Queer graphic novels are a diverse and growing genre that reflects the diversity of the queer community, they’re full of the real lived experiences of those in the community and fantasy worlds that centre queer love and lives.

In this article, we have attempted to represent a broad scope of queer writers and stories. You’ll find a lesbian memoir, a gay romance, queer graphic novels filled with asexual and non-binary characters, as well as books by trans writers featuring trans characters.

The LGBTQ+ community has stuck its flag in the comics and manga scene, and we are living for it. This list might not be exhaustive by any means, but these are all queer graphic novels and manga that have affected us and we hope that you will love them equally.

Queer Graphic Novels and Manga

From queer memoirs to gay romances to action series’ with queer protagonists, here is a deep and varied list of some of the best queer graphic novels available right now.

Read More: LGBTQ+ Books from Around the World

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

Tillie Walden is legendary on the queer graphic novel scene by this point but if you have managed to miss this stunning work then here’s your friendly push to pick it up next.

There’s so much going on in this story which balances Star Wars, space adventure romp with multiple timelines, romance, and newfound family.

Every page is more breathtaking in the last, notably the full-art pages which are fully deserving of being framed. The use of red and blue throughout On a Sunbeam is a feast for the eyes and forces you to linger and reread for full impact.

Our main protagonist, Mia, is part of a crew that rebuilds beautiful and broken-down structures throughout space, piecing the past together.

As Mia gets to know her team, who are each well fleshed out with their own stories that become relevant later, we flashback to Mia’s time in a boarding school where she fell in love with a mysterious new student.

Mia finally reveals that she’s joined their ship to track down her lost love. 

Buy a copy of On a Sunbeam

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You can receive five pounds off your order by using our Queer Book Box referral link.

Fun Home & Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel

Upon its publication, Fun Home very quickly started winning prizes and found itself at the top of many Book of the Year lists. Bechdel herself already had a long and loved career as the cartoonist of Dykes to Watch Out For, but Fun Home propelled her into the literary stratosphere.

Fun Home and its sequel, Are You My Mother? are both biographies that muse on the shaky and threadbare relationships between parents and their children, specifically from the perspective of a queer daughter struggling with her mental health.

Fun Home’s initial conceit is that Bechdel’s own father came out as gay shortly before dying after he was hit by a truck.

Whether or not his death was suicide hangs over the book while Bechdel attempts to piece together her fractured relationship with him, her own queerness, her success, and even her relationship with her psychiatrist.

Are You My Mother? focuses more on Bechdel’s relationship with her mother, both while growing up and as an adult. It’s a quieter book in some respects, but it does go into detail about Bechdel’s ongoing mental health struggles and how they are linked to her upbringing.

Both of these books are gorgeously, intimately drawn and written with such a raw, stripped-bare kind of intensity.

Buy a copy of Fun Home

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker (with Wendy Xu)

This cozy and colourful YA graphic novel is beautifully diverse and a wonderful portrait of both young queer love and older queer couples with one of my favourite older lesbian couples I’ve seen in literature.

Nova Huang, a teenage witch with a deep knowledge of magic, works at her grandmothers’ bookshop where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods and stumbles upon a shocking sight: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon.

Against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old, Nova and Tam’s latent feelings are rekindled as they work together to unravel the mysteries surrounding Tam’s past and protect the magic of wolves.

Buy a copy of Mooncakes

The Well by Jake Wyatt (with Choo)

In this breathtaking and witty graphic novel, Jake Wyatt and Choo explore the power and limits of wishes in a modern fable rooted in magic and family secrets.

On the archipelago, Lizzy cares for her grandfather and their goats, flirts with the ferrywoman, and avoids the fog and monsters that come with night. But when she steals coins from a sacred well to cover a debt, her life is turned upside down.

The well demands repayment in wishes, and its minions will drown Lizzy if she doesn’t comply. To break the curse, Lizzy must uncover hidden memories, bestow wealth, and face the magical secrets that nearly destroyed her family before it’s too late.

If you love fantasy adventure stories, don’t miss this wonderful queer graphic novel.

Buy a copy of The Well

When I Came Out by Anne Mette Kaerulf Lorentzen

Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund

When many graphic novels and novels featuring LGBTQ+ stories are aimed at young adults and tell the stories of young adults, it’s refreshing to read the memoir of someone who has taken a longer route to discover their sexuality.

Louise, our protagonist, has been married for twenty years to her husband and has four children but is realising that she’s not being honest with herself and yearns for a relationship with another woman.

When We Came Out takes us on a trip through her life as she recounts those subtle signs that were always there and ultimately her journey towards coming out. It’s funny, poignant, and you truly bond with Lousie from the get-go.

With elegant anthropomorphic pink and green drawings taking us through the story, this is a delightful and uplifting queer graphic novel that needs to be read.

Buy a copy of When I Came Out

Read More: Books to Read Before You Visit Denmark

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau

Now here is a meet cute: a young baker, sick of his job and anything to do with it, falls for an interviewee looking to take over his job, spurred on by his passion for baking. This is a sweet and charming story of blossoming queer love, to say the least.

Bloom also doubles as a phenomenal celebration of baking and baked goods in general, thanks to Ganucheau’s lovingly rich and detailed visual descriptions of the food which plays such a major role in the story.

This loving detail carried on to the rich and lived-in environments and the characters’ expressions and posture. This is an artist with a sense of personality and place.

Buy a copy of Bloom

Lumberjanes

Here is a queer graphic novel that had an exciting start in life and continued to morph, change, and develop as time went by.

Initially created by Noelle Stevenson and drawn by Grace Ellis, multiple writers and artists have now worked on the series, including transgender writer Lilah Sturgess, who penned Lumberjanes: The Infernal Compass.

Lumberjanes began as a celebration of female strength and friendship. It’s a corny, cheeky, cheerful comic book series that pops with colour and goofy humour. A campy, raucous ride for all ages.

Having been taken on by multiple writers and artists over the years, however, its diversity has grown and spread, celebrating not only women but also queer people of all shapes and sizes.

Buy a copy of Lumberjanes

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Alice Oseman is a big name in the YA genre these days, covering various avenues of queerness with her comics and novels. Her book Loveless is both a lesson in, and a poignant letter to, asexuality and aromanticism. But if you’re looking for a beautiful queer graphic novel, check out her series Heartstopper.

Heartstopper is something of a spin-off from Oseman’s debut novel Solitaire, focussing on the blossoming gay romance of the brother of that book’s protagonist.

As its cover succinctly explains, this is the story of boy meets boy, with Charlie — an out but awkward gay British teenager — gently falling in love with the more traditionally jockish Nick.

What makes Heartstopper such a breath of fresh air, both in the romance genre and as a queer graphic novel, is its approach to romantic tropes.

Quite often, the book will teasingly lean into a cliche about arguments, misunderstandings, or poor communication, only to resolve, circumvent, or even outright poke fun at that trope. This leads to a very fresh and refreshing kind of gay romance story.

Lovingly drawn and written with charming awkwardness, Heartstopper delivers moments that’ll make you crease up and squeal with excitement, and others that’ll have you sighing and swooning with love and sympathy for its characters.

This queer graphic novel isn’t just a delightful story; it’s a celebration of young gay romance.

Buy a copy of Heartstopper

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

Freddy is trapped in a toxic on-off relationship with her girlfriend Laura Dean who repeatedly blows hot and cold, treats her badly, and messes around with other women.

Freddy gets in touch with advice columnist Anna Vice to work through her emotions and become a better friend after spending so much time absorbed in her relationship and letting everyone else down.

A highly relatable, high-school drama that deals with some tough themes like abortion. It’s refreshing to see an example of a Lesbian relationship with problems we often only see in heteronormative stories, that also has a happy ending.

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is also beautifully drawn and coloured in black and pink.

Buy a copy of Laura Dean

How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual by Rebecca Burgess

Very slowly, more ace fiction and nonfiction is being introduced into the world as awareness is raised and more people are sharing their own stories.

While there’s a long way to go in terms of good ace representation in popular media, this graphic memoir is an important read for anyone and a must-read for aces of all ages.

Feeling different and alone in your feelings is inevitable at times for ace (asexual) or aro (aromantic) people with a world that pushes romance and sex as the norm and ignores the other relationships that bond us – like friendship and familial.

So, reading Rebecca Burgess’s colourful memoir, and other recent novels like Alice Oseman’s Loveless, can certainly help with that feeling even if many of us wish they existed while we were in school.

How to be Ace takes us through Rebecca’s life from her school life where she was bullied and confused to an adult struggling with her identity and experiencing anxiety and OCD. It’s insightful, honest, and depicts asexual relationships in ways that we’re yet to see elsewhere.

Buy a copy of How to Be Ace

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Being queer — and, more specifically, being gender queer — means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But most of us have struggled with our identity and how we outwardly project ourselves to others at some point or another.

In Gender Queer, writer and artist Maia Kobabe retraces their own journey through life as a gender queer individual.

This is a queer graphic memoir which traces the steps of a life lived, as well as one explored and tested. The journey to understanding Maia’s own non-binary identity and asexuality, while traversing a gendered and binary world, is a fascinating one.

It will either draw out empathy and understanding from other queer readers, or will offer invaluable insight into this queer world for those who reside outside of it.

Buy a copy of Gender Queer

Read More: 9 Transgender Stories and Books by Trans Writers

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai

Stone Fruit has a simple premise that delivers a quietly heartbreaking and tender story with a very real look at when relationships break down due to mental health issues and unresolved family trauma.

Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie enjoying escaping into the fantasy world they create together.

Bron, a trans woman estranged from her religious family is struggling with wanting to reconnect with her terrible family, and address her declining mental health. Ray struggles with Bron’s emotional absence and her own fraught relationship with her sister.

The unifier in Stone Fruit is Nessie who loves both of them and creates a special bond between the three that remains past Ray and Bron’s relationship breaking down highlighting the beauty of found family.

Buy a copy of Stone Fruit

Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Monstress is a lot. This is a deep dive into fantasy fiction that has far more lore, history, and politics wrapped up in it than your average comic book.

This queer comic carries the weight and intensity of a fantasy epic, and its incredible scope can be as daunting as it is impressive. But in her world-building, Marjorie Liu has achieved so much.

First off, she has created a compelling yet terrifying matriarchal society with so many intricate moving parts.

Secondly, she has carved out a powerful queer protagonist in Maika Halfwolf, a stoic and often terrifying main character. This is a delightfully gay story set in a gritty and dark steampunk world.

Fantastical and overflowing with imagination and narrative worldbuilding, Monstress can often feel overwhelming but having a protagonist as elegant yet gruesome as Maika, and having her be queer (and not the only queer character either) is endlessly exciting.

Monstress is an Image Comics series beloved by fans and a wonderful example of how to writer a powerful queer protagonist.

Buy a copy of Monstress

Read More: Best Batman Comics for New Readers

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St. Onge, and Joy San

This is something you so rarely see in any kind of medium — queer, cis, gay, straight, whatever — and that is a romance between two older people. Love stories are often reserved for the young and the spritely.

But here is a queer comic book that features two women of colour in their mid-sixties, falling in love and enjoying their own queer romance.

The story begins with tragedy, as our protagonists fall in love at a young age but are forced apart and into more traditional marriages by family and societal pressures.

When they reunite so many years later, they get a second chance at love and life together. Bingo Love is a wonderful queer romance that will make you sing.

Buy a copy of Bingo Love

Lights, Planets, People by Molly Naylor (& Lizzy Stewart

A beautiful graphic novel that sees right into your soul and revels in picking apart your own worst anxieties. The narrative flits between renowned astronomer Maggie Hil lecturing a hall of students as she attempts to inspire young women to work in science and her first therapy session.

Here Maggie discusses, with difficulty, her own neurodivergence, mental health, problems with being in relationships (focusing specifically on her recent relationship with Jane), and her intense desire to make a difference to the world through her work.

The full-page spreads and art in Lights, Planets, People will take your breath away. Avery Press is publishing some of the most exciting queer graphic novels at the moment, and this is one of their best.

Buy a copy of Lights, Planets, People

Best Queer Manga

Queer manga has a long and interesting history with distinct genres being prominent from the 1970s onwards including Yaoi, or Boy’s Love and Yuri  Girl’s Love from the 1970s onwards. Here are a few very recent collections to get you started on your LGBTQ+ manga journey.

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness & My Solo Exchange Diary by Kabi Nagata

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a graphic memoir written and drawn with a raw honesty. It opens your eyes to an important yet painful reality in Japan, all through the use of dark humour, minimalist art, and self-acceptance.

This queer memoir tells the story of Kabi, a woman who decided against attending university, and spent her early twenties in a haze of depression, drifting through jobs at stores and bakeries and, when she finds the energy to do so, she writes manga.

Eventually, she arrives, age twenty-eight, at a turning point. She decides to hire a female escort and a room at a love hotel, in order to learn and understand all that she believes she has missed out on in her youth.

The art of My Lesbian Experience With Lonliness, made up of pastel pinks against thick blacks and empty whites, is stunning. It has a calming energy that offsets the bleak humour and tragic personal tales.

But it meshes beautifully with this sense of opening up, risking pain and vulnerability, in the search for acceptance and happiness. The sequel My Solo Exchange Diary take us further into Kabi’s life.

Buy a copy of My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

Read More: Best Asian Graphic Novels

My Brother’s Husband Gengoroh Tagame

My Brother’s Husband tells the story of Yaichi, single father of his kawaii-as-hell daughter Kana, and the arrival of the bear-like Canadian, Mike, who has come to share grief and comfort over the loss of his husband, and Yaichi’s twin brother, Ryoji.

It is made clear from the start that Yaichi never quite accepted his brother’s sexuality, nor his immigration to Canada. On top of that, the theme of acceptance is hammered home by Kana, a young and infinitely positive child who sees the good in everything.

My Brother’s Husband is a beautiful, well-crafted queer manga; a tale of family and love. At its core, it really is about nothing more than love in all its forms. It is unrelentingly cute, sweet, and joyous; a celebration of love both familial and romantic, and a true pleasure to read.

Buy a copy of My Brother’s Husband

Our Dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

Tasuku Kaname is a gay teenager trying desperately to come to terms with his sexual identity and find peace within it, all the while he is bullied and shunned by his classmates.

Slowly, he is introduced to a selection of colourful queer characters who all have their own struggles and their own lessons to teach Kaname.

Our Dreams at Dusk is a gorgeously drawn queer manga, full of love for the entire queer community. It celebrates the act of love and, specifically, of loving oneself above everything else.

This queer manga explores the dangers of marginalisation and the strength it takes to overcome, find a community, and feel loved. It is very much a story of empathy, love, and community.

Buy a copy of Our Dreams at Dusk

To Strip the Flesh by Oto Toda

Translated by Emily Balistrieri

To Strip the Flesh is a short manga, comprised of just two chapters, which explores the life of a young trans man named Chiaki.

Chiaki lives with his father, a hunter, and makes money from documenting their hunts on YouTube. His followers, however, enjoy seeing his large breasts in tight clothing.

Despite this, and his father’s wish for him to get married and be a beautiful bride, Chiaki has been pursuing HRT and wishes to also have GRS.

Chiaki is attempting to balance what he wants with what he sees as his duty to make his dying father happy.

We watch as their relationship changes and Chiaki finds his own happiness over the course of this short but beautiful queer manga.

Buy a copy of To Strip the Flesh

The Bride was a Boy by Chii

Too many transgender stories end in, or are peppered by, tragedy. The Bride was a Boy bucks that trend by being a sweet, warm, adorable transgender story of love and romance. This is the story of a young trans woman whose boyfriend completely adores her. Now, she is to become a bride.

Drawn in an absurdly adorable chibi art style, with squashed, kawaii characters bubbling with life and colour, this is a celebration of love and transness.

This queer manga is an essential transgender story and trans manga for anyone who wants to see what a more positive, celebratory trans story can bring to the table. It’s funny; it’s sweet; it’s heartwarming.

The Bride was a Boy will have you singing and laughing and cheering for the sweet romance of a young trans woman and her doting future husband.

Buy a copy of The Bride Was a Boy

If you enjoyed this list of queer graphic novels and manga, please share with anyone you think would enjoy it.

What’s important to know when digging into and exploring the best Batman comics is the sheer diversity of his world and his stories. Writers of all walks of life have reinterpreted Batman time and again over the years, emphasising different aspects of his character and his world.

The Best Batman Comics Ever Written

Batman is so many things to so many people, as is the city of Gotham, and as are his villains. The best Batman comics are either ones that focus on the gritty realism of Gotham; that give us noir tales of crooked cops, dangerous gangsters, and Batman as a detective, or they’re the ones that emphasise the nightmarish, gothic, surreal, and fantastical world of Batman and his rogues gallery of monstrous and eccentric villains.

And here, you’ll find the best Batman comics of all time, written and drawn by some of the most talented and dedicated writers and artists in the world of comic books.

Batman Comics for New Readers

A great way to get into the character of Batman and the world of Batman comics is to read the non-canon stuff. These are the Batman comics that exist outside of the established and ongoing canon narrative, and they’re also many of the best Batman comics, full stop.

If you’re new to Batman as a comic book and a franchise, start with the non-canon works, because they require little-to-no background knowledge about the character and the world. You can jump right into this selection of non-canon stories and you’ll be fine, and you’ll also be reading some of the best Batman comics of all time.

Batman: The Knight by Chip Zdarsky & Carmine Di Giandomenico

Of all the Batman origin stories—across comics and movies alike—Batman: The Knight is the finest one we’ve ever seen, easily wiping the floor with the bleak and bland Batman: Year One. This ten-issue comic books takes readers back to before Bruce Wayne became Batman, beginning with his reckless schooldays before taking us on a globetrotting journey, on which he will learn from the deadliest killers and the smartest thieves, in order to become unbeatable.

At no point along this journey is the name Batman spoken; this is the tale of a damaged orphan with too much money trying to figure out how to enact vengeance and bring about peace. This journey will forge his morals and offer him perspective on crime, politics, and human behaviour so that he might learn to outwit his opponents and defend the vulnerable as The Caped Crusader.

This comic book is a wonderful introduction to the character of Bruce Wayne—to the philosophy of the Batman—and it is also, quite simply, an action-packed ride. Across ten issues we see so much, visit so many places, bond with characters old and new. It’s a long and exciting road that Bruce walks, and we get to walk it with him. Written and drawn with precision and passion, this is one of the best Batman comics that has ever been.

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale

Created in the mid-nineties by powerhouse pair Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, The Long Halloween remains the peak of Batman storytelling. This writer/artist duo built a legacy of writing fantastic non-canon stories across both DC and Marvel (including the masterpiece Spider-Man: Blue), and this remains their best work.

Set across thirteen issues (chapters), The Long Halloween behaves like a tour across Batman’s life, and through his rogues gallery. It’s also a Batman comic that manages to blend the gritty detective noir side of the Caped Crusader with the more fantastical and gothic side of his world.

Mobsters like Carmine Falcone, as well as eccentric villains like the Joker and Two-Face make an appearance and a disturbance in this year-long tale. The Long Halloween is a fantastic jumping-on point for new Batman fans, but is also a cherished story and remains one of the best Batman comics of all time.

Buy a copy of The Long Halloween here!

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean

Like The Long Halloween (above), Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum is a tour through the life of Batman, but one with a vastly different tone and setting. Reading these two non-canon books back-to-back presents the perfect evidence of the sheer diversity of Batman comics.

While The Long Halloween is a year-long story of crime-fighting, Arkham Asylum is a singular nightmare. Taking a minimalist approach when it comes to plot and writing, Arkham Asylum simply and beautifully tells the story of Batman entering the infamous asylum after the inmates have broken loose and taken it over.

Through the dark and nightmarish art of Dave McKean, we see Batman’s villains at their most frightening and twisted. We also get one of the best comic book titles of all time and a book that opens with a deliciously dark quote from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

This is Grant Morrison delivering some powerful, poetic writing in a deceptively simple premise and plot. Remarkable and infinitely re-readable, Arkham Asylum is easily one of the most celebrated and best Batman comics ever written and drawn.

Buy a copy of Arkham Asylum here!

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore & Brian Bolland

The Killing Joke is an interesting comic for many reasons. The most obvious is its place within the canon. While Alan Moore’s masterpiece can be read and enjoyed outside the canon, the events which transpired within were made canon and had a devastating effect on the greater Batman narrative.

Another fact that makes The Killing Joke stand out is that its author, genius writer Alan Moore, is no longer proud of it. He doesn’t like or agree with the comic. And while I have bottomless respect for Moore’s writing, his ethos, his imagination, and his politics, I (and countless others) still adore The Killing Joke.

This Batman comic presents readers with the idea that one bad day is all it takes to push someone over the edge and twist them into something that cannot be saved. It’s a short comic book that presents us with a possible origin story for the famously mysterious and unknowable Joker. The legacy of The Killing Joke is enormous, and the Joker’s acts in this story sent rippled through the DC universe.

Buy a copy of The Killing Joke here!

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader by Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert

Written by one of the most prolific authors of comics and novels, the man behind The Sandman and American Gods, this is a remarkable Batman story. Inspired by Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader tells the story of the death of Batman.

This is a short two-part tale that begins with Batman’s funeral. The mourners filter in and are divided: allies on one side, villains on the other. We are then treated to words, goodbyes, and stories about the Caped Crusader from Catwoman, Superman, Robin, Joker, Clayface, and more.

No other author could have told the story of Batman’s end like Neil Gaiman. Fortunately, this is a non-canon story, and both Batman as a character and Batman as a franchise continue on. But canon or not, this is a powerful tale and easily one of the best Batman comics ever written, despite its brevity.

Buy a copy of Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader here!

Batman: The Man Who Laughs by Ed Brubaker & Doug Mahnke

Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One (not featured on this list because it’s been talked about to death) is considered the definitive first year of Batman’s career as the Caped Crusader. And The Man Who Laughs is considered to be “Batman: Year Two”.

