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 Cold

anchored on:north americacontemporaryemotionalyoung adultmultiple povghost stories+6 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 in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • 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 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 Flowers for Algernon
                  Flowers for Algernon

                  Daniel Keyes · standalone novel · 1966

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americasadcoming of ageloneliness+1 more

                  A man with a low IQ becomes the subject of an experimental medical procedure which raises his IQ well over genius level.

                • Cover of Before I Fall
                  Before I Fall

                  series · 2 books · 2010

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americacoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adultsmall town

                  Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall is a 2010 young-adult novel narrated by teenager Samantha Kingston, who is forced to relive the day of her death repeatedly over the course of a week. Attempting to understand why, Samantha tries different choices and actions each time through, some starkly out of character, as she reckons with her life and relationships. It was adapted into a 2017 film of the same name.

                • Cover of Invisible Ghosts
                  Invisible Ghosts

                  Robyn Schneider · standalone novel · 2018

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americacoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adultsmall town+1 more

                  Rose Asher believes in ghosts. She should, since she has one for a best friend: Logan, her annoying, Netflix-addicted brother, who is forever stuck at fifteen. But Rose is growing up, and when an old friend moves back to Laguna Canyon and appears in her drama class, things get complicated. Jamie Aldridge is charming, confident, and a painful reminder of the life Rose has been missing out on since her brother's death. She watches as Jamie easily rejoins their former friends--a group of magnificently silly theater nerds--while she struggles to choose between the boy who makes her feel alive and the brother she isn't ready to lose.

                • Cover of The Vanishing Season
                  The Vanishing Season

                  Jodi Lynn Anderson · standalone novel · 2014

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americasadcoming of agemurder investigationmystery & detectiveyoung adultsmall town+2 more

                  For Maggie Larsen, the town of Gill Creek is only a stopgap before college and freedom. Until she meets Pauline and Liam. What starts as an uneventful year suddenly changes. Someone is killing teenaged girls, and the town reels from the tragedy.

                • Cover of Sing, Unburied, Sing
                  Sing, Unburied, Sing

                  Jesmyn Ward · standalone novel · 2017

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalsadgrief and lossliterary & generalmultiple povsmall town

                  Sing, Unburied, Sing is the third novel by the American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Scribner in 2017. It focuses on a family in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017. The novel won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction.

                • Cover of Remarkably Bright Creatures
                  Remarkably Bright Creatures

                  Shelby Van Pelt · standalone novel · 2022

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americagrief and lossliterary & generallonelinesssmall town

                  Remarkably Bright Creatures is a novel by American author Shelby Van Pelt. It was published in May 2022 by Ecco Press. It has been on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list multiple times.

                • Cover of The Night Country
                  The Night Country

                  Stewart O'Nan · standalone novel · 2003

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americasadcoming of agegrief and lossghost storiesliterary & generalsmall town+1 more

                  On the first anniversary of their death in a car crash on Halloween, the ghosts of three high school students are witness to the emotions of the townsfolk.

                • Cover of The Leftovers
                  The Leftovers

                  Tom Perrotta · standalone novel · 2011

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalgrief and lossliterary & generalmultiple povlonelinesssmall town

                  The Leftovers is a 2011 satirical supernatural novel by American author Tom Perrotta. Set in the aftermath of a Rapture-like event in which 2% of Earth's human population vanished into thin air, it chronicles the lives of several individuals from a small New York town attempting to adjust to the significant cultural shift brought about by the event, while also navigating their personal trauma and losses.

                • Cover of Strays
                  Strays

                  Ron Koertge · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalcoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adult+1 more

                  Recently orphaned, sixteen-year-old Ted O'Connor is sent to a foster home.

                • Cover of Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All
                  Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

                  Laura Ruby · standalone novel · 2019

                  similar byemotionalnorth americasadcoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adult

                  Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All is a young adult novel by Laura Ruby, published October 1, 2019, by Balzer + Bray.

