Here are 100 books that Unhallowed fans have personally recommended if you like
Unhallowed.
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I am a writer and performer born and raised in New York City. In my previous life, I was an Emmy-nominated journalist and digital media producer, covering sexual and reproductive health. In addition to writing, I love musical improv, opera, Olympic weightlifting, and spending time with my wife and dog.
Many books have kissing inthe forest, but how many are about kissing the forest itself?
Fenton has watched countless hunters enter his forest to claim a wish by killing the white-tailed stag. Each hunter has taken: a sip from the stream, a flower from the vine, wood to light a fire. Each hunter has subsequently died.
Prior is different; he takes nothing, instead asking for a god’s assistance in waking his sister from her sleeping sickness. Fenton—who is the forest and the white-tailed stag and a son of Old Nan and also, definitely, a god—decides to pack up the forest and help Prior out.
Where I come from, that sort of thing will get you a little kiss or two at the very least.
Season after season, hunters have attempted to capture the white-tailed stag. Local legend holds that its capture promises prosperity, and in a land that is dying—to hunger, to war; to a magical curse, some say—even a whisper of hope is a powerful lure. Yet every hunter who tries fails, never to leave the forest. Fenton, god of the forest, yet imprisoned within its borders, watches from his place in the trees as the hunters first despoil and then fall to his land, dispassionate as his deadwood heart.
Prior doesn't hope to capture the stag or secure prosperity. He has a…
Awakening the handsome prince is supposed to end the fairy tale, not begin it. But the Highvalley witches have rarely done things the way they're supposed to. On the north Pacific island of Eidolonia, hidden from the world by enchantments, Prince Larkin has lain in a magical sleep since 1799…
As a queer speculative fiction writer, I often find myself drawn to themes of identity. Reckoning with identity and defining your own (and redefining, and redefining, and redefining) is a critical part of the queer experience in the cis-hetero norms of the real world. Fantasy and science fiction have always given readers a lens to see themselves through, and many queer readers have found their own definitions between the lines of a book. The protagonists and stories in these books couldn’t be more different, but each offers a unique and compelling vision of discovering—or making—a place for themself in their magical world.
Thirsty for more buff orc lesbians? Legends & Lattes serves up a mug of warm, cozy queer fulfillment. Viv was an adventurer, but she no longer wants to be. Despite her battle scars and intimidating looks, she longs to open her own quiet coffee shop.
The journey to small-business success has challenges, but her determination to live on her own terms brews up a staff of misfits that become a queer-found family. This quiet, low-stakes novel is as sweet as an almond croissant and will leave you hungry for more.
High fantasy, low stakes - with a double-shot of coffee.
After decades of adventuring, Viv the orc barbarian is finally hanging up her sword for good. Now she sets her sights on a new dream - for she plans to open the first coffee shop in the city of Thune. Even though no one there knows what coffee actually is.
If Viv wants to put the past behind her, she can't go it alone. And help might arrive from unexpected quarters. Yet old rivals and new stand in the way of success. And Thune's shady underbelly could make it all…
I am a writer and performer born and raised in New York City. In my previous life, I was an Emmy-nominated journalist and digital media producer, covering sexual and reproductive health. In addition to writing, I love musical improv, opera, Olympic weightlifting, and spending time with my wife and dog.
One appeal of falling in love with a monster is the knowledge that a creature more than capable of killing you has chosen to cherish you instead.
The tigers in this book are dangerous, as both Dieu, paramour of tiger Ho Thi Thau, and Chih, a cleric anxiously telling Dieu and Ho Thi Thau’s story to a trio of hungry tigers can attest. Luckily for Dieu, Ho Thi Thau finds her more interesting than appetizing, with the romantic impulse to see each of her moods—anger and joy and frustration—knowing she will adore them all.
While there may be quibbles over the details of the story, it is safe to say that tigers and humans alike will agree that Ho Thi Thau deserves a little kiss, and that Dieu is just the woman to deliver it.
From Locus and Ignyte finalist, Crawford Award winner, and bestselling author Nghi Vo comes the second installment in a Hugo Award-winning series
"A stunning gem of a novella that explores the complexity and layers of storytelling and celebrates the wonder of queer love. I could read about Chih recording tales forever."―Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree
"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen
The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache…
Awakening the handsome prince is supposed to end the fairy tale, not begin it. But the Highvalley witches have rarely done things the way they're supposed to. On the north Pacific island of Eidolonia, hidden from the world by enchantments, Prince Larkin has lain in a magical sleep since 1799…
I am a writer and performer born and raised in New York City. In my previous life, I was an Emmy-nominated journalist and digital media producer, covering sexual and reproductive health. In addition to writing, I love musical improv, opera, Olympic weightlifting, and spending time with my wife and dog.
