Halloween reads take 2

You cross the street to find your friend in front of the bookstore. She hugs you hello and says, “Hey, thanks for meeting me! You said you wanted to find a good read for Halloween, right? Since they announced that seasonal selection.” [[Of course! Seasonal reading, baby!]] [[No, what am I doing here?]]

As the great Joyce Carole Oates once wrote, "you can always recognize a place in which no one is feeling much or any grief for a lost loved one & death, dying, & everyone you love decomposing to bones is just a joke." (She wrote it in a <a href="https://x.com/JoyceCarolOates/status/1444054569110196224?lang=en">tweet</a>, not a book, and it was about a picture of a house with plastic skeleton decorations for Halloween. But still.) Keep your head up, champ! It's almost November.

“Cool! I actually already went in (you know you were like a half hour late, right?) but the display is in the back. Just walk past the nonfiction and there’s a door. You won’t be able to miss it, it looks //really// beat up. It's all gouged, like claw marks. I didn't think this bookstore had a cat. [[uhhh..what?]]

The door hardly matches your friend’s description at all. It’s slightly ajar and you can’t hear anything within. There's a family in the children's section behind you, laughing and chattering, but when you turn back to the door, it feels strangely muted. A soft light emanates from around the frame. It would only take a touch to push it open and enter. [[You go in | You go in]] [[Absolutely not.]]

The sun is shining pleasantly through the window as you browse the shelves. You think you're in the mood for [[Something supernatural but only if it's cozy and cute. |cozy choices]] [[A mystery? You think you could handle a mystery. |a mystery? You think you could handle a mystery.]]

the dirt won't come off but touching it brings you back to some of your worst memories of that time in your life. The thing you hated most about school was definitely [[the pressure!]] [[your student loans. How is that even a question? | That Devil Ambition]] [[hated, past tense? You still work there! You never left!]] [[how it seemed like the answer to your prayers and then wasn't]] [[how you had to keep flashing back to an earlier timeline while you were just trying to finish your grad work because you're studying magic but there is something relevant going on with the legacy of women in your family that keeps distracting you (that's very specific!) | school family]]

the icons light up as the hands pass. You wind them around until they land on [[a castle - or maybe it's a church? looks medieval]] [[a galloping horse. Wild West? Or at least some type of frontier stuff?]] [[a spinning globe]] [[an old-timey movie recorder. The Golden age of Hollywood!]] [[you realize these all represent places - shouldn't a clock show you time periods?]]

oh God, there are SO many instagram notifications. Is there anything scarier than a woman with an instagram account? [[There is nothing scarier than a woman with an instagram account. | Such A Bad Influence]] [[absolutely not | If you're reading this it's meant for you]] [[you're right | Julie Chan is Dead]] [[wait, what about when the government is trying to mind control us with a video game? | Polybius]] [[what about dating apps? | The Verifiers]] [[no, it's the woman with an instagram account thing | You Will Never Be Me]]

''STOP'' This choice is going to get you recommended books with classic Halloween stuff like zombies and ghosts and vampires. But have you considered that instead you should just buy two of my favorite books ever? Do you have time today to hear the gospel of the Hollows series by Kim Harrison? If you want a mystery series of 15+ books where the main character is a witch private investigator whose personal life is a mess but not at all in a stressful way and who runs into elves and pixies and demons and vampires in the urban fantasy genre (RIP, romantasy's got nothing on you), why not the Hollows? Or maybe you want a book of short stories based on Maylasian culture that has vampires and hungry ghosts and is funny and original? In which case, just get Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho and move on with your day? Are they in your cart? Did you buy them? Should we keep going? [[I'm going to just grab Spirits Abroad, wait one sec]] [[Let me go check out the first Kim Harrison book]] [[okay I'm back! Let's see more books | spooky stuff]]

Anyone who thinks family isn't the scariest thing has never been to your Thanksgiving. There are so many ways family can terrify you. Especially your [[parents - disappointing them or having to live with knowing they'll always disappoint you, both are awful]] [[kid - being responsible for a whole other person that you love so much | kids]] [[sister - she's your best friend so anything that might mess with your relationship terrifies you]] [[whole family, honestly. You can't choose.]]

as soon as your hand wraps around the heart, [[it glows brighter until you have to cover your eyes. This is intense. Love is scary but so worth it.]] [[you realize it's actually made up of multiple smaller hearts. You don't know why you assumed this represented romantic love. It's obviously friendship.]] [[the brightness transforms into something warmer and easier to look at. Definitely love! But something cozy which thank god because you actually just wanted a cozy romance. Love doesn’t have to be STRESSFUL. |just a cozy romance]] [[it starts pulsing in your hand. oh ew ew ew, it pops and splatters all over you. Of course. Love is nothing but misery. | The September House]]

Love is so beautiful that you would [[make a deal with the devil just for more time on earth with someone you loved. | Even though I knew the End]] [[descend into the darkest pits of the earth and take on a demon to save the one you love. | Alba Diaz]] [[be with your loved one in every lifetime, even knowing they're the one who will bring about your death. | Our Infinite Fates]] [[risk it all for the spider monster who ate all her other brides (despite the power dynamics! She owns the giant gothic house you work in! also the whole spider monster/human thing | But Not Too Bold]]

Sometimes love is just [[making a deal with the devil to get your girlfriend back, only for you to find that maybe you like the devil better | The Devil She Knows]] [[a scary witch queen standing in front of a mild-mannered librarian asking him to please help organize her library | Wooing the Witch Queen]] [[getting outed as a witch by your youtube channel and falling in love with the caretaker of your new magical charges | The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches]] [[being correctly pegged as a fraud who can't really see ghosts by the skeptic you're falling for just as you see your first real ghost| Happy Medium]] [[getting through a breakup, a professional setback, and the death of your father only to fall in love with a ghost | The Dead Romantics]] [[coming home and making amends with your ex as you try to repair your relationship with your sisters and your magic (very Practical Magic of you!) | Witch of Wild Things]] [[helping a prince break a curse with the perfect kiss in seaside New Jersey | Kiss and Spell]] [[having to marry a famed warrior who betrayed his immortal master because you need to ensure the safety of your people, which is so frustrating because you have extremely powerful magic yourself. It's a whole thing. | Iron and Magic]] [[being a haunted house designer who doesn't believe in ghosts falling for a guy who's haunted | The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy]]

