Books like 'Almost Insentient, Almost Divine'
Readers who enjoyed Almost Insentient, Almost Divine by D.P. Watt also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
fantasy horror supernatural literary-fiction magical-realism ghosts
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Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural by Herbert A. Wise, John Collier
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen this longtime Modern Library favorite--filled with fifty-two stories of heart-stopping suspense--was first published in 1944, one of its biggest fans was critic Edmund Wilson, who in The New Yorker applauded what he termed a sudden revival of the appetite for tales of horror...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction adult anthologies classics fiction gothic historical-fiction -
Unbinding Love by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Atlanta-based psychic medium-turned amateur sleuth Angela Panther teams up with her best friend Mel and celestial super sleuth—and Angela's dead mother—Fran to help Detective Aaron Banner find a lost boy, the trio heads into ghostly territory they’ve never experienced. The mob and magic aren't part of the psychic medium handbook, and the trio's not sure they'll make it out of it alive... -
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 literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century absurdism adult anthologies audiobook -
Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn Gabino Iglesias’ second novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest.A man tasked with shuttling children over the border believes the Virgin Mary is guiding him towards final justice. A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos... -
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Dead Serious Case #1: Miz Dusty Le Frey by Vawn Cassidy
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the business of unfinished business...Tristan Everett had always preferred the company of the dead because they were quiet and didn’t talk back. As a slightly awkward introvert working as a pathologist at the Hackney Public Mortuary suited him just fine. That is, until a freak accident with a rogue ice cube and suddenly he can see ghosts...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies contemporary crime fiction -
Three Times Removed by M.K. Jones
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMaggie Gilbert and her children, Jack and Alice, live a pretty normal life. That is, until Maggie starts looking into her family tree. In doing so, she uncovers a dark mystery that endangers her children. She has to solve a mystery in the past, if she is to save her family in the present... -
Woodworm by Layla Martínez
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes. It was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can’t leave... -
The Haunting of Larkspur Farm by Michelle Dorey
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEach tale of The Hauntings of Kingston is a standalone novel that takes place in the enigmatic city of Kingston, Ontario. Her family's sanctuary has a treacherous intent... Larkspur Farm is the refuge that Paige and her family have craved. A hobby farm in the countryside is a welcome change from the congestion and crime of big city life... -
The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature by Christopher Slatsky, Jon Padgett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the author of Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales comes this devastating collection of fifteen stories and essays. A father's desperate search for his missing child leads to a cosmic haunted realm. A woman returns to her childhood home to find a past preserved in a semblance of life... -
Charleston Green by Stephanie Alexander
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIf Tipsy Collins learned one thing from her divorce, it's that everyone in Charleston is a little crazy--even if they're already dead.Tipsy, a gifted artist, cannot ignore her nutty friends or her vindictive ex-husband, but as a lifelong reluctant clairvoyant, she's always avoided dead people... -
Smoke City by Keith Rosson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMarvin Deitz has some serious problems. His mob-connected landlord is strong-arming him out of his storefront. His therapist has concerns about his stability. He’s compelled to volunteer at the local Children’s Hospital even though it breaks his heart every week.Oh, and he’s also the guilt-ridden reincarnation of Geoffroy Thérage, the French executioner who lit Joan of Arc’s pyre in 1431...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism adult book fiction historical historical-fiction -
Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“You should be here; he’s simply magnificent.” These are the final words a biologist hears before his Margaret Mead-like wife dies at the hands of Godzilla. The words haunt him as he studies the Kaiju (Japan’s giant monsters) on an island reserve, attempting to understand the beauty his wife saw...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies fiction horror low-fantasy poc-mc -
The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books. One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her... -
Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday by Italo Calvino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCompiled by Italo Calvino, one of the essential writers of the twentieth century (and editor of the best-selling Italian Folktales), Fantastic Tales is a rich and wide-ranging collection of twenty-six classic, uncanny tales from the nineteenth century written by an intriguing panoply of European and American authors... -
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The Unsettled Dust by Robert Aickman, Reece Shearsmith
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRobert Aickman, the supreme master of the supernatural, brings together eight stories in which strange things happen that the reader is unable to predict. His characters are often lonely and middle-aged, but all have the same thing in common: they are brought to the brink of an abyss that shows how terrifyingly fragile our piece of mind actually is... -
Dark Game by Michael Robertson Jr.
