Five Spooky Book Recommendations from a Reader Who Hates Horror

A spooky image I drew myself, using several photos as reference

First off, Halloween is not my favorite holiday. (What are we celebrating, exactly? One day a year when non-cosplayers can cosplay without feeling like anyone is judging them for liking fictional characters?)

That being said, I know many people who love Halloween, including horror movies and books. I understand that horror can be cathartic in a way—viewers get to experience the fear second-hand while knowing that they are physically safe—but I still avoid it. I prefer laughing to screaming.

However. Over the past year I have ventured out of my usual genre (fantasy adventure) and tried more spooky titles—and I found some that I wholeheartedly enjoyed! So without further ado, here are the top five spooky novels that I would recommend to anyone who is in the mood to be scared (a bit) during the Halloween season!

(FYI: most of these novels do contain mild gore and some unpleasant imagery, but it's never overwhelming. Book #5 has a separate gore warning in its description.)

1. The Bone Houses, by Emily Lloyd-Jones — This is my most recent spooky read, and now one of my favorites. The Bone Houses incorporates Welsh mythology into a suspenseful adventure story, starring a young woman seeking to protect her family and a young man searching for his. The stakes are high and the action is intense, but the romance is sweet and the resolution is delightful. This novel's storyline might remind you of the premise of The Chronicles of Prydain, AKA The Black Cauldron, but Lloyd-Jones gives it an entirely new twist and a modern style that is (in my opinion) exponentially better than that old, terrifying movie adaptation.

2. The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud — This is book one in the Lockwood & Co. series, which has become my new favorite series of all time--yes, there are some gory ghosts and corpses, but the characters are so excellently written that I was hooked almost instantly.  Lucy, Lockwood, and George spout such entertaining dialogue even as they face down haunted buildings and spectral dangers. Their world is so beautifully crafted, and the whole series is brilliantly plotted so that each book builds on the previous ones and leads to a fantastically frightening conclusion. I listened to all five books over the course of two weeks and I do not regret it!

3. Elatsoe, by Darcie Little Badger — Okay, fine, this one is more fantasy than horror, but I have to say it was not what I was expecting—but in a good way! There's a lot of creepy goings-on involving magical creatures and curses. The setting is a modern United States where cultural magic exists, so we get things like fairy ring transportation and pet ghosts. Ellie, the main character, embarks on a mission to solve her cousin's murder after his ghost pays her a visit. Along the way she encounters a fabulous variety of supernatural beings and ancient magic, and while the mystery isn't too difficult to figure out, the unraveling of the gruesome details is where the real story-magic lies.

4. Ophie's Ghosts, by Justina Ireland — This book is marketed as middle grade, but I listened to it with my dad and a sister and we all enjoyed it. The main character, Ophelia, is a young black girl who discovers that she can see ghosts—and her new ability gets her tangled up in the drama of the rich, white family she works for. This novel inserts ghosts and grudges into a richly historical setting, highlighting the intersection of cultural traditions and old prejudice. For fans of supernatural mysteries, this would be a quick, enjoyable read full of fascinating details about life in the 1920s.

5. A Taste for Monsters, by Matthew J. Kirby — Another historical setting, but this time with a lot of creative additions. Set in London in the time of Jack the Ripper, this is perhaps the most gory and grisly of these five recommendations, so be warned that it's not for the faint of heart! However, I did enjoy the character development and the presence of positive messages. Evelyn, a woman down on her luck, takes a unwanted job at a hospital caring for a man with an extremely rare and unusual condition. As she learns his story, she also learns that her own disfigurement does not define her or limit her potential. If you like to see empowerment and unintentional heroism mixed in with your spine-chilling horror, then give this novel a try!

P.S. I highly recommend the audiobooks for all of these novels! Each narrator is fabulous in their own way. (I usually check out audiobooks from my local library through Overdrive!)

How to Read 30 Novels in One Semester

You enroll in a Young Adult Literature class. Your professor requires that you read thirty YA novels in under four months. About half are specifically assigned, and the other half are up to you, as long as you pick a nice variety of genres and formats.

You start out thinking it will be fun--you'll get to dive into some of the titles that have been on your TBR list for a while. Then some of those novels turn out to be over four hundred pages, and you fall behind. You skim. You don't enjoy the process as much as you thought you would. But, you press forward anyway, determined to get through the required thirty so you can get a good grade.

