As someone who spent a year and half living in Salem, Massachusetts, I can tell you for a fact that spooky season doesn’t end in November. That said, the amount of effort it takes to maintain in the summer is on par with training for an Olympic sport. How is one supposed to wear all black in this humidity? I weep for my runny eyeliner, and then weep again for my mascara, which is now perpetuating the problem.
Thank god for books—we can summon those hauntingly delicious chilly October nights with a good candle and a little reading station right in front of the AC unit. Bonus if the candle is caramel scented.
If you’re looking for a book that brings that fall magic into your sticky summer life, might I humbly suggest my debut novel, Glass Girls? Alice Haserot, a former child medium, thought she’d escaped her haunted past. That is, until her estranged sister, Bronwyn, corners her in a grocery store with a terrifying ultimatum: one of her daughters is trying to possess the other, and only Alice can stop it. If Alice refuses, Bronwyn will go to their abusive mother and expose her location. What follows is the sibling road trip from hell, interrogations of generational trauma, motherhood, and the ghosts that won’t let us go.
But if witches, haunted houses, and poltergeists aren’t quite your cup of cinnamon tea, I’ve also got you covered. Whether you’re in the mood for a good gothic, Bluebeard retellings, dark academia, folkloric terror, or sapphic cannibalism, this list has something for everyone:
Caitlin Starling, The Starving Saint
Aymar Castle is under siege. Food is running dangerously low—until the Saints appear. The Constant Lady and her retinue heal the sick and feed the castle in bacchanalian parties. Only three people remain free of their influence: Voyne, a loyal knight who battles her own desire to believe in the Saints; Phosyne, a scattered nun-turned-enchantress who fears she might have something to do with their arrival; and Treila, a servant girl in the depths of the castle, who is nursing her own plans of revenge. Sapphic, haunting, terrifying—this should be number one on your summer reading list.
This book came out May 20th, and I devoured it all in one sitting on launch day, alternatively tearing up and gasping. Caitlin Starling, who is also the author of the Death of Jane Lawrence is known for her haunting prose and spooky stories, but the Starving Saints is an magnum opus level hybrid between haunted, sapphic, culty, witchy, and cannibalistic.
Sue Rainsford, Follow Me to Ground
Ada and her father are healers, able to heal the folks in the local nearby town (“Cures”) by singing to them or by burying in the dangerous and transformative nearby Ground. But when Ada falls in love with one of the Cures and decides to keep him, things go terribly wrong.
With achingly beautiful prose, Sue Rainsford creates a world that challenges what we understand about prey predator, a book which relishes in its own fairytale strangeness. If your taste in spooky fiction balances the line between folklore and fairytale, this one is for you.
Emily Danforth, Plain Bad Heroines
Plain Bad Heroines is a multi-story masterpiece—part cursed girls school, part scandalous memoir, part haunted Hollywood novel—and that’s before accounting for all the yellow jackets. At the Brookhants School for Girls, a pair of deeply-in love students die after a mysterious yellow jacket attack. The headmistress and her girlfriend try to unravel what happened, but something odd is happening to them as well. A decade later, a teen writing prodigy produces a book about Brookhants, which is being adapted into a movie, set in the ruins of the school.
This book rocked my ghost-print ghosts socks off in 2020, and I’ve returned to it at least once year since. It’s sapphic, unhinged, twisty, and cuts to the emotional bone.
Bonus: there are illustrations!!
Grady Hendrix, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Louise’s parents have died, and Louise must negotiate with her deadbeat brother Mark to get their house ready for sale. Part of the problem? Her father’s academic career and her mother’s doll and puppet obsession have left the house a haunted spectacle—and that’s before you take into account the actual ghost.
It’s basically illegal to write a spooky reads list without listing at least one Grady Hendrix novel. I have convinced at least 6 people to read this particular one with a single quote: “In college, I joined a radical puppet collective.”
Roshani Chokshi, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride
The Bluebeard re-telling you did not know you needed until now. Once upon a time, a scholar who believes in love and fairytales marries an enigmatic heiress named Indigo. Their marriage contract is sealed with one condition: he cannot question her about her past. This promise is put to the test when Indigo’s aunt sickens, and the couple go to stay in Indigo’s childhood home, the House of Dreams. However, there is the ghost of another girl in these halls, Indigo’s childhood friend Azure who went missing under mysterious circumstances. Guttural scream of girlhood and scathing dissection of the manic pixie dream girl myth, this one is sure to have you turning the pages and leaving the lights on at night.
Fun fact: When I got my book signed by Roshani Chokshi, I got so starstruck that when she complimented my hair, I blurted out that I dyed it specifically to match her book cover. This was not true. The book cover was blue. My hair, dear reader, was purple. I blame my proximity to greatness. It addled my wits.
The good news? If you do come out to one of my Glass Girls events this summer—in New York, Chicago, or Michigan—you don’t have to nervous about saying hi. You can rest easy knowing that I have already said the weirdest possible thing anyone can say to an author, so the pressure is off. Bonus if you’d like to chat about haunted book recommendations—together, we can bring the spooky back into late June.
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