Books To Read for Fans of House of Leaves
It’s hard to believe that it’s the 25th anniversary of Mark Z. Danielewski’s award-winning, debut horror masterpiece, House of Leaves. Danielewski introduced what seemed like a cliche small-town mystery with a surprising, horrifying twist, combining paranormal and psychological thriller genres. House of Leaves is considered a literary work of art, showcasing surprising elements like the non-linear and unpredictable structure as well as the unusual typography and misplaced letters. While nothing can truly replicate the following that the novel has amassed throughout the years, here’s a list of books that blend horror with mystery and magic, ergodic literature with unconventional narratives, and literary prose that will invoke those same emotions you experienced when you first discovered this novel. And look out for Danielewski’s upcoming novel Tom’s Crossing in the fall!
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Add to BookshelfHouse of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski
If you haven’t already read the mind-bending cult classic, start here with the story about a house that’s larger on the inside than on the outside. Get lost in an astonishingly immersive, maze-like reading experience that redefines the boundaries of a novel. This masterpiece of horror is considered one of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years.
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$55.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Tom’s Crossing
by Mark Z. Danielewski
Coming soon in October 2025, Mark Z. Danielewski returns with a brand new epic that follows two friends set out to rescue a pair of horses slated for slaughter.
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$40.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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And Then She Fell
by Alicia Elliott
Highlighting Haudenosaunee culture while combining eerie, literary prose, this provocative tale platforms the hurdles of motherhood while navigating mental health setbacks. Alice believes she is leading the perfect life. She is a new mother living in her dream home with her picture-perfect husband. Alice, who identifies as Indigenous believes she’s found her prince charming in the culturally-sensitive professor. But since she’s given birth, she can not get any sleep because her precious baby won’t stop crying. As she continues to grow restless, Alice finds herself questioning her reality. With storytelling that mimics fairytale-inspired tales, Elliot puts a horror twist on a reality many share.
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$28.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
by Doris Lessing
In this “inner-space” speculative fantasy, an eccentric, seemingly harmless professor by the name of Charles Watkins is arrested for wandering around the streets rambling incoherently. Shortly after, he’s taken into custody and placed in a mental hospital to stabilize him. He doesn’t remember anything about his life and doctors believe the professor is suffering from trauma as a result of being a veteran. This novel tackles how people perceive reality. The main character takes the road less traveled as he explores the inner depths of his psyche through space and time.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Staircase in the Woods
by Chuck Wendig
Wendig shares a distinct tale that leaves the reader scared, mesmerized, and also intrigued. A group of high school friends promise to always support each other through thick and thin. However, their oath is tested when the friends plan a camping trip in a secluded forest. As they navigate their campgrounds, they stumble upon a staircase that appears from nowhere. One friend decides to take a closer look and suddenly he disappears. Decades later, the group of friends return to the mystical forest and are beside themselves when their missing friend returns with secrets about the staircase they found all those years ago.
