Books like 'Strange Cargo'
Readers who enjoyed Strange Cargo by Jeffrey E. Barlough also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassed beauty and grace. It's inhabited by the race that rose from the seed of angels, and they live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt. Phèdre nó Delaunay was sold into indentured servitude as a child. Her bond was purchased by a nobleman who recognized that she was pricked by Kushiel's dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one... -
The Fall of the House of Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsJohannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has come into possession of a vital clue that may lead him to his ultimate goal: a cure for death. The path is vague, however, and certainly treacherous as it takes him into strange territories that, quite literally, no one has ever seen before...Categorized as:
dark gothic industrial-era steampunk victorian action-adventure adult alternate-history -
Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsan alternate cover edition can be found hereIntroverted scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has spent the last few months watching his lover, Griffin Flaherty, come to terms with the rejection of his adoptive family. So when an urgent telegram from Christine summons them to Egypt, Whyborne is reluctant to risk the fragile peace they’ve established...Categorized as:
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Apocalypse Redux, Book One by Jakob H. Greif
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe worst thing about the end of the world is we did it to ourselvesIsaac Thoma lived to see the last handful of survivors defeat the demonic champion. He is now alone, his past in ashes, the last and most powerful human on a blighted Earth. But what if he could go back?Hurled back in time, Isaac has one chance to change it all. A chance to warn humanity of their impending doom... -
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The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHorst Cabal has risen from the dead. Again. Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan: to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone...Categorized as:
dark gothic industrial-era steampunk victorian action-adventure adult alternate-history -
Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day by Jonathan L. Howard
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJohannes Cabal has faced down the undead, ghosts, monsters, and Satan himself. But before all that, he fought the terrifying Bonewind, a supernatural being that devours life itself, and he did it all without leaving his house. "Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day" was the story that first introduced the necromancer of some little infamy back in 2004... -
The People's Will by Jasper Kent
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPart historical adventure, part vampire thriller -- the fourth dark and dazzling novel in Jasper Kent's 'Danilov Quintet'. Turkmenistan 1881: Beneath the citadel of Geok Tepe sits a prisoner. He hasn't moved from his chair for two years, hasn't felt the sun on his face in more than fifty, but he is thankful for that. The city is besieged by Russian troops and soon falls... -
The Shotgun Arcana by R.S. Belcher
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsR. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.1870... -
The Turn: The Hollows Begins with Death by Kim Harrison
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 30 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison returns to her beloved Hollows series with The Turn, the official prequel to the series that will introduce fans and readers to a whole new side of Rachel Morgan's world as they've never seen it before!Can science save us when all else fails? Trisk and her hated rival, Kalamack, have the same goal: save their species from extinction...Categorized as:
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The Hungry Dreaming by Craig Schaefer
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe discovery of lost letters between Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, describing historical events that never happened, sends shockwaves through the academic world. Meanwhile, a citywide surveillance program is coming to New York on a groundswell of dirty money and dead bodies. To hard-nosed Brooklyn reporter Nell Bluth, the two mysteries couldn't be more different...Categorized as:
dark action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book conspiracies dark-fantasy -
The Desert and the Blade by S.M. Stirling
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn his novels of the Change, New York Times bestselling author S.M. Stirling presents “a devastated, mystical world that will appeal to fans of traditional fantasy as well as post-apocalyptic SF...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic -
The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSomeone is killing Britain's warlocks.Twenty-two years after the Second World War, a precarious balance of power maintains the peace between Great Britain and the USSR. For decades, the warlocks have been all that stand between the British Empire and the Soviet Union-- a vast domain stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the English Channel...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic -
Red, White, and Blood by Christopher Farnsworth
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Presidential Campaign Trail, 2012: A political operative and a volunteer are brutally murdered while caught in a compromising position. Written in their blood on the wall of the crime scene: IT’S GOOD TO BE BACK.And with that, a centuries-old horror known only as the Boogeyman returns to taunt Nathaniel Cade, the President’s Vampire... -
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:
dark gothic industrial-era steampunk victorian action-adventure adult alternate-history -
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Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe first casualty of war is truth . . .First, Denland's revolutionaries assassinated their king, launching a wave of bloodshed after generations of peace. Next they clashed with Lascanne, their royalist neighbour, pitching war-machines against warlocks in a fiercely fought conflict. Genteel Emily Marshwic watched as the hostilities stole her family's young men...Categorized as:
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The Wolf's Hour by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsD-Day is threatened, but one man could rip the heart of the Nazis -- with his bare claws....He is Michael Gallatin, master spy, lover -- and werewolf. Able to change shape with lightning speed, to kill silently or with savage, snarling fury, he proved his talents against Rommel in Africa. Now he faces his most delicate, dangerous mission: to unravel the secret Nazi plan known as Iron Fist...Categorized as:
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Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, Steve West
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 19 ratings[MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.] Another inventive novel of epic terror by the acclaimed author of Those Across the River In the darkest days of the Dark Ages, the people of France faced both the Black Plague and desperate gangs of men who wandered the depopulated countryside looting and raping. Tomas, a disgraced knight, is one of these men... -
The War Hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratings"The forest flourished, a lush and spreading refuge from the Wars, coolly green and welcoming. Beyond its borders the land burned flame red, blood red, ghastly black. Men and women, hacked to death, choked the paths and streams as the Armies of Religion clashed and slaughtered. Carrion-hung gibbets loomed starkly through the smoke and all the land was desolate. The forest was a refuge... -
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsIn America, demons wear white hoods.In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die... -
The Best of Robert E. Howard: Grim Lands (Volume 2) by Robert E. Howard
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“[Behind Howard’s stories] lurks a dark poetry and the timeless truth of dreams.” –Robert Bloch “Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”–Stephen KingThe classic pulp magazines of the early twentieth century are long gone, but their action-packed tales live on through the work of legendary storyteller Robert E. Howard...Categorized as:
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The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsNicholas Valiarde is a passionate, embittered nobleman with an enigmatic past. Consumed by thoughts of vengeance, he is consoled only by thoughts of the beautiful, dangerous Madeline. He is also the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien..Categorized as:
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The Beast of Nightfall Lodge by Steven Sidor
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA mysterious explorer hires a team of adventurers to join him in a hunt for a monstrous beast, in this rip-roaring sequel to Fury From the Tomb. When Egyptologist Rom Hardy receives a strange letter from his old friend, the bounty-hunting sniper Rex McTroy, he finds himself drawn into a chilling mystery... -
The Third Section by Jasper Kent
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRussia 1855. After forty years of peace in Europe, war rages. In the Crimea, the city of Sevastopol is besieged. In the north, Saint Petersburg is blockaded. But in Moscow there is one who needs only to sit and wait - wait for the death of an aging tsar, and for the curse upon his blood to be passed to a new generation... -
The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the 1860s to the present, these are the accounts of the Diogenes Club, whose agents solve crimes too strange for Britain's police, protecting the realm and this entire plane of existence from occult menaces, threats born in other dimensions, magical perfidy and the Deep Dark Deadly Ones...Categorized as:
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A Rope of Thorns by Gemma Files
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYOU MUST LET BLOOD TO GET BLOODNew Mexico, 1867. As consort to resurrected Mayan goddess Ixchel, hexslinger Reverend Asher Rook has founded Hex City, the first place in all of human history where magicians can live and work together safely... -
Creeping Jenny by Jeff Noon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe third book in Jeff Noon's widely acclaimed 'Nyquist Mysteries' find our protagonist caught up in a new mystery that delves into nightmares, Saints and the answer to his father's disappearanceNyquist finds himself in a village where everyday is a different type of nightmare and whose bizarre rules are governed by whichever Saint rules that day... -
Foreign Devils by John Hornor Jacobs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe world is on the brink of war. Fisk and Shoe - mercenaries, very much not wanting to get caught in the middle of a political whirlwind - must deliver a very important message, and find a very dangerous man. They have caught the eye of the powerful men of the world, and now the stakes are higher than they like...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk action-adventure adult alternate-history book dark-fantasy -
Bran Mak Morn: The Last King by Robert E. Howard, Gary Gianni
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom Robert E. Howard’s fertile imagination sprang some of fiction’s greatest heroes, including Conan the Cimmerian, King Kull, and Solomon Kane. But of all Howard’s characters, none embodied his creator’s brooding temperament more than Bran Mak Morn, the last king of a doomed race.In ages past, the Picts ruled all of Europe. But the descendants of those proud conquerors have sunk into barbarism...Categorized as:
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Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratings“Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”–Stephen King“Robert E. Howard had a gritty, vibrant style–broadsword writing that cut its way to the heart, with heroes who are truly larger than life.”–David GemmellIn a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E...Categorized as:
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Where Oblivion Lives by T. Frohock
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Frohock has intricately woven a unique reinterpretation of history. Eloquent prose accompanies a lyrical theme amid prewar tensions, enriching this imaginative historical fantasy... -
Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAleksandr made a silent promise to the Lord. God would deliver him -- would deliver Russia -- and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness -- the terror by night. 1825, Europe -- and Russia -- have been at peace for a decade...Categorized as:
dark adult alternate-history book dark-fantasy fiction historical historical-fiction -
The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. "The Litany of Earth" is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos... -