Named after Paul Leni’s 1928 silent film of the same name — which itself was an adaptation of a novel by French author Victor Hugo — The Man Who Laughs tells the story of Batman’s first encounter with his arch-nemesis: the Joker.

In fact, the Clown Prince of Crime owes his entire appearance to that film; and Brubaker and Manhke’s comic book is an extension of that long legacy. While The Man Who Laughs can be fully enjoyed by newcomers to the Batman comic book franchise, it does make allusions to Year One, as well as Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.

This is a curious comic, written and drawn by a legendary writer/artist pair, that offers readers a fresh but also definitive beginning to Batman and the Joker’s long and complicated history as nemeses.

Brubaker is known for his thriller-esque stories — both through his original works and his legendary run on Captain America — and you can see here why that thriller-esque narrative flair serves the World’s Greatest Detective so well, and makes for one of the best Batman comics of all time.

Buy a copy of The Man Who Laughs here!

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb & Jim Lee

Batman: Hush is not actually a non-canon Batman comic book. However, it is one of the few canon story arcs that can be enjoyed on its own, much like Loeb’s other book on this list: The Long Halloween. This is a legendary Batman comic, written by an industry great and drawn by the man who is often touted as the greatest comic book artist of all time.

Jim Lee has risen through the ranks on both the artist and the business side of DC Comics, and was also a founder of Image comics at the start of the new millennium. For any writer to collaborate with him is a dream come true.

Unsurprisingly, the brainchild of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee is an impressive one. Hush is a Batman comic that introduces a brand-new threat to the Caped Crusader: the titular Hush is a mysterious strategist, bound in bandages, who weaves a complex web with the ultimate outcome: tear down the Batman.

Across this epic tale, Batman will encounter many of his most famous villains: Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Joker, and Poison Ivy, and we even get a visit from Superman. This is a Batman comic on a large scale, with a lot of characters and moving pieces. In spite of that, it remains a great comic book for new readers of the Batman comic book series.

It’s also the book that really pushed the idea of a romantic relationship between Batman and Catwoman. Their playful flirting is very much established by now, but this comic lays heavily into the romantic potential of their relationship.

Buy a copy of Batman: Hush here!

Batman: Gothic by Grant Morrison & Klaus Janson

Grant Morrison is a legacy writer of comic books (and novels). His works Arkham Asylum (above), All-Star Superman, and creator originals The Invisibles, Nameless, and many more are, at this point, the stuff of legend.

But early in his career with DC, Morrison penned Batman: Gothic, with art by Klaus Janson, who has had a storied career as an inker of beloved comic books from both DC and Marvel, including The Dark Knight Returns and World War Hulk.

Batman: Gothic established Morrison’s interpretation of not only Batman himself, but also the city of Gotham. It tells the story of Mr. Whisper, who has somehow returned to Gotham after his supposed death twenty years ago. And now, he’s wreaking havoc in the city’s underbelly.

Whisper is killing off crime lords, and he has a bigger picture in mind. Something even darker and more sinister than these actions alone. Morrison has a personal and professional history with magic and the occult, and that is explored even in his writings from the early ‘90s.

Though it isn’t talked about as often as Morrison’s masterpiece Arkham Asylum, or his canon stories, Batman: Gothic remains a gem of classic Batman. A dark and seething tale of murder and the supernatural, and one of the best Batman comics.

Buy a copy of Batman: Gothic here!

Batman: Three Jokers by Geoff Johns & Jason Fabok

Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok are a writer/artist dream team and Three Jokers is a brilliantly crafted three-part miniseries exploring the idea that there has never been a single Joker. There have always been three. This idea was first teased in a Justice League comic called Darkseid War (also by Johns and Fabok), and Three Jokers finally gives us the answer to that incredible question: how are there three Jokers?

This is a Black Label comic, which means it isn’t part of the official Batman canon, but like its biggest inspiration, The Killing Joke, it could easily be folded into the canon. That Killing Joke inspiration can be seen in the rigid panel structure of this comic book, the fact that the events of The Killing Joke are repeatedly referenced, and the ways in which Fabok presents Joker’s expression, mannerisms, and clothing.

In Three Jokers, Batman teams up with Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and Red Hood (Jason Todd — the second Robin) to investigate the three jokers and learn how their mutual existence is possible. Gordon and Todd were both forever changed by The Joker’s own hands in the past, and they are eager to understand what’s happening here. The events which unfold and the revelations that follow are as exciting and satisfying as you’re hoping they’ll be.

Buy a copy of Batman: Three Jokers here!

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight by Brian Augustyn & Mike Mignola

Back in the day, DC Comics ran a series of non-canon comic books known as the Elseworlds: stories about familiar heroes like Superman and Batman placed in alternate timelines and histories. One of the most famous of these was Brian Augustyn’s Gotham by Gaslight, drawn by the iconic and influential Mike Mignola — creator of Hellboy.

This one-shot Elseworlds story places Batman in a Gotham city of the late 19th century, and puts him on the heels of the most famous yet enigmatic serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper.

Gotham by Gaslight is a fantastic comic book that carries the vibe and atmosphere of the gothic and science fiction stories of the era in which it is set, inspired by Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stephenson. This is a grim and seedy pre-modern world of murder and paranoia.

Gotham by Gaslight is one of the most memorable and best Batman comics; a fun romp in an imagined alternate history, where Batman has at his disposal only the tools and knowledge of the time; a time before he himself was even conceived of.

Buy a copy of Gotham by Gaslight here!

Batman & Dracula: Red Rain by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones

Another fantastic Elseworlds tale: Red Rain takes the dark, eccentric, gothic side of Batman to its furthest possible point, transforming Batman into a vampire and pitting him against Bram Stoker’s monstrous invention.

In this alternative Gotham, Dracula is plaguing the city, and Batman chooses to become a vampire in order to stand against, and hopefully defeat, Count Dracula. Taking the tone even further, Red Rain also features a “werecat” version of Catwoman.

Red Rain (along with its two sequels, Bloodstorm and Crimson Mist) was a massively popular Elseworlds Batman series when it was published in the early ‘90s, and it remains one of the most original and best Batman comics ever written.

Buy a copy of Batman & Dracula: Red Rain here!

Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy

Though the Elseworlds label is no more, it has been reimagined in recent years as DC Black Label: an offshoot collection of non-canon comic books that feature iconic DC Comics heroes and offer readers darker, more adult themes and tones.

The most famous of these DC Black Label comics is Batman: White Knight, written and drawn by contemporary comic book legend Sean Murphy (who created the Punk Rock Jesus comic and drew the fantastic Tokyo Ghost original series, written by Rick Remender and published by Image).

In this non-canon Batman story, a Caped Crusader who has been pushed to the edge of calm and sanity aggressively tails and brutally attacks the Joker, and uses an experimental medicine to turn the Clown Prince of Crime sane. This newly lucid Joker returns to his original self and uses his birth name — Jack Napier — to run for Gotham councilman, while the city’s public lose faith in Batman and his crusade.

White Knight is a fantastic original story; one of the most unique and best Batman stories written in years.

Buy a copy of Batman: White Knight here!

Batman: Earth One by Goeff Johns & Gary Frank

Goeff Johns is a huge name in DC Comics, having written for both The Flash and Green Lantern for decades, rekindling audience love and respect for both of those characters. He has also written some excellent Superman comics, but has rarely touched the Caped Crusader.

But with Batman: Earth One, Johns teamed up with long-time collaborator Gary Frank (infamous for always drawing Superman to look like Christopher Reeve) to present us with a fresh alternative origin story for Batman, set in an alternate universe known as Earth One.

There have been several Earth One stories; fresh and uniquely reimagined origin stories of various DC heroes for the 21st century, including Superman: Earth One (by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis) and Wonder Woman: Earth One (by Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette).

This is a more rugged approach to Batman’s iconic origin story, placing the Penguin in the role of Gotham’s mayor, reimagining Alfred Pennyworth as a hardened security officer, and following Bruce Wayne’s gradual growth through adolescence.

Every familiar character, whether they be ally or villain, has a slightly different personality, appearance, and role, adding plenty of originality and freshness to the story. This is Bruce Wayne and Batman like you’ve never seen them.

Buy a copy of Batman: Earth One here!

Essential Dark Academia Books

As you’ll see here, some dark academia books can be fantastical, others science-inspired; some are very grounded and literary, others far from it. We’ve added a wide range of dark academia books by classic and contemporary writers, some in English, and others in translation.

Note: Some readers might be expecting to find The Betrayals on this list. Due to Bridget Collins’ alleged transphobia, you won’t find The Betrayals on any of our lists.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Written when she was only 29 years old, Donna Tartt’s debut novel The Secret History is, for many of us, the definitive dark academia novel. It may not feature dark magic and witchcraft, but that’s what makes it so frightening. The Secret History is a twisted yet grounded tale that, on the surface, is about cults and murder but, beneath it all, is an exploration of class privilege, youthful arrogance, and ordinary evils.

The Secret History follows Richard Papen, newly enrolled at a college in Vermont. Richard is originally from a small California town, poor and uninteresting, but talented at Greek. He quickly falls into a little class of hideously pompous and broken students who, considering themselves the school’s elite, gather with their teacher to discuss the Greek language, philosophy, and other pretentious topics. 

Slowly, this class reveals itself to be a mindless, murderous cult, projected forward by hedonism, carelessness, and arrogance. The Secret History is a masterpiece among dark academia books; glued together by the internal social politics of its characters, their strained and toxic relationships, dangerous behaviours, and unpredictability.

The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo is a darling of YA fantasy fiction, beginning with her Shadow and Bone trilogy and really put on the map by the Six of Crows duology. The Ninth House, however, is considered her first foray into adult fantasy fiction. Comparable to The Secret History, The Ninth House is a novel set on a college campus (this time Yale), follows a California girl from a rough background, and concerns itself with dangerous, cultish activity.

What sets The Ninth House apart from The Secret History — and, indeed, many other dark academia books — is its ties to reality. Bardugo went to Yale; she dabbled with that college’s very real, strange secret societies. She knew this world. The secret societies of Yale are known as houses, and there are eight. In this dark academic novel, Bardugo invents a ninth house that polices the other eight and the very real dark magic they toy with.

Our protagonist, Alex, is able to see ghosts. This is what got her into Yale in the first place. Other members of the ninth house can do the same, but only when properly prepared. Alex sees them all the time, and it tortures her. Her curse has thrown her into some difficult responsibilities. She must contend with those and the activities of Yale’s houses. The ghosts and the magic here are real, they are mysterious, and they are dangerous.

Buy a copy of The Ninth House here!

Read More: The Best Horror Novels Ever Written

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

In the highly anticipated sequel to The Ninth House, Hell Bent takes us back to Yale and Alex Stern as she attempts to rescue Darlington from purgatory, even if it jeopardises her future at both Lethe and Yale. Forbidden from seeking help from the Ninth House, Alex and Dawes form a team of questionable allies to save the gentleman of Lethe.

As faculty members die under mysterious circumstances, Alex must confront the monsters from her past and a darkness ingrained in the university’s foundation. With scenes in both Los Angeles and New Haven, Hell Bent has less of a dark academia vibe than the first book and is more focused on demons and hell over ghosts — some fans may find this departure a little jarring.

This book’s action is certainly amped up with a high-stakes, character-driven narrative that doesn’t let right to the last page. Hell Bent is a captivating tale filled with history, magic, violence, and Bardugo’s signature twists; unveiling a complex world inhabited by very real monsters.

Buy a copy of Hell Bent here!

Read More: 15 Best Books About Hell (Devils, Demons & Magic)

Babel by R.F. Kuang

R.F. Kuang’s Babel is a lot of things, all of them excellent. It is a dense piece of historical fiction, an urban fantasy novel, and one of the best dark academia books you’ll ever read. Set in an alternative Oxford of 1836, Babel follows a boy named Robin who was born and raised in Guangdong, China (what the novel and Europeans of old refer to as Canton).

When disease leaves Robin without a family, a rich and educated British man sweeps him away to London, educates and raises him, and sends him off to Oxford. There, he studies translation within the walls of Oxford’s tallest building, Babel. He forms a tight friendship with a boy from Calcutta, a Black Haitian girl, and a rich, white English girl.

Babel is the beating heart of not only Oxford University, but the entire British empire, the place where precious silver bars are infused with magic, created through the study and manipulation of language. Robin’s life at Oxford is made more complicated by the illegal actions of a radical group who aim to disrupt and dismantle the British Empire’s silver industry from the inside.

As he learns more about the Empire’s international crimes and evils, Robin becomes interested and works with Hermes as their inside man, helping them take small jabs at Babel and its silver-smithing industry. Babel is a phenomenal work of fantastical historical fiction; a piece of dark academia that exposes the rotting heart of Western educations systems and how they uphold imperialist traditions and power structures.

Buy a copy of Babel here!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

If you’re looking for more books like The Secret History, If We Were Villains is certainly going to scratch that itch more than any of the other dark academia books on this list. When Oliver Marks is released from a decade of prison (for a murder he may not have even committed), he is immediately greeted by the detective who got him convicted. Now, the detective wants Marks’ truth from ten years back.

Marks is one of seven college students deeply entrenched in a love of The Bard. They are a small society of Shakespeare fanatics who live and breathe his works. They are also darkly obsessed with one another, shutting out the rest of the world.

When emotions run this high, however, it only takes a small glitch to throw their dynamic into catastrophe and, eventually, even death. While If We Were Villains is very reminiscent of The Secret History, it is also more grounded than Tartt’s novel, with characters feeling a lot more human and less absurd. They are youthful and careless and emotive.

The Experience of reading If We Were Orphans will also be enhanced slightly for anyone with their own love for the works of Shakespeare. It’s not required, but it certainly helps. One of the best Shakespeare-inspired murder-mystery dark academia books you’re likely to read any time soon.

Buy a copy of If We Were Villains here!

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

Years after the publication of If We Were Villains, M.L. Rio returned with Graveyard Shift, a100-page novella of gothic dark academia goodness. And this short book serves as a useful reminder of what dark academia can be. Many novels within the genre are simply dark stories in an academic setting, but Graveyard Shift actually explores the dark side of academia, and it does so in a 100-page thriller.

Graveyard Shift jumps between multiple perspectives, and each of these protagonists is connected only through the nightly habit of meeting up for a smoke in the local graveyard, either because of their job or their insomnia. One night, while they all meet up as usual, they find a freshly-dug grave in a graveyard that has sat unused for around a century. Who dug it, and why?

When they have a chance to go after the gravedigger, a journey towards uncovering a conspiracy related to the university begins. Our first protagonist, editor of the college newspaper, is eager to find the truth, and her eagerness will uncover something very dark indeed.

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

The Cloisters offers a fresh take on the dark academia genre while also paying homage to its legacy. Rather than setting itself at a prestigious university, The Cloisters is set in a New York City museum, and concerns itself with a small and eccentric group of academics.

Our protagonist, Ann, was offered a summer position at The Met which fell through, but luck threw her in the path of Patrick Roland instead. Patrick is the curator of The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden connected to The Met, and Patrick himself is obsessed with the history and power of tarot cards.

Ann spends her time working with and getting to know Patrick, as well as his colleague Rachel and the gardener Leo, all of whom harbour dark secrets of their own. The Cloisters is one of those dark academia books with layers upon layers of mystery, wrapped up in a gothic setting and a fog of paranoia.

The museum setting and obsession with occult beliefs and artefacts help The Cloisters stand out from the crowd of dark academia books.

Buy a copy of The Cloisters here!

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

Our Share of Night is a colossal book, both in terms of its sheer size and also its scope. This is an Argentinian horror novel that brilliantly blends the genres of cosmic horror, dark academia, and what might be called “Stephen King-esque” horror.

We begin with Juan, a man on the run from a cult that has been using him as a tool since childhood. Juan is a medium, and his son has begun showing signs of that same power. In order to spare his son the same fate, Juan is attempting to shadow Gaspar from the Order’s watchful eye.

The Order — through the power of a medium — is able to connect itself to a cosmic god known as the Darkness, and therein lies the cosmic horror. However, beyond the novel’s halfway point, it shifts into the realm of dark academia books, as the narrative rewinds to Juan’s childhood and we see the Order from the inside.

This section of Our Share of Night has all the trappings of dark academia: rich and powerful people studying the occult, abusing their privilege, and tampering with things that should be left alone.

Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L Wang

Blood Over Bright Haven is an immaculately radical work of dark academic fantasy that aggressively tackles themes of colonialism and capitalism through staggeringly well-realised worldbuilding and allegory. The novel is set in a post-industrial city where electricity is created through a magic system which siphons energy from another realm of existence. Our protagonist, Sciona, is a young mage who dreams of advancing their magical science further.

Smashing the glass ceiling of her university, Sciona becomes the first female high mage, and she is given an assistant to help with her research. But this assistant is a member of the Kwen community—refugees from outside the city’s magical barrier. Thomil escaped the mysterious blight that infests the land beyond the city, and his people are treated as underclass citizens. With his help, Sciona will uncover grave secrets about her world.

This is a city of magic and technology, but also one of strict religious doctrine, and Sciona will need to reckon with that doctrine in order to discover and accept the dark truths of her city, its ecosystem, and its history. This novel presents deep metaphors about the real-world history of colonialism and its relationship to the church, to patriarchy, and to capitalism. Blood Over Bright Haven is a masterpiece.

Bunny by Mona Awad

Bunny is a novel that threads itself through multiple genres: horror, comedy, mystery, and dark academia books. It’s a dizzying narrative, of which you will often feel in no control of. You have to simply trust that Awad knows what she’s doing (she does).

This is another novel that falls into the “books like The Secret History” camp, especially given how it is set on a Vermont university campus, and features a scholarship student who is very much out of her depth.

Bunny is also reminiscent of the classic 80s movie Heathers, with a group of toxic, unlovable, rich girls who all call one another “Bunny”. Our protagonist, Samantha, is in a creative writing group with these girls and hates every one of them — until she doesn’t.

Gradually, Samantha falls into the Bunny clique, which includes off-campus cultish rituals known as “Workshops”. It’s dark to the point of being absurd and sometimes funny. It’s twisted, dizzying, and thrilling in equal measure. For fans of The Secret History, Bunny is an absolute must-read in the genre of dark academia books.

Buy a copy of Bunny here!

An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson

Inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla—widely recognised as the first vampire novel—S.T. Gibson’s second novel, An Education in Malice is a masterful and thrilling piece of sapphic, vampiric dark academia. Our protagonist, Laura Sheridan (get it?) has moved to rural Massachusetts to attend Saint Perpetua’s College, and in her poetry class she meets the professor she will quickly become obsessed over and the girl who will become her rival.

This rival is Carmilla (get it?), a young Austrian woman and loyal pet of their poetry teacher, De Lafontaine. But while Carmilla is an impressive poet, Laura proves to be a real match for her, and De Lafontaine’s attention becomes split between them. This competition for the professor’s affections grows more complicated with the revelation that De Lafontaine is a vampire, and soon the rivalry will morph into something else entirely.

An Education in Malice is an enemies-to-lovers narrative done right; a sapphic work of erotica full of blood and taboo relationships. This is a wonderful piece of dark academia that will appeal to anyone who enjoys dark fiction and forbidden romances.

Buy a copy of An Education in Malice here!

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

Ink Blood Sister Scribe is a wonderful example of when the borders between genres blur so beautifully, it’s difficult to know where to shelf it. Holding true to the dark academia genre, this novel is a thriller with a dark mystery at its heart; a mystery that propels the reader across four hundred exciting pages.

But this is also an urban fantasy novel with an emphasis on old magic and secret spell books. Set in the modern day, this dark academia novel begins with two estranged half-sisters in their twenties. The oldest, Esther, has been moving from place to place every year, and right now she’s on a research base in Antarctica.

Joanna, the youngest sister, has been locked away in her Vermont home for years, in a house full of magical books. When the novel opens, her father Abe has every drop of blood drained by a spell book and dies on their lawn. Soon enough, a third protagonist is introduced: Nicholas, a young English nobleman who has been raised in a similarly isolated world of magical books. A library hidden in plain sight.

With their father suddenly dead and Esther sensing danger breathing down her neck in the most remote place on Earth, our sisters must search for the truth. There is so much to uncover, so much to learn. Part thriller, part fantasy, this is one of the most exciting and fresh dark academia books you’ll ever read.

Buy a copy of Ink Blood Sister Scribe here!

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

In many ways, The Atlas Six feels like he culmination of the genre; where all dark academia books were headed. An eccentric, loud, campy, and hilarious YA fantasy novel dripping with dark academic themes. The Atlas Six is not for everyone, but any reader who loves exaggerated language, characters, and events is going to get such a kick out of this brilliant YA novel.

We begin with the knowledge that the works found in the Library of Alexandria are actually in safe hands, looked after by magical caretakers known as the aptly named Alexandrian Society. In an alternate Earth, where some people are born with magical abilities and go to magical universities, the Alexandrian Society selects new initiates every ten years.

This year, we have six initiates, hand-picked by the titular Atlas Blakely. Six will enter, five will pass, one will fail. Along the way, there will be plenty of sex and fighting. Magic, secret societies, subterfuge, backstabbing, the corrupting temptation of knowledge itself. The Atlas Six is about as much fun as dark academia books can be.

Buy a copy of The Atlas Six here!

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

As campus novels and dark academia books go, Catherine House manages to stand out as wholly original by the unique qualities of its protagonist — a young woman entirely dispassionate towards academia and social belonging.

Darkly gothic right down to its setting; Catherine House is a place located deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania. It’s a school that selects very few students, and those lucky few go on to become brilliant thinkers, inventors, writers, and artists.

To guarantee this future for themselves, however, each student must sacrifice themself entirely to Catherine House. No family or friends, no hobbies, no contact with the outside world. Only the school.

Ines, however, is a young girl who (like Alex of The Ninth House) has come from a world of danger, drugs, and disaster. Now, Catherine House is her home but it is a dark place that she cannot trust, especially after what happens to her roommate.

Like Bunny and If We Were Villains, Catherine House is one of those perfect dark academia books like The Secret History set in a gothic world of education, mystery, and death.

Buy a copy of Bunny here!

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

These Violent Delights has been called The Secret History meets Call Me By Your Name. And while I haven’t read (or seen) Call Me By Your Name so I can’t comment, more dark academia books like The Secret History are never a bad thing.

Beginning in 1970s Pittsburgh, These Violent Delights follows the relationship of Paul and Julian. Paul is grieving, sensitive, artistic, and a mystery to his own family. Julian is at once arrestingly charming and violently cruel in a rich boy kind of way.

The friendship between Paul and Julian grows into an unhealthy kind of love. They are obsessed with one another, but their relationship is toxic and dangerous. They are bad for one another but impossibly bound, and that is bad news for anyone who stumbles into their path.

Buy a copy of The Violent Delights here!

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

Like many great gothic novels, the location, the building, the house itself is a character. This is true for Dalloway, the old college campus nestled in the hills of the Catskills. Dalloway is also a place said to be haunted by the ghosts of five witches.

While studying at Dalloway, Felicity Morrow suffered the tragic loss of her girlfriend. After a year away, she is back and ready to graduate. She even has her same room in the supposedly haunted halls of Dalloway. But then there’s the new girl.

This new girl is Ellis, a prodigal yong novelist who wishes to build a story around the ghosts of the Dalloway Five — the witches who are said to haunt the school — and she wants Felicity’s help in digging for clues. This is a queer novel filled witch ghosts, witchcraft, death, and intrigue. One of those all-encompassing dark academia books that gives the reader everything they could possibly want.

Buy a copy of A Lesson in Vengeance here!

The Maidens by Alex Michaeledis

Mariana was once a student at Cambridge University. Now a therapist, she gets a call from her niece Zoe, who herself is a Cambridge student. Zoe’s friend was a member of a secret society of all-female students known as The Maidens, and now she’s dead.

Caught up in her niece’s plight, and driven by an empathetic need to help, Mariana places her sights on the university’s professor of Greek Tragedy: Edward Fosca. He did it, she is sure of it. And soon another body will be found.

Unlike many other dark academia books, which are often set in the US, and also often in made-up academic spaces, The Maidens is set at Cambridge University: one of the most prestigious and beautiful universities on Earth. This Cambridge setting adds both weight and character to the gothic mystery of this tale. What also helps is the compelling and building mystery at the heart of The Maidens.

In many ways this is a murder mystery that uses the dark academia setting and tropes to enhance its plot and atmosphere with staggering results.

Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko & Sergey Dyachenko

Translated from the Russian by Julia Meitov Hersey

A clever subversion of the Harry Potter mythology and the classic hero narrative, Vita Nostra is a dark, twisted, and strange piece of dark academia. Written by Ukrainian couple Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, Vita Nostra is like nothing else.

Vita Nostra follows Sasha, a sixteen-year-old girl on a seaside vacation with her mother, who finds herself followed by a mysterious man with pale skin and dark glasses. When this stranger finally confronts her, he entreats her to complete a shocking task: she must wake up at 4am, go to the beach, and swim out to a buoy and back.

Completing this task (and several others equally bizarre in nature) eventually gains Sasha admittance to the Institute of Special Technologies, a remote university whose classes are unlike anything Sasha has ever known.

The Harry Potter comparison lies not only in the magical boarding school setting, but in how utterly spellbinding this novel is. It sweeps the reader up into a setting much darker, stranger, and more menacing than Hogwarts — but every bit as enchanting for the right reader.

Buy a copy of Vita Nostra here!

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik has made a popular name for herself by using the fairy tale formula to create fantastical tales that are at once subversive and nostalgic.

With A Deadly Education, Novik turns her talents to the genre of dark academia books. Set at a magical school called Scholomance (also the series title), A Deadly Education blends the Harry Potter formula with the deadly, gothic themes present in dark academia.

Monsters lurk in the halls of Scholomance. Death is real and ever-present. Graduation is predicated on survival and, seemingly, little else. Our protagonist is El, a young girl with incredible strength. She lacks allies but she, alone, has enough power to survive the trials and tortures that Scholomance promises each and every one of its students.

Blending YA fantasy, gothic fiction, and the Harry Potter mythology, this is one of the most popular modern dark academia books on the shelves.

Buy a copy of A Deadly Education here!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

V.E. Schwab is one of the most popular and beloved authors of fantasy fiction in the world right now (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a particular favourite of mine). Schwab explores the world of urban fantasy and magic realism with deftness and imagination.

In Vicious — the first books of the Villains series — she takes us to a college at which two boys, Victor and Eli, are roommates. Soon enough, after discovering a potential formula for superhuman powers, things turn… Vicious as they go from friends to… Villains.

Vicious has a story and tone inspired by both superhero comics and Shelley’s Frankenstein (possibly why one character is named Victor). It’s a story both thematically dense and campy, like any good gothic novel or superhero comic should be.

In the present, Victor has escaped prison and is on the hunt for Eli. In the past, Victor and Eli are young geniuses sharing their college experience as friends. We move between these periods as their feats and actions become clear, as do their consequences.

Ambitions, betrayal, hubris, jealousy — these dark emotions are at the thematic forefront of this brooding, scheming story. A tale of dark academia, gothic behaviour, and comic book tropes. Edgy, imaginative, and heaps of fun.

Buy a copy of Vicious here!

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I’m sure this will be a controversial choice to some. Others might be nodding their heads in understanding. From where I’m standing, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein could easily be considered where dark academia books began (sorry Donna Tartt).

The titular Frankenstein is a young man, scarred and offended by the death of his mother. While studying natural philosophy at university, he takes it upon himself to invent a way to halt or reverse death itself.

Victor’s actions involve exhuming the pieces of various bodies from the local cemetery (a practice that universities have actually practised in the past). After stitching them together, Frankenstein gives life to his creature before fleeing and leaving it abandoned.

Frankenstein is my favourite novel; it represents the peak of gothic fiction for so many reasons. It is considered by many to be the first science fiction novel. It is also a true piece of dark academia, featuring a university student meddling with dark science. Is Frankenstein where dark academia books began? Feel free to agree or disagree.

Buy a copy of Frankenstein here!

Four by Four by Sara Mesa

Translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore

Four by Four is a Spanish gothic novel, reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. It is set in a boarding school, far removed from its nearby towns and cities, and the narrative subtly suggests that its story takes place as society is crumbling. One nearby city has fallen to dust; the other has been consumed by violence and lawlessness. But this school remains intact.

The first part of Four by Four deals with a group of children as they attempt to escape the school. They are afraid and paranoid and claustrophobic. The gothic academic setting seems to be closing in on them. In part two, the perspective shifts to that of a new teacher who is telling his story as a series of diary entries, and it’s here that we see how Sara Mesa is exploring themes of power and hierarchies in a darkly academic setting.

While Four by Four isn’t one of the most on-the-nose dark academia books, like The Ninth House, it instead makes academia itself feel dark through its gothic setting and themes of power manipulation. A brilliant Spanish novel.

Buy a copy of Four by Four here!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Considered by many to be Kazuo Ishiguro’s masterpiece, Never Let Me Go is a piece of dark science fiction about the purpose of our lives as individuals, and as members of a larger society. The novel also considers the value of knowledge, learning, and the schools in which we study, thus making it one of the smarter, subtler dark academia books.

Never Let Me Go begins with Kathy, a young woman who works as a carer — of whom and how, we don’t yet know. Kathy reminisces about her time at Hailsham: a boarding school our in the English countryside.

Hailsham was a perfect kind of place, where students were taught painting and mathematics, and they lived close to one another, forming tight bonds. But there is something awful going on beneath the surface that we don’t yet understand.

Never Let Me Go is about a lot of things: class and privilege, love and friendship, purpose and meaning, memory and narratives. It is also about the purpose of academic life; the purpose of the knowledge and skills we nurture as we grow.

Buy a copy of Never Let Me Go here!

The Promised Neverland by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu

The Promised Neverland is, without a doubt, one of the most captivating and original shonen manga to have been published in the last several years. Set in a suspicious paradise of a school, this manga takes frequent twists and turns to shock and terrify its readers.

Grace Field House is perfect. A big school that resembles an English stately home, full of happy children aged twelve and under, lorded over by the kind and jolly Isabella; a woman whom the kids all call mom. Every day, the children take an exam to demonstrate their aptitude. They don’t know why; they just do it. They play, eat, clean, and sleep. They all have numbers tattooed on their necks and wear white all of the time.

At the very beginning, a young girl is selected to leave Grace Field House. She and all the others believe she is being adopted. When she leaves her favourite toy behind, our protagonists run to the gate to give it to her. At the gate, they discover her body, lifeless and with a flower growing out of it. The things driving the truck that hides her body are not human at all; they are monstrous demons. Grace Field House is no school; it’s a farm.

The Promised Neverland is a lot of things: dystopia, science fiction, mystery, gothic fiction, and more. As dark academia books go, it only remains one for a little while before mutating into something else. Nevertheless, how could I resist adding a manga to a list of dark academia books.

Buy a copy of The Promised Neverland here!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

While academia itself usually plays a part in the “dark academia” genre, Wilder Girls still earns its place on this list in spite of being something else entirely. This is because, at its heart, this is a YA novel about schoolgirls fighting for their survival, about the staff being corrupt and shady, and about the academic setting being key to its atmosphere.

This YA dark academia novel is set on an island off the coast of Maine. This island is home to the Raxter School for Girls, which has been put under quarantine after the breakout of a virus called the Tox. The Tox has taken the lives of several students and teachers, and those who haven’t died have been physically mutated in painful and gruesome ways.

These mutations are described with rawness and grit, making the reader squirm with discomfort. Our protagonist, Hetty, leads us on a journey to uncover the mysteries of this virus, and the quarantine itself, after her best friend Byatt disappears following a “flare-up” of the virus.

There is more going on here than meets the eye, and Hetty is willing to endanger herself (and her friend Reese) to find answers, and to find Byatt.

Over the past few years, however, there has been a colourful shift to queer fantasy and sci-fi books, and books of that genre written by incredible women and authors of colour.

Now, the genres of sci-fi and fantasy are gloriously diverse, with so many novels pushing the boundaries of gender and sexuality in exciting and liberating ways.

Queer authors are bringing new perspectives, new ideas, and fresh eyes to sci-fi and fantasy literature.

So, here are some incredible queer fantasy and queer sci-fi books by LGBTQ authors for you to check out!

Read More: Essential Modern Fantasy Books

Queer Fantasy Books

These queer fantasy books range from alternate histories to mythological retellings via fresh takes on classic fantasy tropes.

These LGBTQ authors are taking new steps into uncharted territory with their amazing queer fantasy books and we all need to be paying attention.

Not only should we be paying attention; we should be revelling in the variety, beauty, and vibrancy of these amazing queer fantasy worlds and characters.

Fantasy books are all about magical spaces, and these queer novels are all, indeed, magical. Enjoy this amazing queer fantasy books.

Read More: The Best Fantasy Books of All Time

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan

She Who Became the Sun is a queer fantasy retelling of the life of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty in late 14th Century China.

Shelley Parker-Chan’s novel reimagines this founding emperor’s origin story and turns it into something beautifully queer and excitingly clever.

Zhu Yuanzhang was, famously, a peasant before rising to power. He was a monk, then a rebel leader, and finally an emperor. His army defeated the Mongols This is all true.

In She Who Became the Sun, we begin with a peasant family; a father and son are killed, and only the daughter remains.

The son was prophesied to become a legend, and yet he has died, and so the girl takes up that destiny for herself, disguises herself as a man, and becomes a monk.

As her life goes on, her disguise becomes part of her identity; she no longer sees herself as a girl or a boy; both gender identities are true.

This is a beautiful genderqueer exploration of legacy, destiny, and triumph, and one of the most exciting queer fantasy books of recent years.

Buy a copy here!

Sistersong by Lucy Holland

Sistersong is Lucy Holland’s debut novel, and it toes the line between historical fiction and queer fantasy.

Here is a mediaeval British novel set during the Saxon invasion of Britain.

We have three siblings: two girls and a third who spends the course of the novel coming to understand his identity as a transgender man.

Their father is king of a small region of England, and the Saxons are knocking at their gates.

While this is, in some ways, a grounded piece of historical fiction, it also features very literal magic and sorcery that brings the fantasy genre to this novel’s pages in a very welcome way.

The exploration of our young trans protagonist is expertly done; given its fantastical and historical setting, words like “trans” and “binary” are not used, but his journey is taken with tact and elegance.

This really is a stunning piece of fiction that blends queer fantasy with the setting and events of a historical epic.

Buy a copy here!

Read More: LGBTQ Bedtime Stories for Children

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Samantha Shannon’s fantasy epic, The Priory of the Orange Tree, is one massive self-contained story. It’s a queer fantasy novel that brings dragons back to the forefront of fantasy novels.

This is an intricately plotted, perfectly woven narrative with a broad cast of deep and dynamic characters. It also has a stunning title and cover, which always helps, even superficially.

A truly epic 800-page fantasy novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree follows a colourful collection of diverse characters who are spread far and wide across a massive landscape.

World-building, lore, and language are all expressed beautifully here, just like in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the epic geographic scale is reminiscent of Game of Thrones.

The characters that we follow are queer and colourful, brooding and salacious, twisted and calculating. There is vibrancy and pomp and splendour in abundance here.

Easily one of the great queer fantasy novels of all time.

Buy a copy here!

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Wolfsong, the first in TJ Klune’s Green Creek series of fantasy books, is a novel that answers the question, “What if Twilight was gay and also good?”

Klune is known for blending queer romance with urban fantasy, and this is his most expansive queer romantic fantasy story yet, spanning four lengthy books.

Wolfsong is the first book in that series, and it is predominantly a gay romance between a boy named Ox, who grew up in a nowhere Oregon town for which the series is named, and the youngest son of a pack of werewolves.

Around the time Ox turns sixteen, the Bennett family (whose matriarch is genuinely called Elizabeth Bennett), move in next door.

Ox soon learns that the Bennetts are not only shapeshifters, but that his friend and boss, Gordo, already knows them. and that Gordo (protagonist of the series’ second book) is also a witch.

Ox and Joe, the youngest of three boys, become tethered together in an intense friendship that soon blossoms into a vicious, feral kind of romance.

Wolfsong is a queer fantasy novel full of bloodshed, revenge, cruelty, and savage love.

Buy a copy of Wolfsong here!

Read More: 16 Must-Read Cozy Fantasy & Found Family Books

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

The Unbroken is an epic modern fantasy novel set in a world of empire and rebellion.

The Empire of Balladaire has conquered the land of Qazāl, and our protagonist, Touraine, was one of many children taken by the empire’s army to be raised as a soldier.

Twenty years on and Touraine is a lieutenant who has been sent back to Qazāl, along with other conscripts and the empire’s princess Luca, to quell a rising rebellion against the empire.

Getting closer to the rebels means learning that her mother is still alive, and so Touraine’s loyalties will inevitably be tested.

When she is invited into the princesses inner circle, a romance between the two — a lesbian soldier and a bisexual princess — has a chance to blossom.

But the relationship between these two queer protagonists is far more fraught and enticing than a simple romance. After all, this is a fantasy book about colonisers and rebels.

This is a queer fantasy novel that brilliantly explores themes of colonialism and rebellion with style and savvy, and with two queer women as its protagonists.

Buy a copy of The Unbroken here!

The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz

A sapphic fantasy novel set in a world inspired by South American history, folklore, and landscapes. The Sun and the Void is an epic novel that tackles colonialism and deep-seated prejudices.

Our protagonist, Reina, is a girl with a tail, a mixed-race daughter of a revolutionary who received a letter from her grandmother, which sets her out on a journey across mountains.

Gravely injured along the way, Reina is nursed back to health by her witch grandmother. From there, she lives and works at the house of a great lord and begins to fall for his daughter.

This is a world of myriad gods, traditions, races, and alliances. Reina is lured into dark magic while fearing the cruel prejudices of those around her.

An epic queer fantasy novel about sapphic love, and a confident sign that the future of fantasy is bright and diverse.

Buy a copy of The Sun and the Void here!

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

Phoenix Extravagant is a thinly-veiled fantasy allegory for the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula in the early 20th century. In this standalone novel, the people of Hwaguk have been invaded by the Razanei Empire, who have access to robotic automatons thanks to the trade of technology with the people of the Far West. Our protagonist, Jebi, is a nonbinary painter who has tried and failed to stay out of politics and keep their head down.

However, when the fail an art exam—and thus are unable to find work as a result—they are all but kidnapped to work on Razanei automatons. Specifically, their ultimate weapon: an enormous robotic dragon. These automatons are brought to life by a magical paint with mysterious pigments. The dragon is malfunctioning, and Jebi is ordered to find out why and fix the dragon so that it can be used as a deadly weapon of war.

In doing so, Jebi learns to speak with the dragon, and their conversations will uncover the truth as to why it is faulty and has caused the Razanei Empire so many problems. The truth is not what Jebi expects, and they are no longer able to pretend indifference and good behaviour in the face of foreign occupation.

Buy a copy here!

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The story of Achilles and Patroclus is one of the great tragic tales of love and warfare in the Western canon, but it’s also one that has been whitewashed by Christian conservatism over centuries.

The legendary warrior Achilles and his brother-in-arms Patroclus were a gay couple, but their romance has been “purified” in a fearful and pathetic way.

That is until Madeline Miller came along and rewrote their story, reinjecting the queerness back into their story and writing something truly beautiful in the process.

While not strictly fantasy, The Song of Achilles features on this list of queer fantasy novels because mythology has inspired fantasy; we wouldn’t have one without the other.

In that sense, this iconic and gay tale of Greek mythology deserves a spot on this list of colourful queer fantasy books.

Buy a copy here!

Queer Sci-fi Books

If there’s one genre that has always, since its inception, pushed at the edges of ordinary life, looking upwards and outwards and into exciting new worlds and spaces, it’s science fiction.

Much like with gothic fiction, sci-fi and queerness have a long history, even when the authors themselves haven’t been explicitly queer.

But now, LGBTQ authors are taking sci-fi literature in wild and wonderful new directions, to new frontiers where no one has gone before (enjoy that).

Queer sci-fi books are vital for the genre to continue shifting and changing and evolving, and these stories really are something special.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers is considered by an increasing number of sci-fi readers to be the modern queen of science fiction, and the evidence for why is clear.

Chambers comes at the genre of sci-fi with wide-eyed wonder, positivity, hope, and an expansive imagination.

In her Monk and Robot series, beginning with A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Chambers introduces us to a young non-binary monk who leaves their city to explore the wilderness.

They are a tea monk, someone who brings tea to people and listens to their problems. They live on a moon that once created AI and eventually freed its robot slaves.

Those robots vanished to live out in the wilderness and were never seen again, until our monk meets one on their journey, and the two spend the novel discussing big philosophical and existential questions.

This is a calm, quiet, reflective little novel about the nature of being. It’s a warming comfort and proof of Chambers’ hopeful and healthy outlook on the nature of life, human or otherwise.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is one of the most beautiful, comforting, welcome queer sci-fi novels ever written.

Buy a copy here!

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

American author Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars is a blending of genres that mixes queer science fiction with urban fantasy.

Here, we have three protagonists: a transgender violin prodigy, a space alien who sells donuts at a California diner, and a woman who made a faustian deal with the devil.

This is a wonderful queer sci-fi novel that emphasises migration and found family. Our three protagonists are all running from something: an abusive home, hell itself, or a galactic empire.

It’s an experimental novel about love and music and kindness and growth. It reminds us to love one another and, maybe even more importantly, to love ourselves.

Ryka Aoki celebrates music with this novel, emphasising its power, its healing properties, its ability to bring us together and bring out the best in us.

It’s also a sci-fi novel with a focus on everyone who isn’t a white man. Set in California, its protagonists are all from other places: Japan, Vietnam, outer space.

In this way, it is a perfect American novel; one that reminds us of who and what created the US as it exists today.

Buy a copy here

Read More: The Best Sci-Fi Books Ever Written

Gideon the Ninth by Tasyn Muir

To be clear, Gideon the Ninth and its sequels have been labelled science-fantasy. In terms of their structure and tropes, they are queer fantasy novels. But in their setting, they are sci-fi. This is reminiscent of works like Dune and Star Wars, sci-fi stories with deep and intrinsically fantastical elements.

Gideon the Ninth is also an unbridled celebration of queerness. In part, this is thanks to its explicitly lesbian characters and storylines, but also in its setting and aesthetics. Queerness has forever been tied to the gothic, to alternative fashion, to vampires and blood and dark things. This novel really leans into that gothic edge to the nth degree.

Gideon the Ninth begins with the titular Gideon, an angry young swordswoman who was born into a life of servitude. She serves Harrowhark, princess of their planet. They despise each other, but they have been invited by the leader of their planetary system to take part in a contest.

This contest may, if they succeed, lead to immortality and immense power. This is a novel that is at times laugh-out-loud funny; one that doesn’t always take itself too seriously; one that revels in the absurd, the queer, and the camp. It’s an incredibly fun and frantic queer sci-fi novel that cannot be recommended highly enough.

Buy a copy here!

The Seep by Chana Porter

Chana Porter’s short novel, The Seep, is a unique kind of queer sci-fi that pushes the genre in new directions while also harkening back to the golden age of the genre.

In spite of how modern and boundary-pushing this queer sci-fi novel is, it also has strong John Wyndham vibes, which is fun.

The titular Seep is an alien lifeform which invades Earth in a very quiet way. It literally seeps into our water supply, into our minds, and our lives. It causes capitalism to fall and life to become far more hedonistic for all.

