Book picks similar to
Ice Demon by Elizabeth Watasin


steampunk
fantasy
historical
paranormal

A Bittersweet Garden


Caren J. Werlinger - 2019
    When she finally gets the opportunity to spend a summer in the village where her grandparents grew up, the experience promises to live up to her very high expectations. Except for the ghost that is haunting her rented cottage and is soon invading her dreams.Briana Devlin has arranged her life the way she likes it: a good dog, good mates, and work with horses. There’s no room in her life for a relationship. Especially with an annoyingly clumsy—and attractive—American who is only going to be around for a few months.The weeks fly by, and Nora’s ghost becomes more demanding, seeking her help in solving the mystery surrounding her death. Briana watches as Nora becomes more wrapped up in the past, seeming to fade away before her eyes.Past and present are on a collision course, leaving Nora and Briana caught in a ghostly intrigue that could cost them not only their chance of a future together, but their very lives.

The Angel of the Crows


Katherine Addison - 2020
    These are not the characters you think they are. This is not the book you are expecting.In an alternate 1880s London, angels inhabit every public building, and vampires and werewolves walk the streets with human beings under a well-regulated truce. A fantastic utopia, except for a few things: Angels can Fall, and that Fall is like a nuclear bomb in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. And human beings remain human, with all their kindness and greed and passions and murderous intent.Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of this London too. But this London has an Angel. The Angel of the Crows.

The Canterville Ghost


Oscar Wilde - 1887
    The family -- which refuses to believe in him -- is in Wilde's way a commentary on the British nobility of the day -- and on the Americans, too. The tale, like many of Wilde's, is rich with allusion, but ends as sentimental romance...

The Lazarus Machine


Paul Crilley - 2012
    a world where Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace perfected the Difference engine. Where steam and tesla-powered computers are everywhere. Where automatons powered by human souls venture out into the sprawling London streets. Where the Ministry, a secretive government agency, seeks to control everything in the name of the Queen.It is in this claustrophobic, paranoid city that seventeen-year-old Sebastian Tweed and his conman father struggle to eke out a living.But all is not well...A murderous, masked gang has moved into London, spreading terror through the criminal ranks as they take over the underworld. as the gang carves up more and more of the city, a single name comes to be uttered in fearful whispers.Professor Moriarty.When Tweed’s father is kidnapped by Moriarty, he is forced to team up with information broker Octavia Nightingale to track him down. But he soon realizes that his father’s disappearance is just a tiny piece of a political conspiracy that could destroy the British Empire and plunge the world into a horrific war.

Anno Dracula


Kim Newman - 1992
    Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders. Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London. This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

The Gilded Scarab


Anna Butler - 2015
    Returning to London in late November 1899, he’s lost the skies he loved, has no place in a society ruled by an elite oligarchy of powerful Houses, and is hard up, homeless, and in desperate need of a new direction in life. Everything changes when he buys a coffeehouse near the Britannic Imperium Museum in Bloomsbury, the haunt of Aegyptologists. For the first time in years, Rafe is free to be himself. In a city powered by luminiferous aether and phlogiston, and where powerful men use House assassins to target their rivals, Rafe must navigate dangerous politics, deal with a jealous and possessive ex-lover, learn to make the best coffee in Londinium, and fend off murder and kidnap attempts before he can find happiness with the man he loves.

Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow


Christina Henry - 2021
    Not even Ben Van Brunt's grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that's just legend, the village gossips talking.Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play Sleepy Hollow boys, reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow have ever said. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods?

The Owl Killers


Karen Maitland - 2009
    The tiny village of Ulewic teeters between survival and destruction, faith and doubt, God and demons. For shadowing the villagers’ lives are men cloaked in masks and secrecy, ruling with violence, intimidation, and terrifying fiery rites: the Owl Masters. But another force is touching Ulewic—a newly formed community built and served only by women. Called a beguinage, it is a safe harbor of service and faith in defiance of the all-powerful Church. Behind the walls of this sanctuary, women have gathered from all walks of life: a skilled physician, a towering former prostitute, a cook, a local convert. But life in Ulewic is growing more dangerous with each passing day. The women are the subject of rumors, envy, scorn, and fury…until the daughter of Ulewic’s most powerful man is cast out of her home and accepted into the beguinage—and battle lines are drawn.Into this drama are swept innocents and conspirators: a parish priest trying to save himself from his own sins…a village teenager, pregnant and terrified…a woman once on the verge of sainthood, now cast out of the Church.…With Ulewic ravaged by flood and disease, and with villagers driven by fear, a secret inside the beguinage will draw the desperate and the depraved—until masks are dropped, faith is tested…and every lie is exposed.*New York Times Book Review**Marie Claire

A Question of Ghosts


Cate Culpepper - 2012
    Joanne Call, an expert in Electronic Voice Phenomenon—ghost voices—to unravel the mystery of this decades-old tragedy. Joanne can coax messages out of the silence of the grave, but coping with this feisty, emotional Healy person might be completely beyond her. Together, Becca and Jo must tackle childhood grief, a serial killer, Xena withdrawal, and a growing attraction between the two most mismatched women in Seattle.

