About Trad Wife: A journalist descends into horror as she uncovers the sinister truth behind a trad wife influencer in this “flat-out brilliant” (Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author) blend of chilling suspense and razor-sharp commentary on modern femininity, performative domesticity, and social media—perfect for readers of Yesteryear, Mexican Gothic, and The Yellow Wallpaper. Releases September 29th 2026.

Good Behavior by Molly Keane

There is no great novel about a fallen house like an Irish novel!

Asylum by Patrick McGrath

Sometimes moms have to watch their kids drown because ennui.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman

That guy in the wall made me do it! Please pass the laudanum. 

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

I can’t quip on this one. It’s serious.

Educated by Tara Westover

Another one I can’t joke about. Except to say: Mormons! 

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Before Gatsby, there were these lunatics

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Sometimes evil children should also drown

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Sometimes the pig slaughterhouse is exactly what you think it is.

Houses without Doors by Peter Straub

You want disturbing? I’ll give you disturbing!

Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

Because sometimes it’s a bad idea to covet your frenemy’s husband, who, for weird reasons, lives on a farm that dates back to the Salem witch trials.

The post Sarah Langan’s Top 10 Corrupted Family and Haunted House Stories appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Kill Your Darlings: A teen girl faces the horrors of misogyny and racism—plus an evil witch and her horde of monsters—in this fun, fast-paced thriller. Released September 22nd 2026.

Sometimes, I’m asked, “why horror?” Underlying that question is a follow-up: “why horror for teenagers?”

Well, starting with the ‘horror’ of it all, I gravitated towards the genre because it was and is meant to be confrontational. It takes these concepts, your scary masks, haunted houses, monsters that are nightmare fodder, and it turns them back on us. Horror has a remarkable ability to dig deep and reveal something about each of us.

When I was a teenager, everything felt too big and too real and too insurmountable. Horror took those things that felt like the end of the world to me—the fears I had over growing up and losing what I thought were supposed to be the best years of my life, the contentious relationship I had with my body, how distant and awkward I felt compared to my peers, the values and the beliefs I was forming—and splashed them everywhere like blood stains so there was nowhere left to hide. There was a sense of freedom in that. And if it was all there for everyone to see, and I wasn’t alone in how I was feeling, that meant there was hope.

I think of what that meant for me, and what it might mean for teenagers today. I want that for them. We could all use some more hope.

So, here are five YA horror novels that belong in my own little start-up pack, which I think truly celebrate the multitudes of emotion at the heart of this genre:

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

I think this should be on every single horror reader’s starting line-up. My Best Friend’s Exorcism follows two best friends, Abigail and Gretchen, through the evolution of their friendship. That is, until they reach high school, and Gretchen starts to change. Abby’s convinced this means she must be possessed by a demon.

This book is old-school horror nostalgia. It’s the 1980s, and Satanism is all the rage! It’s an exploration of so many things, including the social structure of the period, bodily autonomy and religion, but at the centre of this book is the tireless friendship between Abby and Gretchen and the lengths to which Abby would go to save and protect her best friend. As a teenager, I know I would’ve wanted my best friend to be this ride-or-die for me.

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

Did you enjoy Carrie by Stephen King? If so, you’ll love (maybe even more) The Weight of Blood. Something happened on prom night, and the people of Springfield are convinced that resident outcast and social reject, Madison (Maddy) Washington, is responsible. Especially when Maddy is revealed as biracial and has been passing as white because her racist father required her to.

This book was striking and heart-wrenching and so visceral in the way I think only BIPOC horror and horror written by marginalised folks can achieve. Maddy’s experience as a biracial girl in this small, racist town is so thoughtfully detailed. That, coupled with the supernatural element and the mixed media that unfolds the impending horror and doom of what is such a powerful and furious climax, makes this an absolute must read in YA horror!

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Readers looking for a bit of history to go alongside their horror will definitely enjoy The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. Sixteen-year-old Silas Bell wants nothing less than to be married off, until he is diagnosed with Veil Sickness and sent off to a sanatorium, where the dead have no intention of remaining silent.

To me, the real horror in The Spirits Bares Its Teeth wasn’t even in the supernatural/paranormal elements (although, those were delightfully spooky), but in the way it draws out the horrific treatment experienced by queer people, even teenagers, in the 19^th century all for being queer. The story does not shy away from those experiences. It’s a gut-punch, but there’s still a tender undercurrent that truly makes this book shine. If there’s ever a YA horror novel that embodies the ideal of hope, even in such pitch darkness, it’s this one!

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis

I’m not sure if there’s anything more synonymous with horror than witches! Bad Witch Burning is your witchy YA horror, featuring teenage Katrell who can speak to the dead and uses that ability to make enough money so that she can escape her neglectful mother. That is, until she gets into hot water and suddenly, she can bring the dead back to life.

I think the reason this one struck me is very similar to why all the others did. If you’re someone who likes your horror to say something deeper than just gore and blood splatters, Bad Witch Burning will not disappoint. As someone who often felt like I had to grow up too quickly (and whose debut features much of the same theme), Katrell was such a phenomenal protagonist. Hurt and grief-stricken and desperate, but also tough and resilient and compassionate in equal measure. I wish I could read this book again for the first time; it made me feel so much!

