Horror – Page 3 – Marked for Plot

The Butcherer of the Forest

Dark, atmospheric fairy tales are right up my alley, and early reviews of The Butcherer of the Forest made it seem like a good fit for my tastes. This ended up being one part fantasy, one part horror, and one part wandering trip through an hallucination. It won’t be my favorite read of the year, but it was a great time in a small package.

The Premise
Veris is just a normal woman living under The Tyrant’s rule. She raises rabbits, pens letters for those who can’t write, and generally tries to avoid notice. Unfortunately, she’s the only person to ever return from The North Forest with one of the lost children. So when The Tyrant’s own children venture in, she is forced to once more visit her worst nightmares, for if she can’t save the children, her town will burn.

Read If Looking For: dreamy (or nightmarish) prose, fairy tale settings, unknowable beings

Avoid if Looking For: plot driven stories, explanations and justifications for the setting, tidy character arcs

A Botanical Daughter

This book has been pitched as a mashup between Mexican Gothic, Frankenstein, written through the lens of Oscar Wilde. I don’t think that’s a perfect description, but it (and some phenomenal cover art) put this book on my list as I tried to tackle the new releases of 2024. Gothic fiction may not be my favorite genre, but there was a lot to love in this debut novel, even if there were places it was rough around the edges.

The Premise:
A botanist and taxidermist who live in a greenhouse dig up a dead body, throw an intelligent fungus inside it, and watch as their experiment grows into something utterly unexpected. As Chloe (their ‘daughter’) grows in ability and sentience, it strains the relationship between Gregor (the botanist), Simon (the Taxidermist) and Jenny (their housekeeper, and the ex-girlfriend of the human whose body hosts Chloe).

Read If Looking For: realistic gay relationships, cool fungi, gothic vibes

Avoid if Looking For: Romances, something viscerally scary, satisfying character arcs

Not Even Bones

I’m not a person who can handle gruesome depictions of core when presented with the slow, deliberate pace of a medical show or some darker parts of fantasy. When in the middle of an action scene, sure, but torture is something I struggle with. As I’ve read more horror over the years though, I’ve started to appreciate it more and more. And if you’re interested in a dark story that feels a lot like watching Dexter or You, then Market of Monsters will be right up your alley

The Premise:
Nita is the teenage child of a couple who hunts and kills supernatural creatures. Some are monsters, but others are intelligent people, basically humans with some extra bells and whistle. Nita dissects the bodies, packaging them for sale on the black market. But when her mother brings a live … specimen in, Nita lets him go. And then her mother puts Nita on the black market, to be killed for the highest bidder. Because Nita isn’t totally human either.

Read If Looking For: body horror, fun twists, urban fantasy that goes beyond werewolves and vampires

Avoid if Looking For: bespoke prose, books where characters make smart choices, healthy family dynamics

Someone You Can Build a Nest In

Someone You Can Build a Nest in caught my eye with its cover as I was exploring 2024 new releases. I threw a hold on the audiobook at my local library and promptly forgot about it until it came up just as I was finishing a re-listen of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It was perfect timing, and ended up being a really wonderful read that is a good example of a book that manages to successfully balance romance and fantasy elements in its story.

Elevator Pitch:
Shesheshen is a shapeshifting monster. Homily is a monster hunter. After Shesheshen is driven from her lair and unmasked, she ends up falling down a ravine only to be rescued by Homily, who mistakes her for a human woman. As they fall in love, monster hunters descend into the town and Shesheshen must grapple with her own survival, what it means to fall in love when (for her species) that usually means killing the one you love, and how to successfully masquerade as a human.

Read If Looking For: quality asexual romance, plus sized queer rep, cozy/horror mashups

Avoid if Looking For: monsters that truly feel monstrous

The Woods All Black

Horror, especially queer horror, is something that I’ve been dipping my toes in more and more as I get older. I’m a squeamish person; during medical shows I look away during surgery scenes, and I despise jump scares. But I find both elements much more manageable in book form. And The Woods All Black was a wonderful marriage of queer history and queer horror. At 150 pages, it was an easy choice to pick up.

The Premise:
Leslie is a frontier nurse. Having served as a nurse in the First World War, he now visits remote towns to provide medical care, oftentimes presenting as a woman to make others more comfortable, and keep himself safe. He finds himself at Spar Creek which, despite inviting him to come provide care, now treats him with extreme frostiness. Something unnatural is going on in this town, but the biggest threat might be the preacher, who sets his sights on Leslie immediately.