The first time Rowan and the Huntress kissed, I half expected Rowan’s lips to stick to the Huntress’ face like a tongue on a light pole in winter.
Luckily, Rowan—the Belle in this Beauty and the Beast retelling—is a thawing influence, and the kiss progresses as kisses should. And thank goodness, as the Huntress desperately needs to be kissed. Isolated, cursed, and haunted by her own callousness, the lonely Huntress is separated from the world by her own past and a literal mile of frozen water.
But in the Huntress’ fortress of ice, love grows like the petals of a winter rose, and little kisses, like hope, spring eternal.
On a cold day deep in the heart of winter, Rowan’s father returns from an ill-fated hunting trip bearing a single, white rose. The rose is followed by the Huntress, a figure out of legend. Tall, cruel, and achingly beautiful, she brings Rowan back with her to a mountain fastness populated solely by the creatures of the hunt. Rowan, who once scorned the villagers for their superstitions, now finds herself at the heart of a curse with roots as deep as the mountains, ruled by an old magic that is as insidious as the touch of the winter rose. Torn…
I love books that whisk me away and keep me reading long into the night. There’s something so exciting about realizing you’ve been reading for so long that you have no idea what the time is or if it’s even the same day. I’m also incredibly passionate about horror and what it can teach us about ourselves and our society. Being diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 12 made me feel isolated and alone, but horror granted me a form of escapism and taught me to embrace what made me feel different, something each of these books does. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did!
A 90s, queer, coming-of-age story mixed with cosmic horror, I would have read this in a single sitting if I didn’t have to get off the bus. The protagonist, Heath, is an artistic teen who recreates horror movie posters during his habitual trips to the local video store and is slowly starting to realize he is gay, something discouraged by his fellow students at his Catholic school.
I loved the lack of explanation about the supernatural elements. Was the monster all in Heath’s head? I love the ambiguity, but I also love it as a metaphor. I really enjoyed the emotional journey, which felt very autobiographical. My favorite thing is the video store itself. I’m 33, so this brought back fond memories of visiting the video store with my parents.
The story of a boy who dreamed of becoming a man… But dreamed up a monster instead
You’re on the run. Marked. Don’t think about the kid you used to be when you’re homeless and dumpster-diving in the rain. Just eat whatever you find to keep your engine full. Because the shadow with too many teeth wants you tired.
You’re easier to catch when you’re tired.
It has hunted you since the summer of 1994, back when we confessed who we were through mixtapes. When every movie at the video store had dirty heads. You were thirteen and thought you…
I’ve always been inspired by the setting as character. Place is powerful, especially when that place is touched by the natural world. Between growing up in the rural American South and doing fieldwork with biologists, nature has wormed its way into the majority of my work. And as a queer horror writer, I deeply value horror stories that have us in the protagonist’s role. I’ve curated this list to reflect all of that at once: queer protagonists trying to survive in environments that would love to eat them alive. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Bleak, beautiful, and visceral. I’ve reread this graphic novel a dozen times just to look at the absolutely stunning creature design that engulfs the environment. Sal, a sword-wielding exterminator, is faced with their crumbling relationship, their terrible job, and the monsters that lurk in every corner of this near-future world—all in one shift.
LA, 2028. Down-on-their-luck exterminator Sal Hernandez is sick of long hours and living in their work van. They’re ready to quit their job and reconcile with their estranged partner. The only thing standing in their way is one last shift. But what seems like a routine call quickly gets out of hand when a proselytizing mass of flesh abducts Sal’s newest coworker, Luke, and turns their extermination job into a rescue mission.
Monsters intrigue me. I’ve always enjoyed the weird and obscure – the creatures who are recognizably not human. Being a queer, autistic person, I’ve often felt as if I didn’t understand the world…or the world didn’t understand me. Reading and writing about monsters sheds a new light on the parts of myself that I was taught are undesirable. By conventional standards, the monsters in these stories are horrifying, yet they find people who love them and their monstrosity. Monsters get their happy endings – and I can get mine, too.