The Dark We Know by Wen-Yi Lee

I remember being on the verge of keyboard smashing when I first read this book, that’s how much I enjoyed it! The Dark We Know is about Isadora, a teenage girl who returns to her hometown, Slater, following the loss of her father, as she grapples with the deaths of two of her childhood friends and what really happened to them. This is book is so difficult to describe, but I think the most iconic part is the use of second-person POV, which isn’t easy to get right. I was submerged in this raw, hungry, hurt, eerie book from start to finish. This is just such a beautiful, unrestrained story, and those who like their YA horror more on the uncanny side than outright gory will definitely enjoy this one.

The post Five Book YA Horror Starter Pack: Recommendations from Author Yuvashri Harish appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Little Kin: A haunting island. A broken covenant. A woman who must survive both. Perfect for fans of Heather Fawcett, T. Kingfisher, and Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Little Kin is a chilling, folkloric tale of survival and belonging. Released September 22nd 2026.

One of the first things anthropology taught me is that people rarely do things “for no reason.”

If a community leaves offerings by a particular tree, avoids certain places after dark, or refuses to name something or to speak of it directly, there is almost always cultural logic behind the practice. The longer I spent studying people and their stories, the more I realized that folklore and ritual aren’t relics of a superstitious past. They are enduring ways of making sense of uncertainty, danger, grief, and belonging.

That’s one particular reason I love folk horror. Unlike many horror subgenres, folk horror begins with a question anthropologists ask all the time: Why do people believe this?

I started my anthropological training more than twenty years ago as an undergrad, learning about Margaret Mead, Bronislaw Malinowski and other pioneers of the discipline, though unlike them, my own fieldwork took place a bit closer to home. After all, fascinating things can be learned by observing the familiar, and by studying oneself. Perhaps that’s why my anthropological research is fundamentally about identity, belonging, and resilience: the stories people tell about themselves, the identities they embrace (or resist), and the ways they navigate institutions and communities that reward some and marginalise others. Looking back, many of the questions that would later find their way into my fiction were already there: where do we belong, who gets to define us, and how do we hold on to ourselves while finding our place in the world?

Folk horror is effective in delivering unease because it emerges from social systems rather than random evil. Out of all horror subgenres, it is also perhaps the most anthropological—because it’s often less about supernatural threats and more about the unsettling power of customs, rituals, and collective beliefs. When an outsider encounter a community radically unlikely their own, their rules and customs can seem irrational, while from inside the culture those make perfect sense.

Often, in folk horror narratives we’re placed in the position of an outsider trying to make sense of a community whose worldview operates according to a completely different logic. For example, in The Wicker Man, Sergeant Howie arrives on Summerisle convinced that the islanders’ customs are irrational and morally wrong, while the community sees its rituals as necessary for survival and prosperity. In Midsommar, Dani and her friends initially interpret the Hårga’s ceremonies as bizarre and horrifying, yet for the people performing them they are expressions of grief, continuity, and collective identity. Even in The Ritual, where the threat is more monstrous than communal, the villagers’ accommodation of ancient forces emerges from a cultural framework that has developed over generations. The horror arises not because the community lacks logic, but because its logic is internally coherent. What appears monstrous from the outside often makes perfect sense from within, forcing both protagonist and reader to confront the unsettling possibility that reality depends on where, and with whom, we stand.

In my adult folk horror debut Little Kin, the monster is only part of the story. The real source of unease is Rothagisht itself: an isolated island community whose people have spent generations building their lives around ancient covenants, ritual obligations, and rules that make perfect sense to them—even when they appear bizarre or terrifying to outsiders.

At the heart of Little Kin is Cassini, a cultural anthropologist who travels to Rothagisht after inheriting a house from an aunt she never knew. Accustomed to making sense of the world through research, observation, and evidence, Cass soon finds herself in a place where folklore seems woven into everyday life and ancient customs are followed with unsettling devotion. As she investigates her family history and the island’s traditions, she becomes increasingly entangled in a community bound together by blood, memory, and ritual. What begins as a search for answers soon turns into a deeper question of identity and belonging: not simply who Cass is, but whether some places have the power to claim us long before we even know they exist.

As an anthropologist myself, I wanted to see the world of Rothagisht through Cass’s eyes and to have Cass try and make sense of customs that challenge everything she believes about the world. So, before I ‘designed’ Rothagisht’s monstrous flora and fauna, I asked myself a question: what kind of society would create monsters like that, live alongside them, and perhaps even depend on them? The answers to those questions ultimately shaped Little Kin far more than the monsters themselves.

As both an anthropologist and an immigrant, I’ve spent much of my life thinking about belonging. Moving between countries taught me that belonging is rarely as simple as being born somewhere or claiming a particular identity. It’s something we negotiate constantly through relationships, memories, stories, and the communities that accept us—or refuse to. Those questions sit at the core of Cass’s journey in Little Kin. She arrives on Rothagisht as an outsider searching for answers about her family, only to discover that belonging can be both a gift and a burden. Like many of us, she longs to be part of something larger than herself. The real question becomes not whether she belongs, but what she is willing to sacrifice in order to belong—and whether some invitations are more dangerous than they first appear.

Folk horror will never stop to fascinate me. Beneath the monsters, the rituals, and the strange landscapes, it asks some of our oldest and most human questions: Who are we? Where do we belong? What stories do we inherit, and what do those stories demand in return?

