Here are 100 books that Dark August fans have personally recommended if you like
Dark August.
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I’ve been a dog owner my entire life, from my childhood mutt, Paddy, to our current nine-year-old cockapoo, Daffodil. To me, a home isn’t a home without a dog thumping its tail somewhere inside. When I started writing mysteries, I realized that some of my favorites featured dogs. The animal’s loyalty, joy, and unwavering love were a necessary counter to the darker themes mysteries often explore.
Penny is a marvelous and renowned mystery writer whose Three Pines series evokes a cozy, food and laughter-filled town that hides dark secrets. While this book doesn’t give a huge spotlight to Henri, the German Shepherd who is not very smart but is well-loved, it does introduce him and set us up for his adventures to come.
From the Dagger award winning author Louise Penny comes the second Armand Gamache mystery set in the stunning countryside of Quebec.
Welcome to winter in Three Pines, a picturesque village in Quebec, where the villagers are preparing for a traditional country Christmas, and someone is preparing for murder.
No one liked CC de Poitiers. Not her quiet husband, not her spineless lover, not her pathetic daughter―and certainly none of the residents of Three Pines. CC de Poitiers managed to alienate everyone, right up until the moment of her death.
I’ve been a dog owner my entire life, from my childhood mutt, Paddy, to our current nine-year-old cockapoo, Daffodil. To me, a home isn’t a home without a dog thumping its tail somewhere inside. When I started writing mysteries, I realized that some of my favorites featured dogs. The animal’s loyalty, joy, and unwavering love were a necessary counter to the darker themes mysteries often explore.
I love Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mystery series. She writes thoughtful, intelligent, laugh-out-loud stories with poignant characters and fascinating plots. In this latest outing, Jackson rescues a tiny dog improbably named The Ambassador. Working hard to untangle a complicated story of kidnapping and murder, Jackson and The Ambassador help each other find answers, if not peace.
The fourth Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription.
'Crime has given Atkinson the freedom to write an ambitious, panoramic work, full of excitement, colour and compassion' Sunday Times
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a shocking impulse purchase. That one moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.
Witnesses to Tracy's outrageous exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an…
When I was not yet a teen, a neighbor had what I considered to be a valuable treasure—all of the Nancy Drew Mystery series. Her daughter had died of leukemia, and she had held onto them as a reminder of her precious child. To my surprise, she entrusted them to me to read. That was the beginning of my passion for mysteries. As I got older, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie and P. D. James. I visit them often, like old friends, but I am also eager to make new literary acquaintances. My list has only five, but it could have included thousands. Enjoy this diverse sampling.
This book is full of great characters and surprising twists, and most importantly, it made me laugh. Out loud. I could visualize this as a movie set in a retirement village with Helen Mirren playing one of the lead characters.
As a person who is familiar with retirement communities and the people in them, I particularly liked that the author viewed his characters with empathy, portraying them as the vibrant and interesting people that they can be. But also dealing with the serious themes of aging and mortality.
THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE RECORD-BREAKING, MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING THURSDAY MURDER CLUB SERIES BY RICHARD OSMAN
It's the following Thursday.
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.
As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
I’ve been a dog owner my entire life, from my childhood mutt, Paddy, to our current nine-year-old cockapoo, Daffodil. To me, a home isn’t a home without a dog thumping its tail somewhere inside. When I started writing mysteries, I realized that some of my favorites featured dogs. The animal’s loyalty, joy, and unwavering love were a necessary counter to the darker themes mysteries often explore.
I love Agatha Christie, and I love her fussy, brilliant detective, Hercule Poirot. This novel has all the hallmarks of a classic Christie—grand English home, mysterious death, greedy relatives, dark shenanigans, with the added bonus of Bob the terrier whose penchant for a certain red rubber ball is a key part of the mystery.
Everyone blamed Emily's accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her.
On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. Mysteriously he didn't receive the letter until June 28th... by which time Emily was already dead...
