Books like 'The Paper Grail'
Readers who enjoyed The Paper Grail by James P. Blaylock also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical fantasy urban fantasy mystery horror steampunk industrial-era christian arthurian magical-realism
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City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsRevenge. It's something Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is very, very good at. Maybe the only thing. So when he learns that his oldest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, has been assassinated, he knows exactly what to do — and that no mortal force can stop him from meting out the suffering Shara's killers deserve...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic retellings spirituality steampunk action-adventure audiobook book -
Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro, Cornelia Funke
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsFans of dark fairy-tales like The Hazel Wood and The Cruel Prince will relish this atmospheric and absorbing book based on Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed movie...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings action-adventure audiobook book children -
She Who Waits by Daniel Polansky
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe third novel in the brilliant dark fantasy Low Town seriesLow Town: the worst ghetto in the worst city in the Thirteen Lands. Good only for depravity and death. And Warden, long ago a respected agent in the formidable Black House, is now the most depraved Low Town denizen of them all... -
Marked by Magic by Jasmine Walt
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWith the rebellion now in full swing, shifter-mage hybrid Sunaya Baine has no time for distractions. She must find out the true identity of the Benefactor and pull the plug on the Resistance's funding before they succeed in their grand plans for genocide and destruction. But the heat is upon Sunaya now, and it demands to be sated... -
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City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA generation ago, the city of Voortyashtan was the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions. Now, the city’s god is dead. The city itself lies in ruins. And to its new military occupiers, the once-powerful capital is a wasteland of sectarian violence and bloody uprisings...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic retellings spirituality steampunk action-adventure adult audiobook -
A Bad Breed by Kat Ross
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPricolici.A creature out of folklore. And nightmare.January 1889. When a Romanian village suffers a series of brutal attacks, occult investigator Anne Lawrence is dispatched to the forests of the Old Country to hunt the killer – only to vanish without a trace.The trail leads her mentor Vivienne Cumberland deep into the Carpathians to a remote monastery... -
The Girl with No Face by M.H. Boroson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe adventures of Li-lin, a Daoist priestess with the unique ability to see the spirit world, continue in the thrilling follow-up to the critically-acclaimed historical urban fantasy The Girl with Ghost Eyes.It’s the end of the Nineteenth Century. San Francisco’s cobblestone streets are haunted, but Chinatown has an unlikely protector in a young Daoist priestess named Li-lin... -
Whisper the Dead by Alyxandra Harvey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCousins Gretchen, Emma, and Penelope are all dealing with what it means to be a Lovegrove. For Gretchen, it means she often feels like her head is going to explode. As a Whisperer, Gretchen constantly hears the whispers of other witches' spells... -
WildSpark by Vashti Hardy, Cecelia Ramsdale
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA year after the death of her older brother, Prue Haywood's family is still shattered by grief. But everything changes when a stranger arrives at the farm. A new, incredible technology has been discovered in the city of Medlock, where a secretive guild of inventors have developed a way to capture spirits of the dead in animal-like machines, bringing them back to life...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic steampunk action-adventure audiobook book children children-books -
Exeunt Demon King by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJohannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has faced many horrors during his career, but in this tale he tells of an early encounter with something that horrified even him.Pantomime.A provincial theatre has seen a series of strange deaths. The young Cabal investigates, even though this requires him to don red tights, a curling moustache, and become... the Demon King... -
From The Ashes by C.J. Archer, Shiromi Arserio
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsWhat will happen when Charlie returns to Lichfield?The killer is still on the loose, Lady Harcourt's secret past is out, and Lady Vickers is trying to find Seth a wife. Charlie is stepping back into chaos, but nothing compares to the chaos wreaked on her heart by seeing Lincoln every day... -
Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsBefore Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. The origins of the first ymbryne...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings 21st-century action-adventure anthologies audiobook -
Veiled in Moonlight by C.J. Archer
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen a young gentleman is murdered by a shape shifter, Charlie and Lincoln interrogate their contacts and uncover a plot with links to the royal family—and links to more than one member of the ministry's committee. At the heart of the mystery is a sinister love triangle, corruption, lies, and treason... -
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... -
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Somewhere Beneath Those Waves by Sarah Monette
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMonette's diverse collection delves deeply into the mythic and reaches far beyond everyday reality. Readers cannot resist journeying with her into realms-dangerously dark or illuminatingly revelatory-they could never imagine without her as their guide. From ghost stories in the tradition of M. R...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism adult alternate-history anthologies female-author fiction -
Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the author of Borne and Annihilation comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic Shriek: An Afterword...Categorized as:
industrial-era low-fantasy magical-realism steampunk adult book dark-fantasy fiction -
Remnant: A Caldwell & Feximal/Whyborne & Griffin Mystery by K.J. Charles, Jordan L. Hawk
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLondon, 1899. The beautiful people are dying…A malevolent power is attacking London’s bright young things, and the only clue to what's happening is written in ancient Egyptian script. As ghost-hunter Simon Feximal and his companion Robert Caldwell investigate the mysterious deaths, the arrival in London of a notorious scholar-sorcerer seems to hold the answer to more than one of their problems...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic magical-realism steampunk action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Jilo by J.D. Horn
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAged Mother Jilo is wise in the ways of magic…but once upon a time, she was just a girl.1950s Georgia: King Cotton has fallen. Savannah is known as the “beautiful woman with a dirty face,” its stately elegance faded by neglect, its soul withering from racial injustice and political corruption... -
The Raven Song by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsFleeing Victorian London, a witch finds her newfound independence comes with all-new perils—both mortal and immortal.Forever untangling the branches of her strange family tree, Edwina Blackwood is at a turning point. Her parents’ disappearances still strike her as unaccountably odd. Her sister’s questionable life and untimely death have left her shaken... -
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe Haunting of Tram Car 015 returns to the alternate Cairo of Clark's short fiction, where humans live and work alongside otherworldly beings; the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities handles the issues that can arise between the magical and the mundane...Categorized as:
industrial-era low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings steampunk 21st-century action-adventure -
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:
industrial-era low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings steampunk action-adventure adult -
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 magic magical-realism retellings secrets spirituality 20th-century action-adventure -
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...Categorized as:
magic magical-realism low-fantasy retellings fantasy historical-fiction paranormal fiction -
The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm by Ellen Datlow, Holly Black
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFaeries, or creatures like them, can be found in almost every culture the world over--benevolent and terrifying, charming and exasperating, shifting shape from country to country, story to story, and moment to moment... -
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The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMary Jekyll and the Athena Club race to save Alice—and foil a plot to unseat the Queen, in the electrifying conclusion to the trilogy that began with the Nebula Award finalist and Locus Award winner The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter.Life’s always an adventure for the Athena Club..Categorized as:
industrial-era magic retellings steampunk 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book -
Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic Finch.In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air itself. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn't... -
A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsEgypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine...Categorized as:
industrial-era low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings steampunk action-adventure adult -
Lost Acre by Andrew Caldecott
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWynter is here . . .Geryon Wynter has returned to Rotherweird and has not only taken over the town but is busy destroying the countrysiders' life too. Can our small band of heroes find a way to outwit a genius whose master plan is five centuries in the making? Watch this space . .Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
The Templar Treasure by Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAdam Sinclair, the Adept, must locate the stolen Seal of Solomon-an artifact under the care of the Knights Templar-before dangerous forces unleash the demons the seal has kept bound for centuries... -
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... -
The Peabody- Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium by F. Paul Wilson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis novella was expanded from "Freak Show," the nigh impossible to find anthology F. Paul Wilson edited back in 1992. It was originally published as a 500-copy collector's edition that sold out on publication. With copies of the limited going for over $100 on the aftermarket, the author decided to make inexpensive paperback and ebook editions available to his readers... -
The Elder Ice by David Hambling
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLovecraftian weird fiction set in 1920s London.In this atmospheric novella, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is on the trail of a mysterious legacy. A polar explorer has died, leaving huge debts and hints of a priceless find. His informants seem to be talking in riddles, and Harry soon finds he isn't the only one on the trail -- and what he's looking for is as lethal as it is valuable...Categorized as:
industrial-era retellings steampunk action-adventure adult audiobook book cosmic-horror -
Marco’s Pendulum by Thom Madley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Marco is dumped in Glastonbury to stay with his weird hippy grandparents for the summer, he's sure he's going to hate it. But he soon starts to recognise the magic of the place. With his mysterious new found talent for dowsing, Marco is quickly drawn into the dangerous struggle to protect the ancient mysticism of Glastonbury...Categorized as:
arthurian low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings action-adventure alchemy book -