In Little Kin the monsters may draw us into the darkness, but the real horror—and wonder—comes from the possibility that we might finally find the place we belong, only to discover the price of claiming it.

The post The Anthropology of Folk Horror: Exploring Custom, Belief and Belonging in ‘Little Kin’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Guest post written by Homeward for a Spell co-authors Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos
Jamie Pacton is a bestselling, award-winning Young Adult and Adult author who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. She writes funny, whimsical, cozy fantasy books and the occasional YA contemporary novel. When she’s not writing, she’s likely in an art museum, walking in the woods, or dreaming up new stories by the sea.

Rebecca Podos is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of YA novels, including The Mystery of Hollow Places; Like Water; The Wise and the Wicked; From Dust, a Flame; and Furious. Her adult novels include Homegrown Magic; What if… Kitty Pryde Stole the Phoenix Force?; and Homeward for a Spell, out now. She is also co-editor of the YA anthology Fools in Love, and her stories have been featured in the anthologies At Midnight and This is How We Roll.

About Homeward for a Spell: In this cozy queer romantic fantasy from the award-winning authors of Homegrown Magic, two members of a motley crew of adventurers must confront monsters, hostile landscapes—and their growing attraction to each other. Released August 18th 2026.

We’re writing a book on a road trip.

It’s not a very long trip—just under an hour from Becca’s home in Connecticut to the charming small town that’s hosting a community book launch for our latest adult fantasy romance, Homeward for a Spell—but it’s precious time. As the miles pass, we go back and forth about characters, the first act of this new story, the pacing. And then, in a flash, we come up with a twist that will bring everything together elegantly. (Spoiler: our main characters hook up in chapter three. Spicy!).

We don’t have a laptop out, but Jamie’s frantically taking notes on her phone as Becca navigates traffic. Hopefully, we’ll remember enough of our own ideas and story insights that we can log them in our huge Discord server, where much our co-writing work is done. There are plotting threads for every book, promo threads, and character art threads. There’s also an entire thread of fantasy-world appropriate euphemisms to use in sex scenes.

“I wish we lived closer,” Becca says wistfully while almost missing an exit. “Can you imagine how much we’d get done if we could hang out once a week?”

It’s so, so true.

We live on opposite coasts, in Oregon and Connecticut, and any time we get together it’s a fevered rush of catching up on our lives and co-author brainstorming. It’s wonderful, weird, and a bit chaotic.

Hi, we’re Jamie Pacton and Becca Podos, co-authors of the adult queer fantasy romance books Homeward for a Spell and Homegrown Magic, and the YA sapphic contemporary book, Furious. And here are five of the questions we get asked most as co-authors:

How did you become co-authors?

Back in 2021, we didn’t really know each other beyond a passing professional association. Jamie was living through the worst time of her parenting life, and she and her partner were binging The Fast and Furious movies to take their minds off their heartbreak. Late in the summer, Becca dashed off a tweet with a picture of Letty Ortiz, iconically played by Michelle Rodriguez, asking for an “F/F Fast & Furious book” under the hashtag #mswl (manuscript wishlist). Jamie slid into Becca’s Twitter DM’s to say, “If you don’t get this book, I’ll co-write it with you…” Which was ridiculous, of course. We had spoken online a handful of times at most.

But Becca said yes.

From there our friendship and our co-writing career was born. Our first book, the YA contemporary queer romance Furious, emerged over a series of emails, calls, DMs, and much work in a Google doc. Then Homegrown Magic came about from a D&D campaign we were playing with other author pals, started because we needed a non-monetizable hobby (HA!). We wrote so much backstory for our characters, and we were so accustomed to telling stories together, that we ended up writing a hundred pages of story—just for fun—that our agents promptly sold in a six-figure pre-empt to Del Rey. Much to our surprise, our cozy, spicy fantasy romance series was on!

How do you write books together?

We spend a lot of time brainstorming, talking ideas through, and then Becca writes a detailed synopsis (their professional strength as an agent, which Jamie is entirely grateful for!). Each of us takes one character and really develops their backstory, while consulting one another to make sure the characters compliment each other and the story we want to tell. We do a lot of “What-ifs” in our Discord server, send each other a lot of songs and videos and art for inspiration, and then we start drafting in Google docs. Each of us writes the chapter for our character, and we alternate these. Sometimes, we get through four or more chapters in a week, and sometimes it takes one of us a whole week or more to get finish a chapter (pretty sure it once took Becca a month). Slowly, though, a book emerges, which is always a bit of magic.

What do you like best about co-writing?

Everything really! Sharing creative projects like this is such an intimate experience (truly, no pun intended, though as writers of spicy books we’ve had lots of, ahem, unexpected conversations), and it’s so much fun to plan, write, and publish a book with a friend. It’s also a joy to figure out story problems together. And, let’s be honest, it’s a bit less work than writing an entire book alone! We’re also really good at working through conflict together, and we’ve weathered many storms as friends and co-authors that have strengthened our professional and personal relationship. Plus, we just really like hanging out (preferably beside Becca’s pool or near the ocean with a whisky at hand).

How do I write/finish a book?

Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula we can give you for this. You have to sit down, do the work, and show up again and again. When you do that, though, magic happens. One sentence becomes one page becomes one chapter and then, eventually, becomes a book. And the worst book you’ve ever written is still better than the book you never wrote. But if you can find joy in the process—something that sparks your curiosity, or if you have a friend to write with—it makes it that much easier to stick with.