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$19.00Preorder from:
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Bad Cree
by Jessica Johns
As a Cree woman, Mackenzie understands the power behind omens especially when they are troublesome. Mackenzie is alarmed when she wakes up to find a decapitated crow’s head in her hands. And she’s already on edge because birds are chasing her through the forest. However, when she opens her eyes again, everything disappears. As she continues to experience these haunting dreams, she concludes that some of the visions are an extension of her deceased sister who died years ago. As her mental and physical health declines, she decides to return home – a place she has avoided for so long – to find the remedy to these nightmares she can’t escape.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Murder Road
by Simone St. James
When it comes to turning small towns into enclaves of terrors, St. James has a knack for turning it up a notch in this screeching mystery following a newlywed couple. April thinks she may have had a blackout. She’s unsure of their current location, however, she can’t quite make out why this makes her uneasy. As they continue to find a way back to the main road, they see someone who looks like they need assistance. The couple extends their courtesy to help the stranger, but suddenly find themselves as the prime suspects in a murder. As they try to clear their names, they notice unnatural happenings around them and the ghost of a young girl.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Beauty in the Blood
by Charlotte Carter
Carter dives into horror with her multigenerational, speculative historical mystery in this unforgettable drama that will chill your bones. Sarah is a young, beautiful, and successful lawyer but has been suffering in silence because of the death of her mother. Another woman named Yvonne tries to reinvent herself after years as a prison guard. As she embraces being a foodie, a former inmate finds her and demands she help find the person who murdered her brother. As Yvonne tries her best to keep these worlds from colliding, the sibling also turns up dead. Desperate to clear her name, she obtains the legal services of Sarah, and the two become connected in uncovering a dark history.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Beyond the Pale
by Christofer EmgĂĄrd
A vibrant and ghastly visual of war, morality, and hidden historical secrets, this graphic novel experiments with an unusual character perspective. This ghostly mystery centers on Hetta who is assigned the task to uncover the whereabouts of the missing soldiers of color during the Vietnam War. As a member of the media, Hetta knows that uncovering the missing troopers could get dark, but she never imagines what she discovers while investigating. Hetta’s leads place her everywhere, including the jungles. As she finds more clues, she finds herself fighting with paranormal beings that are fueled by hate, turmoil, and destruction.
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$19.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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My Name Is Emilia del Valle
by Isabel Allende
This unforgettable and captivating translated literary novel is a soaring adventure that captures the essence of human emotions. Set in California during the late 19th century, a pregnant Irish nun finds herself discarded after her Chilean aristocratic lover abandons her. But time blesses her with a precocious daughter who she names Emilia. Emilia, bold and curious, pursues life as a writer. To make a name for herself, she uses a pen name to publish her crime and mystery stories. Eventually, she convinces a newspaper to hire her to cover a story about the Chilean Civil War where her birth father becomes the key to understanding her family’s history.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Nights at the Circus
by Angela Carter
Since there is no such thing as too many engrossing stories with journalists, this ethereal yet peculiar novel combines fantastical elements with an enchanting character named Sophie, who is part woman and part winged creature. Sophie travels with a circus as an aerialist but discovers she is being exploited. When an American journalist pursues her to run an editorial, Sophie and those who stand to lose the most find his presence a threat. A bit absurdist with bouts of dry humor, readers will quickly draw comparisons to other fairytales. However, this novel delivers a more mature perspective on magical realism elements and intertwines a puzzle-like mystery to identify the elusive Sophie.
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$16.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Black Fantastic
Edited by andré m. carrington
This anthology includes the voices of roughly two dozen Black diaspora writers that collectively present a genre-blend of Black science-fiction, horror, and speculative fiction. Under the keen, editorial eye of andré m. carrington, an English assistant professor at Drexel Univerity. With a robust lineup of award-winning and emerging voices, this collection is a sharp and inclusive set of stories that challenges readers to think out of the literary canon of their favorite genres. Travel back in time and to the future with monsters, aliens, and beyond in a must-have collection that reimagines how to navigate societal hurdles while paying homage to Afrofuturistic heroes such as Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delaney.
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$24.95Buy from Other Retailers:
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Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov
An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, Pale Fire offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreword and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit of a deposed king.
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$32.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Hopscotch
by Julio Cortázar
Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves “the Club.” A child’s death and La Maga’s disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat that can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira’s astonishing adventures.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Night Film
by Marisha Pessl
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova — a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than 30 years.  Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Strange Library
by Haruki Murakami
Discover a fantastical illustrated short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. Opening the flaps of this unique little book, readers will find themselves immersed in the strange world of Haruki Murakami’s wild imagination. The story of a lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plotting their escape from a nightmarish library, the book is like nothing else Murakami has written. Designed by Chip Kidd and fully illustrated, in full color, throughout, this small format, 96-page volume is a treat for book lovers of all ages.
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$26.00Buy from Other Retailers:
