18 books like Mary Reilly
Girl with a Pearl Earring
This book "centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier…
Shares: Women domestics, Women household employees
Lucy. Roman
The coming-of-age story of one of Jamaica Kincaid's most admired creations--available now in an e-book edition. Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to America to work as an au pair for a wealthy couple. She begins to notice cracks in their beautiful façade at the same time that the mysteries of own sexuality begin to unravel. Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new heroine …
Shares: Women domestics, Women household employees
A strange disappearance
Mr. Gryce leads his young police detective protégé to face his first nemesis. A young girl who is more than she appears has gone missing from a local household. Even for the rising young police detective, who was universally acknowledged by the force as the most astute man for mysterious and unprecedented cases, this mystery is complex - it seems everyone has something to hide, and the detectives…
Shares: Women domestics, Women household employees
Reef
Triton is a young chef who was forced to leave his father's house to work for Mr. Ranjan Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements, and a Sri Lankan island's disappearing reef. Almost immediately, thanks to his master's obsessions, Triton works hard to please him with his carefully prepared delicacies. But neither of them know that the political unrest threatening Sri Lanka…
Shares: Domestics, London
The elixir of life (Auriol)
Auriol: or, The Elixir of Life is a novel by British historical novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. It was first published in 1844 in serial form, under the title Revelations of London.
Auriol, written 1844, is slightly unusual in the Ainsworth repertoire as the action is entirely couched as a fantasy, so that the supernatural element (which occurs also, for instance, in his Guy Fawkes and his…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal
With the immortals
The FICTION & PROSE LITERATURE collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. The collection provides readers with a perspective of the world from some of the 18th and 19th century’s most talented writers. Written for a range of audiences, these works are a treasure for any curious reader looking to see the world through the eyes of ages past. Beyond the main body of…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal
The Remains of the Day
In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.
Shares: Domestics, England
A face at the window
After sending their only daughter off to boarding school, Cookson Selway and his wife, Ellen, travel to London to escape their empty, echoing house. But their quiet hotel has guests other than those on the register, and a vacation intended to distract them from the present instead becomes a chilling confrontation with the past.
Selway, an escapist with an alcoholic history and a gift for…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal, England
Tales of Men and Ghosts
Tales of Men and Ghosts is a collection of ten Edith Wharton short stories: "The Bolted Door," "His Father's Son," "The Daunt Diana," "The Debt," "Full Circle," "The Legend," "The Eyes," "The Blond Beast," "Afterward," and "The Letters."
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal
Moon over Soho
The second novel in Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series takes the police constable cum apprentice magician into Soho and the world of jazz, where somebody seems to feed of the musician's vibes, while a black magician is expanding his territority.
Shares: London, Supernatural, Paranormal
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
"By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes."William Shakespeare – Macbeth (Act IV, Scene 1)When visiting Tommy's Aunt Ada in her nursing home, Tuppence encounters some odd residents, Mrs Lancaster, being the strangest of them all. Her incessant reference to 'something behind the fireplace' and a 'poor child' seems at first the incoherent ramblings of an elderly woman, though…
Shares: English Domestic fiction, England
Death at the president's lodging
Inspector Appleby is called to St Anthony's College, where the President has been murdered in his Lodging. Scandal abounds when it becomes clear that the only people with any motive to murder him are the only people who had the opportunity - because the President's Lodging opens off Orchard Ground, which is locked at night, and only the Fellows of the College have keys.
Shares: London, England
The Eye of Osiris
Dr. John Thorndyke is a professor of medicine, but he is also a pathological sleuth with a taste for mysteries that would stop other detectives cold. The disappearance of a successful archaeologist. poses a disturbing riddle to Thorndyke: "When is a murder not a murder?' The answer hinges on the question of whether or not it is possible to fabricate a corpse out of whole cloth. And why would…
Shares: Physicians, London
The Forbidden Zone
The mound, a quiet town gathering spot ... until now. Now something undeniably evil is hiding beneath it. A powerful darkness, terror with unfathomable needs and desires, spreading its roots in secret, transforming all that the good townfolk love and cherish: their past, their hopes, their souls.Courageous physicist Brian Kelley and his beautiful, very pregnant wife, must confront the horror.…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal
The Room In The Dragon Volant
The Room in the Dragon Volant is somewhat unusual for le Fanu, since it’s not really a supernatural tale. It does however have plenty of gothic elements and some genuine horror, and it’s an ingenious and entertaining tale.
Shares: Paranormal
Cameos
The FICTION & PROSE LITERATURE collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. The collection provides readers with a perspective of the world from some of the 18th and 19th century’s most talented writers. Written for a range of audiences, these works are a treasure for any curious reader looking to see the world through the eyes of ages past. Beyond the main body of…
Shares: Paranormal
Devour
A spellbinding debut, paranormal thriller A Werewolf... A vampire... And the woman who wants them both. The dashing Pierre du Montfort is a werewolf who's never had trouble hiding his cursed heritage. But now with his dark secret about to be unleashed, he's willing to do anything-and savage anyone-in order to stay alive... Beautiful and intrepid werewolf hunter Catherine Marais has no qualms…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal
The Book of Accidents
Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.
Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.
Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and…
Shares: Supernatural, Paranormal