October recommendations
Haunting the staircase's horror book recs
It is my favourite season and I have been mostly unmotivated in writing and strangely sad throughout. Nonetheless, I wanted to compile a list of horror book recommendations for your October (and on through November) reading. I have always and will always love this genre for its place outside conventional existence, its various, evolving themes, and its comfort.
Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris
Synopsis: Follows Rita, an Indigenous artist who, after her father dies and amidst a fight with her girlfriend, goes to a secluded cabin to paint for a residency.
Sub genre: Eco-horror / Pages: 99
If you like: Bogs, character development through horror, Indigenous stories, musings on art.
The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham
Synopsis: Follows Yewon in post-war Korea as she reckons with both her family’s past and her present life, all while dreaming of a singularly strange hotel.
Sub genre: Magical realism / Pages: 320
If you like: Subdued and literary horror, emotionally devastating books about trauma, and slow paced gothic stories.
Antenora by Dori Lumpkin
Synopsis: Follows Nora as she recounts the affection she had for her closest friend Abigail, how it threatened their fragile, religious town, and how Abigail suffered the consequences of the townspeople’s belief that she was possessed.
Sub genre: Religious horror / Pages: 134
If you like: Explorations of the horror of religion, queer horror, short books that pack a punch, and doomed love stories.
My review here.
The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria
Synopsis: The residents of Turin are haunted by their self-created Library, where people go to read each other’s secrets, and by the creatures that come alive in their collective psychosis.
Sub genre: Political horror / Pages: 211
If you like: Political allegories in horror, historical horror, beautiful prose, bleak narratives, and ahead-of-its-time social commentary.
My review here.
Linghun by Ai Jiang
Synopsis: Follows Wenqi as she moves with her family to the suburb of HOME, where families are promised connection with their dead loved ones who haunt the houses.
Sub genre: Haunted houses / Pages: 178
If you like: Complex characters, explorations of grief and its burrowing consequences, gothic settings, original haunted house narratives.
My review here.
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti
Synopsis: A collection of short horror stories
Sub genre: Cosmic horror / Pages: 462
If you like: Slow paced narratives, odd settings, intricate writing, and weird horror.
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda
Synopsis: Follows Fernanda and Annalise as they spend their days worshipping an inverted god, towing the line between reality and insanity, all while becoming so entwined with each other it becomes violent.
Sub genre: Contemporary and weird horror / Pages: 264
If you like: Explorations of the parallel lines that are horror and being a teenaged girl, borderline obsessive and possibly queer friendships, strange and unhinged characters.
My review here.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Synopsis: A collection of short horror stories.
Sub genre: Feminist horror / Pages: 245
If you like: Multi-genre short stories, horror that explores women’s bodies, queer desires, and intimate relationships.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (obligatory recommendation)
Synopsis: Follows Eleanor, who joins a group staying at the notorious Hill House, and her subsequent, strange relationship with the house and its hauntings
Sub genre: Haunted houses / Pages: 182
If you like: Haunted houses as metaphors, sharp and beautiful writing, exploration of women’s place in the world, books you can read over and over again, classics.
The Devil’s Playground by Craig Russel
Synopsis: Follows a journalist attempting to uncover a lost and supposedly cursed film made in the Golden Age of Hollywood’s silent films.
Sub genre: Lost and cursed media / Pages: 368
If you like: The horror in the unseen, the cursed media trope, absorbing settings, unravelling mysteries.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Synopsis: Follows Vern as she escapes from a religious commune and flees into the woods, where she gives birth to twins and undergoes a strange metamorphosis, forced to face the world beyond what she knows and her own future.
Sub genre: Undefined / Pages: 355
If you like: Political horror, social commentary, brilliant writing, horror that reckons with America’s violent history, masterful balancing of genres, horror that stands out.
My review here.
Starve Acre by Andrew Micheal Hurley
Synopsis: Follows a couple’s dealings with grief after their son passes and the horror they uncover as they try to reckon with it.
Sub genre: Folk horror / Pages: 256
If you like: English countryside horror, narratives that center around grief, family relationships, and what we owe the dead.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Synopsis: Follows Tommy, a hustler in NYC who comes face to face with an old, terrifying cosmic being.
Sub genre: Cosmic horror / Pages: 149
If you like: Eldritch beings, New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, retellings, and historical fiction.
My review here.
Malpertuis by Jean Ray
Synopsis: Follows a man who lives with his strange relatives in an old, crumbling mansion and begins to uncover what lurks in the shadows.
Sub genre: Gothic horror / Pages: 239
If you like: Greek mythology, gothic mansions, stories told through different perspectives, and tragic love stories.
That is all I have for you all, but I do hope in this long list, there is a book you will read and find quite nice. I hope the gloom that has found me has not found you and that you’ll let me know what you’re reading these days.
Take care of yourselves.
I've had Black Tom on my Kindle forever. Need to get to it at some point.