Recs if you like Flowers for the Sea...

I got my swim trunks & my flippy floppies 🩳🩴

I was listening to the lonely island and the next thing you know, this list happened.

this list contains a variety of books that take place on a variety of boats, ships and vessels

as always, taking any and all suggestions

Speculative (sci-fi, fantasy, horror etc.) novellas less than 200 pages long that are either standalone or read like a standalone story

for people who are both terrified of and fascinated by the ocean (like me)

Horror books with a page count of 200 pages or less.

Before we started defining novellas by word count, they were defined as being any book less than 200 pages. Source: my Analysis of Short Stories & Literature professor in community college. I loved that class. But he loved James Joyce. So, ymmv, I guess.

books set in drowned or drowning worlds

Horror and horror-adjacent stories with queer themes/characters/pairings written by authors of color, across sub-genres and age groups. 🔞

Recommendations welcome!

✦ I have not read all of these books - if you notice anything that seems to be mis-labeled/mis-placed on this list, please let me know! ✦

dystopian: relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.

dystopian novels under 200 pages, including short stories

Short Horror Novellas to scratch the itch.

Quick speculative fiction reads (quick, like under 40,000 words).

Books that have won the Shirley Jackson Award for outstanding achievement in the literature of horror, the dark fantastic, and psychological suspense.

Twisted books that wander into some really dark places