Books like 'The Cliffs: A novel'
Readers who enjoyed The Cliffs: A novel by J. Courtney Sullivan also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary horror historical-fiction literary-fiction gothic family season-summer ghosts female-mc
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The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family fiction mystery contemporary drama indigenous-mc -
![Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand]()
Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsIn this #1 bestselling page-turner a Nantucket novelist has one final summer to protect her secrets while her loved ones on earth learn to live without their golden girl.On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of thirteen beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket...Categorized as:
family female-mc ghosts historical-fiction literary-fiction season-summer adult afterlife -
![Undesirable Situations by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson]()
Undesirable Situations by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMenopause, mayhem, and murder. Just a normal day for psychic medium Angela Panther.Thirty-five years ago, Genevieve Ryland stepped off the stage of her high school graduation and disappeared without a trace.For years her mother searched for her, hitting dead end after dead end. Now on her deathbed, she asks Angela to find the truth, find out what happened to her daughter... -
![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... -
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![I Am Not a Number by Lisa Heathfield]()
I Am Not a Number by Lisa Heathfield
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe powerful and heart-wrenching new novel from Lisa Heathfield, award-winning author of Seed and Paper Butterflies. Perfect for fans of Sarah Crossan, Louise O'Neill and Lisa Williamson.The Traditionals have been voted to lead the country, winning people over with talks of healing a broken society, of stronger families and safer streets. They promised a happier future for everyone... -
![The Souls of Lost Lake by Jaime Jo Wright]()
The Souls of Lost Lake by Jaime Jo Wright
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWren Blythe has long enjoyed being among the Northwoods, helping her father with programming at a youth camp. But when a little girl in the area goes missing, an all-out search ensues, reviving the decades-old campfire story of Ava Coons, the murderess, who still roams the woods. Joining the search, Wren stumbles upon the Coons cabin ruins and a rotting porcelain doll... -
![The Perfect Death by Stacy Claflin]()
The Perfect Death by Stacy Claflin
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSuicide or the perfect cover-up?Kenzi Brannon loves the single life in California. She hasn't looked back since the day she walked away from her painful past.Everything comes crashing down when Kenzi gets a call about her estranged sister's suicide. If that news isn't shocking enough, she also learns that she is now guardian to Ember, a niece she doesn’t even know...Categorized as:
female-mc ghosts literary-fiction fiction suspense contemporary thriller psychological -
![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... -
![The Shop on Royal Street by Karen White]()
The Shop on Royal Street by Karen White
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past--as well as new ones--in this first book in a spin-off series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels... -
![The Scarlet Dress by Louise Douglas]()
The Scarlet Dress by Louise Douglas
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAlice Lang was wearing her favourite scarlet dress when she disappeared twenty-five years ago, and her memory still casts a long shadow.'The past was like water. Once the tide turned, you couldn't hold it back.'In the long, hot summer of 1995, twenty-two-year-old Alice Lang rents a caravan on a holiday park on the outskirts of the lively holiday resort of Severn Sands... -
![Give Up the Ghost by Kelly Moran]()
Give Up the Ghost by Kelly Moran
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsParanormal investigator Kerry Baker has seen it all. But nothing in her work with the Phantoms TV program prepares her for the most terrifying spirit of all—seeing her doppelganger. Rumored to be a foreshadowing of one's death, the specter shakes Kerry to the core, sending her into the arms of her best friend and fellow cast member for comfort... -
![The Reason is You by Sharla Lovelace]()
The Reason is You by Sharla Lovelace
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the small town of Bethany, Texas, Dani never fit in. Being different pushed her to the fringes of society, and even leaving town for two decades didn’t stop the talk. Now she’s back, trying to settle in with her daughter and have a normal life. But the men in her life might not make it that simple. First, there’s her old friend Alex... -
![Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns]()
Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the fabulous storytelling of our dreams to the mute passions of domestic life, Stephen Dobyns explores a full range of human experience in these narrative poems... -
![Spirited Away by Fern Michaels]()
Spirited Away by Fern Michaels
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPart Two of the New Three-Part Godmothers Serial!The best of friends, Toots, Ida, Mavis, and Sophie have been there for each other through thick and thin. Now Sophie needs the rest of the Godmothers to help her through something they’ve never faced before . . .There are no secrets between best friends. At least, Teresa “Toots” Loudenberry has always believed that to be the case... -
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![Getaway by Fern Michaels]()
Getaway by Fern Michaels
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPart Three of the New Three-Part Godmothers Serial!The best of friends, Toots, Ida, Mavis, and Sophie have been there for each other through thick and thin. Now Sophie needs the rest of the Godmothers to help her through something they’ve never faced before . . .Each of the Godmothers—Toots, Ida, Sophie, and Mavis—brings her own unique strengths to their extraordinary friendship... -
