Books like 'Hollow Heart'
Readers who enjoyed Hollow Heart by Viola Di Grado also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary fantasy psychological horror supernatural literary-fiction magical-realism dark ghosts low-fantasy
-
The Dex-Files by Karina Halle
Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThe truth is out there...The Dex-Files is a compilation novel that accompanies the Experiment in Terror Series and is not to be-read as a stand-alone. In the Dex-Files we find a variety of scenes and chapters from the enigmatic Dex Foray's POV from books #1-6 in the series. Some of these scenes have been previously published, albeit from Perry's POV, while other scenes are completely new... -
The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsMara Dyer knows she isn't crazy. She knows that she can kill with her mind, and that Noah can heal with his. Mara also knows that somehow, Jude is not a hallucination. He is alive. Unfortunately, convincing her family and doctors that she's not unstable and doesn't need to be hospitalised isn't easy. The only person who actually believes her is Noah... -
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome inhabitants of a peaceful kingdom cannot tolerate the act of cruelty that underlies its happiness.The story "Omelas" was first published in New Dimensions 3, a hard-cover science fiction anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, in October 1973, and the following year it won Le Guin the prestigious Hugo Award for best short story...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century anthologies audiobook classics -
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsHarry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a work of alternate-universe Harry Potter fan-fiction wherein Petunia Evans has married an Oxford biochemistry professor and young genius Harry grows up fascinated by science and science fiction. When he finds out that he is a wizard, he tries to apply scientific principles to his study of magic, with sometimes surprising results... -
-
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsFour decades after it first terrified the world, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is back! An extraordinary classic work of horror and dark paranormal suspense. In this stunning 40th Anniversary Edition, a desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a supernatural entity of pure malevolence... -
Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAndy Gage was born in 1965 and murdered not long after by his stepfather. . . . It was no ordinary murder. Though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . -
Del tiempo y sus demonios by Diego Armando Arciniegas Malagón
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDEL TIEMPO Y SUS DEMONIOS: PERSIGUIENDO LA VERDADEsta novela se desarrolla en un pequeño y misterioso pueblo. En un territorio hermoso, inhóspito a la luz de aquellas certezas que las mayorías consideran irrefutables. Lejos del tiempo que, arbitrariamente, tomara la sabia decisión de separar el bien del mal... -
Hunting Fear by Kay Hooper, Dick Hill
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHe's no ordinary kidnapper. Not only does he strike again and again, but he collects the ransom, gets away safely, and leaves his helpless hostages dead. Now, after months of eluding the best that law enforcement can put against him, this monster has left nothing in his wake but a cold trail of unconnected victims. He's no ordinary cop... -
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck, Sergei Burbank
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he'll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism 21st-century action-adventure adult afterlife audiobook book -
The Body at Auercliff by Amy Cross
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!" When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms... -
Ghostwritten by Ronald Malfi
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFour brand-new horror novellas from “a modern-day Algernon Blackwood” all about books, stories, manuscripts – the written word has never had sharper teeth…From the bestselling author of Come with Me, four standalone horror novellas set in a shared universe! In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel drives people to their deaths. A delivery job turns deadly in The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride... -
White Silence by Jodi Taylor
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings*The first instalment in the new, gripping supernatural thriller series from international bestselling author, Jodi Taylor.* "I don't know who I am. I don't know what I am." Elizabeth Cage is a child when she discovers that there are things in this world that only she can see. But she doesn’t want to see them and she definitely doesn’t want them to see her... -
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:
dark ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century action-adventure adult book -
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAn extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side... -
-
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsMara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.It can.She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong... -
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... -
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:
dark ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies -
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe definitive English language translation of the internationally bestselling Ukrainian novel—a brilliant dark fantasy with "the potential to be a modern classic" (Lev Grossman), combining psychological suspense, enchantment, and terror that makes us consider human existence in a fresh and provocative way.Our life is brief . .Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century action-adventure audiobook boarding-school book -
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka, 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 literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
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...Categorized as:
dark magical-realism action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook contemporary crime -
Last Call by Tim Powers
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsTwenty years ago Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player and went into hiding, after a weird high-stakes game played with Tarot cards. But now the cards - and the supernatural powers behind them - have found him again.Crane's father killed gangster Bugsy Siegel in 1948 to become the Fisher King, and to keep that power he is determined to kill his son...Categorized as:
dark ghosts low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
The Bones of Others by Vickie McKeehan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSome monsters live in your head. Not this one.Brutalized as a young girl by a vile sexual predator, Skye Cree is a survivor. Guided by the visions of her mystical spirit guide to the whereabouts of abducted girls, she uses her unique abilities to turn her horrifying past into a positive force for justice... -
Death with Interruptions by José Saramago
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsNobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death?On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially mass celebration...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Séances are for Suckers by Tamara Berry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen something goes bump in the night . . . it’s most likely a plumbing problem, or something equally mundane. But fake medium Eleanor Wilde is happy to investigate and cleanse your home of spectral presences—for a fee. Hey, it’s a living . . . Ellie has an ailing sister to care for, and working as a ghost hunter who doesn’t believe in ghosts helps cover the bills for both of them... -
-
A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA teen girl and her family return to her mother's childhood home, only to discover that the house's strange beauty may disguise a sinister past, in this contemporary gothic horror from the author of What We Harvest.The house was supposed to be a fresh start. That's what Libby's mom said... -
