Here are 86 books that A Night in the Lonesome October fans have personally recommended if you like
A Night in the Lonesome October.
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As a genre reader since childhood, I’m all-too-familiar with the tropes of the Chosen One, the Prophecy and all those things that lead the unsuspecting child of humble birth to fulfil their Great Destiny. I’ve no complaint against it, it’s been the source of many rich and inventive stories, but I find myself increasingly drawn to stories where the protagonist is an ordinary Joe (or Jo), sucked into uncommon events beyond their normal lives and forced to find a way to survive. It’s easy to grab attention with the threatened destruction of the galaxy. How much more satisfying, then, to make a reader care about the soul of one character.
My journey with this book came at a young age, recommended to me by my older brother, and was a formative experience. Not only was it an early experience with a more adult version of the fantasy literature I’d grown up reading but it also built a bond between my brother and I, it was a shared literary experience that became special because of who I shared it with.
It opened my eyes to the idea that you could write this kind of stuff for grown-ups, and therefore, a whole new world of reading was opened to me.
Brendan Doyle is a twentieth-century English professor who travels back to 1810 London to attend a lecture given by English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is a London filled with deformed clowns, organised beggar societies, insane homunculi and magic.
When he is kidnapped by gypsies and consequently misses his return trip to 1983, the mild-mannered Doyle is forced to become a street-smart con man, escape artist, and swordsman in order to survive in the dark and treacherous London underworld. He defies bullets, black magic, murderous beggars, freezing waters, imprisonment in mutant-infested dungeons, poisoning, and even a plunge back to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I'm passionate about ghost stories, classic gothic literature, and horror comics, and I have always felt that October is too short to contain the atmospheric chills and versatility of horror stories. I am also passionate about graphic novels and have worked as a professional illustrator, comic artist, and colorist for 7 years. I love the camp, the fun, and the macabre invoked by Summerween. Now that I have written and published my own cozy, spooky graphic novel, which made both the American Book Association's Indies Introduce List for Summer 2024 and People Magazine's Summerween 2024 Book List, I want to shine the spotlight on other comics with the feeling of October.
A hauntingly beautiful anthology of five twisted fairytales that, to me, felt like stepping into a pastoral Twilight Zone and stayed in my mind for days after the final page. Carroll’s artwork is eerie and subtle, and the limited color palette turns scenes of the mundane into a visual nightmare.
The stories are well-paced and spooky, and in my opinion, best read during a dark summer thunderstorm.
I’ve been a fan of horror—specifically, supernatural horror—for as long as I can remember. Though the topic of life after death is perhaps one of the most long-standing debates in existence, almost every family has a story or two about things that can’t be explained. I’ve turned my lifelong interest in death, the occult, and how the two can coexist, into slow-burn horror stories for people who like a little weird with their fear. Stories that explore the beautiful complexity of queer people. Stories for the strange at heart.
This book is fast and punchy. It’s filled with twists and a high level of unnerving emotions. Set during autumn harvest, this is an absolutely perfect Halloween read. It is rather short, which means a fast reader or someone with some time could devour it in a day or two. There’s also an upcoming film adaptation.
It is Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death. Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’ve been reading Lovecraft, and those inspired by him, since I was in high school. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there could be a whole world just outside of sight that we never see, and once we do see we can never un-see. After I’d been writing for a few years a friend of mine suggested/demanded I write a story for him inspired by Lovecraft’s world. Mostly I started it to satisfy him but once the jar was open it all spilled out. I wove in real elements from history, including historical figures. This story ended up winning a major award, but there was still so much more to tell.
The first of Lovegrove’s Cthulhu Casebooks series. This was my introduction to the idea of a mash-up between classic and modern stories.
In Shadwell Shadows we see the brilliant Holmes and loyal Watson that everyone is familiar with, but Lovegrove takes the characters and shakes up their worlds.
He takes their documented histories and adds new, darker elements among the old. These are the hidden stories which Watson could never commit to paper for fear of what they would do to humanity.
What if, while pursuing Doctor Moriarity, Holmes and Watson were actually on the trail of something much older and more evil.