How are you supposed to succeed when [[you're a legacy carrying family responsibilities/expectations along with educational ones?]] [[everyone thinks you're a prophesied villain? | Deadly Education]] [[your professor is a demon who will literally kill you if you fail? | That Devil Ambition]] [[the system is exploitative and abusive - and that's before the descent into hell? | Katabasis]] [[you're a member of the girls field hockey team and you NEED to win state this year. | We Ride Upon Sticks]]

You should be studying and instead you're [[fighting monsters in a magical order of descendants of the Round Table while trying to come to terms with your own ancestral magic that you never knew about | Legendborn]] [[finding your sister while living with the vampire who you think killed her, and all the teachers keep being like waaah stop trying to kill the vampire! You're in big trouble if you kill that vampire! | Immortal Dark]]

The clock brings you to [[a medieval zombie fighting a great evil | Once was Willem]] [[okay, maybe this is more medieval-inspired than medieval but people in the Middle Ages definitely were under siege and could have resorted to cannibalism, they probably just didn't conjure weird gods about it. | The Starving Saints]] [[I KNOW this is more medieval-inspired than medieval, because the real Middle Ages didn't have adorable 12 year olds turning up to a castle to fill the wicked witch vacancies. But they should have! | Castle Hangnail]] [[medieval religious horror, a story of a young girl prophesying a battle between angels and demons that me be real or else a great delusion | Between Two Fires]] [[a forensic mystery series with a strong female lead. Wait, did you turn the clock wrong? Isn't that a modern day thing? Nope, this one is set in the 1100s, and the historical detail is amazing.| Mistress of the Art of Death]]

You love hearing stories about the early days of moviemaking. [[a magical realist view of 1930s Hollywood through the eyes of an aspiring Chinese-American actress | Siren Queen]] [[the film industry in '90s Mexico City meets Nazi occult - wait a minute, the NINETEEN-nineties? Are the '90s even historical? You open your mouth to protest but find you're unable to say a single word because the person writing this is sick of this argument. It was thirty years ago! Just read the book!! | Silver Nitrate]]

They're so judgmental when [[you don't know the rules of the superantural community because your kindergartner only JUST became a werewolf. Not your fault all the other five year olds were born into their families! Just tell me where we get the damn school supplies, I can't buy this cauldron at Walmart. |Grimmoir Grammar]] [[your kid is the last one to see his classmate before his disappearance. Sure, they weren't getting along and sure, all evidence points to him having a role but do you really have to go out and solve this mystery yourself? You were a member of a successful 2000s girl band, for crying out loud! | The Other Mothers Hate Me]] [[they push their weird AI dolls on you after you reconnect years after escaping your childhood cult | Just Like Mother]]

It's definitely your parents you're thinking of when you think about how scary family can be. Either you're disappointing them or they're disappointing you. After all, [[they'd send you to ACTUAL hell if it made you straight |Camp Damascus]] [[your dad is never around because he has a responsibility to the cult | Our Share of Night]] [[you want to help your mom, who is too sick to work, but you're just a teenager! It's not like you can force a bunch of rich people to obey your every command with your zombie powers - wait. | Summer I Ate the Rich]] [[your impossibly beautiful mother is dead and now you can never live up to her standards | Rouge]] [[Parents? Parents??? Try being eternally haunted by your mother-in-law! | motherthing]]

I mean, just imagine that [[your twin went through the door into another world and never came home | Meet Me at the Crossroads]] [[your sister was lost in a faerie land and you might never see her again |River Has Roots]] [[your sister was killed in a violent hate crime and now you're being haunted by her hungry ghost | Bat Eaters]] [[people start turning up dead in the same hotel room that she died in and you have to investigate | Haunting of Room 904]] [[you need to make amends to the sister you left behind after your third sister (probably) died (probably) (...unless?) | Witch of Wild Things]] [[you were estranged and now she's dead and you can see in her phone that she didn't like you | Julie Chan is Dead]]

Are you sure it's not your protagonist? I mean, she's out there [[thinking about pursuing the family business, which is SERIAL KILLING | Dia Reeves]] [[only caring that people are being murdered because the killer is targeting psycopaths (and she's one of them) | Never Saw Me Coming]] [[wondering about that guy who died but only because it might affect her cheerleading team | Dare Me]] [[scheming and manipulating her way into her friend's perfect family, while ignoring the red flags | Cherish Farrah]] [[doing anything to prevent her con from being uncovered | White Ivy]] [[okay, it can be a guy, come on in, Joe Goldberg | You]]

You can make out a few glowing countries on the tiny globe. As you focus on one, it becomes bigger. You turn your attention to [[KOREA, where a teenager trying to keep her head down at court in the 1700s is drawn instead into political intrigue and a murder mystery | Red Palace]] [[MEXICO, where a woman whose father was executed marries a man from the victor's side of the Mexico War of Independence and moves to his house in the countryside, where she's haunted by memories of his first wife. A classic gothic. | The Hacienda]] [[INDIA, where one of the first female lawyers in 1920s India tries to establish her practice and solves mysteries along the way | Perveen Mistry]] [[ENGLAND, where a female coronor solves crimes in a forensic mystery series. Wait, was this mis-shelved? Nope, this one is set in the 1100s, and the historical detail is amazing. | Mistress of the Art of Death]] [[FRANCE, where a young girl prophesies a battle between angels and demons in a medieval religious horror | Between Two Fires]]

Even as you think it, the icons on the clock blur and rearrange themselves. They're numbers, as they should be. Except - wait, are those years? [[medieval]] [[1800s]] [[1900s]] [[1700s]]

You see [[a medieval zombie fighting a great evil | Once was Willem]] [[okay, maybe this is more medieval-inspired than medieval but people in the Middle Ages definitely were under siege and could have resorted to cannibalism, they probably just didn't conjure weird gods about it. | The Starving Saints]] [[I KNOW this is more medieval-inspired than medieval because the real Middle Ages didn't have adorable 12 year olds turning up to a castle to fill the wicked witch vacancies. But they should have! | Castle Hangnail]] [[medieval religious horror, a young girl prophesying a battle between angels and demons or else a great delusion | Between Two Fires]] [[a forensic mystery series with a strong female lead. Wait, did you turn the clock wrong? Isn't that a modern day thing? Nope, this one is set in the 1100s, and the historical detail is amazing.| Mistress of the Art of Death]] [[the medieval version of The Suicide Squad | The Devils]]

