Seven terrifying tales examining the nature of fear itself

Nat Cassidy writes horror for the page, stage, and screen. His acclaimed novels, including Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings, have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the "writers shaping horror’s next golden age" by Esquire. His award-winning horror plays have been produced throughout New York City and across the United States. He won the NY Innovative Theatre Award for his one-man show about H. P. Lovecraft, another for his play about Caligula, and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a short opera (about the end of the world, of course). You've also likely seen Nat on your TV, playing various Bad Guys of the Week on shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Blue Bloods, Bull, Quantico, FBI, and many others ... but that's a topic for a different bio. He lives in New York City with his wife.

Cassidy's new novel is When the Wolf Comes Home.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven "books with similar preoccupations as Wolf—not just books that induce fear, but books that specifically examine the phenomenon of Fear itself." One title on the list:

Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

“Just don’t look. Whatever you do. Don’t. Look.” The answer to most people’s fear response since we first grew eyelids. But sometimes, even when you know you mustn’t . . . you still have to look. Fear evolved with us as a survival tactic to keep us alive in the midst of threat. But a strange death drive evolved with us, too. A curiosity that fear can’t always override. And it’s that doomed tension which pulls the strings taut enough for Josh Malerman to play in his iconic hit. Sometimes, as that primal instinct is constantly trying to remind us, facing your fear in the wrong kind of way can also mean your doom.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Bird Box is among Elsa Sjunneson-Henry's seven horror stories in which women are more than victims and Sherman Alexie's six favorite books about identity.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books that feature the ballet world

Nina Laurin studied Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal. She arrived there when she was just twelve years old, and she speaks and reads in Russian, French, and English but writes her novels in English.

Laurin's novel include A Woman Alone, The Last Beautiful Girl, What My Sister Knew, and The Last Thing She Saw.

At The Strand Magazine the author tagged eight "ballet reads that helped me pull back the curtain of that mythical world." One title on the list:

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

A retired Russian ballerina sells her jewels, each one unveiling the secrets of her defection from the USSR—and what led her to such a dramatic leap of faith. At the same time, a middle-aged man is looking for his birth parents, a piece of amber jewelry his only clue. Russian Winter is part ballet, part historical fiction, part glittering mystery, and while it searches for a bit to find its true focus, it all comes beautifully together in the final act.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight Irish novels about the rise and fall of Big Houses

Louise Hegarty’s work has appeared in Banshee, the Tangerine, the Stinging Fly, and the Dublin Review, and has been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Short Works. She was the inaugural winner of the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize. Her short story “Getting the Electric” has been optioned by Fíbín Media. She lives in Cork, Ireland.

Hegarty's debut novel is Fair Play.

[The Page 69 Test: Fair Play; Q&A with Louise Hegarty]

At Electric Lit Hegarty tagged eight Irish novels about the rise and fall of Big Houses—a specifically Irish term meaning a rural country mansion. One title on the list:

Snow by John Banville

Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called out to investigate a murder at Ballyglass House, County Wexford, where the local Catholic priest has been found brutally murdered. The crime causes, or exacerbates, a divide between the Protestant occupants of the Big House and the wider Catholic community. As St John Strafford, himself a Protestant, digs deeper into the case, he uncovers layers of family secrets, political intrigue, and religious tensions, all set against the backdrop of the divided local community.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Snow is among Denzil Meyrick's five top Christmas crime novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles to read when your spouse Is diagnosed with cancer

Ariel Gore makes books, zines, coloring books, and tarot cards. She is the founding editor and publisher of the Alternative Press Award-winning magazine Hip Mama and the author of 13 lucky books of fiction and nonfiction, including Rehearsals for Dying, Hexing the Patriarchy, and The End of Eve. Her shameless novel/memoir, We Were Witches, was published by the Feminist Press, and her anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City won the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Anthology. She teaches writing online at Ariel Gore’s School for Wayward Writers at the Literary Kitchen.

At Lit Hub Gore tagged five books that helped her "navigate the emotional wilderness of loving someone with a terminal diagnosis." One title on the list:

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

When Deena was diagnosed, this was the first book I reached for. Published in 1980, Lorde’s raw, unflinching account of her breast cancer diagnosis, mastectomy, and the emotional aftermath remains startlingly relevant.

As a Black lesbian feminist poet facing the medical establishment of the 1970s, Lorde brings a critical eye to the politics of cancer treatment, offers deep insight into the psychological experience of confronting mortality, and illuminates the way that queer and female friendship is as important—more important—than any chemical treatment.

