82 Books Like Behind the Midnight Blinds

When novelist Paul Sheldon suffers a terrible car accident, he finds himself in the care of Annie Wilkes, a woman who claims to be his biggest fan and wants to nurse him back to health. But Annie isn’t pleased with the way Paul has brought his beloved series featuring Misery Chastain to a close. 

I love that we get a front-row seat to this unhinged author-fan encounter. Despite the horror that’s inflicted, readers—especially ones who are also writers—may take a perverse pleasure in seeing a fan have such strong feelings about a fictional character. 

Another component I adore is the way an author’s ego often causes them to overlook warning signs that would set off alarm bells in others who have a clearer picture of what’s really going on.

A book I’d wanted to read for a long time, but it wasn’t until later in life I was able to get it. When I was just on the early stages of my writing career, my now longtime friend, Marty, said he had a spare copy of Cabal laying around and offered to send it to me. Marty was my writing mentor at the time as he’d been writing horror for many years previous, and his work is inspiring. So, knowing I was getting a book in the mail from my mentor, to whom I hadn’t met in person yet, was very exciting. The book itself was a tired secondhand copy (which I was told it was) yet this gave it more special meaning. Even the cover was a little torn and it was a pocket edition. So, I sat back with this little book, which I still have as… show more.

My first horror read. It is dear to me. I picked it up off the shelf. It was neat and small in my hands, so not too overwhelming for someone who didn’t enjoy reading. However, I wanted to give the genre a try as I had been a hobby horror writer for a year or so beforehand. I liked the cover and blurb on the back, which was more of an excerpt, got me walking quickly to the counter to buy it so I could rush home to find out what was going to happen. This book opened the floodgates to the beauty of horror fiction. The excitement of the characters which had inspired my earlier experiments and still provides insights to this day. This is a wild ride, so grab on tight and let it take you as it had taken me.

I went to the book launch in support of this author and had the pleasure of meeting him in person. I had not known much of his work previously but that has never stopped me from accepting an invitation to attend. I got the book home and made a start and was hooked by his elegant writing style. This is a book of short horror stories, each beautifully crafted, and inspirational as well as enjoyable. Collected works are a hard thing to get right, and Paulsen makes it look easy. 

It’s a funny egg tale. Humphrey has long known the cautionary tale of his grandfather, Humpty Dumpty. Eggs are fragile and bought specifically to be cracked... but what if they don’t want to be cracked and have their own ambitions and goals for life, like becoming a great egg-splorer? Humphrey’s daring and determination to become a great explorer allows him to come up with creative solutions to his problem. His imagination knows no bounds and creates delightful spreads sure to appeal to readers. This rollicking story expands the famous tale of a fragile egg to a new story about bravery, creativity, and forging your own path.

Full disclosure: I was an early reader of this book and have offered it a blurb. But I wouldn’t have done so had it not significantly impacted me.

Aiello’s memoir, though not strictly horror, uses aspects of genre and pop culture—including aspects of horror—to detail their own history with mental illness and the surrounding difficulties and stigmas attached to it. They go to great and much-needed lengths to dissect how mental illness has been made out to be one of the great boogeymen of our lives via its myriad portrayals in culture (as a villain, a threat, a diabolical force, etc.) and detail the damage that’s been done as a result.

This is a powerful book in which I saw myself reflected all too often.

While this book is not aimed specifically at youth, it is a fantastic financial literacy resource for all ages. 

It has clear and concise explanations and case studies to help readers fully understand the complex Australian financial system and how to best make it work for them. The author uses very relatable language, so it feels more like a conversation than a lecture.

I would recommend this book for people in their early to mid-20s and beyond.  

I didn’t think I could appreciate this memoir of a son searching for his imprisoned father in Gaddafi’s Libya until, suddenly, I did. This book showed me that the bonds between all fathers and their sons transcend things like nationality and religion. It is part of the core of what it means to be human.

I knew from the very first pages that the author would never again see his father, even as he tirelessly spends most of his adult life trying to. By extension, I understood that as much as we want to, we can never really know our fathers.

I raced through the pages.

“Long ago Virginia decreed, in the way that Virginia decrees, that I was the painter and she the writer.” Vanessa and Her Sister is a portrait of two extraordinary and unconventional women, Virginia Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. The story is told in the form of a diary kept by Vanessa, beginning at the turn of the 20th century with the formation of the Bloomsbury Group in London. Priya Parmar has created a sympathetic yet honest portrayal of Virginia Woolf, her genius and her often precarious mental state, and the impact it had on her family—in particular Vanessa, who was an important and steadying influence for her sister and a talented artist in her own right.

The Cry of the Lake was published in 2020, the same year as my book, and around that time, I had gotten to know many authors, including Charlie.

From the first line, I was drawn into the story which is told with impeccable detail, its characters clearly defined to create the dark and mysterious tale.