Wow, there are a LOT of these. Someone probably should have split them up into further categories. [[ from the 1900s to 1930s to 1990s, three generations of women deal with an evil force | The Bewitching]] [[A story within a story within a story that spans from the 1800s to present day where a Blackeet vampire recounts his life story to a Lutheran priest | Buffalo Hunter Hunter]] [[A gay man in early 1900s England is locked in with his horrible family and his ex as his cousin announces the family fortune is up for grabs | All of us Murderers]] [[A woman trying to make a homestead claim in 1915 knows it's dangerous to be a woman alone in remote Montana - but is she?| Lone Women]] [[the KKK is actual demons | Ring Shout]] [[One of the first female lawyers in 1920s India takes on cases and solves mysteries | Perveen Mistry]] [[a 1920s DC spirit talker and jazz musician team up to find the supernatural entity preying on their community | Monsters We Defy]] [[a magical realist view of 1930s Hollywood through the eyes of an aspiring Chinese-American actress | Siren Queen]] [[a sapphic detective and love story in 1940s Chicago brings in serial killers and demons | Even though I knew the End]] [[a gay cop-turned-PI drummed out of the police force in 1950s San Francisco investigates a murder that brings him to a secret wealthy queer community | Lavender House]] [[The film industry in '90s Mexico City meets Nazi occult - wait a minute, the NINETEEN-nineties? Are the '90s even historical? You open your mouth to protest but find you can't say anything else because the person writing this is sick of this argument. Just read the book!! | Silver Nitrate]]

You see [[a southern Gothic set in the Reconstruction era - a woman who wants to take on the mantle of the family business tries to prove herself by planning her estranged aunt's funeral | Psychopomp & Circumstance]] [[a classic gothic set after the Mexican War of Independence - a woman whose father was executed as a traitor marries a man from the victor's side and moves to his house in the countryside, where she's haunted by memories of his first wife | The Hacienda]] [[a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher; huh, I don't remember it having so many mushrooms the first time around | What Moves the Dead]] [[an alternate history Western - a Black teen has to fight not just zombies but a racist America in the Reconstruction era | Dread Nation]] [[a Western with a story within a story within a story that spans from the 1800s to present day - a Blackfeet vampire meets a Lutheran priest in the early 1900s | Buffalo Hunter Hunter]] [[a f/f gothic novella about a Blackbeard spider monster and her young employee | But Not Too Bold]]

You see [[men trying to exploit the land in 1700s Mexico coming up against an intractable woman and a great evil - and somehow it's also a beautiful love story? | Alba Diaz]] [[a teenage servant in 1700s Korea getting drawn into court intrigue when her mentor is arrested for murder | Red Palace]] [[a queer, multi-timeline story about witches, academia, and family that reaches back to the 1700s | Lessons in Magic and Disaster]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/monsterswedefy")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/eventhoughiknewtheend")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/buffalohunterhunter")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/silvernitrate")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/lonewomen")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/malabarhill")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sirenqueen")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thebewitching")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/oncewaswillem")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thestarvingsaints")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/betweentwofires")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/mistressoftheartofdeath.html")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/albadiaz")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/redpalace")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/lessonsinmagicanddisaster")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/whatmovesthedead")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/hacienda")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/psychopompandcircumstance")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/dreadnation")

You realize the horse could represent the West or it could represent anything that interrogates the mythmaking of America. So like [[a story within a story within a story that spans from the 1800s to present day and roots its vampire story in a real-life Blackfeet massacre and the genocidal American expansion project| Buffalo Hunter Hunter]] [[a woman trying to make a homestead claim in 1915 knows it's dangerous to be a woman alone in remote Montana - but is she?| Lone Women]] [[ a Black teen has to fight not just zombies but a racist America in an alternate history of the Reconstruction Era | Dread Nation]] [[the KKK is actual demons | Ring Shout]]

The lid of the pumpkin pops up and things start flying out. You see [[ghosts]] [[vampires]] [[demons]] [[witches]] [[zombies]] [[a guy with an axe - oh, he's a serial killer]] [[give me some short stories that cover all these categories | short stories]] [[ doesn't really matter as long as there's something fucked up going on. | fucked up systems]]

Serial killers! They're...bad? [[of course! | The Only Good Indians]] [[...actually, I'm kind of rooting for them | Too Old For This]] [[good, bad, they're family!]]

By the pricking of my thumbs, something witchy this way comes. It's also [[romantic]] [[fun/funny]] [[I can't really explain it but that gif of Saoirse Ronan from Little Women just saying "women!"]] [[about family]] [[about covens]]

Classic! And these vampires, are they sexy? [[of course]] [[they're also gay!]] [[no I don't believe in sexy vampires]]

Wait, did you mean this in an "I see dead people" way or a haunted house way? [[dead people]] [[haunted house]]

Brain-eating zombies? You're into that kind of thing, huh? I assume you also want to hear about other things that might eat people? Cannibalism, that kind of stuff? You sicko. [[yeah, especially if it's in a creepy atmospheric medieval horror kind of way | The Starving Saints]] [[yeah, I love Little Shop of Horrors for instance | Eat the Ones You Love]] [[yeah, but only if it's very weird and also makes me laugh | Walking Practice]] [[yeah, and I want it really dark | Earthlings]] [[yeah, but this is getting too long so take me to another page about how cannibalism is a metaphor for women's desire | more cannibalism]] [[man-eating elves. Don't laugh! It's actually very violent. | The Devils]] [[no, I meant zombies | One Yellow Eye]] [[zombies but in a fun way | Zomromcom]]

Demons are the best choice, I think. They come in so many kinds! There are [[cute, sexy, dealmaking devils | The Devil She Knows]] [[devils tricking you into tragic, incredibly romantic deals | Even though I knew the End]] [[terrifying demons that possess you in a riveting story about family and Argentinian history | Our Share of Night]] [[fun demons who spend whole books trying to kill you but are actually your friend by the end of the series | The Hollows]] [[racist demons that you're sending back to hell | Ring Shout]] [[demons who respect the rules of slasher flicks | The Blonde Dies First]] [[monsters and demons and werewolves and vampires and sorcerors | The Devils]] [[an entire slew of demons in academia (where else?]]

