Books like 'Plain Bad Heroines'
Readers who enjoyed Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror mystery supernatural historical-fiction lgbtq gothic wlw dark-academia paranormal
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The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary history...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky -
![The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe]()
The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
dark gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky suspense -
![Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, LHN Books]()
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, LHN Books
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe was one of the most original writers in the history of American letters, a genius who was tragically misunderstood in his lifetime...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky -
![The Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe]()
The Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEdgar Allen Poe is credited with having pioneered the short story, with perfecting the tale of psychological horror, and with having revolutionized modern poetics. The entirety of Poe's body of imaginative work encompasses detective tales, satires, fables, fantasies, science fiction, verse dramas, and exquisite poetry...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic high-school historical-fiction humor literary-fiction -
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![The Raven and Other Poems and Tales by Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, Daniel Alan Green]()
The Raven and Other Poems and Tales by Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, Daniel Alan Green
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe shaped the development of both the detective story and science-fiction genres and his poems remain among the favourites of American literature. This illustrated collection contains familiar and popular tales and poems including, The House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal suspense -
![Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi]()
Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSt. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys.Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania.Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future... a family... -
![Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather]()
Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Titanic meets the delicious horror of Ransom Riggs and the sass of Mean Girls in this follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller How to Hang a Witch, in which a contemporary teen finds herself a passenger on the famous “ship of dreams”—a story made all the more fascinating because the author’s own relatives survived the doomed voyage... -
![The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe]()
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsThe eerie tales of Edgar Allan Poe, from the 1830s and 40s, remain among the most brilliant and influential works in American literature...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal -
![Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James]()
Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsM. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernize a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognizable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky suspense 20th-century -
![Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James]()
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky -
![Callie by Bill Thompson]()
Callie by Bill Thompson
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDeep in the bayous of southern Louisiana, an ancient mansion called Beau Rivage sits empty and abandoned. Arceneaux family members built the house and lived there for two hundred years. The house is inherited by Callie Pilantro, a down-on-her-luck granddaughter of Juliet Arceneaux, its most recent owner who died there a few months ago... -
![The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde]()
The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFlamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage...Categorized as:
gothic high-school historical-fiction humor lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal -
![The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy]()
The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead. The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices. Missouri, 1955... -
![The Vanished Bride of Northfield House by Phyllis M. Newman]()
The Vanished Bride of Northfield House by Phyllis M. Newman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsEngland, 1922. Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not... -
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![The Complete Short Stories by Ambrose Bierce, Jerome Hopkins]()
The Complete Short Stories by Ambrose Bierce, Jerome Hopkins
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBefore he trailed off into the wilds of Mexico, never to be heard from again, Ambrose Bierce achieved a public persona as "bitter Bierce" and "the devil's lexicographer." He left behind a nasty reputation and more than ninety short stories that are perfect expressions of his sardonic genius...Categorized as:
dark ghosts gothic historical-fiction humor literary-fiction paranormal action-adventure -
![Charlotte Says by Alex Bell]()
Charlotte Says by Alex Bell
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe much-anticipated prequel to the bestselling FROZEN CHARLOTTE, a Zoella Book Club title in Autumn 2016. Following the death of her mother in a terrible fire, Jemima flees to the remote Isle of Skye, to take up a job at a school for girls. There she finds herself tormented by the mystery of what really happened that night... -
![The Book of Beloved by Carolyn Haines]()
The Book of Beloved by Carolyn Haines
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAs a young woman widowed by World War I, Raissa James is no stranger to ghosts. But when an invitation arrives from Caoin House, her uncle’s estate in Mobile, Alabama, she’s finally ready to cast off the shadows of her past...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal suspense adult amateur-sleuth -
![Dreadful Sorry by Kathryn Reiss]()
Dreadful Sorry by Kathryn Reiss