                • Cover of The River King
                  The River King

                  Alice Hoffman · standalone novel · 2000

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalmurder investigationmystery & detectiveliterary & generalsmall town+2 more

                  "For more than a century, the small town of Haddan, Massachusetts, has been divided, as if by a line drawn down the center of Main Street, separating those born and bred in the village from those who attend the prestigious Haddan School. But one October night after an inexplicable death, the two worlds are thrust together and the town's divided history is revealed in all its complexity. The lives of everyone involved are unraveled: from Carlin Leander, the fifteen year-old who is as loyal as she is proud, to Betsy Chase, a woman running from her own destiny; from August Pierce, a boy who unexpectedly finds courage in his darkest hour, to Abel Grey, the police officer who refuses to let unspeakable actions - both past and present - slide by without notice."--BOOK JACKET.

                • Cover of The Midnight Club
                  The Midnight Club

                  Christopher Pike · standalone novel · 1994

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalsadgrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adult+1 more

                  When you think Christopher Pike, you probably think ax murderers, cursed chain letters, and the occasional evil lizard person — and with good reason! But in this sensitive novel, set at a hospice for terminally ill teens, Pike mashes up standard scary stories with an exploration of what fear really means when illness is more of a threat than haunted houses or sexy vampires.

                • Cover of Skylight Confessions
                  Skylight Confessions

                  Alice Hoffman · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americasadgrief and lossliterary & general

                  Writing at the height of her powers, Alice Hoffman conjures three generations of a family haunted by love. Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn's polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together even when it is clear they are bound to bring each other grief. Their difficult marriage leads them and their children to a house made of glass in theConnecticut countryside, to the avenues of Manhattan , and to the blue waters of Long Island Sound. Glass breaks, love hurts, and families make their own rules. Ultimately, it falls to their grandson, Will, to solve the emotional puzzle of his family and of his own identity.

                • Cover of Bone Gap
                  Bone Gap

                  Laura Ruby · standalone novel · 2015

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americacoming of agemurder investigationmystery & detectiveyoung adultsmall town+1 more

                  Eighteen-year-old Finn, an outsider in his quiet Midwestern town, is the only witness to the abduction of town favorite Roza, but his inability to distinguish between faces makes it difficult for him to help with the investigation, and subjects him to even more ridicule and bullying.

                • Cover of The Seventh Wish
                  The Seventh Wish

                  Kate Messner · standalone novel · 2016

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americasadcoming of ageliterary & general+2 more

                  The Seventh Wish is a middle grade magical realism novel by American author Kate Messner. It was published on June 7, 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing. It centers a twelve-year-old girl who finds a talking fish who can grant wishes, and discovers that her older sister has become addicted to heroin. It received positive reviews from critics, but was met with controversy from schools for its subject matter.

                • Cover of Pieces of Me
                  Pieces of Me

                  Amber Kizer · standalone novel · 2014

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americasadcoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adult

                  After a car accident leaves her brain-dead, Jessica tries to prevent her parents from donating her organs and tissues, but then follows the lives of four fellow teens who are able to survive because she did not. After a car accident leaves her brain dead, Jessica tries to prevent her parents from donating her organs and tissues but then follows the lives of four teens who are able to survive because she did not. The plot contains profanity.

                • Cover of River Boy
                  River Boy

                  Tim Bowler · standalone novel · 1997

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalcoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalyoung adult

                  River Boy is a young adult novel by Tim Bowler, published by Oxford in 1997. It is the story of a teenage girl facing the prospect of bereavement. Bowler won the annual Carnegie Medal, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. River Boy also won the 1999 Angus Book Award.

                • Cover of The Haunting of Josh Weston
                  The Haunting of Josh Weston

                  Melinda Rucker Haynes · standalone novel · 1999

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americacoming of agegrief and lossghost storiesliterary & generalyoung adult+1 more

                  "Former star athlete and gifted student, fifteen-year-old Josh Weston and his mother move to a desolate ranch in the Arizona desert after his father is killed in Afghanistan. Josh blames himself for his father's death and for the shooting of his best friend. Besides failing in everything he used to be good at, Josh is relentlessly stalked by a nasty psycho at his new school. Unable to see any way out of his escalating problems, Josh tries to end it all one moonlit night. A cantankerous old prospector and his evil white burro suddenly appear, forcing Josh to join their dangerous, spooky escapades. If he has any chance of survival, Josh must learn to draw on hs strengths and deal with his haunted past that threatens his future."--Page 4 of cover.