They're FAMILY? But you're not one, right? [[no, just related | My Sister the Serial Killer]] [[...maybe | Dia Reeves]]

Let's see the people seeing dead people! [[a woman who loses her twin on a trip through a portal to another realm is left with the ability to see ghosts | Meet Me at the Crossroads]] [[a fake medium happens to see her first real ghost but the skeptic she's falling in love with doesn't believe her (a romance!) | Happy Medium]] [[a 1920s DC spirit talker teams up with a jazz musician to find the supernatural entity preying on their community | Monsters We Defy]] [[I didn't know this dark academia had a protagonist who can see ghosts because I still haven't read it | Ninth House]] [[a girl who earns a living talking to ghosts in Edinburgh learns something out there is taking kids | The Library of the Dead]] [[a haunted house designer who doesn't believe in ghosts falls for a guy who's haunted | The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy]] [[after a breakup, a professional setback, and the death of her father, a woman falls in love with a ghost | The Dead Romantics]]

You want a haunted house story. Something like [[adults returning home to sell their childhood home after the death of their parents]] [[a woman making the best of living in a haunted house in a sometimes very funny allegory for domestic violence | The September House]] [[an oral history of a band reuniting at the house where they made their most iconic album - and where their lead singer disappeared. If you've ever wanted to read the haunted house version of Daisy Jones and the Six! | Wylding Hall]] [[a group of friends who think it would be exciting to rent a haunted house for a destination wedding and party for the weekend. It certainly does end up exciting! | Nothing but Blackened Teeth]] [[a woman in 1800s Mexico whose new husband takes her to his home, which is haunted by memories of his first wife | The Hacienda]] [[a woman in 1900s Mexico who goes to save her cousin from her new husband and his haunted house | Mexican Gothic]] [[two friends returning to a truly terrifying haunted house that already took their third friend and yet the creepiest part is the exploration of bigotry | Tell Me I'm Worthless]] [[sorry, i thought you said haunted school | Plain Bad Heroines]] [[sorry, i thought you said haunted hotel room | Haunting of Room 904]] [[sorry, i thought you said haunted IKEA | Horrorstor]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/wyldinghall")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/blackenedteeth")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/horrostor")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/mexicangothic")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/howtosellahauntedhouse")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/happymedium")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/libraryofthedead")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/edgarlovejoy")

Well, it's your lucky day! We don't need to do this quiz at all! You like mystery? Why not just read the Hollows series by Kim Harrison? Don't you want to read a whole series where your favorite characters have adventures and solve mysteries and date around and aren't depressing or dark at all? Maybe with a witch private investigator partnered up with a super-intense vampire and a wisecracking pixie? Like True Blood but with a way better protagonist and without annoying love triangles, because your main character couldn't possibly settle on just two options? It's so fun! My favorite fantasy series. You know what, I'll wait right here while you buy it. [[yes I would like to buy that right now | The Hollows]] [[okay, I bought it. Can you show me some other stuff please?]]

An interesting historical setting? Like [[a teenage servant in 1700s Korea gets drawn into court intrigue when her mentor is arrested for murder | Red Palace]] [[one of the first female lawyers in 1920s India takes on cases and solves mysteries | Perveen Mistry]] [[a 1920s DC spirit talker and jazz musician team up to find the supernatural entity preying on their community | Monsters We Defy]] [[a southern Gothic set in the Reconstruction era where a woman who wants to take on the mantle of the family business tries to prove herself by planning her estranged aunt's funeral | Psychopomp & Circumstance]] [[a gay cop-turned-PI drummed out of the police force in 1950s San Francisco investigates a murder that brings him to a secret wealthy queer community | Lavender House]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/lavenderhouse")

You want a mystery? Three cheers for the conventions of a genre! You're in the mood for a mystery that's [[a little edgy, something real and gritty without being either gruesome or formulaic |not formulaic but edgy and personal but more in a real world way than something creepy]] [[starring an assassin/asskicker type | Killers of a Certain Age]] [[a good time. Like maybe the detective's personal life is a mess in a fun way, not a Mare of Easttown way. (okay, yeah, it's the Hollows series again) | The Hollows]] [[got an unexpected, overlooked detective and is a little funny and cozy | cozy mysteries]] [[got an unexpected, overlooked detective and is a little funny and cozy but IN SPACE | cozy mysteries in space]] [[in an interesting historical setting |in an interesting historical setting]]

(goto-url: "https://bookshop.org/a/6390/9780060572969")

You sure you can handle this stuff? It's not scary but it's not really cozy. IF you're sure, how about [[a teenager goes on a one-woman mission to find out what happened to her missing sister while a journalist retraces her steps in the format of a true crime podcast | Sadie]] [[teenagers who've developed unique survival skills due to their difficult lives are hand-picked by the FBI to become an elite profiling squad. Should we be throwing troubled children in the paths of serial killers? We can talk ethics after you read it. | The Naturals]] [[a teenager raised by a con artist mother has her past catch up to her during a bank robbery and must remember how she was raised to save her ex-boyfriend and new girlfriend | Tess Sharpe]] [[a man reviled by his community investigates his brother's mysterious death in the unforgiving Australian outback. A similar vibe to Tana French, just with the complete opposite weather.| Lost Man]] [[THE atmospheric mystery novels. Ireland has never looked more depressing! I'll suggest to you the first book but my INCREDIBLY controversial favorite is Broken Harbor | Tana French]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/deadromantics")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/youwillneverbeme")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ifyoureseeingthis")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/polybius")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/theverifiers")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/suchabadinfluence")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ourshareofnight")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/grimoiregrammar")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/alltheothermothers")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/hungerwepassdown")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/cemeteryboys")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/summeriatetherich")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/campdamascus")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/meetmeatthecrossroads")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/riverhasroots")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/witchofwildthings")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/bateater")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/room904")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/septemberhouse")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thenaturals")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/nowconjurers")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/whenweweremagic")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/blondediesfirst")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ourinfinitefates")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thedevilsheknows")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/wooingthewitchqueen")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/kissandspell")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/verysecret")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/eattheonesyoulove")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/walkingpractice")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/eyesbestpart")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/oneyelloweye")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/theonlygoodindians")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/toooldforthis")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/mysistertheserialkiller")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sliceofcherry")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/theincandescent")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/deadlyeducation")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/katabasis")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thatdevilambition")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/legendborn")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/immortaldark")

