#the luminous dead is under harper voyager tho

[kithj]

IM THE PERSON WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE A FEW DAYS AGO And i agree about how sad it is that most queer horror authors i dont vibe with. do you have any you DO like? im always on the lookout for more and from what i’ve seen of your book taste on here we have pretty similar taste in books. can be any genre of horror tbh im not picky

hehehe yes i'd love to give u some recommendations! though if i'm being honest i really haven't found that many authors in the genre that i really vibe with yet. im still on the hunt... may leitz is probably the only one i can recommend that is kinda in the same vein as the "popular" ones, but Leitz is someone who i think does well balancing the extreme aspects of it with characters that are actually interesting and sympathetic to read (as opposed to just one-dimensional cannon fodder for random violence)

i don't know if any of these authors actually refer to themselves as "queer horror" authors nor do i know with certainty if all of them are a part of the lgbt community, but um. well i like their books. these also all aren't strictly about the characters identity; some focus more on it than others so i'll just say it's horror + lgbt characters.

i'll start with extreme horror:

fluids by may leitz - this will be the most extreme book i recommend, and i've talked about it a few times before. it's about two women, named Dahlia and Lauren, who meet on tinder during the pandemic, and after only a few days of talking Lauren takes it upon herself to drive to Dahlia's hometown and try and "save" her. things escalate, and the two women's paths diverge. cw: extreme violence and gore, rape, incest (the two girls pretend to be related), emetophobia, suicide, eating disorder, murder, literally everything you can think of. this is Extreme Horror, and i wouldn't recommend this one for anyone that's not already familiar with the genre.

girl flesh by may leitz - while i didn't like this one as much as fluids, i'm just a fan of may leitz's writing in general so i'd still recommend it. this one has a bit of a pacing problem & does a lot of telling rather than showing, but i like the direction leitz takes this one in the end. i've talked about this one before too so you might remember me rambling about it. this one is about two women who are kidnapped and wake up restrained in a dirty hotel in the middle of the texas mesa. they work together to escape their captors as well as the wild mesa and maybe even fall in love a little bit on the way. cw: extreme violence, gore, transphobia/deadnaming, eating disorder, emetophobia, self-harm, rape. this one isn't as extreme as fluids but i'd still be cautious with it.

to be devoured by sara tantlinger - this one is a short novella you can read in one sitting. Andi really really really wants to know what carrion tastes like. she's fascinated by the vultures that circle the edge of her property, but her fascination soon turns to obsession, and Andi will stop at nothing to learn their secrets. cw: blood consumption, cannibalism, violence and gore, very graphic animal harm and animal death

okay now the rest are just more general horror:

house of hunger by alexis henderson - loosely based on the legend of Elizabeth of Bathory, this story takes place in a society that runs on blood. Marion travels to the House of Hunger to begin her term as a bloodmaid under Countess Lisavet, who has a mysterious ailment that renders her weak and bedbound unless she has a constant flow of blood to treat it. Marion gets to know the other bloodmaids, and in time begins to realize not all is as it seems at the House of Hunger. cw: blood consumption, violence, abusive relationships/gaslighting, death

alexis henderson has also written the year of the witching, and she just announced an academy for liars. i really like her writing so i plan to check out her other work soon-ish.

apparitions by adam pottle - again i talked about this one recently so you may have seen it already, but i NEED more people to read this book. this follows the story of a young man who was born deaf and raised in an abusive household until he was able to escape as a teenager, only to be institutionalized immediately after. there he meets another deaf teen, and for the first time in his life, he has a language that he can speak with and can finally be understood. cw: child abuse, institutionalization, homophobia, abusive relationship, ableism, violence, death, religious trauma, animal harm and animal death.

the luminous dead by caitlin starling - gyre price is a lone caver swaddled inside a hi-tech suit that allows her to dive deep underground to map mineral deposits off-planet. however, the person on the other end of the suit has other plans, and easily takes control of gyre and her suit, putting the two at odds with each other as gyre spirals into uncertainty and paranoia while also having to deal with the terrifying presence of the tunneler. cw: claustrophobia, death, forced drugging, violence, gore, abusive/toxic relationship

caitlin starling also has a few other books though i haven't gotten around to reading them yet and i honestly haven't heard much about them so i can't say how they compare, but the luminous dead is one of my favorites of all time.

the Sworn Soldier series by T. Kingfisher - i love these books, they're just short fun horror stories with a really charming main character. Alex Easton is a retired soldier from Gallacia, and has their own special pronouns in Gallacian (kan/kanself) as part of their occupation and culture, and is what we would consider nonbinary (not all soldiers identify this way, but Alex does). vicars in Gallacia use van/vanself, there are different pronouns for children and adults, etc. i think it's just really interesting and i enjoy what the author has done with the worldbuilding and language, and how seamlessly it fits into her writing. the first book is a retelling of the fall of the house of usher (and is the stronger of the two) while the second one has Alex returning home to Gallacia and facing off with an old Gallacian superstition that's haunting their family cottage.

again i don't really know how T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon personally identifies but i do recommend her writing regardless, she's written other horror books as well as some fantasy books & she's just incredibly skilled imo, easy and fun to read.

most of my TBR that i'm working towards is horror so maybe i'll update this post later with more.... i'm currently reading providence girls by morgan dante and into the drowning deep by mira grant.

morgan dante has a few other books that are all some flavor of gothic horror/romance and i'm very excited for their new book that just came out TODAY that's a carmilla/elizabeth of bathory reimagining. i'm planning on reading that Immediately (i preordered it) so i'll report back for it and once i finish providence girls, too.

the next few books on my TBR that are all lgbt + horror:

The Seep by Chana Porter

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

A Dowry of Blood & An Education in Malice, both by S.T. Gibson

Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi (i think this one is a thriller actually and also isnt out yet but whatever. i recommend this author, they genre-hop a lot & have a decent amount of work published already)

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

and of course i always recommend looking up content warnings if you need to especially for the last few since i haven't read them myself and can't vouch for them just yet. but ummm hopefully you see something you like 😭 i'll stop yapping <3

#sorry i do favor f/f pairings or sapphic characters in books and thats kinda obvious here lmfao #anyways. thanks for enabling me to talk about books <3 #i really want to read the seep ive been dying to get to it. nyehilism recommend it to me mwah #into the drowning deep is beating my ass i WILL finish it today so i can move on #i'll probably post about it here once i finish i have Thots about it already #oh also i just looked and caitlin starling's newest book is under st martin's press which is being boycotted atm #so that's probably why i havent seen anything #the luminous dead is under harper voyager tho #ask #anonymous #long post