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... -
Everville by Clive Barker
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsOn the borderland between this world and the world of Quiddity, the sea of our dreams, sits Everville. For years, it has lived in ignorance of the gleaming shore on which it lies. But its ignorance is not bliss... -
Splintered by Tal Bauer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEverything in Ben's life was perfect. He had it all. The good career. The perfect partner, Evan. The happy home. They were even talking about turning the extra bedroom into a nursery.But things start to splinter. Evan begins missing time, not knowing where he was or how he got there... -
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsThe Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud tells the haunting story of a young man who narrowly survives a terrible car wreck that kills his little brother. Years later, the brothers’ bond remains so strong that it transcends the normal boundaries separating life and death. Charlie St. Cloud lives in a snug New England fishing village...Categorized as:
ghosts literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure afterlife audiobook book coming-of-age -
Brother Odd by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 54 ratingsLoop me in, odd one.The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love, and Stormy is dead, gone forever from this world. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker nature... -
The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsBetween 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life... -
The Fisherman by John Langan
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true... -
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsThe dead don't talk. I don't know why. But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Sometimes the silent souls who seek out Odd want justice. Occasionally their otherworldly tips help him prevent a crime. But this time it’s different... -
Dead Men's Boots by Mike Carey
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsYou might think that helping a friend's widow to stop a lawyer from stealing her husband's corpse would be the strangest thing on your To Do list. But life is rarely that simple for Felix Castor. A brutal murder in King's Cross bears all the hallmarks of a long-dead American serial killer, and it takes more good sense than Castor possesses not to get involved... -
-
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsIn this brilliant collection of stories, Stephen King takes readers down paths that only he could imagine.A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driver finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil... -
Death with Interruptions by José Saramago
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsNobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death?On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially mass celebration...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult audiobook book classics -
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
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... -
Forever Odd by Dean Koontz
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 58 ratingsI see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it.Odd Thomas never asked for his special ability. He's just an ordinary guy trying to live a quiet life in the small desert town of Pico Mundo. Yet he feels an obligation to do right by his otherworldly confidants, and that's why he's won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death... -
Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDenis Egan is dead. He’s okay with that. It’s been five years since he died, and the place where souls go is actually pretty nice. Sure, there are some things about his life and how it ended he can’t quite recall, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. Remembering could prevent Denis from moving on to whatever’s next. However, something is standing in his way...Categorized as:
ghosts low-fantasy magical-realism action-adventure afterlife audiobook book children -
The Televisionary Oracle by Rob Brezsny
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMillions of people already live their lives in accordance with Rob Brezsny's "Real Astrology" prophecies. But the time has come for a deeper dose of Brezsny's brain. The Televisionary Oracle is an archetypal roller-coaster that would make Rumi dizzy and leave Carl Jung gasping for breath...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult alpha-mc anthologies contemporary female-mc feminism -
Skeletal by Katherine Hayton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThree months before she died Daina Harrow faced a bully at school.Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide. That was ten years ago. Ten long years.Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start... -
Strange Folk by Alli Dyer
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA woman returns to her estranged, magical family in Appalachia but when a man is found dead in the woods nearby, it seems the family has conjured something sinister in this lush, shimmering, and wildly imaginative debut novel that is perfect for fans of Alice Hoffman, Deborah Harkness, and Sarah Addison Allen.Lee left Craw Valley at eighteen without a backward glance...Categorized as:
magical-realism low-fantasy fantasy fiction mystery magic paranormal witches-wizards -
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThis is an enchanted place. Others don't see it, but I do.The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 21st-century abuse adult audiobook -
-
Flying in Place by Susan Palwick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOnce in a while, a first novel arrives like a bolt of lightning, commanding attention with an explosion of power, grace, and light. Flying in Place is such a book. As unflinching as The Lovely Bones, as startling as Beloved, it is a work to bear witness--with bravery and compassion--for the experience of millions of readers and their loved ones... -
Be Buried in the Rain by Barbara Michaels
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere are terrible secrets from generations past buried at Maidenwood. Medical student Julie Newcomb has returned to her family's decaying plantation—the site of so many painful childhood memories—to tend to her tyrannical grandmother, felled by a stroke... -
Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA newborn's absent face appears on the back of someone else's head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he's after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary cosmic-horror dystopia -
The Crying Child by Barbara Michaels
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTrapped between madness and imagination...From the moment she arrived on King's Island, Joanne McMullen knew that her sister's grief over losing her child had driven her dangerously close to madness. Jo grew anxious when Mary confided that she heard a thin, insistent wail that rose up beyond the dark Maine woods... -
The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen David Caine, a celebrated skeptic of the supernatural, is invited by an old friend to spend a month in “the most haunted house in Virginia,” he believes the case will be like any other. But the Alexander House is different. Built by a 1700s land baron to contain the madness and depravity of his eldest son, the house is plagued by shadows of the past and the lingering taint of bloodshed... -
The Haunting of Rachel Harroway: The Beginning by J.S. Donovan
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn 1983, a family of four was murdered in their nineteenth century Queen Anne manse. There were no witnesses, no real investigation, and no survivors.Over thirty years later, the house is suddenly back on the market. Ready to settle down, a young married couple moves from New York City to their dream home in the quiet town of Highlands, North Carolina...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.