“Your silence will not protect you,” Lorde wrote. It’s a famous line. I’d forgotten it came from The Cancer Journals. The book stands as a powerful antidote to the isolation that too often come with a cancer diagnosis, reminding us that our private suffering has political dimensions, and that community and connection remain vital—always.

Lorde shows us how to maintain our full humanity—our anger, our grief, our sexuality, our joy—even as the cancer industrial complex tries to reduce us to patient-hood.

Like Audre, Deena didn’t want to be “brave”—as Deena’s spouse, I didn’t want to be brave, either—but we had no choice. And that unchosen bravery, Lorde reminded us, could transform us: “What is there possibly left for us to be afraid of, after we have dealt face to face with death and not embraced it? Once I accept the existence of dying as a life process, who can ever have power over me again?”

Read about the other entries on Gore's list.

Also see five of the best books about living with cancer and ten top books about cancer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten mysteries set in the bleak midwinter

Bailey Seybolt grew up in New York City. She studied literature at Brown University and creative writing at Concordia University. She’s worked as a travel writer in Hanoi, a tech writer in San Francisco, and many writerly jobs in between. She now lives with her family in Vermont, not far from Lake Champlain.

Coram House is her debut novel.

At CrimeReads Seybolt tagged "ten wintry mysteries that will have you reaching for a blanket." One title on the list:

Disappearing Earth (Julia Phillips)

This novel is set in the peninsular Russian province of Kamchatka, which is so remote—bordered by ocean and a frozen desert—that no major roads connect it to the rest of Russia. It begins on an August day (though this far north, the leaves are already turning) when two young sisters go missing. As the weather grows colder, so does fear about what happened to the missing girls. This is winter like only Kamchatka can produce with snow banks that “propped up the buildings” and cold so deep one character muses “her marrow must have frozen blue.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Disappearing Earth is among Ayla Rose's six crime novels with a focus on nature and Scott Alexander Howard's eight novels from across the world about isolation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten nonfiction women's history books

At People magazine senior books editor Lizz Schumer and author Olivia Campbell tagged ten great books on women doing amazing things for readers who loved Hidden Figures and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. One title on the list:

Daughters of The Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated By China's Civil War by Zhuqing Li

Sisters Jun and Hong were best friends growing up in 1930s China, but when political revolution fractured the nation, Jun found herself exiled in Taiwan, married to a Nationalist general. Hong, meanwhile, was an ocean away on the mainland, forced to publicly disavow her family and submit to “re-education.” Jun established a successful trading company, while Hong became a prominent physician. With riveting prose, Li — the sisters’ niece — brings their stories to life.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that turn the workplace into a nightmare

Sarah Maria Griffin is from Dublin, Ireland. She is the author of the novels Spare & Found Parts and Other Words For Smoke, which won an Irish Book Award in 2019. She writes about video games for The Guardian, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Irish Times, The Winter Papers, and The Stinging Fly, among other places.

Griffin's new novel is Eat the Ones You Love.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven "books about work that ... lean firmly to the side of the gothic." One title on the list:

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

This, to me, is a tender and elegant novel about being at odds with the world, but also, with a tilt, the convenience store could read as a strange prison. These identical spaces, these machines for life, this realm where Keiko, our utterly singular protagonist, can function well—though the rest of the world is difficult. Without the convenience store, Keiko cannot cope. She returns, as though drawn by something unspeakable. Is this not a kind of a ghost story? A story of possession? There is no specter or ghoul at its heart, just the inescapable halogen glow of the conbini.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

Convenience Store Woman is among Eliza Browning's ten novels about resisting productivity culture and Anne Heltzel's seven books about women who refuse to fit in.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels about coming of age later in life

Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts.

Her debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese’s Book Club pick for April 2025.

She is managing editor at The Common literary magazine, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.