We all know the story: someone messes around with magic and ends up indebted to a demon. In this short, however, our main character is a queer Black man, and the devil that finds him won’t take no for an answer. For fans of Omegaverse, dubcon, and monsters that look like monsters, definitely check this out!
The last thing Silas Cromwell expected was for a book to change his life. When a rare first edition book from a famous 19th-century Occultist ends up in Silas's lap at an auction, life as he knows it suddenly changes. Pressured into performing one of the rituals from the book by a friend, Silas gets a tease of regret. Now Silas can’t sleep, is having nightmares that end with him waking up terrified. Something obscene, dark and deadly wants Silas and he isn’t human. Bazaduil lusts for Silas and won’t take no for an answer, even if it means tricking…
I’ve been reading books about dark content since I was a teenager, and I’ve always loved the understanding and companionship it provides to people who carry around broken pieces of themselves. Over the years, this interest in hardship has become a lot more specific; I’ve discovered my own queer identity, which has cause me to seek shelter in queer fantasy. It also inevitably lead me to queer Norse mythology, whose source material is dripping with queer hints for anyone with the historical knowledge to find them. Combining all these things, I’ve gathered a large collection of stories that promise to help you lick your wounds, all while drawing you into the next chapter.
This book is just fun, but it’s also a weird kind of fun. Short and to the point, it follows two monstrous men as they wreak deadly havoc on a dark little town. It leans heavily on the media’s history of queer-coding villains in stories and allows the characters to be unapologetically evil. Readers who enjoy this book will find themselves thinking the pair are strangely cute together, all the while trying to remember that they’re very dangerous. It’s great as an audiobook and makes the perfect palate cleaners between longer books.
“A black tide of perversity, violence, and lush writing. I loved it.” —Joe Hill
A Finalist for the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award!
Debut author Jennifer Giesbrecht paints a darkly compelling fantasy of revenge in The Monster of Elendhaven, a dark fantasy about murder, a monster, and the magician who loves both.
The city of Elendhaven sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart…
The short version: I just really love television! The slightly longer version is that, in my career, I’ve had a very unusual perspective on both entertainment and activism. My first jobs out of college were at companies like Lucasfilm and The Jim Henson company, where I saw first-hand just how important pop culture and fandom can be for audiences. And I also worked extensively on queer causes, eventually making activism my full-time job when I joined the team that brought marriage equality to the US Supreme Court. Through that work, I became more and more interested in the ways that pop culture – particularly television – has been a tool for advancing civil rights.
An absolutely exhaustive catalog of queer milestones on television, I’m constantly consulting this amazing book.
There’s no more authoritative examination of the people, shows, and trends that shaped queer representation in broadcast media over the 20th century. Exhaustively researched, it’s not just a must-read – it’s a must-read-multiple-times.
I own two copies, each one jam-packed with bookmarks and notes to myself about the best bits.
Definitive, vibrant, and utterly fascinating, Alternate Channels traces the monumental growth of gay, lesbian, and bisexual images on radio and television from the 1930s to the present. Splashed against the tumultuous backdrop of the McCarthy witch hunts, Stonewall and the gay liberation movement, the birth of the 700 Club and the religious right, the outbreak of AIDS and the arrival of in-your-face queer activism, this chatty, authoritative broadcast history tells the stories of such notorious and noteworthy moments as
- 1947: Radio gays--A bitchy fashion photographer throws fits at the drop of a designer hat on the adaptation of Moss…
I believe that the gap between the amount of LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual erotica is far too large in the mainstream. Queer people deserve to have quality, well-written, spicy romance just as much as the mom in Utah reading her Danielle Steel novels does. This includes, gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, panromantic, polyamourous, and non-binary people just to list a few. People who don’t adhere to cis, heteronormativity deserve to know that they can love, have steamy sex, maintain healthy relationships, and do whatever it is they want to do. Through my books and queer activism, I intend to rectify this by normalizing queer romance novels and increasing accessibility of the genre.
Don’t be fooled by the initial MF pairing of this book, A Lady of Rooksgrove Manor is very queer and very spicy.
Kathryn Moon does a fantastic job creating a realistic example of a polyamorous relationship in a genre where most authors tend to just like creating conflict. Each partner to the main character has unique, well-negotiated relationships not only with the main character but also with each other.
These relationships range from sexual to queer, platonic, and scratches the itch that every queer person has to build a commune out in the wilderness with all their closest friends that they may or may not make out with sometimes.
