Loreful
HomeDiscover
Search series, authors…⌘K
Loreful

Reading orders for SF/F series and shared universes — with your place kept in every one.

Explore

UniversesSeriesWorksAuthorsAtlas

Help

FAQAboutSite map

Account & legal

Sign inCreate accountPrivacyTerms

Data

Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Bethany's Sin

anchored on:horrorsmall townmid 20th centuryeeriedark fantasyfamily secrets+1 more

but

Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mental unraveling — descent into madness, delusion, and minds at war with themselves.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle
                  We Have Always Lived in the Castle

                  Shirley Jackson · standalone novel · 1962

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th centuryhorrornorth americasmall town

                  A young woman lives with her older sister and sickly uncle in their old family house, after a mysterious tragedy turns the townsfolk against them.

                • Cover of The Haunting of Hill House
                  The Haunting of Hill House

                  Shirley Jackson · standalone novel · 1959

                  similar byeeriemid 20th centuryhorrornorth america+1 more

                  The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been made into two feature films, a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series.

                • Cover of Mexican Gothic
                  Mexican Gothic

                  Silvia Moreno-Garcia · standalone novel · 2020

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th centuryhorror

                  It centers on a young woman investigating her cousin's claims that her husband is trying to murder her. (en.wikipedia)

                • Cover of Ghost Story
                  Ghost Story

                  Peter Straub · standalone novel · 1979

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth americasmall town

                  Four prominent citizens of a small town in upstate New York who share guilt over something that happened in their youth are revisited late in life by a destructive evil force which uses their guilt as an opportunity to destroy them as well as the entire town.

                • Cover of A Stir of Echoes
                  A Stir of Echoes

                  Richard Matheson · standalone novel · 1958

                  similar byeeriemid 20th centuryhorrornorth america+1 more

                  A Stir of Echoes is a supernatural novel by American writer Richard Matheson, published in 1958. It served as the inspiration for the 1999 film Stir of Echoes.

                • Cover of The Book of Accidents
                  The Book of Accidents

                  Chuck Wendig · standalone novel · 2021

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrordark fantasynorth americasmall town

                  Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there. Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic. This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

                • Cover of Peace
                  Peace

                  Gene Wolfe · standalone novel · 1975

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th centurynorth americasmall town+1 more

                  Peace is a 1975 psychological fantasy/ghost story novel by American writer Gene Wolfe. It is the story of a man from a small Midwestern town in the early to mid-20th century, Alden Dennis Weer, who narrates various memories from different parts of his life, including his childhood, early adulthood, and middle to old age.

                • Cover of The Other
                  The Other

                  Thomas Tryon · standalone novel · 1971

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth america

                  On a rural New England farm in 1935, thirteen-year-old identical twins Niles and Holland Perry share an unnervingly close bond, finishing each other's thoughts the way twins in family lore are supposed to. But the boys are not alike underneath: one is gentle and well-liked, the other carries something cold and cruel that the adults around them keep failing to notice. As a string of unsettling accidents and small cruelties start happening around the family's property, the people who love the twins begin, too slowly, to wonder whether both of them are really still there to blame. Thomas Tryon's debut novel, a work of quiet, Gothic-inflected horror.

                • Cover of When Michael Calls
                  When Michael Calls

                  John Farris · standalone novel · 1967

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th centuryhorrornorth america

                  "Auntie Helen," the little boy sobbed, "I'm home, and nobody's here!" The phone trembled in Helen Connolly's hand. She could not believe her ears. This was her nephew, Michael Young, on the phone — Michael, who had been dead for sixteen years. Who was this mysterious caller? Could it really be Michael? And if so, what did he want?

                • Cover of Black River Orchard
                  Black River Orchard

                  Chuck Wendig · standalone novel · 2023

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrordark fantasynorth americasmall town

                  It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker. This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples... and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful? Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town. But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

                • Cover of Harvest Home
                  Harvest Home

                  Thomas Tryon · standalone novel · 1973

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth americasmall town

                  What is the dark secret the people (especially the women!) of Harvest Home are hiding? A family tries to get out of the City and finds the perfect home for their young daughter complete with folk remedies for her allergies and sensitivities in the local wisewoman. But is there something sinister under the surface of the charming little town?

                • Cover of The Ghost Tree
                  The Ghost Tree

                  Christina Henry · standalone novel · 2020

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrordark fantasynorth americasmall town

                  When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won't find the killer. After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

                • Cover of The Mayfair Witches Saga
                  The Mayfair Witches Saga

                  series · 3 books · 1990

                  completed

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrordark fantasynorth america

                  Lives of the Mayfair Witches is a trilogy of Gothic supernatural horror fantasy novels by American author Anne Rice. It centers on a family of witches whose fortunes have been guided for generations by a spirit named Lasher. The series began in 1990 with The Witching Hour, which was followed by the sequels Lasher (1993) and Taltos (1994). All three novels debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

                • Cover of A Head Full of Ghosts
                  A Head Full of Ghosts

                  Paul Tremblay · standalone novel · 2015

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth america+1 more

                  A Head Full of Ghosts is a 2015 horror novel by American writer Paul Tremblay. The plot involves a Massachusetts family under financial and emotional strain while their fourteen-year-old daughter, Marjorie Barrett, exhibits signs of severe mental illness. The Barretts come to believe she is possessed by a demon, and her behavior is publicized when the family stars in a reality TV show. Marjorie's younger sister, Merry Barrett, relays the experiences of her childhood fifteen years later. Themes include elements of Catholic exorcism and reality television exploitation.

