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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 The Devil's Labyrinth

anchored on:horrornorth americacontemporarydarkthriller & suspensefaith and religion+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 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 Carrie
                  Carrie

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1974

                  similar byfaith and religioncontemporaryhorrorcoming of agetensenorth americadarksmall town

                  In one way or another, everybody abused Carrie. This sixteen-year-old misfit was forbidden everything that was young and fun by her fanatical mother. She was teased and taunted by her classmates, misunderstood by her teachers, and given up as hopeless by almost everyone. But Carrie had a secret: She possessed terrifying telekinetic powers that could make inanimate objects move, a lighted candle fall, or a door lock. Carrie could make all kinds of startling bizarre, and malevolent things happen. (WorldCat)

                • Cover of Jerusalem's Lot
                  Jerusalem's Lot

                  series · 3 books · 1975

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarktensenorth americasmall town

                  Stephen King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot follows writer Ben Mears as he returns to his childhood town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, only to discover that its residents are being turned into vampires by a newly arrived stranger. It transplants Gothic vampire horror into a small New England community, tracking that community's collapse under a supernatural siege. It is a single, self-contained novel.

                • Cover of Hell House
                  Hell House

                  Richard Matheson · standalone novel · 1971

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarknorth americatense+1 more

                  A dying millionaire wants proof, once and for all, of what happens after death, and hires physicist-turned-parapsychologist Dr. Lionel Barrett to spend a week investigating the Belasco House in Maine -- a mansion so thoroughly associated with atrocity that it's known simply as Hell House, where every previous investigation has ended in death or madness. Barrett brings his wife Edith along with two mediums, the spiritualist Florence Tanner and Benjamin Franklin Fischer, survivor of an earlier disastrous visit, whose scientific skepticism and spiritualist convictions clash from the first night inside. Richard Matheson's haunted-house novel, later filmed as The Legend of Hell House.

                • Cover of Revival
                  Revival

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 2014

                  similar byfaith and religioncontemporaryhorrordarknorth america

                  The protagonist details how his life keeps intersecting with that of the man he first met as the pastor of his church in childhood, whose experiments with electricity lead to mastery of a cosmic power which he uses to help people, until his obsession leads to physical and spiritual disaster for all.

                • Cover of The Shining
                  The Shining

                  series · 5 books · 1977

                  similar byhorrorcontemporarydarknorth americatense+1 more

                  Stephen King's 1977 novel The Shining follows the Torrance family as winter caretakers of the isolated, malevolent Overlook Hotel, where father Jack is gradually consumed by the hotel's influence while his young son Danny's psychic "shining" draws its attention. Doctor Sleep (2013) picks up the story decades later, following Danny as an adult still marked by that childhood ordeal. Together the two form a horror duology spanning nearly forty years of real-world publication.

                • Cover of Black Creek Crossing
                  Black Creek Crossing

                  John Saul · standalone novel · 2004

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrornorth americathriller & suspensedarktensesmall town+1 more

                  Black Creek Crossing is a thriller horror novel by John Saul, published by Ballantine Books on March 16, 2004. The novel follows the story of teenage Angel Sullivan, who moves into a new house in a new town with her family, and she learns of a brutal murder that occurred in her new home, and begins to think it may be haunted.

                • Cover of Misery
                  Misery

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1987

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americahorrorthriller & suspensedarktense

                  Novelist Paul Sheldon finishes the manuscript that will finally kill off Misery Chastain, the heroine who made his career, when a snowstorm sends his car off a Colorado road. He wakes with both legs shattered, in the care of Annie Wilkes, a former nurse and 'number one fan' with no intention of taking him to a hospital. Annie manages his pain with drugs he comes to depend on, and her moods swing between doting and violent. When she learns Misery doesn't survive his new manuscript, her reaction makes clear Paul isn't just her patient, he's her hostage. A Stephen King novel about a writer at his most devoted fan's mercy.

