The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Talat (Horse)

I imprinted deeply on this lyrical story of a girl-and-her-horse hunting dragons. Talat is an aggressive, retired warhorse who slowly comes to trust the outcast princess who seeks to ride him. Talat and Aerin were the blueprint for fantasy horse girlies born in the 80s and 90s.

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Nighteyes (Wolf)

In Robin Hobb’s epic Realm of the Elderlings series some people possess a magic called ‘Wit’ that allows them to bond with animals. The main character, Fitz, bonds to a wolf named Nighteyes, and their relationship is genuinely one of the most moving depictions of friendship I’ve ever read. But prepare yourself if you pick this one up—you’re going to cry.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Temeraire (Dragon)

This delightful series by Naomi Novik reimagines the Napoleonic Wars—with dragons. After Temeraire imprints on Captain Will Laurence, an English naval officer, the pair join the ranks of the British Aerial Corps. Clever and inquisitive, Temeraire the dragon slowly breaks down Laurence’s defenses, as the pair get themselves in and out of various military, interpersonal, and political hijinks.

Emily Wilde Series by Heather Fawcett

Shadow (Dog?)

Emily Wilde is a no-nonsense scholar researching the fae. She is accompanied (and protected) on fieldwork by her enormous gentle giant of a dog named Shadow. Shadow doesn’t speak, but he is a steady, constant friend to Emily, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say he is more than he appears. As a bonus, you also get to meet Orga—a cat who is also more than meets the eye—as the series continues.

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Mephi (Ossalen)

When Jovis, a smuggler, sees a tiny, fluffy animal swimming behind his ship, he pulls the creature aboard. Mephi, described as something like an otter-kitten, grows rapidly into an otter-dragon called an ossalen and learns to speak. If an otter-dragon companion isn’t enough to sell you on it, this series has one of my favorite magic systems in which coding on pieces of bone can control animal constructs.   

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Bone Dog (Bone dog)

It was difficult to choose my favorite T. Kingfisher animal because she often includes pets or animal friends in her work and they’re all wonderful (honorable mention to the sarcastic armadillo from Minor Mage.) But Bone Dog stole my heart from the first ghost lick he gives heroine Mara after she assembles him in a charnel pit. Bone Dog becomes Mara’s loyal companion as she sets out to kill a prince and save her sister in this funny, dark, sweet fairytale.

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgkins

Sol (Not-Quite-A-Raven)

Admittedly Sol—short for Solitary Raven—is more of a metaphysical concept than an animal, but he is the reluctant companion of Neema, a scribe forced to compete to become Emperor. Sol is as histrionic as Neema is practical, but I adored watching their unwanted bond transform into mutual respect and friendship.

The Geomagician by Jennifer Mandula

Ajax (Pterosaur)

When a fossilized egg miraculously hatches in her hands to reveal a baby pterodactyl, fossil hunter Mary Anning names him Ajax. She immediately starts scheming how to use him to further her career and become a geomagician, a magical paleontologist. But spirited little Ajax—who looks like a puffin if it were also a gargoyle—slowly thaws her heart, and will hopefully win yours, too.  

10. Freeks by Amanda Hocking

In the spring of 1987, the carnival comes to small-town Caudry, Louisiana. For Mara Beznik, the carnival is home. It’s also a place of secrets, hidden powers and a buried past – making it hard to connect with outsiders, until she meets local boy Gabe Alvarado and sparks begin to fly. Then events take a dangerous turn: the word ‘freeks’ is found sprayed on trailers as carnival employees start disappearing. Then workers wind up dead, killed in disturbing ways by someone or something. Mara is determined to solve the mystery and save her family, with Gabe’s help. But Gabe has secrets of his own, including a family legacy that could destroy Mara’s world. Together, can they halt this campaign of hate and fear? Reads like a glorious 1980s teen horror movie that I’d love to see made.

9. Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Once a year, a road appears in the woods at midnight and the ghost of Lucy Gallows beckons, inviting those who are brave enough to play her game. Win, and you escape with your life. Lose, and you’re trapped there forever. It’s been almost a year since Sara’s sister Becca went missing looking for Lucy Gallows and everyone else has given up searching for her. But Sara is determined to find her and so, along with her closest friends, enters the woods. But things far more sinister than ghosts lurk along the road, and not everyone will make it alive or unchanged. Described as “Stranger Things meets The Blair Witch Project”, which isn’t a bad thumbnail description, Rules For Vanishing is genuinely unnerving as, by messing with the characters’ heads, it starts to mess with the reader’s as well.