Under the thrall of the Seep, all is possible. People live longer, pursue their dreams, change their physiology, and live free.

Our protagonist is a fifty-year-old trans woman who, after many years of living with the Seep, creating art, and retraining as a doctor, is suddenly floored when her wife says she wants to use the Seep to be reborn afresh, as a baby with no memory of her life.

The Seep is a novel about what a world of infinite possibilities might look like, when we still retain our need for companionship and love and kindness.

It’s a book of uncomfortable juxtapositions and a real twist on the alien invasion concept.

Buy a copy here!

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

Every page of this queer sci-fi graphic novel is more breathtaking in the last, notably the full-art pages which are fully deserving of being framed.

The use of red and blue throughout On a Sunbeam is a feast for the eyes and forces you to linger and reread for full impact.

Our main protagonist, Mia, is part of a diverse crew of queer characters that rebuilds beautiful and broken-down structures throughout space, piecing the past together.

As Mia gets to know her team, who are each well fleshed out with their own stories that become relevant later, we flashback to Mia’s time in a boarding school where she fell in love with a mysterious new student.

Mia finally reveals that she’s joined their ship to track down her lost love. This is a queer and colourful sci-fi epic that’s not to be missed, especially for fans of comics and graphic novels.

Buy a copy here!

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

An abstract and beautifully lyrical sapphic love story unfolding through unique letters sent across time and space.

Two rival agents named Red and Blue come from opposite sides of warring factions of a time war and fall in love through the course of this novella.

This is How You Lose the Time War is highly poetic and may not be for you if you prefer a structured plot and world-building, but this unstructured approach lends itself well to emphasising the fractured yearning and tenderness between these two agents.

The co-writing of This is How You Lose the Time War also means that the two agents have very distinct voices and personalities which makes their love all the more endearing.

A truly unique narrative amongst queer sci-fi novels, and one not to be missed!

Buy a copy here!

This means that a lot of stereotyping goes on with regards to the themes, events, characters, and subject matter of shoujo manga. Typically, shoujo manga involves cute magical girls, romance (usually heterosexual), and slice-of-life stories involving middle or high school girls.

The Best Shoujo Manga

Here are some of the best shoujo manga, both classic and contemporary, for fans of the genre to check out right now. Some of these very much meet the stereotypes, while others fall outside of it, offering something fresh and experimental. Enjoy!

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya

Few shoujo manga have as much of a beloved fanbase as Fruits Basket. This is a series that received a decent enough anime adaptation many years ago and has since received the ‘brotherhood treatment’ with impeccable results.

Natsuki Takaya’s classic shoujo manga tells the story of Tohru Honda, a girl who lost her mother and now lives in a tent in the woods. Tohru is certainly down on her luck but she keeps on smiling regardless. She is the epitome of a glass-half-full character, clinging to hope as much as her strength will allow.

One day, Tohru stumbles upon the home of her classmate, Yuki Soma: a traditional and secluded Japanese house. Yuki’s older brother, Shigure, is a laid-back stay-at-home author who welcomes Tohru into their home. The Soma family secret is soon discovered, however, and Tohru is burdened with the knowledge that each member of the family is possessed by an animal of the Chinese zodiac.

When hugged by a member of the opposite sex, members of the Soma clan suddenly transform into their animal form, often resulting in awkward and hilarious situations. The series goes to some very dark and strange places, with the cat character, Kyo, being the most endearing and fascinating member of this shoujo manga’s cast.

Fruits Basket is a reverse-harem slice-of-life romance manga for the ages, and a beloved classic of the shoujo manga genre.

Buy a copy of Fruits Basket here!

Skip and Loafer by Misaki Takamatsu

One of the key ingredients for a good shoujo manga is charm. Charm beats out even romance where shoujo is concerned. Skip and Loafer has charm coming out of every pore. There is a wide-eyed sweetness, as well as a goofiness, to our protagonist, which is emphasised by her unique appearance.

Iwakura is drawn differently from the other characters on the roster, with her expression being more minimalist and blank, reminiscent of Mob Psycho 100. The fact that even her face elicits a laugh (but not in a cruel or mocking way) is charming. Then there is the focus on friendship over romance.

Our other protagonist, Shima, is a delightful himbo that every girl crushes on, and he has chosen to befriend Iwakura on her first day at school. In fact, it’s her first day in Tokyo, having grown up in the sticks. A lot goes wrong, and Shima is there to lend a hand (although he’s not great at doing so).

This is a shoujo manga that blends the slice-of-life and romance genres into something hilarious, warming, and entertaining. The stellar English translation carries that comedy and charm across every line and page, and a consistently growing cast of characters keeps us engaged chapter after chapter.

Buy a copy of Skip and Loafer here!

Ao Haru Ride by Io Sakisaka

Also known by its English title Blue Spring Ride, this is a shoujo manga that epitomises the will-they-won’t-they narrative. It injects grounded, often harsh and dark, themes and events to offer readers a romance story with real weight and substance.

Ao Haru Ride is a fairly beloved romance manga with a dedicated following, especially in Japan. The story follows sixteen-year-old Futaba whose first love has returned from a long stint of living in Nagasaki. However, Kou is not the boy she remembers; he is now aloof and guarded. We soon learn that this is because, while living in Nagasaki, Kou lost his mother.

Ao Haru Ride is a mature and hard-hitting shoujo story that really showcases how life throws down obstacles to happiness, and how we often build those obstacles ourselves due to naivete, self-destructive tendencies, and an inability to see the future or read the past. This is a series with plenty of twists and turns that are worth experiencing first-hand, and a romance manga that comes highly recommended.

Buy a copy of Ao Haru Ride here!

Love Me, Love Me Not by Io Sakisaka

While Ao Haru Ride is this shoujo mangaka’s most celebrated work, her newer manga Love Me, Love Me Not is refreshingly unique amongst shoujo manga. Drawn in her iconic bubbly, soft, and (at this point) retro style, but featuring more believable and grounded problems and personalities, Love Me, Love Me Not really sets itself apart.

We have a pair of protagonists, Yuna and Akari. When they meet, they have each said goodbye to a best friend who moved away and are about to start at the same high school. Yuna is a head-in-the-clouds romantic who believes in waiting for her perfect true love. Akari, however, “meets love head-on”. She’s full of confidence and a lust for life.

The quiet, shy romantic versus the flirtatious and curious realist. This romance manga’s creator has made it clear that neither is right or wrong, which is why they share the spotlight as protagonists. Akari also has a brother, Rio, whom Yuna immediately romanticises as a beautiful prince, and Yuna has a childhood friend, Inui, whom Akari believes would be perfect for Yuna.

Early on, Akari is dumped by her long-distance boyfriend and rumours of her flirtatious nature start to spread. The drama here is real, relatable, and sometimes difficult. But it being drawn in a cute and muted ’90s style gives this romance manga a comforting warmth, as does Yuna’s sweet — if childish — romanticism.

But this is a shoujo manga that is just as much about female friendships as it is about love and romance. Yuna and Akari’s relationship is the most important and interesting one of the manga. They grow together and learn from each other, and that’s what helps this manga stand out so well against a sea of cookie-cutter romance stories.

Buy a copy here!

Nana by Ai Yazawa

Nana Komatsu was born in a small town which she describes as being neither a small village nor a bustling city. She is a middle child, neither rich nor poor. Entirely ordinary. And her older boyfriend is leaving her for Tokyo.

Nana Oosaki doesn’t remember her parents. She was raised by a sarcastic grandmother who worked her hard, and now she is the frontwoman of a punk band called BLAST. And her bassist boyfriend is leaving her for Tokyo. These two Nanas, when they each reach the age of 20, decide to move to Tokyo, one pursuing big dreams of a name in lights, the other looking for love.

They meet on a train and, against all odds, become friends first, then roommates. Nana is a dynamic and sweet slice of life manga, and a masterwork of the shoujo manga space. Essential reading for any fan of shoujo or slice-of-life manga.

Buy a copy of Nana here!

Nichijou by Keiichi Arawa

Nichijou is a shoujo manga masterpiece that takes the very concept of “slice-of-life” and plays with it in a very meta, constantly hilarious way.  Set in the town of Tokisadame, Nichijou (Everyday) centres around two main groups of characters: a group of three young schoolgirls and an odd trio made up of a child professor, her hand-built robot, and a talking cat.

Despite the second trio’s strangeness being seen from a mile away, the three schoolgirls of this slice of life manga are just as eccentric. One is deadpan serious, the second is cheerful to a fault, and the third is wildly emotive.

Each chapter of Nichijou sets up a fairly ordinary scenario — one that is relatable or, at least, understandable and reasonable — but that scenario quickly morphs and deteriorates into absurdity. Almost without fail, the events of each chapter will have your guts in knots.

Buy a copy of Nichijou here!

My Love Mix-Up by Aruko and Wataru Hinekure

What we typically know as a “love triangle” isn’t actually a triangle at all; it is one person trying to choose between two others. If you’re after a true love triangle, you need to read My Love Mix-Up!. This funny and sweet shoujo manga about high school kids crushing on each other is proud of just how silly and charming it is.

Here you have two boys — Aoki and Ida — and a girl, Hashimoto. Aoki likes Hashimoto but he learns quickly that she has her eye on Ida instead. Through a clumsy bit of miscommunication, Ida comes to believe that it’s Aoki who likes him, not Hashimoto. Having never crushed on anyone before, he’s open to the idea that he might be gay.

And so he begins to form a strong attachment to Aoki, whom he still thinks has a crush on him. So now we have Aoki crushing on Hashimoto, who is crushing on Ida, who is now crushing on Aoki. That’s a proper love triangle.

Twists and turns also come pretty frequently as this fun dynamic develops further, and we get to enjoy these sweet archetypal characters (especially the adorable himbo Aoki). These characters are fun to follow and root for, and the wholesome nature of this romance manga means that the stakes are low while the humour is high.

If you like your love stories on the sweet and charming side, rather than the heartbreaking soap opera-esque drama, My Love Mix-Up! is the romance manga for you.

Buy a copy here!

Horimiya by Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara

Originally known as Hori-san to Miyamura-kun, Horimiya is a charming and wholesome romance manga, originally written and drawn by Hiroki Adachi (Hero) before being adapted and redrawn by Daisuke Hagiwara. Horimiya also has a hugely popular romance anime adaptation, and the anime has proven to be a truly outstanding adaptation of the original manga source material.

The Horimiya manga follows the quickly-blossoming romance between high-schoolers Kyoko Hori and Izumi Miyamura. She is a popular honour student with a secret home life packed with responsibility and raising her adorable little brother.

He is an introverted, all but invisible middle-of-the-road student with a secret private life as a tattooed and pierced himbo. Horimiya is one of the most popular romance manga ever written. What has helped it succeed so splendidly is how well-developed its two protagonists are.

Their dramas, issues, dreams, and daily lives as individuals are fleshed out and given real attention. Pile a romance on top of this and you have two characters that you not only care about, but whose romance is a joy to watch unfold.

Their romance also moves forward refreshingly quickly and smoothly, as opposed to those seen in the majority of romance manga. Horimiya is a comedy romance manga, but the comedy serves more to keep the story light rather than to be laugh-out-loud funny. Come for the romance and stay for the chuckles.

Buy a copy of Horimiya here!

Our Wonderful Days by Kei Hamuro

Our Wondferful Days is a sweet, charming, and wholesome shoujo manga about four high school girls living their lives and growing closer in a beautiful and peaceful rural setting. In elementary school, Koharu and Mafuyu were best friends, but Mafuyu moved to Tokyo for several years.

Now that she’s back the two quickly rekindle their friendship and we watch through happy tears as that friendship gradually and tenderly blossoms into something more. Blending the shoujo, slice-of-life, and yuri genres of manga together, Our Wonderful Days is something very special. Heartwarming and serene, it will calm your nerves and warm your heart.

Then there’s Kei Hamuro’s artwork, which reminds us of the tranquil elegance and beauty of the Japanese countryside on almost every single panel. This is such a tender tale of female friendship, of self-discovering, and of young love, set against a stunning backdrop of rolling hills and quiet rural homes. Beautiful in so many different ways, Our Wonderful Days is an essential shoujo manga.

Buy a copy of Our Wonderful Days here!

Orange by Ichigo Takano

Orange straddles quite a few genres, including romance, slice-of-life, and even the supernatural. It’s also a short manga, available in two oversized volumes that you can binge over a weekend. This makes Orange a satisfyingly complete and focussed manga experience.

The story of Orange closely follows a group of friends, the main character of which is high-schooler Naho Takamiya. At the start of a new school year, Naho receives a letter from someone who claims to be her future self. Future Naho explains that her biggest regret was her failure to save the life of a boy named Kakeru Naruse.

The letter has arrived on this particular day because it is the same day that Kakeru joins their school in Matsumoto from his former life in Tokyo. Kakeru is quickly assimilated into Naho’s group of friends, becoming their sixth member.

The letter which Naho received is filled with a list of detailed instructions on how to save Kakeru’s life. Naho must decide whether or not to trust and follow these instructions each day. Meanwhile, in the future, Naho is married to Hiroto, and we are occasionally sent forward into their life as they reminisce about their high school days ten years ago, and about their now late friend Kakeru.

Orange is a beautiful, hard-hitting story of love, friendship, mental health, and the responsibilities we have to and for one another.It’s a romance manga, for sure, but it’s also so much more. And Ichigo Takano is a genius mangaka for putting together something as beautiful as Orange.

Buy a copy of Orange here!

Snow White with the Red Hair by Sorata Akizuki

Snow White with the Red Hair (Akagami no Shirayukihime) is a shoujo manga that has been running for an awful long time. If you were sold on Orange in part because of how short and tight it is, getting into something like Snow White with the Red Hair is a big ask. But, for many, it’s worth it.

This fantasy shoujo series follows Shirayuki (literally Snow White) a herbalist of the Tanbarun kingdom. Her story, at the beginning, is very loosely inspired by the Snow White fairy tale.

Shirayuki is a refreshingly capable and self-realised female protagonist who turns down the advances of the local Prince Raji. When she scorns him, cuts her hair, and flees, she falls into the company of the neighbouring kingdom’s Prince Zen.

After saving Zen from a poison apple that was sent from Prince Raji and meant for her, she establishes herself as a herbalist of Zen’s royal court and, to the surprise of nobody, a romance between the two slowly blossoms. If you’re a fan of romance and fantasy manga, as well as European fairy tales, Snow White with the Red Hair is a romance shoujo manga right up your alley.

Buy a copy here!

Maid-sama! by Hiro Fujiwara

Maid Sama! (Kaichou wa Maid-sama! or The Class President is a Maid!) is another hugely popular classic romance manga with an unusual premise. The title of the series certainly paints a particular image which, when peeled back, actually reveals a far more mature romance story.

The titular president/maid is our protagonist: Misaki Ayuzawa. As a student at a school that was once only for male students, Misaki has a lot to prove. She rises to the top and becomes student body president. However, Misaki has a student: in order to help support her sick mother, Misaki works part time at a maid cafe. 

When popular boy Takumi Usui finds out the truth, he keeps it to himself. Usui is intrigued by Misaki and the two soon fall in love.

The story continues to twist and turn from here, so I won’t say anything more, but it does continue to throw a few surprising curveballs. They’re dramatic, sure, but also mature and have a lot of social commentary wrapped up in them. Maid Sama! is another classic romance manga, the reputation of which continues to this day.

Buy a copy of Maid-sama! here!

Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori

Like the modern Kaguya-sama, the classic Ouran High School Host Club (Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu) is a shoujo manga that leans hard on comedy to satirise the tropes and themes of the shoujo genre. In the vein of Shakespearean comedy, Ouran High School Host Club centres around a case of mistaken gender identity.

Haruhi is a student of the titulaer Ouran High School. One day, while looking for a place to study, she stumbles upon the unofficial clubroom of the Host Club.

The Host Club is a small group of boys who play host to female clients by entertaining them with tea and cakes. At first, after breaking something valuable, Haruhi has to work off her debt as the club’s errand boy, before eventually becoming a fully-fledged host herself.

Haruhi’s appearance causes the host boys to mistake her for a boy and, even after the truth comes out, they still want her as a host for her natural ability to charm and entertain the girls of the school. It’s a strange story and, as I said, one that will strike a chord with fans of Shakespeare’s comedies. But this is a series that has endured for years and will go on being a firm favourite of many shoujo manga fans.

Buy a copy here!

If you were read to as a little one, it’s pretty likely that your fondest reading memories are of bedtime. The best bedtime stories to read are ones that are like paths to good dreams.

From magical bedtime stories, we get sparks of imagination and beautiful, peaceful dreams.

Bedtime stories are also a wonderful opportunity to teach our children about the variety that human experience has to offer us.

LGBTQ+ Bedtime Stories to Read to Your Little Ones

LGBTQ experiences are the epitome of variety; they exist outside of the normal ways that many of us were taught to live, and they’re all the more beautiful for that.

These LGBTQ bedtimes stories to read right now are all glowing examples of the varied queer experiences so many of us go through.

They’re also inspiring, imaginative tales and stories with valuable lessons to teach your children.

My Shadow is Purple by Scott Stuart

My Shadow is Purple is a beautiful story about the beauty of diversity; about the wonders that lie outside of the needlessly restrictive gender binary.

Our young protagonist has a father with a blue shadow and a mother with a pink shadow, and yet our protagonist’s shadow is purple.

At school, so many boys have blue shadows and girls have pink ones, but not all of them.

One size never fits all, and this illustrated bedtime story celebrates those who don’t, can’t, and should never have to fit into one of two constricting boxes.

For transgender and non-binary readers, this is an uplifting tale that inspires empathy and wonder in young readers.

If you want to really teach your child about the magic of variety, about all the colours that are out there, this is one of the essential LGBTQ bedtime stories to read right now.

Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

Julian is a young boy who, one day, becomes mystified by three women he sees all dressed up like mermaids.

Inspired and mesmerised by their beauty, Julian longs to dress up in beautiful colours and feminine style.

This is a very minimalist bedtime story; its gorgeous imagery carries the story and allows Julian’s heart  to speak louder than words ever could.

This also allows you to add your own flair to the story as you read it, if you like.

Julian is a Mermaid reminds us that there is no right or wrong way to express yourself, or to live your life (as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else).

There are no labels in this book, either; what we have is simply a young boy inspired by feminine beauty who wants to express himself in that way.

This is a truly wonderful and inspiring LGBTQ bedtime story to read right now with your own little ones.

Me and My Dysphoria Monster by Laura Kate Dale and Hui Qing Ang

We at Books and Bao are huge fans of Laura Kate Dale, as a video games critic, a memoirist, a podcaster, and as a transgender trailblazer.

Here, she has teamed up with the incredibly talented illustrator Hui Qing Ang to bring us her first ever children’s book: an uplifting tale about overcoming gender dysphoria.

In a world where we are increasingly aware of, and knowledgeable about, gender dysphoria in trans children, a book like this helps to put complex feelings into simple words.

It does this through an easy-to-comprehend metaphor that every child can follow, whether they suffer with dysphoria or not.

In fact, if they don’t, Me and My Dysphoria Monster is a wonderful lesson in empathy for children who are growing up in an increasingly diverse social landscape.

Gender dysphoria is a very important topic for parents to be aware of, and for that reason, Dale’s book is one of the most important LGBTQ bedtime stories to read, whether you are a child or a parent.

Read More: 18 Best Bookish Podcasts to Listen to Now

Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival

Norman has grown a pair of wings, and he loves them. But he is afraid of what his parents will say; afraid of judgement or rejection or punishment; afraid he is somehow wrong.

Perfectly Norman is a fascinating story. As a transgender person who kept their true identity secret from her parents for fear of rejection, I related to this book in a big way.

However, Perfectly Norman can also be interpreted as a celebration of our individuality, queer or not.

Norman’s wings can easily be a metaphor for gender or sexual orientation. It can also be a metaphor for a curious new hobby or interest; something that sets a child apart from the usual.

This makes Perfectly Norman a broadly relatable story about how fear and shame can cause us to hide who we really are, even though who we are is never a bad thing.

For queer readers, this story will hit extra hard, but we can all relate to Norman’s experiences in one way or another.

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, and Henry Cole

And Tango Makes Three is a touching tale about a gay couple who want a child of their own.

Roy and Silo are two penguins who live in a zoo enclosure, and they have fallen in love. But, as two male penguins, they can’t have a child of their own.

With the zookeeper’s help, their wish might be able to come true.

Given how increasingly normal it is for children around the world to be raised by same-sex couples, it’s important to teach this to children at a young age.

This way, it becomes normalised and they don’t grow up thinking it’s peculiar or out-of-the-ordinary in any way.

And Tango Makes Three, a beautifully illustrated tale about a happy penguin family, is the perfect way to teach such a lesson.

For that reason, this is one of the best LGBTQ bedtime stories to read to your children.

The Pirate Mums by Jodie Lancet-Grant and Lydia Corry

The Pirate Mums isn’t just a story about same-sex parents raising a child. It’s also about aesthetics and hobbies and fashion and expression that’s all outside the norm.

It’s about how there are different ways to live your life, to express yourself, to spend your time, and to raise a child.

This LGBTQ children’s book celebrates adventure and strangeness, expression and queerness.

It’s another wonderful bedtime story that helps to normalise having two mums, but it’s also one full of colour and humour that inspired adventure and wonder.

This is how you write a happy, exciting, wholesome, and celebratory tale of queer families for children to enjoy. One of the most wonderful LGBTQ bedtime stories to read now.

The Prince and the Frog by Olly Pike

Everyone knows the tale of the princess and the frog: a beautiful princess kisses an ugly frog and he transforms back into a handsome prince.

The Prince and the Frog, as its title suggests, flips the script on this story by making it wonderfully gay.