What’s next for you both?

We’re wondering that too! We can’t say anything about our official publishing schedule yet, either as co-authors or with our solo projects, but we’re hard at work co-writing a new, spicy, dark fantasy romance that we think our readers will love.

For all the updates, follow us on Instagram: @jamiepacton and @beccapodos

The post Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos On Cowriting appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Pictures of You: A woman becomes the unknowing subject of an artist’s dangerous work in this intense Hitchcockian thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Incidents Around the House. Releases on September 8th 2026.

Despite novelists often being last to know what their books are really about, I like to think the core of Pictures of You lies in the encouragement and discouragement of the arts, and how far the smallest compliment, or gibe, can go.

I was once a teenager in the backseat of my friend’s car when I absentmindedly sang along to a Doors song on the radio. The girl sitting beside me told me I had a “cool” voice. This was a moment. Would I have gone on to sing and write songs for The High Strung if Melissa hadn’t said those few words? I really don’t know. And had she told me I wasn’t any good… would the thousands of shows and dozens of albums have followed?

Scary thought, that.

Well, as someone who has now written a bunch of books, I can’t help but look inward. At least a little. And to notice the breadcrumb trail of moments that have led to a (truly) crazy (and wonderful) life of writing songs and books. And if I follow that trail back far enough… what did my first exposure to art look like? Who opened these doors so that I would one day feel comfortable enough to sing along to The Doors in the first place?

That answer is Mom. As Moms often do. And the place was here at home in Michigan, The Detroit Institute of Arts, as magisterial and full of wonder as any edifice I’ve ever been. The time was any time I begged Mom to take me to the DIA, so I could again see the pieces that were shaping me in a way I was too young to understand. But observe:

Pictures of You doesn’t only feature a dangerous artist with a dangerous vision, there is also Emily, the star of our story. And while she is captive in this other’s horrifying vision, she also has her own uncomfortable relationship with art. She gets anxious when her (awesome) boyfriend Jack brings the subject up. She goes quiet with friends at the Chaps Art Institute (you can now guess what place this fictional museum was based on). Emily constantly examines why she feels the way she does about art, even as she tries to escape the piece in which she wakes.

I don’t have that relationship with art. Neither Emily’s nor the woman who keeps her captive, but I do have a history of my own, a history that, now, examining the breadcrumbs on my own path, make total sense: a straight line from those afternoons with Mom at the DIA to the writing of the art-thriller Pictures of You.

Allow me to exhibit five pieces that blew my young man’s mind. Five that haunted the museum, I felt, and encouraged my imagination to reach out, to add to the pieces, even if a ten-year-old could not yet know how something like that could be done.

Observe:

Watson and the Shark

Self-explanatory, of course, why a preteen would beg Mom to take him to see this American piece from 1782. The artist John Singleton Copley made three versions, and I do believe this is the most unsettling of the bunch. For me, it was the near translucence of the water surrounding the boy Watson and the shark, the fact you could put your hand in that water if you really had a mind to, if Mom wasn’t near, if you were alone in this corner of the museum. The fact the painting depicted a real event was enough to give me nightmares. But it’s what Mom said about people calling it sensational at the time, shock-value, before it went on to become a classic… that was something extra that stuck with me. And while I don’t know if this is true, it was true for me, as a kid, and that idea opened conceptual doors beyond the fear I felt observing: doors that have remained open since and, maybe, probably, likely played a part in me writing about a woman who is certainly working with shock, and whose vision could be seen as something classic itself one day. But I suppose the fact she keeps her subject captive might hurt those chances. Still… who can be sure?

Celadon and Amelia

William Hamilton likely knew he’d infused canvas with despair in 1793 with this one. But when I was a kid, I didn’t know the story behind it. I didn’t see lovers at all; I saw a dark wizard (not dressed as wizards usually are, but also kinda) casting a spell on a woman in fantastical woods. It was the equivalent of a fantasy novel for me then and it still is. Sure, Hamilton meant to render a woman dying in her lover’s arms mid-tempest, but what is art if not the story we make of it before we know anything about it at all? I think our mad artist in Pictures of You would’ve liked to study this piece with me. Maybe she would’ve seen herself as a voyeur, framing the scene, doing nothing more than recognizing the artistry of a gesture, and the inherent power that lies within every moment, everywhere, literally everywhere, we look. Because to her, the act of seeing is the act of framing. Therefore, looking is art.

Armor in the Gothic Style

A pattern is emerging… a young horror-novelist-to-be, begging Mom to see the most sensational exhibits at the museum, choosing the art museum over video games and movies. I suppose Pictures of You was only a matter of time. And let me tell you, passing between multiple displays of Medieval and Renaissance armor, still young enough and therefore small enough to fit into these outfits… it was enough to make you want to nab one and set out on quixotic adventure on the beaches of the Great Lakes. It made you want to… cross a line. A pattern, here, indeed. Just like the mad artist of Pictures of You… crossing lines, fancying yourself chivalric… putting the art above all else, including, of course, the safety of any and all involved.