I’ve been fascinated by sisters, siblings, and my place in the family since I was old enough to realize I had an older sister and a younger brother. I asked my parents a lot of questions. Why am I blonde? Why is my sister taller? Lots of questions my parents didn’t have answers for. At school in biology, we studied genes, familial traits, and nature versus nurture. I was fascinated, and still am today. Why does my sister behave the way she does? Why do I? Is it because of our upbringing, or was she just born with an aversion to cheese? I wanted to know the answers. I’m still searching.
I adore Jennifer Weiner’s witty, conversational writing style and relatable, three-dimensional characters. With In Her Shoes, Weiner captures the essence of two completely different sisters who are barely on speaking terms. She does it deftly, her characters nuanced and believable, exposing their many flaws and frailties.
I love this book because it helped me see my own sister in a new light. In the book, the sisters’ actions are so realistic (verbal brutality, sniping, home truths) that I felt guilty about how I’d treated my sister over the years. And yes, I rang her several times whilst reading it, and I bought her a copy the following week. Highly recommended.
Rose Feller is thirty years old, a high-powered attorney, with a secret passion for romance novels, an exercise regime she's going to start next week, and dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses, gaze into her eyes, and tell her that she's beautiful.
Meet Rose's sister Maggie. Twenty-eight years old, drop-dead gorgeous and only occasionally employed, Maggie is a backing singer in a band called. She dreams of fame and fortune -- and of getting her dowdy big sister to stick to a skin-care regime.
These two women with nothing in common but a childhood tragedy, shared…
I was adopted as a baby, so I have first-hand experience of the emotions and challenges this presents. I am passionate about shining light on this often misunderstood and complex family trauma through my writing. My memoir Blood and Blood, an emotive exploration of the search for my birth relatives, was shortlisted for the Mslexia Prize. My research extends to fiction and non-fiction, where the psychological effects of adoption are referenced or highlighted. I am always keen to chat with fellow care-experienced people. I hope you find the books on this list helpful.
If you haven’t already, READ ERIC LAROCCA NOW! I have devoured all his published work, and this one was so bleak, subversive, gothic, and intense… in fact, I’m sure a whole dictionary would never completely describe how it made me feel.
He has a way of slicing through the viscera and injecting words into your bloodstream. Whenever I read any of his stories, I feel inspired as a horror writer to up my game and insert more gore into my own writing. Yet, he makes it look incredibly easy, almost as if he is writing poetry using his own bodily fluids. Perhaps he does!? Proceed with care…
"When you're given a gift, something else gets taken away."
A precocious young girl with an unusual imagination is sent on an odyssey into the depths of depravity. After her father dies violently, young Mara is surprised to find her mother welcoming a new guest into their home, claiming that he will protect them from the world of devastation and destruction outside their door.
A grotesque and thrilling dark fantasy, We Can Never Leave This Place is a harrowing portrait of inherited grief and familial trauma.
"We Can Never Leave This Place is the apocalyptic 21st century Grimm's fairy tale…
Miranda falls in love with her dream house but soon discovers it's an affair with complications. A lot of them. Rosewood is a centuries old, tumble-down, gambrel roofed charmer located in an isolated, coastal corner of Virginia referred to as "strange". Known for long-standing and antiquated customs, an almost indecipherable…
Since I was a child, stories steeped in secrets have fascinated me. I spent many hours devouring books about detectives and spies, shadows and deceit. As an adult, it is a rare treat to discover one that is so engaging I must know how it unfolds as soon as possible, and is told in a way that leaves me surprised by how it ends. Each of these books is deliciously tricky, inspiring me to read quickly, before the ghosts between the pages could escape to haunt me.
Wintergirls is heart-wrenching and repulsive. Laurie Halse Anderson uses evocative, jarring language to tell a story about deadly friendship and an almost insurmountable eating disorder. This book pried open my eyes to the harsh struggles of people who live with eating disorders, teaching me about a reality I have mercifully never had to face. My heart ached for the main character as she descended farther into her illness, but left me with that cruel but vital ingredient: hope.