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLess than twenty-four hours after the horrific events that forced him to flee his hometown, Lance Brody steps off a bus into a whole different nightmare.The small town of Westhaven seems ordinary on the surface, but Lance can feel the evil lurking in the air … and it knows Lance has arrived... -
Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn evocative, delicately comic story of a girl’s coming of age. From the moment of her birth in a rural black hospital in Georgia, Lena McPherson is recognized as a special child, with the power to see ghosts and predict the future. Named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times... -
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary dark -
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:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies classics fiction historical -
The Man in the Moss by Phil Rickman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPerfectly preserved in black peat, the Man in the Moss is one of the most fascinating finds of the century. But for the isolated community of Bridelow, his removal is a sinister sign—a danger to the ancient spiritual tradition. In the weeks approaching the Celtic feast of the dead, tragedy strikes again and again in Bridelow... -
American Gothic Tales by Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Brockden Brown
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJoyce Carol Oates has a special perspective on the “gothic” in American short fiction, at least partially because her own horror yarns rank on the spine-tingling chart with the masters. She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King... -
Necroscope: Avengers by Brian Lumley
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThey're on the run! Now that their monstrous vampire 'gardens' under London, in Australia, and on the Greek island of Krassos have been razed, two 'Lords' and a 'Lady' of the Wamphyri Malinari the Mind, Lord Szwart, and the hag Vavara have joined forces, leaving a trail of undead destruction as they flee headlong from Ben Trask's E-Branch and the dead-waking Necroscope, Jake Cutter... -
Night Music by John Connolly
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of the Charlie Parker mysteries—"the finest crime series currently in existence" (The Independent)—comes a new anthology of chilling short fiction... -
The Sacrifice of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSunshine Griffith can communicate with ghosts. Even more amazing—to herself; her boyfriend, Nolan; and her adoptive mom, Kat—she’s recently learned she’s a luiseach, one of an ancient race of creatures who have lived among humans for centuries, protecting them from dark spirits and helping them move on to the afterlife... -
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Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce by Ambrose Bierce
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis volume contains 24 of Bierce's best tales of the unknown. Morbid, cynical, eerie, they take you to a twilight region of flesh and spirit — and into the darkest recesses of the human mind... -
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:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary -
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsNineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again.” A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian... -
Peace by Gene Wolfe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMesmerizing sci-fi from the author the Denver Post calls "one of the literary giants of science fiction." The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living in a small midwestern town, reveals a miraculous dimension. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult book classics -
Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsMeet Margaret. At age twelve, she was head detective of the mystery club Girls Can Solve Anything. Margaret and her three best friends led exciting lives solving crimes, having adventures, and laughing a lot. But now that she's entered high school, the club has disbanded, and Margaret is unmoored--she doesn't want to grow up, and she wishes her friends wouldn't either...Categorized as:
magical-realism literary-fiction ghosts lgbtq fiction mystery young-adult mental-illness -
December by Phil Rickman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn the twelfth-century ruins of the Abbey, it is said every stone was cemented in blood. On December 8, 1980, that blood will run again...In the ruins of a haunted medieval abbey, four musicians hope to tap into the site's dark history. The experience almost destroys them. Years later, the original group is forced to return to the abbey, to confront the old evil they discovered... -
The Good Sisters by Helen Phifer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings‘So frightening I had to stop reading it at night’ – Judy (Netgalley)The chilling new horror from bestselling author, Helen Phifer 1933, Mother Superior Agnes offers sanctuary to a desperate young woman fleeing for her life. Only to wake in the morning to discover a terrible fate has befallen one of the Sisters – in a room locked from the inside... -
The Cold Calling by Will Kingdom
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLife isn't easy for Detective Inspector Bobby Maiden. Death is even harder. When Maiden is revived in hospital after dying in a hit and run incident, his memories are not the familiar ones of bright lights and angelic music, only of a cold, harsh place, he has no wish to revisit - ever... -
The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 1 by James D. Jenkins, Pilar Pedraza
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhat if there were a whole world of great horror fiction out there you didn't know anything about, written by authors in distant lands and in foreign languages, outstanding horror stories you had no access to, written in languages you couldn't read? For an avid horror fan, what could be more horrifying than that?For this groundbreaking volume, the first of its kind, the editors of Valancourt... -
Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this second chilling novel by Jonathan Aycliffe, orphaned Charlotte Metcalf arrives on the doorstep of her relatives, the mysterious Ayrtons, in the hope of locating her younger brother Arthur. Their home, Barras Hall, is at first a welcome refuge, until Charlotte realizes that the manor has become her prison, and that she is surrounded by a horror she cannot escape... -