Listen, it doesn't have to be a romance for the vampires to be sexy. All vampires are sexy in some way! Even in literary stories like [[an urban neo-noir vampire tale set in Mexico City | Certain Dark Things]] [[an 1800s western set on the Texas/Mexico border | Vampires of El Norte]] [[an 1800s and 1900s western set in Blackfeet Nation | Buffalo Hunter Hunter]] [[a literary coming of age about a young half vampire who tries to find meaning in art while resisting her vampiric urges | Woman Eating]] [[an intense dark academia where the protagonist and vampire are forced to live together, which doesn't stop them from trying to kill each other over and over | Immortal Dark]] [[a short story about a teen vampire and the bossy aunts who love her | Spirits Abroad]] [[okay, this one isn't exactly literary but it's a beloved YA series and a guilty pleasure of the early aughts. Sometimes you DO just want sexy vampires! | Vampire Academy]] [[and sometimes you want those sexy vampires to be saving you from zombies! | Zomromcom]]

yesss [[a multi-timeline and multi-continent queer vampire story that was so under wraps before publication that I still don't know what it's about other than that it's by V. E. Schwab | Bury Our Bones]] [[a retelling of Carmilla, the 1800s sapphic vampire story that predates Dracula | Hungerstone]] [[a moody gothic about a young woman who becomes one of a brood of bloodmaids to a wealthy vampire | House of Hunger]] [[a retelling of Dracula from the perspective of the book's first victim. In Dracula, she's staked by Van Helsing and friends. What this book presupposes is: what if she isn't? | Lucy Undying]]

Unfortunately, there's so such thing as a vampire who isn't sexy, even if they're in some important literary work. I don't know where you went wrong in life but maybe go back and try again. [[Go back |vampires]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/womaneating")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/vampireacademy")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/certaindarkthings")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/vampiresofelnorte")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/lucyundying")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/houseofhunger")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/buryourbones")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/bloodlikemagic")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/werideuponsticks")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/witchcard")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/plainbadheroines")

You're [[a theater professor who has a failed marriage, failed acting career, and unbearable chronic pain. But the production is looking up now that you met those mysterious strangers at the bar! | All's Well]] [[the dean of your alma mater, a very prestigious magical boarding school that you love. You have a true vocation as an educator! Hopefully nothing you got up to as a student is going to come back to haunt you. | The Incandescent]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/allswell")

If you're not casting spells, you're falling in love! You're [[a scary witch queen who's falling in love with the mild-mannered librarian | Wooing the Witch Queen]] [[getting outed as a witch by your youtube channel and falling in love with the caretaker of your new magical charges | The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches]] [[coming home and making amends with your ex as you try to repair your relationship with your sisters and your magic, very Practical Magic | Witch of Wild Things]] [[actually Practical Magic | Practical Magic]] [[helping a prince break a curse with the perfect kiss in seaside New Jersey | Kiss and Spell]] [[falling for the ghost you accidentally summoned while you were trying to prove to your family that you're a brujo |Cemetery Boys]] [[trying to make a go of it in a mundane, NOT magical way while you avoid your ex and raise your daughter | Playing the Witch Card]] [[having soap opera-y romances alongside your sisters as you navigate magic and family | Witches of East End]] [[matchmaking with your psychic abilities and taking control of your life - in Paris! | Vanessa Yu]] [[How many times can I recommend the Kim Harrison series, seriously | The Hollows]]

There are lots of options. You think you might like [[a romance |just a cozy romance]] [[a WITCHY romance |romantic]] [[something fun or funny |fun/funny plus Grimmoire]] [[a cozy mystery or a not super stressful one anyway | Cozy mystery plus Lavender House]] [[a cozy mystery...in space | cozy mysteries in space]]

You just want to have some fun! [[like an adorable pre-teen witch trying to whip a castle into shape | Castle Hangnail]] [[like everyone who's read Terry Pratchett for the last 30+ years. It's not a new rec but it's a good rec| Discworld]] [[like it's the 80s and you're pledging yourself to the dark spirit of Emilio Estevez | We Ride Upon Sticks]] [[How many times am I going to recommend the Kim Harrison series, seriously | The Hollows]]

You know when Saoirse Ronan says WOMEN in Little Women? And you're just like yeah! WOMEN. [[a beautiful retelling of the Circe part of The Odyssey from Circe's point of view | Circe]] [[an empowering story of girls sent to a home for unwed mothers in the 70s who find a book of spells | Witchcraft for Wayward Girls]] [[a story of sisters that ties in with the suffrage movement | Once and Future Witches]] [[female friendship is so strong, it covers murder | When We Were Magic]] [[a secret government coven grapples with gender | Her Majesty's Coven]] [[a witchy Regency romance where the heroine seeks a way to continue practicing magic instead of being magically neutered the second she takes a husband | Midnight Bargain]] [[it's hard to summarize this because I haven't read it yet but three generations of witchy doings feels very WOMEN | The Bewitching]] [[t's hard to summarize this because I haven't read it yet but teaching magic to your mom while researching the lives of queer women through history feels very WOMEN | Lessons in Magic and Disaster]]

Family! Just you and [[your witchy sisters on Long Island | Witches of East End]] [[your witchy sisters in Appalachia | Witch of Wild Things]] [[your witchy sisters and the suffrage movement of the 1800s | Once and Future Witches]] [[your witchy great-grandmother and your grad school work | The Bewitching]] [[your potentially witchy mom and your grad school work | Lessons in Magic and Disaster]] [[your very much NOT witchy mom, who would never have left your religious order to cavort with the witches in the woods, no matter what her diary says | Year of the Witching]] [[your entire magical family who's relying on you after you failed your coming of age ritual to make it right and kill the one you love | Blood Like Magic]] [[your entire magical family who doesn't believe you know your own gender so you have to do the coming of age ritual without them |Cemetery Boys]] [[ your mother and your daughter who wish you would stop trying to avoid using magic | Playing the Witch Card]] [[there's a family of witches but it's not yours! You're just trapped with them after the murder of their matriarch | Lies We Conjure]] [[why not just read the classic? | Practical Magic]]

