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Spooky/Moody Book Recommendations
15
items Sometimes, you just need a moody read. Check back here for when I update my suggestions!
Dark, moody, intense, set in a world that is usually made into the “other” of Gothic tales, this book will have you gasping for breath until the final pages.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Paperback
This book WRECKED me and is full of amazing queer rep and spooky thrills
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth (B&N Exclusive Edition)|BN Exclusive
You might notice a trend. I love Andrew Joseph White’s work for its rep and its vibes. This book takes religious trauma and shows what it’s like when the savior becomes the damnation of a post apocalyptic world.
Hell Followed with Us|Paperback
Spooky vibes in a natural history museum with its own history? Sign me up! It also takes place near where I went to undergraduate! ❤️
The Paleontologist|Paperback
This books has the sumptuous spooky vibes that only a book that is steeped in the feminist rhetoric that examines teenage female friendships against a backdrop of patriarchy is capable of.
Wilder Girls|Paperback
A haunted house story that is filled with more than just specters and spooks. Loved the atmosphere.
Katrina Leno
A historical fiction novel surrounding an alleged murderess and the story that her trial did not tell. Absolutely riveting and the Icelandic setting is just wonderfully moody.
Burial Rites|Paperback
Another book around the narrative of an alleged murderess, but this time it is focused on the unreliability of Grace as a narrator of her own crime and the burgeoning field of psychology!
Alias Grace|Paperback
Book one in the Sword Soldier trilogy, this book is a retelling of “The Fall of the House of Usher” with bizarre nature and queer rep!
What Moves the Dead|Paperback
Book 2 in the Sworn Soldier trilogy, this book takes Alex Easton home and brings up the question: can you survive the monster you cannot see?
What Feasts at Night|Paperback
Who can resist the sapphic vampire story that more or less started the western world spiraling into its obsession with vampires? Not me.
Carmilla, Deluxe Edition: The Dark Sapphic Romance that inspired Dracula|Paperback
A lot of people have read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, but have you read this even more unhinged spooky read by her? It's got family drama and murder. What more could you need?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)|Paperback
The Queen of the Fairy Tale Retelling Herself, Angela Carter, makes the familiar both moody and spooky in these classic fairy tales that may not end how you expect. Two favorites of mine have always been "The Tiger's Bride" and "The Bloody Chamber"
The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories: 75th-Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)|Paperback
Forbidden books, a secret library, and the pursuit of a potentially deadly enemy all coalesce in this translated story about censorship and book banning that is particularly pertinent in this day and age.
The Shadow of the Wind|Paperback
Something I can't get enough of is the reimagining of the gothic and it's hard to find someone who did it better than Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is one of my faves and the movie is hauntingly beautiful if you're a book with a movie adaptation kind of...
Rebecca|Paperback