Partway through the semester, you discover audio books. You always knew they existed, of course, but you haven't really tried them out until now (you're really picky about the narrators' voices). Luckily you find a few that you enjoy wholeheartedly, especially since you can multi-task while listening. You wish you had tried out audio books sooner, before you spent so much time reading thousands of physical pages.

At the end of the semester, you have read twenty-nine books. (Twenty-eight, if you're not counting the one that you almost finished but not quite.) You read a YA horror novel for the first time, and several fantastic verse novels that you hadn't heard of before. You enjoyed graphic novels, and regretted your disdain for them in elementary school. You even appreciated some realistic contemporary fiction that you would usually have ignored in favor of fantasy or sci-fi. And despite not finishing all thirty books, you still get a good grade. You take a moment to be impressed with yourself, because twenty-nine books is still quite the feat.

And then you take a nice long break, because you know you can read thirty novels in the course of one semester, but you also know that it's a lot more fun to take it slowly and savor them instead of blasting through like there's no tomorrow. So you create something, pick up a new hobby, spend time with your loved ones who may have felt neglected during the times when you prioritized your novel reading. You'll return to novels when you feel like it. And when you do come back you'll remember that branching out into other genres isn't all bad and that good novels can be found in many forms.

A selection of the books I read, with some placeholders. 

I bought mostly used books from various sellers and Chegg.

Here are my top five favorite novels from that YA Lit class. Happy reading!

1. Lovely War by Julie Berry - A fantastic WWI historical fiction written as if it were narrated by a host of Greek gods and goddesses. I give this full points for uniqueness, for character development, for the romance, and for not shying away from difficult topics like sexism, racism, and violence. The resolution is perhaps a bit idealistic, but I choose to see it as hopeful.

2. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - The main character is young, but the main idea is very deep and insanely well-developed. I didn't know if the mystery element would pay off in a satisfying way but Ness really delivered! Anyone who reads this will feel something--sadness or empathy or a renewed appreciation for life and the people around them--because of how powerfully the story is presented.

3. The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White - My first experience with YA horror! I think people who have read the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley will appreciate this novel the most, but anyone can still enjoy it if they don't mind a bit of gore and suspense. I would also recommend the audiobook; it was very well done.

4. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson - The audiobook of this novel is also fantastic, because it is read by the author herself! She adds a lot of emotion to the story as she recounts both happy memories and difficult experiences from her childhood. The downside of listening to it is that you can't see clever formatting of the verses themselves--sometimes reading the stanzas changes how I think about meanings and emphasis.

5. The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner - This is one of the only contemporary high-school YA stories that I have liked in a long time. Three friends in a small town are figuring out what they want out of life after graduation, and how to make big decisions when faced with pressure from friends and family. One huge theme is the toxic application of religion, or the effects of toxic beliefs and people, but also how everyone can discover faith for themselves despite past negative experiences.

Book Recommendations From My Summer 2019 Reads

This summer I read 22 books. Twenty-two! And those are just the ones I finished. Now that school has started again, I can't keep up the same rate, but I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving break... ;)

Of those 22 books, 12 were physical books, 8 were ebooks, and 2 were audio books. 6 were re-reads, one was recommended to me, and the rest I found randomly. I enjoyed most of them, so I want to recommend my top 5 to you! (I read almost exclusively fiction, so, sorry to my non-fiction-loving friends.)

(images from goodreads.com, collage made by me)

-For Lovers of Historical Fiction and/or Romance-

1- It's been said before, but I'll say it again: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a masterpiece. And a mouthful. But if you haven't read it yet, you seriously should! It's written in letters from various characters, and it was so entertaining! I also learned a lot about WWII from a British perspective. This is also a classic case of the book being better than the movie.

2- Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal. This standalone novel is set during WWI in England. It follows a member of the Spirit Corps, a woman who is a medium and converses with the spirits of soldiers who have been killed to try to learn information that will help win the war. There is a murder mystery, lots of action, and some romance. The characters are real and complex, and the way that conversing with souls and reading the colors of auras was explained was fascinating. A smooth writing style wraps this up into a neat historical fantasy.

