Books like 'The Cursed'
Readers who enjoyed The Cursed by Dave Duncan also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical fantasy 20th century urban fantasy action / adventure epic magical-realism low-fantasy
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4: Fantastic Novels by Daniel Pinkwater, Scott Simon
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFour-fantastic-books-in-one by the popular author of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency: Borgel Yobgorgle The Worms of Kukumlima The Snarkout Boys & the Baconburg... -
Proper Scoundrels by Allie Therin
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDon’t miss this spin-off from Allie Therin's acclaimed Magic in Manhattan universe! Their scandalous pasts have left them wounded and unworthy—and hopelessly perfect together. London, 1925Sebastian de Leon is adjusting to life after three years spent enthralled by blood magic...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book cheerful-mc -
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:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult afrofuturism alternate-history audiobook book -
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book classics crime -
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Carbonel: The King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBack in print in the U.S. for the first time in over 30 years.Rosemary's plan to clean houses during her summer break and surprise her mother with the money hits a snag when an old lady at the market talks her into buying a second-rate broom and a cat she can't even afford to keep. But appearances can be deceiving...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals anthropomorphism book cats -
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsHer story begins on a train.The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball in Tokyo...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure alpha-mc alternate-history assassins audiobook book -
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:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book classics coming-of-age crime -
The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsChava is a golem, a woman made of clay, able to hear the thoughts and longings of the people around her and compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a perpetually restless and free-spirited creature of fire, imprisoned in the shape of a man... -
Tonight on the Titanic by Mary Pope Osborne
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsJack and Annie are in for an exciting, scary, and sad adventure when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the decks of the "Titanic...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book children -
The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNicola Marter was born with a gift. When she touches an object, she sometimes glimpses those who have owned it before. When a woman arrives with a small wooden carving at the gallery Nicola works at, she can see the object’s history and knows that it was named after the Firebird—the mythical creature from an old Russian fable...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book drama family -
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsIn this companion volume to A Wrinkle In Time (Newbery Award winner) and A Wind In The Door fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace and the unicorn Gaudior undertake a perilous journey through time in a desperate attempt to stop the destruction of the world by the mad dictator Madog Branzillo. They are not alone in their quest...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
The Time Garden by Edward Eager
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratings"Anything can happen when you have all the time in the world" says the frog-like Natterjack in old relative Mrs Whiton's thyme garden. Cousins Roger, Ann, Eliza and girl-crazy Jack ride for American rebels, bow to Queen Elizabeth I, and even rescue their own parents when they were children...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure book children children-books classics -
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... -
Mary Poppins in the Park by P.L. Travers
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBy P.L. Travers, the author featured in the major motion picture, Saving Mr. Banks. From the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed. This classic series tells the story of the world's most beloved nanny, who brings enchantment and excitement with her everywhere she goes...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
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The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsBeneath the kitchen floor is the world of the Borrowers -- Pod and Homily Clock and their daughter, Arrietty. In their tiny home, matchboxes double as roomy dressers and postage stamps hang on the walls like paintings. Whatever the Clocks need they simply "borrow" from the "human beans" who live above them. It's a comfortable life, but boring if you're a kid...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhen wishing for magic, it's hard not to wish for too much.If Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha had stopped to think -- oh, if they had only stopped to think! -- they would have ordered magic by the pound, or by the day, or even by the halves as they had in Half Magic...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals book children children-books -
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsThis second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children coming-of-age dark -
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIt’s 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows—a fascinating boy who’s not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure alchemy audiobook book children -
The Plastic Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg returns to the enchanting world of The Paper Magician.Alvie Brechenmacher has arrived in London to begin her training in Polymaking—the magical discipline of bespelling plastic. Polymaking is the newest form of magic, and in a field where there is so much left to learn, every Polymaker dreams of making the next big discovery...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book coming-of-age cozy -
Duncton Wood by William Horwood