At Lit Hub Everett tagged "five favorite novels exploring ... later-in-life coming of age," all books that "explore issues of money and class and economic stability." One title on the list:

Rowan Beaird, The Divorcées

After her nitpicky, nightmare husband throws out her diaphragm, twenty-something Lois leaves him, terrified she’ll be chained to him for life. But it’s the fifties—she can only run as far as her father’s house, and he might be worse. To win her freedom, Lois must go to a Reno divorce ranch, which is as fun a setting as it sounds. She stays for six weeks to establish residency in Nevada, and the other women she encounters there offer a privileged cross-section of unhappy marriages and big, perhaps foolish, hopes for the future. One in particular draws Lois out of her shell and into increasingly questionable territory, but you’re so glad she’s out you’re happy to go along. The ending reminds us that coming of age is often about learning what you can and can’t live with—and how you’ll make that space for yourself—since you probably won’t get to have it all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top haunted house novels

Yiğit Turhan was born in Ankara, Turkey. A lifelong reader, he owes his love of horror to his grandmother and the films she shared with him. He has previously published a horror novel in Turkish. He lives in Milan, Italy, where he holds a C-suite role at a renowned fashion house.

Their Monstrous Hearts is his English-language debut.

At CrimeReads Turhan tagged ten great haunted house novels full of atmosphere and secrets. One title on the list:

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Not my favorite Stephen King novel, but definitely a standout in the haunted house genre. It follows an author battling writer’s block and hallucinations in a secluded lake house after his wife’s death. My old paperback is covered in underlined passages because I read this with a book club while living in Istanbul, and we all debated which scene was the creepiest. A solid ghost story from the master of horror.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles on the evils of unchecked state power

Rav Grewal-Kök’s first novel, The Snares, is published by Random House.

[Q&A with Rav Grewal-Kök]

His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, the New England Review, Missouri Review, Gulf Coast, The White Review, and elsewhere. He has won an NEA fellowship in prose and is a fiction editor at Fence.

Grewal-Kök grew up in Hong Kong and on Vancouver Island and now lives in Los Angeles.

At Electric Lit the author tagged eight books "that address the depredations of the state... [yet] offer consolation. They show that the bad times aren’t ours alone." One title on the list:

The Little Book of Terror by Daisy Rockwell

Rockwell’s brief and beautiful exploration of the limits of empathy juxtaposes her paintings of subjects from the first decade of the War on Terror with essays and personal reminiscences. Rockwell is a renowned translator from the Hindi (including of Gitanjali Shree’s International Booker Prize-winning novel Tomb of Sand), as well as an accomplished visual artist. Though she is Norman Rockwell’s granddaughter, she seems to paint, as Amitava Kumar notes in his introduction, more in the tradition of lurid, decades-old Bollywood film posters. Here she depicts a stylized, pink-skinned Osama bin Laden in his death mask, blood or flame obscuring his face; Saddam Hussein after his capture, enfeebled and wrapped in a shroud; and many lesser villains (and innocent victims) of that era. But she also paints the Abu Ghraib torturers Charles Granier and Lynndie England in a smiling, tender moment, as well as her own friends and colleagues, and images of the little green men her father became obsessed with in his old age. Throughout she challenges us to recognize the humanity of the other—including the most alien or despised among those Dick Cheney called “the worst of the worst.” She offers an alternative to the totalizing narrative of the state at war, and warns us to resist its colonization of the self. “Why do they hate us, indeed,” she writes. “And who are they? And who are we?”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top titles in climate fiction

At B&N Reads Cara Rafferty and Isabelle McConville tagged eight cli-fi "stories about our rapidly changing climate, from its global impact to impacts on day-to-day life." One title on the list:

American War by Omar El Akkad

A gripping and gritty look at a dystopian America, American War by Omar El Akkad (One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This) brings us into the middle of a country ravaged by floods and unchecked climate change. A story about division, resistance, warfare, and revenge, this is a powerful take on an all too possible reality.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Siobhan Adcock's list of nine top books in the new vanguard of climate fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten inspiring van life books

Amy Mason Doan is the bestselling author of The Summer List, Summer Hours, Lady Sunshine, and The California Dreamers. She earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and an MA in journalism from Stanford University, and has written for The Oregonian, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes, among other publications. She grew up in Danville, California, and now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.

[The Page 69 Test: Summer Hours; My Book, The Movie: Lady Sunshine; The Page 69 Test: The California Dreamers]

At The Nerd Daily Doan tagged "ten books that capture the gritty but exhilarating reality of van life before #vanlife." One title on the list:

Peeps, Erin Gordon, 2021

RV Life Magazine says Gordon’s novel “universally speaks to the adventurer in all of us…that yearning drive to reflect, refocus, and even replace our stagnant life with something new.”

Protagonist Meg, a 51-year-old podcaster who interviews “peeps” for her podcast of the same name, uses her solo motorhome odyssey to reflect on her mother’s death, her divorce, and her empty nest.

A touching novel with sharply observed moments of humor.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue