Here are 80 books that Penance fans have personally recommended if you like
Penance.
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I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
This brutal, beautiful book with a powerful, authentic northern voice captured my attention. Set in County Durham, the story follows young Traveller John-John after he is released from a young offender’s institution for a violent crime and tries to turn his life around. Despite his good intentions, he is soon caught up in a fight with local drug dealers.
I loved this book because it took an unflinching look at a community not often depicted in contemporary fiction and featured a complex, conflicted character (who loves dogs) who struggles to escape his past.
The book is by an author I admire. He writes gritty, dark northern fiction that focuses on the fringes of society. Originally published by independent presses, he has gone on to be very successful, and as an independent northern author, I would love to emulate that career trajectory.
WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE An unflinching portrait of contemporary Traveller culture by the award-winning author of The Gallows Pole John-John wants to escape his past. But the legacy of brutality left by his boxer father, King of the Gypsies, Mac Wisdom, overshadows his life. His new job as an ice cream man should offer freedom, but instead pulls him into the dark recesses of a northern town where his family name is mud. When he attempts to trade prejudice and parole officers for the solace of the rural landscape, Mac's bloody downfall threatens John-John's very survival.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
Written by a disabled, northern author, this magical middle-grade novel has such a warm, compassionate voice, and I loved how it reflected the story’s locations, which are inspired by real places in North East England.
The story is full of magic and features a cast of disabled children who live in a lighthouse by the sea and get caught up in an adventure. I think it’s important for all kids to see themselves in fiction, and this book does a wonderful job of improving disability representation.
Although it’s aimed at children, there’s plenty for adults to enjoy, and I thought this was a beautiful book full of illustrations by a local artist, which helped me to picture the characters and setting.
"A charming tale of found families and mermaids, with my favourite kind of hero at its heart" - Elle McNicoll, award-winning author of A Kind of Spark
A stunning literary adventure from an incredible debut talent, perfect for fans of Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Cerrie Burnell and Katherine Rundell.
I was Haven Point's first Wreckling, but I certainly wasn't the last. There are forty-two of us now, not including the mermaids. When you're a Wreckling, you mainly spend your days squabbling, eating and planning adventures. Oh, and Wrecklings also carry out wreckings, which is how we got our name . .…
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
I love literary fiction and stunning prose, and this book is full of gorgeous sentences that shine off the page. It deals with class issues and finding your own place in the world.
I’m from a working-class, deprived town close to the one featured in this novel. I related to some of the character’s concerns and struggles, particularly regarding the lack of opportunity in North East England.
"Andrews’s writing is transportingly voluptuous, conjuring tastes and smells and sounds like her literary godmother, Edna O’Brien . . . What makes her novel sing is its universal themes: how a young woman tries to make sense of her world, and how she grows up." –Penelope Green, The New York Times Book Review
This “luminous” (The Observer) feminist coming-of-age novel captures in sensuous, blistering prose the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother
It begins with our bodies . . . Safe together in the violet dark…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I’m from North East England, an area of the UK under-represented in contemporary fiction. I love reading books from authors who grew up in the same area as me, and I enjoy stories that deal with issues relevant to our communities and capture the unique spirit of the people here. My writing is infused with social and political issues. I’m passionate about stories that explore the world around us and how it impacts people, and all these books do that in very different ways.
I read this book because it’s set in my hometown, which doesn’t appear often in fiction. It’s full of places I know, and I enjoyed the quirky style and the way the story is told from some unusual perspectives.
Apples is about Adam and Eve, two different teens growing up on a council estate in Middlesbrough, dealing with family troubles and relationships. It’s fast-paced, dark, and full of energy, and it has a fantastic opening line. It’s a book I come back to regularly.
'We got a McDonald's the night my mam got lung cancer.'
As a distraction from sleazy male admirers, spiteful classmates and her mother's cancer, Eve's eyes are opened to a multicolour life of one night stands, drug fuelled discos and endless varieties of cheap plonk. She barely has time to notice Adam. Adam, however, notices Eve. Whilst contending with sexual frustration, a violent father and increasingly compulsive behaviour, is he too busy reading Razzle in his bedroom to make his move?