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBracken was born on an April night in a warm dark burrow deep in the historic system of Duncton Wood, six moleyears after Rebecca. This is the story of their love, and their epic struggle to find it.The moles of Duncton Wood are a varied lot. There are the aggressive Westsiders, the secretive and sickly Marchenders and the independent Eastsiders...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure animals anthologies anthropomorphism audiobook children -
Declare by Tim Powers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs a young double agent infiltrating the Soviet spy network in Nazi-occupied Paris, Andrew Hale finds himself caught up in a secret, even more ruthless war. Two decades later, in 1963, he will be forced to confront again the nightmare that has haunted his adult life: a lethal unfinished operation code-named Declare...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsAs World War I rages, there are evils—both living and dead—that only a witch can see in a spellbinding novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera... -
The Book of Pearl by Timothée de Fombelle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn prose as magical and intricate as the tale it tells, Timothée de Fombelle delivers an unforgettable story of a first love that defines a lifetime.Joshua Pearl comes from a world that we no longer believe in — a world of fairy tale... -
Sword and Sorceress IX by Marion Zimmer Bradley, David A. Cherry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWITH BLADE HONED AND SPELLS BREWED - The defenders of the innocent and the makers of great enchantments prepare to face the many challenges of evil's forces. In all of fantasy's far-flung realms, women of power - whether trained in the ways of the warrior or in the deepest secrets of sorcery - rally against those who seek to conquer and enslave...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies female-author fiction heroic-fantasy -
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Dagger Magic by Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAdam Sinclair, the Adept, faces mankind's most dire threat--a cult older than Christianity, with the power to resurrect a new, demonic Third Reich... -
Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes Lackey
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsMercedes Lackey's magical Elemental Masters series recasts familiar fairy tales in a richly-imagined alternate Victorian worldEleanor Robinson’s life had shattered when Father volunteered for the Great War, leaving her alone with a woman he had just married...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book fairy-tale family -
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..Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book dark dark-fantasy -
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, Peter Glassman
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsDoctor John Dolittle loves animals. He loves them so much that his home and office overflow with animals of every description. When Polynesia the parrot teaches him the language of the animals, Doctor Dolittle becomes a world-famous doctor, traveling even as far away as Africa to help his friends...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals anthropomorphism audiobook book -
Spellbound by Allie Therin
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTo save Manhattan, they’ll have to save each other first… 1925New YorkArthur Kenzie’s life’s work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult age-gap alternate-history audiobook -
The Serpent's Shadow by Mercedes Lackey
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMercedes Lackey returns to form in The Serpent's Shadow, the fourth in her sequence of reimagined fairy tales. This story takes place in the London of 1909, and is based on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history animals audiobook book edwardian -
The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAn Ancient Manuscript...When ten-year-old Pidge finds the crumbling pages of an old manuscript in a second-hand bookshop in Galway, he unwittingly releases the serpent Olc-Glas--and the forces of good and evil gather to do battle. The Morrigan, Goddess of Death and Destruction, has set her evil heart on gaining Olc-Glas and adding its poison to her own, thereby casting her shadow over the world... -
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“If you build it, he will come.” These mysterious words inspire Ray Kinsella to create a cornfield baseball diamond in honor of his hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson. What follows is a rich, nostalgic look at one of our most cherished national pastimes and a remarkable story about fathers and sons, love and family, and the inimitable joy of finding your way home...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children classics -
The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBeauty Meets Beast in San FranciscoAccepting employment as a governess after hard times hit her family, medieval scholar Rosalind Hawkins is surprised when she learns that her mysterious employer has no children, no wife, and she is not to meet with him face to face. Instead, her duties are to read to him, through a speaking tube, from ancient manuscripts in obscure, nearly-forgotten dialects...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book fairy-tale female-author -
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe Emporium opens with the first sign of frost...It is 1917, and while war wages across Europe, in the heart of London, there is a place of hope and enchantment.The Emporium sells toys that capture the imagination of children and adults alike: patchwork dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight battles on their own...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book coming-of-age family fiction -
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Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsArriving in the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny has no interest in her surroundings, until she meets Tamsin. Since her death over 300 years ago, Tamsin has haunted the lonely estate without rest, trapped by a hidden trauma she can't remember, and a powerful evil even the spirits of night cannot name... -
The Apprentices by Maile Meloy
