I've never seen the movie, is this what the sandworm looks like?? Am I imagining it correctly??

Hello everyone and welcome to this quest! I'm super excited that this is shared with you all now, and to find that so many of you love botanical horror as much as I do. There's something so fascinating to me about the different ways that authors utilize plants and nature as a tool to not only strike fear in our hearts, but also create such beautiful symbolism and plotlines!

The Quest (or what I generally consider "Botanical Horror"): Horror as a genre is a pretty tricky thing sometimes, and while most of these books are clearly labelled as horror, with all the creeping terror, running for your life, etc., there are some that I felt were close enough or had a general consensus that it fit the theme of "Botanical Horror", even if they are not explicitly labelled as horror. I'm trying to keep this list as true to horror as possible, while also considering the evolution, quirks, and depth of the genre.

As for the botanical part, my general guideline for a book to be "botanical" is that it has plants/fungi as the main horror element, or generally the plants/natural landscape majorly adds to the horror vibes, which can be very vague, but I think that's part of the fun. I'm also trying to avoid making this a mainly eco-horror Quest as I think the two sub-genres do not completely intersect with each other, though you will find books like Annihilation on here that do fit into both. In short, this list includes a wide representation of plant/fungi-life, such as fungus (ie What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher) all the way to entire forests (ie Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews), and that plant life is itself spooky and monstrous.

For anyone completely new to the sub-genre and looking for somewhere to start, my personal favorites from this list are both titles mentioned above (and one is conveniently a current readalong book!)

Going Forward: I would love to eventually host an unofficial readalong in this Quest if others are interested, as a lot of these novels are on my own TBR! It would likely not be until after the new year, but let me know if that's something you're interested in, and what book you'd most like to start off with!

Also, while I won't be updating this list for likely at least a few weeks, I would love to start collecting more recommendations from you all to research and potentially add! Specifically, one of my favorite things about the horror genre right now is how diverse it is, and while I think I have a fairly diverse selection currently given the scope, I would always love to add more queer and BIPOC authors/novels to this Quest! So please, use this as a master recommendation thread as well for all books that you think could fit!

That's all for now, can't wait to go questing with y'all!

I’m a little nerd who loves stats especially my own personal stats. I don’t know that I’ll actually sit down and do this. But I was just thinking what is the top emoji I use when reviewing books on here and what would it say about my reading habits. If you were to predict what emoji you use to review books the most, what would it be? Do you think you lean towards books with this emojis vibe or is it a happy coincidence? I know for a fact that a lot of my recent reviews have 🌲🌳 trees and an animal or two. I do think I’ve been intentionally leaning towards books with a connection to nature and animals recently. I think it’s really nice to read about spring and summer while it’s getting very cold and dark here in the uk.

This is actually my 1st time reading a book with this style of writing the character's conversations and it's been a little hard for me to grasp the context each time... (english is not my 1st language also). A lot of people including my friend said the book is very good (so does the series) so my expectation is quite high, let's just see how it's going.

I have always wondered why do some people start their reviews with a whole paragraph summarizing the book? When I'm going through reviews, I have already read the official summary so I don't need to read ten other versions of it. Is it only because people copy-paste what they wrote on their blog where there is no initial context for the book? Wouldn't it make sense to remove this part where you're posting on any book review sites? I just struggle to understand (note that I ask this question purely by curiosity, no judgment for people who do that! 🫣)