Here are 45 books that Black Water fans have personally recommended if you like
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My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
As much as I love complex, dark protagonists, I adore a lighter side now and then. I found it in this book with the main character, Shelby Nichols. She just makes me laugh.
I even found myself reading sections out loud to my husband, who laughed right along with me. Shelby is a wife and mother, and after being shot in the head, she develops the ability to read people’s minds. Her sudden awareness of what her teenage children and husband are thinking takes the plot up to a whole new level.
This is one ability I’m glad I don’t have. I think I’d rather not know.
A mind-reader, a mob-boss, and a hit-man. What could go wrong? More fun than you can imagine!
Book 1 in the Shelby Nichols Adventure Series
"One of the best and rarest gems of the indie book market."~ Matthew LeDrew
USA TODAY and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author Colleen Helme offers a clever mix of mystery, laugh-out-loud humor, and page-turning adventure in the highly acclaimed Shelby Nichols Adventure Series.
Stopping at the grocery store for some carrots shouldn't be dangerous, but in Shelby's case, it changes her life forever. During a bank robbery, she is caught in the cross-fire and grazed…
My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
I have to say it—Charlaine Harris can write a good story. I read all the Stackhouse books, but it was when I found her Harper Connelly series that I was truly hooked. This book has all the elements I love: a complex female protagonist, good supporting characters, and a unique psychic ability.
Combine all that with great writing, and it doesn’t get any better. I read this book and then quickly flew through the rest of the series. This was the first book I’d read featuring a psychic twist, and discovering this new genre opened the door to my writing journey.
Harper Connelly had a lucky escape when she was hit by lightning: she didn't die. But sometimes she wishes she had died, because the lightning strike left her with an unusual talent: she can find dead people - and that's not always comfortable. Everyone wants to know how she does it: it's a little like hearing a bee droning inside her head, or maybe the pop of a Geiger counter, a persistent, irregular noise that increases in strength as she gets closer. It's almost electric: a buzzing all through her body, and the fresher the corpse, the more intense the…
My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
Eloise Montgomery is my kind of protagonist. She survives a tragedy, suffers a great loss, and, waking up from a coma, finds herself with a new and frightening psychic ability. One that she puts to good use.
I like her grit and determination, along with her moments of doubt and despair. She’s human. A normal, everyday woman is thrust into a life she didn’t expect and is making the best of it—a situation I can identify with. Except for her psychic ability. That I don’t have, but how cool would that be?
New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger delivers a spellbinding novella, told in three parts, featuring reluctant psychic Eloise Montgomery. This in-depth exploration of Eloise is a perfect way for newcomers to be introduced to The Hollows, and experience the sense of place Unger is building that "rivals Stephen King's Castle Rock for continuity and creepiness." (The News & Observer - Raleigh) It is also a treasure trove of insight and greater understanding of connections for those already drawn deep into The Hollows. Includes an author introduction to The Hollows, and an excerpt from the bestseller Ink and Bone--a chilling…
My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.
Loyalty. Love. Relationships. They are all essential elements in my favorite books, and nowhere are they more present than in this one.
Ann Kinnear, like my other favorite female psychics, is torn between doing what she feels she should and doing what she’d like to do—which is to hide behind closed doors. It’s the same dilemma I would have if I were gifted (or maybe it’s cursed) with an ability like Ann has.
As I had hoped, Ann chooses to make a difference, securing a spot as one of my favorite books.
The dead will not be silenced, and Ann will do whatever it takes to solve the case of one woman’s lost life … even if it means endangering her own.
