Here are 100 books that Cabal fans have personally recommended if you like
Cabal.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As an author, I love reading books that feature writers and explore their daily ups and downs as well as their larger successes and failures. Working on a novel or an article is already a harrowing task, but throw in other complications like writer’s block, dangerous fans, and sources who won’t give you the information you need, and life gets a lot more challenging. These twisty tomes explore what happens when these writers find their own stories taking some perilous turns.
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.
Before the Wizard. Before Glinda. Before Dorothy and her broken companions.
Oz was a land of darkness.
Spun into a world she doesn’t understand, Dolly is trapped in a twisted Oz—where skies are ashen, lands barren, and shadows whisper of horrors. No golden roads, only a path of crimson bricks,…
I’ve been fascinated by how people behave and how in-group bias can change who they are. That interest led me into computational sociology (I study human behavior for a living), with my work appearing in The New York Times, USA Today, WIRED, and more. But my deepest fascination has always been with people’s propensity for the horrific. I LOVE the liminal space where fear, secrecy, and belonging collide. Being neurodivergent, living in a small Virginia town with my wife and our neurodivergent, queer son, I see how communities can both shelter and suffocate. That tension is why I’m drawn to stories saturated in dread, beauty, and what lives in the shadows.
This is the book that taught me how powerful loneliness can be.
Every time I return to it, I feel one character’s ache settle into me, that desperate want to belong somewhere, even if it’s a house that doesn’t love you back. I recommend it because it still feels as if I’m attempting to figure out what is happening alongside the characters, the way only great writing can.
Jackson makes you realize that the scariest hauntings aren’t in the walls, they’re the ones we carry within us.
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story "Sardonicus," considered by Stephen King to be "perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written," to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories…
I’ve been writing stories and poems with erotic themes since I first entered the spoken word scene in 1980s San Francisco. As a young queer boy, raised in the highly eroticized Catholic Church, I was actually comfortable talking about and writing about sex and eros as I’d been stigmatized by it, and it got me fascinated with what the big deal was and why writers were afraid to approach it or why they did so in a corny/predictable/idealized and/or often dishonest and clumsy way. Soon I was teaching erotic writing and have been integrating it into my writing in honest, fresh, and enlivening ways—and helping others do so—ever since.
In my opinion, one of the finest living writers in the English language, Winterson masterfully spins a tale of historical, poetic, eccentric, dreamy and highly sensual, and gender-bending eroticism involving an androgynous hero during the Napoleonic era, and taking place in the kitchens of the emperor, on the battlefield and along the freezing march into Russia, as well as amid the canals of Venice. Always thought-provoking and rife with magical realism and plain heart-stopping imagery, tension, and poetry, Winterson tells her story in a manner that will—if not change your ideas about everything—certainly challenge them. I always feel inspired to stretch my understanding wider—and I actually fall deeply in love with the world all over again—each time I finish a novel by Winterson.
From the frozen Russia of Napoleon's campaign, to the canals of Venice, this novel journeys through curious waterways of war and chance, where destiny and the heart cannot be forgotten - nor passion which is to be found somewhere between fear and sex passion, somewhere between God and the Devil. Jeanette Winterson is author of "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" which was winner of the 1985 Whitbread First Novel Award.
This is the part of the Bible they don't want you to read. Lucifer is God’s attempt at perfection. But Lucifer betrays God to live among the mortals on Earth, making enemies of God and God’s many followers.
Lucifer is just like you and me, looking for love in all…
Ever since I was a little kid, I've loved scary stories. But more than the thrill of being afraid, I was drawn to the notion of befriending the ghosts, of making the frightening familiar, of finding meaning and comfort in the horrific. Maybe that's why I'm now a queer old goth, and maybe it's why my favourite themes to both read and write are those of identity, belonging as an outsider, and the 'monstrous' elevated to the beautiful.
I read this tiny collection of stories after chatting to the author on social media, and it's what got me reading again after two years of barely reading a thing.
Nostalgic, atmospheric, and vivid, these stories are sometimes stomach-churningly brutal. Even though a lot of them deal with the supernatural, it's the most mundane of situations that are the most anxiety-inducing. They took me right back to my own Northern childhood, with all the mystery, boredom, wonder, and terror it entailed. A very emotional collection with as much heart as heartbreak, wrapped up in chiming prose.
Welcome to The Repository of Lost Souls. A place for tales – and the people who walk within them – to step inside and rest their weary heads. Meet the vengeful mermaid, the weary ghost. The sibling vampire and the curious child. The family damaged by war. Join the final journey of the Bone Queen.Follow the hare.The Repository of Lost Souls is the debut short story collection of Jane Roberts-Morpeth. Twelve short stories of birth, life, death and beyond, that draw on personal experience and the North East of England, where she lives. Some have a ghostly or paranormal element…
My favorite books as a child were the ones where kids went off on wild, impossible adventures alone, figuring things out, learning important lessons, and finding they were more capable than they thought. Wisdom, truth, insight, inspiration… those are the treasures found in these fantastical places. I’ve written (and told) stories all my life, but it wasn’t until I was in my fifties that my goal of publishing a book was realized. And now I have four more coming out (Lord willing!) within the next year and a half. It’s never too late. Unless you’re dead, then you blew it. So don’t stop trying, whatever your goals are.
Not the new, watered-down versions, mind you. The original, dark ones that you read now and think, “Who in their right mind would let a kid read this?”