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Molly's recurrent nightmares become waking visions after she nearly drowns at a party. Soon she's witnessing events through the eyes of a girl who lived in her father's house nearly a century before...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic high-school historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal spooky suspense -
![The Witch of Tin Mountain by Paulette Kennedy]()
The Witch of Tin Mountain by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn Depression-era Arkansas, something wicked has come to a haunted mountain town in a novel of uncanny suspense by the author of Parting the Veil.Blood and power bind three generations of women in the Ozark Mountains. So does an evil that’s followed them across the decades.1931. Gracelynn Doherty lives peacefully on Tin Mountain, helping her adoptive granny work her cures... -
![Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray]()
Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams.After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners... -
![Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James]()
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsM. R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky -
![Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
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:
dark friendship gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal -
![The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell]()
The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA thrilling Victorian gothic horror tale about a young seamstress who claims her needle and thread have the power to killDorothea Truelove is young, wealthy, and beautiful. Ruth Butterham is young, poor, and awaiting trial for murder...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal -
![The Hanging of Hettie Gale by Tess Burnett]()
The Hanging of Hettie Gale by Tess Burnett
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA mother's love will never die. Neither will a mother's fury . . . The moor is a difficult place for a young woman to grow up in the eighteenth century, and life for Hettie Gale is no different. Abused by her father and abandoned by her family, she builds a new life for herself and her young son... -
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![The Broken Girls by Simone St. James]()
The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsA breakout suspense novel from the award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare.Vermont, 1950. There's a place for the girls whom no one wants--the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It's called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it's located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted...Categorized as:
boarding-school dark dark-academia friendship ghosts gothic high-school historical-fiction -
![The Bayou by Arden Powell]()
The Bayou by Arden Powell
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratings"Eugene didn’t know if he believed in the devil beyond the wicked things people did of their own accord, but if the devil had a face, it would look like Johnny Walker’s."Small-town Louisiana, 1935.When Eugene was twelve, a girl from town disappeared. Everyone said the gators must have got her when she strayed too near the bayou. No foul play, just a terrible accident... -
![The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories by Michael Cox]()
The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories by Michael Cox
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress, the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century, fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay beyond it... -
![House of Shadows by Pamela Hartshorne]()
House of Shadows by Pamela Hartshorne
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen Kate Vavasour wakes in the hospital, she remembers nothing of the family gathered around her, or of her life before the accident. The doctors diagnose post-traumatic amnesia and say the memories should start returning. Which they do—but these memories are not hers. They belong to Isabel Vavasour, who lived and died at Askerby Hall more than 400 years earlier... -
![The Stars We Walked Upon by M.L. Bullock]()
The Stars We Walked Upon by M.L. Bullock
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCarrie Jo Stuart's dream catching has gotten out of control and threatens to wreck her happy home. She decides to tell her husband a secret that changes everything, but Ashland has ghosts of his own. Ashland's childhood friend Detra Ann Dowd battles a frightening supernatural being but travels across time to receive help from an unexpected ally... -
![The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights by Bridget Collins, Susan Stokes-Chapman]()
The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights by Bridget Collins, Susan Stokes-Chapman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the creators of The Haunting Season comes a dazzling collection of never-before-seen ghostly tales.The tradition of a haunted tale at Christmas has flourished across the centuries... -
![Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford]()
Through the Mist by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTwo women disturb the dark history of a deceptively quiet postwar Cornwall village in a haunting novel by the bestselling author of A Feather on the Water and The Woman on the Orient Express.It’s winter 1947 when newlyweds Ellen and Tony Wylde move into an abandoned Cornish farmhouse overlooking the sea... -
![A Light Amongst Shadows by Kelley York, Rowan Altwood]()
A Light Amongst Shadows by Kelley York, Rowan Altwood
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsJames Spencer is hardly the typical troubled youth who ends up at Whisperwood School for Boys. Instead of hating the strict schedules and tight oversight by staff, James blossoms, quickly making friends, indulging in his love of writing, and contemplating the merits of sneaking love poems to the elusive and aloof William Esher... -
![The Haunted Looking Glass by Edward Gorey]()
The Haunted Looking Glass by Edward Gorey
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Haunted Looking Glass is the late Edward Gorey's selection of his favorite tales of ghosts, ghouls, and grisly goings-on. It includes stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs, and L. P. Hartley, among other masters of the fine art of making the flesh creep, all accompanied by Gorey's inimitable illustrations.ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, "The Empty House"W.F... -