Read If Looking For: Appalachian settings, queer history, religious horror

Avoid if Looking For: engaging romances, lots of supernatural content

The Daughter’s War

This book is a prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, which was a story that I enjoyed, especially for some of its worldbuilding elements. However, I had some issues with the pacing of the book. It was engaging enough that The Daughter’s War, with its promise of brutal goblins, an engaging central character, and horror elements, was a powerful draw. In the end I liked it more than Blacktongue Thief, and the books can be read independently of each other.

The Premise:
It is the third goblin war. Horses are practically extinct, as are most of the men. Galva marches with a cohort of other women warriors, part of a new experimental corvid unit. Their monstrous birds were bred by wizards to kill the goblin horde, for the ‘biters’ fear one thing: birds. But war is brutal, and nobody comes out unscathed. From the very first page, you know exactly how much Galva is going to lose, but the journey is one hell of a ride.

Read If Looking For: scary goblins, scary birds, mysterious wizards, the horrors of war

Avoid if Looking For: cinematic action scenes, traditional hero’s journeys

An Academy for Liars

Dark Academia isn’t a subgenre I read a lot of. I tend to prefer my magic school stories on the kid-side of things. But when this year’s bingo card asked me to dive into a Dark Academia, I started looking for a 2024 release that would satisfy me. An Academy of Liars seemed like fun, and I had a great time with it, even if I had some issues with the book’s execution.

The Premise
Lennon’s life is in pieces when she’s invited to Drayton, a college secluded in time and space for those who have the gift to persuade people (and reality itself) to bend to her will. She just fled an engagement with a cheating fiancé, is in the midst of a sever mental health crisis, and is looking to reinvent her life. While there, she meets a hot tattooed professor who becomes her advisor, and discovers that she’s got abilities that the everyone is jealous and terrified of. Oh, and the school and all its inhabitants are all harboring dark secrets. Fun times!

Read If Looking For: Dark Academia with a romance focus, fast paced books, rats named Gregory

Avoid if Looking For: healthy relationship dynamics, quality mental health rep, books that will make you think

The Brides of High Hill

I’ve got a great love for The Singing Hills Cycle, and picking up the newest release was a relatively easy decision for me. The series of novellas focuses on a historian cleric on various adventures, collecting the stories of the people and creatures of their world, which has clear Chinese and Mongolian influences. Storytelling, perspectives, and the meaning of truth are running motifs throughout the series, and they can be read in any order.

Elevator Pitch:
A historian cleric accompanies a young girl to her wedding, only to find that there is something dark going on in this house. The girl’s future husband has a mysterious past, the servants are tight lipped, and the cleric’s companion bird isn’t at their side to offer advice. And the cleric has a crush on the girl about to be married, and is desperate to save her from what they see as a potentially disastrous situation.

Read If Looking For: gothic horror, haunted houses, light mystery elements, quality prose

Avoid if Looking For: deeply thematic works, traditional fantasy storytelling

Hyperion

Hyperion is one of those classic fantasy stories that’s genre defining, and often makes ‘must read’ lists. I have a rather thorny relationship with lots of these books. I find Lord of the Rings frustrating and Dune rather boring. I tend to gravitate towards lesser read early works, such as those by George MAcDonald. Hyperion though, is a classic that really captured my imagination and ran with it.

The Premise:
Seven Pilgrims are on a journey to see the Shrike in the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. There is the Priest, the Soldier, the Poet, the Templar, the Scholar (with an infant daughter) the Detective, and the Consul. And as time passes, they decide to share the stories that led them to this pilgrimage. This book centers around those tales, and is a clear reference to classic work of the English Language The Canterbury Tales.

Read If Looking For: gorgeous prose, deeply fleshed out characters, classical references

Avoid if Looking For: books without men writing women problems, books with a singular driving plot

Walking Practice

Translated Novels tend to be some of the more unique reads. It’s easy to forget how much cultures have self-reinforcing patterns in their writing, even across subgenres. Walking Practice is a great example of how translated fiction can be an engaging experience that confronts your notions of how stories go. Assuming you’re reading in English and not Korean, I highly recommend reading Victoria Caudle’s translation notes, which will provide key context for what the hell is going on with this book’s typesetting.

The Premise:
An alien is stranded on Earth, at the mercy of the planet’s intense gravity and its own need to eat. Thankfully, Earth is full of delicious, tasty humans! And so this shapeshifting creature laboriously makes its way through the city towards its meals, adapting its appearance on the premise of a fun hookup that turns into mealtime. When things go sideways though, the alien must adjust or starve.

Read If Looking For: horror with deep themes, gruesome depictions of bodies, gore, and sex, utterly alien narrators

Avoid if Looking For: something like what you’ve read before