Here are 77 books that Fell of Dark fans have personally recommended if you like
Fell of Dark.
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I fell in love with Alfred Hitchcock’s films as a kid. Something that stuck out to me was that so many of his films featured an ordinary but resourceful hero who found themselves at the center of a crisis that they were totally ill-equipped to deal with. Still, they endured by rising above the situation. When I started writing, I wanted to write books with hardboiled heroes, but I fell back on first-time heroes who find themselves out of their depth and swim against the tide. Once I recognized this style, it was something I embraced. I’ve gotten out of my depth so many times…sometimes of my own making and sometimes not.
Guilt, shame, and family obligation…these human aspects are a great basis for a down-to-earth protagonist. A young woman is murdered in Will’s family home, and his brother is the prime suspect. On her deathbed, Will’s mother tells Will to find his brother.
This quest puts Will at the center of the investigation because many people want Will’s brother found…dead or alive. It’s one of those stories that escalates, which kept me hooked as a reader. It has a simple premise but evolves into something far more complex that will change Will forever.
Will Klein lost the love of his life and his brother in the same moment ... A superb thriller from the No.1 bestselling author.
On October 17, eleven years ago, Julie Miller was found brutally strangled in the basement of her house in the township of Livingston, New Jersey. On that day, Will's brother, Ken Klein, became the subject of an international manhunt accused of the crime. He has not been seen since.
Will has tried to get on with his life in the intervening years. He has a beautiful new girlfriend, Sheila, and a job working with the homeless.…
I fell in love with Alfred Hitchcock’s films as a kid. Something that stuck out to me was that so many of his films featured an ordinary but resourceful hero who found themselves at the center of a crisis that they were totally ill-equipped to deal with. Still, they endured by rising above the situation. When I started writing, I wanted to write books with hardboiled heroes, but I fell back on first-time heroes who find themselves out of their depth and swim against the tide. Once I recognized this style, it was something I embraced. I’ve gotten out of my depth so many times…sometimes of my own making and sometimes not.
This falls under the category of “Damn, I wish I’d written this.” This story has the quintessential out-of-their-depth hero who is drawn into a world much larger than himself and has to rise above the situation to survive.
I love how this book is about a man who lives in the shadow of his father and brother and has dedicated himself to academia and running but ends up facing off against spies and nazis. It’s a story that will make an ordinary protagonist a bona fide hero.
William Goldman's remarkable career spans more than five decades, and his credentials run the gamut from bestselling novelist to Oscar-winning screenwriter to Hollywood raconteur. He's beloved by millions of readers as the author of the classic comic-romantic fantasy The Princess Bride. And he's notorious for creating the most harrowing visit to the dentist in literary and cinematic history--in one of the seminal thrillers of the twentieth century. . . .
MARATHON MAN
Tom "Babe" Levy is a runner in every sense: racing tirelessly toward his goals of athletic and academic excellence--and endlessly away from the specter of his famous father's…
I fell in love with Alfred Hitchcock’s films as a kid. Something that stuck out to me was that so many of his films featured an ordinary but resourceful hero who found themselves at the center of a crisis that they were totally ill-equipped to deal with. Still, they endured by rising above the situation. When I started writing, I wanted to write books with hardboiled heroes, but I fell back on first-time heroes who find themselves out of their depth and swim against the tide. Once I recognized this style, it was something I embraced. I’ve gotten out of my depth so many times…sometimes of my own making and sometimes not.
This book is a big box thriller that I love, where the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a simple man. In this case, he’s an academic professor decoding a medieval manuscript that will upset the world order. I was hooked by the out-of-their-depth hero in this story.
He is continually outgunned, outmanned, and outnumbered. However, an ordinary guy like Xander Jaspers discovers he's more resourceful and skilled than expected.
It has long been rumoured that a sixteenth-century monk called Eisenreich out-Machiavellied Machiavelli, writing a masterplan for the Church to achieve world domination. So dangerous was the text that the Pope had to kill Eisenreich to suppress it.
But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in the mid-West and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real, but someone is planning to use it.
Sarah Trent, a US agent, and Xander Jaspers, a Columbia University professor, race to find this manuscript, but neither fully understand the danger they're…
I fell in love with Alfred Hitchcock’s films as a kid. Something that stuck out to me was that so many of his films featured an ordinary but resourceful hero who found themselves at the center of a crisis that they were totally ill-equipped to deal with. Still, they endured by rising above the situation. When I started writing, I wanted to write books with hardboiled heroes, but I fell back on first-time heroes who find themselves out of their depth and swim against the tide. Once I recognized this style, it was something I embraced. I’ve gotten out of my depth so many times…sometimes of my own making and sometimes not.
