Books like 'Severance'
Readers who enjoyed Severance by Robert Olen Butler also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary historical-fiction literary-fiction crime retellings
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A Page in Your Diary by Keith A. Pearson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTen insane days. One miraculous opportunity to re-write the past."If you lived through the 1980s and love time travel novels, you'll struggle to find a more addictive read than Pearson's latest gem." - Joanna JamesIn May 1987 Jackie Benton received a heartbreaking phone call from her boyfriend, Sean Hardy, bringing an end to their five-year relationship...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary fiction paranormal time-travel -
Fire by John Boyne
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOn the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a sought-after development, and a flash car. But it wasn’t always like this. Hers is a life founded on darkness... -
Angelica And Francesca by Kenneth Jarrett Singleton
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAngelica and Francesca are the identical twin daughters of Pellrue, Duke of Doretay. Doretay is a state within a kingdom called Vidien, which Angelica's and Francesca's great uncle, King Oscar, rules. Pellrue attempts to keep control of his wicked, evil daughters as they keep entering his city and raising havoc by torturing and murdering the common citizens within...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction anthologies contemporary drama fiction horror -
Liam by Stephanie St. Klaire
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou met them in the McKenzie Ridge Series, get to know them in Brother's Keeper...This broody bunch of Irish Alpha's with heart are the brother's you want on your side when things go wrong... This edge of your seat series will make you laugh just before it takes you through twists and turns you won't see coming and will give you all the feels along the way.. -
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Vinyl Cafe Unplugged by Stuart McLean
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBestselling author and radio storytelling sensation Stuart McLean revisits the heartwarming and hilarious friends from his iconic Vinyl Cafe.Dave and his wife Morley would no doubt tell you that life is what you make it. Unfortunately for them, that means a compilation tape of mistakes, miscues, misunderstandings, and muddle... -
No Honour by Awais Khan
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA young woman defies convention in a small Pakistani village, with devastating results for her and her family. A stunning, immense beautiful novel about courage, family and the meaning of love, when everything seems lost… In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary family female-mc fiction -
Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsInspired by a real event, this is the story of a woman and a city that were violated.It is 2014. There is euphoria in Brazil, especially in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The World Cup is about to take place, and the 2016 Olympics are in sight. It is a time of hope and of frenzied construction.Júlia is a partner with an architecture firm that is planning projects for the future Vila Olímpica... -
Daintree by Annie Seaton
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Daintree breeds survivors, those who can weather the storms, heat and floods that come hand-in-hand with its beauty. Doctor Emma Porter is one such survivor, dedicated to her patients and to preserving this precious land where she has made a home... -
The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the first appearance in English of a Mexican novelist of enormous talent. His brilliant novel is based on fact: the discovery in the yard of a small-town brothel of the corpses of six prostitutes...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book classics contemporary -
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 Wizard of the Kremlin by Giuliano da Empoli
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFilled with real political insight and intrigue, this thrilling novel explores the nature of power through the inner workings of Putin’s regime.Known as the “Wizard of the Kremlin,” the enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming a political advisor to Putin, aka “The Czar...Categorized as:
historical-fiction crime literary-fiction fiction politics contemporary audiobook 21st-century -
Never Come Morning by Nelson Algren
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNever Come Morning is unique among the novels of Algren. The author's only romance, the novel concerns Brun Bicek, a would-be pub from Chicago's Northwest side, and Steffi, the woman who shares his dream while living his nightmare. "It is an unusual and brilliant book," said The New York Times. "A bold scribbling upon the wall for comfortable Americans to ponder and digest... -
The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFour teenagers grow inseparable in the last days of the Soviet Union—but not all of them will live to see the new world arrive in this powerful debut novel, loosely based on Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.Coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, best friends Anya and Milka try to envision a free and joyful future for themselves...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction retellings fiction contemporary audiobook friendship family -
Cent millions d'années et un jour by Jean-Baptiste Andrea
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings‘On the mountain, the only monsters are the ones you take with you.’Summer 1954. Stan has been hunting for fossils since the age of six. Now, having made a career out of studying the remains of tiny lifeforms, he hears a story he cannot forget: the skeleton of a huge creature, a veritable dragon, lies deep in an Alpine glacier. And he is determined to find it...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction drama action-adventure contemporary fantasy book -
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Reader’s Block by David Markson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this spellbinding, utterly unconventional fiction, an aging author who is identified only as Reader contemplates the writing of a novel. As he does, other matters insistently crowd his mind - literary and cultural anecdotes, endless quotations attributed and not, scholarly curiosities - the residue of a lifetime's reading which is apparently all he has to show for his decades on earth...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction philosophy -
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction contemporary epistolary family 20th-century book -
Kokoschka's Doll by Afonso Cruz
