83 Books Like Writer

For all the highly enjoyable shenanigans around using time travel to prevent JFK’s assassination, I came away loving this book for reasons I don’t normally associate with King–I genuinely loved his characters. Jake Epping is a sympathetic lead, and I became far more invested in his love for Sadie than in the assassination-thwarting.

I’d hesitate to say this is King’s finest book, but of those I’ve read, it’s definitely my favourite. I found the climax so emotionally satisfying; it genuinely moved me.

My journey with this book came at a young age, recommended to me by my older brother, and was a formative experience. Not only was it an early experience with a more adult version of the fantasy literature I’d grown up reading but it also built a bond between my brother and I, it was a shared literary experience that became special because of who I shared it with.

It opened my eyes to the idea that you could write this kind of stuff for grown-ups, and therefore, a whole new world of reading was opened to me.

This book isn’t just my favorite time-travel novel—it’s my favorite book, period.

If Back to the Future is the gold standard for time travel storytelling, Replay is its literary counterpart. (And the two were released just six months apart!)

Grimwood takes the classic time loop premise and twists it into a moving, mind-bending exploration of identity, regret, and second chances.

Ever since my first read, I’ve spent many sleepless nights spiraling through my own infinite “what ifs”—imagining how I might change my own life if given the chance to relive it, how far future knowledge could take me, and whether it would indeed make me happier. It’s a risky mental game, but Grimwood plays it masterfully in this brilliant, still-underrated gem.

Moorcock is, of course, a legend of genre fiction, but even as I acknowledge this, I have to say my own journey with him as a reader has had its ups and downs. This book, though, finally sealed the deal for me because it is just that good.

Provocative and challenging, especially for readers of faith like myself, it succeeds because it’s so well-crafted that there’s no choice but to acknowledge its genius. I found its alternative portrayal of the life of Christ startling, but played as straight as it is, it never comes over as shocking for shock’s sake. Instead, by reframing the familiar as something totally other, it becomes a jumping off point for critical reevaluation and even reaffirmation. The Greatest Story Ever Retold?

This early American novel starts off with an episode of human spontaneous combustion, followed by repeated episodes of characters hearing disembodied voices.

Brown’s novel uses these Gothic devices and a couple of real-life murder cases to explore religious and political issues that preoccupied Americans in the years after the Revolution. How do we know whether we’re really being guided by reason? What is the basis of authority?

Most editions of Wieland include Brown’s prequel Memoirs of Carwin, which complicates the story by placing one of the main characters in an Illuminati-like organization. American Gothic literature pretty much starts here.  

This is actually the second book of Zeigler's Tears of Heaven series, but I read this one first and it stands perfectly on its own. There's so much I love about it, from the concept of rebel dark angels working to overthrow Satan with the help and ingenuity of human scientists and soldiers they rescue from Hell's torments to Zeigler's masterful world-building based on scripture and classic depictions of Hell. He pulls no punches in vividly describing the agonies of damnation. But it's his clever use of scientific principles to explain Hell's supernatural rules as well as arm his protagonists that truly stands out for me. I strove to achieve that level of logic in my book, but Zeigler manages to weaponize it as only a trained scientist could.

Dante Valentine is a Necromance who works as an investigator for the police—solving murders by conjuring up the spirit of the dead person then asking, ‘Hey, who did this?’ Like Jim Butcher, Lilith blends humour and action, and she locates her stories in a unique futuristic/fantasy world in which demons wear black jeans. These books are afire with narrative energy and also brim with passion and love and eroticism. Dante Valentine is a superb kick-ass heroine and if you like a walk on the dark side, I’d warmly recommend the five volumes in this series. 

Delicious. Sexy. I Dare You is… honestly, I don’t know how to describe it. I think that’s why I love it so much. From the first page, you are immediately transported to this world full of chaos and depravity. Cole Reynolds is the ultimate book boyfriend with edge and a healthy dose of mystery to keep you enthralled until the middle of the night reading.

Imagine being able to see the war in heaven and Lucifer's fall. This was another book that got my attention because of its seemingly risky nature. I loved how this book made Lucifer feel real, far more real than some vaguely evil entity. It helped me understand he is a real and malicious supernatural person.

Making him feel real made his hatred of mankind and the reasoning behind it feel real as well. I loved how this book explained the sequencing of DNA, the blueprint of humanity, and how it was based on God. All of that, mixed with the looming Apocalypse, made this a deeply engaging story.

Anything by Lafferty is well worth reading. This was intended as the second book of a trilogy, but got published on its own. This tells primarily of Finnegan, an astonishing hero who is searching for the devil. If you haven’t made the acquaintance of R.A. Lafferty, this would be a good place to start. Imagine a cartoon world modeled on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Lafferty writes in a tall tale mode that disguises much of his literary ambition. It’s hard to describe Lafferty’s writing. It might be described as Calvino with no pretension. Or maybe, just read a sample:

A night-dune imaginary: there was a world full of people with pumpkin-heads for heads, and candles burning inside. Then Seaworthy and the Devil and their spooky crew came along, lifted the top off each head, blew out the candles inside and put the tops back. The pumpkin-headed people… show more.