Here are 100 books that The Watchers fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have always been a horror lover, from being an 8-year-old card-carrying member of the local Goosebumps Fan Club to reading Ray Bradbury and Stephen King when I should have been reading Classics for school. I love horror that bubbles up slowly and makes you feel like someone is watching over your shoulder. I want to wonder if the legends are true and if my local creepy forest holds secrets of its own. It’s so much harder to scare without falling back on jump scares and gore. Creeping dread is hard to do, but when it’s done well, it has me side-eyeing every shadow.
Go clean out a relative’s house: simple, basic even. But that is the perfect trap to lull you into a sense of knowing what will come. The atmosphere here really nails the vibe of modern-day folk horror.
Mouse’s narration and humor hit perfectly for me, helping set off the building dread and making it all that much more effective when things got really spooky. And we can’t forget Bongo—I am a sucker for well-written animal sidekicks, and Bongo is top-notch!
When Mouse's dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?
Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there's more-Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather's journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants...until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.
Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors-because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are…
Anita Walsh, still reeling from her husband's sudden death, finds herself haunted not only by grief, but his Negative Image, a new phenomenon where the deceased prey on those they loved in life, turning intimate memories into nightmares. This spectral figure uses their shared past as a weapon, systematically dismantling…
I have always been a horror lover, from being an 8-year-old card-carrying member of the local Goosebumps Fan Club to reading Ray Bradbury and Stephen King when I should have been reading Classics for school. I love horror that bubbles up slowly and makes you feel like someone is watching over your shoulder. I want to wonder if the legends are true and if my local creepy forest holds secrets of its own. It’s so much harder to scare without falling back on jump scares and gore. Creeping dread is hard to do, but when it’s done well, it has me side-eyeing every shadow.
Let’s start off with: if my old friends called me up for a hike into the Scandinavian wilderness, I’d tell them to have fun and send pictures. Thankfully, I am not a horror story protagonist.
In horror, I love a creepy forest setting. What could be watching you? How dangerous is it? I felt like I was in the forest, lost, alone with friends I may no longer trust. And then, when things got weird, we had to escape a monster too.
Was it a bit of a departure? Yes. Was I here for it? Also yes. It felt like the telling of an old campfire story that eased you in quietly, then bashed you over the head.
The Ritual is Adam Nevill's horror novel depicting a group of friends lost in a remote wilderness in Sweden where something supernatural lurks.
When four old University friends set off into the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle, they aim to briefly escape the problems of their lives and reconnect with one another. But when Luke, the only man still single and living a precarious existence, finds he has little left in common with his well-heeled friends, tensions rise. With limited experience between them, a shortcut meant to ease their hike turns into a nightmare…
I have always been a horror lover, from being an 8-year-old card-carrying member of the local Goosebumps Fan Club to reading Ray Bradbury and Stephen King when I should have been reading Classics for school. I love horror that bubbles up slowly and makes you feel like someone is watching over your shoulder. I want to wonder if the legends are true and if my local creepy forest holds secrets of its own. It’s so much harder to scare without falling back on jump scares and gore. Creeping dread is hard to do, but when it’s done well, it has me side-eyeing every shadow.
So when I picked this one up and read the prologue with Carrot the parrot and found myself staring down my dark hallway, I had to take a breath and text my mom about this one. She is a horror fan too, similarly afflicted with nerves of steel. Carrot freaked her out too.
The rest of the story kept me just as on edge, leaving me questioning what I would do in the characters' shoes. I will never look at someone talking in their sleep the same way, and I darn sure hope I never pick up the habit; it leaves some terrifying doors open to evil.
A romantic cabin getaway doesn’t go exactly as planned. High up on the windswept cliffs of Pale Peak, Faye and Felix celebrate their new engagement. But soon, a chorus of ghastly noises erupts from the nearby woods: the screams of animals, the cries of children, and the mad babble of a hundred mournful voices. A dark figure looms near the windows in the dead of night, whispering to Faye. As the weather turns deadly, Felix discovers that his terrified fiancée isn’t just mumbling in her sleep – she’s whispering back.
Originally a contest-winning story on reddit.com’s horror community NoSleep, Stolen…
Waking up on the beach in Greece after a midnight party, Cleo, a British-Greek tourist, sees a stranger sitting next to her. The stranger has a giant spider on his forearm.
So begins an incredible odyssey through the nine levels of the mysterious mountain populated by an odd assortment of…
I have always been a horror lover, from being an 8-year-old card-carrying member of the local Goosebumps Fan Club to reading Ray Bradbury and Stephen King when I should have been reading Classics for school. I love horror that bubbles up slowly and makes you feel like someone is watching over your shoulder. I want to wonder if the legends are true and if my local creepy forest holds secrets of its own. It’s so much harder to scare without falling back on jump scares and gore. Creeping dread is hard to do, but when it’s done well, it has me side-eyeing every shadow.
