Books like 'Pity the Beast'
Readers who enjoyed Pity the Beast by Robin McLean also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical psychological mystery sc-fi fantasy literary-fiction western dark crime post-apocalyptic
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Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsFoundation and Empire tells the incredible story of a new breed of man who create a new force for galactic government. Thus, the Foundation hurtles into conflict with the decadent, decrepit First Empire. In this struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars, man stands at the threshold of a new, enlightened life which could easily be put aside for the old forces of barbarism... -
![Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers]()
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor...Categorized as:
literary-fiction female-mc crime romance historical-fiction fiction historical audiobook -
![Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith]()
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStark lives in Colour, a neighbourhood whose inhabitants like to be co-ordinated with their surroundings – a neighbourhood where spangly purple trousers are admired by the walls of buildings as you pass them. Close by is Sound, where you mustn’t make any, apart from one designated hour a day when you can scream your lungs raw... -
![The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsWith a new introduction by Kelly Link, the Locus Award–winning science fiction novel by legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin, set in a world where one man’s dreams rewrite the future. During a time racked by war and environmental catastrophe, George Orr discovers his dreams alter reality. George is compelled to receive treatment from Dr... -
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![The Doll by Cora Taylor]()
The Doll by Cora Taylor
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsWhile Meg is recovering from rheumatic fever her grandmother gives her the old-fashioned family doll named Jessie, and when Meg falls asleep holding Jessie, she wakes up to discover that she has gone back in time and is now Morag, a girl traveling the Canadian prairies by covered wagon... -
![Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler]()
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsDarkness at Noon (from the German: Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best-known work tells the tale of Rubashov, a Bolshevik 1917 revolutionary who is cast out, imprisoned and tried for treason by the Soviet government he'd helped create... -
![Gateway by Frederik Pohl]()
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsRich or dead. Those were the choices Gateway offered. Gateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe & on reaches of unimaginable horror. The humans who rode the alien Heechee spacecraft stored on the planetoid couldn't know whether the trip would make them millionaires or corpses... -
![The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson]()
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 28 ratings&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LI&&RThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr... -
![The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick]()
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIn the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the drug Can-D, which enables users to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z...Categorized as:
dark female-mc literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook -
![The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield]()
The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsAn exceptional debut thriller and “exciting journey” into the dark heart of the Cold War and the space race from New York Times bestselling author and astronaut Chris Hadfield (Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary). 1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help...Categorized as:
crime action-adventure adult alternate-history amateur-sleuth audiobook book cold-war -
![Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle]()
Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsBefore you see the movie, read the original novel! First published more than thirty-five years ago, Pierre Boulle's chilling novel launched one of the greatest science fiction sagas in motion picture history, from the classic 1968 movie starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, through four sequels and two television series . . . and now the newest film adaptation directed by Tim Burton...Categorized as:
literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure animals apocalyptic audiobook book -
![Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson]()
Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsWHAT BEGAN AS A SIMPLESCHOLARLY PURSUIT ENDS IN AWAKING NIGHTMARE...Sir John Babcock, endowed with wealth and a healthy dose of curiosity, has stumbled on to an ancient order. With what he now knows, there will be no turning back. Even if he wants to. Not after he is trained as an initiate and knows of their perverted lusts—and their murders... -
![Murder at the Capitol by C.M. Gleason]()
Murder at the Capitol by C.M. Gleason
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn July 1861, just months after the Battle of Fort Sumter plunges the young nation into civil war, President Lincoln's top priority is to unite the country, while Adam Quinn finds himself on the trail of a murderer . . . On Independence Day, the citizens of Washington, DC, are celebrating as if there isn't a war on... -
![The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood]()
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsThe Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel...Categorized as:
crime literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
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![VALIS by Philip K. Dick]()
VALIS by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsVALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser... -
![In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka]()
In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn the Penal Colony is a short story by Franz Kafka. This story is set in a penal colony with no name. The book describes the last use of a torture and execution device developed sculpting condemned the judgment against her skin before you let him die, all in the course of twelve hours... -
![Two Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden by Stephen King, James Woods]()
Two Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden by Stephen King, James Woods
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe second of a four-part audio series from Stephen King's bestselling book, Four Past Midnight. Recently divorced writer Mort Rainey is alone at Tashmore Lake--that is, until a figure named John Shooter arrives, pointing an accusing finger... -
![The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson]()
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 65 ratings"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Stevenson's famous exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil, has become synonymous with the idea of a split personality. More than a moral tale, this dark psychological fantasy is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution, criminality, and secret lives...Categorized as:
