Here are 98 books that These Shallow Graves fans have personally recommended if you like
These Shallow Graves.
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I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I really enjoyed this historical mystery novel. It is an early example of a narrative being told from multiple perspectives, some unreliable; beware!
The novel is a classic with beautiful language and sentence construction. I feel there is an elegance and craft given to this narrative rarely found in today’s commercial mystery genre. Sit back and enjoy being seduced by Wilkie Collins.
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'The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.'
One of the earliest works of 'detective' fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White'…
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 believe that the best haunted house books are ones in which it’s the characters who are haunted. In this bookby Daphne du Maurier, I’m not sure if the house is haunted by the specter of Rebecca, but I know the narrator certainly is.
I love how the author creates an atmosphere filled with dread as the new wife imagines her predecessor, tries to live up to her reputation, and finally learns who she really was.
* '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…
Since I began reading, two things have fascinated me the most, that is, history and mystery. My voracious appetite for mystery began with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. History has always been my best subject in school. To me, history isn’t about people, achievements, and dates. It’s about lives lived through the tragedies and triumphs that we all face and can relate to. It is the origin of stories. History doesn’t have to be boring. It can be the greatest and most intriguing story that you have ever read. Mystery is history’s great friend—to convert a huge range of readers into history lovers.
The small town of Asheville’s history is upheld by rituals, myths, and strange stone ruins. It beckons you to stay and be unsettled as you read of the gravedigger Abel Cunningham’s tragic story and how breaking one small rule sets off a series of unexplainable happenings that will keep you from sleep. Your heart will break, yet be comforted by Jones’s incredible prose and emotional depth.
Ashville is a town with a secret history. Ancient structures lie hidden in the woods, and strange rituals are performed to keep the dead where they belong. For gravedigger Abel Cunningham, it is also a town filled with regrets. And when Abel is tasked with an unusual burial, he discovers there are more than just corpses in the cemetery.
Set in an unsettling vision of the Old West, Almost Ruth is the new nightmare from the author of Criterium and The Dark Side of the Room.
“Tyler Jones writes with the lyrical complexity and haunting tenderness of masters like Matheson…
Since I began reading, two things have fascinated me the most, that is, history and mystery. My voracious appetite for mystery began with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. History has always been my best subject in school. To me, history isn’t about people, achievements, and dates. It’s about lives lived through the tragedies and triumphs that we all face and can relate to. It is the origin of stories. History doesn’t have to be boring. It can be the greatest and most intriguing story that you have ever read. Mystery is history’s great friend—to convert a huge range of readers into history lovers.
Jane Austen meets Agatha Christie in Julie Klassen’s Shadows of Swanford Abbey. Rebecca is bidden by her recluse brother to get his manuscript published by an author residing at the abbey. A mysterious death occurs for which Rebecca is a suspect. Even worse, the man she used to care for is the presiding magistrate. Klassen is always faithful in detailing Regency elements in every single area of her work from the clothing, jury procedures, customs, architecture, etc. The mystery was seamlessly woven into the history.
Agatha Christie meets Jane Austen in this atmospheric Regency tale brimming with mystery, intrigue, and romance.
When Miss Rebecca Lane returns to her home village after a few years away, her brother begs for a favor: go to nearby Swanford Abbey and deliver his manuscript to an author staying there who could help him get published. Feeling responsible for her brother's desperate state, she reluctantly agrees.
The medieval monastery turned grand hotel is rumored to be haunted. Once there, Rebecca begins noticing strange things, including a figure in a hooded black gown gliding silently through the abbey's cloisters. For all…
I am an Associate professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis who is primarily interested in crime, illicit leisure, masculinity, American cities, and imprisonment. I grew up both in New York City and Orlando, Florida, and I received a PhD from the University of Rochester. Most of the books I read have to do with understanding the American criminal justice system, criminality itself, and the part societies play in constructing crime. Currently I am researching and writing a book about African American men and the carceral state, tentatively entitledJim Crow Prison.
I first read Hick’s history of black women in New York’s criminal justice system while I was in graduate school, and I was fascinated by how she brought stories to life in a city I was so familiar with.
Along with Kali Gross’s Colored Amazons, which looks at black women in Philadelphia, it inspired me to imagine what a similar study on black men could look like.
Hicks masterful use of the New York State prison archives and her attention to the details in the lives of the women in her work makes this an essential book for anyone interested in race, gender, and the carceral state.
With this book, Cheryl Hicks brings to light the voices and viewpoints of black working-class women, especially southern migrants, who were the subjects of urban and penal reform in early-twentieth-century New York. Hicks compares the ideals of racial uplift and reform programs of middle-class white and black activists to the experiences and perspectives of those whom they sought to protect and, often, control. In need of support as they navigated the discriminatory labor and housing markets and contended with poverty, maternity, and domestic violence, black women instead found themselves subject to hostility from black leaders, urban reformers, and the police.…
I’ve always been a sucker for a good time travel novel. So when I started writing my Librarian Chronicles I quickly learned that there is just so much you can do with the theory of time. My characters have gone to many places and times and in order to perfect these locations and eras that required tons of research. For my first novel, The Librarian, I researched for nearly a year before I wrote the book. I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy my Librarian Chronicles and I look forward to writing more in the series. Each novel is unique and they can all be read in any order.
Yet another book I chose based on the cover. I dove into this book knowing that I would love the storyline since I adore all things time travel. Timeless is very descriptive and history based, which pulled me in right away. I will say I didn’t love our main character from the beginning, but as I got to know her I understood her quirks. In this book, we are tossed between the current time and 1910, my favorite era. Michele, our main character, is having dreams about a man with blue eyes and a skeleton key, which is all revealed later in the book. The writing is flawless and the romance is sweet, which puts this book more in the young adult category. I myself prefer YA books, and I do not apologize for it.
I ended up reading the series and really enjoyed the progression.
When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor’s world, she is forced to uproot her life and move across the country to New York City, to live with the wealthy, aristocratic grandparents she’s never met. In their old Fifth Avenue mansion filled with a century’s worth of family secrets, Michele discovers a diary that hurtles her back in time to the year 1910. There, in the midst of the glamorous Gilded Age, Michele meets the young man with striking blue eyes who has haunted her dreams all her life – a man she always wished was real, but never imagined could actually exist.…
I wasn’t a sporty teen, but I discovered rock climbing in my twenties and that later inspired my first novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go. I’m also a social worker, and even though my main character Cara is a competitive climber and the book features gripping (ha!) rock climbing scenes, the story is about much more – love and loss, finding home, the transformative power of nature. Sports and athleticism (or lack thereof) are something we can all relate to. What a great starting point for exploring our multi-faceted lives.
Welcome to the sweet romance of Isa, a dancer, and Alex, a baseball player, teenagers in New York with very different upbringings. Isa is a blonde, half-Cuban/half white, private school girl from a well-off family that’s falling apart behind the scenes. Alex is Dominican, attends public school, and divides his time between his divorced parents. He’s also a secret poet and leaves his poems for Isa to find on the subway train where they first met. Both have professional sports potential, but the reality is more complicated. The couple navigates challenges with their families and neighborhoods, including mental health and gangs, and you’ll be rooting for them the entire time. The author has a beautiful poem in the Rhyme and Rhythm anthology that I mentioned above.
Family and class differences threaten the love of two teens in this contemporary YA romance
When private school student Isabelle Warren first meets
Dominican-American Alex Rosario on the 1 train, she remembers his green
eyes and gentlemanly behavior. He remembers her long ballet dancer's
legs and untroubled happiness, something he feels belongs to all rich
kids. As the two grow closer in and out of the subway, Isabelle learns
of Alex's father, who is hell-bent on Alex being a contender for the
major leagues despite Alex's desire to go to college and become a poet.