The Deep


Alma Katsu - 2020
    Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner's illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers - including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher - are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not - could not - have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . .

Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride


Richard Gleaves - 2013
     He's a STAR WARS fan and a history geek. He doesn't believe in ghosts or the afterlife. He doesn't believe in psychic powers or tarot cards. He doesn't believe in the Headless Horseman. But Sleepy Hollow will change all that. Because Jason Crane has a heritage to claim. Jason Crane has a Gift to discover. And Jason Crane has an old enemy who will RISE HEADLESS AND RIDE. THE JASON CRANE SERIES re-invents and re-imagines classic American ghost literature. Sleepy Hollow, Salem ("The House of the Seven Gables" and the infamous witch trials), and haunted Washington D.C. and Baltimore ("The Fall of the House of Usher" and other works of Edgar Allen Poe.) The series is set in and among the real-life sights and Halloween events of the modern-day locations. Perfect for planning Halloween tourism! Every place mentioned in Book #1 exists for you to explore: Gory Brook Road, the Tarrytown Lighthouse, the ruin of the Horseman Bridge, the grave of Washington Irving, Patriot's Park, Philipsburg Manor and the haunted Burying Ground of the Old Dutch Church. This eBook edition includes an online MAP of the sights mentioned in the story so that you can follow along or plan a trip. Step into the REAL village of Sleepy Hollow and the world of Jason Crane.

Devil's Sonata


Elizabeth Edmondson - 2011
    from an internationally renowned author.This haunting tale follows two cursed families in a saga of romance, black magic, and music set in an ancient abbey where the lines between the past 500 years and the present are blurred into oblivion. The handsome, mysteriously compelling owner of Beauregard Abbey, Nicholas Beauregard, must help Zuleika Rathbone as she traces the path of a murderous ancestor, rousing an unimaginable evil centered around a mystical violin. An unlikely romance amidst the havoc wreaked by practitioners of the dark arts takes the reader deep into the thrilling world of the occult.

The Breath of God


Guy Adams - 2011
    In its place will come the twentieth, a century of change, a century of science, a century that will see the superstitions of the past swept away.There are some who are determined to see that never happens. A body is found crushed to death in the London snow. There are no footprints anywhere near it. It is almost as if the man was killed by the air itself. This is the first in a series of attacks that sees a handful of London’s most prominent occultists murdered. While pursuing the case, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves travelling to Scotland to meet with the one person they have been told can help: Aleister Crowley.As dark powers encircle them, Holmes’ rationalist beliefs begin to be questioned. The unbelievable and unholy are on their trail as they gather a group of the most accomplished occult minds in the country: Doctor John Silence, the so-called “Psychic Doctor”; supernatural investigator Thomas Carnacki; runic expert and demonologist, Julian Karswell...But will they be enough? As the century draws to a close it seems London is ready to fall and the infernal abyss is growing wide enough to swallow us all.A brand-new original novel, detailing a thrilling new case for the acclaimed detective Sherlock Holmes.

A Lesson in Vengeance


Victoria Lee - 2021
    Now, after a year away, she’s returned to graduate. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students—girls some say were witches. The Dalloway Five all died mysteriously, one after another, right on Godwin grounds.Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway’s history. The school doesn’t talk about it, but the students do. In secret rooms and shadowy corners, girls convene. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn to the dark. She’s determined to leave that behind her now; all Felicity wants is to focus on her senior thesis and graduate. But it’s hard when Dalloway’s occult history is everywhere. And when the new girl won’t let her forget.It’s Ellis Haley’s first year at Dalloway, and she’s already amassed a loyal following. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is a so-called “method writer.” She’s eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can’t shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity for help researching the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can’t say no. Given her history with the arcane, Felicity is the perfect resource.And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness in Dalloway–and in herself.

Picture the Dead


Adele Griffin - 2010
    First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiancé falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past.