                • Cover of The Einsteins of Vista Point
                  The Einsteins of Vista Point

                  Ben Guterson · standalone novel · 2022

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americacoming of agegrief and lossliterary & generalsmall town

                  "After the tragic loss of their sister, Zack and his siblings band together to investigate a Morse Code-inspired mystery in this stunning novel about grief and resilience. When Zack's younger sister dies in a tragic accident, his family moves to a small town in the Northwest to try and heal from all the pain. Eleven-year-old Zack blames himself for his sister's death, and he struggles to find any comfort in his new surroundings. Vista Point is home to many mysterious landmarks: The great domed Tower casts inscrutable shadows, and what is the cryptic message in its ceiling medallion? There are several hidden watering holes and even a secret cave in the woods with messages written on its walls. Zack, at first, feels lost in Vista Point. Until he meets Ann, a girl who lives in the area and shows Zack all the special places to be discovered. But there's something that seems a bit strange about Ann—and perhaps a secret she is keeping from him. With emotional depth, an unforgettable setting, and a winning cast of characters, this masterful novel thoughtfully explores the grieving process, and how a season of pain can evolve into a summer of healing." -- Amazon.com as of 2021-03-29.

                • Cover of The Wolves of Mercy Falls
                  The Wolves of Mercy Falls

                  series · 4 books · 2009

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americayoung adult+2 more

                  The Wolves of Mercy Falls is a series of four novels, located in the genres of romance, fantasy and young adult (YA) fiction, written by Maggie Stiefvater. Published by American multinational company Scholastic from between 2009 and 2014, the series consists of the titles Shiver, Linger, Forever and Sinner. Set in the fictional town of Mercy Falls, Stiefvater has stated that the real town of Ely in Minnesota would be its closest neighbouring destination, with the two towns sharing a similar climate.

                • Cover of The Book of Love
                  The Book of Love

                  Kelly Link · standalone novel · 2024

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalcoming of ageyoung adultmultiple povsmall town

                  The Book of Love is a 2024 novel by American author Kelly Link. Set in a small coastal town in Massachusetts in December 2014, the fantasy novel follows four teenagers who return from the dead and must navigate magical challenges to remain among the living. Although Link has published several collections of short stories, The Book of Love was her first novel. One of Link's goals in writing a novel was to include elements not typically found in shorter fiction.

                • Cover of Ninth Ward
                  Ninth Ward

                  Jewell Parker Rhodes · standalone novel · 2010

                  similar bycontemporaryemotionalnorth americacoming of agegrief and lossliterary & general+1 more

                  "En Louisiane, tout le monde croit aux esprits. Lanesha, elle, a le don de les voir. "Tu es comme moi, ma chérie, tu as un don de double vue ", lui a expliqué Mama Ya-Ya, la sage-femme qui l'a recueillie à sa naissance. Mama Ya-Ya savait qu'un ouragan approchait, bien avant que la radio et la télévision n'en parlent. Les dégâts seront incommensurables, répète le présentateur. Tous les habitants de La Nouvelle-Orléans doivent quitter la ville. Mama Ya-Ya est très âgée, et ne possède pas de voiture, alors Lanesha a fait des provisions d'eau et de nourriture, et a cloué des planches sur les fenêtres. Elle ne sait pas ce qui l'attend, mais elle se prépare de toutes ses forces à survivre. Avec TaShon, le fils des voisins, avec le chien Spot, qu'ils viennent d'adopter ensemble. Avec le fantôme silencieux de sa mère, qui est venu pour l'aider. Avec l'amour de Mama Ya-Ya, qui est incommensurable."--

                • Cover of Bag of Bones
                  Bag of Bones

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1998

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalgrief and lossghost stories

                  Bag of Bones is a 1998 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. It focuses on an author who suffers severe writer's block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. It won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, the 1999 British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and the 1999 Locus Award for Best Dark Fantasy/Horror Novel.

                • Cover of Turtle Moon
                  Turtle Moon

                  Alice Hoffman · standalone novel · 1992

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americaemotionalmurder investigationmystery & detectiveliterary & generalsmall town

                  When Lucy Rosen and her son Keith move to Verity, Florida, Keith runs away with the baby of a murdered woman, and Lucy and Officer Julian Cash chase after him.