Books like 'The Payback'
Readers who enjoyed The Payback by Kashana Cauley also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi humor heist literary-fiction black-mc season-summer female-mc crime poc-mc
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Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsScientist Ada has a boundless imagination and has always been hopelessly curious. Why are there pointy things stuck to a rose? Why are there hairs growing inside your nose? When her house fills with a horrific, toe-curling smell, Ada knows it’s up to her to find the source... -
![They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Matayo]()
They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Matayo
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFor years, the town of Silver Bell, Arkansas has quietly mourned the hospital fire that claimed the lives of nine of its residents—the town doctor, a young expectant mother, and seven infants... -
![Top Secret Twenty-One : A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich - Review Summary by J.T. Salrich]()
Top Secret Twenty-One : A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich - Review Summary by J.T. Salrich
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTop Secret Twenty-One by Janet Evanovich is finally here! Janet Evanovich fans will be glad to know that Stephanie Plum is at it again. "Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel" picks up right where Takedown Twenty left off... -
![The Arbitrator by Max Nowaz]()
The Arbitrator by Max Nowaz
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsGREAT 5* REVIEWS on GOODREADS WAS THERE A PANG OF REMORSE FOR HIS ACTIONS? POSSIBLY, BUT WHAT CHOICE DID HE HAVE? HE HAD NO ROOM FOR WEAKNESS, IF HE WANTED TO SURVIVE. Jim Brown, formerly a highly successful, but ruthless, troubleshooting Administrator for the EPA, The Earth Policy Administration, was rotting in prison, dying of an incurable drug habit that he had acquired whilst in there... -
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![The Bridge to Lucy Dunne by Exurb1a]()
The Bridge to Lucy Dunne by Exurb1a
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA mad astronaut ejects a starship's sleeping crew into deep space. A playwright conjures her perfect lover into existence. Three time travellers appear to a motorbike mechanic, drink a little tea, and ruin his life. Mankind discovers the secrets of travelling to the stars, and promptly forgets them again.Exurb1a has collected 18 of his best received short stories into a book...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction action-adventure adult anthologies contemporary fiction philosophy -
![The Pulse by Skylar Finn]()
The Pulse by Skylar Finn
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn EMP means the end of the world as they know it for a family who fights to survive. When disaster strikes in the form of an EMP, Charlie's family flees to their homestead. They fortify their ranch and prepare to ride out the worst of the chaos. Unfortunately, the gang of scavengers who followed them from the city have other plans... -
![The Good Part by Sophie Cousens]()
The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsBy the New York Times bestselling author of Just Haven't Met You Yet, a downtrodden twenty-six-year-old wakes up to the life she's always wanted, but is it really a dream come true?At twenty-six, Lucy Young is tired. Tired of fetching coffees for senior TV producers, tired of going on disastrous dates, and definitely tired of living in a damp flat share with flatmates who never buy toilet roll...Categorized as:
literary-fiction humor female-mc romance contemporary fiction time-travel magical-realism -
![A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava]()
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi, a child of Colombian immigrants who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan as a public defender--one who tellingly has never lost a trial. Never. In the book, we watch what happens when his sense of justice and even his sense of self begin to crack--and how his world then slowly devolves... -
![Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah]()
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you... -
![Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift]()
Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsTHE END OF EVERYTHING WAS HER BEGINNINGIt's November 2023. The human race has been wiped out by the 6DM virus (Six Days Maximum - the longest you've got before your body destroys itself). The end of the world as we know it.Yet someone is still alive. Alone in a new world of burning cities, rotting corpses and ravenous rats, one woman has survived... -
![Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith]()
Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe latest installment in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents up to their usual hilarious hijinks. In the microcosm of 44 Scotland Street, all of life's richness is found in the glorious goings-on of its residents... -
![Over the Edge/An Edge in My Voice by Harlan Ellison]()
Over the Edge/An Edge in My Voice by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Razor Sharp Beyond the Edge. Harlan Ellison's stories and essays have been on the cutting edge of contemporary American Literature for over 40 years, but he stubbornly refuses to abandon the use of a manual typewriter. He's involved in every medium from television drama to comic books, and his works have been translated into 26 languages... -
![Better Than Friends by Jill Shalvis]()
Better Than Friends by Jill Shalvis
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOld flames reignite in Sunrise Cove in this charming enemies-to-lovers, second-chance, small-town, forced-proximity love story about family, friendships, and true love from New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis.When Olive Porter’s off-the-grid parents go missing, she reluctantly seeks out Noah Turner, her ex and the only person she both trusts implicitly and not at all... -
![Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants by Andrea Beaty, Bahni Turpin]()
Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants by Andrea Beaty, Bahni Turpin
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAda Twist is full of questions. A scientist to her very core, Ada asks why again and again. One question always leads to another until she’s off on a journey of discovery! When Rosie Revere’s Uncle Ned gets a little carried away wearing his famous helium pants, it’s up to Ada and friends to chase him down... -
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![Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus]()
