Books like 'Gradle Bird'
Readers who enjoyed Gradle Bird by J.C. Sasser also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary mystery gothic southern-gothic literary-fiction ghosts magical-realism historical-fiction
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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 Secrets of Lost Stones by Melissa Payne]()
The Secrets of Lost Stones by Melissa Payne
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA soul-stirring novel about the bonds between mother and child and the redemption that comes with facing the past and letting it go.Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and—most heart-wrenching—her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident... -
![The Wishing Tide by Barbara Davis]()
The Wishing Tide by Barbara Davis
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the acclaimed author of The Secrets She Carried comes a novel about the pull of the past and the power of love. As offseason begins on the Outer Banks, a storm makes landfall, and three unlikely strangers are drawn together... Five years ago, Lane Kramer moved to Starry Point, certain the quaint island village was the place to start anew...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary family female-mc fiction -
![I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay]()
I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWilliam Gay established himself as "the big new name to include in the storied annals of Southern Lit" (Esquire) with his debut novel, The Long Home, and his highly acclaimed follow-up, Provinces of Night. Like Faulkner's Mississippi and Cormac McCarthy's American West, Gay's Tennessee is redolent of broken souls...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction southern-gothic 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
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![Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy]()
Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction gothic southern-gothic north-america usa north-carolina fiction -
![Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges]()
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsHere is a handsome edition of one of Borges' "ficciones," in a translation first published in "Labyrinths" in 1962. It's an important story in the Borges' canon, incorporating most of the author's philosophical and esthetic preoccupations in a typically brief compass... -
![Cursed by Elise Noble]()
Cursed by Elise Noble
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRania Algafari never asked to be different, and when she escaped the war in Syria and moved to the UK, her only goal was to live her life in peace. Get up, go to work, avoid talking to the dead—that sort of thing... -
![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...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism adult book contemporary -
![Everything is Illuminated & Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer]()
Everything is Illuminated & Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratings[NB: 2-in-1 edition]Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's stunning debut, tells the story of a young Jewish American's quixotic journey into an unexpected past... -
![The Witches of Santo Stefano by Wendy Webb]()
The Witches of Santo Stefano by Wendy Webb
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn investigative journalist uncovers the haunting secret history of her own ancestors in a bewitching novel by the bestselling author of Daughters of the Lake.When Cassie Graves discovers her husband’s affair, it’s enough to chip away at the foundation of her life. But after researching her family’s Italian ancestry, it completely crumbles beneath her...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magical-realism ghosts gothic fiction mystery contemporary fantasy -
![Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett]()
Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strangest of circumstances in this one-of-a-kind novel of life, death, and whatever comes after from the acclaimed author of Rabbit Cake. The Starlings live in Everton, an ordinary enough New Hampshire town...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism adult animals book contemporary family -
![High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates]()
High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn unprecedented collection of the best of Joyce Carol Oates's short stories combined with eleven new storiesNo other writer can match the impressive oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates, and High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006 gathers stories from Oates's seminal collections, including The Wheel of Love (1970), Marriages and Infidelities (1972), and Heat (1991), arranged by decade...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies classics contemporary female-author -
![Einstein's Beach House by Jacob M. Appel]()
Einstein's Beach House by Jacob M. Appel
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA couple adopts a depressed hedgehog; a stranger shows up, claiming to be the father of a girl's imaginary friend; a woman kidnaps her ex-husband's turtle; a family is evicted from their home, but was it ever really theirs? Heartbreaking and hilarious, the eight stories of Einstein's Beach House examine how we deceive ourselves and others, all to arrive at something far more real... -
![The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden]()
The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSeven girls tied by time.Five powers that bind.One curse to lock the horror away.One attic to keep the monsters at bay.After the storm of the century rips apart New Orleans, sixteen-year-old Adele Le Moyne wants nothing more than her now silent city to return to normal...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction magical-realism southern-gothic audiobook book coming-of-age -
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![A Memento for Istanbul by Ahmet Ümit]()
A Memento for Istanbul by Ahmet Ümit
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA thrilling take which moves back and forth through time, from the early days of Byzantium to the thriving metropolis of Istanbul... A corpse is discovered at the base of the statue of Ataturk in old Istanbul, an antique coin left in its hand... But it's not to be the last corpse and the bodies soon begin to pile up... And so the hunt for the killers begins.. -
![The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr]()
The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA gripping literary mystery in the vein of Bolaño’s Savage Detectives , this coming-of-age novel unravels the fascinating life of a maligned Black author, based on Yambo Ouologuem.The first Sub-Saharan African winner of France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt.In 2018, Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer in Paris, discovers a legendary book from the 1930s, The Labyrinth of Inhumanity... -
![Honeysuckle Hollow by Jennifer Moorman]()
Honeysuckle Hollow by Jennifer Moorman