![The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders]()
The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNovelette, Free online fiction.From newyorker.com“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” deals with a family in a not-too-distant future (or perhaps an alternate present or past?) that is struggling to keep up with the Joneses—which, in this society, means leasing some unusual garden ornaments... -
![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 -
![In Her Shadow by Louise Douglas]()
In Her Shadow by Louise Douglas
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhat would you do if your past came back to haunt you? A dark, thrilling novel for fans of Kate Morton and Victoria Hislop From the author of THE SECRETS BETWEEN US, part of the 2012 Richard and Judy Summer Reads, comes this dark, thrilling novel that is perfect for your book group... -
![The Girl On Legare Street by Karen White]()
The Girl On Legare Street by Karen White
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAcclaimed author Karen White returns with the sequel to the national bestseller The House on Tradd Street.Melanie has grown accustomed to renovating old houses, but she never imagined she'd have to renovate her own life to include her estranged mother. Ginnette Prioleau Middleton left Charleston thirty-five years ago... -
![Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang]()
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsSly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution... -
![Ghost of a Chance by Lauren Barnholdt]()
Ghost of a Chance by Lauren Barnholdt
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsKendall takes drastic action when she encounters ghostly overwhelm in this third book in a tween series that Kirkus Reviews calls “bright, bubbly fun.”Kendall feels like she’s losing at life. The only people who will talk to her are ghosts, and she’s exhausted from trying to fix their problems... -
![Sredni Vashtar and Other Stories by Saki]()
Sredni Vashtar and Other Stories by Saki
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBorn in Burma in 1870, Scottish writer H.H. Munro (his pseudonym is from FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) satirized the social conventions, cruelty and foolishness of the Edwardian era with a highly readable blend of flippant humor and outrageous inventiveness, often overlaid with a mood of horror...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult animals anthologies classics contemporary -
![Hideaway by Fern Michaels]()
Hideaway by Fern Michaels
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPart One of the New Three-Part Godmothers Serial!The best of friends, Toots, Ida, Mavis, and Sophie have been there for each other through thick and thin. Now Sophie needs the rest of the Godmothers to help her through something they’ve never faced before . . .As Sophie De Luca has learned, many things really are better the second time around... -
![A Ghost Arrives: A Novel by Abe Moss]()
A Ghost Arrives: A Novel by Abe Moss
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEvery family has its secrets, and every ghost has its reasons.★★★★★ "A creepy, slow burning ghost story with a twist that was dark in so many different ways! Imaginative, creative, and not afraid to deal the punches..." - Amazon ReviewerAfter moving back in with his elderly father, Wallace Harper discovers that something else has taken up residence in his childhood home.. -
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![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... -
![The Bone Fire by György Dragomán]()
The Bone Fire by György Dragomán
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom an award-winning European writer, a Gothic page-turner with all the menace and promise of a fairy tale In the aftermath of a revolution that has plunged her country into chaos, thirteen-year-old Emma’s small corner of the world is shattered after her dissident parents' death in a car crash...Categorized as:
family gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult book coming-of-age -
![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... -
![Closet Full of Bones by A.J. Aalto]()
Closet Full of Bones by A.J. Aalto
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEver since they were children, Gillian Hearth has been her sister Frankie’s guardian, her sounding board, and her best friend. Together, the Hearth sisters quietly bury their secrets and form a formidable team during any crisis. Purchasing the old Blymhill house with the hopes of turning it into an artists’ retreat, the sisters are finally living their dream... -
![Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne]()
Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsJennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive... -
![Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain]()
Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA teen girl disappears from her small town deep in the bayou, where magic festers beneath the surface of the swamp like water rot, in this chilling debut supernatural thriller for fans of Natasha Preston, Karen McManus, and Rory Power.La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide... -
![The Stroke of Winter by Wendy Webb]()
The Stroke of Winter by Wendy Webb
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn the tourist town of Wharton, on the coast of Lake Superior, Tess Bell is renovating her old family home into a bed-and-breakfast during the icy dead of winter…As the house’s restoration commences, a shuttered art studio is revealed. Inside are paintings Tess’s late grandfather, beloved and celebrated artist Sebastian Bell, hid away for generations... -
![Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins]()
Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers... -
![The Keepers of Metsan Valo by Wendy Webb]()