The Outcast Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAs the Byzantine and German emperors plot war against each other, Venice’s future rests in the hands of three unwilling individuals:The newly knighted Sir Tycho. He defeated the Mamluk navy but he cannot make the woman he loves love him back. Tortured by secrets, afraid of the daylight, he sees no reason to save a city he hates.The grieving Lady Giulietta. Virgin. Mother. Widow... -
Vampire Crusader by Dan Davis
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"He was crusader, outlaw, khan. He was a count, a cavalier and a cardinal. William was a murderer, a devil. A vampire."England, 1189. Earl William de Ferrers and his six knights slaughter the family and servants of Ashbury Manor. The victims have had their throats ripped to shreds. The killers flee for the Holy Land...Categorized as:
dark adult alternate-history book dark-fantasy fiction historical historical-fiction -
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Bloodrush by Ben Galley
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen Prime Lord Hark is found in a pool of his own blood, his only son Merion Hark finds his world turned upside down and inside out. The Prime Lord’s last will and testament forces Merion west across the Iron Ocean, to the very brink of the Endless Land and all civilisation. To a place they call Wyoming...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk action-adventure alternate-history book dark-fantasy epic -
Dark Blood by John Meaney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJohn Meaney's triumphant invention of gothic SF continues with his undead detective discovering a terrifying conspiracy against the... -
The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe multi-award-winning author of The House of Shattered Wings continues her Dominion of the Fallen saga as Paris endures the aftermath of a devastating arcane war....As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the great Houses of Paris, ruled by Fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital... -
New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird by Paula Guran, Caitlín R. Kiernan
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gamers... -
The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 30 ratings'The Drawing of the Dark is not only one of my favourite Tim Powers novels, it's simply one of my favourite novels. The seamless and seemingly effortless blend of action and humour, the wonderful characters, the rich settings, the brilliant plot - all of it is perfect' James P...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history arthurian -
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsBrendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk victorian 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsAn unwilling pawn in the plotting of the Rome of Charlemagne's time, Regeane is betrothed to an unknown barbarian lord. Unable to refuse in case she is betrayed as a shapeshifter wolf-woman, she is attracted to a dark wolf prowling outside the city gates...Categorized as:
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The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Oh, the Sly King, the Sly King, in his towers of ash and wind." Pikey Thomas doesn’t know how or why he can see the changeling girl. But there she is. Not in the cold, muddy London neighborhood where Pikey lives. Instead, she’s walking through the trees and snow of the enchanted Old Country or, later, racing through an opulent hall...Categorized as:
dark industrial-era steampunk action-adventure alternate-history anthologies audiobook children -
Blood Maidens by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe new ‘James Asher’ vampire novel from the best-selling author - It’s 1911. War is coming, and according to one of the vampires of St. Petersburg, the Kaiser is trying to recruit vampires. James Asher, Oxford don and formerly on His Majesty’s Secret Service, is forced to team up again with his vampire partner Don Simon Ysidro for a journey to the subarctic Russian capital... -
Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAlternate Cover Edition can be found here. At the turn of the twentieth century, a former spy is called into service to hunt down a vampire killer...Once a spy for Queen Victoria, James Asher has fought for Britain on every continent, using his quick wits to protect the Empire at all costs. After years of grueling service, he marries and retires to a simple academic’s life at Oxford... -
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Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA rich, dark fantasy of destiny, death and the supernatural world hiding beneath the surface.Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people and hard ground dusted with sand. She's a half-breed who dresses like a boy, raised by folks who don't call her a slave but use her like one. She knows of nothing else. That is, until the day a stranger attacks her...Categorized as:
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The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIt is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day...Categorized as:
dark 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book dark-fantasy -
Conspiracy of Ravens by Lila Bowen
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMonsters, magic and the supernatural combine in this sequel to Wake of Vultures, in which a young woman must defeat the evil hiding beneath the surface. Nettie Lonesome made a leap - not knowing what she'd become. But now the destiny of the Shadow is calling.A powerful alchemist is leaving a trail of dead across the prairie...Categorized as:
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Ad Eternum by Elizabeth Bear
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor centuries, the wampyr has drifted from one place to another. From one life to another. It's 1962, and he's returned to New Amsterdam for the first time since he fled it on pain of death some sixty years before. On the eve of social revolution, on the cusp of a new way of life, he's nevertheless surrounded by inescapable reminders of who he used to be...Categorized as:
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Fenrir by M.D. Lachlan
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Vikings are laying siege to Paris. They want the Count's sister, in return they will spare the rest of the city... -
Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy by Dennis Detwiller
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThule, the Nazi Atlantis, legendary home of Aryan superbeings that ruled prehistory. Thule was supposed to be a Nazi myth, but when a defector from the SS occult sciences division, the Karotechia, brings proof of Thule's reality, Delta Green's course is clear: the alien city and its technological and occult secrets must be denied to the enemy at all costs...Categorized as:
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