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTessa Andrews believes she has her life all figured out, organized in carefully numbered lists to ensure she doesn’t make bad decisions. But her meticulous process is shaken when torrential rain hits Mystic Water for twenty-six hours, forty-four minutes, and two seconds, leaving parts of the town, and her condo, drowning in floodwater... -
![Attribution by Linda Moore]()
Attribution by Linda Moore
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsArt historian Cate Adamson, still grieving the death of her brother and desperate to succeed, leaves her troubled parents in the Midwest to complete her doctorate in New York, only to find herself assigned to a misogynist advisor. She attempts to impress him until she discovers a hidden painting, possibly a Baroque masterpiece, in the university basement...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction gothic fiction mystery contemporary dark-academia female-author -
![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:
ghosts gothic literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![Bayou Bodyguard by Jana Deleon]()
Bayou Bodyguard by Jana Deleon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsONE REMOTE BAYOU MANSION WAS HOLDING TIGHT TO ITS SECRETS Bodyguard Brian Marcentel knew Justine Chatry had a job to do, but so did he. He'd been hired to keep her safe-- from whatever lurked behind the walls of a long-neglected mansion... -
![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... -
![Where I End by Sophie White]()
Where I End by Sophie White
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMy mother.At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her.Through our thin shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle through her body just like the water in the walls of the house...Teenage Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is a wreckage, the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about... -
![The Past Is Never by Tiffany Quay Tyson]()
The Past Is Never by Tiffany Quay Tyson
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA compelling addition to contemporary Southern Gothic fiction, deftly weaving together local legends, magical realism, and the search for a missing child.Winner of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, and Mississippi Author Award for Adult fiction...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism southern-gothic adult audiobook book -
![A Stranger in Wynnedower by Grace Greene]()
A Stranger in Wynnedower by Grace Greene
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRachel Sevier, a thirty-two year old inventory specialist, travels to Wynnedower Mansion in Virginia to find her brother who has stopped returning her calls. Instead, she finds Jack Wynne, the mansion’s bad-tempered owner. He isn’t happy to meet her. When her brother took off without notice, he left Jack in a lurch. Jack has his own plans... -
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![Big Bad Love: Stories by Larry Brown]()
Big Bad Love: Stories by Larry Brown
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLarry Brown caught the rapt attention of readers and critics with the 1988 publication of Facing the Music, his prize-winning first collection of stories. The following year, his first novel, Dirty Work, won national acclaim as a work of uncompromising power and honesty. Big Bad Love, his third book, collects ten new stories... -
![Burning Bright by Ron Rash]()
Burning Bright by Ron Rash
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNew York Times bestselling and award-winning author Ron Rash is "a storyteller of the highest rank" (Jeffrey Lent) and has won comparisons to John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, and Gabriel García Márquez...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic adult anthologies civil-war contemporary -
![What Hell Is Not by Alessandro D'Avenia]()
What Hell Is Not by Alessandro D'Avenia
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTake away love and you will have hell, ' you told me, Father Pino. 'Give love and you will have what hell is not.' Federico is a privileged teenager from Palermo. He is preparing to spend a summer learning English in Oxford when his teacher, Father Pino, asks him to help out at a youth centre in an area of Palermo dominated by mafia and misery...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction book contemporary crime fiction mystery organized-crime -
![The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies]()
The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsHailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in the bestselling Lyre of Orpheus.There is an important decision to be made...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult arthurian audiobook book -
![Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote]()
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsAt the centre of Music for Chameleons is Handcarved Coffins, a ‘nonfiction novel’ based on the brutal crimes of a real-life murderer. Taking place in a small Midwestern town in America, it offers chilling insights into the mind of a killer and the obsession of the man bringing him to justice...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic 20th-century adult anthologies classics -
![World of Wonders by Robertson Davies]()
World of Wonders by Robertson Davies
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsHailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book classics -
![Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems by Oscar Wilde]()
Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratings(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)Introduction by Terry EagletonOscar Wilde has been acknowledged as the wittiest writer in the English language. This collection proves that he was also one of the most versatile...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies classics contemporary drama fiction -
![The Sinner by Amanda Stevens]()
The Sinner by Amanda Stevens
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsI am a living ghost, a wanderer in search of my purpose and place… I'm a cemetery restorer by trade, but my calling has evolved from that of ghost seer to death walker to detective of lost souls. I solve the riddles of the dead so the dead will leave me alone. I've come to Seven Gates Cemetery nursing a broken heart, but peace is hard to come by…for the ghosts here and for me...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic adult alpha-mc audiobook -
![Peace by Gene Wolfe]()
Peace by Gene Wolfe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMesmerizing sci-fi from the author the Denver Post calls "one of the literary giants of science fiction." The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living in a small midwestern town, reveals a miraculous dimension. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself...Categorized as:
ghosts gothic literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
![Fay by Larry Brown]()
Fay by Larry Brown
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe's had no education, and you can't call what her father's been trying to give her "love." So at seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home, carrying a purse with half a pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. She's headed for the bright lights and big times of Biloxi, and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help's not hard to come by when you look like Fay... -