“A frighteningly meticulous villain and a formidable protagonist will have readers breezing through the pages.” —Kirkus Reviews
★★★★★ “Airtight. Crucial plot details lock into place in the denouement like the tumblers of a Diebold safe. The characters are clever, real, and enjoyable, but also organic, their emotions genuinely wrought; there is no formula for brilliant writing like this.” —Robert Blake Whitehill, Bestselling Author of The Ben Blackshaw Series
I am a writer, author of the science fiction novel The Site, and a contributor to the website Internet Looks. During my work as an aerospace engineer and manager I participated in NASA and Department of Defense projects such as the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the USAF C-5A aircraft. I authored various aerospace system functional requirements documents and technical papers, and developed and taught courses in dynamic simulations, aerodynamics, and space vehicle guidance, navigation, and control. When writing fiction, I use my technical background, understanding of physical principles, and documentation to provide clear and concise descriptions and dialog for the reader.
I have the 1971 paperback printing of More Than Human, with the Robert Pepper cover art. The book has a special significance for me; although unrelated in plot, it has similarities to my book: it is science fiction, has an unusual structure, a complex timeline, deals with psychology, and features investigation and discovery. The fact that it was written in 1953, before the Internet, Earth satellites, personal computers, and cell phones, facilitates the reader’s attention to the rather complex story. Seven individuals, Lone, Janie, twins Bonnie and Beanie, Baby, Gerry, and Hip, are exemplars of inequality, with peculiar capabilities and shortcomings. The German word gestalt, meaning the forming of a pattern, describes how, together, they embody the next step in human evolution.
In this genre-bending novel—among the first to have launched sci-fi into the arena of literature—one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul.
There'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. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and…
Maybe it’s because I come from a family that expresses conflict, shall we say, indirectly, but nothing fascinates me the way relationships do. What do we desire, what do we offer? And how much more do we care about friendships and family bonds than world peace? I also love stories about passions we pursue professionally, and ever since I fell in love with the food and wine world, that’s the world I’ve written about and the world in which my characters’ intense relationships play out. Real drama plays out over a drink or at a dinner table, and of course a glass of wine only unleashes a little more.
What’s more fraught and intimate than friends? Sisters.
Munro’s title story is about a relationship of extremes: sisters Char and Et can laugh over the darkest shit imaginable, and yet they also have certain psychic rooms they’ll never let the other into. Is this love or hostility? More happens in here than I can say, except that Char is the beautiful sister and Et the sharp-tongued, practical one, and an old flame returns and wreaks havoc.
It’s Munro, so there is sex, death, and betrayal, but delivered so obliquely you aren’t always sure what the characters deliberately did. Maybe that’s why this story enraptures me: it’s about the things you’ll never get to know, and I always think I'll figure it out this time.
As a kid, I had a lot of experience having a close group of friends… and a lot of experience looking into other groups from the outside. I waded from circle to circle, trying on friendships like some people try on hats. The books I’m recommending represent the best of fictional friend groups—the groups that topped any clique I saw in real life. Reading these books made me feel like an in-kid in the best possible way. Many of the characters remain the absolute coolest people I know, and serve as inspiration for the friend group dynamics I get to explore in my own stories.
Sometimes a friend group slowly forms over the course of a book. It’s a slow burn, a delicious reeling in of like souls. In Stroud’s Lockwood & Co series, readers are treated to the slow burn of the century, as the ultimate ghost-fighting crew forms over the course of five books. We get enemies to friends, friends to lovers, and a final showdown in the last installment that will have you throwing your fist up in triumph and scaring the unsuspecting bystanders around you in the dentist’s waiting room.
Want to hear a ghost story? That's good. I know a few . . .
After their recent adventures, the Lockwood & Co team deserve a well-earned break . . . so naturally they decide to risk their lives breaking into a heavily-guarded crypt. A building full of unsettled souls, it's also the final resting place of Marissa Fittes, the legendary and (supposedly) long-dead ghost hunter - though the team have their suspicions about just how dead she might be.
I’ve always loved a good mystery that doesn’t give you all the details upfront. My favourite stories growing up were those where I had little epiphanies along the way until I got to the end, where everything finally fell into place. But perhaps why I’m most drawn to these types of stories is because they parallel learning about your surroundings in the real world. After living in several different countries, I’ve come to learn many situations piece by piece, where some ended in danger, while others were more humorous events that I can now laugh about.
