no stephen king in sight
are you sick of being recommended stephen king when you ask for a horror novel? have you picked up a book expected to be scared, but the scariest thing about it was a woman being needlessly tormented and gaslit? have you read 4627473 books about a man in a haunted house and need something different?
if so, this list is for you :)
a masterlist of horror by anyone who isn't a straight cis white man. i've been maintaining it for myself since 2022 and it was time to share the wealth!






SCP Containment Breach
The SCP is an organization that Secures, Contains, and Protects our world against anomalous objects, entities, and phenomena. Be advised: these books contain such SCPs that have escaped confinement and have caused havoc and destruction. Read at your own peril. And remember to document your findings.






Feral and Hysterical: Works by Women
List of recommendations included in Sadie Hartmann's Feral and Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction by Women.
Pairs with 50 States, 50 Books by Women list.






Found Footage Horror
Horror books were cameras and journals may be all that remain






Folk Horror






Gab Smolders Horror Book Talk
I can't be the only one who want to remember all the books without jumping around in a video, right?






Horror Around the World
I love horror and I'm really interested in seeing how the genre shows up in different countries and parts of the world. I am making a list of all the books I have currently collected that take place in countries other than the United States, England, Canada, and Australia. I will add as I find more. Currently, there is just one book per country. For those with more, I tried to add less commonly known books. The current countries included in the list: Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Columbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, France, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Motswana, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, The Philippines, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Uruguay, Wales






Cults
Books where cults are a big part of the story. Mostly fictional horror books 🤡






Widows Bay Required Reading
if you’re craving something that feels like the next martha’s vineyard (iykyk)! books that evoke the same feeling as the magnificent tv show ‘widows bay’






Nordic Book Club
Book Club Selections from the Swedish American Museum featuring books from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sampí.






Horror of human sickness
This is a list of books that are more psychological horrors/horrifying where we see how horrible humans really are






Western/Southern European Books
A list to help those who aspire to read from authors outside the typical areas. I will be creating different list for different regions. I will also list the countries currently found in the list. Be sure to check out the other lists! Note: The countries are not perfect as some countries are classified differently, so I did my best.
Current Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Wales






Feral and Hysterical
This is a list of horror books written by women, as recommended by Sadie Hartmann (Mother Horror) in her book Feral and Hysterical. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Feral and Hysterical because it is so much more than a list of books. There are more lists of books, but also thoughtful essays by women writers. It's worth spending some time with Feral and Hysterical.
"Women are overqualified to write fictional horror. Period." -- Sadie Hartmann






Gab Smolders 2026 Book Talks
Books mentioned in ToastyGoobus/Gab Smolders book talk videos in 2026