crime literary-fiction action-adventure anthologies audiobook british-isles classics dark-academia -
![More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon]()
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThere's Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people's thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles... -
![The Castle by Franz Kafka]()
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsTranslated and with a preface by Mark HarmanLeft unfinished by Kafka in 1922 and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle...Categorized as:
crime literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century absurdism action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson]()
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings'Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged...I was suddenly struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror.'Stevenson's short novel, published in 1886, became an instant classic. It was a Gothic horror that originated in a feverish nightmare, whose hallucinatory setting in the murky back streets of London gripped a nation mesmerized by crime and violence... -
![The Asylum by Karen Coles]()
The Asylum by Karen Coles
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratings1906: Being a woman is dangerous, being different is deadly.Maud Lovell has been at Angelton Lunatic Asylum for five years. She is not sure how she came to be there and knows nothing beyond its four walls. She is hysterical, distressed, untrustworthy. Badly unstable and prone to violence. Or so she has been told... -
![Youth Without Youth & Other Novellas (Romanian Literature & Thought in Translation) by Mircea Eliade]()
Youth Without Youth & Other Novellas (Romanian Literature & Thought in Translation) by Mircea Eliade
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBucharest, 1938: while Hitler gains power in Germany, the Romanian police start arresting students they suspect of belonging to the Iron Guard. Meanwhile, a man who has spent his life studying languages, poetry, and history - a man who thought his life was over - lies in a hospital bed, inexplicably alive and miraculously healthy, trying to figure out how to conceal his identity... -
![Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick]()
Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsRagle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day - and winning, every day.But he gradually begins to suspect that his life - indeed his whole world - is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book classics conspiracies -
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![Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert]()
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsDune Messiah continues the story of the man Muad'dib, heir to a power unimaginable, bringing to completion the centuries-old scheme to create a super-being."Brilliant...It is all that Dune was, and maybe a little bit more... -
![Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick]()
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsJason Tavener woke up one morning to find himself completely unknown. The night before he had been the top-rated television star with millions of devoted watchers. The next day he was just an unidentified walking object, whose face nobody recognised, of whom no one had heard, and without the I.D. papers required in that near future... -
![House of Stairs by William Sleator]()
House of Stairs by William Sleator
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere, except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives...Categorized as:
dark post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure book children children-books classics -
![Slow River by Nicola Griffith]()
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShe awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van Oesterling had been the daughter of one of the world's most powerful families...and now she was nobody, and she had to hide... -
![The Body Snatchers (Stephen King Horror Library) by Jack Finney, Stephen King]()
The Body Snatchers (Stephen King Horror Library) by Jack Finney, Stephen King
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsThis edition of Finney's horror classic contains an introduction by Stephen King as well as a modernized text...Categorized as:
dark literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens apocalyptic -
![Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon, Steve Rasnic Tem]()
Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon, Steve Rasnic Tem
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNamed one of the Top 40 Horror Books of All Time by the Horror Writers Association, Some of Your Blood begins with a confidential folder belonging to army psychiatrist Philip Outerbridge. Inside this folder are the letters, memos and transcripts for a young soldier named George Smith, a quiet young man with a terrible past and a shocking secret... -
![The Once and Future Me by Melissa Pace]()
The Once and Future Me by Melissa Pace
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDark Matter meets Girl, Interrupted in this spellbinding psychological thriller about a young woman teetering between two realities.Virginia November 12th, 1954: A young woman wakes, agitated and confused, on a patient transport bus arriving at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital... -
![The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick]()
The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIn The Divine Invasion, Philip K...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book christian classics -
![The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde & Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson]()
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde & Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis volume includes Stevenson's famous spine-chilling thriller Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Weir of Hermiston, a brilliant autobiographical portrayal of a father-son relationship... -
![A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick]()
A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFourteen strangers come to Delmak-O. Thirteen of them were transferred by the usual authorities. One got there by praying. But once they arrived on that treacherous planet, whose very atmosphere seemed to induce paranoia and psychosis, the newcomers tound that even prayer was useless. For on Delmak-O, God is either absent or intent on destroying His creations... -
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![The Silver Wind by Nina Allan]()
The Silver Wind by Nina Allan
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsNamed as one of '50 Writers You Should Read Now' by The Guardian . From the award-winning author of The Rift , Nina Allan, The Silver Wind is a remarkable narrative exploring the nature of time itself. Martin Newland is fascinated by time. Watches and clocks are for him metaphorical time machines, a means of coming to terms with the past and voyaging into the future... -
