the bayous of southern Louisiana, an ancient mansion called Beau Rivage sits empty and abandoned. Arceneaux family members built the house and lived there for two hundred years. The house is inherited by Callie Pilantro, a down-on-her-luck granddaughter of Juliet Arceneaux, its most recent owner who died there a few months ago... -
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The Night Crossing by Robert Masello
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBram Stoker kept secret a tale even more terrifying than Dracula. It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city...Categorized as:
historical-fiction gothic paranormal vampires industrial-era victorian suspense horror -
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... -
The Sun Rises Over Seven Sisters by M.L. Bullock
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe revelation that a significant, active curse rests on the Cottonwood family puts a damper on Carrie Jo’s excitement about her new baby. Worried about protecting the child and Ashland, she does all she can to help Ashland break the curse and keep their family safe from danger. When Hurricane Jasmine bears down on Mobile, everything goes wrong... -
John Eyre: A Tale of Darkness and Shadow by Mimi Matthews
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews comes a supernatural Victorian gothic retelling of Charlotte Brontë's timeless classic.Yorkshire, 1843. When disgraced former schoolmaster John Eyre arrives at Thornfield Hall to take up a position as tutor to two peculiar young boys, he enters a world unlike any he’s ever known...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal vampires victorian adult audiobook -
The Darker Arts by Oscar de Muriel
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMadame Katerina, Detective 'Nine Nails' McGray's most trusted clairvoyant, hosts a séance for three of Edinburgh's wealthiest families.The following morning everyone is found dead, with Madame Katerina being the only survivor. When questioned she alleges a tormented spirit killed the families for revenge... -
Charlotte Says by Alex Bell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe much-anticipated prequel to the bestselling FROZEN CHARLOTTE, a Zoella Book Club title in Autumn 2016. Following the death of her mother in a terrible fire, Jemima flees to the remote Isle of Skye, to take up a job at a school for girls. There she finds herself tormented by the mystery of what really happened that night... -
Best Ghost Stories of J.S. Le Fanu by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHere are 16 classic ghost stories: "Carmilla" (perhaps the classic vampire thriller), "Green Tea", "The Familiar", "The Haunted Baronet", "Madam Crowl's Ghost", "The Dead Sexton", "An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House" plus nine others. Half these stories never published before in U.S... -
The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA thrilling Victorian gothic horror tale about a young seamstress who claims her needle and thread have the power to killDorothea Truelove is young, wealthy, and beautiful. Ruth Butterham is young, poor, and awaiting trial for murder... -
The Hanging of Hettie Gale by Tess Burnett
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA mother's love will never die. Neither will a mother's fury . . . The moor is a difficult place for a young woman to grow up in the eighteenth century, and life for Hettie Gale is no different. Abused by her father and abandoned by her family, she builds a new life for herself and her young son... -
The Thirteenth Gate by Kat Ross
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWinter 1888. At a private asylum in the English countryside, a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper kills an orderly and flees into the rain-soaked night. His distraught keepers summon the Lady Vivienne Cumberland—who's interviewed their patient and isn't sure he's a man at all...Categorized as:
crime gothic historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal victorian witches-wizards book -
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Her Loving Husband's Curse by Meredith Allard
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHow far will you go to protect the one you love?Finally, after many long and lonely years, James Wentworth’s life is falling into place. Together with his wife, Sarah, the only woman he has ever loved, he has found the meaning behind her nightmares about the Salem Witch Trials, and now they are rebuilding the life they began together so long ago.But the past is never far behind for the Wentworths... -
The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories by Michael Cox
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress, the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century, fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay beyond it... -
The Stars We Walked Upon by M.L. Bullock
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCarrie Jo Stuart's dream catching has gotten out of control and threatens to wreck her happy home. She decides to tell her husband a secret that changes everything, but Ashland has ghosts of his own. Ashland's childhood friend Detra Ann Dowd battles a frightening supernatural being but travels across time to receive help from an unexpected ally... -
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 Haunted Looking Glass by Edward Gorey
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Haunted Looking Glass is the late Edward Gorey's selection of his favorite tales of ghosts, ghouls, and grisly goings-on. It includes stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs, and L. P. Hartley, among other masters of the fine art of making the flesh creep, all accompanied by Gorey's inimitable illustrations.ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, "The Empty House"W.F... -
