This week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is a Halloween freebie. Today I’m writing about some of my favorite horror/paranormal stories that you may not have heard about. I’m always been a big fan of Stephen King, but these days I lean more towards fantasy and horror that are more eerie than violent, and stories that combine unique places, history, and diverse perspectives to create a chilling story. Here are some of my favorites.
Diverse People and Places
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a blend of urban fantasy and crime noir, this novel is set in Mexico City in an alternate reality where vampires have been living among humans for years. Mexico City has succeeded in remaining vampire-free, thanks to strict rules and vigilant organized crime. But now one vampire has returned, and she’s being followed…
The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks: This book takes place on a train that runs from China to Russia in the 1899, carrying passengers towards a Grand Exhibition in Moscow. Between Beijing and Moscow are the Wastelands of Siberia – mysterious, dangerous and poisonous. On the train’s last run, something terrible happened that none of the crew can remember.
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo: Set in Manchuria in 1908, this book is about a woman who is also a fox, who is hunting down her child’s killer. It’s a great blend of detective story, fantasy, and mythology.
Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey: I loved this book about a mother and daughter finding a home in the Alaskan wilderness. This was absolutely my type of read, combining troubled families, love, nature, and fantasy.
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith: Blending horror and history, this book explores colonialism in Vietnam over the last century, in a strange story about a young woman who goes missing.
Stories by Unsung Authors
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean: This is absolutely one of my favorite books you probably haven’t heard of. It blends fantasy and horror with great character development and creativity. Set in England, Devon is a woman who grew up in a strange family, the child of creatures who look human but who eat books instead of food and take on the characteristics of those books. Then her child is born with a dreadful condition – he eats brains instead of books.
The Sea Gives Up the Dead by Molly Olguin: I loved this book of short stories that are a blend of magical realism, fairy tale retellings, history, love, grief, and horror.
A Deadly Fortune by Stacie Murphy: This debut novel introduces readers to three characters in Gilded Age New York. Amelia gets by telling fortunes in a club, but after a head injury, she’s finds she’s able to connect with the dead. However an encounter with a spirit results in her incarceration on Blackwell’s Island, an insane asylum for poor women with a terrible history.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torsz: This debut novel was an extremely impressive fantasy novel about the dark magic in books, and the bonds of family.
Books by Popular Authors You May Not Have Read
Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden: Set in World War I Halifax and Belgium, this was the perfect blend of historical fiction and fantasy. I was already a big fan of Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy, but this book is very different from her other ones, and apparently it’s a book that took her a long time to write. It’s worth the wait.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle: Set in 1915, Adelaide Henry has just buried her parents on their farm in California, and she heads out to Montana to stake a claim for land in the only place she knows that will give land to a black woman. With her she lugs a mysterious steamer trunk that is always locked, and that she talks to, when no one is looking.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant: I loved this audiobook about a ship full of scientists and reporters looking to prove whether a rumor of mysterious mermaids is a hoax – of course they turn out to be very real and absolutely terrifying. You’ll also appreciate the diversity of the characters. It’s not great literature but this book will stay with you.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo: This book starts out a bit slow, and I struggled with the audiobook version as it was hard to follow all the different characters. But I ended up loving this story about a Jewish converso who faces death if her religion is exposed. She has a powerful gift of magic and using that magic could bring her wealth and power – but it could also lead to her downfall.
Have you read any of these? What are some of your favorite fantasy/horror novels?