                • Cover of Pretty Little Devils
                  Pretty Little Devils

                  Nancy Holder · standalone novel · 2006

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrorcoming of agethriller & suspensedarktensenorth america+1 more

                  Hazel Stone wants nothing more than to be a part of the hottest clique in school, the Pretty Little Devils, but she's stuck at a lunch table full of high school C-listers. Hazel has resigned herself to life as a nobody—when suddenly everything changes. The PLDs invite Hazel to one of the group's famous parties, held at the site of one of their babysitting jobs. Before Hazel knows it, she's in with the in crowd—and she couldn't be more thrilled!But nothing turns out the way she expects. Especially when one her classmates becomes jealous of her newfound status—deadly jealous.Author Nancy Holder weaves a wicked tale about the price of popularity, and having the kind of friends some girls would just die for.

                • Cover of The Institute
                  The Institute

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 2019

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americacoming of agehorrorthriller & suspensedarktense

                  The Institute is a 2019 American science fiction-horror novel by Stephen King, published by Scribner. The book follows twelve-year-old genius Luke Ellis. When his parents are murdered, he is kidnapped by intruders and awakens in the Institute, a facility that houses other abducted children who have telepathy or telekinesis. The Institute was published on September 10, 2019, and met with generally positive reviews.

                • Cover of Divine Evil
                  Divine Evil

                  Nora Roberts · standalone novel · 1992

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americahorrorthriller & suspensedarktensesmall town+1 more

                  Kurzbeschreibung Dunkle Herzen (Divine Evil) - Nora Roberts Die erfolgreiche New Yorker Bildhauerin Clare Kimball wird immer wieder von einem Alptraum gequält: Auf einer einsamen Waldlichtung in der Nähe ihres Heimatortes Emmitsboro in Maryland zelebrieren maskierte Mnner orgiastisch eine schwarze Messe. Clare will endlich herausfinden, was es mit dem Traum auf sich hat. Sie kehrt zurück nach Emmitsboro, trotz der Warnungen guter Freunde. In Cameron Raffery, dem neuen Sheriff, findet Clare schnell einen Verbündeten. Aber auch er kann nicht ahnen, dass hinter der biederen Fassade der Kleinstadt Ungeheuerliches passiert - und dass Clare sich schon bald in ernster Gefahr befindet... Ein atemberaubender Psychothriller um satanische Rituale in einer amerikanischen Kleinstadt.

                • Cover of The Weight of Blood
                  The Weight of Blood

                  Tiffany D. Jackson · standalone novel · 2022

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarknorth americacoming of agetensesmall town

                  The Weight of Blood is a 2022 young adult horror novel by Tiffany D. Jackson. Set in the fictional "sundown town" of Springville, Georgia, the story follows Maddy Washington, a biracial high school senior who has been forced by her racist father to hide her ethnicity by passing as white and straightening her hair. When a rainstorm leads to her hair reverting to its natural form, her heritage is revealed and a viral bullying video exposes the racism at Springville High. In a bid to salvage the school’s reputation, popular and high-achieving Wendy Quinn convinces her Black football star boyfriend to take Maddy to prom. However, a revenge prank pulled by one of her bullies on prom night humiliates Maddy, setting off a chain of events that destroy the town and leave her classmates dead.

                • Cover of In the Dark of the Night
                  In the Dark of the Night

                  John Saul · standalone novel · 2006

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarkcoming of agethriller & suspensetensenorth america

                  In the Dark of the Night is a thriller horror novel by author John Saul, published by Ballantine Books on July 18, 2006. The novel follows the story of teenagers who find various objects once owned by serial killers, and they soon become possessed by the spirits that haunt them.

                • Cover of Bless the Child
                  Bless the Child

                  Cathy Cash Spellman · standalone novel · 1993

                  similar byfaith and religioncontemporaryhorrordarknorth americatense

                  Maggie O'Connor raised her grandaughter after her daughter left the infant on her doorstep, but the daughter returned three years later and taken her into a satanic cult [WorldCat].

