Here are 100 books that Here in the Dark fans have personally recommended if you like
Here in the Dark.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Some places hold our memories with a grip that never lets go. These five books explore the weight of inheritance—of land, trauma, and stories passed down in whispers and sighs. With lyrical prose and unflinching emotional honesty, each illuminates what it means to belong to a place that both nurtures and devours.
Joy’s work is always deeply ethical, asking not only what his characters will do, but what they should do—and what it costs them to try.
In this novel, a hunting accident spirals into violence, loyalty, and impossible decisions in the North Carolina mountains. It’s a taut, morally complex thriller with the soul of a Greek tragedy, written in prose that sings.
An accidental death, and the cover-up that follows, sparks a dark series of events that reverberates through the lives of four people who will never be the same again.
When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck, a kill that could make the difference between meat for the winter and an empty freezer, he never expected he'd accidentally shoot a man digging ginseng. Worse yet, he's killed a Brewer, a family notorious for vengeance and violence.
With nowhere to turn, Darl calls on the help of the only man he knows will answer, his best friend, Calvin Hooper. But…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Some places hold our memories with a grip that never lets go. These five books explore the weight of inheritance—of land, trauma, and stories passed down in whispers and sighs. With lyrical prose and unflinching emotional honesty, each illuminates what it means to belong to a place that both nurtures and devours.
This collection is a strange, shimmering marvel that’s equal parts Southern fable, psychological horror, and queer coming-of-age tale. Set in a version of the South where grief tangles with the supernatural, this collection evokes the primal fears of childhood while excavating the raw ache of family, both found and blood-bound.
LaJoie’s prose is elliptical and haunted, perfect for readers who like their fiction thick with atmosphere and emotional depth.
A collection of fiction and graphic ephemera, Little Ones plays in a space of shadows and in-betweens.
Informed by Appalachian experience and traditions of Southern storytelling, these award-winning stories are populated by the world's dispossessed, disturbed, and disregarded: the quiet interior life of a passed-over laborer, the bedtime story a goose tells a snake about a boy named Grey, moments of a road-killed raccoon's afterlife, advice to the children of a future apocalypse.
These mischievous polyvocal tales are an exercise in audacity, in embracing the bizarre and carnivalesque within us. Grey Wolfe LaJoie employs uncanny wit and deep empathy to…
Some places hold our memories with a grip that never lets go. These five books explore the weight of inheritance—of land, trauma, and stories passed down in whispers and sighs. With lyrical prose and unflinching emotional honesty, each illuminates what it means to belong to a place that both nurtures and devours.
Split between the faded bars and backrooms of working-class Polish American communities in Wisconsin and Louisiana, Bukoski’s stories hum with quiet desperation and tender regret. His characters are marked by longing, loss, and the quiet heroism of staying put.
This is a love letter to the forgotten corners of America and to the stories we carry with us like sacred burdens.
The Thief of Words is filled with desperate runaways, the unhappily married, and the displaced. They often long for happiness but struggle to explain-even to themselves-what that would entail.
The lightly interconnected stories in this riveting collection are split between the Polish American communities of northern Wisconsin and Louisiana, where refugees from World War II were resettled under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. The collection explores themes of dislocation and assimilation, love and loneliness, and generational conflict. Anthony Bukoski admirably paints portraits of people doing their best, despite the odds and their sometimes-thwarted attempts to follow the urgings of…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Some places hold our memories with a grip that never lets go. These five books explore the weight of inheritance—of land, trauma, and stories passed down in whispers and sighs. With lyrical prose and unflinching emotional honesty, each illuminates what it means to belong to a place that both nurtures and devours.
If a peach orchard could tell its own story, it might sound like this book: lush, layered, and rooted in both beauty and rot. This book follows generations of a family in a small Alabama town as they grapple with change, betrayal, and the land that shaped them.
Johnson’s voice is bold and mythic, blending folklore with family drama in a way that feels timeless.