Narrated alternately by Adam and Eve, alongside a cast of teenage delinquents, perverts and butterflies, Apples is an exploration…
Ever since I was a little kid, I've loved scary stories. But more than the thrill of being afraid, I was drawn to the notion of befriending the ghosts, of making the frightening familiar, of finding meaning and comfort in the horrific. Maybe that's why I'm now a queer old goth, and maybe it's why my favourite themes to both read and write are those of identity, belonging as an outsider, and the 'monstrous' elevated to the beautiful.
I read this tiny collection of stories after chatting to the author on social media, and it's what got me reading again after two years of barely reading a thing.
Nostalgic, atmospheric, and vivid, these stories are sometimes stomach-churningly brutal. Even though a lot of them deal with the supernatural, it's the most mundane of situations that are the most anxiety-inducing. They took me right back to my own Northern childhood, with all the mystery, boredom, wonder, and terror it entailed. A very emotional collection with as much heart as heartbreak, wrapped up in chiming prose.
Welcome to The Repository of Lost Souls. A place for tales – and the people who walk within them – to step inside and rest their weary heads. Meet the vengeful mermaid, the weary ghost. The sibling vampire and the curious child. The family damaged by war. Join the final journey of the Bone Queen.Follow the hare.The Repository of Lost Souls is the debut short story collection of Jane Roberts-Morpeth. Twelve short stories of birth, life, death and beyond, that draw on personal experience and the North East of England, where she lives. Some have a ghostly or paranormal element…
From the time I was very young, Witchcraft and the supernatural have always fascinated me. I can remember staying up late to watch horror movies or reading an Edgar Allen Poe book under the sheets with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep. I knew this was never a phase or something I would “outgrow”; the spell had been cast and I was forever in its power. I’ve tried to read everything I could on Witchcraft, its history and practice and anything regarding the occult. It was all of this reading and research that really helped me to write Widdershins and everything that came after. Enjoy the list!
Being a fan of history, mythology, and folklore really drew me to this book. It delves into ancient magic, pagan practices, and other traditions that continue to this day. The book was thoroughly researched and opens a window into mankind’s beliefs and superstitions throughout the ages. The book explores the similarities between different cultures’ creation myths and ritualistic practices as well as Christianity’s appropriation of many pagan holidays, rituals, and locations. Anyone interested in mythology or folklore should definitely have this on their reading list.
Published originally in two volumes in 1890, this extraordinary study of primitive myth and magic, collected from sources around the world, led Frazer to identify parallel patterns of ritual, symbols and belief across many centuries and many different cultures. Frazer's learning inspired a whole generation of ethnographers and comparative anthropologists, and had a particularly powerful effect on many other thinkers and writers such as Sigmund Freud, D H Lawrence, Joyce, Yeats and T S Eliot.
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
I’m not an expert on witchcraft or the Salem Witch Trials. However, I am a historian of women’s history and a writer of historical fiction. I’m particularly drawn to stories that try to explain the inexplicable, and these five books are written by people with a similar fascination. In my opinion, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Greg Houle wrote their stories as a way to understand themselves and their family history. Stacy Schiff looked for a factual explanation of the frenzy. Frances Hill and Lucretia Grindle wove facts into stories. And I think that their differing interpretations of the same events give readers a better understanding of the past.
Conditions behind the witchcraft frenzy stretched back to the founding of New England and were found in every settlement.
The Devil’s Glove examines a village on the Maine frontier. In 1688, all the ingredients for a witchcraft frenzy were in place: a female healer; an oppressive religion; friction between settlers and Native Americans; fear of French ambitions; and stress over colonial governance.
With meticulous world-building, the author brings the reader into a web of panic, making the impossible understandable.
Northern New England, summer, 1688. Salem started here.
A suspicious death. A rumor of war. Whispers of witchcraft.
Perched on the brink of disaster, Resolve Hammond and her mother, Deliverance, struggle to survive in their isolated coastal village. They're known as healers taught by the local tribes - and suspected of witchcraft by the local villagers.