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Fishboy: A Ghost's Story by Mark Richard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the brilliant idiom of a modern Melville or Conrad, an odyssey of discovery by a bold and outrageous talent--the PEN/Hemingway Award--winning author of The Ice At The Bottom Of The World...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction action-adventure anthologies fiction gothic historical horror -
Ghosts: A Treasury of Chilling Tales Old & New by Marvin Kaye, Nigel Kneale
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMarvin KayeSaralee KayeIntroduction (Ghosts) • Marvin KayeA Prologue of Last Words • Marvin KayeMinuke • (1949) • Nigel KnealeThe Wind in the Rose-Bush • (1902) • Mary E. Wilkins FreemanLegal Rites • (1950) • Isaac Asimov and Frederik PohlSmee • (1929) • A.M...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction anthologies children-books classics fiction gothic hauntings -
A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor generations, the marsh-surrounded town of Shimmer, Maryland has played host to a loose movement of African-American artists, all working in different media, but all utilizing the same haunting color... -
Unseen City by Amy Shearn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn a city teeming with stories, how do lost souls find one another? It's a question Meg Rhys doesn't think she's asking. Meg is a self-identified spinster librarian, satisfied with living with her cat, stacks of books, and her dead sister's ghost in her New York City apartment. Then she becomes obsessed with an intriguing library patron and the haunted house he's trying to research... -
Monkspike: You Are Not Forgiven by S.E. England, Sarah E. England
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings1149 was a violent year in the Forest of Dean. During the reign of King Stephen laws were lax, and landowners exacted high tithes from peasants forced to hand over their produce or face torture. One sector in society however, did not have to pay, and those were the monks. A fact which enraged local tyrant, Baron John Rivers... -
The Door by Boris Bacic
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThere's a locked door in Nathan's new apartment. At night, it opens.He doesn’t care – until he starts hearing eerie scratching noises coming from behind it. Footsteps resound in his apartment, objects are mysteriously moved out of place, and no matter what he tries, he can’t get the door open. Then one night, the door opens on its own, revealing a long, dark corridor... -
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now by Peter Straub, John Collier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLike its companion volume, this Library of America hardcover contains 750 pages of classic tales of horror, hauntings, terrifying obsessions, and unearthly presences...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies classics contemporary female-author -
My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRomantic provocateur, flamboyant bohemian, precocious novelist, perfect poet—not to mention an inexhaustible journalist, critic, and man-about-town—Théophile Gautier is one of the major figures, and great characters, of French literature... -
The Novellas by Kealan Patrick Burke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn omnibus collection of four novellas by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke (Kin, The Turtle Boy).Featured in this book are:THE TENTThe perfect getaway...The perfect place to hide...Hocking Hills, Ohio is an oasis for campers, hikers, nature enthusiasts, and for those who just want to get away and lose themselves in the wild... -
Verdigris by Michele Mari
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAt the tail end of the 1960s, the thirteen-year-old Michelino spends his summers at his grandparents’ modest estate in Nasca, near Lake Maggiore, losing himself in the tales of horror, adventure, and mystery shelved in his grandfather’s library... -
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Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWalker Easterling is a retired actor turned successful screenwriter living in the Vienna of strong coffee, fascinating friends, and mysterious cafes. When he falls in love with Maris York, a beautiful artist who creates cities, his life becomes alive in fantastic and unsettling ways... -
House Taken Over by Julio Cortázar
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Casa Tomada" (English: "House Taken Over") is a 1946 short story by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. It was originally published in Los anales de Buenos Aires, a literary magazine edited by Jorge Luis Borges, and later included in his volume of stories, Bestiario.It tells the story of a brother and sister living together in their ancestral home which is being "taken over" by unknown entities... -
The Book of Lost Saints: A Cuban American Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and Revolution by Daniel José Older
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsAn evocative multigenerational Cuban American family story of revolution, loss, violence, and family bondsMarisol vanished during the Cuban Revolution, her fate unknown and lost to time. Now, haunted by atrocities long-forgotten, her foul-mouthed spirit visits her nephew, Ramon, in modern-day New Jersey... -
A Child Across the Sky by Jonathan Carroll
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLibrarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 071263441X / 9780712634410.Just as the the word "weird" has many implications and shades of meaning, so too does the latest--weird--work by this gifted and perplexing writer. As Carroll ( Bones of the Moon ; Sleeping in Flame ) himself says, "Life has a habit of turning dark corners... -
The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsThe hero and guiding force of this epic fantasy is an insomniac young man who, unable to sleep, guides the reader through the narrow streets of Cairo—a mysterious city full of deceit and trickery.He narrates a complex tangle of dreams and imaginings that describe an atmosphere constantly shifting between sumptuously learned experiences, erotic adventure, and dry humor...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult book epic fiction historical historical-fiction -
A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Stir of Bones is the stand-alone prequel to acclaimed fantasist Nina Hoffman's award-winning adult novels A Red Heart of Memories and Past the Size of Dreaming. It is every bit as remarkable, warm, and heartwrenching.Fourteen-year-old Susan Backstrom seems to have a charmed life -- she's smart and beautiful, the only child of wealthy, attentive parents...Categorized as:
ghosts magical-realism book fiction friendship historical-fiction horror low-fantasy
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