This one is a banger. A serial killer has picked Bill, a bartender, to play a game of who lives and who dies. Choose your own slaughter, if you will.
What's so deviously gorgeous about this book is how the hero must learn how to beat the game so that no one dies and he can stop a twisted killer in his tracks. It’s such a great premise for an out-of-their-depth hero.
If you don’t take this note to the police . . . I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. . . . If you do . . . I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours.
The typewritten note under his windshield seems like just a sick joke. But in less than twenty-four hours, Billy Wiles, an ordinary, hardworking guy, is about to see his life take on the speed of a nightmare. Because a young blond schoolteacher is murdered—and now Billy has…
I’ve been writing my DCI Warren Jones series for more than ten years now. In addition to trying my best to craft a compelling story, with relatable characters, I love the challenge of balancing this with authentic police procedure. All the books and authors recommended here are excellent exponents of this craft. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of them, and believe that they have helped me improve as a writer. I deliberately chose the first in each series, in the hope that you will continue reading to see how the characters evolve.
The first in Lynch’s long-running DI Kelly Porter series, this book introduces a strongly-written female protagonist, investigating a well-crafted mystery.
This is ideal for readers who want to be transported to a beautiful location (Cumbria and the Lake District). Over the course of the series the characters all grow and develop in interesting ways. I originally started the series three books in and was able to pick up the ongoing storylines with ease, before going back and reading from the beginning.
From a procedural perspective, the books are well-researched and the balance between detail and story-telling is spot-on.
DI Kelly Porter knows some people will risk everything to get ahead. But when the truth comes out deadly prices are paid...
After a scandal forces DI Kelly Porter out of the Met, she returns to her home turf in the Lake District. Crimes in the Cumbrian constabulary tend to be of the minor sort, but Kelly begins work on a cold case that shocked the local community - the abduction and brutal murder of ten-year-old Lottie Davies.
Meanwhile, Kelly is also investigating two seemingly straightforward crimes: a case involving an illegal immigrant, and a robbery following the death of…
As a child, I fell in love with picture books and the magical, whimsical worlds they opened! I recall snuggling up and listening to these tales being read to me. Later, after a bit of a struggle, I learned to read myself. From there, there was no stopping me. My library card was my most treasured, most loved possession! I quickly moved on to chapter books, then to novels, but never outgrew my love and passion for picture books! As a former teacher and now great-grandparent, I treasure the opportunity to usher children down the rabbit hole of reading!
I am recommending this book because I fell in love with it as a child.
First, those beautiful watercolor illustrations of pure whimsy and secondly, I secretly loved the mischievous squirrel Nutkin and his riddles. As an adult, I love cuddling with my family's nutkins and sharing a laugh and a lesson on the sly.
There is just something special about sharing with your grandchildren a book you loved as a child!
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin is an original classic by Beatrix Potter.
Beatrix Potter's famous tale of a naughty squirrel who loses his tail is as popular today as it was when it was first published over 100 years ago. Join Nutkin, his brother Twinkleberry and all his cousins as they make their way over to Owl Island to gather nuts. See what happens when Old Brown, the terrifying owl guardian of the island decides he has had enough of silly Nutkin's cheekiness! Ouch!!
Beatrix Potter is regarded as one of the world's best-loved children's authors of all time. From…
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 loved the countryside ever since I was a child. Every year we used to stay for a week or two on a beautiful farm hidden away in a hollow of the Leicestershire wolds. I was fascinated by the wildlife and history – the old cottages and churches, local traditions and place names. It’s no accident I became a rural historian! I’m captivated by the strange power of landscape to affect us, subtly weaving itself into our sense of being, and have devoted much of my adult life to trying to understand this. I hope you find the books on the list as rewarding as I have!
Landscapes like the White Cliffs of Dover, the Cotswolds, or the Lake District are celebrated icons of national identity.
David Matless shows how, in the first half of the twentieth century, these landscapes became sites of contestation between different visions of the nation. For some, committed to landscape preservation but also to a self-consciously modernizing planning ethos, Englishness was about neat, tidy landscapes, free from litter, pollution, and poverty. For others the real England was traditional, hierarchical, and unplanned, exemplified by the great estates with their country houses and landscape gardens.
The fundamental question this book raised for me, one I’m still turning over in my mind, was whether and how we can find ways to harmonize our sometimes very different visions of the landscapes we care so much about.
