Books like 'It's Alive!'
Readers who enjoyed It's Alive! by Julian David Stone also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror 20th century mystery historical-fiction drama lgbtq
-
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAndy Dufresne, a banker, was convicted of killing his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank Prison. He maintains his innocence over the decades he spends at Shawshank during which time he forms a friendship with "Red", a fellow inmate.Source: stephenking...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book classics crime -
The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.52 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsThe internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark... -
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 58 ratingsFirst, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder... -
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsOn November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force... -
-
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 91 ratingsBarcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book classics -
The Last Secret of Lily Adams by Sara Blaydes
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe death of a legendary actress reveals a wealth of Hollywood secrets in a breathtaking novel about betrayal, rivalry, and the punishing brutality of fame.One of the brightest stars of Hollywood’s golden age was Lily Adams, the beloved picture of all-American innocence. Why she suddenly vanished from the spotlight was a mystery even to those closest to her...Categorized as:
historical-fiction fiction mystery historical audiobook mental-illness season-summer horror -
The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Murderess is a bone-chilling tale of crime and punishment with the dark beauty of a backwoods ballad. Set on the dirt-poor Aegean island of Skiathos, it is the story of Hadoula, an old woman living on the margins of society and at the outer limits of respectability. Hadoula knows about herbs and their hidden properties, and women come to her when they need help... -
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBook by Hugh Wheeler Introduction by Christopher... -
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book classics -
Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe play is a farcical black comedy revolving around Mortimer Brewster, author who wrights against marriage who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, New York, as he debates whether to go through with a honeymoon with the woman he loves and has recently agreed to marry... -
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
Black Order by James Rollins
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsLibrarian's note: This is an Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN10: 0752876457 ISBN13: 9780752876450.A sinister fire in a Copenhagen bookstore ignites a relentless hunt across four continents. Arson and murder reveal an insidious plot to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book conspiracies -
The Vanished Bride of Northfield House by Phyllis M. Newman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsEngland, 1922. Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not... -
The Commandant's Daughter by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1933, Berlin. Ten-year-old Hanni Foss stands by her father’s side watching the torchlit procession to celebrate Adolf Hitler as Germany’s new leader. As the lights fade, she knows her safe and happy childhood is about to change forever. Practically overnight, the father she adores becomes unrecognisable, lost to his ruthless ambition to oversee an infamous concentration camp…Twelve years later... -
-
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, Paula Rabinowitz
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPostwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect... -
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHamilton captures the edgy, obsessive and eventually murderous mindset of a romantically frustrated British man in this WWII-era novel. London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George... -
Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 54 ratingsFifteen-year-old Oscar Drai meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of Barcelona. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book classics coming-of-age -
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsIn the sprawling, half-timbered mansion in the affluent suburb of Swinly Dean, Aristide Leonides lies dead from barbiturate poisoning. An accident? Not likely. In fact, suspicion has already fallen on his luscious widow, a cunning beauty fifty years his junior, set to inherit a sizeable fortune, and rumored to be carrying on with a strapping young tutor comfortably ensconced in the family estate... -
A Rose for Emily and Other Stories by William Faulkner, Washington Irving
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsEmily is a member of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy; after the Civil War, the family has fallen on hard times...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies audiobook classics coming-of-age -
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIn Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century... -
The German by Lee Thomas
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lee Thomas come a thrilling novel. 1944 - Barnard, Texas. At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious, and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their streets... -
Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this thriller set on the battlefields of the Somme after the end of World War I, a woman investigates the disappearance of her fiancé.The Great War has ended, but for Amy Vanneck there is no peace. Her fiancé, Edward Haslam, a lieutenant in the 7th Manchesters, is missing, presumed dead. Amy travels to the desolate battlefields of northern France to learn his fate and recover his body... -
Daddy by Loup Durand
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho has the key to a $350 million fortune the Nazis have sent their most brilliant operative to find? Thomas, an 11-year old boy with the mind of a genius, the cunning of a fox, and the chance of a snowball in Hell to escape...unless he is helped by one man. An American who doesn't even know he exists. A man he calls Daddy... -
Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins, Catherine Pope
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHarriet Ogilvy is a young woman with a small fortune and a mental disability, making her the ideal target for the handsome and scheming Lewis Oman. After winning Harriet's love, Lewis, with the help of his brother and mistress, sets in motion a plan of unspeakable cruelty and evil to get his hands on her money... -
-
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand... -
Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1944, while her brother is overseas fighting in World War II, eleven-year-old Margaret gets a new view of the school bully Gordy when she finds him hiding his own brother, an army deserter, and decides to help him... -
Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis masterfully crafted first novel tells the spellbinding story of a contemporary woman who discovers her past life as a 12th-century Welsh noblewoman. Erskine's extraordinary romance has been translated into 17 languages and has sold well over a million copies worldwide...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book female-author female-mc -
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 historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book coming-of-age family -
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, Sandra Brown
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA governess in a French chateau encounters an apparent plot against her young charge's life in this unforgettably haunting and beautifully written suspense novel. When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Château Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream... -
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1950s Los Angeles: The City of Angels has become the city of the Angel of Death. Communist witch-hunts and insanely violent killings are terrorising the community. Three men are plunged into a maelstrom of violence and deceit when their lives become inextricably linked as each one confronts his own personal darkness... -
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 61 ratingsBest known for the 1892 title story of this collection, a harrowing tale of a woman's descent into madness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote more than 200 other short stories. Seven of her finest are reprinted here...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century anthologies audiobook classics dark female-author -
Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, Annie Tucker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn the eve of her wedding in 1978, Shay Garrett peers into the antique mirror in her family's longtime home, the famous Victorian Gingerbread House on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado, and falls unconscious only to wake in the body of her own grandmother Brandy on the eve of her wedding—in 1900. The virginal Brandy, in turn, awakes in Shay's body to discover herself pregnant... -
-
The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBy chance, John and Jean--one English, the other French--meet in a provincial railway station. Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratings"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe of horror fiction. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales... -
Deathtrap by Ira Levin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSeemingly comfortably ensconced in his charming Connecticut home, Sidney Bruhl, a successful writer of Broadway thrillers, is struggling to overcome a "dry" spell which has resulted in a string of failures and a shortage of funds... -
Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late... -
Agnes Cecilia by Maria Gripe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAfter experiencing several inexplicable incidents, lonely Nora receives a strangely lifelike doll, which leads her to discover long-hidden secrets about her family...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century book children children-books classics coming-of-age -
The Lost Ones by Anita Frank
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSome houses are never at peace. England, 1917 Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion... -
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by James Kahn
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn his newest adventure, Indiana Jones travels to India accompanied by a female torch singer named Willie Scott and an eleven-year-old boy named Short Round, his self-appointed side-kick... -
By Night under the Stone Bridge by Leo Perutz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSixteenth-century Prague provides the setting for the story of the forbidden love between emperor Rudolf II and Esther, the wife of an influential financier, and of the efforts of the city's Great Rabbi to right a situation angering... -
Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIllustrated English translation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' decadent novel, Alraune, the second volume in his Frank Braun trilogy: The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Alraune, and Vampire... -
Angel Street: A Victorian Thriller in Three Acts by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA Broadway hit first produced on the West End under the title Gaslight and filmed twice, Angel Street tells the story of the Manninghams who live on Angel Street in 19th Century London. As the curtain rises, all appears the essence of Victorian tranquility. It is soon apparent however, that Mr... -
-
A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA young woman in Belle Epoque France is cursed to relive a doomed love affair through many lifetimes, as both troubled muse and frustrated artist.In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet LaCompte has a passionate, doomed romance with the married Parisian painter Auguste Marchant... -
My Bones and My Flute: A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner by Edgar Mittelholzer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOnly when he is on board the steamer halfway to their remote destination up river in Guyana does Milton Woodsley realize that there is more to Henry Nevinson’s invitation to spend time with his family in their jungle cottage. Milton, an artist, thinks he has been invited to do some paintings for Nevinson, a rich businessman... -
Quitters, Inc by Stephen King, Eric Roberts
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsDick Morrison's life has become a nightmare of addictions, filling his days with overeating, overworking, and smoking way too much. When an old friend tells him about a surefire way to quit, he's more than willing to give it a shot. But what Dick doesn?t know is that Quitters, Inc... -
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBored and restless in London's Restoration Court, Lady Dona escapes into the British countryside with her restlessness and thirst for adventure as her only guides.Eventually Dona lands in remote Navron, looking for peace of mind in its solitary woods and hidden creeks. She finds the passion her spirit craves in the love of a daring French pirate who is being hunted by all of Cornwall...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics -
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Philomel Cottage: An Agatha Christie Short Story by Agatha Christie
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio.Recently swept off her feet, after a week of courting, the newly married Alix Martin is a woman obsessed by a reoccurring dream of her new husband’s murder. Each time she can see the murderer clearly and it is the mild mannered man she had almost married wreaking his revenge...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.