![Prototype by M.D. Waters]()
Prototype by M.D. Waters
Rated: 3.77 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe stunning debut that began with Archetype— and has readers buzzing—concludes in Prototype, when a woman’s dual pasts lock onto a collision course, threatening her present and future. Emma looks forward to the day when she can let go of her past—both of them. After more than a year on the run, with clues to her parents’ whereabouts within her grasp, she may finally find a place to settle down...Categorized as:
female-mc post-apocalyptic action-adventure alpha-mc audiobook book dystopia fiction -
![The Little Book by Selden Edwards]()
The Little Book by Selden Edwards
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn irresistible triumph of the imagination more than thirty years in the making, The Little Book is a breathtaking love story that spans generations, ranging from fin de siècle Vienna through the pivotal moments of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history audiobook book drama family -
![Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick]()
Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOn the arid colony of Mars the only thing more precious than water may be a ten-year-old schizophrenic boy named Manfred Steiner. For although the UN has slated "anomalous" children for deportation and destruction, other people—especially Supreme Goodmember Arnie Kott of the Water Worker's union—suspect that Manfred's disorder may be a window into the future. In Martian Time-Slip Philip K...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book -
![A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn]()
A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn
Rated: 3.69 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe incomparable Dara Horn returns with a spellbinding novel of how technology changes memory and how memory shapes the soul.Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go... -
![Knocking on Heaven's Door by Sharman Apt Russell]()
Knocking on Heaven's Door by Sharman Apt Russell
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWinner of Arizona Author's Award for Fiction and the New Mexico/Arizona Award for Science Fiction.On a hotter and more volatile earth in the twenty-third century, humans like Clare and Jon live in utopia, hunting and gathering in small tribal bands, engaged in daily art and ritual, reunited with old friends like the shaggy mammoth and giant ground sloth...Categorized as:
post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook book disaster dystopia -
![Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes by Patricia Highsmith]()
Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes by Patricia Highsmith
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThese ten stories chronicle a world gone slightly mad, with dark, inventive takes on environmental degradation, apocalyptic disaster, political chaos, religious conservatism, and more... -
![Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss]()
Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA locked room. A brutal murder.And a killer who can turn back time...In the former mining town of Black Lake on the west coast of Canada, there is a story about a shipwreck. All those aboard died, except an unnamed man who staggered ashore. His descendants have a unique ability: once in their lives - and only once - they can unwind the events of the previous six hours... -
![Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick]()
Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 3.74 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsWhile sightseeing at the Belmont Bevatron, Jack Hamilton, along with seven others, is caught in a lab accident. When he regains consciousness, he is in a fantasy world of Old Testament morality gone awry—a place of instant plagues, immediate damnations, and death to all perceived infidels... -
![The Shimmer: A Novel by Carsten Stroud]()
The Shimmer: A Novel by Carsten Stroud
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHow do you hunt a killer who can go back in time and make sure you're never born?A police pursuit kicks Sergeant Jack Redding of the Florida Highway Patrol and his trainee, Julie Karras, into a shoot-out that ends with one girl dead and another in cuffs, and the driver of the SUV fleeing into the Intracoastal Waterway... -
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![The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson]()
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 87 ratingsThe Library of Alexandria is an independent small business publishing house. We specialize in bringing back to live rare, historical and ancient books... -
![The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas]()
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history.Fifty years later, time travel is a big business...Categorized as:
crime female-mc magical-realism 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
![Passage by Connie Willis]()
Passage by Connie Willis
Rated: 3.65 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA tunnel, a light, a door. And beyond it ... the unimaginable.Dr. Joanna Lander is a psychologist specializing in near-death experiences. She is about to get help from a new doctor with the power to give her the chance to get as close to death as anyone can.A brilliant young neurologist, Dr. Richard Wright, has come up with a way to manufacture the near-death experience using a psychoactive drug...Categorized as:
literary-fiction action-adventure adult afterlife audiobook book death female-author -
![Perfect Little Town by Blake Crouch]()
Perfect Little Town by Blake Crouch
Rated: 3.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRon and Jessica Stahl are a power couple from Southern California, on a Christmas driving holiday in the Colorado mountains. When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone (Pop. 317), they’re charmed by the quaint tourist town which is filled with B&Bs, candy stores, and gift shops.But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains... -
![After Oz by Gordon McAlpine]()
After Oz by Gordon McAlpine
Rated: 3.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsGripping and emotionally riveting, this whimsical tale is an empowering and timely retelling of The Wizard of Oz where one little girl is forced to face head-on the prejudices of the Midwest in the late 19th century.Kansas, 1896. After a tornado destroys the Gale family farm, 11-year-old Dorothy goes missing. As the days pass by, the Gales are increasingly terrified the worst has happened...Categorized as:
fantasy crime literary-fiction magical-realism historical-fiction fiction mystery audiobook -
![The Other Side of Mrs. Wood by Lucy Barker]()
The Other Side of Mrs. Wood by Lucy Barker
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA historical novel about the rivalry between two female mediums during Victorian London’s obsession with Spiritualism.Mrs. Violet Wood is London’s premier medium. Her ambition and work ethic are relentless, and her unique abilities have earned her quite the reputation among London’s elite. Mrs...Categorized as:
fantasy literary-fiction female-mc crime historical-fiction fiction historical paranormal
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