Landscape has been central to definitions of Englishness for centuries. David Matless argues that landscape has been the site where English visions of the past, present and future have met in debates over questions of national identity, disputes over history and modernity, and ideals of citizenship and the body. Landscape and Englishness is extensively illustrated and draws on a wide range of material - topographical guides, health manuals, paintings, poetry, architectural polemic, photography, nature guides and novels. The author first examines the inter-war period, showing how a vision of Englishness and landscape as both modern and traditional, urban and rural,…
I’m a teacher, sailor, kayaker, and environmental-vegan animal lover. I live by the sea among marine wildlife. I grew up sailing, then sailed the Pacific on the tiny wooden boat that was my first marital home. We had no engine, no modern technology. Like the sea beings, we had a wing in the wind and a fin in the sea so we lived in their world, on their terms. Alone, helming under the stars, I dreamed of dolphin culture and mentally made lists of possible dolphin vocations. This helped me create fiction from the dolphin viewpoint. Input from scientists brought authenticity to my marine environmental fantasies and messages.
Richard Adams himself signed my copy of this book when he visited New Zealand long ago. If he hadn’t looked deep into my eyes at the time and promised me it had a happy ending I might never have made it to the end, so harrowing was the story. But I finished it and he was right. The story questions the ethics of human exploitation of animals. To me, Plague Dogs was his greatest work, far more important than Watership Down, and certainly no children’s book. Adams is a true master at presenting the animal's point of view. This book hit me like a sledgehammer and like Watership Down, it beautifully evoked the natural world of its setting.
Two dogs, Snitter and Rowf, escape from a research laboratory in the Lake District where it is wrongly supposed they have been purposely infected with a deadly virus and now pose a dangerous threat to the human population. As the authorities give chase, the two friends make their way through the hills and across the moors, along the way learning to survive on their wits and finding friendship and help from a fox they encounter. They dream of finding their original owners and a safe haven - but the hunt is on.
I fell in love with Romantic poetry when I was young. Then, after a gap of several years, I began to write historical fiction, and it was at this time that I found myself being drawn once more to the Romantic poets, this time as people as much as for their work. I discovered their place in the world, contested and controversial, and their influence became a driving light to me and my characters. InBeneath Black Clouds and White, Delphi explains: “It has a pulse, you see, like any other living thing. You must treat each poem as though it were alive.” I feel the same way!
I first came across this book through Twitter, and was very excited to find it on my present pile later in the year! This is a brilliant telling of each aspect of Keats’ life, looking at the impact the young poet had on those around him, those who knew him by reputation, and those who are still impacted by his legacy – the author included! The research and deliverance of this book is clearly a labour of love, and it makes for engaging reading and a sympathetic look at this historical figure.
Why Keats? Well, Henry Fotherby in my own book has the same overall outlook as the young poet – but he manages to complete his path to becoming a surgeon!
_We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author_.' (John Keats to J.H. Reynolds, Teignmouth May 1818)
John Keats is one of Britain's best-known and most-loved poets. Despite dying in Rome in 1821, at the age of just 25, his poems continue to inspire a new generation who reinterpret and reinvent the ways in which we consume his work.
Apart from his long association with Hampstead, North London, he has not previously been known as a poet of 'place' in the way we associate Wordsworth with the Lake…
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 was fortunate enough to take up white water kayaks as a student in Scotland, eventually becoming a member of the British wild water racing team. The portable nature of these craft makes it easy to move from one stretch of water to another. I subsequently became the editor of Canoeist(by accident) and have travelled all the major British canals, the larger lochs, the entire mainland coast, and many other waters, producing guides that have been found useful for those on the water, on foot, on bikes or in armchairs.
In 1983 the 47-year-old fell runner Joss Naylor set a record of 19 hours 14 minutes for touching all 27 relevant lakes in the Lake District.
His astonishing time for this 169km run still stands. This was not on the flat, of course, but often over rough country, involving over 6km of vertical height gain.
He had to prepare his support team, find his own route and have witnesses at each lake in the days before mobile phones or satnav. The author walked the route in 2020 with a photographer and Joss in 10 days, still not hanging about for a man in his 80s.
Joss chose to donate his royalties for this inspirational book to the Brathay Trust, which helps the disadvantaged, match funded by publishers Cicerone.
King of the Fells. Iron man. Lake District fell running legend. Joss Naylor is all of these things and more. His achievements are astounding, his records stand the test of time. In 1983 he completed the 105-mile Lakes, Meres and Waters (LMW) route in a staggering 19hr 14min and to this day, describes it as one of the best routes he ever ran. High praise indeed and yet, so few know of it.
Part guidebook, part inspirational regaling, this book interweaves tales of past and present as Naylor reflects on his 1983 epic on a re-walk 37 years later. In…