I love a short story; they were my first foray into adult horror, and I’ve come to truly appreciate how hard short horror is, so when I find one that grabs me and doesn't let go until the last page, I don’t stop talking about it.
This is that story. I grabbed it in audio to listen to at the gym. Usually I quit the treadmill after half an hour... I kept walking until this story ended, hoping I somehow would help the characters walk out of the woods.
No spoilers, but both I and the characters really need to walk faster! Clip-clop demon hooves were chasing me all the way home.
Some chilling campfire tales ring too true to ignore. For one young woman, an urban legend calls her into the woods in a spine-tingling short story by the bestselling author of Bird Box.The dense Michigan forest. Haunting wails. The clip-clop of demon hooves on a bridge to nowhere. It’s more than a tall tale to Brenda Jennings, whose sister disappeared in those woods one fateful night. Three years later, on a solo stakeout in the dark, Brenda goes in after her. She’s desperate for answers, and terrified to find what lies waiting on the other side of that bridge.Josh Malerman’s…
When I was nine, my family kayaked 100 miles on the Yukon River. Each night from my sleeping bag, I heard wolves howling, and each day we saw moose, grizzly bears, and even a fur-clad trapper. I was utterly enchanted by the wilderness and the experience of moving through the landscape silently, without disturbing the wildlife. I have never shaken the awestruck feeling of seeing those animals, free in their ample territory, and my work as a writer has remained entwined with wild nature and the far north ever since. I am deeply inspired by women writers who approach these subjects with reverence, passion, and unique perspectives.
This novel grabs you by the collar and won’t let go (and that’s a very good thing)!
I was riveted from the first page by the book’s powerful blend of fiction, memoir, and myth, which illuminates the life of a contemporary Inuk girl coming of age. Author Tanya Tagaq is a renowned throat singer from Ikaluktutiak, Nunavut, whose writing is as profoundly moving as her music.
I love how this book balances the kaleidoscopic world of a girl coming of age – including violent, dark events, tender moments, and the elemental histories and contemporary disruptions that connect Inuit culture to its ancestral landscapes as well as the present moment.
Longlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon First Novel Award Shortlisted for the 2019 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Winner of the 2019 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose in English Winner of the 2018 Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design – Prose Fiction Longlisted for the 2019 Sunburst Award
From the internationally acclaimed Inuit throat singer who has dazzled and enthralled the world with music it had never heard before, a fierce, tender, heartbreaking story unlike anything you've ever read.
Fact can be as strange as fiction. It can also be as dark,…
I’m the author of two YA fantasy novels – We Are Blood and Thunder and We Are Bound by Stars. They’re set in a fantasy world, Valorian, governed by a (literally) colorful magic system and a pantheon of gods, and are all about power, fate, and discovering your true self. Both novels are dual narrative and feature a host of female main characters, who I think are complex, flawed, and relatable. As a child, I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings but always wondered why all the real heroes were men, which inspired me to write these books – partly, too, because of the wonderful female-led fantasies which have come out in the interim.
Samantha Shannon’s world-building in this series is second to none. We find ourselves in a future alternate version of the world, where the government monitors the population for those people with extraordinary powers: clairvoyants. Paige, our main character, is one of these – and a bit of an antihero to boot (my favourite kind of hero!). You will love and be frustrated by her – and root for the simmering romance plot.
THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION, FULLY UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL
A lavishly reimagined tenth anniversary edition of the first novel in the sensational Bone Season series, by the Sunday Times and New York Times-bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree.
'A fabulous, epic fantasy thriller ... Lavish, ebullient, escapist' The Times
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Welcome to Scion. No safer place.
The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.
In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder,…
As a queer, disabled YA author, I focus on writing stories that reflect the complexities of identity, disability, and mental health. I believe every teen who is disabled and/or struggles with mental illness deserves to see themselves represented, but I’m also passionate about stories that allow able-bodied readers to gain insight into new perspectives. These book recommendations showcase diverse voices and highlight a disabled experience, and I hope books like these will foster a new generation that values inclusivity and representation. Happy reading!
I was deeply moved by this poetic in-verse novel that compassionately addresses harsh realities like coping with mounting stress and being a Black teen in America.
I felt a strong connection to the characters, who were well-developed and authentic, particularly the protagonist grappling with agoraphobia. The conversations about mental health were a nuanced and vulnerable exploration of expectations imposed on Black people dealing with mental health challenges.