8. Melmoth by Sarah Perry

Inspired by Irish playwright, novelist and clergyman Charles Maturin’s 1820 Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer, Perry’s Melmoth is a brilliant modern Gothic novel: short but dense as a rich, boozy fruitcake, with a melancholy eeriness that sinks into your bones like a winter chill. After her friend disappears, translator Helen comes into possession of a strange manuscript, filled with personal testimonies from times and places as varied as 17^th century England, wartime Czechoslovakia, and 1920s Turkey, but all with one thing in common: all tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black. Helen reads its contents with intrigue at first, until she begins to notice signs of a familiar black-clad presence. Not only is it a delightfully eerie ghost story but it will also make you examine your own morality, which may be even scarier.

7. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Perhaps the quintessential Halloween novel. It’s the week before Halloween in Green Town, Illinois, and in the dead of night, a strange carnival arrives: Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, the siren song of the calliope enticing all with promises of youth regained and dreams fulfilled. And as best friends Will Holloway and Jim Nightshade set out to explore its dark corners and alleyways, its mazes of smoke and mirrors, they’ll discover that the granting of innermost wishes comes with a devastating cost. A Ray Bradbury classic, where you can practically feel the chill and smell the woodsmoke in the air.

6. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Moreno-Garcia takes the tropes of western European gothic literature and transplants them into 1950s Mexico, where they thrive, creating a genuinely creepy tale that examines subjects such as colonialism, eugenics, and women’s changing place in society. Like Noemi, you may find High place difficult to leave.

5. The Quick by Lauren Owen

Siblings Charlotte and James are no strangers to tragedy, but when James leaves their home in the wilds of Yorkshire for the smog of London, he’ll discover more than just romance and adventure; he’ll also discover the mysterious Aegolius Club, a society of the richest, most powerful men in England, and the secrets and horrors contained therein. A beautifully dark and gothic romp through Victorian England, perfect for fans of classic Victorian literature and for those who prefer horror of the old-school variety.

4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

On a damp October night, the body of Ashley Cordova, daughter of the celebrated but reclusive cult-horror director Stanislas Cordova, is discovered in a Manhattan warehouse. Her death is ruled a suicide, but investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. The last time McGrath got too close to the Cordova dynasty, it cost him his marriage and his career. This time it could cost him his sanity. An immersive, occasionally mind-bending, deep dive into a world of mystery, conspiracy, and a film ovure you’ll wish was real.

3. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

In the summer of 1977, the Blyton Summer Detective Summer Detective Club solved their last case. By 1990, they’ve grown up and apart, haunted by disturbing memories of that night that don’t quite match up with the established narrative. Andy, the group’s intrepid tomboy, is fed-up of running from her demons. She needs answers, and to find them she will need the others: Kerri, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the club’s original canine member; Nate, who’s currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts, and the only one still in contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was their leader… who’s also been dead for years. The time has come to find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake, and, in the process, they may also end up saving the world.

2. Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis

When famous Horror auteur Nolan Nox is attacked in his New York apartment, his daughter Lola is forced to go and stay with her grandmother in the small Indiana town of Harrow Lake, the setting for one of his most acclaimed films, ‘Nightjar’. An expert on her father’s films – and horror films in general – Lola doesn’t think she’ll be phased by anything, not even by the town’s creepy local legend cum bogeyman: Mr Jitters. But this legend may be more real than Lola thinks. Is it madness or is she genuinely being stalked by a mysterious presence? Steeped in horror tropes and film iconography, with more references than you can shake a rusty implement at, Ellis’s brilliant novel creates the horror film inside your head you didn’t know you wanted to see.

1. Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Baker Rae “Sunshine” Seddon knows that you never hear vampires coming, yet still decides to visit her parents’ old lake cabin anyway. After all, there hasn’t been any vampire activity around there since the wars. Next thing she knows, she’s been kidnapped, and chained… with another vampire chained to the wall opposite. In order to escape with her life, Sunshine will have to embrace the magical heritage she’s tried to forget, and contemplate the unthinkable: work together with a vampire. Her life is never going to be the same again. One of the best things about McKinley’s writing is that her worlds feel lived in. They’re not shown off in all the perfect nuts and bolts of their construction; they’re messy, there’re ambiguities, not every little thing is explained (why would it be?), and yet you can imagine everything perfectly. Add a wry-yet warm, slightly cantankerous, relatable first person voice and Sunshine is not only my favourite vampire book, but one of my favourite books, period.