Books like 'In a Shallow Grave'
Readers who enjoyed In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical dark romance 20th century horror
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The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read .Renowned hip-hop artist, writer, and activist Sister Souljah brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel.I came busting into the world during one of New York's worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter... -
![Wolves vs. Hearts by Anna Green]()
Wolves vs. Hearts by Anna Green
The second volume of The Heart Rate of a Mouse trilogy.A new band, a new city, and new lover - Ryan dusts himself off and starts again, but the god-like status that his former band's tragic end has given him isn't as easy to shake off. As he should be focusing on making a comeback with his new band, he runs into the one person he hasn't been able to forget... -
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![The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath]()
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 118 ratingsIn The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s hauntingly beautiful semi-autobiographical novel, readers are invited into the mind of Esther Greenwood, a young woman whose dreams of literary success unravel into a descent into mental illness... -
![The Empty Hearth by Kitty Neale]()
The Empty Hearth by Kitty Neale
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsDad loves Mum - loves her to the point of obsession. He's jealous when she shows us any affection.' Set in Battersea in the Fifties and Sixties, the Pratchett family have to contend with coalman Alfie Pratchett's obsessive jealousy. Although Alfie is a bully, his two teenage children, John and Millie, have learned to dodge him and his moods... -
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![The Bell in the Fog by Lev A.C. Rosen]()
The Bell in the Fog by Lev A.C. Rosen
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThe Bell in the Fog, a dazzling historical mystery by Lev AC Rosen, asks—once you have finally found a family, how far would you go to prove yourself to them?San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off... -
![Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith]()
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, this stellar debut from British author Smith offers appealing characters, a strong plot and authentic period detail... -
![Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer]()
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war... -
![My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier]()
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel is a psychological thriller by Daphne du Maurier that centers on the thin line separating love from suspicion. The narrator in the novel is Philip Ashley, a young man who has grown up under the guardianship of Ambrose on the family estate in Cornwall... -
![The Last Innocent Hour by Margot Abbott]()
The Last Innocent Hour by Margot Abbott
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsIt is 1946 and Berlin is a ruined city, the Nazis vanquished, but memories of the city in 1934 haunt Sally as she returns to investigate war crimes as an army intelligence officer. Her father was the American ambassador to the new Third Reich and Sally was too naïve to understand the corruption and depravity underneath the shiny surface of banners and marching men... -
![Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes]()
Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsKenneth Strang sets out for Sicily and Greece on a seemingly innocent, though fascinating, magazine assignment. But even before his ship sails from New York, the atmosphere becomes charged with sinister omens. In the course of the voyage one mysterious event follows another... -
![The Laughing Cavalier (The Scarlet Pimpernel (chronological order) #0.4) by Emmuska Orczy]()
The Laughing Cavalier (The Scarlet Pimpernel (chronological order) #0.4) by Emmuska Orczy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsThis 1913 adventure tale, The Laughing Cavalier, centres on Percy Blakeney, a foreign adventurer and the progenitor of Baroness Orczy's well-known figure, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Frans Hals' artwork The Laughing Cavalier served as the model for a section of the story, which takes place in Holland between 1623 and 1624... -
![Wicked Weapon by Cari Silverwood]()
Wicked Weapon by Cari Silverwood
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsThis book is part of a dark kinky fiction trilogy and may disturb some readers. The full warning is at the bottom. This is not a standalone read.Zorie is lost, again.Friends can become enemies and enemies can become friends.What is a man who declares himself your knight in cracked and bloody armor, when he seems to be leading you to your doom?Mavros, once known as Mister Black, has vanished... -
![The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett]()
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsSam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby... -
![Some Do Not... by Ford Madox Ford]()
Some Do Not... by Ford Madox Ford
Rated: 3.82 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsChristopher Tietjens, a brilliant, unconventional mathematician, is married to the dazzling yet unfaithful Sylvia, when, during a turbulent weekend, he meets a young Suffragette by the name of Valentine Wannop. Christopher and Valentine are on the verge of becoming lovers until he must return to his World War I regiment... -
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![Barren Ground by Ellen Glasgow]()
Barren Ground by Ellen Glasgow
