Books like 'Private Rites'
Readers who enjoyed Private Rites by Julia Armfield also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary horror lgbtq wlw literary-fiction spooky dystopia family romantic-love
-
Orphan Black: The Next Chapter by Malka Ann Older, Madeline Ashby
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe official continuation of Orphan Black, narrated by Emmy Award winner Tatiana Maslany. The story we never wanted to end continues... -
![Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin]()
Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSomething has gone very wrong on the sleepy Scottish Isle of Mab. The tides are angry. Reality has shifted. Selkies are coming up from the ocean, boys are missing, magic is going haywire, and memories are being pulled from people’s minds. Thomas Madigan is living in a nightmare. Isla just wants to go back to the sea. Kit Macrae thinks he’s drowning. Tanis Hughes needs to feed... -
![Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas]()
Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJames Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan... -
![I Am Not a Number by Lisa Heathfield]()
I Am Not a Number by Lisa Heathfield
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe powerful and heart-wrenching new novel from Lisa Heathfield, award-winning author of Seed and Paper Butterflies. Perfect for fans of Sarah Crossan, Louise O'Neill and Lisa Williamson.The Traditionals have been voted to lead the country, winning people over with talks of healing a broken society, of stronger families and safer streets. They promised a happier future for everyone... -
-
![Frozen Statues by L.E. Fraser]()
Frozen Statues by L.E. Fraser
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA gripping psychological thriller with shocking twistsIn the bitter cold of a Canadian winter, seven university freshmen vanish without a trace. Soon afterwards, police discover a ghastly crime scene—the victim is frozen solid and his eyes are missing, replaced with black stones. A week later, they find a second frozen statue at an identical crime scene... -
![Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid]()
Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMeet Tony Hill's most twisted adversary - a killer with a shopping list of victims, a killer unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer driven by the most perverted desires ...When teenager Jennifer Maidment's murdered and mutilated body is discovered, it is clear that there is a dangerous psychopath on the loose... -
![Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns]()
Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the fabulous storytelling of our dreams to the mute passions of domestic life, Stephen Dobyns explores a full range of human experience in these narrative poems... -
![The Garbage Times/White Ibis: Two Novellas by Sam Pink, Tom Fria]()
The Garbage Times/White Ibis: Two Novellas by Sam Pink, Tom Fria
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the freezing alleys of Chicago to the dew-blanketed bayou of Florida. From bouncing drunks and cleaning up puke to biking through the swamp laughing at peacocks. Freeze to thaw. Filth and broken glass and black water backed up in showers; lizards and Girl Scouts and themed birthday parties...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 21st-century adult anthologies comedy contemporary dark-humor -
![The Lamb by Lucy Rose]()
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMargot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember. When Margot is not at school they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door—"strays," Mama calls them, people who have strayed too far from the road. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm... -
![The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders]()
The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNovelette, Free online fiction.From newyorker.com“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” deals with a family in a not-too-distant future (or perhaps an alternate present or past?) that is struggling to keep up with the Joneses—which, in this society, means leasing some unusual garden ornaments... -
![Kill Your Darlings by MesserMoon]()
Kill Your Darlings by MesserMoon
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsKill Your Darlings: To remove or refrain from using something in spite of one's affection for itYears after Regulus loses his brother they're reunited, and as he struggles to figure out where he fits in Sirius's life he also struggles not to get lost in the impossible feelings he has for Sirius's best friend... -
![Fruiting Bodies: Stories by Kathryn Harlan]()
Fruiting Bodies: Stories by Kathryn Harlan
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn stories that beckon and haunt, Fruiting Bodies ranges confidently from the fantastical to the gothic to the uncanny as it follows characters—mostly queer, mostly women—on the precipice of change. Echoes of timeless myth and folklore reverberate through urgent narratives of discovery, appetite, and coming-of-age in a time of crisis... -
![Flames by Robbie Arnott]()
Flames by Robbie Arnott
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsA young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte—who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire... -
![Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate The Magic of Reading & Writing YA by Emily X.R. Pan, Nova Ren Suma]()
Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate The Magic of Reading & Writing YA by Emily X.R. Pan, Nova Ren Suma
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThirteen Short Stories from Bold New YA Voices & Writing Advice from YA IconsCreated by New York Times bestselling authors Emily X. R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma, Foreshadow is so much more than a short story collection...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq action-adventure anthologies contemporary fiction horror magical-realism -
-
![Our Lady of the Streets by Tom Pollock]()
Our Lady of the Streets by Tom Pollock
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"I couldn't have asked for a more satisfying finale" -- Tor.com In this thrilling conclusion to the Skyscraper Throne trilogy, Beth will come face-to-face with the goddess of the streets . . . Perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere... -
![#NoEscape (Volume 3) by Gretchen McNeil]()
#NoEscape (Volume 3) by Gretchen McNeil
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe #murder and mayhem continue in this prequel companion novel to the grisly, campy social media insanity that is #MurderTrending and #MurderFunding. Gretchen McNeil brings her signature wit and merciless kills to this gruesome yet hilarious, wildly topical young adult novel.Twenty years before Dee Guerra and the Death Row Breakfast Club took down The Postman and Alcatraz 2... -
![Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang]()
Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSmall Beauty tells the story of Mei, who in coping with the death of her cousin abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, learns about her aunt’s long-term secret relationship, and reflects on the trans women she left behind... -