The Keepers of Metsan Valo by Wendy Webb
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe spirits of Nordic folklore come calling in this entrancing tale of family secrets and ancient mysteries by the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Haunting of Brynn Wilder.In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling... -
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![Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Sophie Hughes]()
Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, Sophie Hughes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!From a global star and International Booker Prize finalist, a razor-sharp, unforgettable novel about a maid who’s seen too much and a family at a breaking pointA young girl has died and the family’s maid is being interrogated. She must tell the whole story before arriving at the girl’s death... -
![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:
female-mc ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult alpha-mc audiobook -
![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 Threads of the Heart by Carole Martinez]()
The Threads of the Heart by Carole Martinez
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThey say Frasquita knows magic, that she is a healer with occult powers, that perhaps she is a sorcerer. She does indeed possess a remarkable gift, one that has been passed down to the women in her family for generations...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction season-summer 21st-century adult book contemporary -
![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... -
![Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories by Jim Shepard]()
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 -
![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... -
![Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn, Deborah Burgess]()
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn, Deborah Burgess
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's the summer of 1990, and Crystal Beach has lost its beloved, long-running amusement park, leaving the lakeside village a virtual ghost town. It is back to this fallen community Starla Mia Martin must return to live with her overbearing mother after dropping out of university and racking up significant debt... -
![Shadows of Death by H.P. Lovecraft]()
Shadows of Death by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDescend into the nerve-shattering realm of America’s master of horror, H. P. Lovecraft–to a dank place where gloomy maelstroms await the unwary, where the unnatural is surpassed only by the unspeakable, and where all pleasure is perverse. Take a chance. . . . All you can lose is your sanity... -
![Season of the Witch: A Novel by James Leo Herlihy]()
Season of the Witch: A Novel by James Leo Herlihy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBy the author of Midnight Cowboy: A teenage girl runs away to the East Village in “one of the best and most convincing novels . . . of the Woodstock generation” (Publishers Weekly). As she explains in her diary, seventeen-year-old Gloria Random is running away from her Midwest childhood home. It’s the fall of 1969, and her best friend John has been called up for the draft...Categorized as:
female-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction book coming-of-age contemporary fiction friendship -
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![American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps by Peter Straub, Edgar Allan Poe]()
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps by Peter Straub, Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsStraub, a contemporary master of literary horror and fantasy, offers an authoritative and diverse gathering of stories calculated to unsettle and delight. Ghostly narratives of the Edwardian era, lurid classics from the pulp heyday, and modern-day masterpieces are included in these collections... -
![Before and Ever Since by Sharla Lovelace]()
Before and Ever Since by Sharla Lovelace
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFans of Jodi Thomas and Lori Wilde will love this sparkling romance from Sharla Lovelace, the bestselling author of Just One Day and The Reason Is You. Emily Lockwood has her hands full with a stubbornly independent daughter, an ex-husband who sometimes tests her patience, and a mother who often does... -
![Second-Hand Jane by Michelle Vernal]()
Second-Hand Jane by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen footloose and fancy-free Jessica, a thirty-something writer, decides to follow her journalistic instincts and trace the story of a young girl for her weekly column in a Dublin newspaper, she unwittingly embarks on a journey into Northern Ireland’s tragic past. With her love of all things vintage, Jessica Jane Baré is known as Second-hand Jane to her friends... -
![Verdigris by Michele Mari]()
Verdigris by Michele Mari
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAt the tail end of the 1960s, the thirteen-year-old Michelino spends his summers at his grandparents’ modest estate in Nasca, near Lake Maggiore, losing himself in the tales of horror, adventure, and mystery shelved in his grandfather’s library... -
![Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts]()
Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents a novel set deep in the bayou of Louisiana—where the only witness to a long-ago tragedy is a once-grand house… Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans... -
![The Other by Thomas Tryon]()
The Other by Thomas Tryon
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsEntranced and terrified, the reader of The Other is swept up in the life of a Connecticut country town in the thirties—and in the fearful mysteries that slowly darken and overwhelm it.Originally published in 1971, The Other is one of the most influential horror novels ever written...Categorized as:
family ghosts gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction season-summer 20th-century adult
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