"I can't remember the last time I read a book I wish so much I'd written. Treeborne is beautiful, and mythic in ways I would never have been able to imagine...I can't say enough about this book."―Daniel Wallace, national bestselling author of Extraordinary Adventures and Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions
An Honorable Mention for the Southern Book Prize
One of Southern Living's "Best New Books Coming Out Summer 2018" and one of Library Journal's "Books to Get Now"
Janie Treeborne lives on an orchard at the edge of Elberta, Alabama, and in time, she has become its keeper.…
When you write a book, it’s natural to put yourself in it. You’re the avenger, the rookie agent, the hard-drinking detective. But how many of us volunteer to be the corpse? I sit here every day in the cancer unit at a public Thai hospital and smile at folks who won’t be around much longer. I wrote fifteen books in a series about a coroner. I painted the victims colorfully when they were still alive but how much respect did I show them once they were chunks of slowly decaying meat? From now on my treatment of the souls that smile back at me will take on a new life.
I’m cheating here a bit. I know Kathy and I like her a lot. Unlike me, she is a genius. I don’t need to tell any of her readers that. She is a well-respected forensic anthropologist who goes out of her way to uncover the secrets that the remains conceal. She writes about bones with the same affection we usually reserve for loved ones. I would be delighted to have her run her massive intellect over my skeleton when I’m gone.
___________________________________ A gripping Temperance Brennan novel from world-class forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, the international no. 1 bestselling crime thriller writer and the inspiration behind the hit TV series Bones.
Three skeletons are found in a Montreal basement.
The building is old, and the homicide detective in charge dismisses the remains as historic. Not his case. Not his concern.
Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan is not so sure. Something about the bones of these three young women suggests a different message: murder.
Soon she finds herself drawn ever deeper into a web of evil from which there may be no escape.…
Jennifer Bean Bower is an award-winning writer and native Tar Heel. A passionate student of North Carolina history, Bower seeks to document the lesser-known people, places, and events of her state's past. She is the author of four books: North Carolina Aviatrix Viola Gentry: The Flying Cashier; Animal Adventures in North Carolina; Winston & Salem: Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem; andMoravians in North Carolina.
Nancy Roberts, also known as the “First Lady of American Folklore,” inspired many children—including me—to read. North Carolina Ghosts & Legends recounts stories of “true” ghostly encounters and has sent many readers on ghost hunts of their own. I became fascinated with Roberts’ story of the Little Red Man—a ghost who is said to haunt a historic site in Winston-Salem—and while visiting the site (on a second-grade field trip), I interrupted a tour guide to inquire about his whereabouts. My classmates erupted in giggles and I was reprimanded for the disruption. Nevertheless, many years later, I had the pleasure of working at that historic site; but, I never had the pleasure of meeting the infamous ghost.
Nancy Roberts's Southern Ghost Lore Revival--Exhumed and Improved for Fearless Reader.
Nancy Roberts has often been described to as the "First Lady of American Folklore" and the Title is well deserved. Throughout her decades-long career, Roberts documented supernatural experiences and interviewed hundreds of people about their recollections of encounters with the supernatural.
This nationally renowned writer began her undertaking in this ghostly realm as a freelance writer for the Charlotte Observer. Encouraged by Carl Sandburg, who enjoyed her stories and articles, Roberts wrote her first book in 1958. Aptly called a "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living magazine,…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’ve practiced criminal law in Appalachian Kentucky as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor—not at the same time—for twenty five years. I can tell what’s genuine from what’s contrived in no time flat. Sometimes I can suspend my disbelief, but usually I can’t, so I lean toward books that get the details and intricacies right. If you’re looking for some modern Appalachian crime tales told by people who know how to a tell a story and know how to get the details of the place right, this list is for you.
David Joy writes contemporary crime in Appalachia with beauty, ferocity, and wit few can match. This was my first David Joy book and his first novel, but I’ve read everything he’s written since.
I love his books because of his focus on the intricacies of character and place in contemporary Appalachia that people outside the region don’t usually get to see. On top of that, his stuff is always suspenseful as all hell and full of tension. This one is a barn burner.
A Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel
“Remarkable . . . This isn’t your ordinary coming-of-age novel, but with his bone-cutting insights into these men and the region that bred them, Joy makes it an extraordinarily intimate experience.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Lyrical, propulsive, dark and compelling. Joy knows well the grit and gravel of his world, the soul and blemishes of the place."--Daniel Woodrell
In the country-noir tradition of Winter's Bone meets 'Breaking Bad,' a savage and beautiful story of a young man seeking redemption.
