Books like 'The Painting'
Readers who enjoyed The Painting by Charis Cotter also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical fantasy mystery supernatural action / adventure horror magical-realism paranormal children ghosts
-
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn Alabama boy’s innocence is shaken by murder and madness in the 1960s South in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson...Categorized as:
children drama family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century action-adventure -
The Lady of the Loch by Elena Collins
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratings‘Although I believe I will die here in this castle, my spirit will never be silent.’Ravenscraig Castle, Scotland. 1307When the castle she works in is sacked by the army of Prince Edward of England, kitchen maid Agnes Fitzgerald manages to escape north of Inverness to throw herself at the mercy of the Lord and Lady at Ravenscraig Castle...Categorized as:
historical-fiction ghosts family paranormal magical-realism romance historical fiction -
Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty, Lale Günseli Bayır
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSerafina's defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate. Every night she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the catamount...Categorized as:
children family historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure animals audiobook book -
Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children Boxed Set (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1-3) by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe New York Times #1 best selling series Includes 3 hardcover novels by Ransom Riggs and 12 collectible peculiar photographs. The movie adaptation of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is in theaters December 2016...Categorized as:
children drama historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure book fiction -
-
Serafina and the Splintered Heart by Robert Beatty, Битти Роберт
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe storms are coming.... Something has happened to Serafina. She has awoken into a darkness she does not understand, scarred from a terrible battle, only to find that life at Biltmore Estate has changed in unimaginable ways. Old friends do unthinkable things and enemies seem all around...Categorized as:
children historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure animals audiobook book -
Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro, Cornelia Funke
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsFans of dark fairy-tales like The Hazel Wood and The Cruel Prince will relish this atmospheric and absorbing book based on Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed movie...Categorized as:
children drama family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook -
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... -
Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsIn an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure adult animals -
The Desolations of Devil's Acre by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe fate of peculiardom hangs in the balance in this epic conclusion to the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series.The last thing Jacob Portman saw before the world went dark was a terrible, familiar face.Suddenly, he and Noor are back in the place where everything began - his grandfather's house. Jacob doesn't know how they escaped from V's loop to find themselves in Florida... -
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA historical ghost story set in South Carolina in the 1960s—a tale of courage, friendship, and Black Girl Magic.It’s 1963, and things are changing for Jezebel Turner. Her beloved grandmother has just passed away. The local police deputy won’t stop harassing her family...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook -
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... -
Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket by Caleb Krisp
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAre you ready for Ivy Pocket? The wickedly funny, completely unreliable maid of no importance returns—this time as a coffin maker’s daughter—in this action-packed sequel to Anyone but Ivy Pocket. School Library Journal says, “Fans of . . . Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events will love Ivy Pocket’s zany adventures...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction action-adventure book children-books comedy -
The Girl with No Face by M.H. Boroson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe adventures of Li-lin, a Daoist priestess with the unique ability to see the spirit world, continue in the thrilling follow-up to the critically-acclaimed historical urban fantasy The Girl with Ghost Eyes.It’s the end of the Nineteenth Century. San Francisco’s cobblestone streets are haunted, but Chinatown has an unlikely protector in a young Daoist priestess named Li-lin...Categorized as:
ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Forgotten Men by Bill Thompson
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe once-famous Hotel Iberia was where society's finest gathered in the days before 1859 when Victory, Louisiana became a ghost town. A building where people had laughed, dined and passed the time among friends became something dark, sinister and evil. The town was dead, so no one complained when the Victory Institution for the Criminally Insane opened in the old hotel...Categorized as:
ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure adult archaeology book fiction -
-
The Amazing Mr Blunden by Antonia Barber
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt was such an old house it sometimes seemed to Lucy that all the past was gathered up inside it as if in a great box; as though it had a life of its own that continued to exist just beyond the reach of her eyes and ears...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book children-books -
The Ghost of Midnight Lake by Lucy Strange
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom award winning author Lucy Strange comes a thrilling ghost story about a strong willed heroine who will follow even the most restless spirit in order to untangles the dark mystery of her own past.It's 1899. The Earl of Gosswater has died, and twelve-year-old Agatha has been cast out of her ancestral home - the only home she has ever known - by her cruel cousin, Clarence...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal abuse action-adventure audiobook -
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones by Richard Gleaves
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"My earliest memory is of discovering my grandfather's severed head." The HEADLESS HORSEMAN has risen and rides. JASON CRANE is the Horseman's target. But Jason must stay and fight, to protect those he loves. For Sleepy Hollow is falling to evil. Now Jason Crane lives under a tyrannical guardian. Jason Crane must descend into fearful darkness. And Jason Crane has an appointment with death..Categorized as:
ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure book fiction folk-horror gothic -
The Time of the Fireflies by Kimberley Griffiths Little
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCritically acclaimed author Kimberley Griffiths Little spins a thrilling story of one girl's race to unravel the curse that has haunted her family for generations. When Larissa Renaud starts receiving eerie phone calls on a disconnected old phone in her family's antique shop, she knows she's in for a strange summer...Categorized as:
children family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure book children-books -
Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsBefore Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. The origins of the first ymbryne... -
Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Miranda moves with her family to a new house in a small Massachusetts town, she discovers a mysterious antique--a dollhouse. Through the windows, she is shocked to find what seem to be living people in the tiny rooms, and gradually she realizes that scenes from the lives of the big house’s past inhabitants are being replayed there...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal abuse action-adventure book children-books -
Night of the Soul Stealer by Joseph Delaney
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIt's going to be a long, hard, cruel winter. And there couldn't be a worse place to spend it than up on Anglezarke.Thomas Ward is the apprentice for the local Spook, who captures witches and drives away ghosts. As the weather gets colder and the nights draw in, the Spook receives an unexpected visitor... -
A New Darkness by Joseph Delaney
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA chilling new trilogy from the author of the internationally bestselling The Last Apprentice series! Tom Ward is an apprentice no longer—now he is a fully fledged spook battling boggarts, witches, and other creatures of the dark. This three-book arc will introduce brand-new readers to Joseph Delaney’s haunting world, and delight longtime fans...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure assassins audiobook book -
A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsThe #1 bestselling series returns with a thrilling new story arc set in America!Vintage photographs reveal the never-before-seen world of peculiar America with a stunning addition—full-color images.Having defeated the monstrous threat that nearly destroyed the peculiar world, Jacob Portman is back where his story began, in Florida...Categorized as:
children historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book -
Witch Wood by John Buchan
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsSet against the religious struggles and civil wars of seventeenth century Scotland, John Buchan's Witch Wood is a gripping atmospheric tale in the spirit of Stevenson and Neil Munro.As a moderate presbyterian minister, young David Sempill disputes with the extremists of his faith, as all around, the defeated remnants of Montrose's men are being harried and slaughtered...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure adult book classics fiction -
-
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 Stars That Fell by M.L. Bullock, Emily Lawrence
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSecrets Never Stay Hidden Just Ask Any Ghost When Carrie Jo and Ashland Stuart uncovered the truth about the ghosts of Seven Sisters, they were sure that the supernatural activity would end. When they return home to Mobile after their honeymoon, they soon realize they were wrong”"not everyone is at rest. Something or someone is reaching out to the dream catcher... -
Shadows Stir at Seven Sisters by M.L. Bullock
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhere is Calpurnia Cottonwood? Find the Answers in Shadows Stir at Seven Sisters Seven Sisters, an antebellum restoration in downtown Mobile, has come to life recently...and not in ways historian Carrie Jo Jardine had expected...Categorized as:
ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 21st-century action-adventure adult book epistolary -
Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley, David Roberts
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA follow up to Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, this is another creepy middle grade story collection with a chilling frame. This time, the stories are all tales of the sea: pirates and plagues and storms a plenty..Categorized as:
children drama family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 21st-century action-adventure -
The Ghosts of Tullybrae House by Veronica Bale
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTHE PATH TO HER DESTINY LIES IN SOLVING A CENTURIES-OLD MYSTERY Emmie Tunstall is in over her head. Not yet thirty, and she’s been hired as curator at Tullybrae House. A three-hundred year old manor in the Scottish Highlands, Tullybrae has more antique and historically significant artefacts than a museum. It will fall to Emmie to inspect, research and catalogue every last one... -
Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAunt Blythe's house gives Andrew the creeps -- full of dark rooms, creaky noises, and the sound of a woman sobbing somewhere in the shadows. Then, in the middle of the night, Andrew awakens to find a boy standing in his room...a boy who is Andrew's double, except he looks as if he's come from the grave. He wants to follow him -- to a place where he will meet the spirits of long-dead ancestors..Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure book children-books -
The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNewly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family's ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries and ghosts...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book -
House of Shadows by Darcy Coates
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsSophie's world is shattered when disaster bankrupts her family. She's still reeling from the news when she's offered an unexpected solution: Mr Argenton, a wealthy stranger, asks for her hand in marriage... -
Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThey were watching...and waitingAt twelve, Maggie had been thrown out of more boarding schools than she cared to remember. "Impossible to handle," they said nasty, mean, disobedient, rebellious, thieving anything they could say to explain why she must be removed from the school.Maggie was thin and pale, with shabby clothes and stringy hair, when she arrived at her new home...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure book -
