Every October, my TBR gets out of control. I’m not usually a horror reader, but that changes during Halloween month. Within these 31 days, I can’t get enough creepy queer reads. The problem with that is it means I collect queer horror to read all year, and suddenly I have 60 books checked out from the library and only a few weeks to read them all in!
October is also Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, which I’ve participated in twice a year, every year, for the past decade. It’s a day of snacking and reading with friends, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s my favourite day(s) of the year.
I have a lot more than 15 book on my TBR this month, but I thought I’d share a selection with you, in case you also want to lean into seasonal reading this Gay Christmas. I have an asexual haunted house romance, trans alien invasion horror, queer gothics, trans horror essays, a sapphic vampire murder mystery, and much more.
All Access members, read on for 15 of the queer Halloween-adjacent books on my TBR this month.
Easing into the season, I have a couple of haunted house romance novels on my list: Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places by Claire Kann (asexual F/M) and The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish (transmasc NB/cis M). I also have the sapphic asexual monster romance/fantasy/horror Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell on my life.
Currently, I’m reading Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle, which is a very weird bisexual horror novel. I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m having a great time. Another one in the genre-blending category on my list is Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, which is about a sentient spaceship trying to kill Dracula. It promises to be “the queer love child of pulp horror and classic sci-fi.” And another mash-up: The Midnight Shift by Seon-Ran Cheon, translated by Gene Png, which is a sapphic vampire murder mystery.
I have a million sapphic gothic books on my TBR this month, but let’s have House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama stand in for all of them. This one is set in a strange, shifting house in 1986 Philippines. Speaking of strange houses, there’s We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado, a sapphic haunted house story—I can never resist those. And All the Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper is a trans gothic horror novel I’ve been looking forward to since it came out last year.
I really enjoyed the Andrew Joseph White YA horror I’ve read, so I’m looking forward to—and dreading— his adult horror debut, You Weren’t Meant to Be Human, which has a trans main character and is about an alien invasion.
Roar of the Lambs by Jamison Shea is a genderqueer gothic YA thriller, and since I liked I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me so much, I have high hopes for this one.
For graphic novels, I have Graveneye by Sloane Leong and Anna Bowles on my list, which looks like another queer gothic. (So many gothics!) One of the graphic novels I’m most excited about getting to is Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky, a trans futuristic folk horror graphic novel. I loved Boys Weekend, so I can’t wait for this one.
I’m also hoping to get to some queer horror essay collections and anthologies: Uncanny Valley Girls: Essays on Horror, Survival, and Love by Zefyr Lisowski and Queer Little Nightmares edited by David Ly & Daniel Zomparelli.
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