The Nightmare

I mean, come on. Come on. Henry Fuseli’s 1781 iconic symbol of sleep paralysis, housed permanently in the Detroit Institute of Arts, the museum just down the street. Do you have any idea what proximity to a thing like this might do to a young mind? Especially at night, feeling for your own chest, sleeping on your belly, making sure nothing could perch. It was one of my first introductions to the macabre, the gothic, and a brilliant one at that. But the truth is, the museum harbors only images that encourage the imagination, if the imagination is willing, and not all of them are “scary” by nature. Sometimes it’s just the look in the eyes of a portrait, the emptiness of a pub, the oily black shadows behind a heralded religious figure. Still, knowing The Nightmare is up the street is like having Dracula up the street. A bona fide centerpiece of the genre. I wonder what our artist in Pictures of You might think of this one? I imagine she would say placing an empty frame beside the bed of a sleeper would be more unsettling. And I’m not sure I’d disagree.

The Court of Death

Helluva title. Rembrandt Peale’s 1820 epic painting (almost 13×26 feet, framed). And what young man wouldn’t observe in horror the dead body at the feet of such ceremony? Symbolism abounds, but I didn’t need any of that back then. Not sure I need it now. The scope is big enough to put you in the room with the characters, to be present as either judgment or finality or morality is made.

I’ve always been a sucker for the giant paintings of any era, the original immersive theater, and I wonder if I studied this painting for ninety minutes if I wouldn’t walk away with the satisfaction of an entire movie, sinking into depth painted two hundred years ago. It’s almost an inverse of our artist’s philosophy in Pictures of You. Here, Peale uses scale to put us into the art. But the artist in Pictures of You believes art is already here, there, everywhere. And seen through a frame makes masterpieces of us all.

(thank you to Mom and the DIA for opening so many minds to the possibilities of the imagination)

(all photos by Allison Laakko, Josh Malerman, or Allessandra Abdo)

(pictured are Josh Malerman and Allison Laakko)

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About The Mystic and the Missing Girl: In The Mystic and the Missing Girl, Vikki VanSickle seamlessly draws listeners into an utterly charming world in this unputdownable, small town mystery. Out September 8th 2026.

I consider myself an ambassador for tarot. I am always singing its praises—offering readings to friends, encouraging people to listen to tarot podcasts or replace their standard morning pages with a tarot card pull. Tarot is a highly elastic and interpretive discipline—it serves different purposes for different people. For me, it’s akin to a meditation or journaling practise—a processing method that provides structure and clarity in my life. I’ve had an interest in tarot ever since Janeane Garofalo pulled The Death card in the millennial childhood classic Now and Then, but it took me years to buy my own deck. Tarot felt like something other people did—people who called themselves Wiccan or had an uncanny intuition. I felt a little too mainstream—and a little too skeptical—to pull it off. I’ve always been more of a Scully than a Mulder—I want to believe, but I also want proof.

But a persistent interest in the mythology, artwork, and the history of tarot eventually became too strong to ignore and I got my first deck, the traditional Smith-Rider-Waite. Chances are the imagery that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘tarot’ is from this deck. You may know it as the Rider-Waite deck—Rider as in the publisher William Rider & Son, Waite as in A.E. Waite, creator of the deck. The problem with this name is that it omits the name of the artist, Pamela Colman Smith, a fascinating woman who created all of the imagery on the cards and is believed to have been responsible for deepening the meanings of the minor arcana or ‘pips. To correct this historical wrong, some people refer to the deck as the ‘Rider-Waite-Smith,’ others (like me) as the ‘Smith-Rider-Waite.’ See? Fascinating already!

I was incredibly overwhelmed in the beginning. Seventy-eight cards, jam packed with symbolism and multiple interpretations, are a lot to digest. I devoured tarot books, podcasts, daily card pulls, even a colouring book. I learned that tarot is a practise—an active, on-going process of learning and doing. I made a personal tarot bible with my favourite interpretations, associations, and spreads. Eventually my own tarot language started to emerge. I started to recognize the cards as you would a neighbour or old friend, made my own connections between them, and felt comfortable reading for others.

Reading cards for someone is very intimate. Ninety-nine percent of the time querants (a fancy tarot term for the person getting a reading) have a question about work or love. In the beginning, I felt like an unqualified therapist. Eventually I understood that the querant isn’t seeking my opinion, they are looking for a new way to assess the issue. I think of tarot as a tool, not a crystal ball. I’m not giving predictions, I’m providing a story, a mirror, an angle that hopefully provides clarity, comfort, or a new perspective.

The seeds of my first mystery novel were planted in my tarot practise. As much as I love giving readings, I’m not sure I have the emotional stamina or confidence to be a professional tarot reader, so instead I got to live out that dream via Drew Benson, the main character in my mystery novel, The Mystic and the Missing Girl. Like me, Drew uses tarot as a processing tool. Unlike me, Drew has latent psychic abilities, something she has been reluctant to tap into after watching how her aunt—a nineties-era TV psychic accused of meddling in an unsolved missing person’s case— was vilified by the public. But when the opportunity to solve that very same case comes along twenty years later, Drew realizes it might be those psychic abilities (and her tarot cards) that make all the difference. My own interpretations, experiences, and feelings about the cards are sprinkled throughout the novel. If you’ve never looked at (or cared about) a tarot card in your life, don’t be discouraged—I wanted to approach the tarot elements in an accessible, grounded fashion. You do not need an education in tarot to enjoy the book. But if it encourages you to pick up a deck (there are so many incredible options these days) and start your own practise, then I welcome you to the wonderful world of tarot—it’s lovely here.