-For Lovers of Post-Apocalyptic or Dystopian Settings-

3- Last Star Burning by Caitlin Sangster was the book recommended to me by a friend. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world with Chinese cultural influences. It's also a very mild retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but there's a unique twist. Even though most of the book is the main characters traveling, it's not the stereotypical, boring traveling sequence; there is a lot of action and minimal downtime, which keeps the story moving along. There's also a budding love triangle, if you're into that. It's the first of a series, and I expect great things from the next books!

-For Lovers of Magic Systems and Worldbuilding-

4- A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, is the first of a trilogy. I read the third one this summer, so I thought I'd recommend the beginning! This series is set in London, in the past, but there are actually four Londons in alternate worlds that can only be reached by blood magic travel. The magic system is super well done, from the differences in abilities to the variations in the four Londons. I really cared about the characters by the end: they are imperfect but they try, which makes them relatable. As a content warning, this series is fairly violent and bloody (kind of a given, since it's about blood magic), and there's some profanity.

-For Lovers of Contemporary and Diverse Voices-

5- Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork is a timely story about a family living in Mexico City who find themselves on a mob's hit list after trying to fight against widespread corruption. It deals with big issues, like friendship, betrayal, poverty, crime, how far a person is willing to go to help their family, and reasons why people try to enter the U.S. illegally. It is a new perspective on immigration and asylum seeking that is important in today's world. The story is suspenseful and thought-provoking, and while it can get dark and gloomy at times, ends on an optimistic note.


If you do read any of these, let me know what you think! And if you have recommendations for me, please share! Even when we're busy with school, work, and other responsibilities, I hope we can all find time to read for fun, and that we can find books that expand our world view and feed our imagination.

Thanks for reading this post; now go read a book!

Thoughts About Success

Flash Fiction: a form of short story that is limited in word count. It can be 1500 words, 500 words, or even 280 characters.

Last year, a student journal at my university called Leading Edge held a contest for flash fiction—they wanted stories under 500 words and provided a simple illustration as a prompt. On the day before the deadline, I wrote a 208-word story and submitted it.

(Leading Edge logo, © 2015)

A week or two later I found out I had won, and I was ECSTATIC, but then I felt guilty because I had only spent one day on the story. And then I felt proud, because I had only spent one day on the story! (Of course, it still went through a few drafts, because I had to cut out all the unnecessary details. But it was a quick process, and quick success.)

I'm posting this later than I planned because I found myself quite busy last semester, partly because I started volunteering for this same student journal as an acquisitions editor. They've now published another issue (#74) since the one my flash fiction is in (#73), and I got to help with bits of the editing and formatting process.

As a result, I've learned a lot about publishing. Leading Edge receives a LOT of submissions from all over the world, and the majority get rejected because they aren't quite publishing quality yet. Some submissions have been waiting for over a year to be read, because the rather small staff of editors is made up entirely of volunteers who only meet twice a week. The only reason my flash fiction was reviewed and selected so quickly is that it was specifically for a contest.

It has made me wonder: if there hadn't been a contest, a deadline, or the sense of competition, would I have ever submitted anything? Would I have written a short story (between 1,000 and 15,000 words) and submitted it, and then patiently waited for over a year to hear if it had been accepted or rejected? If it had been rejected, would I have edited it and tried to submit it again, or would I have declared it a lost cause and moved on?

I continue to tell people that I want to be an author someday. I know that winning this flash fiction contest does not mean my future works will have the same success. Writing a novel, or even a short story, is a big commitment—certainly it takes more than a day. After the writing is done, the road to publication involves time, effort, and, often, rejection.

However, I know that success is not just winning contests or getting published—it is working hard at something you love, seeing your growth over time, and constantly expanding your talents. And, if you are able, it is also sharing what you've learned with others and finding joy in their successes.

This applies to any form of art or skill set, so go pursue your various creative interests! If you don't win the contest, keep trying! If you do win the contest, still keep trying! Create because you enjoy it. Success is not only recognition; it is knowing you have done your best and that you are always improving.

My writing has come a long way over the years, but I know there is still plenty of time and room to grow. Join me on the journey?

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If you are interested in supporting Leading Edge, here are links to Amazon listings! Buying a copy allows the journal to pay the sci-fi authors and artists who contribute their work. Both physical copies and e-books are available. Thank you!

Amazon Leading Edge Issue 73 — (contains my flash fiction)
Amazon Leading Edge Issue 74 — (I helped edit this one—e-book format coming soon!)