Alex learns about Isabelle's Havana-born…
I was a reporter for the New York Daily News at the time of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and covered the FDNY in the aftermath of 9/11. Being on the site the day after the attack and following the recovery efforts, I came to know some of the FDNY family members who lost loved ones that day, as well as members of the department, as they struggled to rebuild. The family members’ stories stayed with me long after the attack. I always felt that the story of what happened to the FDNY members killed that day and the story of their family members who wanted answers had not been fully told.
The author is the former FDNY Commissioner during 9/11 who provides an honest account of his time in the FDNY, starting as a firefighter in the Bronx in the 1970s, rising to lead the firefighters union and then the department when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani picked him to be the FDNY Commissioner.
He pulls no punches and examines the challenges the department faced before and during 9/11, including his own role. I liked the book because it is an authentic account from somewhere who was there on 9/11 and who knows the FDNY inside and out.
New York City's thirtieth Fire Commissioner shares his personal experiences during and after the September 11 attacks, from his work beside Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, to his remembrance of lost colleagues and friends. 125,000 first printing.
History is my passion as well as my profession. I love a good story! Because understanding the past can be a powerful tool to improving the future, I have written dozens of op-eds and give public talks (some of which can be found in the C-SPAN online library as well as on YouTube). Most of my work focuses on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1877-1920) and includes two award-winning biographies, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer, and Belle La Follette Progressive Era Reformer. I’m also the co-editor of A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and author of Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History.
It’s easy to forget that many women, as well as men, actively opposed women’s suffrage. Susan Goodier details the anti-suffrage movement in New York State, but her analysis of its motives, victories, and ultimate defeat reveals much about the philosophies and implications of conservative movements nationwide. This is a fascinating study of the women who joined together in a political movement to keep women out of politics. A highlight is how these women fared after the vote was won.
No Votes for Women explores the complicated history of the suffrage movement in New York State by delving into the stories of women who opposed the expansion of voting rights to women. Susan Goodier finds that conservative women who fought against suffrage encouraged women to retain their distinctive feminine identities as protectors of their homes and families, a role they felt was threatened by the imposition of masculine political responsibilities. She details the victories and defeats on both sides of the movement from its start in the 1890s to its end in the 1930s, acknowledging the powerful activism of this…
I’ve become a bit of a Hamlet geek in my adult years, including having a framed poster in my house that features the entire text. The passion, for me, comes from the depth and complexity of the story. It sounds like hyperbole, but there really is always something new to discover. Some years ago, I taught Hamlet in a college writing class. That experience really allowed me to dive into the text and much of the attendant criticism. The academic approach opened up whole new worlds of opinions and perspectives for which I’m very grateful.
What I like most about this book is its richly painted characters. The Hamlet parallel serves only as a well-crafted backdrop, and there are virtually zero instances of “clever, matchy-matchy” with Shakespeare’s text. (I hate that. Can you tell?) This book actually is clever (no quotes) in addressing themes of life, mortality, and love.
This story goes beyond Hamlet to enlist the services of other recognizable characters like Macbeth’s three witches. All of this is done with impressive craft and style. I didn’t even mind that it is, at its core, a love story, mainly because love is portrayed as a cog in a wheel that features other themes and how they are all interconnected.
In this lush, magical, queer, and feminist take on Hamlet in modern-day New York City, a neuro-atypical physicist, along with his best friend Horatio and artist ex-fiancé, Lia, are caught up in the otherworldly events surrounding the death of his father.
Meet Ben Dane: brilliant, devastating, devoted, honest to a fault (truly, a fault). His Broadway theater baron father is dead—but on purpose or by accident? The question rips him apart.
Unable to face alone his mother's ghastly remarriage to his uncle, Ben turns to his dearest friend, Horatio Patel, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship changed forever from…