![The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling]()
The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDark secrets and unnatural magic abound when a twelve-year-old girl ventures into a bog full of monsters to break a mysterious curse.Nothing about Kess Pedrock’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim)... -
![Where I End by Sophie White]()
Where I End by Sophie White
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMy mother.At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her.Through our thin shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle through her body just like the water in the walls of the house...Teenage Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is a wreckage, the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about... -
![Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee]()
Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well, if you had, this is what you would have seen: soft wood, black cracks, fridges in the road. The broken spines of old rides at Dreamland.'In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded 'For Sale' signs line the streets. The sea is higher - it's higher everywhere - and those who can are moving inland... -
![The Portable Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde]()
The Portable Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIncludes the following works: Novels—The Portrait of Dorian Gray; Plays—Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest; Writings—De Profundis, Critic as Artist, and Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Very Young; and selections from Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance... -
![Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson]()
Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsKnock Knock, Open Wide weaves horror and Celtic myth into a terrifying, heartbreaking supernatural tale of fractured family bonds, the secrets we carry, and the veiled forces that guide Irish life.Driving home late one night, Etain Larkin finds a corpse on a pitch-black country road deep in the Irish countryside. She takes the corpse to a remote farmhouse... -
![Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks]()
Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsMeet Margaret. At age twelve, she was head detective of the mystery club Girls Can Solve Anything. Margaret and her three best friends led exciting lives solving crimes, having adventures, and laughing a lot. But now that she's entered high school, the club has disbanded, and Margaret is unmoored--she doesn't want to grow up, and she wishes her friends wouldn't either... -
![Night of the Living Queers: 13 Tales of Terror & Delight by Ryan Douglass, Kalynn Bayron]()
Night of the Living Queers: 13 Tales of Terror & Delight by Ryan Douglass, Kalynn Bayron
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsNight of the Living Queers is a YA horror anthology that explores a night when anything is possible, exclusively featuring queer authors of color putting fresh spins on classic horror tropes and tales.No matter its name or occasion, Halloween is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a symbol of transformation... -
-
![We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer]()
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 9 ratingsThe Turn of the Key meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit... -
![The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford]()
The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMixing the mundane with the metaphysical, the pairings of the everyday and the extraordinary in this collection of short fiction yield supernatural results—a young musician perceives another world while drinking coffee, a fairy chronicles his busy life in a sandcastle during the changing tide, a demonic 16th-century chess set shows up in a New Jersey bar, and Charon, the boatman of hell, takes a... -
![Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders by Alicia Gaspar De Alba]()
Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders by Alicia Gaspar De Alba
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDesert Blood: The Juárez Murders Alicia Gaspar de Alba, March 31, 2005, ISBN 1-55885-446-0, Clothbound, $23... -
![Girl Island by Kate Castle]()
Girl Island by Kate Castle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTEENAGE GIRLS CAN BE SAVAGE.Six teenage girls. One deserted island. Removed from civilised society, can they challenge class, identity and toxic femininity to pull together and survive? Or will they descend into savagery?This thrilling must-read adventure novel is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent... -
![Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab]()
Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA debut novel about love, family, queerness, and losing your mind in the modern world marks the arrival of a truly original, haunting voice in fiction who will make you laugh, cry, and scream, all in the same breath... -
![Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Brook Tsai]()
Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Brook Tsai
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsA tale of doom and ambition, loss and revenge, love and murder... -
![Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements, Onjuli Datta]()
Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements, Onjuli Datta
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsFor readers of Nightbitch and We Ride Upon Sticks, this strange and sexy novel of queer love in a small town is an unsettling reminder that the horrors of modern life are monsters ready to possess us all.In the valley at the intersection of three towering mountains sits Cadenze, an ugly, remote town with little to its name... -
![Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn, Deborah Burgess]()
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn, Deborah Burgess
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt's the summer of 1990, and Crystal Beach has lost its beloved, long-running amusement park, leaving the lakeside village a virtual ghost town. It is back to this fallen community Starla Mia Martin must return to live with her overbearing mother after dropping out of university and racking up significant debt... -
![Season of the Witch: A Novel by James Leo Herlihy]()
Season of the Witch: A Novel by James Leo Herlihy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBy the author of Midnight Cowboy: A teenage girl runs away to the East Village in “one of the best and most convincing novels . . . of the Woodstock generation” (Publishers Weekly). As she explains in her diary, seventeen-year-old Gloria Random is running away from her Midwest childhood home. It’s the fall of 1969, and her best friend John has been called up for the draft... -
![Ride for Tomorrow by Alex Westmore]()
Ride for Tomorrow by Alex Westmore
