Here are 100 books that The Haunting of Maddy Clare fans have personally recommended if you like
The Haunting of Maddy Clare.
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I was the ten-year-old child who devoured David Copperfield (and then every other Dickens book), the teenager who began a lifelong love of Russian literature after discovering Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. To this day, my greatest reading pleasure is to lose (and find) myself in the rich, expansive world of a nineteenth-century novel. In my contemporary rom-com, Blame It on the Brontës, my heroine is torn between her literary ideal of love and the reality of losing the love of her life. To paraphrase Keats, she tries to reconcile “the truth of imagination” with “the holiness of the heart’s affections.” As a romance writer, it is my quest, too.
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre follows the format of a romance novel: a governess falls in love with her employer, they overcome impediments, and they live happily ever after. Add a madwoman in the attic, Thornfield Hall in flames, and Mr. Rochester’s voice calling to Jane across the winds, and you have an unforgettable romance novel.
I admire Jane immensely. Her journey from being a suffering student at Lowood School to an independent woman is as relevant as ever. Through every experience, she asserts her autonomy but never wavers in her moral compass.
In Brontë’s world, love involves every fiber of one’s being, not just emotions or desire. Mr. Rochester is a complex, conflicted man who proves himself worthy of Jane’s love. For me, they have set the standard of the romantic heroine and hero.
Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue, Canterbury Christ Church University College.
Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage.
She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester.
I’m Julia Buckley, a passionate lifelong reader, English teacher, and mystery writer. I gravitated toward mystery as a child when my mom read all the greats of 20th Century Mystery and Romantic Suspense and then passed them on to me. When I became an English teacher, I had the privilege of teaching some of the great Gothic classics like Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and The Castle of Otranto. Teaching these great works and researching the way that all Gothic literature stemmed from Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, I realized that MANY of the books I read are tinged with the Gothic.
This is a Gothic suspense classic, but the suspense is gradual in the most delicious way. The book begins with a 1930s meet-cute in which a young paid companion to a rich and unpleasant woman meets a wealthy, unhappy widower at a resort. The young woman befriends the man while her employer is bedridden with a cold, and the two share some funny and touching moments.
The Gothic part comes when he unexpectedly proposes marriage, and they return to his gargantuan family estate, Manderley, which was formerly run by his late wife, Rebecca. Now, the spookiness permeates the story, from the shadowy corners of the mansion to the constant watchfulness of the very creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Rebecca has been in print for almost a hundred years, and that alone is evidence of its awesomeness.
In this modern feminist era, Maxim DeWinter might seem horribly patriarchal, but it’s utterly believable…
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'
Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…
I am an author of mysteries with three published books in the genre to date. Novels involving a mysterious house will immediately grab my attention. Throw in an otherworldly presence and I’m hooked. So it was no surprise when my muse guided me to create a mystery series that centers around a Victorian home haunted by the spirits of its original inhabitants. Inspiration came from personal experience—a real-life ghostly encounter in my New England country home which bordered an ancient cemetery—and influence from classic tales that delve into the paranormal and the psychological. This is the type of book I will always rush to read (and write).
The Lake House was recommended to me because the style of writing and the themes of the story have been compared to my own books.I especially enjoy the techniques of interweaving present-day stories with tales from the past and employing multiple perspectives. Kate Morton’s characters are always well-developed, and her descriptions provide atmospheric depth. The country lake home, Loeanneth—beautifully described in its prime—is an abandoned, crumbling estate decades later. Family secrets abound and having two unrelated mysteries at work brings texture to the story. As a writer, I do appreciate when one of the main characters is an author, and I enjoyed observing Alice Edevane's approach to her writing life. Be patient as the mystery twists and builds. You won’t be disappointed!