I'm safe here. That's how Sadie feels in her girlfriend's arms on a perfect Summer day. But then her girlfriend suddenly breaks up with Sadie. Moments later, she witnesses a scene of police brutality, which upends what now feels like a mirage of security.
I'm not safe anywhere. That's how Sadie feels every day after. So she retreats to her house. Her therapist gives her suffocating isolation a name-agoraphobia. Meanwhile, Sadie's best friend Evan updates her on the protests taking place outside. Sadie wants to be a part of it. But she can't. Or can she?
I am instantly drawn to stories with voyages, spices, and trade. But as much as these, I love meddlesome and crafty gods. I’m not a religious person, but I love to understand how people behave around religion, how it influences their choices, and how our world’s history can be chronologized as a series of fanatical events and conquests. Fantasy gives me the option to explore characters and worlds where gods are not only inherently intrusive but also cast a long shadow on people’s nature, giving birth to folklore, myths, and, of course, great stories to tell. They drive destinies, but more importantly, they drive the resistance against being puppeteered.
It lurks in the hazy landscape between magical realism and weird fantasy, which is an unusual thing per my reading experience for a coming-of-age story of a girl named Aisha from Mombasa. Her voyage to rescue her father from across an ocean of godlike sharks was a strange and unsettling experience to read.
Certainly one of the most unique (even if, in some fleeting moments, it reminded me of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, which I found strictly okay).
I'm Marwan Mohammed, a sociologist for the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), a pure product of the French working-class suburbs; having failed at school, taken to the streets, and ended up in research after a detour through social work and community organizing. I founded several grassroots organizations in the Paris suburbs, such as C'noues (which became a futsal club that trained several top-level players, including my brother Abdessamad Mohammed, the French national team's all-time top scorer) and more recently NormalZup, an association that tackles educational inequalities at source. I'll be telling the whole story in a forthcoming book.
There are many remedies for racism, including education, transmission, and prevention. So as not to limit myself to the human and social sciences, I suggest this children's novel by Ayaan Mohamud. It's an embodied account, a fictionalized testimony that we discover by following Hanan, the main character, who attends a prestigious school where she is subjected to a very routine form of Islamophobic ostracism.
She follows her mother's advice to stay the course and not overreact for a while. But after a tragedy, this position is no longer tenable and she makes her voice heard, in other words, she takes her place as a visible Muslim in American society in a different way.
This novel will delight young and old alike and is a good complement to the more scientific works cited in this list of recommendations. It was originally written for my children, so they wouldn't shut up.
"Will leave you feeling moved and inspired. A must read!" Cosmopolitan
A stunning debut about finding the strength to speak up against hate and fear, for fans of The Hate U Give and I Am Thunder.
People like me are devils before we are angels. Hanan has always been good and quiet. She accepts her role as her school's perfect Muslim poster girl. She ignores the racist bullies. A closed mouth is gold - it helps you get home in one piece. Then her friend is murdered and every Muslim is to blame. The world is angry at us again. …
During a time of turmoil in my life, I discovered the soul-calming world of the cozy when I happened upon the Thrush Green series by Miss Read (Doris Saint). A former fan of thrillers, my time spent in these rural British villages was a revelation. Who knew how peaceful the mundane could be when seasoned with a pinch of humor and common sense? I expanded my reading to include cozy mysteries like the ones I’ve recommended. Having reached the age of many of the ladies in these books, I appreciate even more their determination to continue to make a difference by using their unique experiences and skills.
Years ago, I discovered Miss Seeton in a well-worn paperback at a used book sale and I absolutely fell in love with this charming retired art teacher with the uncanny knack of drawing the truth from the most devious situations with her charcoal pencils and art pad.
In Witch Miss Seeton, this seemingly naïve little old lady steps into the world of modern witch’s covens to solve a mystery too convoluted for Scotland Yard. I love the humor, the depth of character, and the whimsy that fill the book. Miss Seeton’s regular yoga routine, which keeps her agile in her golden years, inspired my own exercise regimen.
Although out-of-print for many years, the books have been recently released in digital and audio formats, making this thoroughly entertaining series available to a new generation of readers.
A sudden interest in the occult swept through the English village of Plummergen.
Ouija boards were replacing the best china in many a cozy cottage. It might be quite the thing for maiden ladies and persnickity aunts, but it wasn't Miss Seeton's cup of tea... until Scotland Yard requested she go undercover to investigate sinister shenanigans in the Kentish countryside.
A flim-flam was afoot in the local witches' coven - and magic could be a prelude to murder most foul.
Serene amidst every kind of skullduggery, retired art teacher Miss Seeton steps in where Scotland Yard stumbles.…
