Tuesday Top Five: By Which I Mean Ten, Which Is Twice As Spooky

[nevanna]

Because I couldn’t narrow the list down to five, even by presenting some tied entries, here are my top ten horror or horror-adjacent novels published within the last ten years (that I haven’t already mentioned in previous entries).

1. A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge (2017)

2. Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand (2018)

3. Bunny by Mona Awad (2019)

4. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)

5. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021)

6. Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid (2022)

7. How To Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (2023)

8. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang (2023)

9. This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham (2023)

10. Come Out, Come Out by Natalie C. Parker (2024)

I feel like most of the titles on the list can be roughly sorted into “The Real Horror is a) colonialism/racial assimilation, b) generational trauma, c) obscenely wealthy families, or d) heteronormativity,” although in Bunny, The Real Horror is Your Writing Grad Program. Also, Hardinge and Hendrix have both written several other novels that I’ve deeply enjoyed, and in both cases, it was difficult to choose just one.

If you’d like to know more about any of the titles on the list (or you’ve read them and want to talk about them, or to share some of your recent spooky favorites), comments are welcome!

Comments

[beccadg]

Please tell me more about Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020) and Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid (2022)? I've been vaguely curious about both, but not sure if they might be too horror in ways I can't handle. Some stuff I'm great with, but other stuff freaks me out and-or squicks me.

[nightforest]

OOH, thank you for these! I've read two and have a couple more on my TBR already, and I'm definitely going to check out the others for potential future reads. :D

I've read sooooo much horror this past year and a half, I could probably easily do a top ten of my own (which would also have How To Sell a Haunted House on it), but I'll contain myself to my top favorite and one of my overall favorite books of the past year: The September House by Carissa Orlando. I don't want to give away too much about what the Real Horror is or everything I loved about it, because a lot of that unfolds slowly and/or is related to the ending, but it was darkly hilarious, scary, and a total delight. I almost reread it this September despite having just read it in December '23, and I'll almost certainly reread it in September '25 since I didn't end up doing it this year.