                • Cover of Starling House
                  Starling House

                  Alix E. Harrow · standalone novel · 2023

                  similar byfamily secretseeriedark fantasynorth americasmall town+1 more

                  Starling House is a 2023 gothic fantasy novel by American author Alix E. Harrow published by Tor Books. The novel tells a story of a young woman, Opal, who lives in a destitute region of Kentucky, attempting to find an economic means to uplift her brother from poverty and pay for his education. When she accepts the position as maid at the enigmatic Starling House, a mansion shrouded in mystery, she becomes entangled in a web of strange, supernatural and historical secrets that are linked to the town's dark past. At the same time, she resists the exploitation of the land and its people by powerful, profit-driven forces like the pointedly named Gravely Power, striving to secure her brother's future, safeguard Starling House, and assert control over her own destiny.

                • Cover of Dagon
                  Dagon

                  Fred Chappell · standalone novel · 1968

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th centuryhorrornorth america

                  Dagon is a novel by author Fred Chappell published in 1968. The novel is a psychological thriller with supernatural elements, attempting to tell a Cthulhu Mythos story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic novel. It was awarded the Best Foreign Book of the Year prize by the French Academy in 1972.

                • Cover of The Old Willis Place
                  The Old Willis Place

                  Mary Downing Hahn · standalone novel · 2004

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth americasmall town

                  The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story is a children's novel written by Mary Downing Hahn. It was first published in 2004 and is found in 9,001 libraries.

                • Cover of Pet Sematary
                  Pet Sematary

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1983

                  similar byeeriehorrornorth americasmall town+1 more

                  Pet Sematary is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. It tells the story of a family moving to Maine and settling closer to a pet cemetery in the woods, which is home to a terrifying force that brings death and sorrow. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019 as well as several spinoffs.

                • Cover of From a Buick 8
                  From a Buick 8

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 2002

                  similar byeeriehorrornorth americasmall town+1 more

                  From a Buick 8 is a horror novel by American writer Stephen King. Published on September 24, 2002, this is the second novel by King to be centred around a car. The title comes from Bob Dylan's song "From a Buick 6".

                • Cover of Lost Boys
                  Lost Boys

                  Orson Scott Card · standalone novel · 1992

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth americasmall town

                  Lost Boys (1992) is a horror novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The premise of the novel revolves around the daily lives of a Mormon family, and the challenges they face after a move to North Carolina. The story primarily follows the family's troubles at work, church, and the oldest child Stevie's difficulty fitting in at school, which lead to him becoming increasingly withdrawn.

                • Cover of Some Kind of Fairy Tale
                  Some Kind of Fairy Tale

                  Graham Joyce · standalone novel · 2012

                  similar byfamily secretseeriedark fantasyhorror

                  Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a 2012 novel by the British author Graham Joyce. A work of speculative fiction, it won the British Fantasy Society's Fantasy Novel of the Year award in 2013, and was nominated for the 2013 British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, and the 2013 World Fantasy Award for best Novel.

                • Cover of The Little Stranger
                  The Little Stranger

                  Sarah Waters · standalone novel · 2009

                  similar byfamily secretseeriemid 20th century

                  The Little Stranger is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s. Departing from her earlier themes of lesbian and gay fiction, Waters' fifth novel features a male narrator, a country doctor who makes friends with an old gentry family of declining fortunes who own a very old estate that is crumbling around them. The stress of reconciling the state of their finances with the familial responsibility of keeping the estate coincides with perplexing events which may or may not be of supernatural origin, culminating in tragedy.

                • Cover of Julia
                  Julia

                  Peter Straub · standalone novel · 1975

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorror

                  Julia is a 1975 novel by American writer Peter Straub. The work is Straub's first novel to deal with the supernatural and was published through Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Julia was later adapted into the 1977 film Full Circle, starring Mia Farrow.

                • Cover of White Smoke
                  White Smoke

                  Tiffany D. Jackson · standalone novel · 2021

                  similar byfamily secretseeriehorrornorth americasmall town

                  Marigold is running from ghosts. The phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small California beach town to the embattled Midwestern city of Cedarville might be the fresh start she needs. Her mom has accepted a new job with the Sterling Foundation that comes with a free house, one that Mari now has to share with her bratty ten-year-old stepsister, Piper. The renovated picture-perfect home on Maple Street, sitting between dilapidated houses, surrounded by wary neighbors has its... secrets. That’s only half the problem: household items vanish, doors open on their own, lights turn off, shadows walk past rooms, voices can be heard in the walls, and there’s a foul smell seeping through the vents only Mari seems to notice. Worse: Piper keeps talking about a friend who wants Mari gone. But "running from ghosts" is just a metaphor, right? As the house closes in, Mari learns that the danger isn’t limited to Maple Street. Cedarville has its secrets, too. And secrets always find their way through the cracks.