Books like “Remarkably Bright Creatures”

What to read after “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Kamogawa Food Detectives
Hisashi Kashiwai · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Melancholic”
- Comfort Read
- Melancholic
At a small Kyoto diner, Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter quietly work as food detectives. Clients describe a dish they cannot forget, and the pair trace its ingredients and the people tied to it, recovering memories, old losses and small reconciliations along the way.
2
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith · 1998
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
- Found Family
Precious Ramotswe opens Botswana's first detective agency for ladies, working from a small office in Gaborone. With patience and common sense she takes on a cheating husband, a missing father and a con man, and begins to find her own place in the world.
3
The Thursday Murder Club
Richard Osman · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
- Found Family
Four friends in a retirement village meet weekly to look over unsolved crimes, until a murder happens on their doorstep. As the bodies add up, they use a lifetime's worth of skill and nosiness to work the case the police cannot close.
4
The Marlow Murder Club
Robert Thorogood · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
When Judith Potts hears a shot while swimming in the Thames near her home, the police see nothing strange. She teams up with a dog walker and a vicar's wife to investigate, and the three amateur sleuths begin to uncover the town's secrets.
5
Still Life
Louise Penny · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
In the village of Three Pines, the body of a well-liked woman is found in the woods with an arrow through her heart. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is drawn into a community where old friendships and hidden resentments make almost everyone a suspect.
6
Then She Was Gone
Lisa Jewell · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Missing Person
Ten years after her teenage daughter disappeared, a mother learns what happened and tries to rebuild her life. Meeting a new partner and his young daughter, she is unsettled by small resemblances to her lost child, which reopen the case.
7
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
- Found Family
Writer Juliet Ashton begins a friendship in letters with the people of Guernsey, an island still marked by the German occupation. Through their stories of a secret reading group, she finds a community, a purpose and a reason to cross the sea herself.
8
Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Clay Jensen receives a box of tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, a classmate who has taken her own life. As he follows her voice around town, she explains the thirteen reasons behind her decision, and Clay learns his own place in her story.
9
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Melancholic”
Ove is a grumpy widower who has decided there is nothing left for him, until a noisy young family moves in next door and keeps interrupting his plans. Piece by piece, the neighbourhood draws him back into a life he thought was over.
10
The Little Friend
Donna Tartt · 2002
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Years after a boy was found hanged in the family garden, his younger sister sets out to learn who killed him. Her amateur sleuthing among the town's odd characters pulls her from her grieving family into a dangerous, half-understood world.
11
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott · 1868
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read”
- Comfort Read
Four sisters grow up in a modest New England home while their father is away at war. They argue, make art, fall in love and learn to support one another through loss and change. A warm coming-of-age story about family, ambition and becoming yourself.
12
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Toshikazu Kawaguchi · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Comfort Read” and “Melancholic”
- Comfort Read
- Melancholic
In a small Tokyo cafe, one seat lets a visitor travel to the past. There are rules: you cannot change the present, you must not leave the seat, and you must return before the coffee goes cold. Four customers sit down, each hoping to say what was left unsaid.