30 books like Deep Shadow

By Nick Sullivan,

Here are 30 books that Deep Shadow fans have personally recommended if you like Deep Shadow. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Twelve Mile Bank

Sharon Ward Author Of In Deep

From my list on mysteries set on a tropical island.

Why am I passionate about this?

Even as a kid, I was intrigued by the underwater world, so as an adult, I learned to scuba dive. I took to it like a fish to water, and my husband and I spent the next several years traveling to tropical islands to experience the local dive conditions whenever possible. I loved learning how every island had a different culture and a different undersea environment. Since I love tropical islands, scuba diving, mysteries, and adventure stories, these books really hit my sweet spot.

Sharon's book list on mysteries set on a tropical island

Sharon Ward Why did Sharon love this book?

The Cayman Islands are my favorite place in the world, so a mystery featuring a female divemaster on Grand Cayman is right up my alley. AJ Bailey, the protagonist, is a realistic portrayal of a woman in a man’s world. Many books in the tropical islands have female protagonists, but they are often gun-toting, knife-wielding super-models, not realistic women like Harvey’s protagonist. 

The diving details are spot on; the dive site descriptions are accurate; and the thrilling story will keep you turning pages to the very end. A great start to a super series.

By Nicholas Harvey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Twelve Mile Bank as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A mysterious shipwreck. A ruthless treasure hunter. A race against time.

Cayman Islands divemaster AJ Bailey is searching for a long forgotten WWII U-boat at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Armed with nothing more than an adventurous spirit and her late grandfather’s tale, she's determined to find the submarine and the secret it protects.

When a wealthy treasure hunter shows up with a ruthless crew, AJ becomes entangled in a frantic duel to find the precious piece of history. Diving into the path of merciless killers at treacherous depths, she must fight to keep her grandfather’s dream - and…


Book cover of The Girl Beneath the Sea

Nicholas Harvey Author Of Twelve Mile Bank

From my list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

My wife suggested we try scuba diving while on holiday in Grand Cayman. We were already falling in love with the island, and the incredible experience underwater opened a whole new world to us. From that moment on, our yearly travels changed completely. Our destination choices were now based upon diving opportunities. That was twenty years ago. Today, I’m a certified divemaster with dives all over the US (including Hawaii), the Caribbean (including Cuba), Australia, and even Iceland. Throw in my sense of adventure as a former race car driver, motorcycle rider, and outdoor adventurer, and I had plenty of personal experiences to create the AJ Bailey series.

Nicholas' book list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries

Nicholas Harvey Why did Nicholas love this book?

I’d already written several books in my AJ Bailey series when Girl beneath the Sea came out. With the might of a large publisher behind the book it hit best-seller lists and proved to me that I was writing books with a subject matter appealing to a broad audience.

Mayne’s protagonist, Sloan McPherson, is a police diver in Florida, who takes cases much farther than her role suggests. She’s an imperfect person with baggage and problems, but her gutsy determination drives the stories forward.

I dive into each new book in the series on the day they’re released.

By Andrew Mayne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Girl Beneath the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An Amazon Charts bestseller.

For a Florida police diver, danger rises to the surface in an adventurous thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.

Coming from scandalous Florida treasure hunters and drug smugglers, Sloan McPherson is forging her own path, for herself and for her daughter, out from under her family’s shadow. An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal―a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect.…


Book cover of Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves

Nicholas Harvey Author Of Twelve Mile Bank

From my list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

My wife suggested we try scuba diving while on holiday in Grand Cayman. We were already falling in love with the island, and the incredible experience underwater opened a whole new world to us. From that moment on, our yearly travels changed completely. Our destination choices were now based upon diving opportunities. That was twenty years ago. Today, I’m a certified divemaster with dives all over the US (including Hawaii), the Caribbean (including Cuba), Australia, and even Iceland. Throw in my sense of adventure as a former race car driver, motorcycle rider, and outdoor adventurer, and I had plenty of personal experiences to create the AJ Bailey series.

Nicholas' book list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries

Nicholas Harvey Why did Nicholas love this book?

Okay, so Deep isn’t specifically about women, or scuba diving – it tackles freediving – but includes females and anyone who loves diving in any form should read this book. The meticulous research into the physiology and psychology of human beings underwater is simply fascinating. Nestor ventures off into all kinds of territory, from octopus intelligence; to whales conversing; to humans holding a single breath for an inhuman amount of time.