The post How My Tarot Practise Led to My First Novel appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

About Fall Into Place: Lenore’s life is falling apart. Propelled home from Manhattan to rural Vermont to spend one final autumn at her family’s historic apple orchard before it’s sold, Lenore struggles to say goodbye. Callan’s path has been laid out for him for as long as he can remember: live, work, and die in Whitbury, Vermont. He’s taken over for his father as the groundskeeper at Lenore’s family farm, but now that it’s soon to be sold, his future has turned abruptly uncertain. The last thing he needs is a distraction—like Lenore, his best-friend’s sister, showing up out of the blue. Releases September 8th 2026.

I took a literary criticism course during undergrad where we talked about houses. More specifically, what the houses in our favorite stories represent. The consensus was that, in one way or another, a house often parallels a character’s state of mind.

The titular country house in Wuthering Heights is as gloomy and uninviting as Heathcliff himself. The Mojo Dojo Casa House in the Barbie movie is the physical manifestation of the Kens’ takeover of toxic masculinity. Normal People by Sally Rooney uses Marianne and Connell’s respective homes to contrast both their social standings and their family lives.

Of course, any time this sort of analysis comes up, someone in the room is compelled to ask, “Isn’t is possible that the author simply wanted the red curtains to be red?”

When it came to my writing process with Fall into Place, the answer is: kind of.

At the onset, I didn’t have symbolism at the forefront of my mind. A lot of authors don’t. Tolkien, for example, vehemently denied that there was any intentional symbolism in his work, despite many readers noting that Lord of the Rings serves quite readily as an allegory for real-life wars. The clearest explanation is that an author’s experiences shape both what they choose to write about and how they write it, and readers inevitably pick up on that.

In my case, I knew that I wanted to write about an old New England farmhouse long before I knew anything else about Fall into Place. Why? Because I live in an old New England farmhouse.

It’s quite impossible—as a historian especially—to exist in an old house without considering its past. My house is overflowing with evidence of its various custodians throughout the centuries, from handwritten letters in a steamer trunk in the attic to walls insulated with torn-up newspapers from the 1950s. The original builder is mentioned in local history books and buried with his wife at the top of a nearby hill. The whole thing sits a bit crooked, doors that don’t close right and wood paneling that slants sideways, like the house is weary with age. It’s been around a few hundred years, so who can blame it, really?

You probably haven’t read Fall into Place yet, but if you had, all of this would sound familiar.

Slowly, as I built my story around the idea of this farmhouse, the characters took shape.

For Lenore, returning to the house is bittersweet. It’s representative of a family history she has tried to outrun, and it’s likewise irrevocably changed by the loss of her grandmother. Callan, as groundskeeper, has spent the past few years caring for the house. If the house parallels Lenore, then it’s easy to see how his role as groundskeeper parallels their relationship.

Contemporary romance, as genre fiction, is not always subjected to the ‘literary’ treatment. It’s not analyzed and dissected in classrooms the same way classic literature is. But the symbolism exists regardless, even when it’s not necessarily intentional.

The truth is that the farmhouse in Fall into Place shaped the characters as much as they shaped the house. Which is a bit how it works in real life, too, come to think of it. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whether I intended for the house to represent anything. My writing is a direct reflection of where I live, and Lenore, in turn, is a direct reflection of the house that raised her.

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About Harbour of Hungry Ghosts: Babel meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer – a family of demon hunters find their hands full when unfamiliar monsters start stalking the streets of Opium War-era Hong Kong, in this historical fantasy adventure from No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller Eliza Chan.

It might seem too early to be talking ghosts, but unlike the West when Halloween and the darker evenings are the time for ghost stories, in many parts of Asia and for the Asian diaspora, it’s the long summer nights that are the prime time: telling stories around a campfire, fanning yourself as the old house creaks its bones under you, listening to the incessant thrum of insects outside. It’s also when Hungry Ghost Festival is celebrated on the 15^th day of the seventh lunar month, August 27^th this year. This is when the gate between the living and the dead is opened and forgotten ghosts come to sate their appetite. The perfect time to read a creepy book or two about vengeful spirits, the hopping undead and all things the monstrous.

My recently released novel, Harbour of Hungry Ghosts, is about exactly this. Babel meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a historical fantasy adventure filled with action scenes, banter and horror-comedy. Kiamling is a rookie monster hunter in the mid 19^th Century, used to dealing with hopping vampires and hungry ghosts. When her grandmother is captured by a mysterious shadow beast, she realises the British may have brought their own monsters across the ocean.

If this sounds like your kind of cuisine, here are some other book recommendations featuring East and Southeast Asian ghosts and monsters.

The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean

Dean’s sophomore novel defies classification as it takes the reader on a dizzying rollercoaster of twists as the eponymous girl with a thousand faces stalks protagonist Mercy Chan. It’s simultaneously set in 1940s and 1970s Hong Kong, an urban fantasy and a literary ghost story, about unfinished business, trauma and revenge. Trust me, just read it.

