Here are 100 books that Beulah fans have personally recommended if you like
Beulah.
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I’m a horror and speculative fiction author who reads everything but who is tired of strict genre definitions and loves introducing people to work they might not have considered—especially the spooky stuff, and especially when I’m asked about horror recommendations for non-horror lovers. I think dark fiction gives us a way to process painful emotions in a safe space; it offers catharsis for being alive in a difficult world; it can definitely be a lot of fun while also giving you a way to empathize with people outside your own direct experience. I’ve tried to hit on all of that in this list!
I am one of those people who were really into Lovecraft until they discovered he was a huge racist and homophobe, among other things; the contemporary reclamation of Lovecraft’s iconic mythology is delicious, and this book is a wonderfully eerie, weird entry into the new canon.
This book checks a lot of my personal boxes, like secretive government experiments, shady, half-revealed lore, and lyrical writing. I’m a huge fan of stories where you know just enough about what’s going on to keep up, and the characters are so sympathetic that you’ll follow the mystery for their sake alone.
Two decades ago the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to a desert prison, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god, Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, emerging without a past or a future.
Now it's 1949, and the government that stole Aphra's life needs her help. FBI Agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant and hasten the end of the human race.
I love books that whisk me away and keep me reading long into the night. There’s something so exciting about realizing you’ve been reading for so long that you have no idea what the time is or if it’s even the same day. I’m also incredibly passionate about horror and what it can teach us about ourselves and our society. Being diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 12 made me feel isolated and alone, but horror granted me a form of escapism and taught me to embrace what made me feel different, something each of these books does. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did!
This was one of the best books about werewolves—that isn’t really about werewolves—I have ever read. The story is told from the perspective of an unnamed boy who lives with his aunt and uncle—who happen to be werewolves—and the struggles he and his family face while living on the edge of society to avoid discovery.
What fascinated me the most was that Jones created entirely new werewolf lore with its own culture, rituals, and traditions, and it all felt real. I loved the non-linear timeline following the boy from 8 to 16, yearning to change like his aunt and uncle. Jones encapsulated the real difficulties of living on the fringes of society for whatever reason. It’s a dark book, raw and visceral, but also really funny.
A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy, whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them. He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his…
Some men need killing. Whether monsters, serial killers, or husbands, women often face off with danger and must put a stop to it. How they do that fascinates me as a former psychotherapist. Must her life be in imminent danger, his finger depressing the trigger, for her to shoot? What if he terrorized or stalked her, but at the moment of death, she sneaks up on him? What if this guy killed her family, and she seeks revenge? Where we draw these lines in fiction informs who we are as humans and the very nature of our souls. And each of the books on my list, prism-like, reveals a separate facet.
I’m listing this novel first because who’s worse than the devil? He’s the embodiment of a woman’s fears, there when we walk into a parking lot after dark, our keys clenched between our fingers in a makeshift weapon. And in a myriad of other forms. The devil is hard to get away from, especially as a woman.
In this novel, two childhood friends have to face off with the literal devil. And what they do to him—with him—is an anthem of female friendship, a love letter to our girlhood friends, and a book whose final line is as lasting as those years in our lives, the ones we believe at the time will never, ever have to end.
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act different. She s moody. She s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she s nearby. Abby s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil? Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend s…
I’m a horror and speculative fiction author who reads everything but who is tired of strict genre definitions and loves introducing people to work they might not have considered—especially the spooky stuff, and especially when I’m asked about horror recommendations for non-horror lovers. I think dark fiction gives us a way to process painful emotions in a safe space; it offers catharsis for being alive in a difficult world; it can definitely be a lot of fun while also giving you a way to empathize with people outside your own direct experience. I’ve tried to hit on all of that in this list!
Give me a horror book about gay conversion camps and demons and I’m probably already sold, but make it by the author of such gems as Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus and I’ve bought three copies.
I had a great time with this book, which brings a cheeky sense of humor and real heart to a truly appalling subject. It’s also quite spooky and features some excellent found family and “unlikely team facing off against evil” tropes that are like catnip to me.
INSTANT USA TODAY & INDIE BESTSELLER! A Bram Stoker Award Nominee and CALIBA Golden Poppy Award finalist! A Best Book of 2023 (Vulture) and a Best Horror Book of 2023 (Esquire, Library Journal)! An Indie Next Pick!
“A joyful, furious romp through dark places, Tingle proves he's as good at fear as he is at love.” ―T. Kingfisher, bestselling author of What Moves the Dead
From beloved internet icon Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus is a searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn…
I’m a children's books author and a cartoonist. I’ve published more than 160 books, most of them are picture books but I’ve also published comics and novels. I work for many French magazines, writing comics and short tales. I usually travel the world to see kids at school or give lessons. I’m also an art director for a literary factory based in London. I play the electric guitar and sometimes I write songs.
I love Marianna’s work. She has been one of my students and since she left school she’s doing great! Buz is a lucky dog. He lives in a luxury house, he got someone taking care of him and he got good and healthy food. Buz is a good dog, but sometimes, he would like to be free of running wild and rolling in the mud.
The ultimate kids' book about dogs, being good, being bad, and being yourself!
From the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of Petra.
Meet Buzz the dog.
He's such a good boy.
Buzz seems to have a perfect life .. .
and a lot of very well-behaved friends.
Buzz would never dream of being anything other than good.
Right, Buzz?