                • Cover of Desperation/Regulators
                  Desperation/Regulators

                  series · 2 books · 1996

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarknorth americatensesmall town

                  Stephen King published Desperation and The Regulators simultaneously in 1996, the first under his own name and the second under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. The two novels are mirror-universe companions: largely the same cast of characters appears in both, recast into different roles and circumstances, with each book's story driven by the same malevolent supernatural entity, Tak.

                • Cover of Firestarter
                  Firestarter

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1980

                  similar bycontemporarynorth americathriller & suspensedarktense+1 more

                  WorldCat: Innocence and beauty ignite with evil and terror... First, a man and a woman are subjects of a top-secret government experiment designed to produce extraordinary psychic powers. Then, they are married and have a child. A daughter. Early on the daughter shows signs of a wild and horrifying force growing within her. Desperately, her parents try to train her to keep that force in check, to 'act normal'. Now the government wants its brainchild back for its own insane ends.

                • Cover of The Pet
                  The Pet

                  Charles L. Grant · standalone novel · 1986

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarktensenorth americasmall town+1 more

                  Its about a killer who shreds teens, the Howler is moving into the village of Ashford, New Jersey. One boy Don is having girl trouble,school trouble and family trouble, then one frosty autumn night he is jumped, surrounded by fog, green fire,and noises...thats when the real horror begins.

                • Cover of The Cabin at the End of the World
                  The Cabin at the End of the World

                  Paul Tremblay · standalone novel · 2018

                  similar byfaith and religioncontemporaryhorrordarktense+1 more

                  The Cabin at the End of the World is a 2018 horror novel by American writer Paul Tremblay. The novel won the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in 2019. It was adapted into the 2023 film Knock at the Cabin by director M. Night Shyamalan.

                • Cover of Harvest Home
                  Harvest Home

                  Thomas Tryon · standalone novel · 1973

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarknorth americatensesmall 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 A Head Full of Ghosts
                  A Head Full of Ghosts

                  Paul Tremblay · standalone novel · 2015

                  similar byfaith and religioncontemporaryhorrornorth americadark+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 Imaginary Friend
                  Imaginary Friend

                  Stephen Chbosky · standalone novel · 2019

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrornorth americacoming of agedarktensesmall town

                  Imaginary Friend is a psychological horror novel by American author Stephen Chbosky. It was published on October 1, 2019, by Grand Central Publishing and was an instant New York Times Best Seller.

                • Cover of Faces of Fear
                  Faces of Fear

                  John Saul · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrorthriller & suspensedarktensenorth america+1 more

                  Faces of Fear is a thriller horror novel by John Saul, published by Ballantine Books on August 12, 2008. The novel follows the story of teenage Alison Shaw, who finds a shocking background behind her mother's new husband, who is a plastic surgeon.

                • Cover of Whispers
                  Whispers

                  Dean R. Koontz · standalone novel · 1980

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrornorth americathriller & suspensedarktense

                  WorldCat: Hilary, a beautiful, successful Hollywood writer, lives alone and is being stalked. She has killed him once, but he keeps coming back.

                • Cover of Exorcist
                  Exorcist

                  series · 6 books · 1971

                  similar byhorrorcontemporarydarknorth america+2 more

                  William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist (1971) follows two Catholic priests trying to save a twelve-year-old girl from a violent demonic possession, and became the basis of the acclaimed 1973 film. Blatty returned to the story in 1983 with Legion, in which police detective Bill Kinderman's investigation of a string of ritual murders leads him back to the aftermath of that exorcism and the fate of Father Karras; Legion was later filmed as The Exorcist III. Other Exorcist books are tie-in and franchise material rather than further novels by Blatty himself.

                • Cover of Pet Sematary
                  Pet Sematary

                  Stephen King · standalone novel · 1983

                  similar bycontemporaryhorrordarknorth americasmall town

                  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.