I’m looking for a book that gives you an eerie feeling without being straight up horror. One example for me is the Da Vinci Code. Even though it’s fiction the idea of it being steeped in history made me feel weird. Maybe this is just a very specific example and I’m not explaining it very well but thanks in advance
by MallsBahoney
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The Rape of Nanking
Bloodlands
Ordinary Men
Red Famine
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (kind of a dark mystery, but not horror)
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi (true crime about the Manson family)
Praying for Sleep by Jeffery Deaver
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*Virgil Wander* by Leif Enger kind of has an eerie feel to me. Much of it is kind of slice of life (man recovering from a near fatal accident) but there are a couple story elements about it that are just…weird…
Unwind by Neal Shusterman.
Sort of a dystopia about a future where the pro-life movement won a second civil war. The catch to all those kids being born? As teenagers they can be forcibly “unwound” (read, every part of them harvested for donation) if they aren’t good enough for society (delinquents, orphans who haven’t proved they meet some metric of worthiness).
The one unwinding scene in the book still haunts me. And it’s a YA novel.
The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, starting with **Annihilation**.
Raymond Khoury wrote a few Templar Knight tales that are like Dan Brown with a bit more violence and fear.
The Charlie Parker series by John Connolly, the few first books, before it gets really supernatural also may fit the bill.
Dublin Murder Squad or any Agatha Christie maybe. Also Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.