It does more than that, though. By keeping the princess in the story as the extroverted sister to the more introverted prince, it adds a layer of sibling love to the tale.

Now, this is a queer children’s story, as well as one about sibling love and the differences between them.

This is about diversity in more ways than one: in our sexual orientations, in our experiences, our expressions, how we love, and how we play.

One of the most simple, charming, and effective LGBTQ bedtime stories to read to your children.

Red: A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall

This is one of the smartest yet most relatable children’s stories you’ll ever read, and another tale that can be read in different fun ways.

Most obviously, this is a tale of gender identity. A blue crayon has been mistakenly labelled as red. Inside, he is blue but all outward signs point to him being red.

Everyone around him encourages him to be what he seems to be, without seeing what he really is inside.

But this is also a tale that can easily be related to by cisgender readers as well; by neurodiverse people who behave differently, for example.

Or simply by people who have different hobbies. Little boys who don’t want to play football, despite being encouraged to.

The clever ways in which the life and actions of crayons are laced into this story makes it a very funny and charming tale, but it’s also a desperately important one about being true to oneself.

For genderqueer readers, for children with dysphoria, for kids who just feel a little different, Red: A Crayon’s Story is one of the most vital LGBTQ bedtime stories to read right now.

10,000 Dresses by Ewert and Marcus

This is the story of a young trans girl who dreams, every night, of wearing a beautiful dress.

But every morning she wakes up and is seen as and called a girl.

This is also the story of her coming to be understood and helped to realise her true self in her waking hours.

A beautiful trans tale for young readers to enjoy and absorb. 10,000 Dresses is a story for trans kids to empathise with and cis kids to learn from and sympathise with.

Of all the great LGBTQ bedtime stories out there, this is one that hits hard and has a very specific, very poignant lesson to teach about what we are versus what we seem to be.

This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman and Kristyna Litten

This Day in June is a colourful and vibrant celebration of the equally colourful and vibrant queer community around the world.

As its title suggests, this is a book about Pride; about the month of June, in which millions of queer people and our allies dance and sing and dress up and celebrate ourselves and each other.

This particular book also comes with a reading guide that will teach and contextualise plenty of queer history and culture for children and parents alike.

As educational as it is uplifting and celebratory, This Day in June is a beautiful book about love and life and community. An essential book amongst LGBTQ bedtime stories to read to your children.

A Tale of Two Mommies by Vanita Oelschlager and Mike Blanc

Another sweet, heartwarming, and educational queer story about life as a child with two same-sex parents.

This is a simple book that answers simple questions about gender roles within a relationship, especially as parents raising a child.

A Tale of Two Mommies challenges gender roles and expectations, and the toxic heteronormaitve society we were told is normal and proper and ideal.

Uplifting and valuable, this is another essential book on this ever-growing list of wonderful LGBTQ bedtime stories to read to your little ones.

Essential Modern Horror Books

Beyond the library of horror giant Stephen King, there is a wealth of wonderful modern horror fiction out there for you to sink your bloodthirsty fangs into!

Note: As these are the best modern horror books, not only novels, you’re going to find a few short story collections, comics, and manga here as well.

The modern horror books on this list have been gathered up from across the world — from Argentina to Japan — and represent the finest in horror fiction as it exists today (beyond that of Stephen King). Boundaries are being pushed; new kinds of horror are being discovered, poked at and tampered with. Enjoy what you find here, and keep the lights on after you’re done.

Read More: The Best Horror Novels Ever Written

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

With What Moves the Dead, author T. Kingfisher has taken Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, and built upon it. The result is something glorious. It takes a lot of daring to attempt something like this, and Kingfisher should be applauded for not only attempting it, but for also creating one of the finest modern horror books you’ll ever read.

The nameless protagonist from Poe’s original tale has here been given a name and a backstory, and just like in the original, they are on their way to the Usher house in response to a letter from an old friend. What Easton finds there, much like in Poe’s original, is a sick and frail brother-sister pair living in a crumbling estate on a marshy land.

However, in What Moves the Dead, Kingfisher has decided to answers questions raised by The Fall of the House of Usher. The biggest being: what caused all of this sickness and decay? The answer is a genius one, and it creates a wonderfully frightening and compelling “villain” for us to follow and consider.

What Moves the Dead is a truly chilling and disgusting modern horror novel; a gothic delight that builds on Poe’s original tale in so many fantastic and clever ways. An instant classic of the horror genre.

Buy a copy here!

Read More: 15 Best Books About Hell (Devils, Demons & Magic)

The Haar by David Sodergren

Legend of the world of grassroots horror David Sodergren delivers an absolute banger with The Haar, a unique work of terror that features an eighty-four-year-old protagonist, a shapeshifting sea monster, a soulless billionaire, and some unexpected but very welcome romance.

Muriel McAuley has lived in a small Scottish fishing village all her life; her husband was lost to sea a decade ago; and now a rich American wants to raze the village to make way for a golf course. And only the elderly residents of Witchaven have the guts to stand up to him. But as they fall, only Muriel remains. Her and the sea monster she found on the beach.

The Haar is a brilliant work of terror packed with really grotesque moments of body horror and some heartbreaking romantic scenes. A one-of-a-kind horror novel that proves the power of Sodergren’s unique brand of terror.

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

Laura Purcell is the modern queen of horror; a British author who twists and turns all the most beloved tropes, characters, and settings that horror fans love, turning them into something wholly fresh and disgusting. While her second novel, The Corset, is considered by many (this writer included) to be her finest work, her debut novel The Silent Companions is easily her most immediately frightening.

The Silent Companions is easily one of the best modern horror books of this century; a haunted house novel of unique and exciting proportions.

Exceptionally gothic, very reminiscent of Susan Hill and Shirley Jackson, and yet wholly its own beast, The Silent Companions is gothic fiction, historical fiction, and horror all smooshed nicely together.

Our protagonist, Elsie, is pregnant, but her husband is already dead. And so she moves into his family’s country estate, where she feels isolated and lonely, with only her late husband’s cousin to call friend. The thing that haunts this novel is what makes it unique; something we’ve never seen before in the haunted house subgenre of horror fiction. A masterpiece amongst modern horror books.

Buy a copy here!

Shiver by Junji Ito

Japanese mangaka Junji Ito could (and should) easily swipe the horror crown off Stephen King’s head. Nobody in the world does horror and terror like Ito does. While he has written several lengthy horror manga, Ito’s finest works remain his short stories, and the best collection of these stories is easily Shiver.

Junji Ito blends cosmic horror (see his books Sensor and Remina for more proof of that) with the isolation, tension, and surrealism of intimate family horror. His ideas, characters, and narratives are creepy, intense, quietly frightening; his art pairs so beautifully with this as it brings to eerie life the expressions and experiences of his poor characters.

In Shiver we see a family that give into the urge to become living marionette dolls; a plague of flying balloons that look like (and hunt) us; and a house drowning in heat and grease.

It’s hard to go wrong with Junji Ito; he rarely disappoints. But if you really want to experience his finest works (and iconic characters like his terrifying cannibalistic supermodel), you need to check out Shiver immediately. Junji Ito is the true king of horror, and his manga are some of the best modern horror books of all time.

Buy a copy here!

The Hole by by Pyun Hye-young

Translated from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell

The Hole is perhaps one of the most underrated modern horror books you’ll ever read. This is a masterpiece of truly unsettling, nail-biting terror. Film fans should already know that Korean horror movies are a step above everything else, but the same can also be said about Korean horror novels, and The Hole is the best of them.

The Hole begins with a car crash. Our protagonist is fully paralysed, and his wife is dead. His mother-in-law has taken him in to care for him, but she blames him for the death of her daughter.

We must read on helplessly as our protagonist is trapped in his own mind, unable to move or fend for himself. All the while his mother-in-law digs an enormous hole in the garden.

Terror has never been done so well, not by Stephen King or any other horror author. This is tension like you’ve never felt it. If you’re looking for the very best modern horror books, you owe it to yourself to read Pyun Hye-young’s The Hole.

Buy a copy here!

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

This one will be less sugar-coated than the others. Camp Damascus is, straight up, one of the best modern horror books you’ll ever read. A true masterpiece of horror fiction. Author Chuck Tingle is infamous across the internet for writing hilarious, absurdly-named self-published queer erotica about sex with monsters, dinosaurs, and even abstract concepts like time and money.

He is also a strange but wholesome man who hides his identity and makes no secret of the fact that love is what matters in this life, above all else. He believes that love is the ultimate truth. Given that information, it’s quite remarkable how Chuck Tingle has managed to write one of the best horror books of this century so far.

Camp Damascus is set in a relatively insular Montana community, in which people belong to a sect of Evangelical Christians known as the Kingdom of the Pine. This community’s pride and joy is the titular Camp Damascus, the world’s most successful gay conversion camp.

Our protagonist is a teenager named Rose Darling, a proud member of this church. When the novel begins, however, strange things are happening to Rose. During dinner with her parents, after they eagerly tell her to follow her urges and date a boy who likes her, Rose vomits a host of mayflies all over the dining table.

Rose then starts to see a horrifying figure wherever she goes, even at home. This figure is wearing a metal collar and has impossibly long fingers. Soon enough, it even manages to kill someone close to Rose. What is happening to her? Is she being haunted? Possessed? Cursed? Or is this something else entirely?

The novel’s first act is wall-to-wall scares. The second act is about revelations, themes, and understanding. And the third act is a frenzy of action and excitement. Camp Damascus is a wild ride from cover to cover. This is one American horror novel you should not miss out on. A terrifying queer tale about religious indoctrination, love, identity, truth, and so much more.

Buy a copy of Camp Damascus here!

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

Written by Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez, Our Share of Night is nothing short of a political, cosmic horror epic. This 700+ page horror novel blends the Lovecraftian, the Stephen King-esque, and the dark academia genre to create something smart, political, and allegorical.

We begin in the early 1980s, during a period of military dictatorship. Juan is a medium for a powerful cult known as the Order. Now that his son, Gaspar, is showing signs of the same power, Juan is on the road trying to find a way to keep Gaspar away from the Order, and to give his son a better life than he has had.

The Order offers sacrifices to a cosmic god known as the Darkness, and in exchange is able to maintain power, wealth, and privilege, as well as eventually attain immortality. This is a horror novel about the abuse of power, about the rich manipulating the poor and vulnerable, about colonialism and corruption.

As it moves forward, the novel also shifts its tone from the cosmic to more local horror, and eventually to dark academia. This is a masterpiece of modern horror that wears its influences on its sleeve while also being so much greater than the sum of its parts.

Buy a copy here!

Whisper by Chang Yu-ko

Translated from the Mandarin by Roddy Flagg

Whisper is a Taiwanese folk horror story set in the modern day. If you’ve seen and enjoyed the 2022 Taiwanese horror movie Incantation, you’re going to want to read Whisper. This horror novel is very reminiscent of classic Japanese horror movies, as well as the darker side of Japanese and Chinese mythology.

The Japanese connection is fitting because Whisper is also a political novel that prods at the historical relationship between Taiwan and Japan. There are moments of gross body horror here, as well as relieving moments of comedy, and all are handled so exceptionally by the translator, Roddy Flagg.

Our protagonist is a drunk, gambling waste of space; a taxi driver who has all but given up. He and his wife are haunted by a ghost, and that ghost succeeds in killing his wife in the very first chapter (in a very gruesome and unsettling way). The ghost itself first manifests as the talking and singing voice of a Japanese girl, and its presence leads to disaster.

Whisper takes us on a journey across both geography and history, to many different locations as our protagonist continues to be haunted. This is one of those essential modern horror books that gives you everything: creeping dread, gross body horror, twisted imagery, vivid dreams, and paranoid hauntings.

Buy a copy here!

Read More: Essential Taiwanese Books

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

Alison Rumfitt is one of the most unique and exciting voices in modern horror, and Tell Me I’m Worthless isn’t only one of the best modern horror books of this century, but also one of this writer’s favourite novels ever. Tell Me I’m Worthless is a British horror novel by an incredible transgender author, published by a small indie press, and it is singlehandedly shaking up the world of literature, both within and outside of the horror genre.

This is an angry novel that holds a mirror up to the fascistic state of modern day Britain. Our protagonists are a pair of young women who were once friends. At university, they and a third friend spent a night at a haunted house.

Something terrible happened at this house, and the women blame each other for it. They each claim the other sexually assaulted them in this haunted house. Now, one of them is a young trans woman haunted by ghosts that represent the twisted state of modern-day Britain. The other is a TERF who campaigns against the rights of trans people.

The house itself, Albion (get it?), is also a character in its own right, and we learn a lot about its history as the novel progresses. This is an angry, smart, punk, and critical horror novel about trans rights and TERF Island. It’s also an imaginative and bold piece of horror fiction. One of the best modern horror books you’ll ever read.

Buy a copy here!

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

This beautiful, disgusting book collects three stories by author Eric LaRocca. The first and longest is the titular Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, which is an epistolary story comprised entirely of emails and instant messages between two women.

We begin with a woman struggling to pay her rent, and so she is looking to sell an antique apple peeler online. A woman responds to the ad, they exchange a few emails, and the second woman convinces her to keep the antique, and she will just help the destitute woman pay her rent.

In exchange, she must enter into a contract where she does whatever the second woman says, and the story spirals into something quite horrific from there. The second story is set in a world where scientists have proven that there is nothing beyond death.

The son of couple who are going through divorce crucifies himself, and his suicide note simply begs them to remain together, and so they do. The crux of this story takes a cue from The Shining, as the couple then spends the winter taking care of an empty hotel on an isolated island.

The third and shortest story involves a man visiting his elderly neighbour and being wrangled into a series of dangerously escalating dares for money. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a masterfully modern horror book from one of the genre’s rising stars.

Buy a copy here!

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca

Following the huge success of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Met comes this collection of terrifying tales from Eric LaRocca, with a larger emphasis here on body horror. The short horror stories in this collection will make you feel more uncomfortable than you’ve ever felt; you’ll squirm in your seat as you read them. You might even feel a little nauseated.

Take, for example, the titular tale of this collection: The Trees Grew Because I Bled There (also the most aggressively visceral story here). In this story, a woman wheels herself into the house of her lover, a man who has been steadily taking pieces from her for a handful of years. He removed one eye, both her feet, and even her heart.

She offered him these things willingly, and claims to love him dearly. But now he tells her that he loves and is engaged to someone else. She does not take this news well. The story Bodies Are For Burning follows a pyromaniac obsessed with burning things — specifically people — who has been asked to look after her infant niece for a day, and is terrified of what she might let herself do.

The Strange Thing We Become is framed as a series of blog posts from a woman whose wife is undergoing cancer treatment; but this wife is also obsessed with a performance artist who did radical things as acts of protest, including bodily mutilation and self-mummification. Modern horror books are often described as “not for the feint of heart” but that phrase has never been used more accurately than when describing this collection specifically. Tread carefully.

Buy a copy here!

You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca

You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood is a wildly smart, enticing, and layered horror novella that never gets away from itself. This is a collection of transcripts, diary entires, poems, and even a novella within a novella that all works together perfectly. We begin with an editor’s note which explains that everything within this book belonged to a serial killer named Martyr Black, who recorded conversations with his partner, wrote poems, and even had his own novella published.

All of that is presented here in a satisfying cycle. We read a short diary entry, then a poem, then a few chapters of a horror novella, then a transcript, then another diary entry, and as it goes on. The novella within this novella is fantastic: the trippy and claustrophobic tale of a young woman who has been recruited by an enigmatic but beloved video games designer to help him with his newest project.

She brings along her little brother, and her work takes place in this odd man’s enormous gothic home. He has been injured and is bedridden, and his standoffish sister rules the roost. You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood is a bonkers concept that works so well in execution, perfectly demonstrating LaRocca’s imagination and his strengths as a writer, plotter, and editor.

There is nothing quite like this novella; one of the most enigmatic, exciting, and original modern horror books.

Buy a copy of You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood here!

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Grady Hendrix might well be king of the clever horror titles, with each one proclaiming that this is his take on a specific horror sub-genre, and each one being given a dash of humour and cheekiness. My Best Friend’s Exorcism isn’t just a funny title, but one that is also thematically detailed, stating to the reader that this is a horror novel about demonic possession, but also one about friendship.

Hendrix never just writes horror; he blends horror into stories about family feuds, community, young life, and more. Here, Hendrix is tackling the trope of high school drama, smartly setting it in the ’80s when that trope was all the rage.

Our protagonists are two best friends who (as part of a larger group of four girls), met in a clumsy way at age ten and have been mostly inseparable ever since. One night, the four of them decide to try hallucinogenic drugs and one girl, Gretchen, goes missing for the entire night. When Abby finds her best friend, she is different.

Something terrible happened to her during those few hours, and Gretchen is steadily reliving the horrors of it while also losing control of herself, changing, becoming unfamiliar, and even manipulating those around her. This is a story that uses demonic possession as a way to explain and build an allegory for puberty and adolescence, but it is not half as clumsy as that might sound.

This is a frantic, dynamic, satisfying novel that escalates to a frightening crescendo and one of the smartest modern horror novels of the past few years.

Buy a copy of My Best Friend’s Exorcism here!

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Any fan of horror cinema will be familiar with the “final girl” trope: the one young woman left alive at the end of a slasher movie. She’s usually a sweet, innocent virgin. The trope has become an important element of the slasher formula, but also a key ingredient when creating “meta horror”, which at this point is also an exhausted genre of its own.

The Final Girl Support Group is a piece of meta horror that leans hard on the final girl trope, and yet what we have here is something truly exciting, messy, fun, and clever. The titular final girl support group is a collection of middle-aged women who all survived real slasher stories in the ’80s and now meet on a regular basis; their meeting chaired by a famous psychiatrist.

But when the novel begins, one of these final girls doesn’t show up, and we soon learn that she’s dead. A recent slasher incident has also created its first final girl in decades. So begins a slasher about slashers: the story of someone killing off final girls. This is a love letter to the genre while being a thrilling modern horror novel in its own right.

The Final Girl Support Group begins with a fun concept and quickly morphs into a chilling adventure that places it amongst the very best modern horror books.

Buy a copy here!

How to Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Following The Final Girl Support Group, Hendrix wrote his take on the haunted house novel: How to Sell A Haunted House. Like Hendrix’s other novels, this is one of those modern horror books that puts as much of an emphasis on character drama as it does on horror, blending comedy, terror, and family drama together perfectly.

Our protagonist is a single mother named Louise, who is close to forty and living in San Francisco. She learns from her brother back home in South Carolina that their parents have tragically and suddenly died. Leaving her daughter in the hands of her ex, Louise returns home to organise the funeral, the wills, and to sell the home she grew up in, but the house has other plans.

At its heart, this is a tale of grief and familial bonds, as well as the inescapable traumas that families instil in us, to one degree or another. Smart, witty, and a brilliant reflection of sibling rivalries — both as children and as adults — this novel feels like the next step in American horror.

Fans of ghosts, demons, and hauntings will not be left disappointed, but neither will readers who love getting hooked on addictive family drama.

Buy a copy here!

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

Genre fiction legend Stephen Graham Jones has created a smart and subversive homage to the slasher subgenre of horror movie with My Heart is a Chainsaw. But, Jones being a Blackfoot Native American, this modern horror novel is also something that confidently and powerfully shines a spotlight on the legacy of American brutality against his people.

Our protagonist is a young Idaho native named Jade, who is struggling to graduate from high school; her father is abusive, her friends nonexistence, and she has an encyclopaedic knowledge of slasher films. Jade is a walking caricature of angsty teenage life; she quotes horror films, wears heaps of eyeliner, and has accepted her position as the school and community outcast.

When My Heart is a Chainsaw begins, we enjoy a prologue which features a young Dutch couple mysteriously drowning in Jade’s local lake, before then cutting to Jade herself attempting suicide there shortly after. And so begins a literary slasher film.

If you like your modern horror books to be smart, literary affairs with a lot to say; books that play on the horror genre; books that move at a breakneck pace, then this is exactly what you’re looking for. With My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones has penned one of the great modern American horror novels.

Buy a copy here!

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

American author Paul Tremblay has made a big name for himself with some of the best modern horror books of our time, but the best of these is A Head Full of Ghosts. The perfect horror novel for fans of possession narratives, A Head Full of Ghosts begins with a young woman returning to her childhood home.

She is accompanied by an author who wishes to hear, and then writer, Merry’s family’s story. Merry recounts to the author, and to us, the story of how her older sister began to change, showing signs of schizophrenia, before the family eventually became the subject of a cult reality TV show called The Possession.

Multiple perspectives and narrative keep this incredible horror novel moving at a breakneck pace, and the events of this story are truly chilling. This is a real American horror novel, through and through, even down to its iconic rural New England setting. One of the finest modern horror books you’ll ever read.

Buy a copy here!

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Published a few years after A Head Full of Ghosts, Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World elevated his craft even further, showing his skills at their peak. This is a 300-page horror novel in which not a lot actually happens. Only a single day passes, and every moment of that day serves up nail-biting tension.

We begin with a family in a rural New Hampshire cabin: a young adopted girl and her two fathers. Almost immediately, a tall man appears and begins chatting with the girl. He explains that three more people will soon be joining him, and that the four of them must be invited into the cabin.

The are wielding hand-made weapons out of farming tools, and they promise that they will not harm the family. That, in fact, they need the family’s help to prevent the end of the world. This is a novel all about faith and cult mentalities, about scepticism versus blind belief, about conspiracies and signs and how our experiences shape us (for better or worse).

The shifting perspectives, the layers that get peeled back, it all leads to more and more uncertainty and terror from the reader, until it reaches a feverish conclusion.

Buy a copy here!

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

Both a modern horror novel and a mystery thriller, Bad Cree tells the story of a young cree woman in Vancouver whose dreams are seeping into reality. When Mackenzie wakes up one day, she is holding the severed head of a crow, and this isn’t the first time a thing from her dreams has materialised in her waking world.

The dreams themselves are taking her back to a lakeside forest, a place where her older sisters briefly disappeared, before emerging, dishevelled and shaken up, but safe. That is, until one of these sisters, Sabrina, very suddenly died of an aneurysm, and now she seems to be haunting her little sister’s nightmares.

The memories, the haunting, the blurring of dreams and reality all make for some really disturbing and chilling horror, as well as a compelling supernatural mystery. When Mackenzie confesses some of these occurrences to her family, she learns that many of them have powers related to their dreams, and so the plot thickens.

Twisted and chilling as a horror novel, and utterly compelling as a mystery thriller, Bad Cree is a unique spectacle of a novel.

Buy a copy of Bad Cree here!

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

Andrew Joseph White’s third novel continues his upward trajectory into the hallowed halls of American horror fiction. Like his first two books, Compound Fracture sees him exploring the trans-masculine narrative with nuance and dynamism. But what elevates this one even further is the ways it tangles its queer themes nicely with those of generational violence and working-class masculine struggles (reminiscent of Selva Almada’s Brickmakers).

Our protagonist is Miles, a freshly-out sixteen-year-old who has grown up in a West Virginia mining town. For generations, his family has been in a bloody war with another. His parents have seen torment and tragedy at the hands of the local sheriff, and Miles wants to end this violent cycle. But before he can, he’s beaten to within an inch of his life by she sheriff’s son. Now, he wants revenge.

Helping him on that path is the silent ghostly presence of Miles’ own great-grandfather; a socialist miner who was brutally and publicly executed one hundred years ago. Now, Miles must forge his own path of coming out, protecting his family, getting revenge, and ending this cycle of violence.

The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry

Christina Henry is one of several modern American horror authors (Paul Tremblay, Grady Hendrix etc.) who take established themes, tropes, and ideas—ones which have become cliche over the years—and do something fresh and fun with them, or even shows how they can be used to tell a different kind of story. The House That Horror Built is easily one of the best examples of this method being done to brilliant effect.

Our protagonist, Harry, is a thirty-four-year-old single mother living and struggling in Chicago with her teenage son Gabe. After the pandemic, she has taken a cleaning job at a big manor house, which happens to be owned by a reclusive former director of horror movies—films which Harry herself loves, and which she and her son have bonded over. But there is something wrong with this house.

As she gets to know Javier Castillo, and learns about the events in his life that led to his reclusion from society, she begins to wonder what other secrets remain hidden in this house: the locked room upstairs; the thumping sounds; the old horror movie props that decorate the house and seem to move on their own. This is a wonderful homage to the legacy of horror, to the haunted house story, and also a brilliant original tale in its own right.

Orpheus Builds A Girl by Heather Parry

There has never been a modern gothic horror novel that captures the vibe, tone, and character style of the 19th Century gothic period like Heather Parry’s Orpheus Builds A Girl. This is a novel with Frankenstein and Dracula in its veins. A claustrophobic gothic story of science fiction, madness, obsession, and the frightening power of male authority.

Our two narrator-protagonists are the villain, a German doctor named Wilhelm von Tore, and the hero, a Cuban woman named Gabriela. Wilhelm is a “mad scientist” who believes that death is only the beginning, and there is life left beyond it. He becomes obsessed with a sick girl named Luciana (Gabriela’s little sister).

Luciana becomes an object of Wilhelm’s dangerous and deluded romantic obsession, as well as a lab rat for his experimental approach to mastering and overcoming death. Ghostly apparitions and gross, tangible body horror (reminiscent of the aforementioned Frankenstein and schlocky 80s horror movies like Re-Animator) is stitched through this narrative.

This is an unhinged and frighteningly intelligent gothic horror that explores themes of migration, male privilege, sisterhood, and more.

Buy a copy here!

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Every horror fan knows that Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, and that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree when it comes to writing excellent modern horror books. Hill has written novels, short stories, and comic books, but the best of the bunch (for this writer’s money) is NOS4A2.

Much like his father’s fiction, Hill’s NOS4A2 is set in rural New England, and begins in the 1980s with a girl who figures out how to find lost things by riding her bike across a covered bridge. One of her journeys takes her to a library where she meets a woman with the power to predict future events using Scrabble tiles.

She warns our protagonist about the book’s vampiric villain: a kidnapper of children called Charlie Manx, who takes stolen children to a place called Christmasland. NOS4A2 is a creatively strange and engaging horror novel that is wonderfully reminiscent of many of King’s own works, while still refreshingly existing as Hill’s own beast.

Side Note: Hilariously, for us British readers, the novel is spelled NOS4R2 to align with our accents.

Side Note 2: This writer is of the right age to remember a robot vampire character of the exact same name from the cartoon Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.

Buy a copy here!

The Shadow Book of Ji Yun

Translated from the Mandarin by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum

Ji Yun was a famous and well-regarded politician, scholar, poet, philosopher from 18th Century China, and what we have here is a collection of his writings, newly edited and translated by two incredible translators. As the book’s introduction explains, Ji Yun took it upon himself to investigate strange, ghostly happenings and then write them down with a “storytelling flair”.

The result of this is The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, a collection of observations, accounts, and folk tales from 18th Century China. These stories are sometimes creepy and frightening, sometimes strange and eerie, and almost always impossibly weird.

The blurb sums up the vibe by saying: “Imagine if H.P. Lovecraft was Chinese and his tales were true.” That is exactly what you’re getting here. These are stories of the metaphysical and the supernatural. Either Ji Yun experienced them himself or was told them by people he knew or met on his journeys.

In one section of the book, the stories specifically deal with encounters with gods, saints, and mythological beings from Taoist and Buddhist folklore and tradition. While not technically modern, this book still fits into this collection of modern horror books, given that it is freshly collected and translated for us to enjoy here and now, for the first time!

Buy a copy here!

Read More: Essential Chinese Books

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

Korean author Bora Chung is a sensation. A fluent speaker of Korean, English, Russian, and Polish (at least), she also teaches Russian language, literature, and sci-fi studies at Yonsei University. Her accolades go beyond this, but the most important point for us right now is that she writes phenomenal horror and folk tales, like those found in Cursed Bunny.

This is a collection of stories that mangle genre in a playful and twisted way. Sci-fi, fantasy, fairy tales, and most importantly horror fiction are all found here. Cursed Bunny could perhaps best be described as a book of frightening and malformed fairy tales for horror addicts.

The book’s first two stories are unapologetically gross and visceral body horror; twisted, scary, and gross. From here we move into experimental ghost, sci-fi, and fantasy tales. If you’re a fan of weird fiction, of blurring the lines between genres, and of fairy tales, Cursed Bunny is one of the most essential modern horror books you could ever read.

Buy a copy here!

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Manhunt is a curious piece of fiction. It is gross, gory, uncomfortable, visceral, shocking, and punk as all hell. It isn’t, at any point, particularly scary, however. But, like many of the best 80s horror b-movies, it foregoes terror for truly disgusting body horror.

Manhunt is also a plainly angry book. It is a post-apocalyptic narrative that follows a pair of trans women who have survived a plague that specifically targeted testosterone. This plague turned anyone with high levels of testosterone into horny, snarly, mindless zombie-like beasts, which means most cis women, and some trans women and men, were saved.

Our protagonists must fight and hunt and scavenge to survive, while also facing down another threat: TERFs. There is a cult of dangerous transphobes who hunt and lynch any trans women they come across. Manhunt is a horror novel about the mindless, sexual, and physical aggression of men towards women (cis or trans), and about the potential violent endgame of transphobia.

The visceral nature of Manhunt cannot be overstated. This is a book of such violent and bloody imagery that many readers may not be able to stomach it. Horror fans should have no problem with it, and what they’ll find is one of the most daring modern horror books ever written.

Buy a copy here!

The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

American author Chuck Wendig has made a name for himself writing comic books, Star Wars novels, and then his award-winning sci-fi epic Wanderers. And here, with The Book of Accidents, he has proven himself a master of modern horror as well.

The Book of Accidents follows a three-person family who have moved from Philadelphia into the family father’s childhood home, following the death of his own father. Nate’s late father was abusive and callous, and Nate — a former cop — takes joy in seeing his father die. He doesn’t want to inherit the house, but his obligations to his family force him to be responsible.

Nate’s son, Oliver, is a sweet, tender, and empathetic teenager. We watch him make friends with the local nerds at his school, and eventually meet a far rougher punk kid who might tempt him down a darker path. It doesn’t take long before strange things start happening in and around the house: images and noises that all point to a typical haunting; this story, however, is far from typical.

The Book of Accidents is a modern horror novel that tests family ties, that explores inherited trauma and cycles of abuse, and also blends the genres of horror and science fiction together in unexpected ways.

Buy a copy of The Book of Accidents here!

A Good House for Children by Kate Collins

On its surface, A Good House for Children is a traditional haunted house novel, but at its core its a novel about what parenthood asks and demands of us. This modern horror novel presents us with a dual narrative: the late 2010s and the mid 1970s, both set in the same place: a lonely house known as The Reeve, which sists on the cliffs of Dorset, on England’s south coast.

In 2017, a married couple with two children move from Bristol to The Reeve, the man of the family insisting it’ll be good for their mute son to be out in the fresh and open air. In 1976, a woman from London moves in with a family whose patriarch has died, and her job as nanny is to care for the big brood of four children: an eldest boy, twin girls, and a baby boy who was born after his father passed.

Both timelines present us with a haunting; The Reeve twists the minds of its residents, making them see things and doubt their senses. And eventually, a curse will guarantee the tragic death of a child. A Good House for Children is a spine-chilling modern horror novel that plays with the tropes and traditions of the haunted house narrative in engaging and tantalising ways.

Buy a copy here!

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Motherthing is an intense and unsettling modern horror novel that explores the toxic, demanding, and unhealthy relationships between in-laws. Our protagonist is a Canadian woman named Abby whose husband has asked if they can move in with his mother to take care of her, since her physical and mental health is declining.

When the book opens, however, Ralph’s mother takes her own life, and her ghost begins to haunt the basement. We frequently flash back to Abby’s relationship to her abusive mother-in-law, as well as her own troubled childhood with her love-obsessed and abused mother.

The tension and the horror builds to a bloody conclusion as Motherthing examines the toxicity of female relationships, and the ways in which patriarchy puts pressure on the roles of women. Motherthing has so much to say about the creepy relationships that often tether mothers to their sons, as well as the strain that family puts on a person and on a marriage.

This is also a novel that blends blood, ghosts, delusional terror, and knife-edge tension spectacularly well.

Buy a copy here!

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell

Mariana Enriquez is one of Argentina’s finest modern writers. She takes modern politics and feminism, blends them together with folk traditions and superstition, and creates something refreshingly unique and powerful. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is a spine-chilling collection of modern gothic short stories. These tales focus around ghosts and hauntings, cults and witches, curses and cursed places.

If you’re a fan of the ways in which horror blends with gothic fiction, you can’t do better than The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Take the story Meat, which begins with an Argentinian rock star with a cult following of obsessed teenagers.

When he kills himself (in the most brutal fashion) in a hotel room, the media predicts a slew of copycat suicides. Instead, something far darker and stranger follows. The Well follows a woman who, as a young girl, was taken to a witch by the seaside to watch as her sister and mother had their anxieties exorcised.

As an adult with her own crippling anxieties, she and her sister return to the witch only to learn the truth of what happened that day. The stories found in this collection are haunting, inducing fear and paranoia and hopelessness in the reader. A powerful collection, and one of the best modern horror books on the shelves.

Buy a copy here!

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

The Grip of It is one of those rare modern horror books with a literary twist. Its language is considered and weighted; sometimes cryptic and often evocative. This is a haunted house novel built around vagueness. It invited the reader to contemplate the reasons behind every event and every mystery, and the results of doing so are wonderfully satisfying.

The Grip of It is set in modern-day USA. Julie and James are a couple who have decided to leave the city and buy their first home out in the countryside, because James has been struggling with a gambling addiction. As soon as they’re all moved into their large house at the edge of a forest, they start to forget who arranged the viewings, and the name of the real estate company. Memories of getting the place slip away.

Then the house itself starts to toy with them. Rooms grow and shift and move. Noises have no source. People they meet tell them conflicting stories about the history of that house and its previous residents. The novel’s narrative shifts back and forth between Julie and James, both written in the present tense to give the narrative immediacy and momentum. And the terror gradually amps up with the mystery.

The Grip of It is a dizzying and claustrophobic literary horror novel that plays with your senses and your expectations brilliantly.

Buy a copy of The Grip of It here!

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

The Last House on Needless Street is a nerve-shredding, spine-chilling psychological thriller that will send you down into a deep, dark labyrinth of confusion, paranoia, and disorientation. This horror-thriller puts you in the mind of Ted, a lonely and isolated man who lives in the titular last house on Needless Street.

Ted is unemployed and lives with his cat, Olivia, and his daughter Lauren. After spending some time with Ted, we also soon get to see the world through Olivia the cat’s eyes. Eleven years ago, Ted was a prime suspect in the disappearance of a young girl at a nearby lake (one of many). Since then, he has lived a solitary life.

However, that missing girl’s sister, another POV character in this story named Dee, is still on the hunt for her sister and the kidnapper, and the trail is leading her back to Ted. But surely Ted didn’t do it? That would be too obvious.

This really is a mind-bending thriller. You’ll guess a thousand times at what is really going on; which narrator is unreliable and how and why. You might even guess right, but you’ll enjoy the ride regardless.

This is one of those modern horror books that so seamlessly blends the horror of gore and claustrophobia with the tension of a good psychological thriller.

Buy a copy here!

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Through the Woods is a wonderfully fresh and unique take on horror. A collection of horror short stories, reminiscent of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, but all drawn with a dreamlike flair. Carroll embraces the unknown and the unknowable with her stories; they are tales that thingle the spine and rarely reach a satisfying conclusion, leaving the reader feeling cold and alone.

But Through the Woods is also a comic book, and the twisted, ethereal nature, as well as the emphasis on black, white, and red, gives this book a nightmarish visual quality. If you’re a fan of comic books, short stories, gothic tales, and a hefty dose of dread in your horror, Through the Woods is one of the best modern horror books you can pick up and read right now.

Buy a copy here!

A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll

After the sensational success of her horror comic collection, Through the Woods, Emily Carroll brings readers the spine-chilling haunted house graphic novel A Guest in the House. The story follows Abby, newly married to David (whose first wife tragically died) and doing her best to be a good stepmother to Crystal. But Crystal insists that she gets visited by her late mother at night sometimes.

Soon enough, Abby comes to understand what Crystal is talking about, and the haunting begins. But there is so much buried truth to dig up. And elevating the horror and gothic tension of the story is Carroll’s unmistakeable and unique art, which is utilised brilliantly here. The majority of the art is black and grey, with splashes of colour at pivotal moments or during dream sequences. Exquisite.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

The debut novel by an author who has already cut her teeth on imaginative and visceral short stories, Our Wives Under the Sea is a powerful modern gothic novel. The dual-narrative story follows a lesbian couple, one of whom is sent on an expedition in a submarine to the bottom of the sea.

While the expedition should last a few weeks, she and the crew are stranded there for six months. Her narrative is a claustrophobic and tense one, with a Lovecraftian fear of the unknown knocking at the walls of the submarine with every page turn.

When she finally returns, however, she is no longer herself, and her wife must make peace with the fact that the woman she loved is gone, replaced by something else. Our Wives Under the Sea is a contemporary gothic horror novel about how we grieve, and the fact that we can grieve badly.

It’s a claustrophobic story, set in a cramped submarine and an equally cramped apartment, with the unknown and the terrifying always within arm’s reach.

Buy a copy here!

Lost in the Garden by Adam S. Leslie

This folk horror tale takes readers on a fever-dream journey across the English landscape, in a time of perpetual summer where the dead are rising as corporeal and violent ghosts.

English kids are raised on the old warning: never go to the village of Almanby. But Heather’s boyfriend has done just that, and he’s been gone too long. And so, Heather invites her friends Rachel and Antonia to join her on a trip to that forbidden village.

Rachel has to visit anyway, because she has a package to deliver, and Antonia is following Heather there because she is secretly in love with her. The road trip will be difficult, and as they approach Almanby, impossible things will start to happen.

This is an eerie tale that begins creepy and gently dials up its surreal atmosphere to eleven. This is a folk horror tale unlike any other, and would be right at home as an A24 flick.

The Gingerbread Men by Joanna Corrance

Published by the fine folks at Scotland-based indie publishing house Haunt, Joanna Corrance’s novel The Gingerbread Men is a fantastically gothic fairy tale for adults. We begin at a Christmas market in Edinburgh, where protagonist Eric is suddenly and inexplicably drawn away from his fiancee by the allure of a woman named Delia.

Showing no regret for his actions, however uncharacteristic, Eric is taken in a taxi to a remote hotel in the Scottish highlands; a place that never sees any guests and the snow never stops falling. Enchanted by Delia’s spell, Eric remains at this hotel for weeks. Those weeks become months, and soon enough Christmas rolls back around.

Only men work at the hotel, and they occasionally pass the time by telling horror stories, which we also get to enjoy. These stories act as allegories and warning signs against Delia, the hotel, and the power she seems to have over them.

Eric considers leaving, but fails, and quickly falls into a comfortable life at this labyrinthine place, under the spell of the enigmatic Delia. Blending the tropes of classic fairy tales with the horror of an unknowable, claustrophobic, and gothic environment, The Gingerbread Men is a nightmare of a novel that sets the reader on edge and keeps them there until the end.

Buy a copy of The Gingerbread Men here!

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud

Nathan Ballingrud’s short horror/sci-fi novella is a hefty return to the world of pulp genre fiction. Set in an alternative 1920s, and reminiscent of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (who is referenced here), Crypt of the Moon Spider follows Veronica, who has just arrived on the moon; she struggled with depression and so her husband is abandoning here at an asylum.

This asylum was built atop a cave which astronomers discovered decades ago, and in that cave was the corpse of an enormous spider. Now, the silk that it left behind is used in operations and experiments on the asylum’s inmates, and Veronica is about to become the next experiment for Dr. Cull and his assistant Charlie to play around with. What does this spider silk do? What are they trying to accomplish?

Crypt of the Moon Spider is a strange and surreal novella that leaves the reader with a deep feeling of unease. Not everything makes sense; it all feels off-balance, shrouded, and unnerving. You’ll be drenched in discomfort and a victim of heavy claustrophobia as you read. It’ll be over soon, but the ride is unforgettable.

Sisters by Daisy Johnson

Daisy Johnson’s Sisters is a tiny novel; a short piece of dreadful gothic horror. Our protagonists are a pair of teenagers, two girls, whose mother has moved them north from Oxford to a big, empty house in the Yorkshire countryside.

Their mother is a children’s book author who is struggling with depression and exhaustion. The girls are left to play alone and entertain themselves. All the while, the reason for their move — some terrible incident at school — hangs over them like the sword of Damocles, and we must wonder what in the world happened.

This is a modern twist on the haunted house genre of horror, one that explores trauma and shared pain within a family that is cracked but still held together, however poorly.

Buy a copy here!

The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

British author Andrew Michael Hurley has penned a few excellent gothic horror novels, but his debut The Loney remains this writer’s favourite. The titular Loney is an isolated and lonely stretch of beach in Lancashire where the majority of this novel takes place.

A family (mother, father, and two sons) come up to the Loney every year from London, along with their local parish priest. This is a pilgrimage, and here they pray, mostly for their one son who is mysteriously mute.

This is a gothic horror novel all about mysteries piled on top of mysteries. Questions surround the family, the Loney itself, their faith, and the strange locals that live in the area year-round. The Loney is all about atmosphere. The bleak, gloomy, isolated, cold world of this forgotten corner of England is an unsettling place that strikes fear without actually doing anything at all.

Buy a copy here!

Severed by Scott Snyder, Scott Tuft, and Attila Futaki

Written by comic book legend Scott Snyder (whose run on Batman is legendary, as is his vampire comic American Vampire), Severed is a fantastic piece of American horror. Set in 1916, the story follows a boy named Jack who runs away from his warm, loving home to find his “real” father.

Jack hops on a train and hitchhikes his way across the US, while being hunted by a monstrous, cannibalistic killer. This is a thrilling cat-and-mouse story set on the open road of pre-war America. It has hefty Stephen King vibes but also manages to stand on its own as an original horror comic.

The book’s framing device begins with an older Jack telling us the story of what happened on that journey and how he lost an arm along the way. And this is all expressed through some stunningly textured and rich art by Attila Futaki.

With a little blood and a lot of terror, this is an excellent piece of dark, unsettling American horror.

Buy a copy here!

The Lost Ones by Anita Frank

Set during World War I, The Lost Ones is a historical piece of gothic horror fiction very reminiscent of the works of Laura Purcell and Susan Hill. Our protagonist is a tortured young widow who lost her husband during the war, which she herself worked through as a nurse.

She has now moved in with her pregnant sister in her impressive country manor, but it’s here that the horrors unfold. Stella hears footsteps and crying: the sounds of a child haunting the house. And she becomes obsessed with who the child was and what happened to them.

This is a novel that blends horror, gothic drama, and mystery into a delicious cocktail of intrigue and dread. One of the most engaging modern horror books of recent years.

Buy a copy here!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Wilder Girls is unique on this list of modern horror books in the sense that it’s the only YA novel here. And, in true horror fashion, it blends with other genres as well. Those genres include post-apocalyptic fiction, sci-fi, and “pandemic fiction”.

This YA horror novel is set on an island off the coast of Maine. This island is home to the Raxter School for Girls, which has been put under quarantine after the breakout of a virus called the Tox.

The Tox has taken the lives of several students and teachers, and those who haven’t died have been physically mutated in painful and gruesome ways. These mutations are described with rawness and grit, making the reader squirm with discomfort.