Freediving is the common theme in the book, but it is far more than that. This is an in-depth study of life beneath the waves from an intriguing perspective.

By James Nestor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Deep as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of the international Bestseller Breath

Covering a diving championship in Greece on a hot and sticky assignment for Outside magazine, James Nestor discovered free diving. He had stumbled on one of the most extreme sports in existence: a quest to extend the frontiers of human experience, in which divers descend without breathing equipment, for hundreds of feet below the water, for minutes after they should have died from lack of oxygen. Sometimes they emerge unconscious, or bleeding from the nose and ears, and sometimes they don't come up at all.

The free divers were Nestor's way into…


Book cover of Swimming with the Dead: An Underwater Investigation

Nicholas Harvey Author Of Twelve Mile Bank

From my list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

My wife suggested we try scuba diving while on holiday in Grand Cayman. We were already falling in love with the island, and the incredible experience underwater opened a whole new world to us. From that moment on, our yearly travels changed completely. Our destination choices were now based upon diving opportunities. That was twenty years ago. Today, I’m a certified divemaster with dives all over the US (including Hawaii), the Caribbean (including Cuba), Australia, and even Iceland. Throw in my sense of adventure as a former race car driver, motorcycle rider, and outdoor adventurer, and I had plenty of personal experiences to create the AJ Bailey series.

Nicholas' book list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries

Nicholas Harvey Why did Nicholas love this book?

Kathy’s series – which I wish she’d continue one day – inspired me to include my passion for scuba diving in my novels. Her main character, Hannah Sampson, is a member of the Denver Underwater CSI team, who’s asked to help the police in the British Virgin Islands investigate a case. Needless to say, she stays on the island for the following books and becomes embroiled in hair-raising cases that challenge her above and below the water.

Kathy published her series at a time when very few novels centered around diving, and certainly didn’t include a female protagonist. I found her work transported me to the islands, and enthused me to create AJ Bailey and subsequently, Nora Sommer.

By Kathy Brandt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Swimming with the Dead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Murder runs deep in a thrilling new series.
An Underwater Investigation featuring C.S.I. diver Hannah Sampson.

Summoned to the sun-drenched beaches of the British Virgin Islands, Hannah Sampson is fully prepared to face unknowable dangers beneath the crystal-clear waters of an idyllic paradise. But the possibility of murder runs deeper and darker than the sea itself. Her police commissioner's son-an expert diver and researcher-was found dead, pinned under the submerged wreckage of a cargo ship. Whatever the victim was looking for, he found.

Whatever he found was the death of him. Now Hannah must discover for herself what lies beneath-a…


Book cover of Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

Nicholas Harvey Author Of Twelve Mile Bank

From my list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

My wife suggested we try scuba diving while on holiday in Grand Cayman. We were already falling in love with the island, and the incredible experience underwater opened a whole new world to us. From that moment on, our yearly travels changed completely. Our destination choices were now based upon diving opportunities. That was twenty years ago. Today, I’m a certified divemaster with dives all over the US (including Hawaii), the Caribbean (including Cuba), Australia, and even Iceland. Throw in my sense of adventure as a former race car driver, motorcycle rider, and outdoor adventurer, and I had plenty of personal experiences to create the AJ Bailey series.

Nicholas' book list on female scuba diving thrillers and mysteries

Nicholas Harvey Why did Nicholas love this book?

Jill isn’t only the world’s top female cave diver, she’s one of the best, period. What’s amazing about this book is how it reads like a hair-raising fantastical adventure tale, yet it’s all true.

I’ve dabbled in cave diving in the cenotes of Mexico, and it is certainly addictive stuff, but I can’t imagine going to the places Jill has risked her life to discover.

This could easily have been a choice in my females who kick-ass list as well!

By Jill Heinerth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Into the Planet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From one of the world’s most renowned cave divers, a firsthand account of exploring the earth’s final frontier: the hidden depths of our oceans and the sunken caves inside our planet

More people have died exploring underwater caves than climbing Mount Everest, and we know more about deep space than we do about the depths of our oceans. From one of the top cave divers working today—and one of the very few women in her field—Into the Planet blends science, adventure, and memoir to bring readers face-to-face with the terror and beauty of earth’s remaining unknowns and the extremes of…


Book cover of No Virgin Island

Sharon Ward Author Of In Deep

From my list on mysteries set on a tropical island.

Why am I passionate about this?

Even as a kid, I was intrigued by the underwater world, so as an adult, I learned to scuba dive. I took to it like a fish to water, and my husband and I spent the next several years traveling to tropical islands to experience the local dive conditions whenever possible. I loved learning how every island had a different culture and a different undersea environment. Since I love tropical islands, scuba diving, mysteries, and adventure stories, these books really hit my sweet spot.

Sharon's book list on mysteries set on a tropical island

Sharon Ward Why did Sharon love this book?

The author sets an intricate murder mystery against the details of life on St. John in the Virgin Islands. Sabrina Salter, the ex-pat protagonist, is a wounded bird seeking solace from her troubled past by trying to start over in the tropics, but trouble—and romance—follow her.

Details about life on the island make it clear that the author spent a lot of time on St. John and loves the island deeply. I didn’t guess who the murderer was until the very end, although the clues were there. I really like Sabrina and her dog, and the hunky Neil is a fitting romantic partner. 

This book had everything I like—friends, lovers, local color, and a juicy murder. I was captivated from page one.

By C. Michele Dorsey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked No Virgin Island as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sabrina Salter traded a high-pressure job as a Boston meteorologist for life managing villas on sun-soaked St. John. But storm clouds roll in when Sabrina finds Carter Johnson, her most attractive guest, tucked up in a hammock way past check-out time...and he’s not just dead to the world, he’s just plain dead, with a bullet hole in his chest.

This isn’t the first time Sabrina has seen a dead body, and the island police are well aware of that. Thanks to her checkered history, not to mention the fact that she was the last person who saw Carter alive and…


Book cover of Fields' Guide to Dirty Money

DK Coutant Author Of Evil Alice and the Borzoi

From my list on mysteries with sleuths who love their dogs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I don’t remember a moment in my life when there wasn’t a dog in it.  They are members of my family, and I identify with protagonists who have the same connection in their lives. In my day job, I write mysteries and forecast geopolitical events. Mysteries with dogs help me balance the darkness in the world with the sheer delight that can be found with a dog.

DK's book list on mysteries with sleuths who love their dogs

DK Coutant Why did DK love this book?

I love this entire series, but the first one is where Poppy meets Consuela (her Chihuahua with attitude). One of my favorite micro-genres, the funny-cozy-romantic-spy mystery, Poppy Fields is a poor little rich girl. But what redeems her for me, is her drive to do something important in the world. I found it impossible not to fall for her and her bossy Chihuahua. And the communication connection between Poppy and Consuela is one we all hope to have with our dogs. Consuela yaps and Poppy understands her. Not to mention, Poppy couldn’t ask for a better partner in solving crime. 

By Julie Mulhern,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Fields' Guide to Dirty Money as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Poppy Fields, social influencer and secret spy, is on Grand Cayman. Her mission? Maid of honor at her mother’s wedding to Russian billionaire Yurgi Prokorhov. No surprise, Chariss Carlton is a difficult and demanding bride.

When Poppy witnesses a murder, her days change from irritating to dangerous. She and her partner Thor (real name Mark Stone—but a dead-ringer for a Norse god) are tasked with catching a killer and shuttering a billion dollar money laundering scheme.

Between bombs, bridal showers, high-speed car chases, a missing wedding planner, and a femme fatale with her eye on Thor, it will be a…


Book cover of The Firm

Mel Mattison Author Of Quoz: A Financial Thriller

From my list on exploring the dark side of finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a huge thriller fan, and I love finance. In fact, I worked in the industry for over twenty years. I have an MBA from Duke and have been the CEO of three different SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealers. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself deep into a thriller with a financial component that turns out to be implausible, overly simplistic, or both. It breaks the narrative for me. With these books, that’s not a concern. Financial thriller aficionados unite!

Mel's book list on exploring the dark side of finance

Mel Mattison Why did Mel love this book?

Grisham is one of the greats, and The Firm might just be his best. Money laundering, finance, postal laws, and the quirky world of 1990s Memphis all come to life with this Grisham great.

While more of a legal thriller than a financial one, I found that as far as finance-related fiction goes, it’s tough to beat The Firm. Not only a look inside at off-shore banking and shady deals, Grisham offers here a compelling narrative that excites and captures the reader.