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt the age of forty-two, Bonifaz Vogel begins to hear a voice.But it doesn't belong to the mice or the woodworm, as he first imagines. Nor is it the voice of God, as he comes to believe. It belongs to young Isaac Dresner, who takes refuge in the cellar of Vogel's bird shop on the run from the soldier who shot his best friend... -
Dawn: Stories by Selahattin Demirtaş, Maureen Freely
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA new novel from Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint, SJP for Hogarth: Written from behind bars, the unforgettable collection from one of Turkey’s leading politicians and most powerful storytellers.In this essential collection, Selahattin Demirtaş’s arresting stories capture the voices of ordinary people living through extraordinary times...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
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:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction book contemporary fiction mystery organized-crime -
Lessons by Ian McEwan
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction audiobook contemporary family coming-of-age book -
Daydreams of Angels by Heather O'Neill
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsInventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling authorThe fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O'Neill's work. In her bestselling novels Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transformed the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors... -
The Question of Bruno by Aleksandar Hemon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this stylistically adventurous, brilliantly funny tour de force-the most highly acclaimed debut since Nathan Englander's-Aleksander Hemon writes of love and war, Sarajevo and America, with a skill and imagination that are breathtaking.A love affair is experienced in the blink of an eye as the Archduke Ferdinand watches his wife succumb to an assassin's bullet...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction contemporary 21st-century anthologies adult -
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... -
Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories by Jim Shepard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsI’ve been a problem baby, a lousy son, a distant brother, an off-putting neighbor, a piss-poor student, a worrisome seatmate, an unreliable employee, a bewildering lover, a frustrating confidante and a crappy husband. Among the things I do pretty well at this point I’d have to list darts, re-closing Stay-Fresh boxes, and staying out of the way...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary fiction horror humor -
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Her No.1 Fan by Abby Davies
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRachel Brown plays Doctor Elouise Sparks in the popular TV series 'Emergency'. Though successful in her career, Rachel has just learned that her chance of conception is small, and she is devastated by the information.That’s when Mikey Bell takes Rachel from her home to a remote mountain cottage. But Mikey’s motive isn’t ‘normal’. He has a strange request...Categorized as:
retellings literary-fiction crime psychological suspense fiction thriller contemporary -
Dead Boys: Stories by Richard Lange
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThese hard-hitting, deeply felt stories follow straight arrows and outlaws, have-it-alls and outcasts, as they take stock of their lives and missteps and struggle to rise above their turbulent pasts. A salesman re-examines his tenuous relationship with his sister after she is brutally attacked. A house painter plans a new life for his family as he plots his last bank robbery... -
Abandoned Child by Kitty Neale
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsKitty Neale is back! Curl up with this heartrending new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of A BROKEN FAMILY and A FATHER’S REVENGEAll she wanted was a mother’s love …DESPISEDPenny’s childhood was spent in the shadows of her mother’s business schemes, feeling alone and unimportant... -
Melisande! What Are Dreams? by Hillel Halkin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn inspiring novel; a philosophical love story; a moving ode to a woman, as joyful and celebratory as it is elegiac. The narrator is a man in his forties, a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy known as Hoo. He has been given the nickname by Mellie, the woman he addresses in this book while exploring his memories of their years together and apart...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary drama fiction magical-realism -
The Island Dwellers: Stories by Jen Silverman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFor readers of Miranda July, Rebecca Lee, and Mary Gaitskill, a debut short-story collection that is a mesmerizing blend of wit, transgression, and heart. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT FICTION A passive-aggressive couple in the midst of a divorce compete over whose new fling is more exotic... -
Five Night Stand by Richard J. Alley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLegendary jazz pianist Oliver Pleasant finds himself alone at the end of his career, playing his last five shows, hoping the music will draw his estranged family back…Frank Severs, a middle-aged, out-of-work journalist, is at a crossroads as his longtime dreams and marriage grind to a standstill…And piano prodigy Agnes Cassady is desperately grasping for fulfillment before a debilitating disease... -
Murder Under the Tuscan Sun by Rachel Rhys
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn isolated castle, a deadly crime. Is this real or nightmare?In a remove castle high up in the Tuscan hills secrets are simmering among its glamorous English residents:The ailing gentleman art-dealerHis dazzling nieceHer handsome Fascist husbandTheir neglected young daughterThe housekeeper who knows everythingand Connie, the English widow working for them... -
Honey by Isabel Banta
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-1990s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardomIt is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It is a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction contemporary young-adult coming-of-age friendship book -
The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'A beguiling author who interweaves past and present' The TimesAn excavation at the lost gardens of Earlsacre Hall is halted when a skeleton is discovered beneath a 300-year-old stone plinth - the remains of a woman who was buried alive.But even when more skeletons are found in the walled garden, DS Wesley Peterson has more pressing matters on his hands... -
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"No one ever suspects," begins Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me, "that they might one day find themselves with a dead woman in their arms...." Marta has just met Victor when she invites him to dinner at her Madrid apartment while her husband is away on business. When her two-year-old son finally falls asleep, Marta and Victor retreat to the bedroom...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book classics contemporary -
