The Cellar by Natasha Preston is a psychological thriller that contains dark and sensitive subject matter, including violence and psychological abuse. The story is about a girl named Summer Robinson, who Clover kidnaped. Clover takes Summer to his Cellar, where he calls Lily. There are three other girls in his Cellar: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. This book is mainly about Summer’s journey to escape and survive in the basement. Clover is a psychotic thirty-year-old who keeps four girls locked in a cellar.
He envisions them being his perfect family. Clover is ironic because he is all about purity, like a germophobe. But he ends up raping the innocent and killing, murdering prostitutes and helpless women. Summer, or Lily, is the main protagonist of the novel, and Clover takes her while she is out looking for a friend.
Lily is determined to get out of the Cellar, and she’s one of the only girls who hasn’t lost hope knowing that someone is out there looking for her, while the other girls think that no one is looking for them. Books like The Cellar offer a gripping and intense reading experience. They keep you on the edge of your seat, eagerly turning the pages to uncover the twists and turns of the story. These books can provide similar excitement and anticipation if you enjoy thrilling and suspenseful narratives.
5 Books Like The Cellar (Thrillers Fiction)
The Cellar focuses on the psychological dynamics between captors and captives, examining such relationships’ manipulation, power struggles, and emotional impact. The point of view shifts between three different people. It shifts between Summer Clover and Lewis. This is very important because we get to see what’s going on outside the Cellar. This book has perfect thrilling elements that make you feel stuck. Now I will talk about five books similar to The Cellar. Let’s go!
1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is about a boy called Jacob. He has a grandfather who, when he was young, used to tell him stories about this orphanage that he used to live at, where there were very peculiar children with special talents. When Jacob was young, he believed those stories even though his parents always told him they weren’t true. But as he grows up, he starts losing the belief in his grandfather’s stories, and his grandfather is slowly losing his memories.
One day, his grandfather dies. Jacob finds him and thinks he sees something he can’t quite believe. He doesn’t know how to deal with it and goes into therapy. He’s working a boring job over the summer. Then when he finds a letter that his grandfather left for him, he decides to go to a small island off the coast of Wales where the orphanage that his grandad always used to talk about is located.
All these children are mutants. It’s very much like X-Men. They exist in this time loop where it’s always September 3rd. They’re always being bombed at the end of the day. There are these monsters, and everybody’s got all these special powers. Towards the end of the book, they started to lose me.
Like The Cellar, the beginning of this book was great. As it went on, it started to get a little convoluted. There are a lot of names that you have to keep up with, but the world is very well done. Even the beginning of the book will be a ghost story, but then it goes in a completely different direction.
Author: Ransom Riggs
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: Fantasy, Horror & Time Travel Fiction
Available: Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
2. His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials follows a young character called Lyra. She is in the world, an alternate world to our world. She is a straight child who runs around, plays in the street with her friend Roger, and gets involved in all mischief and magic. But she’s looked after by the scholars of Jordan College at Oxford, and she doesn’t know who her parents are. She’s looked after by her uncle, who funds her, staying there and getting an education. But one day, people start being taken in the world where she’s from, and no one knows where they’re going. They’re vanishing, and they’re suddenly up and down the country.
So Lyra gets worried, as most people do. At first, she doesn’t give it much credit, but then she gets involved in a plot. Essentially, she meets a lovely lady who trains her. Then she realizes that this lady is not so lovely. It’s an interesting idea in this world where Lyra lives. All people have demons, and demons are the soul of these people. Her demon is Pantilimon, and Pantilimon is whatever she wants. Her best friend in all the world is Pantilimon, and that is the same for all of the children and the people within her world.
Their demons are their best friends within her world. She also has all different types of people. There are gypsies that she gets involved with, and there are magical witches. She meets these people, and they instantly realize that she is more than she first appears to be. The plot twist and thrilling hype are very similar to The Cellar.
Author: Philip Pullman
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Fantasy & Supernatural Mysteries & Thrillers
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | MP3 CD
3. Living Dead Girl
Living Dead Girl is likely The Cellar series, but it has a severe theme where the book’s issues are incredibly serious. It is the story of yet another survivor kidnapped as a young girl. She was 10 when she was kidnapped and lived with her abuser. Colin kidnapped a young child to groom her. So this book does deal with some pretty intense themes.
This book gives a grittier view of our protagonist’s abuse. Alice is her name. We saw much of the trauma, which built itself into a romantic and empowered ending in that book. This book, however, has a much less surface view of it.
There is abuse happening; you can’t forget it for even a moment based alone on the narration. The book goes into graphic detail about what is happening to Alice during this time. It does give you we’re going through a current timeline, but we’ll get flashbacks of how her abuser got her into this position, how he kidnapped her, and how he kept her docile.
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Average Rating: 4.3/5
Category: Violence & Abuse
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Library Binding | Kindle | Audio CD
4. Awake
Awake is a young adult, suspenseful thriller. In this book, we follow two main characters: Scarlett and Noah. Scarlet is a high school girl who remembers nothing before she was four. Noah is a boy who starts going to the school that she falls in love with. It gets got a love interest to it then. No one has been going to school there for a while. Then, one day, Scarlett gets in a car accident and remembers things before she was four. This person is named Evie.
Many things go into that, and Ashley remembers these things. Noah is there with her for a specific reason. He’s told not to do certain things; he does them, and the bunch happens. Then he kidnaps her. If you like Natasha Preston’s The Cellar series, you will like this one.
Author: Natasha Preston
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Mystery & Detective Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Pocket Book | Kindle | MP3 CD
5. As Old As Time
As Old As Time is the third book in the Twisted Tale series. Although all the books are technically standalone, you don’t have to read the others to read this one. Beauty and the Beast reimagined all this time, but Belle’s mother is the enchantress who cursed the Beast and his castle. This book is based on a Disney film, a pretty twisted version of The Cellar series.
In the first quarter to half of the book, the chapters flip back and forth between the present with Belle. Then the past with her parent’s meeting and so on. You get to see into Belle’s head in this book, and you get to see how she thinks and the processes she goes through. “What if Belle’s mother cursed the Beast?” So big a mystery in the book is who’s Belle’s mother. Where did the magic come from? So you get more characters than we did in the original movie.
Author: Liz Braswell
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Fantasy & Supernatural Mysteries & Thrillers, Detective Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | MP3 CD
These books offer compelling character explorations within a suspenseful or psychological thriller context. The stories of the books depict characters facing harrowing situations and showcasing their strength, determination, and resourcefulness in overcoming adversity.
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