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsForty years ago I first linked up with Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas . . .So begins the courtship of a certain Unguentine to the woman we know only as “Mrs. Unguentine,” the chronicler of their sad, fantastical tale. For forty years, they sail the seas together, alone on a giant land-covered barge of their own devising... -
![The After Wife by Cass Hunter]()
The After Wife by Cass Hunter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratings'Grab a box of tissues because this beautiful story will make you cry' Amazon reviewer, 5 starsWhen Rachel and Aidan fell in love, they thought it was forever.She was a brilliant, high-flying scientist. He was her loving and supportive husband.Now she's gone, and Aidan must carry on and raise their daughter alone... -
![Class Reunions Are Murder by Libby Klein]()
Class Reunions Are Murder by Libby Klein
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNewly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her twenty-five-year class reunion--especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school... -
![Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson]()
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsKevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction 21st-century anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction lgbtq -
![When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy]()
When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsRuss and Anne Mathews live in a rural suburb in Tennessee. Regular people, with regular jobs, living a normal life - except for one thing. They are what many people call "preppers." They have stocked up on supplies to survive any kind of event they can think of that may occur to disrupt life as they know it. When that event comes, they start preparing for the new way of life they will face...Categorized as:
female-mc humor literary-fiction action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen]()
Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnother instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful new Hiaasen heroes“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida... -
![If I Could Turn Back Time by Nicola Doherty]()
If I Could Turn Back Time by Nicola Doherty
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIf you love Lindsey Kelk and Mhairi McFarlane's YOU HAD ME AT HELLO, you'll love this book... What if you found The One, then lost him again? Or not so much lost him as became the neurotic, needy girlfriend from hell. The girl who tried to make him choose between her and his job, and got seriously paranoid about his relationship with his female best friend.. -
![The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville]()
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this genre-busting book from award-winning novelist Patrick Somerville characters, stories, and stray thoughts revolve around the "The Machine of Understanding Other People," the story of a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him... -
![The Lodge by Kayla Olson]()
The Lodge by Kayla Olson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the author of The Reunion, a cozy rom-com about a writer who decamps to a Vermont lodge for work but finds herself distracted by the charming ski instructor next door.Alix Morgan just got her big break as the ghostwriter of a memoir by Sebastian Green, a former member of the boy band True North... -
![氣球人 by Chan Ho-Kei, 陳浩基]()
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![Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh]()
Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA biting collection of stories from a bold new voice. A young girl sees ghosts from her third eye, located where her belly button should be. A corporate lawyer feels increasingly disconnected from his job in a soulless 1200-storey skyscraper... -
![Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson]()
Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNew to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he's landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours... -
![Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Tomás Downey, Mariana Enríquez]()
Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Tomás Downey, Mariana Enríquez
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA boy explores the abandoned house of a dead fascist…A leaked sex tape pushes a woman to the brink…A sex worker discovers a dark secret among the nuns of the pampas…The mountain fog is not what it seems…Kermit the Frog dreams of murder…In ten chilling stories from an ensemble cast of contemporary Latin American writers, including Mariana Enriquez (tr. Megan McDowell), Camila Sosa Villlada (tr...Categorized as:
literary-fiction poc-mc horror fiction anthologies contemporary paranormal latinx-mc -
![Ghostbox: Der Tod ist nicht das Ende: Staffel 1 by Ivar Leon Menger, Yvonne Greitzke]()
Ghostbox: Der Tod ist nicht das Ende: Staffel 1 by Ivar Leon Menger, Yvonne Greitzke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSchon seit Wochen ist Lena Gruenwald (Yvonne Greitzke) auf der Suche nach der perfekten Story, um endlich als Redakteurin beim Berliner Tagesspiegel übernommen zu werden. Dabei wird die junge Journalismus-Praktikantin von einem Thema ganz besonders angezogen: dem Jenseits. Auch auf Lenas privatem Youtube-Kanal dreht sich alles nur um Geister, Ouija-Boards oder Tarotkarten... -
![Every Version of You by Grace Chan]()
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments...Categorized as:
literary-fiction female-mc sci-fi fiction dystopia mental-illness lgbtq contemporary -
![This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub]()
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Harper's Bazaar, Oprah Daily, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Bustle, Marie Claire, PopSugar, Thrillist, Lit Hub and more! What if you could take a vacation to your past? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a... -
![Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License by María Amparo Escandón]()
Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License by María Amparo Escandón
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the author of L.A. Weather comes “a whimsical, humorous, and passionate mystery that explores the love and hurt of a father and daughter on the run” (Jorge Ramos, News Anchor for Univision).“1,001 nights in a Mexicali women’s prison . . . González and Daughter Trucking Co. is about our compulsion to make events into stories and stories into bridges of understanding...Categorized as:
poc-mc literary-fiction female-mc crime fiction contemporary young-adult womens-fiction -
![Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar]()
Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFor years Kitty Hawke has lived alone on Wolfe Island, witness to the island’s erosion and clinging to the ghosts of her past. Her work as a sculptor and her wolfdog Girl are enough. News of mainland turmoil is as distant as myth until refugees from that world arrive: her granddaughter Cat, and Luis and Alejandra, a brother and sister escaping persecution... -
![One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie]()
One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIf you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it?Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end.Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the "violent" M gene.Bea refuses to let her son take the test. His life should not be determined by a positive or negative result... -
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![Dog Logic by Tom Strelich]()
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
![Event Factory by Renee Gladman]()
Event Factory by Renee Gladman
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA “linguist-traveler” arrives by plane to Ravicka, a city of yellow air in which an undefined crisis is causing the inhabitants to flee. Although fluent in the native language, she quickly finds herself on the outside of every experience. Things happen to her, events transpire, but it is as if the city itself, the performance of life there, eludes her... -
![Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel]()
Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School – this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing – in the second zany mystery based on the much-loved TikTok web series from @katiefliesaway... -
![Sky Daddy by Kate Folk]()
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSubversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer... -
![Hokkaido Popsicle by Isaac Adamson]()
Hokkaido Popsicle by Isaac Adamson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter an altercation with the director of Wildman for Geisha! -- a movie based on ace reporter Billy Chaka's life -- Chaka finds himself in Hokkaido on mandatory vacation. Trouble starts when the elderly porter of the Hotel Kitty stumbles into Billy's room and dies. That same night, the lead singer of Japan's most popular rock band turns up dead in a sleazy love hotel in Tokyo... -
![Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi]()
Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSoon to be a major motion picture directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renee Zellweger, this is a surreal love story from the author of Nude Men. Now in paperback, Amanda Filipacchi's quirky comic romance gives aspiring actress Anna Graham a makeover that no reader will ever forget... -
![Walking on Cowrie Shells by Nana Nkweti]()
Walking on Cowrie Shells by Nana Nkweti
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNana Nkweti draws on myth, horror and graphic novels as well as literary fiction, gritty realism and noir as she vaults into the vibrant intersection of Cameroonian and American cultures. A teenage adoptee leverages her new parents to fast-track her fortunes. A jaded PR man spins a zombie outbreak in West Africa. And a Mami Wata sacrifices her power for the fisherman she loves... -
![The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán]()
The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“A kaleidoscopic, open-hearted, shamelessly polymathic storyteller, the kind who brings a blast of oxygen into the room... -
![How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton]()
How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings[i]Lazarus Dying[/i]: the man Jesus raised from the dead is alive and living in New York City. [i]The Fecalist[/i]: an author whose best selling work is his latest poop. [i]Christmas[/i]: she loves you, you love her, she has a gun in your mouth. Welcome to the award-winning short fiction of Owen Egerton... -
![The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky]()
The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America's most beloved mythical towns, beset by a contagion of alarming candor. A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition... -
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![The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin]()
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there... -
![And Yet They Were Happy by Helen Phillips]()
And Yet They Were Happy by Helen Phillips
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Brilliant miniatures. . . . Like the fables of Calvino, Millhauser, or W.S. Merwin. . . . Beautifully blends short story and prose poem. . . . Mermaids, subways, floods, cucumbers, magicians. . . .The book is a gallery of marvels...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction adult anthologies classics contemporary family female-author -
![The Barbarian's Treasure by Eva O'Hare]()
The Barbarian's Treasure by Eva O'Hare
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA group of friends get together for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation on a chartered cruise only to find themselves lost at sea, at least so they think. They come upon an island full of mystery, wonder, and love... -
![The Measure by Nikki Erlick]()
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsIt seems like any other day: You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box... -
![1996 by Kirsty McManus]()
1996 by Kirsty McManus
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhen food blogger Anna Matthews takes a vitamin supplement that thrusts her back in time to 1996 - and into her sixteen year old body - she is naturally a little shocked. But after a hasty re-assimilation, she decides to take advantage of this amazing second chance to view her teenage years from a more mature perspective...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction romance womens-fiction time-travel fiction contemporary young-adult -
![The Compound by Aisling Rawle]()
The Compound by Aisling Rawle
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsYou wake up in a compound in the middle of the desert, along with nine other women.All of you are young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world.You realise that cameras are tracking your every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans.Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey...
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