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The Secrets Mothers Keep by Jacquie Underdown
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn the enchanting landscapes of Tasmania, "The Secrets Mothers Keep" unravels a captivating tale of three generations bound by a shared purpose—to restore the family manor into a charming bed and breakfast. But beneath the surface lies a lifetime of concealed truths that threaten to tear them apart... -
The Eighth Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta, Mitsuyo Kakuta
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe year is 1985. Kiwako is an ordinary office worker, in love with a married man, until an unwanted abortion causes her to snap. She kidnaps her lover's six-month-old baby and runs away with her, eventually taking refuge in an all-female religious commune. Here, she attempts to raise the girl... -
The Last Survivor by Andy McDermott
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJoin Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase in a digital exclusive short story from the international bestseller Andy McDermott. Also contains an exclusive extract from THE REVELATION CODE, the next in the Wilde & Chase seriesNina Wilde is pregnant and feeling very alone... -
Winterkill by Craig Lesley
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWinner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book AwardFrom the two-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association a deeply moving and evocative novel of fathers and sons. Danny Kachiah is a Native American fighting not to become a casualty. His father, Red Shirt, is dead; his wife, Loxie, has left him, and his career as a rodeo cowboy is flagging...Categorized as:
literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction indigenous-mc contemporary western poc-mc book -
Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the internationally acclaimed author of The Infatuations comes the mesmerizing story of a couple living in the shadow of a mysterious, unhappy history–a novel about the cruel, tender punishments we exact on those we love.Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction 21st-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
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 -
Poachers: Stories by Tom Franklin
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn ten stunning and bleak tales set in the woodlands, swamps and chemical plants along the Alabama River, Tom Franklin stakes his claim as a fresh, original Southern voice. His lyric, deceptively simple prose conjures a world where the default setting is violence, a world of hunting and fishing, gambling and losing, drinking and poaching-a world most of us have never seen...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult anthologies contemporary dark -
The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“This posthumous translation of Rosales, a Cuban-American writer who committed suicide in 1993, delivers a raw, powerful story set in a Miami home for the mentally ill… It’s a frightening, nihilistic cousin of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest .”― Publishers Weekly Never before available in English, The Halfway House is a trip to the darkest corners of the human condition...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction 20th-century poc-mc contemporary book adult -
Lost Empires by J.B. Priestley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRichard Herncastle's account of his life on the music hall, alongside his Uncle Nick, in the period immediately before the outbreak of the first World War in 1914...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction coming-of-age contemporary classics book literary -
The Devil You Know by Louise Bagshawe
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsNew York ...Smart, sexy Rose Fiorello grows up poor with nothing but a blistering hatred of Rothstein Realty, the developer that crushed her father's business...and a shocking plan to get even. Los Angeles ...Pampered society princess Poppy Allen wants to escape the smothering cocoon of her parents' privileged life to embrace the excitement of becoming a rock star...or rock star maker... -
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You Think That's Bad by Jim Shepard
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFollowing Like You’d Understand, Anyway—awarded the Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award—Jim Shepard returns with an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories... -
Three Letters by Josephine Cox
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe brand new dramatic novel about the power of a father's love, a little boy's journey,and the desperate search for a place to call home, from Number 1 best-selling author Josephine Cox.Eight-year-old Casey's mother Ruth is a cruel woman, with a weakness for other women's husbands...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book contemporary family fiction -
Tropic of Violence by Nathacha Appanah
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMarie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts a baby abandoned by refugees and names him Moïse. But when Marie dies, Moïse is left completely alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, set on a collision course with the gangs of the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte: Gaza... -
O clube dos jardineiros de fumaça by Carol Bensimon
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEm um cenário formado por coníferas milenares, estradas sinuosas e falésias, a região californiana do Triângulo da Esmeralda concentra a maior produção de maconha dos Estados Unidos. É lá que o jovem professor brasileiro Arthur busca recomeçar a vida, depois dos acontecimentos que o levaram a deixar Porto Alegre... -
Always and Forever by Cynthia Freeman
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTHE DEEPLY MOVING SAGA OF A LOVE THAT EVEN TIME CANNOT ERASE. A World Full of Strangers, Seasons of the Heart, The Last Princess --- with these and a host of other bestsellers, Cynthia Freeman established herself as the grand dame of romantic novelists. Now, sadly, she is gone, but she has left behind what will be judge her most unforgettable, affecting work, Always and Forever...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction ww2 -
Wildlight by Robyn Mundy
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou spend your whole time on an island looking out to sea. Perhaps what you are facing is yourself.Sixteen-year-old Stephanie West has been dragged from Sydney to remote Maatsuyker Island off the coast of Tasmania by her parents, hoping to recapture a childhood idyll and come to terms with their grief over the death of Steph's twin brother...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction coming-of-age contemporary female-author book adult
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