Their precarious existence becomes even more chaotic when summoned to tend to a poisoned woman. As they uncover a web of dark secrets, rumors of war engulf the village, forcing the Hammonds to choose between loyalty to their native friends or the increasingly terrified…
From the time I was very young, Witchcraft and the supernatural have always fascinated me. I can remember staying up late to watch horror movies or reading an Edgar Allen Poe book under the sheets with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep. I knew this was never a phase or something I would “outgrow”; the spell had been cast and I was forever in its power. I’ve tried to read everything I could on Witchcraft, its history and practice and anything regarding the occult. It was all of this reading and research that really helped me to write Widdershins and everything that came after. Enjoy the list!
This was the first occult book I ever bought, so it holds a special place in my heart. The title alone, drew me to it and I was not disappointed. The book is full of all kinds of spells and information on herbs, amulets and talismans, ceremonial magic, Satanism & Witchcraft, potions, and many other wicked goodies. I love old occult books and this one, first published in 1970, started my occult library which has continued to grow.
The Complete Book of Black Magic and Witchcraft is a mainstay for both beginners and advanced seekers into genuine occult methods because it is the first instruction manual to systematise the techniques and aims of Ritual Magic. Including how to prepare for rituals of exorcism and purging, and the rites and mysteries of sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy. This was achieved this by years of research pooling information from rare manuscripts on these subjects and comparing the various sub-sections of each to find the central methods of Ceremonial Magic. While crucially informing the readers of the differences so they can experiment…
From the time I was very young, Witchcraft and the supernatural have always fascinated me. I can remember staying up late to watch horror movies or reading an Edgar Allen Poe book under the sheets with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep. I knew this was never a phase or something I would “outgrow”; the spell had been cast and I was forever in its power. I’ve tried to read everything I could on Witchcraft, its history and practice and anything regarding the occult. It was all of this reading and research that really helped me to write Widdershins and everything that came after. Enjoy the list!
This was the first book I ever read by HP Lovecraft and after reading it, I read everything else that I could find by such a talented writer. Lovecraft’s stories are dark, doom-ridden tales that are filled with cosmic horror, nightmarish landscapes, and indescribable monsters. But it’s not only the tales themselves that captivated me, it’s the style in which they were written. Lovecraft has such a beautiful literary style of writing that really made me feel what the characters felt and see what horrors they witnessed. His work definitely inspired me to pick up pen and paper and write stories of my own.
This extraordinary collection features 13 spine-tingling tales of delicious terror by the unquestioned master of the horror genre, as well as portions of stories he never fully completed. Discover how the mind of H.P. Lovecraft worked, and how much his early and late stories tell about this intriguing writer.
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I write books to make sense of the world — this gloriously weird, sometimes heartbreaking, marvelous place we call home. Years ago, while visiting a museum in St. Louis, I heard a woman give a talk on charlatans (people who intentionally deceive others for their personal gain). It sparked a number of questions in me: Why do we believe the things that we do? What might we be willing to try to change our circumstances? Exploring these ideas was the starting point for my book, Miraculous, and its mysterious stranger, Dr. Kingsbury. I hope the stories you read in these pages fill you wonder as they did me.
What happens when a person gets what they think they truly want? For only fifty cents, a mysterious stranger offers to give the people of Coven Tree exactly what they wish for, but unexpected (and humorous) problems arise when those wishes come true.
When I was a student teacher, The Wish Giver was on my state’s reading list. I read it and was intrigued! A little creepy, a whole lot mysterious, I’ve remembered this book for years.
A Newbery Honor Book that the New York Times called "an eerie delight," The Wish Giver is an engaging literary folk story about those who get what they wish for-whether they want it or not.
The people of Coven Tree are no strangers to magic. In fact, the town's very name comes from a gnarled old tree where covens of witches used to gather. Even now, imps and fiends continue to appear, frightening the townsfolk with their devilish pranks.
Usually these creatures are easy to spot. They have a particular smell, or sound, or way of moving, that betrays their…