It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating a series of deaths in the Shadwell district of London. Several bodies have been found, the victims appearing to have starved to death over the course of several weeks, and yet they were reported alive and well mere days before. Moreover, there are disturbing reports of creeping shadows that inspire dread in any who stray…
I’m a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of horror fiction and have always had an affinity for the autumn season. I grew up in North Carolina and have wonderful memories of the time of year when the summer heat finally ends and the chill returns—the season of long walks in the turning woods, campfires, ghost stories, and, of course, Halloween. There’s something about that time that has always stuck with me and finds its way into my writing even now. My first collection, As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions, draws on this period of transition and so I absolutely love sharing those works which have influenced and entertained me.
This one is a bit of a fudge because it takes place in mid-August during the Hungry Ghost Festival, but the full moon and cool evening breeze capture that atmosphere of summer sliding into fall.Bound Feet is a modern ghost story centered on a grieving mother whose friend helps her break into Portland’s Chinese Garden and Ghost Museum in order to try to connect with her late daughter. What she finds, though, is a sinister presence from centuries ago and secrets that may upend her world. I love a story haunted by literal ghosts of the past, and this one had me smiling ear to ear as it descends into a nightmare phantasmagoria and twist after delicious twist is revealed. A great, quick read for beginning the season.
On the night of the Hungry Ghost Moon, when spirits can briefly return to the living world, Jodi Wu and her best friend sneak into Portland’s Chinese Garden and Ghost Museum. Kneeling before the pond where Jodi’s toddler drowned one year before, they leave food offerings and burn joss paper—and Jodi prays that Ella’s ghost will return for the night.
To distract Jodi from her grief, the two friends tell each other ghost stories as they explore the museum. They stop at the main display, a centuries-old pair of lotus slippers belonging to a woman whose toes were broken and…
I’m a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of horror fiction and have always had an affinity for the autumn season. I grew up in North Carolina and have wonderful memories of the time of year when the summer heat finally ends and the chill returns—the season of long walks in the turning woods, campfires, ghost stories, and, of course, Halloween. There’s something about that time that has always stuck with me and finds its way into my writing even now. My first collection, As Summer’s Mask Slips and Other Disruptions, draws on this period of transition and so I absolutely love sharing those works which have influenced and entertained me.
The “Cthulhu” in the title is a bit of a misnomer, since the big squid doesn’t actually make an appearance, but this anthology does collect some wonderful contemporary authors of Weird fiction exploring the autumn season. I love fiction that hints at the hidden world(s) behind our own, and these stories capture that immense and unsettling feeling of when the world’s disguises rot and fall away. You can open it to any page and find a gem, but my personal favorites include Laird Barron’s invocation of small-town bizarreness in “Andy Kaufman Creeping Through the Trees”; Nadia Bulkin’s election season meets haunted corn maze allegory “There Is a Bear in the Woods”; and Gemma Files’s archaeological horror “Grave Goods.”
H.P. Lovecraft, the American master of horror, understood with horrible clarity that all things must die. After summer is winter, and life inevitably gives way to frozen sterility. In our modern world, we live cushioned existences, and congratulate ourselves on our supposed escape from the old dangers. We think ourselves caught out of nature’s reach by our technological wizardry. Safely cocooned. This foolishness blinds us to the truth that our elder forebears could not avoid. Engulfed by the rhythms of the world, they understood... Autumn means death.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
The things that I am most interested in are books that are deliciously fun to read and books that pick you up out of your comfortable chair and drag you across a fantastic landscape. What does that require? Three Ws for starters. Wit: both on the part of the characters and the author—I like smart characters, biting banter, and clever turns of phrase and story. Weird: in the sense of the unusual and mysterious—good world-building coupled with mysteries meant to be unraveled by the reader as much as by the characters. Wild: fast-paced action filled with sudden turns and unexpected drops and conversations that are three parts well-written words and two parts fencing without a blade.
I read this straight through the day I found it, staying up way past my 13-year-old bedtime. The next day I sweet-talked my grandmother into taking me back to the bookstore to get the sequels. Morgon is an unlikely hero, gentle, practical, a farmer, and a master of riddles…wait a second.
Maybe he’s not so unlikely after all. The book begins with a family argument about the crown under his bed. It turns out Morgon won it in a murderous riddle game with a dead king. He's a man who can't stop asking questions and seeking the answers, no matter the cost, and that very bad habit leads him across the realm in a wild and deadly game of riddles against unknown and ancient enemies. McKillip's prose is witty and beautiful, and so is this book.