By John Grisham,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Firm as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**THE BOOK THAT MADE JOHN GRISHAM A HOUSEHOLD NAME**
Featuring an exclusive introduction from the author.
_______________________________________

He thought it was his dream job. Until it turned into his worst nightmare...

When Mitch McDeere qualified third in his class at Harvard, offers poured in from every law firm in America. Bendini, Lambert and Locke were a small, well-respected firm, but their offer exceeded Mitch's wildest expectations: a fantastic salary, a new home, and the keys to a brand new BMW.

Except for the mysterious deaths of previous lawyers with the firm. And the FBI investigations. And the secret files.

Mitch…


Book cover of Something in the Water

Jen Craven Author Of Best Years of Your Life

From my list on complicated female characters and a good plot twist.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an avid reader and author myself, I love books that keep me on the edge of my seat and thrust me into a world of secrets and lies. There’s nothing better than seeing trouble coming for a character and wondering how in the world they’re going to make things right. I read and write these types of stories—ones that are relatable, emotionally charged, and twisty. To me, they’re the most fun! 

Jen's book list on complicated female characters and a good plot twist

Jen Craven Why did Jen love this book?

The question that comes to mind with this book is, “If you could make a simple choice to change your life even if you know it’s wrong, would you?” I kept wondering what I would do in the character’s situation. If you’re drawn to moral dilemmas, ethical decisions, and secrets and lies, this book is for you. A complete page-turner, I couldn’t put it down. There are twists you don’t see coming, but at the heart is a story about ideals and the mistakes we make trying to reach them. 

By Catherine Steadman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Something in the Water as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “A psychological thriller that captivated me from page one. What unfolds makes for a wild, page-turning ride! It’s the perfect beach read!”—Reese Witherspoon

A shocking discovery on a honeymoon in paradise changes the lives of a picture-perfect couple in this taut psychological thriller from the author of Mr. Nobody and The Disappearing Act.

“Steadman keeps the suspense ratcheted up.”—The New York Times

ITW THRILLER AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GLAMOUR AND NEWSWEEK

If you could make one simple choice that would…


Book cover of Aquatic Accidents

Nelson Rangel-Buitrago Author Of Coastal Scenery: Evaluation and Management

From my list on keeping your family safe on a beach vacation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a coastal geologist with expertise in environmental issues related to coastal geomorphology, marine pollution, and coastal management. With a Ph.D. in Sea Sciences from the Universidad de Cádiz, I have contributed to the scientific community through my research, publication of over 100 scientific articles, and serving as the Editor of two international scientific journals—Ocean & Coastal Management and the Marine Pollution Bulletin. My research focuses on understanding and managing coastal hazards, marine pollution, and the impacts of human activities on coastal and marine ecosystems. Of particular importance in terms of beach safety was my recent co-authorship of the article Integrated Strategies for the Management and Mitigation of Beach Accidents.

Nelson's book list on keeping your family safe on a beach vacation

Nelson Rangel-Buitrago Why did Nelson love this book?

This book covers the full range of accidents that could occur and how to recognize and prevent them from ruining a family vacation. The greatest risk at surf beaches is rip currents, causing 100 drownings annually, with more than 60,000 rescues by lifeguards in the United States. 

At some beaches where powerful waves break right at the shore, shorebreaks can pick you up and crash you headfirst into shallow water, resulting in concussions, serious neck and spinal injuries. Snorkeling seems to be as easy as putting on a mask, but it is the largest cause of drowning in Hawaii, so one should practice in a shallow swimming pool before venturing into the ocean. Scuba diving and surfing are exhilarating sports, but they come with a range of serious dangers that must be understood which requires professional training.

This book provides color illustrations and photographs to help you better understand these…

By Stephen B. Leatherman, Stephen P. Leatherman, Arthur H. Mittelstaedt

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Aquatic Accidents as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Aquatic Accidents is a uniquely comprehensive book analyzing the full range of water-based accidents in both the natural environment (e.g., oceans, lakes and rivers) and built facilities (e.g., swimming pools, waterparks, and spas). People are naturally drawn to the water, from back-yard swimming pools to the number one tourist destination, the beach. Accidents are far too common, and most are preventable with foresight provided by this book.

The various water activities discussed in Aquatic Accidents cause needless injuries and even death. This book gives you the tools to identify these hazards and initiate actions to save lives. Aquatic Accidents is…


Book cover of Twelve Mile Bank
Book cover of The Girl Beneath the Sea
Book cover of Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves

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