Bat Eater and other names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Having seen her sister pushed in front of a subway train before her eyes, apparently the only logical profession for Cora Zeng is crime scene cleaner. The novel spirals as the New York Chinatown murders pile up and Cora’s point of view is claustrophobically discomforting as she starts seeing ghosts everywhere. Not for the faint of heart.

She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

A gothic haunted house story but make it Vietnamese, queer, diaspora and colonial. Jade is determined to keep her head down whilst visiting her estranged father in Vietnam over summer but the colonial house he is restoring has other ideas…

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Li Lan is offered a way to save her bankrupt family, become the ghost bride of the deceased son of an affluent family. Set in 19^th Century Malaysia, The Ghost Bride is filled with real traditions around the dead, lingering ghosts and a young woman finding her own voice. One to savour.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Closeted Jessamyn Teoh drifts after graduating from Harvard and finds herself back in Malaysia. Tasked by the rather persistent ghost of her grandmother, she must stop real estate developers demolishing a local temple. It starts with Zen Cho’s trademark lightness but the women of the novel are satisfyingly complex and it takes darker turns than expected.

Prodigal Tiger by Samantha Chong

Catherine Chua, daughter of a prestigious magic family, is living in exile in New York because of something terrible she did in the past. However when her brother is abducted by vengeful ghosts she is summoned home to Penang to help. Action-packed and filled with diaspora feels.

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About All The Queens’ Curses: From a debut voice comes a gripping, atmospheric retelling of a Scottish Isles fairytale featuring body swapping magic, a complicated romance, sisterhood, royal curses, morally ambiguous fae, and a high-stakes escape from an abusive king. Released August 27th 2026.

The very first time I read ‘Kate Crackernuts,’ I felt it was perfect for a retelling. Magic, romance, a clever heroine—this story had it all!

As I spent time with the fairytale over the course of drafting my novel All the Queens’ Curses, I just fell more and more in love. Here are five reasons I’m obsessed with this little-known Scottish fairytale.

1. The love between the stepsisters

‘Kate Crackernuts’ features a deep bond between two stepsisters (in my novel, Kit and Catharine). In the original, Kit’s mother curses Catharine so that Catharine’s bonny face is replaced by a sheep’s (it’s a little different in my retelling!) But when Catharine is left alienated and reeling, Kit sides with her stepsister.

One of my favorite lines in the original tale is: “[Kit] took a fine linen cloth and wrapped it round her sister [Catharine]’s head and took her by the hand and they both went out to seek their fortune.”

There’s so much tenderness in those lines. These sisters have each other’s backs. I love it.

2. The trauma undertones

One little detail in the original fairytale is that the queen’s curse is only effective when Catharine has not eaten. It’s an easily missed story beat, but important.

Care and love (including being fed) form resilience and resilience makes us better able to recover from traumatic events. A lack of care and love makes us vulnerable.

In ‘Kate Crackernuts,’ the hedgewitch warns the queen that the spell will not work if Catharine has breakfast. The first day, Catharine sneaks some food from the kitchen (taking care of herself). The next day, field laborers give her some food (community takes care of her). The last day, the queen escorts Catharine herself, thereby ensuring she has no access to any resources. And so Catharine is cursed.

My retelling has a focus on themes around trauma and healing, and it was fascinating to find the kernels already there in the tale.

3. The missing reason for the prince’s curse

About halfway through ‘Kate Crackernuts’, our girls come across a castle where a cursed prince is wasting away with a mysterious illness. Everyone who stays the night with him ends up missing… until Kit.

Kit discovers that the prince is being danced to death by faeries. But in the original, we never find out why. He’s just cursed.

Gaps like this are gold for a retelling. In All the Queens’ Curses, because I wanted to explore themes of trauma, I decided to use the prince to explore intergenerational trauma. He takes on a curse that his ancestor started.

4. The clever bravery of the protagonist

Kit escapes alive because she is clever (in some versions, she’s even called Clever Kate). When the way to the faerie realm opens conditionally (“let the young prince in with his horse and his hound”) Kit quickly adds an amendment (“and his lady him behind”). When the faeries show their hand with curse-breaking items, Kit uses nuts she’s foraged to make a trade. When she negotiates her fees for helping, she escalates all the way to asking for the prince’s hand in marriage.

She is an active force in the original, which of course made her a delight to write in my retelling!

5. The setting

‘Kate Crackernuts’ was collected in the Orkney Islands by a rural lawyer in the late 1800s. He passed the tale on to Andrew Lang (famous writer of the Blue Fairy Book and other collections). One of the odd things, though, is that ‘Kate Crackernuts’ features characters riding through a forest… and there are very, very few trees at all on the islands.

During my writing process, I interviewed local folklorist Tom Muir. His theory is that the woman who told the lawyer the story was a ‘traveler’ from the Scottish Highlands.

One of the great joys of writing my retelling was bringing the setting more to the forefront of the tale. I’ve placed Catharine and Kit in a highland setting and my cursed prince on an island kingdom. Instead of riding through the forest, he sails through treacherous waters. In this way, I’ve been able to capture both the spirit of where the tale may have originated and the place where it was told.

Want to read ‘Kate Crackernuts’? You can find an annotated version on my website.

Want to read All the Queens’ Curses? You can order it now!

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About 72 Hours of You: A unique, unforgettable and tragically romantic YA debut, perfect for readers of Laura Nowlin’s If He Had Been With Me, Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End and Dustin Thao’s You’ve Reached Sam. Releases August 27th 2026 in the UK and September 1st 2026 in the US.