Long ago, the wizards had vanished from the world, and all knowledge was left hidden in riddles. Morgon, prince of the simple farmers of Hed, proved himself a master of such riddles when he staked his life to win a crown from the dead Lord of Aum. But now ancient, evil forces were threatening him. Shape changers began replacing friends until no man could be trusted. So Morgon was forced to flee to hostile kingdoms, seeking the High One who ruled from mysterious Erlenstar Mountain. Beside him went Deth, the High One's Harper. Ahead lay strange encounters and terrifying adventures.…
I’ve been reading Lovecraft, and those inspired by him, since I was in high school. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there could be a whole world just outside of sight that we never see, and once we do see we can never un-see. After I’d been writing for a few years a friend of mine suggested/demanded I write a story for him inspired by Lovecraft’s world. Mostly I started it to satisfy him but once the jar was open it all spilled out. I wove in real elements from history, including historical figures. This story ended up winning a major award, but there was still so much more to tell.
Okay, so maybe you didn’t exactly miss at least hearing about this novel, but many readers skip over the original Lovecraft stories as being too difficult to read which is a shame.
This is the where the elder god mythos truly began for me, the first of any Lovecraft story I ever read. Split into three sections this book is linked together around nightmares, cults, and a sleeping god.
Call of Cthulhu was where I learned that not every question in a story requires an answer, and that heroes can face overwhelming odds and lose in the end. It is bleak and the perfect introduction to this world.
One of the feature stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft's 'the Call of Cthulhu' is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.
I’ve been reading Lovecraft, and those inspired by him, since I was in high school. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there could be a whole world just outside of sight that we never see, and once we do see we can never un-see. After I’d been writing for a few years a friend of mine suggested/demanded I write a story for him inspired by Lovecraft’s world. Mostly I started it to satisfy him but once the jar was open it all spilled out. I wove in real elements from history, including historical figures. This story ended up winning a major award, but there was still so much more to tell.
Craft’s books are not as well known as some other Lovecraftian writers on this list, but they should be.
He takes the expected details for any Lovecraft-inspired story then turns it sideways. He weaves in an atmosphere from the hardboiled mystery writers of Lovecraft’s era, such as Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Cthulhu’s Minions starts a series which follows the Arkham Detective as he falls deeper into a world he never knew existed. This book taught me that a writer can take an existing world that is familiar to readers and still make it their own.
Cthulhu’s Minions, in this story, are Pilot Demons. They originally came into being in my novel “The Alchemist’s Notebook” based on my screenplay for “The Cry of Cthulhu.” They are creepy little things that became such great supporting characters (in a terrible sort of way) that I thought that they deserved their own separate story.“Cthulhu’s Minions” takes place in an alternate universe somewhat like the 1930’s when H.P. Lovecraft was writing his Cthulhu Mythos and writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were creating the hardboiled mystery drama. Indeed, it is as if we are being treated to a Dashiell…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve been reading Lovecraft, and those inspired by him, since I was in high school. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that there could be a whole world just outside of sight that we never see, and once we do see we can never un-see. After I’d been writing for a few years a friend of mine suggested/demanded I write a story for him inspired by Lovecraft’s world. Mostly I started it to satisfy him but once the jar was open it all spilled out. I wove in real elements from history, including historical figures. This story ended up winning a major award, but there was still so much more to tell.
Published by the makers of the Arkham Horror board and card games, the four novellas in this book follow characters from the game, giving them depth and background, bringing them to life.
This book is a perfect example of taking an existing license and transporting it to a new medium. The writing itself is modern and accessible while the stories take place in the prohibition era. What I enjoyed most is that these stories show Lovecraft created more monsters than just Cthulhu.
There is more danger in Lovecraftian fiction than one horrible, sleeping god.
The Ancient Ones are coming to consume our world, and only the bold investigators of Arkham Horror stand in their way, in this chilling collection of eldritch novellas.
Hour of the Huntress by Dave Gross - the mysterious disappearance of dilettante Jenny Barnes' beloved sister triggers a frantic search through Arkham's darkest shadows.
The Dirge of Reason by Graeme Davis - for federal agent Roland Banks, investigating a bizarre incident exposes him to the supernatural horrors of Arkham.
Ire of the Void by Richard Lee Byers - the astronomer and professor Norman Withers finds himself the subject of a strange…