Carousel by Jordan L. Hawk
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNote: “Carousel” first appeared in the anthology Another Place in Time. It takes place between the events of Stormhaven and Necropolis. When a child goes missing in Widdershins, ex-Pinkerton detective Griffin Flaherty fears sinister forces are at work in the town... -
The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for it may just come true.At The Mercury Theatre in London's West End, rumours are circulating of a curse...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction industrial-era victorian paranormal spooky ghosts suspense -
House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe past isn't always dead or buried...When Joss Grant, adopted at birth, inherits Belheddon Hall – a beautiful old house on the East Anglian coast – it is like a dream come true. Eager to begin a new life there with Luke, her husband, and Tom, her small son, she is also impatient to find out about her newly discovered family who lived there for generations... -
The Harvest Man by Alex Grecian
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsScotland Yard’s Murder Squad—and Jack the Ripper—return, in the extraordinary new historical thriller from the author of the acclaimed national bestseller The Yard. In The Devil’s Workshop, London discovered that Jack the Ripper was back, sending the city—and Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad—into chaos. But now it is even worse... -
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel. In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind... -
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The Raven Spell by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn Victorian England a witch and a detective are on the hunt for a serial killer in an enthralling novel of magic and murder.After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London... -
Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsSome houses hold secrets that are meant to be kept forever…When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield... -
A Twist of Fate by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsFour years ago, Rosalind Courtenay stumbled from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, where she has been trapped ever since, leaving her husband and infant son behind. Now she’s found her way back.The problem, of course, is how to explain her absence to her husband... -
The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLook out for C.J. Cooke's atmospheric new novel . . . In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth... -
Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Charles Prepolec, Kim Newman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe fabled tin dispatch box of Dr. John H. Watson opens to reveal eleven all new tales of mystery and dark fantasy. Sherlock Holmes, master of deductive reasoning, confronts the irrational, the unexpected and the fantastic in the weird worlds of the Gaslight Grimoire...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal suspense victorian action-adventure adult -
The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBrother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald flee their busy London lives for the beautiful but stormy Devon coastline. They are drawn to the suspiciously inexpensive Cliff End, feared amongst locals as a place of disturbance and ill omen. Gradually, the Fitzgeralds learn of the mysterious deaths of Mary Meredith and another strange young woman... -
A Mask of Shadows by Oscar de Muriel
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIdols of the theatre Henry Irving and Ellen Terry are preparing to stage Macbeth in Edinburgh. But long before the actors hit the boards the play-house is hit with horror; the piercing, desolate wail of a banshee and a bloody message smeared on the street.Legendary Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and disgraced London sceptic Inspector Ian Frey are to investigate... -
The Daemoniac by Kat Ross
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt's August of 1888, just three weeks before Jack the Ripper will begin his grisly spree in the London slum of Whitechapel, and another serial murderer is stalking the gas-lit streets of New York... -
Butterflies by K.J. Charles
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJournalist Robert Caldwell is still smarting from his first encounter with ghost-hunter Simon Feximal. Their night in a haunted house was thrilling, but the aftermath leaves Robert hurt, disappointed, and resolved not to see Simon again.But just a few days later their paths cross once more, this time investigating a pair of mysterious deaths: two corpses shrouded in butterflies... -
Her Sister's Death by K.L. Murphy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsShe wanted the truth. She should have known better.When her sister is found dead in a Baltimore hotel room, reporter Val Ritter’s world is turned upside down. What’s worse—an empty pill bottle at the scene leads the police to believe the cause of death is suicide. With little more than her own conviction, Val teams up with a retired detective who has his own personal interest in the case... -
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The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Matthew Sweet
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 66 ratings'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road... -
The Dravenhearst Brides by Lindsay Barrett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn heiress with a haunted past enters a marriage of convenience with a man as tempting as the devil himself…and likely just as ruinous.After a scandalous debut sent her into recluse, heiress Margaret Greenbrier returns to the Louisville social circuit for the 1933 season. Laudanum prescription or no, Margot is not crazy. She’s not...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction paranormal industrial-era victorian suspense ghosts romance -