Dead to Rites by Ari Marmell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMick Oberon may look like just another 1930s private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he’s got pointy ears and he’s packing a wand. Mick is suffering from bad luck, and when luck is your chief magical weapon, that means things are pretty dire... -
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The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsTwo sisters go missing on a remote Scottish island. Twenty years later, one is found--but she's still the same age as when she disappeared. The secrets of witches have reached across the centuries in this chilling Gothic thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Nesting... -
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThe ultimate book-lover's fantasy, featuring a young scholar with the power to bring literary characters into the world, for fans of The Magicians, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and The Invisible Library.For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings 21st-century action-adventure amateur-sleuth audiobook -
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry, her sister seems scared of her, and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism retellings action-adventure audiobook book children -
Anima Rising by Christopher Moore
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal...Categorized as:
magical-realism low-fantasy retellings fantasy fiction historical-fiction humor audiobook -
The Last Wizards' Ball by Charlaine Harris
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratings#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris returns with the sixth and final installment in the critically acclaimed Gunnie Rose series as sisters Lizbeth Rose and Felicia must face their fates at the last Wizards’ Ball...Categorized as:
magic magical-realism industrial-era romance fantasy urban-fantasy alternate-history fiction -
The Map by William Ritter
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPerfect for fans of "Jackaby" who are desperately awaiting the release of its sequel, "Beastly Bones, "this novella-length story follows the rollicking events of Abigail Rook's birthday celebration. Abigail hopes that her birthday will slip by unnoticed and uncelebrated, but her employer, detective of the supernatural R. F. Jackaby, has other plans... -
Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA haunting entry in the World Fantasy Award-winning Mythago CycleIn Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock gave us an intricate world spun from the stories of Irish and English mythology, a great forest steeped in mystery and legend, whose heart contains secrets that will change all who behold them.Young Tallis is one such seeker. When she was just an infant, she lost her brother Harry to Ryhope Wood... -
The Reanimator's Soul by Kara Jorgensen
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn autistic necromancer, his undead lover, and the case that could destroy everything. When a necromancer turns up dead, Oliver and Felipe think it will be the perfect, straightforward case for their new partnership. That is, until it leads them to a clinic promising a cure for magic, but they aren’t the only ones investigating the Institute for the Betterment of the Soul... -
Grave Birds by Dana Elmendorf
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires meets Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this twisty, fresh take on a Southern gothic that follows a mysterious, charming bachelor as he makes his way into a small town, bringing a plague and the devil with him, from GMA Buzz Pick author Dana Elmendorf...Categorized as:
magical-realism low-fantasy retellings horror fantasy gothic paranormal supernatural -
A Dawn Most Wicked by Susan Dennard
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDaniel Sheridan is an engineer’s apprentice on a haunted Mississippi steamer known as the Sadie Queen. His best friend–the apprentice pilot, Cassidy Cochran–also happens to be the girl he’s pining for … and the captain’s daughter. But when it looks like the Sadie Queen might get taken off the river, Daniel and Cassidy have to do whatever they can to stop the ghosts that plague the ship...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic steampunk 19th-century action-adventure anthologies dystopia fiction -
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The Faerie Hounds of York by Arden Powell
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEngland, 1810. The north is governed by a single rule. Faerie will take as it pleases. William Loxley is cursed. A pale and monstrous creature haunts his dreams, luring him from London to the desolate, grey landscape of his forgotten childhood. There, it will use him to open a door to Faerie—a fate that will trap Loxley in that glittering, heathen otherworld forever... -
An Import of Intrigue by Marshall Ryan Maresca
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis second novel in the Maradaine Constabulary series blends high fantasy, murder mystery, and gritty urban magic...The neighborhood of the Little East is a collision of cultures, languages, and traditions, hidden away in the city of Maradaine. A set of streets to be avoided or ignored... -
Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWith echoes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Yejidé’s novel explores a forgotten quadrant of Washington, DC, and the ghosts that haunt it.Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk... -
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsThese are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr... -
Day of the Kraken by Michael Swanwick
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe third in Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Michael Swanwick's "Mongolian Wizard" series of tales set in an alternate fin de siècle Europe shot through with sorcery and intrigue.At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied... -
Beastly Bones by William Ritter
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsI've found very little about private detective R. F. Jackaby to be standard in the time I've known him. Working as his assistant tends to call for a somewhat flexible relationship with reality . . .In 1892, New Fiddleham, New England, things are never quite what they seem, especially when Abigail Rook and her eccentric employer, R. F. Jackaby, are called upon to investigate the supernatural...Categorized as:
industrial-era magic magical-realism steampunk action-adventure audiobook book crime
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