Your coven! Made up of [[the girls at your home for unwed teens | Witchcraft for Wayward Girls]] [[your high school girls field hockey team | We Ride Upon Sticks]] [[your closest group of friends at school | When We Were Magic]] [[your covert governmental agency serving the Queen | Her Majesty's Coven]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ironandmagic")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thehollows")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/witchesofeastend")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/equalrites")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/castlehangnail")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/witchcraftforwaywardgirls")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/royalcoven")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/onceandfuturewitches")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/liesweconjure")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/yearofthewitching")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/practicalmagic")

We love a mystery that has a Miss Marple but updated! Like the [[empty nester tea shop owner in Chinatown who uses her busybody ways to investigate murders | Vera Wang]] [[restaurant owner who keeps getting drawn into mysteries that involve her big extended Filipino family and community | Halo Halo]] [[single woman who sets off an absurd series of events when her awful date ACCIDENTALLY dies and her family unsuccessfully tries to cover it up. Hijinks ensue! | Four Weddings]]

A cozy mystery...in space! Don't you love when the locked room in a locked room mystery is a giant spaceship? Even more so when the spaceship is a luxury hotel? [[The detective on a luxury generation cruise ship is awoken from stasis to find someone is killing its unkillable passengers. Also there is a sexy yarn shop proprietor. | Dorothy Gentle]] [[Honeymooners on a luxury interplanetary cruise ship have their trip interrupted by the groom's arrest for murder. Inspired by the Thin Man books/movies, elite married people detective stories. | Spare Man]] [[The ultra privileged on a luxury low-orbit cruise ship plan and scheme and fail to understand that they're in Knives Out in space.| Escape Velocity]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/circe")

Like school could get worse! There are demons [[ready to kill you if you fail their class and they won't even forgive your student loans | That Devil Ambition]] [[ready to kill you if you walk the halls wrong | Deadly Education]] [[ready to kill you in hell but they don't know you're a PhD student so you've already been through hell and you really need that recommendation from your dead professor | Katabasis]] [[undermining your pedagogical goals as dean of a prestigious magical boarding school | The Incandescent]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/killersofacertainage")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/verawong")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/arsenicandadobo")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/dialaforaunties")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/murderbymemory")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/spareman")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/escapevelocity")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sadie")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/inthewoods")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/girlsivebeen")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thelostman")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/echowife")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/mistermagic")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/mountchar")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/noonewatching")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/comfortme")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sharpobjects")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/whiteivy")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/neversawmecoming")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/dareme")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/cherishfarrah")

"Don't worry about walking right in! I went past it a few times because I thought it was a storeroom. I kept hearing voices but when I went in, it was completely empty so you're fine." [[okay...]]

"Just make sure you push hard! It wasn’t opening for me so I had to put my hand on it to really push and I think I got a splinter because I felt this awful pain for a second but then the door opened right up. I guess it sticks! [[Are you okay]]

"Oh yeah, I totally thought I was bleeding but there was nothing on my hand and nothing on the door. For a second, it was like I could see so much blood! But now it just feels like there's something inside me..pulsing..." "Anyway, I'm going to go check out the cookbooks. I'm suddenly ravenous. Come find me when you're done." [[You walk through the bookstore and find yourself in front of the door.]]

You suddenly remember that you're the person who had to go hang out with your friend's mom when the sleepover wanted to watch a scary movie. You hope Linda is doing well. The divorce was so hard on her. Turning away from the door, you spot a section that you missed when you first came in. In front of the bright windows, there's an overstuffed couch and a colorful display of seasonal books, all of which look more Casper the Ghost than Poltergeist. [[Thank God. You head over. |cozy section]]

Like a Miss Marple thing but updated! Maybe with a detective who's [[an empty nester tea shop owner in Chinatown who uses her busybody ways to investigate murders | Vera Wang]] [[a restaurant owner who keeps getting drawn into mysteries that involve her big extended Filipino family and community | Halo Halo]] [[a single woman who sets off an absurd series of events when her awful date ACCIDENTALLY dies and her family unsuccessfully tries to cover it up. Hijinks ensue! | Four Weddings]] [[a gay cop-turned-PI drummed out of the police force in 1950s San Francisco investigates a murder that brings him to a secret wealthy queer community | Lavender House]]

You want to have fun [[like an adorable pre-teen witch trying to whip a castle into shape | Castle Hangnail]] [[like everyone who's read Terry Pratchett for the last 30+ years. It's not a new rec but it's a good rec| Discworld]] [[like it's the 80s and you're pledging yourself to the dark spirit of Emilio Estevez | We Ride Upon Sticks]] [[like a family trying to navigate magical kindergarten |Grimmoir Grammar]] [[How many times am I going to recommend the Kim Harrison series, seriously | The Hollows]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/agirllikeus")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/hillhouse")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sundial")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/allofusmurderers")

You thought you'd found your place at last but things did not work out like you'd hoped. [[You were aimless and then this elite college recruited you and you had all this magical potential and there was a hot professor which was ultimately not a good thing | Academy for Liars]] [[You were drifting and then this elite college accepted you and you had all this magical potential and a home for the first time which was ultimately not a good thing| Catherine House]] [[ You were the sole survivor of a homicide and then this elite college (Yale - this one's real) accepted you and I don't think we need fictional reasons for why Yale sucks | Ninth House]] [[You thought these girls in your creative writing class were completely vapid and cringe but then they wanted to be your friend so you thought they were cool but they WERE NOT. What kind of nickname is Bunny anyway? | Bunny]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/catherinehouse")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/academyforliars")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/bunny")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thedevils")

That's really specific and yet there are two options! [[Silvia Moreno-Garcia is such a good writer | The Bewitching]] [[Charlie Jane Anders is such a good writer | Lessons in Magic and Disaster]]

