6 Gothic and Botanical Horror Books You Need to Read (If You Dare)
If your ideal horror read is laced with rot, tangled vines, family curses, and maybe a ghost whispering in your ear, you’re in the right garden. Gothic and botanical horror is the subgenre for readers who love eerie forests, decaying mansions, and queer, emotionally complex characters trying not to get eaten by their own metaphors.
This list is packed with forest rot, fungal nightmares, and rural weirdness.
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Best Gothic and Botanical Horror Books
Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews
Andrew Perrault finds comfort in writing twisted fairytales—but things go very real, very fast when his best friend Thomas begins acting strangely and monsters from Andrew’s stories start coming to life. What follows is a tense, obsessive unraveling of friendship, identity, and trauma. It’s as pretty as it is unsettling.
Key Themes: Gothic romance, botanical body horror, forest rot, asexual MC, bi love interest, fairytale monsters, dark academia
Grab Don’t Let the Forest In on Amazon
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo
Andrew’s best friend is dead. Everyone says it’s suicide, but Andrew doesn’t believe it. Now in Nashville, he’s inherited Eddie’s life—including the haunting secrets Eddie never shared. Street racing, academic politics, and ghostly hunger collide in this queer southern gothic that’s equal parts grief and rage.
Key Themes: Southern gothic, MM, toxic friendships, academic horror, fast cars & ghostly hauntings, dark rituals
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
A bloody, angry thriller about a trans autistic teen fighting back against generations of exploitation and injustice. Ghosts walk the hollers of Twist Creek, but so do real monsters—and Miles is done staying quiet. Brutal and brilliant.
Key Themes: Appalachian gothic, ancient family feuds, trans boy aspec MC, body horror, rage, dark small-town corruption
Grab Compound Fracture on Amazon
Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah
Bishop is a wind-swept town filled with secrets, sunflowers, and too many missing mothers. Four girls are left behind with questions no one wants to answer. As they uncover what really happened, the land itself seems ready to bloom—and devour. Think eerie plants and unsettling girlhood.
Key Themes: Botanical horror, dark cottagecore, sapphic FF pairing, missing women, “WTF is up with this small town?”, land hungers for blood
Grab Where Darkness Blooms on Amazon
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
This queer, fungi-infested retelling of Poe’s classic is a short, sharp horror perfect for fans of decay and dread. When Alex visits the Usher estate to help an old friend, they find the house infected with something… alive. Smart, creepy, and unforgettably weird.
Key Themes: Mushroom horror, gothic vibes, nonbinary MC, decaying mansion, retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher
Grab What Moves the Dead on Amazon
We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu
A dreamlike YA horror with queer friendships, strange deaths, and an impossible lake hidden in the forest. Told in shifting POVs, this one leans into melancholy and magic realism with a quietly creepy atmosphere.
Key Themes: Forest rot vibes, haunted lake, found family, asexual MC, surreal grief
Grab We Were Restless Things on Amazon
Final Thoughts
If you love your horror tangled with vines and queer grief, these books are your next obsession. From queer rage in coal country to forest monsters stitched out of grief and longing, gothic and botanical horror books are blooming beautifully.
Have you read any of these? Which one creeped you out the most? Tell us in the comments
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