June 1933, and the Edevane family's country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. But by the time midnight strikes and the fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever. Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Detective Sadie Sparrow retreats on an enforced holiday to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall. Venturing further into the countryside on her daily runs, she stumbles upon a long-abandoned house surrounded by overgrown gardens and dense woods, and learns the terrible story of…
My mother got cancer when I was seven and died when I was in college. So, I began to consider death and the afterlife from a very young age. I don’t know if ghosts are real, but I know that people are haunted. I explore this idea—that haunted houses are really settings for haunted humans—as well as the ambiguity between ghosts and mental descents in my own teaching and writing. I love haunted house novels because they’re wonderful vehicles for this sort of exploration and because they’re so much fun to read! I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do!
I know most people’s favorite Shirley Jackson haunted house book is The Haunting of Hill House, but I find the mystery in this book even more compelling.
Give me two sisters, a family killed by poison under mysterious circumstances, a suitor, an angry mob filled with class envy, and an unreliable narrator, and I will be filled with that peculiar combination of happiness, unease, and dread that all of us haunted house readers desire. I love this novel.
Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister, Constance, and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.
I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and everything British. My first novel celebrated American literature and small towns, and my first murder mystery was a love letter to England. I once spent twenty days visiting almost thirty bookshops and reading my way all over England, and let me tell you, I learned a thing or two about murders.
I love Frances Brody's indomitable amateur sleuth, Kate Shackleton. The series takes place in London and Yorkshire in the 1930s, and this book will be particularly pleasing for fans of the Bronte sisters and Wuthering Heights. Seven keen amateur photographers gather for the most popular openings of the decade. Only six will return.
'Frances Brody has made it to the top rank of crime writers' Daily Mail
Taking the perfect photograph can be murder . . .
Yorkshire, 1928. Indomitable sleuth Kate Shackleton is taking a well-deserved break from her detective work and indulging in her other passion: photography. When her local Photographic Society proposes an outing, Kate jumps at the chance to visit Haworth and Stanbury, in the heart of Bronte country, the setting for Wuthering Heights.
But when an obnoxious member of their party is murdered, the group is thrown into disarray. Is the murderer amongst them, or did the loud-mouthed…
I’ve always loved history and historical stories, but like the majority of people, didn’t really know very much about WWI. That changed in early 2017 when I read The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W Tuchman. I immediately fell into a vortex of further reading, resulting in my writing The War in Our Hearts at the end of that year--because although there is a lot of great non-fiction out there about WWI, there aren’t nearly as many novels that quite scratched the itch I had for fiction…so I wrote the book I wanted to read!
My absolute favourite WWI novel, this is the story of several English young people who come of age during the Great War. It gives glimpses into home front life as well as life at the front. As usual, McKay’s characters are vibrant, maddening, loveable, ridiculous--sometimes all at once. The prose is elegant, poetic, subtle, will smack you in the feels, and stay in your mind long after.
The Skylarks' War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay.
Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September - boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer.
I grew up in a troubled, violent family in a violent, Mafia-controlled neighborhood. I did a tour in the Air Force and spent some time in Vietnam, surrounded by unseen enemies. When I got out, I stayed in London, surrounding myself with unsavory characters, narrowly avoiding trouble and wondering if I would ever see the twenty-first century. Having lived through so many troubled times, I can identify with those people in history who have overcome overwhelming odds to accomplish their goals, and I enjoy reading about them. They give me the strength to face each day.
I love historical fiction, and this is a historical novel about a family throughout the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. It kept me guessing what the next pitfall would be that the family would have to overcome.
There are members of this family who I hoped would win and others who I knew would fail because they were not good people. All of his novels are good reads; this one is very compelling.
This is an epic of love, hatred, war and revolution. This is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson…
I am the prize-winning author of sixteen novels, most recently Little Egypt, The Squeeze, and Blasted Things. I teach creative writing at the University of St Andrews. I live in Edinburgh and am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. I’m a novelist and student of human nature. I love to work out what motivates people, how and why they make choices, their coping mechanisms, and how they act under pressure. Before I begin a novel set in the past, I read as much fiction written at the time as I can find, as well as autobiography and history. In this way, I attempt to truffle down into the actions and impulses of individuals, both performative and deeply interior, that characterise the spirit of the era that I’m writing.
Enormously useful to me while researching for Blasted Things, was The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War. Taking us through chapters entitled feelingly with nouns: from Wound and Shock, through Resignation, and finally to Hope, Trust and Acceptance, Nicolson provides a chronological account of the period between the 1918 Armistice and the burial of the Unknown Soldier in 1920. It’s addictively readable, the history enriched by the recounted experiences of ordinary people from all walks of life, giving a rounded sense of the time, filled with detail about culture, music, the movies, fashion, class and so much more. This book provides a marvellously concrete and detailed account of the sensibility of a short and fascinatingly complex period.
Armistice Day 1918 dawns with great joy for victorious Britain, but the nation must confront the carnage war has left in its wake. In The Great Silence, Juliet Nicolson looks through the prism of daily life to narrate the rich but unknown history of the slow healing Britain undergoes in the two years following that day.
The two-year anniversary of the Armistice brings some closure at last: the remains of a nameless soldier, dug up from a French battlefield and escorted to London in a homecoming befitting a king, are laid to rest in glory in the Tomb of the…
I’m a writer of cosy crimes and unapologetic in my love for the genre! There’s nothing better, in my opinion than a well-thumbed Agatha Christie or a foxed, old copy of Dorothy L Sayers. And it’s the role of the amateur sleuth that I love the best; that happy accident that brings a person with a sharp mind and perhaps a particular skill set together with a murderous villain, and we, the lucky reader, get to ride alongside them and work out the mystery for ourselves. Pour that tea, snuggle up and settle in with these five brilliant examples of amateur sleuths with just something a little different to offer…
I have to admit I saw the cover of this book and was smitten… then I discovered what makes this crime novel and its amateur sleuth a little bit different. Josephine Tey revisits the scene of a death at Charleston Farmhouse in 1915, and now, twenty years later, she realises that it might have been more sinister than ‘just’ an accident—and she, who was there at the time, might be implicated in the murder herself. Josephine Tey, as well as being the book’s protagonist, was also the real-life pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh, who wrote eight murder mysteries as Tey. That Upson has so cleverly fictionalised the real-life Tey is what makes this book, and the others in the series, so different—brilliantly so, in my opinion.
** Longlisted for the CWA Sapere Books Historial Dagger 2020 **
'Haunting . . . Superlative.' Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month
'A terrific novel.' A. N. Wilson
Summer, 1915: a young woman falls to her death at Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. But was it an accident?
Twenty years later, Josephine Tey is faced with the accusation that it was murder, and that she was complicit in the crime. Can she clear her name and uncover the truth, exposing the darkest secrets of that apparently idyllic summer?
I love to laugh. Whether my oldest son and I are trading bad puns, my husband is teasing, my daughter and I are chuckling over a rom-com, or my youngest son is rolling his eyes and groaning at all of us, my family loves to laugh. Humor creates joy, relieves stress, and is just plain fun. That's what I look for in a good read. The world offers plenty of negativity and hardship. When I escape into a novel, I want fast-paced adventure and swoony romance, but I also want a reason to smile. That's the experience I love, and the one I endeavor to give my readers.
This is such a fun book! The book-loving heroine is so upbeat and full of sunshine. Grace loves whimsy yet manages to keep her feet on the ground. I loved how she uses her experience with fiction to solve mysteries and escape harrowing situations. Lord Astley is haunted by past mistakes but his brooding nature can't stand against Grace's guileless enthusiasm. A marriage of convenience, a villain on the prowl, and a house with secret passageways. What's not to love? Riddled with laugh-out-loud moments, this book should not be missed at Christmas or any other time of year.
Will the magic of Christmas bring these two newlyweds closer together, or will the ghosts of the past lead them into a destructive discovery from which not even a Dickens’s Christmas can save them?
Mistletoe is beautiful and dangerous, much like the woman from Lord Frederick’s Percy’s past, so when he turns over a new leaf and arranges to marry for his estate, instead of his heart, he never expects the wrong bride to be the right choice. Gracelynn Ferguson never expected to take her elder sister’s place as a Christmas bride, but when she’s thrust into the choice, she…