Today we’re delighted to be joined by Darianne Schramm, whose debut novel 72 Hours of You takes the reader on an unforgettable emotional rollercoaster in this gorgeously rendered story of love, death and trying to make the most of life. She shares six books to make you feel something, a perfect follow-up for this emotionally immersive read.

The main characters in YA novels try to deflect, hide their emotions, or pretend like they don’t have any at all (ope, relatable). But we all know the truth: there are always feelings. So. Many. Feelings. simmering under that tough exterior. And what’s wrong with feeling anyway, she cries to herself in the mirror? There’s nothing better than a novel that makes you feel something deeply.

Which is why I wrote one myself.

My debut YA tragic romance, 72 Hours Of You, is about a teenager who can see pink neon death clocks over people’s heads 72 hours before they die. And if you’re thinking this book has got to be seriously sad… well, you’re right! It has been known to make people throw the book across the room surrounded by tissues. But it’s also really funny, and hopefully the kind of book that makes you think about life (and death) just little differently.

Below is a list of six books that make you feel deeply and widely.

They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera

You’ll Feel: Optimistic and Nihilistic
I know, the words “optimistic” and “nihilism” don’t usually go together. Kind of like peanut butter and motor oil. But in this book, they totally do. They Both Die At The End was such an inspiration to me while writing 72 Hours Of You and a big reason for that is the very specific feeling that the novel leaves you with. There is, of course, the deep and abiding existential dread of knowing that not a single one of us is going to survive life. But—stay with me—in knowing and accepting that, there is also freedom! Hey, if none of us are getting out of here alive, we might as well have the best time we can while we’re here. They Both Die At The End will leave you wishing there was another chapter to the book, but when you finally accept that there isn’t anymore (for any of us), you’re left with a sense of possibility and appreciation for the world (and the people) around you.

The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew

You’ll Feel: Heartwarming Coziness
This book is a dystopian romance. I see you glancing back up to make sure I did, in fact, call a dystopian book “heartwarming” and “cozy.” I did! This book is part “eat the rich” and part “oh god, is technology going to ruin our lives??”, but it is all romance. Sure, the world may have fallen into a techno-hellscape, but our main character has also fallen into the arms of her (golden retriever) enemy. And let me tell you, the swoon vibes are off the charts. But beyond that, there is, somehow, a magical coziness to this dystopian book. It is the kind of read that makes you want to curl up with it over and over. I felt so warm and fuzzy while reading—I never wanted to leave the world that Tew had created. Which is a wild thing to say about a dystopian book!

Natural Selection by Clare Edge

You’ll Feel: RAGE!
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have the rage-filled manifesto about the (totally valid) feminine urge to tear it all down. Natural Selection is the literary embodiment of the viral question of whether you would choose to be alone in the woods with a man or a bear. And let me tell you, in this house we Live, Laugh, Love and Choose The Bear. Always. This book is a heart-pounding fury-fest, but what’s even better is the absolute catharsis you feel when finishing this book. If “boys will be boys,” then this book is wholly redefining what it means to let “girls be girls.” Natural Selection will take you through the anger and out the other side into power.

All The Noise At Once by DeAndra Davis

You’ll Feel: Sibling Love
All The Noise At Once is such a special book that leaves you with the deep urge to call your sibling and tell them how much you love them. After closing this book, I immediately had to pick up the phone and call my brother to tell him how much I love him (and also remind him that I am still Mom’s favorite). This is a book about police violence against Black people in the US, a book about what it means to be an autistic teen grappling with their place in the world, and it’s definitely about football. But the heart of this book is the relationship between two brothers: the football star and his younger brother. The absolute care and protectiveness shown by Brandon to his younger brother, Aiden, is so beautiful it almost makes you forget the time your own brother drew a bunch of overflowing toilets on your (private!!) diary.

Glass Girl by Kathleen Glasgow

You’ll Feel: Abiding Hope
Hope? With a book cover like that? I know! But stick with me here. Yes, this is a Kathleen Glasgow book so yes, of course, there is trauma, pain and the potent teenage anguish of being alive. But! There is also abiding hope. This novel follows Bella and her struggle with the grief over losing her grandmother, and her subsequent struggle with her coping mechanism of choice: alcohol. Much of the book takes place at a rehab center so there are a lot of different feelings going on in this book, not just sadness. But at the end, we’re left with hope. But of course, this is a Kathleen Glasgow novel and she is the queen of sad-but-true novels. So while there is hope it never feels like false hope. And that is the beauty of a Glasgow novel.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

You’ll Feel: The Sads
Last but not least… You didn’t think we could have a list about feeling things deeply and not include a John Green book did you? Couldn’t be done. The Fault In Our Stars is a certified YA classic for a reason. This book has it all: angst, teenagers that talk like they’re mid-doctorate, and death. Just when you think “Perhaps I will not fall victim to the cryfest everyone else seems to be having, maybe, I am made of steel!” this book will kick you square in the gut. If you want to laugh, cry, ponder life, and then cry harder this is the book for you. Just be prepared to stare at a wall for 3-5 business days afterwards.

The post Darianne Schramm’s Six Books That Will Make You Feel Something appeared first on The Nerd Daily.