81 books like The Boatman's Daughter

I love a good coming-of-age story coupled with supernatural events in a period-piece setting, and that’s exactly what Polly Schattel serves up. Her cinematic style of story-telling (her filmmaking past is obvious) offers up a vivid picture of her protagonist, young Max Grahame as he journeys literally across the country from his home in Georgia and metaphorically as he discovers more about who he is and what his budding supernatural talents entail. Schattel is also a master of creating rich supporting characters ranging from the other children whom Max meets as he first undergoes his occult training to the mysterious adults whose spiritual machinations are woven into the history of this turn-of-the-century setting. This book begs to be made into a movie, but Schattel helps you create one in your head.

“Blood on the sheets again.” If that opening line doesn’t get you, then nothing will. Jason Stokes’s precise diction and concise descriptions still give the reader clear visual images of the nightmarish scenes in his road trip ghost story. In the terrifying first scene Stokes sets up the premise—that 26-year-old Justin has been plagued with the presence of the dead throughout his life, but the frequency and intensity of his visitations have increased lately, and Justin doesn’t know why. A cross-country trip appears to be the only way Justin will find his answers, and the supernatural encounters he experiences in richly depicted locations like the streets of New Orleans, a cemetery in Key West, and even a dark stretch of road in the middle of nowhere gave me some of the best chills I’ve ever gotten from reading. The story is definitely enriched by Justin’s road companion, a character I’m… show more.

I think author Shawn Burgess loves Halloween as much as I do, and it shows in his writing. We connected, as many writers do, through social media before I had read his debut novel. I was thrilled to find that I did not have to offer only polite compliments after reading it; I genuinely loved it! The story involves a group of boys who are drawn into the mystery surrounding the death of an autistic girl in their small Appalachian community. The feel of the group is reminiscent of the pre-teen characters in Stephen King’s short story, “The Body” (later made into the Rob Reiner’s movie Stand By Me) but unlike King’s story, this one definitely has otherworldly elements. Note: The title of this novel has just recently changed from The Tear Collector as Burgess has expanded the storyline into a series. I’ll definitely keep reading.

Rarely does a book that is beautifully written (so much so that I found myself jealous of Nicholas Day’s prose) also give me such a visceral punch in the gut. I don’t mean to suggest that the scenes in Day’s book are beautiful; they are anything but. The story includes the threat of flesh-eating donkeys for crying out loud, but as ridiculous as that might sound, they are truly terrifying. The scenes and events are hard, gritty, violent, and depressing, but somehow, I found them exhilarating. I often buy books to read on my Kindle for economic reasons, but after reading this one, I had to order a physical copy for my library. The setting of GYBTD strikes me as perhaps being appropriate in the universe of Stephen King’s gunslinger in the Dark Tower series (another of my very favorite pieces of literature). Just writing about Grind Your Bones… show more.

Release the Kraken! While the tentacles might be more subtle on newer editions of this fine book, the title alone is enough to get it added to my list. This is a classic and the twists and turns in it are stupendous. What hooked me from the beginning was the characters and the story arc, although the plot, setting, and everything else make this a book you cannot miss. A must-read.

Raven is the best, most comprehensive, and most thoroughly researched book on Jim Jones, Jonestown, and Peoples Temple. Reiterman is a fine investigative journalist who was part of a group to visit Jonestown, Guyana in November of 1978. The visitors included, among others, eight members of the press; Congressman Leo Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier; and thirteen representatives of the “Concerned Relatives,” their own name for the group. Every member of the group had defected from the Temple in San Francisco. Only some of these visitors—Reiterman and a few of the other journalists, Ryan and Speier, and a small number of the group of relatives—were finally and reluctantly admitted in by Jones, on the stern advice of Jones’s lawyers. The Concerned Relatives were there to see if—as they strongly suspected—those in Jonestown were being held against their will.  The journalists wanted to find the truth about life in the… show more.

Kizzia’s prose and reporting are unequaled, but this dark, Gothic tale is hard to read because of the real-life horror it exposes. The Pilgrim family came to Alaska in 2002, wrapping themselves in fundamentalist Christianity and fighting with the federal government like true pioneers in the wilderness—they became a cause for the right because of how they seemed to fulfill Alaska’s frontier myth. But it turned out the patriarch of the family had created a weird prison of rape and abuse for his uneducated children, which Kizzia was able to get inside with vividly told scenes. And that truth tells us even more about Alaska, which has the worst rate of rape in the nation and a shocking level of child abuse. 

I had the privilege of spending some time with Dr. Lalich, and during that time I found her to be witty, funny, and extremely interested in the experiences of children who were raised in cults. As someone who grew up in a cult, I am grateful that she spent the time to concentrate on the children, as they are the ones who almost always fare the worst. This book chronicles the lives of several people who were raised under the sway of repressive religions. I am honored to be one of those people.

Dr. Lalich conducted the first in-depth study of its kind, conducting interviews with sixty-five individuals who were either born into or raised in thirty-nine distinct cultic groups spread across more than a dozen countries. Many of these individuals eventually made the decision to leave the cultic lifestyle on their own, which is something that is very unique… show more.

Anyone who knows me well or has read my first two books knows I’m a sucker for a thriller about a cult. Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett is my young adult Midsommar dream novel. The main character, Ash Larkin, goes looking for the commune her mother escaped only to find herself physically trapped there by the cornfield (and cult) from hell. As a child I used to play hide and seek in cornfields. This book brought me back to those moments spent listening for my friends, worrying that they wouldn’t find me. Kim’s writing is beautiful and lyrical. I will literally read anything she writes. Besides, she has the coolest author bio ever. She spent the eighties singing backup for rock bands. 

As someone who personally knows this author, I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of the best go-to books for anyone interested in cult structure and the dynamics of cult involvement. If you’ve ever been perplexed by how someone could possibly get involved in not just a religion-based cult, but also a politics-based cult, then this is the volume for you. It’s intriguing, as well as informative.