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMan made the virus that wiped out more than 90% of the population. Now it's up to a tough-as-nails woman and her teenage sidekick named Einstein to save what remains.First there was the outbreak...As the virus sweeps across the United States claiming more and more victims, butch firefighter Dallas was sure death was coming for her, too. Only it never did... -
-
![The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney]()
The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA teenage girl must save her town from a memory-devouring monster in this piercing exploration of grief, trauma, and memory, from the author of The Valley and the Flood.For generations, a monster called the Memory Eater has lived in the caves of Whistler Beach, Maine, surviving off the unhappy memories of those who want to forget... -
![Deliver Me by Elle Nash]()
Deliver Me by Elle Nash
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“To read the work of Elle Nash is to be restored to faith in the wildness, wetness, and visceral power of contemporary American fiction. Deliver Me is a barbed liturgy of bugs, babies, meat, the gospel, women lusting women, women lusting men, and the human body. Get saved.” — MELISSA BRODER, author of Milk Fed , The Pisces , and Death Valley “.. -
![Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Tomás Downey, Mariana Enríquez]()
Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Tomás Downey, Mariana Enríquez
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA boy explores the abandoned house of a dead fascist…A leaked sex tape pushes a woman to the brink…A sex worker discovers a dark secret among the nuns of the pampas…The mountain fog is not what it seems…Kermit the Frog dreams of murder…In ten chilling stories from an ensemble cast of contemporary Latin American writers, including Mariana Enriquez (tr. Megan McDowell), Camila Sosa Villlada (tr...Categorized as:
literary-fiction spooky horror fiction anthologies contemporary paranormal latinx-mc -
![Stag Dance by Torrey Peters]()
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this collection of one novel and three novellas, the bestselling author of Detransition, Baby pushes trans-genre to its limits to explore who gets included—and excluded—from the possibilities of gender...Categorized as:
lgbtq literary-fiction fiction contemporary trans-mc horror anthologies 21st-century -
![Salt Slow by Julia Armfield]()
Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThis collection of stories is about women and their experiences in society, about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones... -
![The Honeys by Ryan La Sala]()
The Honeys by Ryan La Sala
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsFrom Ryan La Sala, the wildly popular author of Reverie, comes a twisted and tantalizing horror novel set amidst the bucolic splendor of a secluded summer retreat.Mars has always been the lesser twin, the shadow to his sister Caroline's radiance... -
![Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan]()
Things We Say in the Dark by Kirsty Logan
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 15 ratings'Gripping . . . You won't put it down' Sunday TelegraphA shocking collection of dark stories, ranging from chilling contemporary fairytales to disturbing supernatural fiction.Alone in a remote house in Iceland a woman is unnerved by her isolation; another can only find respite from the clinging ghost that follows her by submerging herself in an overgrown pool... -
![Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson]()
Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP ANOTHER PERSON. PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP NOT A PERSON AT ALL.”From the “master of literary horror” (GQ) comes a collection of new stories tracing the limits and consequences of artificial intelligence and “post-human” relationships... -
![Everything She Does Is Magic by Bridget Morrissey]()
Everything She Does Is Magic by Bridget Morrissey
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the charming town of Fableview, every day is Halloween. Get ready to fall under the spell of this bewitching sapphic romance, perfect for fans of Gilmore Girls and Wicked!Darcy Keller, resident ray of sunshine and town spirit princess, loves every moment of Fableview’s fall festivities... -
![A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell]()
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsWhen her siblings start to go missing, a girl must confront the dark thing that lives in the forest—and the growing darkness in herself—in this debut YA contemporary fantasy for fans of Wilder Girls.Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest... -
-
![The Kill Club by Wendy Heard]()
The Kill Club by Wendy Heard
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJazz will stop at nothing to save her brother.Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution... -
![To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger]()
To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWhat does carrion taste like? Andi has to know. The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the secrets hiding in their banquet of decay. Fascination morphs into an obsessive need to know what the vultures know. Andi turns to Dr. Fawning, but even the therapist cannot help her comprehend the secrets she’s buried beneath anger-induced blackouts... -
![One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie]()
One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIf you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it?Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end.Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the "violent" M gene.Bea refuses to let her son take the test. His life should not be determined by a positive or negative result... -
![Under This Red Rock by Mindy McGinnis]()
Under This Red Rock by Mindy McGinnis
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNeely’s monsters don’t always follow her rules, so when the little girl under her bed, the man in her closet, and the disembodied voice that shadows her every move become louder, she knows she’s in trouble.With a history of mental illness in her family, and the suicide of her older brother heavy on her mind, Neely takes a job as a tour guide in the one place her monsters can’t follow—the caverns... -
![Dead Relatives by Lucie McKnight Hardy]()
Dead Relatives by Lucie McKnight Hardy
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIris has never left the big house in the country she shares with Mammy and the servants. When The Ladies arrive, she finds that she must appease her dead relatives.Other stories in this collection explore themes of motherhood and the fragile body, family dynamics and small town tensions, unusual traditions and metamorphosis... -
![A Better World by Sarah Langan]()
A Better World by Sarah Langan
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe author of Good Neighbors , “one of the creepiest, most unnerving deconstructions of American suburbia” (NPR), returns with a provocative and disconcerting novel about a woman questioning her new home in an exclusive company town after a night out goes terribly wrong.Welcome to Plymouth Valley...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