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![Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith]()
Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the vein of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone and the works of Ron Rash, an Amazon Best Book of the Month set in a tough-and-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, and the desire for revenge violently intersect. For eleven years the clock has been ticking for Russell Gaines as he sits in Parchman Penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction southern-gothic action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels]()
Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Killer Lurks In her quaint vintage clothing boutique in picturesque Georgetown, Karen Nevitt' s laces and white linens seem so innocent. Her aunt' s aged friends have even ransacked their attics to help the novice entrepreneur launch her business... -
![The Farm by Amy Cross]()
The Farm by Amy Cross
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOne farm. Two tragedies, thirty years apart. And a tortured figure whose presence connects both incidents... In 1979, the Bondalen family farm in Norway is home to three young girls. As winter fades to spring, Elizabeth, Kari and Sara each come to face the secrets of the barn, and they each emerge with their own injuries... -
![The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley]()
The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe author of New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club pick Lucky returns with a love letter to rock ‘n’ roll and star-crossed love, following Jane Pyre’s road trip around Europe as she attempts to find out what really happened to her partner in love and music, who disappeared without a trace years earlier, leaving Jane to pick up the pieces...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction romance fiction mystery contemporary audiobook female-mc -
![Devil Is Fine by John Vercher]()
Devil Is Fine by John Vercher
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom acclaimed novelist John Vercher, a profoundly moving novel of what it means to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile the pastReeling from the sudden death of his teenage son, our narrator receives a letter from an he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather...Categorized as:
magical-realism literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction audiobook fantasy contemporary dark -
![The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo]()
The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen Frank, an Irish dwarf, writes a personal memoir, he moves from dark isolation into the public eye. This luminous journey is marked by memories of his lonely childhood, secrets of his doomed young mother, and his passion for a woman who is as unreachable as the stars... -
![Miriam by Truman Capote]()
Miriam by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMiriam" is about a 61-year-old widow named Mrs. H. T. Miller who wants to spend the remaining years of her life alone in her apartment near the East River after the death of her husband, H. T. Miller. She is very lonely, has no friends to speak of and does not keep in touch with any of her relatives.One day, going into a movie theater, she meets a young, intelligent girl named Miriam. Mrs... -
![Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins]()
Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsYoung Australian cellist Maisie Fielding is bored with her career and her overpowering, manipulative musical family. Faking a wrist injury, she takes time off to return to England, her mother's home country, to search for her own roots and to find out more about her grandmother, a 'white witch' who settled in a bleak village on the North Yorkshire coast... -
![Unwritten Laws by Greg Iles]()
Unwritten Laws by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsproduct...Categorized as:
gothic southern-gothic literary-fiction fiction mystery male-author suspense contemporary -
![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:
ghosts gothic literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies classics contemporary -
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![The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane]()
The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the beloved author of the triumphant New York Times bestseller Ask Again, Yes comes a magnificently told novel about the complexities of marriage, family, longing, and desire.Malcolm Gephardt, the handsome and gregarious longtime bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss is finally ready to retire, Malcolm is inspired to buy the place...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book coming-of-age contemporary family fiction -
![Love and Other Wounds by Jordan Harper]()
Love and Other Wounds by Jordan Harper
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the hard-edged tradition of Hubert Selby Jr., Daniel Woodrell, and Donald Ray Pollock, and with the fresh, complex humanity of Breaking Bad and Reservoir Dogs, a blistering debut collection that unsparingly confronts the extreme, brutal parts of the human heart.A man runs away from his grave and into a maelstrom of bullets and fire... -
![Stitches in Time by Barbara Michaels]()
Stitches in Time by Barbara Michaels
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen an antique bridal quilt appears under mysterious circumstances at the vintage clothing shop where Rachel Grant works, she is fascinated. She has never been able to resist handmade textiles from the past, for she believes that through the ages, women wove protective magic into their fabrics in order to mark the important events of their lives: birth, marriage, and death... -
![American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell]()
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA lush and rowdy collection of short stories set in a rural Michigan landscape, where wildlife, jobs, and ways of life are vanishing...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction southern-gothic adult anthologies audiobook contemporary dark -
![Volt: Stories by Alan Heathcock]()
Volt: Stories by Alan Heathcock
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsA blistering collection of stories from an exhilarating new voiceOne man kills another after neither will move his pickup truck from the road. A female sheriff in a flooded town attempts to cover up a murder. When a farmer harvesting a field accidentally runs over his son, his grief sets him off walking, mile after mile. A band of teens bent on destruction runs amok in a deserted town at night...Categorized as:
literary-fiction gothic southern-gothic fiction contemporary mystery anthologies thriller -
![A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar]()
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating...Categorized as:
literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction sci-fi dystopia contemporary mystery book
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