I’ll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker is a chilling Southern Gothic folk horror novel primarily set in and around the fictional Bricksbury University, a historically black college in Jonesborough, TN, in the heart of Appalachia.

A mix of folk horror and true crime - if you’re me, that’s enough to draw you in - but what makes The Sound of the Dark by Daniel Church special is the characters - especially relatable heroine Cally Darker.

The Haunting of Payne’s Hollow by Kelley Armstrong has a classic horror premise: to earn a family inheritance from her grandfather, Samantha Payne must stay at the family’s lakeside cottage for one month.

Though it’s a modern gothic (unlike the A.G.Slatter Sourdough books I’ve read), The Cold House has the one thing that keeps me reading her works: a smart, snarky, relatable heroine.