Books like 'Flames'
Readers who enjoyed Flames by Robbie Arnott also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary fantasy horror supernatural magical-realism literary-fiction outdoors animals gothic lgbtq
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Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson
16 ratingsFollowing the Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted Son of a Trickster comes Trickster Drift, the second book in Eden Robinson's captivating Trickster trilogy.In an effort to keep all forms of magic at bay, Jared, 17, has quit drugs and drinking. But his troubles are not over: now he's being stalked by David, his mom's ex--a preppy, khaki-wearing psycho with a proclivity for rib-breaking... -
The Buying of Lot 37 by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
8 ratingsFrom the authors of the New York Times bestselling novels It Devours! and Welcome to Night Vale and the creators of the #1 international podcast of the same name, comes a collection of episodes from Season Three of their hit podcast, featuring an introduction by the authors, a foreword by Dessa, behind-the-scenes commentary, and original illustrations...Categorized as:
lgbtq literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal action-adventure adult book -
When the Crow's Away by Auralee Wallace
10 ratingsThe ghost of a recently deceased chocolatier believes he was murdered, and it's up to young witch Brynn Warren to use her magical gifts and old-fashioned sleuthing skills to find out how he really met his bitter end in this enchanting new Evenfall Witches B&B Mystery... -
The Girl Who Could Not Dream by Sarah Beth Durst
14 ratingsSophie loves the hidden shop below her parents' bookstore, where dreams are secretly bought and sold. When the dream shop is robbed and her parents go missing, Sophie must unravel the truth to save them. Together with her best friend—a wisecracking and fanatically loyal monster named Monster—she must decide whom to trust with her family’s carefully guarded secrets...Categorized as:
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Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu
6 ratingsFrom the award-winning author of The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy comes an unforgettable and deeply personal story of the ghosts that surround us—and the ones we carry inside. The house seemed to sit apart from the others on Katydid Street, silent and alone, like it didn’t fit among them... -
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell
8 ratingsWhen her siblings start to go missing, a girl must confront the dark thing that lives in the forest—and the growing darkness in herself—in this debut YA contemporary fantasy for fans of Wilder Girls.Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest... -
Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell
8 ratingsAuthor’s Note: At the World Fantasy Convention in 2018, I went to dinner with some lovely people who let me babble about Horror. I read, watch, and play Horror every week, but I barely ever write it. Instead I tend to put Horror-y things back out as humorous stories or heartwarming stories... -
The Anatomy of Curiosity by Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton
10 ratingsThe follow-up to the acclaimed title The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories by Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff.In an unassuming corner of Brooklyn, a young woman learns to be ladylike, to love context, and to speak her mind from a very curious sort of tutor...Categorized as:
family lgbtq magical-realism paranormal anthologies coming-of-age contemporary fiction -
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
10 ratingsCursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal 21st-century adult anthologies contemporary -
Chapel of Ease by Alex Bledsoe
10 ratingsThe latest installment in Alex Bledsoe's critically-acclaimed Tufa series that Kirkus Reviews calls "powerful, character-driven drama...a sheer delight." (starred review)When Matt Johanssen, a young New York actor, auditions for "Chapel of Ease," an off-Broadway musical, he is instantly charmed by Ray Parrish, the show's writer and composer... -
Shadow Mirror by Richie Tankersley Cusick
10 ratingsUnsettling. There's no better word to describe Miranda Barnes's ability to hear the cries of the dead, feel the wind move her hair when they run by, and - dare she look into a mirror - see the reflection of a ghostly woman behind her. There's only one person to turn to for support: Etienne. As sexy as he is mysterious, Miranda can't help but be drawn to him. He believes her; he wants to help her... -
American Gothic Tales by Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Brockden Brown
12 ratingsJoyce Carol Oates has a special perspective on the “gothic” in American short fiction, at least partially because her own horror yarns rank on the spine-tingling chart with the masters. She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King... -
Peace by Gene Wolfe
14 ratingsMesmerizing sci-fi from the author the Denver Post calls "one of the literary giants of science fiction." The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living in a small midwestern town, reveals a miraculous dimension. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
14 ratingsJennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive... -
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Lanny by Max Porter
26 ratingsThere’s a village sixty miles outside London. It’s no different from many other villages in England: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, council cottages and a few bigger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might do anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs...Categorized as:
family gothic literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism outdoors paranormal 21st-century -
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
25 ratingsImagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not...Categorized as:
animals family lgbtq low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal action-adventure alternate-history -
A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw
26 ratingsTravis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend... -
Stockings and Spells by Nancy Warren
