Books like 'Whiskey and Water'
Readers who enjoyed Whiskey and Water by Elizabeth Bear also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical fantasy urban fantasy dark fantasy alternate history supernatural fae historical-fiction magic paranormal
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The Fall of the House of Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsJohannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has come into possession of a vital clue that may lead him to his ultimate goal: a cure for death. The path is vague, however, and certainly treacherous as it takes him into strange territories that, quite literally, no one has ever seen before...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure adult -
Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsan alternate cover edition can be found hereIntroverted scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has spent the last few months watching his lover, Griffin Flaherty, come to terms with the rejection of his adoptive family. So when an urgent telegram from Christine summons them to Egypt, Whyborne is reluctant to risk the fragile peace they’ve established...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history -
Apocalypse Redux, Book One by Jakob H. Greif
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe worst thing about the end of the world is we did it to ourselvesIsaac Thoma lived to see the last handful of survivors defeat the demonic champion. He is now alone, his past in ashes, the last and most powerful human on a blighted Earth. But what if he could go back?Hurled back in time, Isaac has one chance to change it all. A chance to warn humanity of their impending doom... -
The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHorst Cabal has risen from the dead. Again. Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan: to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure adult -
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Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJohannes Cabal has faced down the undead, ghosts, monsters, and Satan himself. But before all that, he fought the terrifying Bonewind, a supernatural being that devours life itself, and he did it all without leaving his house. "Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day" was the story that first introduced the necromancer of some little infamy back in 2004...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk adult alternate-history -
The Shotgun Arcana by R.S. Belcher
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsR. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.1870...Categorized as:
angels dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure -
The Turn: The Hollows Begins with Death by Kim Harrison
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 30 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison returns to her beloved Hollows series with The Turn, the official prequel to the series that will introduce fans and readers to a whole new side of Rachel Morgan's world as they've never seen it before!Can science save us when all else fails? Trisk and her hated rival, Kalamack, have the same goal: save their species from extinction... -
The Hungry Dreaming by Craig Schaefer
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe discovery of lost letters between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, describing historical events that never happened, sends shockwaves through the academic world. Meanwhile, a citywide surveillance program is coming to New York on a groundswell of dirty money and dead bodies. To hard-nosed Brooklyn reporter Nell Bluth, the two mysteries couldn't be more different... -
The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSomeone is killing Britain's warlocks.Twenty-two years after the Second World War, a precarious balance of power maintains the peace between Great Britain and the USSR. For decades, the warlocks have been all that stand between the British Empire and the Soviet Union-- a vast domain stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the English Channel...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk 20th-century action-adventure -
Red, White, and Blood by Christopher Farnsworth
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Presidential Campaign Trail, 2012: A political operative and a volunteer are brutally murdered while caught in a compromising position. Written in their blood on the wall of the crime scene: IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK.And with that, a centuries-old horror known only as the Boogeyman returns to taunt Nathaniel Cade, the President’s Vampire...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
The Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsJohannes Cabal and his rather inexact powers of necromancy are back once more. This time, his talents are purchased by The Fear Institute as they hunt for the Phobic Animus - the embodiment of fear...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure adult -
The Wolf's Hour by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsD-Day is threatened, but one man could rip the heart of the Nazis -- with his bare claws....He is Michael Gallatin, master spy, lover -- and werewolf. Able to change shape with lightning speed, to kill silently or with savage, snarling fury, he proved his talents against Rommel in Africa. Now he faces his most delicate, dangerous mission: to unravel the secret Nazi plan known as Iron Fist...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsIn America, demons wear white hoods.In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die... -
The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsNicholas Valiarde is a passionate, embittered nobleman with an enigmatic past. Consumed by thoughts of vengeance, he is consoled only by thoughts of the beautiful, dangerous Madeline. He is also the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien.. -
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Creeping Jenny by Jeff Noon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe third book in Jeff Noon's widely acclaimed 'Nyquist Mysteries' find our protagonist caught up in a new mystery that delves into nightmares, Saints and the answer to his father's disappearanceNyquist finds himself in a village where everyday is a different type of nightmare and whose bizarre rules are governed by whichever Saint rules that day...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history anthologies crime -
Where Oblivion Lives by T. Frohock
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Frohock has intricately woven a unique reinterpretation of history. Eloquent prose accompanies a lyrical theme amid prewar tensions, enriching this imaginative historical fantasy...Categorized as:
angels dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history -
Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAleksandr made a silent promise to the Lord. God would deliver him -- would deliver Russia -- and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness -- the terror by night. 1825, Europe -- and Russia -- have been at peace for a decade...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction paranormal adult alternate-history book dark-fantasy fiction -
The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. "The Litany of Earth" is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos... -
Adept by Adam Przechrzta
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBliżej...Stolica Polski po okupacją rosyjską, początek XX wieku.W środku miasta pojawia się enklawa, otoczona murem nabitym srebrnymi prętami.Nikt nie wie skąd się wzięła, dlaczego zmienia się tam układ ulic i wygląd kamienic.Identyczne strefy goszczą w Moskwie i Petersburgu.Pozornie normalne życie tuż obok emanacji wynaturzonego świata pełnego potworów... -
The Night Watch by Sean Stewart
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe fabulously acclaimed Resurrection Man uncovered a world where the horrors of modern war and technology had given rise to magic. Now the magic returns--and nothing will ever be the same.. -
A Spell of Vengeance by D.B. Jackson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEthan Kaille is a thieftaker in Colonial Boston, scratching out a living by restoring stolen property to its rightful owners. But unlike others in his profession, Ethan relies on magical spells as well as his wits to track down thieves...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history book -
Dark Blood by John Meaney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJohn Meaney's triumphant invention of gothic SF continues with his undead detective discovering a terrifying conspiracy against the... -
The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe multi-award-winning author of The House of Shattered Wings continues her Dominion of the Fallen saga as Paris endures the aftermath of a devastating arcane war....As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the great Houses of Paris, ruled by Fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital... -
New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird by Paula Guran, Caitlín R. Kiernan
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gamers...Categorized as:
dark paranormal 21st-century adult alternate-history anthologies cosmic-horror cthulhu -
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The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 30 ratings'The Drawing of the Dark is not only one of my favourite Tim Powers novels, it's simply one of my favourite novels. The seamless and seemingly effortless blend of action and humour, the wonderful characters, the rich settings, the brilliant plot - all of it is perfect' James P...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic steampunk 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsBrendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk 20th-century action-adventure -
The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn unwilling pawn in the plotting of the Rome of Charlemagne's time, Regeane is betrothed to an unknown barbarian lord. Unable to refuse in case she is betrayed as a shapeshifter wolf-woman, she is attracted to a dark wolf prowling outside the city gates... -
The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Oh, the Sly King, the Sly King, in his towers of ash and wind." Pikey Thomas doesn’t know how or why he can see the changeling girl. But there she is. Not in the cold, muddy London neighborhood where Pikey lives. Instead, she’s walking through the trees and snow of the enchanted Old Country or, later, racing through an opulent hall...Categorized as:
dark fae historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure -
Blood Maidens by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe new ‘James Asher’ vampire novel from the best-selling author - It’s 1911. War is coming, and according to one of the vampires of St. Petersburg, the Kaiser is trying to recruit vampires. James Asher, Oxford don and formerly on His Majesty’s Secret Service, is forced to team up again with his vampire partner Don Simon Ysidro for a journey to the subarctic Russian capital...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal steampunk 20th-century adult alternate-history -
The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFor seventeen years, Marina Roeswood had lived in an old, rambling farmhouse in rural Cornwall in the care of close friends of her wealthy, aristocratic parents. As the ward of bohemian artists in Victorian England, she had grown to be a free thinker in an environment of fertile creativity and cultural sophistication. But the real core of her education was far outside societal norms...Categorized as:
dark fae historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure -
The Undertakers by Nicole Glover
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNicole Glover delivers the second book in her exciting Murder & Magic series of historical fantasy novels featuring Hetty Rhodes and her husband, Benjy, magic practitioners and detectives living in post–Civil War Philadelphia.Nothing bothers Hetty and Benjy Rhodes more than a case where the answers, motives, and the murder itself feel a bit too neat...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magic adult alternate-history audiobook black-mc book dark-fantasy -
Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlternate Cover Edition can be found here. At the turn of the twentieth century, a former spy is called into service to hunt down a vampire killer...Once a spy for Queen Victoria, James Asher has fought for Britain on every continent, using his quick wits to protect the Empire at all costs. After years of grueling service, he marries and retires to a simple academic’s life at Oxford...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era paranormal steampunk 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface.Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her... -
The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIt is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
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Conspiracy of Ravens by Lila Bowen
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMonsters, magic and the supernatural combine in this sequel to Wake of Vultures, in which a young woman must defeat the evil hiding beneath the surface. Nettie Lonesome made a leap - not knowing what she'd become. But now the destiny of the Shadow is calling.A powerful alchemist is leaving a trail of dead across the prairie...Categorized as:
dragons fae historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal action-adventure alternate-history -
Fenrir by M.D. Lachlan
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Vikings are laying siege to Paris. They want the Count's sister, in return they will spare the rest of the city...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure alternate-history book dark-fantasy -
Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy by Dennis Detwiller
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThule, the Nazi Atlantis, legendary home of Aryan superbeings that ruled prehistory. Thule was supposed to be a Nazi myth, but when a defector from the SS occult sciences division, the Karotechia, brings proof of Thule's reality, Delta Green's course is clear: the alien city and its technological and occult secrets must be denied to the enemy at all costs...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book cosmic-horror -
Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA heroic fantasy by an award-winning author about a young woman who is trained in the art of the sinister hand of magic, but at what price?On her sixteenth birthday, Isobel makes the choice to work for the devil in his territory west of the Mississippi. But this is not the devil you know... -
The Night of the Salamander by Michael Swanwick
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA locked room, a murder, and an unexpected kind of magic: the fifth of Michael Swanwick's "Mongolian Wizard" tales.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic steampunk abuse adult alternate-history -
Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the author of the New York Times bestselling Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, comes UNHOLY NIGHT, the next evolution in dark historical revisionism. They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book -
The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWorld Fantasy Award Winner Michael Crawford is forced to flee when discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed. Yet it is not the revengeful townspeople he fears but the deadly embrace of the malignant spirit that is claiming him as her bridegroom.Crawford will not travel alone; soon he is aided by his fellow victims, the greatest poets of his day—Byron, Keats, and Shelley...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk 20th-century action-adventure -
The Last Necromancer by C.J. Archer
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsVictorian London: For five years, Charlotte (Charlie) Holloway has lived as a boy in the slums. But when one theft too many gets her arrested, her only means of escape lies with a dead man. Charlie hasn't raised a spirit since she first discovered she could do so five years ago. That time, her father banished her. This time, she brings even more trouble upon herself... -
The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA family is hunted by a centuries-old monster: a man with a relentless obsession who can take on any identity.The String Diaries opens with Hannah frantically driving through the night -- her daughter asleep in the back, her husband bleeding out in the seat beside her. In the trunk of the car rests a cache of diaries dating back 200 years, tied and retied with strings through generations...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction magic paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
The Passion of Cleopatra by Anne Rice, Christopher Rice
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFrom the iconic and bestselling author of The Mummy and The Vampire Chronicles, a mesmerizing, glamorous new tale of ancient feuds and modern passions. Ramses the Great, former pharaoh of Egypt, is reawakened by the elixir of life in Edwardian England. Now immortal with his bride-to-be, he is swept up in a fierce and deadly battle of wills and psyches against the once-great Queen Cleopatra...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal adult africa alternate-history -
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Moonshine by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Imagining vampires at the heart of the social struggles of 1920s, "Moonshine "blends a tempestuous romance with dramatic historical fiction, populated by a lively mythology inhabiting the gritty New York City streets "Zephyr Hollis is an underfed, overzealous social activist who teaches night school to the underprivileged of the Lower East Side...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk alternate-history book -
99 Coffins by David Wellington
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA dark secret buried beneath our bloodiest battlefieldLaura Caxton vowed never to face them again. The horror of what the vampires did is too close, the wounds too fresh. But when Jameson Arkeley, broken and barely recognizable, comes to her with an unfathomable, unholy discovery, her resolve crumbles.Arkeley leads Caxton to a tomb in Gettysburg recently excavated by a local archaeology professor...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
Hôtel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe classic tale that introduced the legendary Le Comte de Saint-Germain, first published in 1978 and spawning 14 titles in the Saint-Germain epic, is now available in paperback. A fixture in 1740s Parisian society, Saint-Germain is a perfect gentleman--and a vampire...Categorized as:
dark historical-fiction paranormal adult alternate-history book dark-fantasy female-author -
The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThis is not the story you think it is. These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting.In an alternate 1880s London, angels inhabit every public building, and vampires and werewolves walk the streets with human beings under a well-regulated truce...Categorized as:
angels dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure -
Nobody's Home: An Anubis Gates Story by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor the first time in his esteemed career, Tim Powers returns to the setting (and a central character) from his landmark time travel novel, The Anubis Gates...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era paranormal steampunk action-adventure adult alternate-history book -
The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher
Rated: 3.78 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBuffy meets Deadwood in a dark, wildly imaginative historical fantasyNevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures...Categorized as:
angels dark historical-fiction industrial-era magic paranormal steampunk action-adventure
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