Ah, friendship! How you loved your days [[profiling for the FBI with a group of fellow teen con artists and scammers turned frenemies and love interests, kind of Silence of the Lambs but with precocious hormonal teenagers | The Naturals]] [[hanging with your outcast found family in New England cemeteries in the 90s, practicing magic and protecting each other from demons and from the disapprobation of your community if they found out you were queer, kind of Stand by Me meets The Craft | Now, Conjurer]] [[learning magic and loving each other so much that you're there for each other even when the magic accidentally gets someone killed, kind of The Craft meets Stand by Me | When We Were Magic]] [[roaming the city, too smart to ever make the dumb mistakes kids make in horror movies even when you come across a cursed object that tries to kill you one by one, kind of the opposite of every horror movie | The Blonde Dies First]] [[witnessing a horrific crime with a group of classmates drawn from all different cliques and then having to come back together as adults to defeat it, kind of The Breakfast Club meets IT | A Step Past Darkness]] [[practicing magic with a group of girls in historic Salem, MA. 1600s Salem, MA? No, no, you're a member of the 1989 girls field hockey team and you're definitely winning state! | We Ride Upon Sticks]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/steppast")

It's the whole family! And it's awful because [[they're all disappointed in you]] [[you can't get away from them]]

Cannibalism as a metaphor for women's appetites which aren't accepted by society? Okay, that does sound pretty good! [[A teenager uses zombie powers to control the rich | Summer I Ate the Rich]] [[A food critic eats lots of food and has lots of sex and, I guess, cannibalism?? | A Certain Hunger]] [[A child of immigrants who can't express her feelings within her family finds another way | What Hunger]] [[A new mom returning to work and a soriority girl with her eyes on the prize participate in sacred rites | Girl Dinner]] [[If you have any eyeball issues, this is not the one for you. It's not the one for mom's horrible new boyfriend either but he has less of a choice | The Eyes are the Best Part]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/rouge")

Wait a minute - is this skincare? You thought it was some weird otherworldly substance but it is definitely face cream. There are scarier things about being a woman than beauty standards! [[society pushing you to compete against other women]] [[trying to navigate the world as a young adult | young woman]] [[parenthood | kids]] [[female rage]] [[are you serious?? Beauty standards are TERRIFYING | beauty]] [[psst, most of the choices on this entire quiz are about women so you could also just go back and choose again | You go in]]

What is more body horror than beauty culture? [[A woman grieving the death of her impossibly beautiful mother starts attending the exclusive spa she frequented | Rouge]] [[A retail worker at a high-end beauty story begins using the products with unexpected results | Natural Beauty]] [[A copywriter at a high-end beauty brand begins using the products with unexpected results | youthjuice]] [[A YA fantasy series about a select group of royal companions who can use magic to change the look of the customer in a culture that revolves around beauty | The Belles]] [[a weirdfic that isn't easily described but is funny and one of my favorite books of all time | You Too can have a body like mine]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/motherthing")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/naturalbeauty")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/youthjuice")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/bodylikemine")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thebelles")

Like imagine you have a kid who [[is made from the lung of your child who died | Monstrilio]] [[your wife is suddenly convinced is not your real kid | The Changeling]] [[would probably murder you to spend more time with her dad | Baby Teeth]] [[would probably murder SOMEONE because she was definitely born Wrong | The Push]]

You have to protect them from [[the evil unleashed on your family and descendants | The Good House]] [[ the dystopian government, in a life-affirming read despite the heavy topic | Exoskeletons]] [[the dystopian government, in a devastating read because of the heavy topic | School for Good Mothers]] [[the Nightmare that you're always warning them about (you're their sister but you're also their legal guardian) | Listen to Your Sister]] [[a dystopian world where people increasingly can't have babies | Future Home of the Living God]] [[the demands on your time from channeling a demon for the family cult. Also from the demon and the family cult | Our Share of Night]] [[the poison? the souls of other children? You're lying in a hospital talking to some little boy you don't know, things are not really clear| Fever Dream]]

Parenthood is so all-compassing that you feel like [[you're turning into a dog | Nightbitch]] [[ if a mysterious supernatural force showed up in your kitchen one night and cleaned up for you, you're so exhausted that you might just welcome it in | The Hunger We Pass Down]] [[you can't protect your kids from the mysterious intruder when you're losing it yourself | The Need]] [[your body is going Through It and maybe it's the cult you fled or maybe it's something else | Sorrowland]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/monstrilio")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/feverdream")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thechangeling")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/babyteeth")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thepush")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/thegoodhouse")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/exoskeletons")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/listentoyoursister")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/schoolforgoodmothers")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/nightbitch")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/theneed")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/justlikemother")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/otherblackgirl")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/girldinner")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/juliechan")

It's excruciating! [[you're disappointing your mother AND your daughter by refusing to practice magic.| Playing the Witch Card]] [[everyone is relying on you to keep the family magic alive even if the only way to do that is to kill your true love. You just have to find him first. | Blood Like Magic]] [[They love you but they won't listen to you about your gender so you guess you'll have to prove it to them by going through the brujo coming-of-age ritual on your own. |Cemetery Boys]]

Have you ever been stuck in a house with your whole awful family when the family fortune is on the line? [[they're not even your family! Some weirdo hired you to impersonate her granddaughter and now someone's dead and no one can leave | Lies We Conjure]] [[they're not even your family! You married into this bunch of creeps and they won't let you leave because you're somehow set to inherit everything | A Girl Like Us]] [[okay, they ARE your family but you don't care who inherits and now you're locked in here with them AND your ex-boyfriend | All of us Murderers]] [[they're your family and they won't. stop. poisoning each other. | Haunting of Hill House]] [[they're your family and these other people should stop complaining about being stuck together for a weekend when yours is preparing to be together through the end of the world | The Sundial]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/futurehome")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/sorrowland")

(goto-url: "https://bookshop.org/a/6390/9781618731869")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/tellmeimworthless")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/modelhome")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/acertainhunger")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/whathunger")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/zomromcom")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/earthlings")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ringshout")

They never wanted to come back here! [[It's full of dolls, which is scary in itself. |How to sell a haunted house]] [[It was definitely haunted when they were kids but their mom wouldn't let them leave. | Model Home]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/hungerstone")

