Books like 'A Summer of Drowning'
Readers who enjoyed A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary fantasy horror mystery magical-realism literary-fiction gothic season-summer spooky crime
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Hades by Mark Z. Danielewski
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen a viral video puts twelve-year-old Xanther under a spotlight of scrutiny at school, her little white cat—still slumbering, still unnamed—offers the only escape, though it comes at a price. Not even Xanther’ parents can deny the strange currents now shuddering around their eldest, touching off inexplicable happenings. Entities troubling the dreams of the twins seem to have singled out Freya... -
![The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White, Aimée Bruneau]()
The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White, Aimée Bruneau
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratings>Psychic realtor Melanie Middleton returns-only to be greeted by a house full of lost souls. Psychic realtor Melanie Middleton is still restoring her Charleston house and doesn't expect to have a new houseguest, a teen girl named Nola. But the girl didn't come alone, and the spirits that accompanied Nola don't seem willing to leave.. -
![Return to Tradd Street by Karen White]()
Return to Tradd Street by Karen White
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFacing her future as a single mother, psychic Realtor Melanie Middleton is determined to be strong and leave her past with writer Jack Trenholm behind her. But history has a tendency of catching up with Melanie, whether she likes it or not.… Melanie is only going through the motions of living since refusing Jack’s marriage proposal... -
![Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell]()
Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsWe're waiting for you to come and play. Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins... -
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![Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias]()
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... -
![Dead Serious Case #1: Miz Dusty Le Frey by Vawn Cassidy]()
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:
crime literary-fiction magical-realism suspense adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Blackthorn Manor Haunting by Cheryl Bradshaw]()
Blackthorn Manor Haunting by Cheryl Bradshaw
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA woman in black stares at the sea, her body transparent, eyes brimming with tears. Hoping to get a better look at the woman, psychic medium Addison Lockhart leans out over the manor’s windowsill, gasping when she feels an intense pressure pressing down on her back—someone thrusting her forward. She grabs the side of the window to brace herself, but it’s too late. She’s already falling... -
![Specters in the Glass House by Jaime Jo Wright]()
Specters in the Glass House by Jaime Jo Wright
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn 1921, Marian Arnold, the heiress to a brewing baron's empire, seeks solace in the glass butterfly house on her family's Wisconsin estate as Prohibition and the deaths of her parents cast a long shadow over her shrinking world... -
![The Lamp of the Wicked by Phil Rickman]()
The Lamp of the Wicked by Phil Rickman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt appears that the unlovely village of Underhowle is home to a serial killer. But as the police hunt for the bodies of more young women, Rev. Merrily Watkins fears that the detective in charge has become blinkered by ambition. Meanwhile, Merrily has more personal problems, like the anonymous phone calls, the candles and incense left burning in her church, and the alleged angelic visitations... -
![Narraciones Extraordinarias by Edgar Allan Poe, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra]()
Narraciones Extraordinarias by Edgar Allan Poe, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. His name conjures up thoughts of hearts beating long after their owners are dead, of disease and plague amid wealth, of love that extends beyond the grave, and of black ravens who utter only one word. Poe perfected the psychological thriller... -
![The Lamb by Lucy Rose]()
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMargot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. When Margot is not at school they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door—"strays," Mama calls them, people who have strayed too far from the road. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm... -
![Black Opal by Catie Rhodes]()
Black Opal by Catie Rhodes
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNote: This novella is the second installment in the Peri Jean Mace series. The print version is approximately 180 pages. Please be aware before purchasing that this is a short novel. "I knowed you'd be coming." The voice came from next to my arm, male but high and reedy. "You here to make things right, ain't you?" Not according to Peri Jean Mace... -
![Portents by Kelley Armstrong]()
Portents by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Collection of Cainsville TalesCainsville, Illinois. A town founded by fae escaping the Old World. A town both part of the world and cut off from it. A town that a young woman will run to, fleeing her past, only to discover that her past extends further than she ever imagined, into the distant history of Cainville itself... -
![The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman]()
The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen a man's body is discovered in the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye, his death appears to be "unnatural" in every sense. Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mother, and exorcist, is drafted in to investigate, in this 12th installment A man's body is found below a waterfall. It looks like suicide or an accidental drowning—until DI Frannie Bliss enters the dead man's home... -
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![The Guests on South Battery by Karen White]()
The Guests on South Battery by Karen White
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERKaren White invites you to explore the brick-walked streets of Charleston in her fifth Tradd Street novel, where historic mansions house the memories of years gone by, and restless spirits refuse to fade away.. -
![House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski]()
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsYears ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism spooky suspense 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![Redwood by Mark Z. Danielewski]()
Redwood by Mark Z. Danielewski
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Season One finale of this riveting multisensory masterpiece from the visionary author of House of Leaves... -
![Selected Poems & Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Gaiman]()
Selected Poems & Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Gaiman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor more than a century-and-a-half, Edgar Allan Poe's poems and tales have thrilled readers with chilling accounts of matters mysterious and macabre... -
![Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung]()
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:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary dark -
![The Man in the Moss by Phil Rickman]()
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... -
![River of Ashes by Alexandrea Weis, Lucas Astor]()
River of Ashes by Alexandrea Weis, Lucas Astor
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSome truths are better kept secret. Some secrets are better off dead. ALONG THE BANKS OF THE BOGUE FALAYA RIVER, sits the abandoned St. Francis Seminary. Beneath a canopy of oaks, blocked from prying eyes, the teens of St. Benedict High gather here on Fridays. The rest of the week belongs to school and family—but weekends belong to the river.And the river belongs to Beau Devereaux... -
![American Gothic Tales by Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Brockden Brown]()
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... -
![Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne]()
Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive... -
![Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain]()
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA teen girl disappears from her small town deep in the bayou, where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp like water rot, in this chilling debut supernatural thriller for fans of Natasha Preston, Karen McManus, and Rory Power.La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide... -
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![Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti]()