Our protagonist, Hetty, leads us on a journey to uncover the mysteries of this virus, and the quarantine itself, after her best friend Byatt disappears following a “flare-up” of the virus. There is more going on here than meets the eye, and Hetty is willing to endanger herself (and her friend Reese) to find answers, and to find Byatt.

Buy a copy here!

Essential Science Fiction Manga

If you are a manga fan interested in reading more sci-fi manga, or you’re a sci-fi fan who wants to see what manga has to offer, right here is the best sci-fi manga to check out.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo

It is impossible to overstate the impact of Akira, not only on the landscape of manga and anime, but on pop culture as a whole — within and beyond Japan’s borders. Akira is one of the best sci-fi manga of all time, though it is often overshadowed by its anime film adaptation (which is of course also one of the best anime of all time).

What’s interesting about that, however, is that both were created by Katsuhiro Otomo. This genius wrote and drew the original manga before adapting it to screen and directing it. There is, frankly, nobody in the world of anime and manga with a diversity of talent and vision like that of Katsuhiro Otomo.

Akira is a defining work of the cyberpunk subgenre of sci-fi manga, comics, film, and TV. We begin in 2019, following the rebuilding of Tokyo after the city was wiped out in the 1980s during the third world war.

Neo-Tokyo is a gritty, dangerous place of corruption and gang warfare. Our protagonists are Kaneda and Tetsuo, members of one of these gangs: the Capsules. Following a clash with a rival gang, the two are swept up into a world of experimentation, government conspiracy, ESP-wielding test subjects, and world-threatening power.

There is too much to say about Akira that could fit here. This is one of the most talked-about sci-fi manga and anime in history; dissected and discussed a million times over. It is something that must be experienced and enjoyed again and again; each new read or watch revealing new layers of thematic and political depth. A revolutionary work of fiction, Akira is one of the best (if not the very best) sci-fi manga of all time.

Buy a copy here!

Knights of Sidonia by Tsutomu Nihei

A thousand years ago, our solar system was destroyed by an unknowable alien race we call the Gauna. Now, a ship called Sidonia carries the remnants of the human population across the reaches of space, defending itself against the attacking Gauna with large weaponized mechs.

These mechs, known as Gardes, are piloted by trained humans who keep the Gauna at bay as the Sidonia continues its journey. Our protagonist is Nagate Tanikaze, a young man raised underground by his grandfather. Every day, Tanikaze trains for mecha combat in VR pods, until his grandfather passes away.

In search of food, Tanikaze is arrested, trained, and quickly recruited to pilot a mech against the attacking Gauna. His journey from isolated boy who can’t photosynthesise like other people to Garde pilot is quick, wasting no time in getting us to the meat of the story.

Not being able to photosynthesise, and therefore needing to eat a lot, is one thing that makes Tanikaze an outlier, but early on he also meets Izana Shinatoze, a non-binary character who is able to reproduce with men, women, and even asexually. Knights of Sidonia is a dynamic and beautifully drawn sci-fi manga that combines the enigmatic and frightening mysteries of deep space with the excitement of mecha manga.

The design of the terrorising and chilling Gauna is excellent, subtly evoking the concepts made famous by H.P. Lovecraft. Nihei’s design chops are also seen in the mechs, environments, fashion, engineering, and even the void of space.

The spaces within Sidonia, however, are designed after the Japan we’re familiar with: homes with tatami, soba restaurants, and izakaya. There’s a tangible weight to the details of Nihei’s designs that really immerses you in this world; it adds dimension to the story and lore that is incredibly satisfying.

This is a sci-fi manga that really demonstrates what the medium can do for the genre, and it also proves why Tsutomu Nihei is such a legend of sci-fi manga.

Buy a copy here!

Read More: The Best Sci-Fi Books Ever Written

Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei

Blame! (pronounced like “blam” in Japanese — ブラム) is another epic sci-fi manga by the legendary Tsutomu Nihei. While in many different ways, this sci-fi manga is very different to, and slightly more famous than Knights of Sidonia, it is written and drawn with a similar approach.

Nihei excels at environmental storytelling, letting his environments, layouts, and character designs speak for him. This can be seen in Knights of Sidonia and even more so in Blame! Nihei is aware of the power that the visual medium of manga has, and uses it to its utmost potential when telling a science fiction narrative.

In that way, Blame! is reminiscent of other legendary manga like Berserk and the lesser-known Witch Hat Atelier. As for its story, Blame! is set in an unfathomably large metallic superstructure that sits within our solar system, and is known only as The City.

This technological labyrinth is traversed by protagonist Killy, who is seeking a way to stop the endless expansion of The City and the eradication of humanity at the hands of a robot horde. Humans, some genetically altered and others not, live in tribes across the city which live under threat of the Safeguard robots.

Killy hopes to access The City’s control network and is on a quest to find the key to that network. It’s an epic quest across a hauntingly large place full of deadly dangers and roadblocks. Big sci-fi ideas are brought to life through vividly detailed art. A sci-fi manga masterpiece.

Buy a copy here!

Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro

Before it was adapted to the screen in a flashy, fun, and ludicrously expensive Hollywood film, Battle Angel Alita was an iconic 90s sci-fi manga. One of the defining cyberpunk stories of an era where cyberpunk was everywhere (thank you, Akira), Battle Angel Alita remains beloved among manga readers.

In a post-apocalyptic future, the world has been rebuilt; cybernetic enhancements and robotics are now the norm. Our protagonist is the titular Alita, a cyborg who was found discarded on a trash heap with her memories lost. The man who finds her — a doctor of cybernetics — restores Alita, after which she finds that the one thing she remembers is how to fight.

This revelation leads Alita to put her skills to use as a bounty hunter, and this sends her off on a journey through her own past, to rediscover her origins and what they mean for the wider world.

Battle Angel Alita is a 90s manga, inside and out, especially in its exaggerated aesthetics, with a narrative and character roster lightly drizzled with camp and flair. This is a legendary sci-fi manga, as fun and timeless as it is impactful.

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Planetes by Makoto Yukimura

Mangaka Makoto Yukimura is arguably best known for his epic historical manga Vinland Saga, a Viking saga of staggering size and scope. Vinland Saga is an enormous undertaking that really showcases the dedication of its creator and the power of the medium of manga to tell a story so grand as that one.

But Yukimura’s first foray into the artform was with the celebrated sci-fi manga Planetes (プラネテス). While the term “hard sci-fi” might not quite fit this manga, it is certainly a more grounded sci-fi story than a space opera or space fantasy narrative.

Our protagonists work for the Technora Corporation as part of its clean-up division. Their job is to prevent damage to satellites and space stations from debris. They’re a team whose work is patronised and ignored by other divisions; the position reminiscent of that of Kaiju No. 8’s Kafka.

But the development of human relationships, both between individuals as well as the bigger relationship between humanity and the unknown, is reminiscent of the stories of modern sci-fi author Becky Chambers.

This is a sci-fi manga that explores big themes and questions on a smaller, and more intimate scale; something wonderfully unique within the genre of sci-fi manga. It’s incredibly refreshing to read a sci-fi narrative set in space that doesn’t involve war and interplanetary politics, but instead focuses on small-scale interactions and intimate character relationships.

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Kaiju No. 8 by Naoya Matsumoto

There’s an argument to be made that kaiju are at the centre of Japanese pop culture, especially if you consider 1954’s Gojira (Godzilla) to be the beginning of Japan’s domination of global pop culture. Kaiju are in the blood of Japanese pop culture, and to see a new spin on them in one of the best sci-fi manga around is an absolute thrill.

Naoya Matsumoto’s Kaiju No. 8 is set in a world where kaiju run amok in Japan’s cities, rampaging and killing. Taking them down one by one is the Kaiju Defense Force: a military group armed with state-of-the-art weapons and armour.

Our protagonist, a washed-out 32-year-old man named Kafka, is not a member of the Kaiju Defense Force. Instead, he works as a cleaner whose job is to deal with the corpses of defeated kaiju by disposing of them, bit by bit. Rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that Kafka’s childhood friend, Mina Ashiro, is one of the Defense Force’s most deadly and accomplished kaiju killers.

During this sci-fi manga’s very first chapter, however, Kafka — along with newbie cleaner Reno Ichikawa — narrowly escapes being devoured by a kaiju, winds up in hospital, and there becomes host to a big kaiju bug that forces itself down Kafka’s throat. Before it does so, the kaiju speaks. “I found you” is all it says.

Swallowing the kaiju bug causes Kafka to transform his body into that of a kaiju. He maintains his human consciousness and his ability to communicate, but the average person flees in terror. Inspired by his new friend Ichikawa’s tenacity, as well as his own success at protecting a child from a kaiju using his bare kaiju fists, Kafka decides to try one more time for the Defense Force.

Together, Kafka and Ichikawa take the gruelling and dangerous exams and, all the while, Kafka must hide his new kaiju form and the two must measure themselves against far more competent Defense Force applicants. Kaiju No. 8 is easily one of the best sci-fi manga thanks, in part, to its comedy timing, Matsumoto’s crisp and clean artistry and composition, and its imagination when it comes to monster, weapon, and armour design.

Kafka himself also does a lot of the heavy lifting. He’s a sweet and charming protagonist. Older than most (if not all) shonen protagonists, Kafka is a breath of fresh air.

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SHWD by Sono.N

SHWD (short for Special Hazardous Waste Disposal and pronounced like “should”) is a science fiction yuri manga set in a world infested by wandering bioweapons. All we know about these dynamis to begin with is that they are remnants of a previous war, and now they show up at random and wreak havoc by emitting an electromagnetic pulse that turns civilians mad with confusion and rage.

The titular SHWD is a private military company founded in the US, and its operatives work to put dangerous dynamis down when they appear. Our protagonist, Koga, is a butch young woman who has thought of nothing but joining SHWD since she encountered a dynamis as a child. Now, she is being trained by the experienced and stoic Sawada, on whom Koga gradually develops a crush.

The sci-fi and yuri elements of this manga grow and develop gradually as Koga gets closer to her superior, and as she learns more about her responsibilities at SHWD. Focus is placed on their relationship, but not at the expense of moments of combat, excitement, and drama.

Buy a copy of SHWD here!

The Promised Neverland by Posuka Demizu & Kaiu Shirai

The Promised Neverland is a shonen manga that bucks convention by blending the genres of sci-fi, dystopia, horror, mystery, and even more besides. Set (at first) in an idyllic country manor called Grace Field House, the series follows a group of orphans who have all grown up under the watchful eye of Isabella, their “Mother”.

Our protagonists are the three eldest orphans, twelve-year-olds Emma, Norman, and Ray. This sci-fi manga’s very first chapter reveals the truth of Grace Field House: that the world outside is run by monstrous demons and that their home is a farm for raising humans as cattle. Thus begins a desperate escape attempt consisting of tactical mind games against Isabella.

The reason why The Promised Neverland is so important is that it shifts from genre to genre as the story progresses, beginning as horror and shifting into sci-fi as it goes.

The Promised Neverland elevates the genre of shonen manga to new heights entirely. It explores outside the box that the shonen genre has placed itself in. Its plot and setting feel reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. At least, at the beginning.

But The Promised Neverland grows and evolves like no other manga out there. This is also another series with an anime adaptation. But, as I’ve already mentioned in greater detail here, the manga is far better thanks, in part, to Demizu’s superior eye for capturing horror in a single shot.

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Gantz by Hiroya Oku

Gantz (or, if you prefer, GANTZ) is one of the most famous and celebrated sci-fi manga of all time, and for good reason. This seinen manga ran for a whopping thirteen years and, after its completion, spans thirty-seven volumes of sci-fi grandeur.

Gantz also remains mangaka Hiroya Oku’s best work, and is a bleak piece of action sci-fi celebrated by the manga community. Our protagonists are Kei and Masaru, two high school students who die in a train accident and are posthumously recruited to hunt and kill aliens.

Though “recruited” might not be the right word, as the titular Gantz tells them, and the other recruits, that their lives have been forfeited to him post-death. The missions that Kei, Masaru, and the others are sent on provide them with points, and the whole situation is set up like a game.

When those points reach 100, the participant can choose to spend them in different ways, one of which being to revive a lost participant if they die during a mission. Gantz is a manga reminiscent of many other sci-fi properties across anime, literature, and cinema, but it also manages to stand out on its own and carve out a lasting legacy in the world of sci-fi manga.

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20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa

20th Century Boys is a legendary sci-fi manga series, talked about in the same breath as manga and anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Arguably, however, 20th Century Boys also shares some DNA with the works of Haruki Murakami, with its sprinklings of surrealism, love of cults, and frequent pop-culture references.

Just like Murakami, Naoki Urasawa loves to reference other works of literature and the rock music of his youth. The story follows Kenji, who in the 90s is managing his own convenience store and has just heard about the suicide of a childhood friend.

That suicide was linked to a mysterious and dangerous cult that shares a lot of similarities to a collection of “prophecies” that Kenji and his friends cooked up in the hideout as children. Where the story goes from here, especially as the cult is concerned, is enormous. The way the narrative grows from the intimate to the global is truly staggering.

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Pluto by Naoki Urasawa

After taking over the world of manga with the groundbreaking 20th Century Boys, Naoki Urasawa brought us the sci-fi manga Pluto. Fascinatingly, Pluto is a kind of murder-mystery reimagining of an arc of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy.

Tezuka was arguably the most influential force in manga history, thanks to works like Dororo, Kimba the White Lion (hello The Lion King), and the aforementioned Astro Boy. Sci-fi cinema fans with a love for Bladerunner and even the film adaptation of I-Robot are going to want to check this sci-fi manga out.

Our protagonist, Gesicht, is a detective working for Europol, and he is currently investigating a string of deaths — both human and robot. And all signs point to a robot being the culprit.

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Deadman Wonderland by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou

Ten years after an earthquake sinks most of Tokyo into the sea, a survivor of that earthquake with no memory of the event is living an ordinary life in Nagano. However, that all changes when Ganta’s entire class is butchered by a blood-soaked stranger who leaves Ganta alive and takes him to a prison/theme park: the titular Deadman Wonderland.

At Deadman Wonderland, Ganta is forced to engage in various dangerous activities and lethal “games” that reward him with an antidote to the poison which is being constantly pumped into his bloodstream. Deadman Wonderland is a sci-fi manga perfect for fans of Black Mirror. It’s not as thematically and philosophically dense as some other sci-fi stories, but it is a frantic and frenetic good time.

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Orange by Ichigo Takano

Orange is rather unconventional, as the best sci-fi manga go, in that it is perhaps more of a slice-of-life manga and a literary examination of human relationships and mental health. But claiming that sci-fi as a genre should lack human connection and literary themes is, obviously, asinine.

What makes this one of the best sci-fi manga is its unique approach to the time travel trope, which is used as a tool to explore the idea of correcting our mistakes and righting our wrongs. Orange is told through the eyes of its main protagonist, Naho, a second year high school student who befriends a transfer student from Tokyo named Kakeru.

Before we meet Kakeru, the day begins with Naho receiving a letter from someone who claims to be her from ten years in the future. This time-travelling letter includes instructions on how to save Kakeru, something that the Naho of the future failed to do, and has had to live with that regret.

And so it is up to the young Naho to fix her future self’s mistakes, with the help of her friends. Orange is a heart-rending sci-fi manga with a focus on the importance and power of a found family, and what our friends can do for us, how they can save us.

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Made in Abyss by Akihito Tsukushi

This richly detailed and imaginatively realised sci-fi manga begins in a town at the edge of an enormous gaping hole that leads down into the centre of the world: the titular abyss. Many residents of this town are adventurers who explore the depths of the abyss, and our young protagonist Riko is one of them.

Riko lost her mother, a renowned explorer, to the abyss, and now she wishes to follow in her mother’s footsteps. While exploring the first level of the abyss, Riko meets a robot boy who must surely have been created within the abyss itself, and it’s Reg’s unique abilities that help Riko conquer the abyss at such a young age.

As a robot, Reg has abilities that would make him a fun platformer video game protagonist. He can extend his arms like Inspector Gadget, shoot powerful lasers, and more. The design of the abyss itself is incredible, and the real star of one of the best sci-fi manga.

Reminiscent of the writings of sci-fi godfather Jules Verne, this is a story that explores and relishes in the unknown, just like much of history’s best sci-fi does. The mangaka takes great pleasure in carving out a lusciously realised world of incredible flora and fauna, harkening back to the adventuring pulp sci-fi of decades past.

The mysteries in the deepest depths of the abyss keep you glued to the page, as does the safety of these young adventurers. Their relationship and the things they see latch you to this sci-fi manga’s story and refuse to let you go.

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Space Brothers by Chūya Koyama

Chūya Koyama’s beloved modern sci-fi manga, which currently spans more than forty collected volumes, is a charmingly fresh approach to the world of sci-fi storytelling. Similar to the dynamic seen in the above Kaiju No. 8, this manga follows two protagonists: one who managed to achieve his dreams, and one who hasn’t. Yet.

The protagonists here, however, are brothers who, as children, witnessed what they believed to be an alien spacecraft. This ignited in them a dream of heading out into space. One brother manages this dream, becoming a fully-fledged astronaut, and the other has so far been unsuccessful, but this is all about to change.

Space Brothers is a very intimate and warming seinen manga that takes its own approach to the genre, as well as to tone and pacing that really allows it to stand on its own.

Buy a copy here!

This attitude towards fantasy manga isn’t particularly exciting, so the series’ you’ll find here all have their own unique takes and spins on the fantasy formula.

The Best Fantasy Manga of All Time

These fantasy manga range from big hitters to cult darlings, from the grimmest and darkest fantasy to the more hopeful and playful kind. Some of these fantasy manga are shonen; others are seinen; some are neither! A few definitely fit the “adult manga” criteria. Regardless of their designation, all of these are inventive, smart, and exciting fantasy manga that you should be reading right now!

Read More: The Best Fantasy Books of All Time

Berserk by Kentaro Miura

To start with any other fantasy manga would feel like some kind of betrayal to Kentaro Miura’s legacy. There is no greater fantasy or seinen manga than Berserk. This is not up for debate. If you’re looking to read more fantasy manga and you don’t start with Berserk, you’re making a big mistake.

Berserk is a long-running seinen dark fantasy manga by the late, great Kentaro Miura. It follows the troubled life of Guts, the man who typified the big-massive-oversized-sword trope in Japanese manga, anime, and video games. We begin the story of Berserk in medias res, with Guts killing monsters, haunted by demons, and doing a terrible job of making friends. He is cold, distant, and ruthless. The perfect antihero.

If you stick with the series, you’ll soon be transported all the way back to the Black Swordsman’s birth and youth, and his time with the Band of the Hawk. The world-building, character writing, and general aesthetics of Berserk are iconic, having inspired countless other tales since its inception (the most famous of which probably being the Dark Souls series of video games.

Much like how fantasy author Joe Abercrombie has come to define grimdark fantasy fiction, Kentaro Miura defined dark fantasy manga with Berserk. Nothing else even comes close.

Buy a copy of Berserk here!

Ragna Crimson by Daiki Kobayashi

Ragna Crimson is epic in every sense of the word. It’s a fantasy manga that puts dragons centre-stage and makes them a fearful force to be reckoned with. In the world of Ragna Crimson, dragons are our natural predators. Most are wild and dangerous animals, but some have human intelligence and even resemble us.

Our protagonist is the titular Ragna, a weak-bodied but strong-willed boy who works as sidekick to the powerful dragon hunter Leo: a cute twelve-year-old girl. Leo saved the orphan Leo from a gang and now he does what he can to help and learn from her. When a string of devastating dragon attacks start levelling human cities, Ragna is visited in a dream by his future self: a scarred and powerful man who has lost everything on the road to power.

Ragna’s future self explains that he will lose Leo, gain more comrades, and lose them too. Eventually he will become the strongest there is, but with nobody left to protect. And so he offers the young Ragna his strength, so that he can better protect and fight back decades before he should be able to.

Ragna Crimson is a boldly drawn, explosive, and grand-in-scope fantasy manga full of melodrama and anguish. Big swords clash with big dragons on an epic journey fuelled by fury and revenge. Fun!

Buy a copy of Ragna Crimson here!

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama

This right here is one of the most visually unique, imaginative, brilliant fantasy manga you’ll ever read. In terms of aesthetics and design, this is Studio Ghibli level imagination.

Witch Hat Atelier also has real Diana Wynne Jones energy (which again brings up Ghibli), with one character who feels reminiscent of Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle and a setting reminiscent of that seen in A Charmed Life. This magical manga series begins with a young girl named Coco, who lives rurally with her dressmaker mother.

One day, a wizard named Qifrey comes along and helps Coco out of a jam. Coco observes his magic and attempts to copy it. This attempt backfires and leads to Coco’s mother being petrified. Qifrey promises Coco that there may be a way to restore her mother, but she will need to become an apprentice at his atelier in order to find it.

So begins a fantastical journey filled with unique magic systems, charming and eclectic characters, beautiful landscapes, and exciting events.

Witch Hat Atelier is stunning and fiercely imaginative in its world-building. It has dark academia energy as well as a heavy Diana Wynne Jones influence, and Shirahama’s stunning, textured art does wonders to enhance the story and events of Witch Hat Atelier.

Buy a copy of Witch Hat Atelier here!

Read More: Essential Historical Manga

Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui

Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi) is one of the most charmingly original fantasy manga you’ll ever read! Especially if you’re a nerd for lore and creature design. This manga opens with a simple premise: in a small village, a catacomb caves in and out crawls a withered old man who claims to be the former king of a golden kingdom that fell to a curse. The old man then fades to dust.

Following this, parties of budding adventurers have been entering the dungeon beneath these catacombs for years, desperately searching for this mythical golden kingdom. We begin with our band of adventurers (the swordsman Laios, magic user Marcille, and picklock Chilchuck) doing battle with a red-scaled dragon.

