Here are 44 books that The Monkey's Mask fans have personally recommended if you like
The Monkey's Mask.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
A thing I love about detective stories is that, from the moment they were probably invented by Edgar Allen Poe in 1841, authors have been playing with the form. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a display of Dupin’s ratiocinative powers, and detective stories do often involve a protagonist reasoning through clues and red herrings on the way toward the resolution of a central mystery. But the kinds of “clues” we use to make sense of (or make peace with) the world are varied, and the mysteries that obsess us are vast—as illustrated over and over again in this mutable genre.
In this genre-bending novel, Ricky Rice is working as a janitor in an upstate New York bus station when he’s sent a ticket to Burlington, Vermont, with a note that reminds him of a promise he made years ago—a promise no one else could know about because he made it only to himself. There are a variety of crimes in the book, as well as several mysteries that unfold—not the least Ricky’s quest to understand the organization where he finds himself working.
As he does, he must sift through his past, including the narratives he’s grown up with and that he has used to understand and survive his world. I won’t tell you what the big machine is or how it works, but I loved this book and Ricky and the world he’s trying to (re)make.
Ricky Rice is a middling hustler with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee, and a haunted mind. A survivor of a suicide cult, he scrapes by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a mysterious letter arrives, summoning him to enlist in a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard what may have been the voice of God.
Infused with the wonder of a disquieting dream and laced with Victor LaValle’s fiendish comic sensibility, Big Machine…
A thing I love about detective stories is that, from the moment they were probably invented by Edgar Allen Poe in 1841, authors have been playing with the form. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a display of Dupin’s ratiocinative powers, and detective stories do often involve a protagonist reasoning through clues and red herrings on the way toward the resolution of a central mystery. But the kinds of “clues” we use to make sense of (or make peace with) the world are varied, and the mysteries that obsess us are vast—as illustrated over and over again in this mutable genre.
A reader begins a book only to discover that the same sixteen pages are printed over and over—so begins a journey across the beginning of novels and through continents. This is a book that breaks rules and taught me how to read it page by page—and I love that feeling.
Though first published in 1979, Calvino’s novel is remarkably timely with respect to the impact of data science and artificial intelligence on literature, as well as the “author’s position with regard to Trends of Contemporary Thought and Problems That Demand a Solution.”
Some might not consider this detective fiction, but I think—like The Aspern Papers (James) and The Savage Detectives (Bolaño)—the quest to find an obscure or missing text (or artist) fits within the genre and, indeed, is one of my favorite kinds of detective stories.
"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a…
A thing I love about detective stories is that, from the moment they were probably invented by Edgar Allen Poe in 1841, authors have been playing with the form. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a display of Dupin’s ratiocinative powers, and detective stories do often involve a protagonist reasoning through clues and red herrings on the way toward the resolution of a central mystery. But the kinds of “clues” we use to make sense of (or make peace with) the world are varied, and the mysteries that obsess us are vast—as illustrated over and over again in this mutable genre.
In classical detective fiction, the story of the crime is like a puzzle, and piece by piece, clue by clue, we arrive at the big picture. Subdivision is, in some ways, a classic puzzle mystery (it even involves a puzzle!)—except it doesn’t start at a crime scene. It starts with a woman arriving at a guesthouse in the surreal and Kafkaesque Subdivision where she now lives. She can’t remember why she is there or really anything from her past. Unlike more classical detective fiction, she is not a guide; I followed her—tracking, assembling, interpreting—but when certain elements of the real (maybe) slid into focus, they did so mostly despite her. I couldn’t put it down, and notwithstanding its fairly cerebral tone, I cried at the end.
An unnamed woman checks into a guesthouse in a mysterious district known only as the Subdivision. The guesthouse's owners, Clara and the Judge, are welcoming and helpful, if oddly preoccupied by the perpetually baffling jigsaw puzzle in the living room. With little more than a hand-drawn map and vague memories of her troubled past, the narrator ventures out in search of a job, an apartment, and a fresh start in life.
Accompanied by an unusually assertive digital assistant named Cylvia, the narrator is drawn deeper into an increasingly strange, surreal, and threatening world, which reveals itself to her through a…
A thing I love about detective stories is that, from the moment they were probably invented by Edgar Allen Poe in 1841, authors have been playing with the form. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a display of Dupin’s ratiocinative powers, and detective stories do often involve a protagonist reasoning through clues and red herrings on the way toward the resolution of a central mystery. But the kinds of “clues” we use to make sense of (or make peace with) the world are varied, and the mysteries that obsess us are vast—as illustrated over and over again in this mutable genre.
The crime scene generally occurs near the start of a mystery—something incomprehensible and threatening the reader and detective will endeavor to explain by the book’s end. Sometimes, though, the world is the crime. In almost painfully beautiful language, this book sets us down in a frightening fairytale forest. We’re traveling with a failed detective looking for a runaway wife, but much of the investigative work emanates from the reader attempting—and often failing—to break through the atmosphere, through the visceral but unmappable feelings of danger and loss the text produces in order to find something that can be named, explained, neutered.
This is the kind of book that affected me sidewise; I never saw it coming, but it got me over and over again. The Spanish edition includes illustrations, the English a suggested playlist.
Fairy tale meets detective drama in this David Lynch–like novel by a writer Jonathan Lethem calls “one of Mexico's greatest . . . we are just barely beginning to catch up to what she has to offer.”
A fairy tale run amok, The Taiga Syndrome follows an unnamed Ex-Detective as she searches for a couple who has fled to the far reaches of the earth. A betrayed husband is convinced by a brief telegram that his second ex-wife wants him to track her down—that she wants to be found. He hires the Ex-Detective, who sets out with a translator into…
I’m a military veteran who has read science fiction and fantasy since the second grade. After reading everything on my parent’s bookshelves, everything in the school and public libraries, I had a teacher recommend I become an author. I love stories about strong-willed individuals standing up for what they believe in and changing the world. I have a master’s degree in engineering, a love for well-built things and taking stuff apart to see how it works, and a fascination with people and how they behave. In addition to writing, I am an avid gamer and a dabbler in a variety of things, from metalworking to hiking.
I really enjoyed the fun and humor in this book. It’s corny, it’s off the wall, and it’s deeply rooted in 80’s action movies. I love the over-the-top outrageousness of some of the scenes and how the author still can pull it back for moments of the main character working through his own personal tragedies.
I love that it’s a superhero/alternate history/urban fantasy book that can poke fun at itself while still dealing with serious themes like government overreach and individual freedoms.
1954, the year of the asteroid, the year of change…
It altered the world forever.
People began to develop unexplained abilities. Biological Enhanced Nascent Talents seemed to appear at random. There was no particular genetic reason for fifteen percent of the human population to be affected. Talents developed skills that set them apart from the great majority of those affected.
The others… they were just BENT.
In ’58 Alexander Lloyd became America’s most wanted criminal and is still at large, but it’s much more difficult to hide in an ever-advancing technological world. There is no official place for him to…
I’ve never been a fan of polemics or schmaltz. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn or see new perspectives or feel deep feelings; I just think humor is the best way to get past people’s defenses. (All the better to sucker punch them in the feels.) I also think the world can be a pretty dark and scary place. I love books that give us hope, enough hope to have the courage to change what we can to make the world a little brighter.
Is it wrong to feel cozy while people are being digested by a monster? And yet. Shesheshen is a terrifying blob monster that has to eat and absorb people to use their bones to walk and talk.
She falls in love! Awww. She wants to lay her eggs in her love so they can feast on her beloved’s entrails. Ewww. This is straight-up horror. But it's somehow also funny and clever and heart-warming, even with all the murder.
I wanted to spend more time with Shesheshen, even though she probably would take the compliment by eating me for my shinbones.
A Most-Anticipated Book of 2024: LitHub, Polygon, Apple, Goodreads
"Wiswell raises the bar on the outcast as protagonist . . . the ultimate monster slayer story, if the monster is just a misunderstood creature searching for love." - Kristi Chadwick, Library Journal (starred review)
Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance-from the perspective of the monster-by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell
Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters…
I’ve adored reading a good snarky first-person story since I first read Bloodlist, so long as the snark doesn’t go too far and become total unlikeable jerk… It can be a fine line!I hope I stay on the right side of it, but having read it enough and written in it for years with my Blood Rights Series, I feel qualified to say I’m a…snark connoisseur. (If you ask my family, this is how my own internal/life narrator speaks! My mother says that my character Dakota is me if I “said everything aloud that I think in my head.” She’s probably right, and I’m okay with that.)
The final book on my list rolls into epic fantasy, with oracles and dragons and magic and prophecies… All sorts of stuff to really make the life of a girl who works at a coffee shop very confusing and difficult. Poor Davie gets thrown into the deep end but works to keep her head above water. Savvy and snarky, she got to me right away, but again, it’s the heart. She’s one of those characters that inspires loyalty from the people around her and you understand why. You want to be by her side too, even if she’s got a totally sardonic inner and outer voice.
I hate fire. It nearly destroyed me. Now, my only chance at survival is a fire-breathing, shape-shifting dragon. An urban fantasy adventure full of mystical creatures and sassy heroines
Davie is a normal girl trying to live a normal life. Except that she can see the future and has visions that make her seem crazy. When she meets a man who immediately seems too perfect to be real, her quest for a normal life quickly ends. She soon learns the world is full of mythical creatures including shapeshifting dragons, dwarves, and mystical oracles. Can Davie adapt to the new world…
I’m a bit of an anomaly in the author world because I didn’t find my passion for reading until I was a newly married adult. My husband, who is the coolest geek ever, introduced me to the DragonLance Chronicles, opening my eyes to the wonder that is the fantasy genre and turning me into an insatiable reader. It’s taken more than ten years to craft my own urban fantasy world, outline my first 6-book series in the world, and write the first book, but none of that would have been possible without the urban fantasy trailblazers listed above. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
Once upon a time, the gorgeous covers of the Mercy Thompson series caught my eye and tempted me to taste urban fantasy. The stories turned me into an insatiable glutton. Night Broken is the eighth book in the series, and the way it handles a relationship under stress from a manipulative ex who plays the victim is chef’s kiss perfection. No silly miscommunication tropes here, thank you very much. It’s a solid story about two shifters who are confident enough in their relationship and themselves to deal not only with ex and pack drama, but also a terrifying magical foe. Talk about relationship goals.
The eighth novel in the international No. 1 bestselling Mercy Thompson series - the major urban fantasy hit of the decade
'I love these books!' Charlaine Harris
'The best new fantasy series I've read in years' Kelley Armstrong
MERCY THOMPSON: MECHANIC, SHAPESHIFTER, FIGHTER
An unexpected phone call heralds a new challenge for Mercy. Her mate Adam's ex-wife is in trouble, on the run from her new boyfriend. Adam won't turn away a person in need, but with Christy holed up in Adam's house, Mercy can't shake the feeling that something isn't right.
There’s something truly magical about the bond people between and animals, whether it be in stories with animal companions, or books about mythical creatures who are actually just metaphors for life’s monsters or magic. It’s something I include in all my stories, from the cats that make a hard day a little easier, to the fantastical beasts rooted in a society’s survival. There’s always something new to learn from them, and I hope you enjoy these stories about them as much as I did!
Winged! Lion! Shifters! What more could you want? Maybe a simmering romance? A warrior society reminiscent of Sparta? A floating kingdom? This book has all that and more. Set against the backdrop of a harrowing race against time, this book is perfect for fans of Sky In The Deep by Adrienne Young and Wonder Woman, with core themes of friendship, family, and loyalty.
This book is all the magic, action, and romance you could want from a YA fantasy.
Shannon Price's The Endless Skies is a breakout standalone epic fantasy about shapeshifting warriors perfect for fans of Adrienne Young and Wonder Woman.
High above the sea, floats the pristine city of the Heliana. Home to winged-lion shapeshifters-the Leonodai-and protected from the world of humans by an elite group of warriors, the Heliana has only known peace.
After years of brutal training, seventeen-year-old Rowan is ready to prove her loyalty to the city and her people to become one of the Leonodai warriors. But before Rowan can take the oath, a deadly disease strikes the city's children. Soon the warriors-including…
As a writer I like to explore many genres, and one of my favorites is young adult supernatural. I think I was destined to write in this world because the first book I took out of the library was Where the Wild Things Are. My favorite books as a teenager all dealt with supernatural themes – Summer of Fear, Carrie, and Audrey Rose. Writing about changelings allows me to explore the tenuous connection between what lies inside of us – our psyche, our minds, our souls – and what might exist on the other side of our known world. It’s the search for that missing link that keeps me writing.
You might not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can judge it by its opening sentences. I loved the opening of The Frenzy. The protagonist doesn’t ask “Who am I?” but “What am I?” One word makes all the difference, and it hooked me immediately.
The story is engrossing and there’s a lot going on, but the best part is that Block does a great job of bringing the 17-year-old protagonist, Liv, to life. Her relationship with her mother is totally real and the love she and her boyfriend, Corey, share, is inspirational.
Love is a werewolf, influenced by the moon and terror, and always about to change.
Liv has a secret.
Something happened to her when she was thirteen. Something that changed everything. Liv knows she doesn’t belong anymore—not in her own skin, not in her family . . . not anywhere. The only time she truly feels like herself is when she’s with her boyfriend, Corey, and in the woods that surround her town.
But in the woods, a mysterious woman watches Liv. In the woods, a pack of wild boys lurks. In the woods, Liv learns about the curse that…