"Dead girl walking," the boys say in the halls. "Tell us your secret," the girls whisper, one toilet to another. I am that girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.
Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend's restless spirit.
As a romance and rom-com writer, summer love stories are my favorite to read. We change during the summer months—our schedules are less rigorous, we get out and see the world, we can be a little reckless with our decisions because everything feels temporary, and we show the world a more relaxed side of ourselves. In cuffing season, we attach ourselves to another person to get through the cold months with a warm body by our side. Meanwhile, in summertime, we don’t feel burdened to get through it with another person. But the night swimming and salt air romance allows surprising love stories to ignite.
This book drenched me in the romance of a woman escaping her real life, and for most of the book, it made me want to fly to Positano and never return.
I loved how Serle uses magical realism to help Katy grieve the loss of her mother and explore how she feels about her own marriage. I was heartbroken and in awe throughout the book, and I’ve never seen a mother-daughter relationship explored so tenderly as Katy and Carol.
“Rebecca Serle is a maestro of love in all its forms.” —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author
The New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years returns with a powerful novel about the transformational love between mothers and daughters set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast.
When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse,…
I am an Australian author and an avid reader. Although I love reading books set in other countries, I particularly enjoy stories that take place in Australia, as I can really identify with them. I especially relate to those set in the Australian outback or small rural towns, as for several years I lived in remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. I understand how in small towns it is very difficult to keep secrets, as everybody knows everyone else’s business, and I now realise this is becoming an underlying theme in my writing. I have a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Tasmania.
Metal Fish, Falling Snow is a terrific Australian road trip story, with a gorgeous cover. After Dylan’s mother suddenly dies, her mother’s boyfriend Pat drives her across the country to join her absent father’s family. During the trip, while experiencing the wilds of outback Australia first hand, Dylan gets to know Pat better. The novel deals with grief and evolving relationships, and is a very satisfying read.
When her mother dies, Dylan struggles to find her identity. An outback road-trip with her mum’s grieving boyfriend sees an unlikely bond develop. But it won’t last…
Dylan dreams of sailing across the ocean to France with her mother. Paris, Dylan imagines, is a place where her black skin won’t make her stand out, a place where she might feel she belongs.
When she loses her mother in a freak accident, Dylan finds herself on a very different journey: a road trip across the Australian outback in the care of her mother’s grieving boyfriend, Pat. As they pass through remote…
Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling mother—Louisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.
Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching for…
I am a teacher, a college professor, and a lifetime reader. I came from a small town, went to college to study writing, ended up getting graduate degrees in theatre, became a theatre director, and then went back to my first love, writing. Throughout my childhood, I bonded with my siblings, and we often feared our mother, who was a fascinating creature but often rough on us. She expected perfection and wasn’t in tune with her childhood. So even then, stories of children in danger—abandoned or scolded or shamed—have resonated with me.
This book is on most serious writers’ shelves. It’s gorgeous. I loved being in the mind of a child over a century ago, dealing with the Spanish Flu (never believing we would face something as bad as Covid). Here was a lovely mother, all one could wish a mother to be and a child so in love with her that he can hardly comprehend her vulnerability.
Love and loss are beautifully rendered. Yes, it’s sad, but I was so involved that I pulled for the father to heal from his grief and make way for his son to heal as well. Maxwell didn’t need a villain. The flu was the villain.
Discover William Maxwell's classic, heart-breaking portrait of an ordinary American family struck by the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
'A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic... Will melt many a reader to tears' TIME
Elizabeth Morison is an ordinary woman.
Yet, to eight-year-old Bunny, his mother is the centre of his universe. To Robert, her elder son, she is someone he must protect against the dangers of the outside world. And to her husband, James, she is the foundation on which his family rests and life without her is unimaginable.
