84 books like To the Devil, a Daughter

If ever there was a perfect ghost story, this is it. Gothic with atmospheric language and vivid scenes that still haunt me. I suppose this could have been written by Jane Austen because of its nightmarish ghostliness on the English moors. So masterfully done—the wreaths of moving fog and haunted cries.

I love the unknown fear of it all. Susan Hill is highly skilled in making ghosts present on the page: the eerie sound of the rocking chair in the old nursery is a spine-tingler, albeit a cliché. Written in a sublime fashion, it fits the “quiet horror” genre. Quiet horror is so savory to me because it digs into the imagination with shadowy phantoms without slamming the reader viscerally. I love that kind of artful creation.

In Midwinter of the Spirit, Rickman’s excellent prose superbly evokes Herefordshire settings as a backdrop to his protagonist’s, (parish priest, rooky exorcist, and single mum Merrily Watkins), foray into a twilight world. Merrily’s character is painted by Rickman as vulnerable but driven, qualities that eventually lead her into mortal danger, with evil pursuing her in the most personal way through her daughter, and also manifesting itself at the heart of the religious establishment that should be her ultimate protector. Midwinter of the Spirit was subsequently made into an excellent TV serial, and the cathedral scenes were coincidentally filmed at Chester Cathedral, which features in my novel (and is where I was standing when the mug shot shown on this page was taken!). 

I enjoyed learning about religion from Dan Brown. I am not a religious person, so presenting so much research in a tightly bound thriller was an excellent way to keep me engaged and reading.

I came away from this book with a deeper psychological understanding of God and the devil.

No writer evokes atmosphere better than Daphne Du Maurier, and this collection of five short stories demonstrates her gifts superbly. Best known of these short stories is "Don’t Look Now," a tale of bereavement and despair with a wicked twist at the end, set in Venice and subsequently made into a superb horror movie. But the other stories within this anthology also immerse the reader in their settings, with each delivering an unexpected twist. 

First of all, I love that the book takes place primarily in Nice, France! The attention to setting is something I really enjoyed, especially as it becomes integral to the plot. Retiree Noah is on a mission, but the progression of Michael from extra baggage to helpful sidekick was fun to read through, all the while enjoying their relationship develop. This relationship between two relatives yet strangers set against the secrets of Nice makes for a nice read.

I read Eric Amber when I was young, and again when I was invited to take part in Andrew Marr’s BBC4 documentary Sleuths, Spies and Sorcerers.

Ambler’s books have no heroes or jingoism. He revolutionized spy fiction by injecting realism. He portrays the chaos of Europe in the 1930s, with people trying to survive without papers. In Epitaph for a Spy, Josef Vadassy, a Hungarian refugee, has become stateless after the Treaty of Trianon. In France, he is arrested for spying because of a mix-up with camera film. He is told to find the real spy or be deported, which could mean death. He is left with no choice but to become a spy.

Ambler said that he wanted to write “credible and literate spy fiction.” He amply succeeded in this.

This lovely book dispels the myth that, after Albert’s death, Queen Victoria spent forty years in Windsor Castle in perpetual mourning, as it describes her delight in her many holidays on the Cote D’Azur. The book introduces the Queen’s companions, John Brown and the Munshi, alongside many other well-known characters of the era, including the infamous Leopold II of the Belgians. "Oh, if only I were at Nice, I should recover!" she said during her final illness, and it is unsurprising that, at the time of her death, her aides were forced to cancel the plans she had made for her next visit to her beloved Riviera.  

There have been so many biographies of Coco Chanel, good and bad, that it must be hard to find anything new (or nice) to say about her. This capsule history offers fresh insights into her lifestyle, inspirations, and obsessions. At La Pausa—her entirely beige bolt-hole on the French Riviera—Chanel waited out World War II alongside the likes of Colette, Igor Stravinsky, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley, Jean Cocteau, Wallis Simpson, and Somerset Maugham, who famously called the Riviera “a sunny place for shady people.” That reputation is certainly borne out by de Courcy’s book, which paints Chanel and her circle as being blissfully, willfully ignorant of the stealth war between the Nazis and the French Resistance raging around them.

In my opinion this is one of the great novels about adolescence. What makes it so special is that it is deliciously French and amoral. The story of a French teenage girl, Cecile, and her father. They are a team. You might almost call them a couple. Cecile accompanies her father everywhere including to casinos and bars. She accepts his mistresses. Matters take a more macabre turn when her father invites one of his ladies to holiday with them in the south of France and Cecile learns that he intends to marry this particular woman. Françoise Sagan was eighteen when she wrote this, her first novel. Within months of its publication she became an overnight sensation. The writing is sexy and chic. Sagan perfectly describes the French Riviera in the mid-fifties and a woman’s role in society back then. It was an instant classic and deserves its place in the… show more.

Fitzgerald’s mastery of the English language is beautiful to behold. This book is one of the most eloquent expositions of the control of his prose while at the same time confronting his greatest weakness in life: an inability to find happiness and true love that loves him back. Set on the French Riviera, Tender is the Night is honest and painful. It’s an insight into Fitzgerald’s melancholy world of excess.

This is both fantastic to be a part of and tragic. The tragedy and the beauty are juxtaposed in the most fantastic way–this makes this book one of my favorite romances. I read this book for pure enjoyment. Each sentence makes me smile with its beauty and its profundity.