It's not her fault! She's [[dealing with her ex-husband replacing her with a more submissive exact clone of herself| Echo Wife]] [[trying to remember the weird public access children's show she was on as a kid in a creepypasta novel| Mister Magic]] [[trying to defend her community against gentrification | When No One is Watching]] [[trying to find her missing boyfriend who the internet thinks killed a white woman | Missing White Woman]] [[wondering why she can't go into the basement when her husband's not home | Comfort me with Apples]] [[the star of the Gillian Flynn book I like better than Gone Girl | Sharp Objects]] [[uncovering a conspiracy while trying to get ahead at work | The Other Black Girl]] [[at an elite magical school where they experiment on a certain type of magic | Catherine House]] [[I can't even describe this one, man, but everyone who reads it loves it | Mount Char]]

You can't even count the ways it scares you to be a parent. What if [[there's something really wrong with your child? | horrible kid]] [[you can't protect them? | protect kid]] [[you lose yourself as a person? | lose person]] [[actually, having a kid is the best. It's having to deal with other parents that you hate.]]

To be a young woman in a patriarchal society is not easy! So many questions. [[Defy your vampire mom to pursue an art career and a life as a human? | Woman Eating]] [[Find your first love and kill him to break the family curse? | Blood Like Magic]] [[Escape parental and cultural gaslighting and also demons? |Camp Damascus]] [[Marry rich and save your famiy or stay single and practice magic? | Midnight Bargain]] [[Use your zombie powers to help your mom even though she hates that you have them? | Summer I Ate the Rich]] [[Be in a series of gorgeously illustrated creepy fairy tales? | Through the Woods]] [[Lose friends to a haunted house or lose friends to hatred and radicalization? | Tell Me I'm Worthless]] [[Throw away your own life to get justice for your missing sister because you're not the kind of girls people care about? | Sadie]]

When societ tells you "be better than other women but don't think you're too good for them!" and you're trying to navigate [[high school sports | Dare Me]] [[work | The Other Black Girl]] [[rich people | Cherish Farrah]] [[influencers | Julie Chan is Dead]] [[cliques | Bunny]] [[sororities | Girl Dinner]] [[government agencies | Her Majesty's Coven]]

Have you ever been so mad [[Your ex-husband has a new wife and it's your clone except submissive | Echo Wife]] [[The cops haven't looked for your missing sister so you have to do it yourself | Sadie]] [[Your country sacrifices women to its military pilots and you're going to kill them all | Iron Widow]] [[Your sister kills all her boyfriends and now she's dating your crush | My Sister the Serial Killer]] [[Your husband unties your green ribbon | Her Body and Other Parties]] [[You're so close to your perfect life and you will manipulate the friend you hate and love to get it | Cherish Farrah]] [[Your obsession with your new coworker leads to violence | Eileen]] [[that your emotions emerged in unnatural ways? | more cannibalism]]

You want a book where your protagonist is just trying to live life, maybe get ahead a little but there is something weird going on, and that weird thing is definitely [[the system or the community she's in]] [[uhh i think it's your protagonist, buddy]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/midnightbargain")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/throughthewoods")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/ironwidow")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/herbodyandotherparties")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/eileen")

You step into the room. The door swings softly shut behind you. The glow you noticed seems to be coming from a small table in the back, the only place in the room with any light. On the table someone has laid out several objects that appear to be lit from within. In the middle of the table sits a folded placard. You pluck it open and read “TAKE ONE.” After careful examination, you pick up [[a model of a little brick building. It looks just like the building you went to school in. You think there should maybe be other buildings around it - is it part of a campus? - but you still somehow recognize it. Some of your happiest memories were at school! Some of your worst nightmares too…You wish you could read the name on the little copperplate above the door but it’s a bit grimy. You try to brush it off with your fingers and -> School]] [[a polished wooden clock, the type you would see sitting on a mantel in an old house. Leaning in, you see the hands aren’t pointing to numbers at all but tiny icons. You somehow know that these icons represent different times in the past. One of them looks especially interesting. Experimentall, you sweep the hands around to a different time and ->History]] [[is that… your phone? You do a double take but your phone is tucked safely in your pocket. It must be the same model, that’s all. And wallpaper, somehow. You can tell because every other second the lockscreen lights up with a new notification. 362 and rising! You can see texts, instagram DMs, who knows what else. Your hands itch to swipe them away. You reach out and lightly slide your finger across the screen and ->Technology]] [[a charming old-timey Halloween decoration. It’s a black cat with its hair rising in front of a grinning jack-o'-lantern set in front of a few trees meant to represent a forest. So retro! The jagged cut of the pumpkin lid makes it clear that if you press down, something will pop out. You push down on the lid and ->spooky stuff]] [[a crudely drawn family tree. Not one of those professional ones but one that looks like it was a homework assignment for a little kid. The branches have the same names as your family members, but the trunk of the tree, where the person who created it should have written their own name, is blank. You pick the paper up to make sure and->family]] [[a glowing heart that outshines the other items on the table. It’s so bright you can’t look at it head on for more than a second. Clearly, it’s overflowing with love! Or maybe it looks like it’s about to burst? You think there should be some way to dim it so you grip it and feel around for a switch and ->Love]] [[a tiny container full of some kind of... goop. It's unlabeled but in the way that really expensive things are unlabeled like you would just recognize them automatically if you were rich enough. Which you don't. You hesitantly unscrew the container and scoop out a small amount of the cream and ->Women]]

Commitment issues? Sure, we can do short stories. [[if it was good enough for The Simpsons, it's good enough for you| Illustrated Man]] [[an acclaimed literary collection | Her Body and Other Parties]] [[graphic short stories with gorgeous, creepy art | Through the Woods]] [[you just bought this, didn't you? | Spirits Abroad]] [[author of one of my favorite horror novels is more known for her short stories | A Sunny Place for Shady People]] [[an all-female anthology of Lovecraft-inspired horror | She Walks in Shadows]] [[Did you know that when they tried to reissue these with updated illustrations there was such an outcry that they had to revert back? You really think these wouldn't hold up now that you're an adult? | Scary Stories]]

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/illustratedman")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/spiritsabroad")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/asunnyplace")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/scarystories")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/butnottoobold")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/vanessayu")

(goto-url: "https://myhallowread.neocities.org/walksinshadows")