17 ratingsA Holiday Market With crafts, toys, hot chocolate And a killer!The Vampire Knitting Club decide to take part in Oxford’s Holiday Market, selling exquisite hand knit scarves, sweaters and gift items. Their most popular item is the hand knit Christmas stocking, brightly colored and extra long to squeeze in a few extra small gifts... -
Spirits in the Wires by Charles de Lint
16 ratingsAt a popular Newford online research and library Web site called the Wordwood, a mysterious crash occurs. Everyone visiting the site at the moment of the crash vanishes from where they were sitting in front of their computers. Christy Ridding's girlfriend Saskia disappears right before his eyes, along with countless others...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal adult book contemporary cyberpunk dark-fantasy -
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
14 ratingsIn this gripping debut tinged with supernatural horror, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics... -
The Threads of the Heart by Carole Martinez
12 ratingsThey say Frasquita knows magic, that she is a healer with occult powers, that perhaps she is a sorcerer. She does indeed possess a remarkable gift, one that has been passed down to the women in her family for generations...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 21st-century adult book contemporary -
The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy
10 ratingsFrom the author of Girl One comes a spellbinding adventure about a strange power lurking in the Arkansas Ozarks, and the group of friends obsessed with finding it.Five friends arrive back in Eternal Springs, Arkansas, the small town they all fled after high school graduation. Each is drawn home by a cryptic, scrawled two-word letter that reads, You promised... -
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
8 ratingsIn the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare...Categorized as:
literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford
8 ratingsEmily Dickinson takes a carriage ride with Death. A couple are invited over to a neighbor's daughter's exorcism. A country witch with a sea-captain's head in a glass globe intercedes on behalf of abused and abandoned children. In July of 1915, in Hardin County, Ohio, a boy sees ghosts. Explore contemporary natural history in a baker's dozen of exhilarating visions...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal adult anthologies contemporary fiction ghosts -
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Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins
8 ratingsYoung Australian cellist Maisie Fielding is bored with her career and her overpowering, manipulative musical family. Faking a wrist injury, she takes time off to return to England, her mother's home country, to search for her own roots and to find out more about her grandmother, a 'white witch' who settled in a bleak village on the North Yorkshire coast... -
The Secret of Cypriere Bayou by Jana Deleon
8 ratingsA MANSION OF HORRORS DEEP IN THE LOUISIANA BAYOUS...For Olivia Markham, laMalediction is the ideal setting in which to complete her work. But something is sending a chill up the usually fearless author's spine. There are the unearthly noises, the sliding panels, the hidden passageways...and John Landry, the sexy caretaker who seems less than welcoming... -
Spirit's Key by Edith Cohn
8 ratingsSpirit's Key is a mystery with a bit of magic for fans of Savvy and Because of Winn Dixie.By now, twelve-year-old Spirit Holden should have inherited the family gift: the ability to see the future. But when she holds a house key in her hand like her dad does to read its owner's destiny, she can’t see anything...Categorized as:
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American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now by Peter Straub, John Collier
6 ratingsLike its companion volume, this Library of America hardcover contains 750 pages of classic tales of horror, hauntings, terrifying obsessions, and unearthly presences...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal adult anthologies classics contemporary -
Verdigris by Michele Mari
6 ratingsAt the tail end of the 1960s, the thirteen-year-old Michelino spends his summers at his grandparents’ modest estate in Nasca, near Lake Maggiore, losing himself in the tales of horror, adventure, and mystery shelved in his grandfather’s library... -
Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson
18 ratingsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" comes an enchanting collection of stories for the holiday season.For years Jeanette Winterson has loved writing a new story at Christmas time and here she brings together twelve of her brilliantly imaginative, funny and bold tales...Categorized as:
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A Phoenix First Must Burn by Patrice Caldwell, Elizabeth Acevedo
16 ratingsSixteen tales by bestselling and award-winning authors that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic.Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs, have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that centers Black women and gender nonconforming individuals...Categorized as:
family lgbtq low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal afrofuturism anthologies audiobook -
From The Teeth Of Angels by Jonathan Carroll
12 ratingsFour strangers’ lives are turned upside down when death comes for a visitAt first it seems like an ordinary dream. Talkative Englishman Ian McGann meets a long-dead acquaintance and asks him questions about the afterlife. But when he awakes, a thick pink scar stretches across his chest...Categorized as:
gothic literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century book contemporary death -
A Child Across the Sky by Jonathan Carroll
12 ratingsLibrarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 071263441X / 9780712634410.Just as the the word "weird" has many implications and shades of meaning, so too does the latest--weird--work by this gifted and perplexing writer. As Carroll ( Bones of the Moon ; Sleeping in Flame ) himself says, "Life has a habit of turning dark corners...Categorized as:
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Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand
10 ratingsWidely praised and widely read, Elizabeth Hand is regarded as one of America's leading literary fantasists. This new collection (an expansion of the limited-release Bibliomancy, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2005) showcases a wildly inventive author at the height of her powers... -
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The Tricksters by Margaret Mahy
10 ratingsWhile gathered together for the Christmas holiday, a large New Zealand family and their various guests find their lives suddenly invaded by three fascinating, but sinister brothers... -
The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken, Lizza Aiken
9 ratingsHere is the whisper in the night, the dog whose loyalty outlasted death, the creak upstairs, the half-remembered ghost story that won't let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you'd checked the lock on the door before dark fell. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate... -
The Hike by Drew Magary
24 ratingsFrom the author of The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tale and video game into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike... -
The Panic Hand: Stories by Jonathan Carroll
8 ratingsCompared frequently to Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carroll is, in the worlds of Pat Conroy, an absolute original. The Panic Hand assembles in one volume the shorter works of this master, including the World Fantasy Award-winning tale Friend's Best Man and the short novels Uh-Oh and Black Cocktail... -
The Woman Who Married a Cloud by Jonathan Carroll
8 ratingsThirty-eight extraordinary stories from award-winning author Jonathan CarrollFor more than thirty years, Jonathan Carroll’s writing has defied genre conventions. Known for his novels—including The Land of Laughs, Bones of the Moon, Sleeping in Flame,and many other compelling and often surreal stories—Carroll has also created an eloquent body of short fiction...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magical-realism adult anthologies contemporary fiction horror supernatural -
The Gravedigger by Peter Grandbois
6 ratingsIn a small, whitewashed village, indistinguishable from any other in Andalusia, Juan Rodrigo is a gravedigger. The job was handed down to him by his father, as was the ability to hear the voices of the dead and to tell their stories to the living...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal book coming-of-age contemporary -
The Gone Away Place by Christopher Barzak
6 ratingsFrom Stonewall Honor author Christopher Barzak comes a haunting novel of love and loss, in which a series of tornadoes rips through a small midwest town, forever altering the lives of those who live there.Ellie heads up her high school yearbook, and until the tornadoes come, her biggest worry is how to raise enough money to print them... -
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
18 ratingsTwo mothers—a suburban housewife and a battle-hardened veteran—struggle to protect those they love in this modern retelling of Beowulf. From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings—high and gabled—and the community is entirely self-sustaining...Categorized as:
family lgbtq literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal adult audiobook -
The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand
27 ratingsOn Christmas Eve five years ago, Holly was visited by three ghosts who showed her how selfish and spoiled she'd become. They tried to convince her to mend her ways.She didn't.And then she died.Now she's stuck working for the top-secret company Project Scrooge--as the latest Ghost of Christmas Past.Every year, they save another miserly grouch... -
The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
14 ratingsNatasha’s sister is missing.Her car was found abandoned on the edge of a local nature preserve known as the Bend, but as the case goes cold, Natasha’s loss turns to burning anger.She’ll do anything to find answers.Della’s family has channeled magic from the Bend for generations, providing spells for the desperate... -
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Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
14 ratingsCullen James is a young woman whose life dictates her dreams-and whose dreams control her life.In her first dream, she found the perfect man-and the same thing promptly happened in life. Now, she has begun to dream dreams set in Rondua, a fantasy world of high adventure, full of tests of her courage and strength...Categorized as:
literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism action-adventure adult book contemporary dark -
Expiration Date by Tim Powers
14 ratingsLos Angeles is filled with ghosts -- and half-ghosts, and ghost hunters, and ghost junkies -- chasing each other in a mad quest for immortality. As a series of disasters strikes Los Angeles, a young boy inhales the last breath of Thomas Edison, and becomes a precious prize in a deadly hunt for the elusive vital spark... -
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by John Hornor Jacobs
14 ratingsThe award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales--both never-before-published in print--that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition...Categorized as:
gothic lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal adult anthologies audiobook -
Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan
14 ratings'Gripping . . . You won't put it down' Sunday TelegraphA shocking collection of dark stories, ranging from chilling contemporary fairytales to disturbing supernatural fiction.Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool...Categorized as:
gothic lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal adult anthologies contemporary -
Up Jumps the Devil by Michael Poore
14 ratings“The sustained comedy in this hilarious novel is equaled only by its heart, and the myriad ways there are for it to break. I love this book. Michael Poore writes like an angel...Categorized as:
literary-fiction low-fantasy magical-realism paranormal adult book comedy contemporary -
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
24 ratingsA dying billionaire sends one woman and a cast of dreamers and rivals on a citywide treasure hunt in this irresistible novel by the author of Bellweather Rhapsody.Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs...Categorized as:
family gothic lgbtq literary-fiction magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook
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