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:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism spooky 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies -
![Lanny by Max Porter]()
Lanny by Max Porter
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThere’s a village sixty miles outside London. It’s no different from many other villages in England: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, council cottages and a few bigger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might do anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs...Categorized as:
coming-of-age gothic literary-fiction magical-realism spooky suspense 21st-century adult -
![Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo]()
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsGalaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away... -
![Full Throttle by Joe Hill]()
Full Throttle by Joe Hill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA little door that opens to a world of fairy tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns... -
![The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates]()
The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 19 ratings"The dead are restless here..." Remy is a tour guide for Carrow House, a notoriously haunted building. When she's asked to host seven guests for a week-long stay to research Carrow's phenomena, she hopes to finally experience some of the sightings that made the house famous. At first, it's everything they hoped for... -
![Horns by Joe Hill]()
Horns by Joe Hill
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIgnatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief... -
![2666, Part 1: The Part About The Critics by Roberto Bolaño]()
2666, Part 1: The Part About The Critics by Roberto Bolaño
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsComposed in the last two years of Bolaño's life, 2666 has been greeted as his greatest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness,beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters include academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student caring for her widowed, mentally unstable father... -
![My Death by Lisa Tuttle]()
My Death by Lisa Tuttle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist—and soon uncovers bizarre parallels between her life and her subject’s—in this chilling and singularly strange novella by a contemporary master of horror and fantasy.The narrator of Lisa Tuttle’s uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift...Categorized as:
literary-fiction spooky magical-realism horror fiction fantasy contemporary 21st-century -
![The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy]()
The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the author of Girl One comes a spellbinding adventure about a strange power lurking in the Arkansas Ozarks, and the group of friends obsessed with finding it.Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, Arkansas, the small town they all fled after high school graduation. Each is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter that reads, You promised... -
![A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw]()
A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsTravis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend... -
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![American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now by Peter Straub, John Collier]()
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:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism suspense adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![The Night Visitor by Dianne Emley]()
The Night Visitor by Dianne Emley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn bestselling author Dianne Emley’s chilling new paranormal thriller, a beautiful woman’s romantic past comes back to haunt her in the form of an otherworldly visitor seeking justice. Gorgeous and successful, Rory Langtry seemed to have it all. Daughter of a movie star and sister of a supermodel, Rory was engaged to sexy artist, Junior Lara... -
![It Waits in the Forest by Sarah Dass]()
It Waits in the Forest by Sarah Dass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsUnlike the other residents of the small Caribbean Island of St. Virgil, Selina DaSilva does not believe in magic. With a logical mind and a knack for botany, Selina used to dream of leaving the island to study Pharmacology—until a vicious, unsolved attack left her father dead and her mother in a coma... -
![The House on Tradd Street by Karen White]()
The House on Tradd Street by Karen White
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPractical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she's going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog, and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets.Enter Jack Trenholm, a gorgeous writer obsessed with unsolved mysteries... -
![The Honeys by Ryan La Sala]()
The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsFrom Ryan La Sala, the wildly popular author of Reverie, comes a twisted and tantalizing horror novel set amidst the bucolic splendor of a secluded summer retreat.Mars has always been the lesser twin, the shadow to his sister Caroline's radiance... -
![Everything's Eventual by Stephen King]()
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsThe first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet," King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade... -
![Ghost Story by Peter Straub]()
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsIn life, not every sin goes unpunished.GHOST STORYFor four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder... -
![Ghost Stories by Henry James]()
Ghost Stories by Henry James
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWith an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield, University of Kent at Canterbury. Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche... -
![The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel]()
The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsFielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984:the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio.The year he became friends with the devil.When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime gothic literary-fiction magical-realism season-summer audiobook book -
![Geek Love by Katherine Dunn]()
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsGeek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out—with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes—to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . .Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime literary-fiction magical-realism spooky suspense 20th-century audiobook -
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![Mina and the Undead by Amy McCaw]()
Mina and the Undead by Amy McCaw
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNEW ORLEANS FANG FEST, 1995. MINA'S HAVING A SUMMER TO DIE FOR.17-year-old Mina, from England, arrives in New Orleans to visit her estranged sister, Libby. After growing up in Whitby, the town that inspired Dracula, Mina loves nothing more than a creepy horror movie. She can't wait to explore the city's darkest secrets - vampire tours, seedy bars, spooky cemeteries, disturbing local myths.. -
![The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould]()
The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsCourtney Gould’s thrilling debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places―and people―you didn’t expect.The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won't stay hidden any longer. Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon... -
![Bad Cree by Jessica Johns]()
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn this gripping debut tinged with supernatural horror, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics...Categorized as:
coming-of-age gothic literary-fiction magical-realism spooky suspense audiobook book -
![Death Shall Come by Simon R. Green]()
Death Shall Come by Simon R. Green
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIshmael Jones is faced with a dead body and a missing mummy in this highly entertaining, genre-blending mystery. Death shall come on swift wings to whoever desecrates this tomb .. -
![Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey, محمد غفوری]()
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey, محمد غفوری
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOnce the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum... -
![20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill, Christopher Golden]()
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill, Christopher Golden
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsA collection of short stories.Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town...
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