Buzz . . . ?
For
anyone who has ever felt pressure to be "good" at the expense of their
own self-expression, and for anyone who has ever owned and loved a dog,
this beautifully illustrated picture book from author-illustrator
Marianna Coppo…
I have long been struck, as a learner of French at school and later a university professor of French, by how much English borrows from French language and culture. Imagine English without naïvetéand caprice. You might say it would lose its raison d’être…My first book was the history of a single French phrase, the je-ne-sais-quoi, which names a ‘certain something’ in people or things that we struggle to explain.Working on that phrase alerted me to the role that French words, and foreign words more generally, play in English. The books on this list helped me to explore this topic—and more besides—as I was writing Émigrés.
Ennuiis a hidden gem of a novel. I admire the way it deftly weaves together personal lives and political histories on either side of the Irish Sea. I have come to feel strongly that the author, Maria Edgeworth, is unjustly overlooked by literary history in favour of Jane Austen. Yet Austen drew inspiration from her older contemporary. In this novel,Edgeworth draws on French words and ideas to tell the tale of an over-entitled English lounge lizard who is cured of his fashionable affliction—the ennui of the title—by his travels and travails in Ireland. The result is a cosmopolitan novel crackling with invention and implication.
I landed my dream job teaching kindergarten in a Brooklyn public school, but it soon ended thanks to citywide budget cuts. Wanting to continue connecting with children, I made my way into children's book publishing first as an editor, later as a writer. I've now written over 100 books including Dinner at the Panda Palace(PBS StoryTime book);May I Pet Your Dog?(Horn Book Fanfare); Dozens of Dachshunds (Scholastic Book Club selection); the Our Principal series (S&S Quix books); and The Adventures of Allie and Amyseries, written with Magic School Bus author Joanna Cole. I found my new dream job teaching, entertaining, and encouraging children through books.
Best buddies Pizza and Taco start out bored, but this book is anything boring! After several goofy ideas fail, the friends come up with a great one: throw a party! Of course, their plans go awry, including the sign mistakenly announcing a "Farty" instead of a "Party". After reading this book, kids may not be able to look at a slice or a taco again without laughing.
The second in a hilarious young graphic novel series about Pizza and Taco. This time around Pizza and Taco are bored, so they decide to throw an awesome party! What could possibly go wrong?
Pizza and Taco have the oh-so-relatable problem of not knowing what to do when boredom strikes. The answer? Throw a party! They have a location, a guest list, and decorations. Everything is perfect . . . until it isn't. In fact, it's kind of a DISASTER! Ice Cream has a meltdown, and who knew Hamburger was lactose intolerant? (Who invited Cheeseburger anyway?) Well, now they know…
One of the questions that I’m constantly asked by other authors is how do you make characters memorable in a genre that has done it all? My criteria are twofold–the characters need to be flawed and relatable; no one can truly relate to Superman. Secondly, I believe there is strength in a group. When I write with a diverse group of characters with their own personalities, the characters tell the story for me. I find that if I can emphasize and start having fun like I’m part of the group, I become enthralled with the novel. I am passionate about characters and letting them breathe and feel real.
The imagination of a child should be nourished and fed–growing up, this book did just that for me. I could relate to the protagonist in the sense that I loved to learn–and to this day, I am a sponge for knowledge–but I was easily bored with the mundane, often creating worlds that led to my becoming an author.
This was probably one of the earliest works to cultivate that. The characters are rooted in real-life comparisons and still live in the back of my mind. It continues to resonate with me today because despite some tropes being beaten into the ground, this novel took simple concepts, like talking dogs and numbers and letters at war, and made them have a fantasy life of their own.
With almost 5 million copies sold 60 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic. Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever.
“Comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” --Phillip Pullman
For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only…
I love my family. I can’t do without them. I have three siblings, and I’m the oldest. My father is a hard-working Texas man who I like to compare to Gus from Lonesome Dove. My mother is a lady. Like Jackie. She’s a classic. This made for interesting suppers. We were expected to behave like royalty while our father wanted us to “pull his finger”. I can’t tell you the mischief that went on in my house. And the fanciness. Oh, my heavens, the fanciness. My mother has so many teapots. My family is the reason I can tell stories, and I applaud any author who makes family come alive.
Years is a beautiful age-gap romance that also allows the reader to get to know a gentle older brother, a feisty mother, a risk-taking son, and many other townsfolk. The Heroine is a teacher, and the author paints such a beautiful picture of the students. Each of them has their own personalities. Years overflows with so much heartache, sweetness, and love that I have read it multiple times.
I have always been a reader, and with Irish and Scottish families, I’ve grown up hearing beautiful stories of magic and the fair folk. When I discovered romance novels, I was able to combine my love of happily ever afters and the myth and legend of my childhood. I even took classes on the Mythology of Ireland and Britain while I was obtaining my degrees. With a specialty in British Literature, I have been able to ensure my stories, while full of myth and magic, are also steeped in historical accuracy. The lush and vivid descriptions in my stories are paired with magic and time travel, with every story leaving the reader satisfied with the happily ever after the characters have earned.
I love this story, especially because the hero, Brooks, not only falls in love first but also believes the heroine betrays him, so he breaks things off with her. But Brooks never stops loving her.
I love the apologies, I love the way actions speak louder than words in this book, and I love the way they get back together for a well-deserved HEA (happily ever after).
