Recs if you like The Haunting of Hill House...

Books that are part of 3 or more quests ✨for easier planning! Initially thought of making this on my shelf, hope the members of pb find this helpful!! (The list is incomplete, I'm working on checking & adding new quest books🙌🏻 thanks for the love ❤️🥹)

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, started in 2022 and brought to pb in 2026.

Basically, a huge list of books from all genres featuring sapphic characters, whether bisexual, lesbian, butch, femme, or anything in between.

Includes fiction and nonfiction. Books with spice, and books with very little romance alike. You may find epic lady knights, pirates, ancient vampires or just weird girl adventures, heartbreaking stories or cozy books of found family and queer joy. Memoirs, historical fiction, instruction manuals, maybe even a poem or two.

Welcoming suggestions<3

Not all collections hold things you can touch. This one holds worlds that breathe, selves that dissolve, and realities that refuse to hold their shape. These are the fictions that live on the edge of what language can contain - and sometimes just beyond. Admission is free, through entry requires a signed waiver: the curator cannot be held responsible for any transformations that occur upon your exit. We welcome specimen recommendations!

This collection of thriller, mystery, and horror novels will send a chill down your spine... right in time for Halloween!

books featured in the cozy video game “tiny bookshop”

Horror novellas under 200 pgs. Bite size scary reads for spooky season. These span the horror spectrum from psychological horror to gory, body horror to gothic ghosties and more. Let me know what else I should add!

Houses that haunt or people who are haunted in those houses.

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.

the darker side of new england. crumbling colonial-era brick, run down coastal towns, abandoned factories, dilapidated mills, foggy orchards, cold dark waters, whispers of witchcraft, venerated institutions, secret societies, and uneasy echoes of the past.

If we are going to do Qwordy's the Hardest Reading Challenge You'll Ever Do 3.0 - we should probably get some Pagebound badges along the way! I'm specifically going to be adding books from Quests and readalongs that go past the July start date and match at least one of these title prompts: Periodic Table, Familial Terms, Rainbow of Words (also Joseph's coat), Numerical Titles, Titular Counting 5+, Pun in the Title, and First & Last Name in the Title. Recommendations welcome!

the people of this town love halloween so much they celebrate it twice a year

Fiction has always been where truth hides. Across horror, thriller, literary fiction, fantasy & mystery every book on this list has something to say about power, who holds it, who destroys it, and how it reproduces itself.

Fiction stories about Haunted houses and other locations. Maybe it’s ghosts, maybe it’s cursed, maybe it’s ancient gods or creatures? All kinda of supernatural haunts and creatures attached to homes, objects, or locations.

"Place as character" is usually reserved for lush descriptions that bring environments to life, and less often used for environments that have a life of their own. This list includes houses, homes, castles, spaceships, anywhere people will spend time and call home. Not meant to include haunted houses, but a case could be argued for specific ones. c:

Only including the first in a series unless books feature different sentient places.

...it would be a shame if it was corrupted….

a list of corruption arcs because i have an (probably unhealthy) obsession with them. a work in progress! suggestions welcome

A collection of horror books without animal death/cruelty since it is prevalent in the genre! These books will avoid graphic scenes with animals and cruelty. Animal bones may be present, let me know if you need to know which ones. Suggestions welcome and if I am mistaken about the content let me know and I will remove!

A list of 100 gothic classics which covers over 250 years of literature, from the high-drama castles of the 1700s to the psychological "New Gothic" of today.