The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home…
I’m both a history buff and a criminal defense attorney. I grew up in a small North Carolina town, as the son of two educators who encouraged me to read anything I could get my hands on. My favorite stories were adventures and mysteries, especially courtroom dramas. Clarence Darrow was my historical hero, so I guess it wasn’t surprising that I would attend law school and try my hand at legal practice. I practiced criminal law for about 15 years, long enough to get a feel for how investigations and trials really work. That experience had a major impact on my own writing, and how to pick out a really fascinating true story.
A story of a brutal crime, of a long hunt for justice, and of small-town corruption at its worst. In June 1970, Nancy Morgan was murdered in a remote mountain cove in Madison County, North Carolina. The case lay dormant until 1984, when one of Nancy’s friends was unexpectedly charged with the crime. But the prosecution’s case fell apart at trial, and the author lays out a persuasive theory that the county sheriff—long known for his family’s style of local machine politics—instigated the charges against an innocent man in order to boost his re-election bid, when he knew full well that the real murderer was the son of one of his political supporters. For anyone who has ever posed the question—how bad can politics get?—this story provides a very disturbing answer.
In June of 1970, the body of 24-year-old Nancy Morgan was found inside a government-owned car in Madison County, North Carolina. It had been four days since anyone had heard from the bubbly, hard-working brunette who had moved to the Appalachian community less than a year prior as an organizer for Volunteers in Service to America. At the time of her death, her tenure in the Tar Heel State was just weeks from ending, her intentions set on New York and nursing school and a new life that she would never see. The initial investigation was thwarted by inept police…
I moved from Ohio to southern Appalachia in 1978 to take a temporary job teaching philosophy at the University of Tennessee. I hadn’t planned to stay, but I fell in love with the mountains. Recently I retired after a fruitful 44-year career here. Concern for this land and for my children and grandchildren led me to environmental activism and shifted my teaching and writing from mathematical logic to environmental and intergenerational ethics. Eventually I wrote or edited four books on environmental matters (two specifically on the southern Appalachian environment) in addition to three on logic and (most recently) a tome on the tricky topic of incomparable values.
Camuto’s supple prose draws the reader into a journey toward mountains that no longer exist, although they are named on some old maps: the southern Appalachians not as they are, but as they were before the European invasion. A keen historian and observant naturalist, Camuto walks deep into “what’s left of the backcountry,” documenting the hopeful reintroduction of the nearly extinct red wolf and reflecting on Cherokee place names, culture, and history. "Needless to say,” he confesses, “I never got to the Cherokee Mountains”—and, in sad irony, shortly after the book’s publication the red wolf reintroduction failed. Still, Camuto has succeeded in recording resonant reminiscences of places, peoples, and biotic populations now lost.
The southern Appalachians encompass one of the most beautiful, biologically diverse, and historically important regions of North America. In the widely acclaimed Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains, Christopher Camuto describes the tragic collision of natural and cultural history embedded in the region. In the spirit of Thoreau's "Walking," Camuto explores the Appalachian summit country of the Great Smoky Mountains-the historical home of the Cherokee-searching for access to the nature, history, and spirit of a magnificent, if diminished, landscape.
As the author takes the reader through old-growth forests and ancient myths, he tells of the attempted restoration of Canis…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m a writer married to a theologian. My husband and I often discuss Augustine and Aquinas, Austen and Tolstoy, Christie and Sayers, and trends in popular fiction—when we’re not discussing Frog and Toad, Elephant and Piggie, baby diapers, and what to make for dinner. Love stories have long been my favorite stories, and I’ve always enjoyed historical settings. My award-winning novel In Pieces, a 1793 Boston-set historical romance with elements of family drama, society drama, and political suspense, combines all these interests. I even managed to sneak in a diaper-changing scene.
Catherine Marshall’s masterpiece Christyis revered for a reason. This Edwardian-era coming-of-age story about a young teacher in an impoverished Appalachia village is not only a romantic page-turner, but also theologically rich, psychologically astute, and honest about the effects of poverty, violence, and social injustice. I’ve read Christymultiple times and continue to find it engaging and thought-provoking.
50th Anniversary Edition of the New York Times Bestselling NovelThe train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions.But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her — and her one-room school — as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and her heart is torn between two strong men with conflicting views about how to care for the families…