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsTwo years have passed since Janie Scott last saw Benjamin Burrows, the mysterious apothecary’s defiant son who stole her heart. On the other side of the world, Benjamin and his father are treating the sick and wounded in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. But Benjamin has also been experimenting with a magical new formula that allows him to communicate with Janie across the globe...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure alchemy audiobook boarding-school book children -
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsBy P.L. Travers, the author featured in the major motion picture, Saving Mr. Banks. From the moment Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry-Tree Lane, everyday life at the Banks house is forever changed. It all starts when Mary Poppins is blown by the east wind onto the doorstep of the Banks house. She becomes a most unusual nanny to Jane, Michael, and the twins...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book british-isles -
Arcadia by Iain Pears
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Cold War England, Professor Henry Lytten, having renounced a career in espionage, is writing a fantasy novel that dares to imagine a world less fraught than his own...Categorized as:
epic magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flâneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter...Categorized as:
magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book coming-of-age drama -
Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn 1919, Kitty Weekes, pretty, resourceful, and on the run, falsifies her background to obtain a nursing position at Portis House, a remote hospital for soldiers left shell-shocked by the horrors of the Great War. Hiding the shame of their mental instability in what was once a magnificent private estate, the patients suffer from nervous attacks and tormenting dreams... -
Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsKim doesn't hesitate when a stranger offers her a small fortune to break into the travelling magician's wagon in search of a silver bowl. Kim isn't above a bit of breaking-and-entering. Having grown up a waif in the dirty streets of London-disguised as a boy!-has schooled her in one hard lesson: steal from them before they steal from you. But there is something odd about this magician... -
The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan Shepherd
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere are winged horses that live in the mirrors of Briar Hill hospital. In the mirrors that line its grand hallways, which once belonged to a princess. In those that reflect the elegant rooms, now filled with sick children. It is her secret...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book children -
Half Magic by Edward Eager
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsFour children wish on a Half Magic coin that gets their mother Alison half-way home, rescued by Mr Smith. Mark's wish zaps them to a desert without island, where half-talking cat Carrie gabbles to a camel. Romantic Katherine battles Launcelot. Eldest Jane rejects siblings for another family. Stubborn youngest, Martha, causes a riot downtown...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSiblings Ilse and Wolf hide a deep secret in their blood: with it, they can work magic. And the government just found out. Blackmailed into service during World War II, Ilse lends her magic to America's newest weapon, the atom bomb, while Wolf goes behind enemy lines to sabotage Germany’s nuclear program...Categorized as:
magical-realism historical-fiction fantasy young-adult lgbtq historical fiction magic -
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The Satanic Mill: Evil Lurks Within by Otfried Preußler
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn seventeenth-century Germany, a boy desperately wants to escape from a school for Black Magic where he is held captive by demonic forces... -
Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMeet Fritti Tailchaser, a ginger tom cat of rare courage and curiosity, a born survivor in a world of heroes and villains, of powerful feline gods and whiskery legends about those strange furless, erect creatures called M’an.“The hour of Unfolding Dark had begun, and the rooftop where Tailchaser lay was smothered in shadow...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure animals anthologies anthropomorphism cats children -
Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel by Michael Kurland
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLord Darcy and Master Wizard Sean O Lauchlainn return in this authorized sequel to the stories of Randall Garrett. In 1988, in an alternate universe in which the Plantagenets still rule Britain, France, and the New World, and where magic has displaced science, King John IV's chief detectives are called in to investigate a series of impossible murders of accomplished sorcerers...Categorized as:
low-fantasy 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history book espionage fiction -
Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThis is a standalone sequel to Archangel, set 150 years later in proverbially interesting times. Samaria is industrialized; the Manadavvi and Jansai are wealthier; the Edori are marginalized, their roaming lifestyle disrupted; and Jovah seems to be turning a deaf ear to his angels' prayers for abatement of increasingly destructive storms... -
Reserved for the Cat by Mercedes Lackey
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn 1910, in an alternate London, a penniless young dancer is visited by a cat who communicates with her mind to mind. Though she is certain she must be going mad, she is desperate enough to follow the cat's advice and impersonates a famous Russian ballerina. The cat, it turns out, is actually an Elemental Earth Spirit, and leads her to minor stardom... -
Avalon: The Return of King Arthur by Stephen R. Lawhead
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt has been foretold:In the hour of Britain’s greatest need, King Arthur will return to rescue his people.In Portugal, the reprobate King Edward the Ninth has died by his own hand.In England, the British monarchy teeters on the edge of total destruction.And in the Scottish Highlands, a mystical emissary named Mr...Categorized as:
epic 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history arthurian book christian fiction
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