![Heart Burn by C.J. Archer]()
Heart Burn by C.J. Archer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTime is running out for Hannah. With her life hanging by a thread and Tate trying to kidnap her, she finds help in an unusual quarter - the man who put the narcoleptic memory block on her as a child. Yet the powerful hypnotist may not be all that he seems... -
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![The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell]()
The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for it may just come true.At The Mercury Theatre in London's West End, rumours are circulating of a curse... -
![House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine]()
House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe past isn't always dead or buried...When Joss Grant, adopted at birth, inherits Belheddon Hall – a beautiful old house on the East Anglian coast – it is like a dream come true. Eager to begin a new life there with Luke, her husband, and Tom, her small son, she is also impatient to find out about her newly discovered family who lived there for generations... -
![The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White]()
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsMors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year... -
![Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy]()
Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsSome houses hold secrets that are meant to be kept forever…When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield... -
![The Listener by Robert McCammon]()
The Listener by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings1934. Businesses went under by the hundreds, debt and foreclosures boomed, and breadlines grew in many American cities. In the midst of this misery, some folks explored unscrupulous ways to make money. Angel-faced John Partlow and carnival huckster Ginger LaFrance are among the worst of this lot...Categorized as:
dark gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal suspense adult -
![The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke]()
The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLook out for C.J. Cooke's atmospheric new novel . . . In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth... -
![The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle]()
The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBrother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald flee their busy London lives for the beautiful but stormy Devon coastline. They are drawn to the suspiciously inexpensive Cliff End, feared amongst locals as a place of disturbance and ill omen. Gradually, the Fitzgeralds learn of the mysterious deaths of Mary Meredith and another strange young woman...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal spooky suspense 20th-century -
![Playing With Fire by C.J. Archer]()
Playing With Fire by C.J. Archer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPRAISE FOR THE WRONG GIRL (BOOK 1 IN THE 1ST FREAK HOUSE SERIES):"It is incredibly well written and pulls you in from page one." ~ Annaleen, Amazon and Goodreads reviewer"This was one fantastic read! A really fascinating story which I couldn't put down, so this is easily a 5 stars... -
![Remember Me Lib/E by Chelsea Bobulski]()
Remember Me Lib/E by Chelsea Bobulski
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn this eerie and suspenseful YA, a teen girl discovers what connects her to the hotel she calls home as horrifying visions lead her to the truth.Nell Martin is moving again, this time to the Winslow Grand Hotel, built in 1878. As Nell is settling in, strange things begin to happen...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal spooky suspense audiobook -
![The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean]()
The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSome ghosts never leave us.SHORTLISTED FOR THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2021'A wild rural gothic with some slick plotting . . . the perfect novel for our phantom present' Guardian'Outstanding . . -
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![Wife of the Left Hand by M.L. Bullock]()
Wife of the Left Hand by M.L. Bullock
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAvery Dufresne had the perfect life--a rock star boyfriend, a high-profile career in the anchor chair on a national news program. Until a dangerous threat brings her perfect world to a shattering stop. Avery loses everything but when she emerges from the darkness she finds she has a new ability--a supernatural one... -
![Fyneshade by Kate Griffin]()
Fyneshade by Kate Griffin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMany would find much to fear in Fyneshade's dark and crumbling corridors, its unseen master and silent servants. But not I. For they have far more to fear from me...On the day of her grandmother's funeral, Marta discovers that she is to be sent to be governess at Fyneshade, her charge the young daughter of the owner, Sir William Pritchard.All is not well at Fyneshade... -
![Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe]()
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... -
![Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley]()
Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsJake and the other finalists in a writing competition have been invited to a stately house for a tour like no other. As their guide leads them through grand rooms, hidden nooks and magnificent grounds, they hear the stories of seven ghosts who haunt the halls...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction paranormal spooky anthologies children children-books -
![Devil's Sonata by Elizabeth Edmondson]()
Devil's Sonata by Elizabeth Edmondson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBeauregard Abbey is an elite boarding school in the wilds of North Yorkshire – a school built in the ruins of a monastery renowned for corruption and the study of dark magic until its destruction by Henry VIII five centuries ago... -
![The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux]()
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsFirst published in French as a serial in 1909, The Phantom of the Opera is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia ghosts gothic high-school historical-fiction literary-fiction paranormal
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