I loved this book for the new concepts it brought to me about psychic abilities, specifically telepaths that could block other’s psychic abilities.
After this, I was drawn to the book for the way it blurred the lines of reality, making me question alongside the main character if anything they were experiencing was real. I also thought the idea of the UBIK drug that kept people in a 'half-life' was fascinating and a different way to show addiction and its consequences.
Lastly, the ending was quite thrilling and kept me reading into the wee hours of the morning, even though I had work the next day!
A classic science fiction tale of artifical worlds by one of the great American writers of the 20th century
Glen Runciter is dead.
Or is he?
Someone died in the explosion orchestrated by his business rivals, but even as his funeral is scheduled, his mourning employees are receiving bewildering messages from their boss. And the world around them is warping and regressing in ways which suggest that their own time is running out.
If it hasn't already.
Readers minds have been blown by Ubik:
'Sheer craziness, a book defying any straightforward synopsis . . . a unique time travel adventure…
Mixing the magical with everyday life is part of my Louisiana culture. Our history is a rich gumbo of legends from Indigenous peoples, Africa, the Caribbean, Spain, and France. So, as a child, hearing stories of the supernatural didn’t seem abnormal at all. I was ten years old when I became hooked on supernatural suspense. I voraciously read Agatha Christie's mysteries and spooky comic books. The comic book sleuths were sometimes as scary as the villains they chased. And I loved every page. What fun I had during summer school breaks! If you’re like me and love mysteries with paranormal twists, dive in. You won’t be disappointed in this list.
I loved the imaginative world-building, but even more, the fantastic sleuth is like no other I’ve encountered. The setting is a world where birds (avians) are the dominant evolved species instead of simians. Investigator Prentice Tasifa is a hawk who can “see the unseen” with her extraordinary sense of sight.
That’s why, in this world, hawks are police detectives. Tasifa travels far and wide throughout the Kingdom of Aves to solve serious crimes, including murder. Even more fascinating is how other birds (vultures, chickens, doves) have developed roles that align with their characteristics. I enjoyed the mystery plot twists.
Sent to investigate a strange murder in a quiet remote egg, can Hawk Tasifa find the killer before she becomes the next target?
Prentice Tasifa is an investigative hawk whose been deployed from The Order to the small egg of Gould, a mountain village. A missing girl had been found dead. Hawks investigate strange and difficult situations throughout the kingdom of Aves. They can “see the unseen,” by accessing a unique ability to activate hawk-like vision, a trait they carry through their bloodlines.
When Prentice arrives in Gould, she soon discovers that there isn’t just one bird dead, but three.…
Even before I found Lovecraft and Stephen King and my world turned, I was raised on Doyle, Wells, Hodgson, and Robert Louis Stevenson which gave me both a love of the "gentleman detective" era and a deep love of the late Victorian/early Edwardian historical period in general. Once you merge that with my abiding interest in all things weird and spooky, you can see where a lot of my stories come from. There seems to be quite a burgeoning market for this kind of mixing of detection and supernatural, and I intend to write more... maybe even a lot more.
Silence is much more cerebral than Carnacki, more prone to solve his mysteries from the comfort of his armchair over a pipe of tobacco. But don't let the leisurely pace fool you; Blackwood brings the chills like few others can, and you might find yourself looking over your shoulder more than once, or even getting up to put a stronger light on. If creeping dread is your thing, Blackwood's your man for it.
One of the former British writers of supernatural tales in the twentieth century, Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) wrote stories in which the slow accumulation of telling details produced a foreboding atmosphere of almost unendurable tension. Blackwood's literary renown began in 1908 with the publication of a highly successful collection of stories, John Silence — Physician Extraordinary, featuring a "psychic doctor." This volume contains all five of the John Silence stories from the 1908 edition plus one additional tale. Edited and with an informative introduction by S. T. Joshi, noted occult fiction authority, the stories include "A Psychical Invasion," in which Silence…
