QUEER READS THAT WILL TAKE YOU TO DARK PLACES THIS HALLOWEEN
If you’re up for a good scare, I’ve listed some LGBT+ books designed to disturb. Some of them I’m too chicken shit to read especially those of the flesh trade and serial killing variety because those are some very real monsters.
Read if you dare…
Over two hundred and thirty years ago the Fallocaust happened, killing almost everything that lived and creating what is now known as the greywastes. A dead wasteland where cannibalism is a necessity, death your reality, and life before the radiation nothing but pictures in dog-eared magazines.
Reaver is a greywaster, living in a small block controlled by a distant ruler said to have started the Fallocaust. He is a product of the savage world he was raised in and prides himself on being cold and cruel. Then someone new to his town catches his eye, someone different than everyone else. Without knowing why he starts to silently stalk him, unaware of where it will lead him.
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“I couldn’t help but feel a sick sadistic joy as I queued up the C4. So many people were going to die today, and so many families were going to be in devastated ruins tomorrow. They would feel what they made me feel.”
A collection of darkly playful stories based on classic folk and fairy tales (but with a feminist spin) that find the sinister in the familiar and the familiar in the alien — from Mallory Ortberg, author of Texts From Jane Eyre.
From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from the beloved “Children’s Stories Made Horrific” series, “The Merry Spinster” takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and the best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children’s stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.
Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg’s boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg’s oeuvre will delight in this collection’s unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.
Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.
Bed time will never be the same.
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“I expect it’s hard for witches … now that most people work in shops and factories, and haven’t any crops to ruin. They must be terribly sad, those witches, to have to go from blighting wheat fields to blighting houseplants.”
To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his “art” to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his “art” to limits even Compton hadn’t previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim.
Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London’s Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, and punctuated by rants from radio talk show host Lush Rimbaud, a.k.a. Luke Ransom, Tran’s ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS and who intends to wreak ultimate havoc before leaving this world, Exquisite Corpse unfolds into a labyrinth of murder and love. Ultimately all four characters converge on a singular bloody night after which their lives will be irrevocably changed — or terminated.
Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. Exquisite Corpse confirms Brite as a writer who defies categorization. It is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.
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“I’m your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you’ve become one?”
In this first installment of the exciting new psychosexual thriller, The Flesh Cartel, orphaned brothers Mat and Dougie Carmichael are stolen in the night from their own home. Taken to a horrifying processing facility, they are assessed, microchipped, and subjected to unspeakable brutality—all in preparation for sale to the highest bidder.
In a world where every person has a price, the beautiful and subduable PhD student Dougie is highly prized. His brother, a rough-edged MMA fighter, is less desirable—and potentially too dangerous—but he still has his own appeal.
Abused and locked up under round the clock surveillance, with no idea where they are or even why they’ve been taken, escape seems impossible, which leaves staying together their only hope. And after being separated once by the foster system, they’ll do anything to keep it from happening again. Anything at all.
(Publisher’s note: This title contains material some may find objectionable or trigger-inducing, including explicit violence, non-consent, and forced incest.)
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He almost whimpered Don’t hurt me again, but managed to bite it back. Like it’d mattered worth a damn anyway. Hadn’t yet. They actually seemed to like it when he begged.
“When faced with monstrosity, become the greater monster. The sting of victory will fade with time.”
Haunted by a history of horror and abuse, Flowridia, a witch with a tender heart, finds a second chance in the home of her kingdom’s royal family. With employment comes friendship, and perhaps she has finally found a place to belong—until she catches the eye of Lady Ayla Darkleaf, a woman with enticing grace and a predatory smile. The corrupt world of politics consumes her, and Flowridia falls into a toxic love affair surely doomed for heartbreak. Yet when Ayla’s legacy as a monster unfolds, Flowridia sees only the tender soul hiding beneath.
An ancient deity returns, hell-bent on restoring the world to its natural order, and Flowridia’s kingdom is tasked to stop him. Caught in the ensuing clash of gods, her loyalties will be tempted at every turn—by family, by fate, and by the woman whose claws grip her heart.
Horror abounds, monsters rise, and hearts break in the first installment of FALLEN GODS
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“”It’s uncommon, far from unheard of. The elves and the angels have done it since the dawn of time, penning great epics of beautiful women loving beautiful women. No need for shame, little angel. You are full of surprises.”
Tears did leak from Flowridia’s eyes, but of relief. No more fear.”
At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious, and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their streets. The only clues the killer leaves behind are painted snuffboxes containing notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own.
Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
A finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. Winnter of the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Speculative Fiction!
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“At night they emerge from the water, stalking over the grassy field, leaving bits of themselves on the ground. They gather at my bedside – Bum, Harold, David, the father I’d known before the war, and my neighbor Mr. Lang – and they gaze down on me, whispering revelations of who they were and who I am.
And the strongest voice belongs to the German, who looks upon me with concern and warmth, and he tells me, “If you can stand up, you’ll live.”
Iblīs (Arabic إبليس)—the primary devil in Islam.
“If you sleep with the Devil, don’t expect to get out of hell.”
DEMANDING. NEEDY. DANGEROUS. Slater is everything Talha doesn’t want but everything the crime lord needs. The bloodiest ripper of Anatolia, nicknamed Iblīs, kills for him and warms his bed. Stuck in a power play and a loveless, symbiotic relationship, Talha knows that if he shows weakness, he will fall at the hand of his own weapon.
THIRST FOR BLOOD, SEX, AND PAIN. It drives Slater crazy. Only Talha can soothe the deep ache that grows stronger every day. Slater allows Master to think he is in charge until Talha cheats by changing the rules of their game. But Master doesn’t grasp that there’s no escape from Iblīs’ affliction.
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“Slater hates shopping. Slater hates crowded places. When Slater is irritated, Slater want’s to kill” Slater hissed’
In an isolated school for boys with emotional problems, a disturbed adolescent struggles against a mire of superstition and oppression. Then he meets Willy, and the other boy – charismatic and strange – saves him … or damns him. WILLY, an atmospheric novel of suspense by the author of THE PINES, THE SHORE and MARTYRS & MONSTERS, becomes both an evocation of painful growth and a dark psychological thriller.
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“Quiet is really just a lot of small noises that most people don’t notice.”
An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by one apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own.
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“Your twisting is done–you have the last thread of my heart. I wonder: when the thread grows slack, will you feel it?”
Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.
Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.
A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read.
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“Too much had happened that night, too much had happened before that night, and so too much climbed into bed with them, sat heavily upon them, and kept them up and thinking, even if they did not say the things they were thinking to each other.”
This is not a romance.
Tags: graphic torture, murder, paranormal, forced incest, rape
Byron is tall, handsome, well spoken, wealthy, and has outstanding taste in wine and food. You’ll be impressed by his impeccable attire and eloquence in conversation, ranging from Baroque art to the newest advances in pharmacology. With his charming smile and elegant manners, Byron truly is the perfect date… and who doesn’t love a man who appreciates opera?
What’s the catch, you ask?
Just this: if Byron finds you suitable, he will subject you to utterly depraved forms of torture.
No, I’m not talking about S&M.
Byron will mutilate, rape, and then kill you. Don’t think that you will survive the encounter, because you won’t.
He has a perfect record.
Intrigued? Would you like me to arrange a rendezvous? It has to be in the next few days because he’s leaving on a trip south to much warmer climes, and his calendar will be completely full.
Yes? Very good. I will make a reservation for two under the name of Smith.
Who am I? I’m Gloria, his personal assistant.
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Humming along to the next track on his Lustrations playlist—Cassidy’s “Vide Cor Meum”—he unrolled his leather medical kit and slid his favourite scalpel out, placing it on the stained ivory surface of the antique pedestal. The man strapped to the chair shook his head as vigorously as his weak state allowed him, and Byron laid a kind hand on his shoulder.
“It will all be over soon. But you have one last thing to do for me since your son couldn’t perform,” he said gently
Hope you enjoyed this list. What’s the scariest book you have read?
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