These stories were insane, and I couldn’t get enough of them. And the thing about these stories is that they’re real. There are monsters living among us (we read about them in the news). There’s a reason to be cautious and aware of our surroundings. Life isn’t all sunshine and lollipops, and I think it’s not a bad idea to let kids know that bad things happen, but that children can be stronger than they think. After all, Hansel and Gretel sent the witch into the oven instead of themselves.
The Brothers Grimm: The Complete Fairy Tales is a collection of more than 200 tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.
FREE AUDIOBOOKS INCLUDED.
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1786–1859), were Hessian academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore during the 19th century. They were among the first and best-known collectors of German and European folk tales.
Among the most popular tales: "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig"), "The Goose-Girl" ("Die Gänsemagd"), "Hansel and Gretel" ("Hänsel und Gretel"), "Rapunzel", "Little Red Riding Hood" ("Rotkäppchen"), "The Wolf and…
I have always been fascinated with the macabre and things that go bump in the night. My parents took me to see my first horror movie when I was a month old. It was the 1974 version of It’s Alive. I have been a horror lover ever since. I read my first Stephen King novel, Pet Semetary, at age nine. Then I moved on to Salem’s Lot and The Shining, devouring all three books before I was ten. I have had experiences of things moving in my bedroom when I am the only one there. I believe in the things that go bump in the night.
We all know King is the master of horror. Most of his books are novels of one story but I love his short stories. They are fast-paced and leave you wondering what lurks around the corner. King talks about struggling as a writer and barely making it in the beginning. He sold his stories to men’s magazines to make ends meet when he was first starting out. It gives hope to us who feel like we will never make it.
'A gripping and satisfyingly scary' (Sunday Telegraph) bumper collection of RIVETING, DARK STORIES from the No. 1 bestselling master of the form, now with a stunning new cover look.
Just after sunset, as darkness grips the imagination, is the time when you feel the unexpected creep into the every day. As familiar journeys take a different turn, ordinary objects assume extraordinary powers.
A blind intruder visits a dying man - and saves his life, with a kiss.
A woman receives a phone call from her husband. Her late husband.
In the emotional aftermath of her baby's sudden death, Emily starts…
I have always been fascinated with the macabre and things that go bump in the night. My parents took me to see my first horror movie when I was a month old. It was the 1974 version of It’s Alive. I have been a horror lover ever since. I read my first Stephen King novel, Pet Semetary, at age nine. Then I moved on to Salem’s Lot and The Shining, devouring all three books before I was ten. I have had experiences of things moving in my bedroom when I am the only one there. I believe in the things that go bump in the night.
This book has all of his tales and poems in it. Even his poems get your heart racing and reference things that go bump in the night. Never read it before bed, you will be listening for every little sound, wondering just what may be coming to visit you in the dark.
From Edgar Allan Poe - "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
The Essential Edgar Allan Poe Collection Contains 76 Poems Written by Poe from 1824 - 1849, as well as 23 of his most Popular and Well-Loved Stories and Tales.
Tales In This Collection Includes:
Morella
The Devil in the Belfry
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Masque of the Red Death
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Black Cat
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Purloined…
I have always been fascinated with the macabre and things that go bump in the night. My parents took me to see my first horror movie when I was a month old. It was the 1974 version of It’s Alive. I have been a horror lover ever since. I read my first Stephen King novel, Pet Semetary, at age nine. Then I moved on to Salem’s Lot and The Shining, devouring all three books before I was ten. I have had experiences of things moving in my bedroom when I am the only one there. I believe in the things that go bump in the night.
This book was my first read of Amy Cross’ collection of books. I made quick work of it as I was sucked into the story. It is the tale of an old house and how it has a hold on anyone who lives in it. She masterfully tells the tale of the current occupants and the former occupants blended into one beautifully frightening tale.
When she moves with her mother to a new house, Rachel immediately knows that something's not quite right. Although she's blind, Rachel realizes that all the stories about the house's past don't quite add up.
She's dead right.
This particular house was previously owned by a troubled nurse who spent her every waking moment caring for a sick old man. After losing her mind, the nurse went on a horrific killing spree. Is she still around now, lurking in the shadows, waiting for her chance to strike again?
The Nurse is a horror novel about a girl who finds herself…
I wasn’t a fan of reading when I was young. I was a lazy reader. Subjects and genres were always chosen for me during education, until I hunted for my own. I used to write a lot more than reading in early high school. I wrote a horror journal, submitted to my English teacher every week. He told me that my writing was good but advised me that reading the genre could help develop my ideas. Funny, a young teenager couldn’t work that out? So, off I went to the local bookstore and bought my first horror novel. I devoured it within a week. I've been a reader and writer of horror ever since.
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.
Using ancient black magic, a dangerous, vindictive maniac is made all-powerful by his ability to become invisible. Raping and murdering his way around the States, he is biding his time before fulfilling his one desire—to get even with the high school belle who rejected him years before.
I wasn’t a fan of reading when I was young. I was a lazy reader. Subjects and genres were always chosen for me during education, until I hunted for my own. I used to write a lot more than reading in early high school. I wrote a horror journal, submitted to my English teacher every week. He told me that my writing was good but advised me that reading the genre could help develop my ideas. Funny, a young teenager couldn’t work that out? So, off I went to the local bookstore and bought my first horror novel. I devoured it within a week. I've been a reader and writer of horror ever since.
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.
In this collection, readers will enjoy the very best of Steven Paulsen’s dark and weird tales. Included are stories such as a future where population forces families into terrible choices, the awakening of an eldritch horror in colonial British India, the steaming jungles of Vietnam alongside the spirits of the forest, and more.