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEllen Anderson Gholson Glasgow's novel, Barren Ground, explores the complexities of love, marriage, and societal expectations in the post-Civil War South. Glasgow's writing style expertly conveys the emotional turmoil of her characters while also providing a vivid portrait of the setting and time period... -
![The Ballroom by Anna Hope]()
The Ballroom by Anna Hope
Rated: 3.76 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFrom the internationally acclaimed author of Wake comes a haunting story of love, insanity, and revolution set at the brink of the Great War.Yorkshire, England, 1911: After a moment of defiance at the factory where she has worked since she was a child, Ella Fay finds herself an unwilling patient at the Sharston Asylum... -
![Walking on Glass by Iain Banks]()
Walking on Glass by Iain Banks
Rated: 3.70 of 5 stars · 29 ratings'Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life.' Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery... -
![Dragonwyck by Anya Seton]()
Dragonwyck by Anya Seton
Rated: 3.68 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsA novel of seduction, mystery, and danger set in New York’s Hudson Valley in the nineteenth century, by the author of Foxfire. There was, on the Hudson, a way of life such as this, and there was a house not unlike Dragonwyck . . . In the spring of 1844, the Wells family receives a letter from a distant relative, the wealthy landowner Nicholas Van Ryn... -
![In the Shadow of Lakecrest by Elizabeth Blackwell]()
In the Shadow of Lakecrest by Elizabeth Blackwell
Rated: 3.63 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe year is 1928. Kate Moore is looking for a way out of the poverty and violence of her childhood. When a chance encounter on a transatlantic ocean liner brings her face-to-face with the handsome heir to a Chicago fortune, she thinks she may have found her escape—as long as she can keep her past concealed... -
![An Indecent Obsession by Colleen McCullough]()
An Indecent Obsession by Colleen McCullough
Rated: 3.60 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsDutiful and disciplined Sister Honour Langtry has sole charge of Ward X of a military hospital in the Pacific, caring for soldiers who are battle fatigued. The arrival of Sergeant Michael Wilson transforms the ward into a pressure cooker of emotion as Sister Honour is torn between duty and love... -
![Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller]()
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Rated: 3.65 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsNow hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer , Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934... -
![The Villa by Rachel Hawkins]()
The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsFrom New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set at an Italian villa with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives... -
![Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair by Elizabeth McNeill]()
Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair by Elizabeth McNeill
The classic erotic memoir of an intense and haunting relationship that spawned the film.This is a love story so unusual, so passionate, and so extreme in its psychology and sexuality that it takes the reader’s breath away. Unlike The Story of O, Nine and a Half Weeks is not a novel or fantasy; it is a true account of an episode in the life of a real woman... -
![Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo]()
Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo
Rated: 3.09 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsAn NPR Best Book of 2014A Time Top Ten Fiction Book of 2014A New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceA BBC Top Ten Book of 2014"Exquisite...As inspiring in its way as Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids ." — Los Angeles Times “Briskly addictive . . . Told in the voice of a female rock Ulysses.” — O, the Oprah Magazine “Marvelous . . -
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![A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe]()
A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe
In A Sicilian Romance (1790) Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics. This early novel explores the cavernous landscapes and labyrinthinepassages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its all-powerful aristocracy... -
![The Women by Kristin Hannah]()
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Rated: 4.55 of 5 stars · 88 ratingsFrom the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation... -
![The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow]()
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow
The Saint of War spares the life of a servant girl so she can fulfill her destiny as the kingdom’s greatest warrior in this short story of love and loyalty by New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow.Always mindful of the debt she owes, the girl finds her worth as a weapon in the hand of the Prince. Her victories make him a king, then an emperor... -
![Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys]()
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 83 ratingsWhile the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army... -
![Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys]()
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 88 ratingsLina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known... -
![The Unknown Beloved by Amy Harmon]()
The Unknown Beloved by Amy Harmon
From the bestselling author of Where the Lost Wander and What the Wind Knows comes the evocative story of two people whose paths collide against the backdrop of mystery, murder, and the Great Depression.Chicago, 1923: Ten-year-old Dani Flanagan returns home to find police swarming the house, her parents dead...Categorized as:
20th century mystery historical age difference heroine sleuth cold hero paranormal contemporary
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