The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if the ordinary things in life suddenly…disappeared?Aila Quinn’s mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery: vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila’s reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother Miles are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town far from home--and the place where Juliet grew up.Sterling is a place with mysteries of its own...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
-
The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook -
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAfter Charlotte's first night at boarding school, the view from the window has changed and the girl in the next bed is not the girl who was there last night. She is a stranger who calls Charlotte "Clare" and says she's her sister.. -
How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsIt's the Salem Witch Trials meets Mean Girls in a debut novel from one of the descendants of Cotton Mather, where the trials of high school start to feel like a modern day witch hunt for a teen with all the wrong connections to Salem’s past.Salem, Massachusetts is the site of the infamous witch trials and the new home of Samantha Mather...Categorized as:
family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook book -
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsL. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century.There are three children: Toby, who rides the majestic horse Feste; his mischievous little sister, Linnet; and their brother, Alexander, who plays the flute. The children warmly welcome Tolly to Green Knowe..Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal 20th-century action-adventure -
Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen his grieving father orders the destruction of the Dark Library, Victor retrieves a book in which he finds the promise of not just communicating with the dead, but entering their realm, and soon he, Elizabeth, and Henry are in the spirit world of Château Frankenstein, creating and growing a body.[Book two of The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein series...Categorized as:
drama family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure alchemy audiobook -
A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis is the story of a bear-hearted girl . . .Sometimes, when a person dies, their spirit goes looking for somewhere to hide. Some people have space within them, perfect for hiding. Twelve-year-old Makepeace has learned to defend herself from the ghosts which try to possess her in the night, desperate for refuge, but one day a dreadful event causes her to drop her guard...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure animals -
The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors by Joseph Delaney, Patrick Arrasmith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThis is 3 stories inside, one about Alice and grimmalkin and those two that hav been published with 3 additional stories in the stort story collection as Spooks`s Stories witches (uk) or A Coven of witches (us) but with the additions World book day story Spooks`s tale included in this edition.The Last Apprentice series follows the terrifying adventures of the Spook's apprentice, Thomas Ward...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure audiobook book children-books -
The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsAs World War I rages, there are evils—both living and dead—that only a witch can see in a spellbinding novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera...Categorized as:
historical-fiction paranormal magical-realism ghosts fantasy fiction witches-wizards historical -
A Good Night for Ghosts by Mary Pope Osborne
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJack and Annie are on their second mission to find—and inspire—artists to bring happiness to millions...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction action-adventure audiobook book children-books -
The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJohnny Dixon doesn't believe that the ghost of mad Father Baart haunts the town church. But then he takes an old scroll and a seemingly harmless figurine from the church basement, accepts a magic ring from a mysterious stranger--and is plunged into a terrifying adventure that may cost him his life...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book children-books -
-
Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAfter a broken love affair, biographer Kate Kennedy retires to a remote cottage on the wild Essex coast to work on her new book until her landlord's daughter uncovers a Roman site nearby and long-buried passions are unleashed! In her lonely cottage, Kate is terrorized by mysterious forces... -
Rose by Holly Webb
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe grand residence of the famous alchemist, Mr Fountain, is a world away from the dark orphanage Rose has left behind. For the house is positively overflowing with sparkling magic—she can feel it. And it’s not long before Rose realises that maybe, just maybe, she has a little bit of magic in her, too. . .Categorized as:
children family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure alchemy animals -
The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"More death! More, if you do not stop it. Others lost, like me in the black water. Save them!"When Alexander first sees the eerie glow in the dormer window of the barn, it sets his heart pounding. And when he ventures into the barn in the dark of night, his breath catches in his throat. Suddenly Blossom Culp's words come back to him: "You can make contact with the Unseen...Categorized as:
children ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure book children-books -
Ghosts I Have Been by Richard Peck
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsUpon discovering that she has the gift of Second Sight, Blossom also learns that whether glimpsing the future or traveling into the past, one is powerless to alter history...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal 20th-century action-adventure alpha-mc -
Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA ghost story about a malevolent spirit, an unlucky girl, and a haunting mystery that will tie the two together. Claire has absolutely no interest in the paranormal. She’s a scientist, which is why she can’t think of anything worse than having to help out her dad on one of his ghost-themed Chicago bus tours...Categorized as:
children family ghosts historical-fiction paranormal action-adventure audiobook book -
Hold Back the Tide by Melinda Salisbury
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom internationally bestselling, acclaimed author Melinda Salisbury comes a darkly seductive story of murder, betrayal, love, and family secrets in a small town in the Scottish Highlands.Here are the rules of living with a murderer.One: Do not draw attention to yourself.Of course, when you live with a murderer, this is impossible. Even the subtlest of spectres is bound to be noticed...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook book
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.