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsMexican Gothic meets Rebecca in this debut supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches... In the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father is executed and her home destroyed...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction paranormal spooky suspense witches-wizards industrial-era -
Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula by Stephen Seitz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter Mina Murray asks Sherlock Holmes to locate her fiancee, Holmes and Watson travel to a land far eerier than the moors they had known when pursuing the Hound of the Baskervilles. The confrontation with Count Dracula threatens Holmes' health, his sanity, and his life...Categorized as:
crime gothic historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal vampires victorian 21st-century -
The Haunting by Paul Doherty
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn October 1866, Father Oliver Grafield is brought from his parish work for an interview with Archbishop Manning of Westminster. Oliver is a hard-working, committed priest, and he has one gift - that of the exorcism of 'divining spirits'... -
The Hanging Tree by Michael Phillip Cash
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEnter a world where spirits roam the earth in Michael Phillip Cash's haunting new novella, The Hanging Tree. Set amid the eerie backdrop of Long Island, an area famously steeped in old legend, two young would-be lovers contemplate their future while visits from those who have come before them reveal the lure of fate...and the power of free will...Categorized as:
ghosts historical-fiction paranormal suspense witches-wizards book fiction historical -
Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNew York City, 1899. Tillie Pembroke’s sister lies dead, her body drained of blood and with two puncture wounds on her neck. Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula, has just been published, and Tillie’s imagination leaps to the impossible: the murderer is a vampire... -
The Burning by R.L. Stine
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe end…and the beginningSimon Fear thought changing his name would stop the evil. He was wrong—dead wrong.After generations of unspeakable horror, it is up to Daniel and Nora, brought together by their fateful love, to unite the feuding families... -
The Secret by R.L. Stine
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBuried EvilWhat is the secret of Fear Street?Why has its horror lasted so long?Ezra Fier wants to find out. He searches for the answer among the rotting bones in the ghostly town of Wickham. But he find only betrayal and death.Elizabeth and Kate are in love with the same boy... -
The Jekyll Revelation by Robert Masello
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhile on routine patrol in the tinder-dry Topanga Canyon, environmental scientist Rafael Salazar expects to find animal poachers, not a dilapidated antique steamer trunk. Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...Categorized as:
crime gothic historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal suspense victorian thriller -
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Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales by Bram Stoker
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMenacing tales from one of the masters of horror fictionAlthough Bram Stoker is best known for his world-famous novel Dracula, he also wrote many shorter works on the strange and the macabre... -
The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsMay mercy be upon the man who finds himself the enemy of a vengeful medium…1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire... -
A Night of Blacker Darkness: Being the Memoir of Frederick Whithers As Edited by Cecil G. Bagsworth III by Dan Wells
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWrongly imprisoned, Frederick Whithers is desperate to commit the crime he's already being punished for: defrauding the bank out of a vast inheritance. He fakes his death to escape, but when he's seen climbing out of a coffin everyone assumes he's a vampire; when he shows none of the traditional vampire weaknesses, they decide he must be the most powerful vampire in the history of the world...Categorized as:
crime gothic historical-fiction paranormal spooky suspense vampires action-adventure -
Cauldstane by Linda Gillard
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen ghostwriter Jenny Ryan is summoned to the Scottish Highlands by Sholto MacNab – retired adventurer and Laird of Cauldstane Castle – she’s prepared for travellers’ tales, but not the MacNabs’ violent and tragic history. Lust, betrayal and murder have blighted family fortunes for generations, together with an ancient curse... -
The Caldwell Ghost by K.J. Charles
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen Robert Caldwell inherits a haunted house, he calls on ghost-hunter Simon Feximal to rid him of the supernatural menace. But the ghost is stronger than either man realizes -- strong, angry, and desperate for release. Trapped in a haunted house with a dangerously attractive ghost-hunter and a sexually frustrated spirit, can Robert survive the night intact.. -
Hyde by Craig Russell
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEdward Hyde has a strange gift-or a curse-he keeps secret from all but his physician. He experiences two realities, one real, the other a dreamworld state brought on by a neurological condition.When murders in Victorian Edinburgh echo the ancient Celtic threefold death ritual, Captain Edward Hyde hunts for those responsible...
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