When the dragon chows down on Laois’ sister, the rest narrowly escape and make a plan to return and save her before she’s digested. Laois’ plan involves learning to cook and eat the dungeon’s monsters. As they play around with what they can eat and how, a dwarf named Senshi comes along to offer his culinary expertise, and the four venture off together.

Delicious in Dungeon relishes in its monster design. If that’s something you love in fantasy stories, you’ll adore every chapter of this fantasy manga. Ryoko Kui is having so much fun designing the anatomies and ecosystems of the dungeon’s creatures, and you’ll have fun watching his party attempt to catch, kill, and cook them.

Buy a copy of Delicious in Dungeon here!

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Frieren is an elf who has lived for so long that she sees time differently; a human life begins and ends before she has hardly noticed. Frieren was also a member of a party of four heroes who saved the world. Himmel the hero, Eisen the warrior, Heiter the priesr, and Frieren the mage.

Together, they journeyed for ten years and finally defeated the Demon King, bringing about an age of peace and prosperity. But what now?

This fantasy manga follows Frieren as she continues to wander, watch the world change around her, say goodbye to friends, gain an apprentice, watch her grow up, and learn about life ever so slowly. After Himmel the hero grows old and dies, Frieren realises that she knew so little about him. For her, ten years was not enough time to learn anything about a friend.

She begins to develop regrets, and she wants to live differently, and gradually she finds a new quest; a new purpose for her life moving forward. After the journey, the fight, the victory, what happens next? Frieren is a cosy fantasy manga that answers this question beautifully.

Buy a copy of Frieren here!

The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe

In the realm of fantasy manga, The Girl from the Other Side is a unique and beautiful medieval-style fairy tale. This bittersweet manga by Nagabe tells the story of a girl and a monster who live alone together in a cottage. The monster is an Outsider, and the girl an Insider.

The story goes that the Outsiders share the curse of the God of Darkness, and are able to spread their curse with a single touch (and so the monster never touches little Shiva). The Insiders remain safe behind high walls, and Shiva remains on the Outsider, waiting for her aunt to return and collect her.

However, we soon learn the truth: that Shiva was abandoned, and is now alone in the care of this kindly monster whom she calls Teacher. This is “a tranquil fairy tale about those human and inhuman”, but what human really means is what The Girl from the Other Side asks and explores.

Gorgeously drawn, with beautiful environmental storytelling and a setting that perfectly blends with its fairy tale themes and narrative tropes, this is a magical and quiet fantasy manga.

Buy a copy here!

Read More: Essential Modern Fantasy Novels

Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ichikawa

In a fantastical world that has been ravaged by several asteroid impacts, leading to the emergence of six moons and a single planetary shoreline, Land of the Lustrous follows the lives of twenty-eight crystal-like humanoid creatures. The moons are home to the enigmatic and threatening lunarians, a strange army that launches frequent assaults against the planet, and the titular lustrous are the only line of defence against them.

The lustrous were created when the last remnants of old organic lifeforms sank to the bottom of the ocean and were repurposed into gem-like beings which live on the shoreline and fight back against the lunarians. It’s an odd and alluring concept for a fantasy manga, perfectly enhanced by Haruko Ichikawa’s elegant, borderline surreal, minimalist, and frankly beautiful art style.

Ichikawa studied graphic design before turning her talents to writing and drawing manga, and that experience shows in how she constructs her panels, fantastical world, and strange characters. Deep blacks, expansive white spaces, a lack of straight lines, fluid motion, and a beautiful use of symmetry make Land of the Lustrous a truly beautiful fantasy manga.

The story begins with one lustrous, Phos, being dismayed at her own uselessness. All the gems serve a purpose, but their sensei is at a loss as to what to do with Phos. Eventually, Phos is tasked with cataloguing the natural history of their world, but Phos isn’t entirely sure what this means.

Across the first few chapters of Land of the Lustrous, we follows Phos and are introduced to other lustrous, including the lone wolf Cinnabar, the sorrowful Diamond, and the excessively powerful Bort. Each lustrous is distinct in their appearance, behaviour, and powers. Cinnabar, for example, is the only lustrous who can go out at night, but is cursed to bring death to all they touch.

Though they all appear waifish and feminine, all lustrous are genderless beings, and so translators Alethea and Athena Nibley smartly use they/them pronouns for all lustrous within the text. Land of the Lustrous is a one-of-a-kind fantasy manga, looking like nothing else and telling a minimalist but beautiful tale of purpose and belonging in a strange world.

Scarlet Soul by Kira Yukishiro

Written and drawn by an Italian mangaka, Scarlet Soul is a fantasy manga that excels in the art department. It’s a richly-detailed world, and that is felt as much as it is simply read about, thanks to its dynamic and flavourful art. The book opens with a heavy exposition dump about how the world, as it is now, came to be: humanity was on the losing side of a war against the demonic “sherahtan”. That is, until a hero rose up.

This hero, Eron, turned the tide of battle and was made king shortly after. Now, the sherahtan who remain are considered demons by the human population. Our protagonist, Rin, is a direct descendent of Eron, and her older sister Lys is a great exorcist. Rin, however, doesn’t want to fulfil her duties. Instead, she ponders on what else she could make of her life, all while spending time with her sherahtan friend Aghyr.

Scarlet Soul is everything that fans of high fantasy (and fantasy romance) enjoy: a detailed world of magic, deep lore and history, and rebellious protagonists.

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi

Claymore is a fun dark fantasy manga that takes heavy cues from, or perhaps also inspired, other fantasy tales. Its protagonist, Clare, is a Claymore, and her group has the same name (though they were given this name by the public due to the massive claymores they all wield).

All Claymores are women, and they are tasked with hunting down and killing monsters called yoma, which disguise themselves in human form and feast on the humans around them. Reminiscent of The Witcher, Clare and the other Claymores were genetically engineered to fight yoma by being infused with yoma blood, in order to match their speed and aggression.

And reminiscent of Berserk, Clare’s sword is an enormous metal hunk, larger than life, which she is able to wield with one hand. She’s also stoic and cold, much like Guts and Geralt. Claymore is an engaging and simple fantasy manga; a classic of the genre full of frantic action and great dialogue (the translation is really on point).

Buy a copy of Claymore here!

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

As with a few things on this list, here’s where disagreements may crop up with regards to genre. Some hardcore fantasy fans will argue that something isn’t fantasy if it strays too close to the modern. It’s swords, sorcery, armour, and castles or it’s not fantasy. I disagree.

Fantasy is anything set in a made-up world, filled with impossibly things like ghosts, monsters, magic, and… alchemy! Enter Fullmetal Alchemist. One of the biggest and most beloved fantasy manga and anime to ever exist, Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist was an absolute game-changer. With this one series, she changed the landscape of manga and anime.

Fullmetal Alchemist tells the story of two brothers: Edward and Alphonse Elric. They live in a world reminiscent of early 20th Century Germany, and they are alchemists with a shared traumatic past. After their father leaves and their mother dies, the brothers attempt to use their alchemical knowledge to bring her back to life. The process instead destroys Edward’s leg and Alphonse’s entire body.

To save his brother, Edward sacrifices his arm and Alphonse’s soul becomes trapped in a huge suit of armour. From this incident, Edward — the Fullmetal Alchemist — is born. The driving point of the plot is the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, which the Elrics are after to right the tragedies of their past. Along the way, the encounter issues big and small that need their help.

The politics, lore, design, and most of all character writing in Fullmetal Alchemist is unmatched. A true fantasy manga masterpiece.

Buy a copy of Fullmetal Alchemist here!

Read More: Essential Sci-fi Manga

Noragami by Adachitoka

While Noragami is set in moder-day Japan, it falls under the label of urban fantasy, much like the books of Neil Gaiman or the Tokyo Ghoul manga (without the horror element). This shonen manga follows the life of down-and-out god Yato, who is without a shrine or a following. Yato has decided to perform odd jobs for people as a way to build his following.

As a god, Yato exists between the realms of the living and the dead (the near and far shores), and so he can see and fight against monsters that exist here, cannot be seen, but do have an effect on ordinary people. Early in the manga, Yato meets Iki, a girl who can see him, and attempts to save him from being hit by a bus. After being the one who gets hit, Iki can now separate her spirit from her body.

This newfound power bonds Iki to Yato, and the two of them grow and adventure together as unique characters who exist between worlds.

Buy a copy of Noragami here!

Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi

For many of us, Hunter x Hunter is the gold standard when it comes to shonen manga and anime. It’s a series that celebrates the shonen formula and its characters, while also smartly subverting many of its tropes. But it’s also a fun fantasy manga.

What’s fun about the fantasy aspect of Hunter x Hunter is how it is set in a world so similar to our own. It’s a modern place with cars and cities and video games, but it’s not actually our world.

And, because of that, the world of Hunter x Hunter gets to play by its own rules. The titular hunters being the most obvious example of that. In true fantasy fashion, if a concept or thing needs to be invented in order to service the plot, it can be, because this is fantasy.

Given just how close the world of Hunter x Hunter is to our modern one, calling it fantasy is up for debate. It’s a lot like Dragon Ball or Pokemon in that respect. But the characters, events, power systems, and world design are fantastical enough for it to make this list in my opinion.

Buy a copy of Hunter x Hunter here!

To Your Eternity by Yoshitoki Ōima

Mangaka Yoshitoki Oima is perhaps best known for her short series A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi), which was adapted into a beloved anime movie. But she also created this wholly unique and original fantasy manga. To Your Eternity is an incredibly smart, heavy, and impactful fantasy manga that asks and explores big questions about mortality, change, and community.

This fantasy manga tells the story of an orb! This orb was created by a mysterious god-like figure that sends it to the human world to learn and develop. The orb takes the form of things it touches. In the beginning, it becomes a rock; soon, an injured wolf dies beside it and the orb takes the form of the wolf. It walks through the snow until it finds a boy (the “real” wolf’s previous owner).

From here we journey along with the boy as he attempts to reunite with his community, who left him alone in search of a better place to live. When he dies, the orb takes his form and from here our journey really begins.

From its first chapter, the To Your Eternity manga hits very hard. It’s a tearjerker that isn’t afraid to put its characters through the ringer and even kill them to advance the plot. Our protagonist must learn and grow; that is its purpose after all. Growing means being hurt and losing things.

While not always an easy-breezy fantasy manga to enjoy, To Your Eternity is a very rewarding read and a small masterpiece.

Buy a copy here!

One Piece by Eiichiro Odo

One Piece needs to introduction. It’s the biggest, best-selling manga in the history of the medium. It is the undisputed king of shonen manga, and rightly so. It’s also very long and, no, I haven’t read all of it. But One Piece also follows — while simultaneously breaking — all the rules of fantasy manga, and it’s quite impressive to see how that was done.

One Piece is set in a world of pirates and seafaring folk. The pirate captains, crews, and ships are all carefully designed, wonderfull eccentric, cartoonish, and detailed characters.

The world plays with magical powers, political plots, daring adventures, sweeping sagas, and so much more. The sheer scope of this entirely invented world and all the colourful characters in it is a celebration of imagination and the very concept of fantasy.

But given the piratical setting and cast, One Piece is far from your traditional fantasy manga. But then, it’s far from your traditional anything. It’s a wholly original beast, and one so dearly beloved.

Buy a copy of One Piece here!

Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama

The anime adaptation of Attack on Titan is arguably the biggest thing to ever happen to anime. And considering how it’s essentially a mecha series disguised as a fantasy series that toes the line between shonen and seinen, and is therefore kind of messy, that is quite a feat!

While I do prefer the anime to the original manga (and I’ve talked about why here), Attack on Titan remains a thrill-ride from start to end. Attack on Titan is set in an enormous, walled-off city. Beyond those walls roam creepy humanoid titans that gobble people up.

The architecture of the city gives off Germanic vibes but the technology adds a steampunk twist to the place, and its politics are incredibly well thought-out. At first, Attack on Titan comes across as a very simple affair, with a strong emphasis on action and combat. But the politics of it all goes places that you would never have expected in the early chapters.

This is a broad and deep fantasy manga series, with political layers to rival those of A Song of Ice and Fire. If you like your fantasy fiction to be heavily thematic, complex, and politically dense, you need to read (or watch) Attack on Titan.

Buy a copy of Attack on Titan here!

Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima

Hiro Mashima is one of those mangaka whose aesthetic designs have become instantly recognisable, like those of Dragon Ball‘s Akira Toriyama or One Piece‘s Eiichiro Oda. That’s not to say Fairy Tail is on the same level as those manga (that’s for you to decide), but it certainly has unique and recognisable character designs that work in its favour.

Fairy Tail is set in the brilliantly named Earth-land. In this world are numerous guilds led by magic-wielding wizards. One of these guilds is the titular Fairy Tail, and its wizard is protagonist Natsu Dragneel. As Natsu ventures out across the Kingdom of Fiore on the hunt for the man who raised him and then disappeared, he builds a party of unique characters (wizards, knights, and dragon slayers) along the way.

Fairy Tail does what guilds do as it moves along its journey: taking on jobs and missions for money. In true shonen fashion, this is a story with a wider narrative that pushes us forward, and smaller arcs to keep us invested in the characters and their growth (exactly like One Piece and Hunter x Hunter).

The emphasis on swords and sorcery make this shonen series an awesome fantasy manga for younger readers.

Buy a copy of Fairy Tail here!

The Seven Deadly Sins by Nakaba Suzuki

The Seven Deadly Sins is a modern shonen manga with a slightly more classic aesthetic feel to it. The setting and band of protagonists give off campy JRPG vibes, which will be a very welcome draw for anyone raised on the Japanese games of the PS1 and PS2 eras.

The titular Seven Deadly Sins were a group of knights who disbanded ten years before the story begins. They did this after being framed for a coup against the Liones Kingdom. Now, the Holy Knights are in control and it’s up to Princess Liones to reunite the Seven Deadly Sins and take down the Holy Knights in order to restore the kingdom.

Everything about this manga would have worked perfectly in the hands of early-2000s Square Enix. From the character designs to the biblical influences and the janky plot. All that said, this is a fun shonen fantasy manga that offers readers a very fun time.

Buy a copy here!

Soul Eater by Atsushi Ohkubo

Soul Eater offers another wonderful twist on the fantasy manga formula. While certainly fantastical due to its bonkers world, eccentric characters, and whacky magic system, it’s a far cry from the usual medieval fantasy setting. Soul Eater (and its anime adaptation) had the world in its grip during the mid-2000s, with its comical and playful dark fantasy setting and aesthetics reminiscent of the designs of Tim Burton (also huge at that time).

The setting of Soul Eater is the Death Weapon Meister Academy, a place for young people to train as powerful warriors. What sets this place apart from other YA fantasy worlds is its pairing system, where some kids are the weapon wielders and others are the weapons themselves.

The school’s headmaster is the shinigami — Death himself (whose son is one of our student protagonists), and the city the school can be found in is the aptly named Death City. So, there is plenty of grim and cadaverous imagery here, but it’s all presented in a fairly bright and comic-book aesthetic.

There’s an emphasis on the camp and the wild in Soul Eater, which juxtaposes wonderfully against the bleakness of its death obsession.

Buy a copy of Soul Eater here!

Made in Abyss by Akihito Tsukushi

Made in Abyss really took off and captured the attention of fans when its anime adaptation dropped, but Akihito Tsukushi’s original fantasy manga is also absolutely worth reading. This richly detailed and imaginatively realised manga begins in a town at the edge of an enormous gaping hole that leads down into the centre of the world.

Many residents of this town are adventurers who explore the depths of this abyss, and our young protagonist Riko is one of them. Riko lost her mother, an accomplished explorer, to the abyss, and now she wishes to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Early on, Riko meets a robot boy who must surely have come from the abyss itself, and it’s Reg’s unique abilities that help Riko conquer the abyss at such a young age. The design of the abyss itself is incredible, and the real star of this fantasy manga.

Reminiscent of the writing of Jules Verne, this is a story that explores and relishes in the unknown. The mangaka takes great pleasure in carving out a lusciously realised world of incredible flora and fauna. The mysteries in the deepest depths of the abyss keep you glued to the page, as does the safety of these young adventurers. Their relationship and the things they see latch you to this story and refuse to let you go.

Buy a copy of Made in Abyss here!

Black Clover by Yūki Tabata

Black Clover is fascinating. On paper it should be one of the big shonen manga, talked about alongside One Piece and Naruto, but its detractors are vocal and its fans are often quiet, in spite of there being so many of them. If you’ve heard one thing about this fantasy manga, it’s probably a recurring joke about how, in its anime adaptation, the protagonist just screams a lot. For that reason, read the manga.

Asta is a young boy born into a world of magic. Magic is ordinary and commonplace, and yet Asta himself has been born without any magical powers (fans of Encanto, prick up your ears). With Asta unable to wield mana, he instead focusses on honing his physical strength. But in the orphanage in which he grew up, he also had a best friend named Yuno who wields exceptional magical power.

Yuno and Asta are in a race to become the next Wizard King of the Clover Kingdom (where the manga gets its name), and they aim to get there through different means. Black Clover is a perfect example of shonen manga and fantasy manga coalescing. It is weighed down by the tropes of shonen but the fantasy world and magic system keep it delightfully fresh.

Buy a copy of Black Clover here!

Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura

Ok, I do feel a bit cheeky putting a piece of historical manga like Vinland Saga on this list, but I did so for good reason! If you’re anything like me, you enjoy fantasy manga for its rugged worlds, clashing swords, and ethically ambiguous characters. Vinland Saga delivers on all of that!

Vinland Saga is a Viking story set across Northern Europe, but predominantly Britain, and it follows the hungry-for-vengeance protagonist Thorfinn. Before we meet Thorfinn, however, we spend a few opening chapters with a military captain called Askeladd, who is attempting a raid on a Frankish stronghold.

Askeladd’s ace-in-the-hole is a furious boy wielding two knives: the aforementioned Thorfinn. Once these chapters end, we move back to Thorfinn’s innocent youth with his family in Iceland. There, we meet his father: the once-famed Viking warrior Thors, who has chosen a life of peaceful seclusion.

From here the we watch Thorfinn change from wide-eyed boy to fierce, aggressive young man in a series of brutal chapters. Vinland Saga is massive. It is a true historical epic that lives up to the Viking legacy. It has a distinctly fantastic edge to its worldbuilding but is also very much grounded in real-world history. While technically not a fantasy manga, fantasy fans will love it all the same.

Buy a copy of Vinland Saga here!

Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida

Genre-wise, the punk and nasty Dorohedoro falls under a few umbrellas: action, dystopian, cyberpunk, seinen, and urban fantasy manga to name a few. This is a tough manga to wrap your head, and your eyes, around but it is worth the investment.

Dorohedoro is set in a gross and gnarly post-apocalyptic future world, kind of reminiscent of Fist of the North Star, where everyone is terrible and the world itself is out to get you. There are two realms in this manga: a big city called The Hole, and a second magical realm populated by magic-using sorcerers.

These sorcerers have recently been visiting The Hole through magic doors and experimenting on its citizens. Our protagonist, Caiman, is one of them. Caiman as a big lizard head and amnesia. But the experimentation has also left him with an invulnerability to sorcerer magic, which makes it easier for him to go on a blood-soaked hunt for revenge.

Accompanying him is the delightfully funny and charming Nikaido, a brutal and hilarious woman who helps Caiman on his quest.

The art of Dorohedoro is filthy in the best way, helping to communicate the world’s grimy and hopeless tone. But to alleviate all of that is a wonderfully bleak sense of humour, expressed through amazing translation by Matt Alt and his team. Dorohedoro is a fun and frantic seinen fantasy manga that is a must-read for fans of blood and gore.

Buy a copy of Dorohedoro here!

But fans of horror manga need to pay attention to what Tomoki Izumi is doing with his Mieruko-chan manga.

What is the Mieruko-chan manga about?

The Mieruko-chan manga begins with Miko, a teenager who, whilst minding her own business one rainy day, comes face-to-face with a twisted and visually unsettling ghoul at a bus stop.

The ghoul asks Miko if she can see it and she smartly chooses to ignore it, instead opting to look around for the bus and check her phone. The ghoul then gives up and walks away, but it is only the first.

Miko is cursed to see the ghouls that haunt every single space, public and private, but that remain invisible to almost everyone going about their daily lives. She doesn’t know what happens if one suspects she can see it, and she doesn’t want to find out.

Right off the bat, the premise of the Mieruko-chan manga is chilling. Miko is constantly being surprised by the sudden presence of a grotesque ghost: in her classroom, on the street, and even at home. She is always on edge but must remain stoic and not let on that she can see them.

As a side note, you may have noticed that the manga is called Mieruko-chan but the protagonist is called Miko. This is because the name is a kind of pun that gets lost in translation.

The name of the manga, Mieruko-chan, is a blend of Miko and the Japanese 見える (or mieru — to be seen/observed). Miko can observe these ghosts, so she is “the girl who sees”, or Mieruko.

To make matters so much worse, Miko’s best friend Hana is oblivious to their existence, and to Miko’s plight, but she also seems to be a magnet for these ghouls.

Miko is now, at every turn, trying to protect her clueless friend from these things, without even really knowing what harm they could do. She is plagued by not only these ghosts but the paranoia over what they might be capable of.

The Mieruko-chan manga’s premise could so easily be nothing but heartbreaking, as we watch Miko suffer and struggle alone, powerless to help her. But the comedy here comes from Hana and their relationship dynamic.

Hana is a bubbly, sweet, fun-loving, carefree girl, always running headfirst into dangers she can’t even see, and Miko is constantly having to think on her feet to steer Hana away from those dangers. The comedy is often cartoonish in the best way possible.

Like the romantic comedy manga Kaguya-sama: Love is War, the Mieruko-chan manga is structured in small, episodic chapters.

Read More: Why You Should Read Kaguya-sama: Love is War

While the narrative is always moving forward, each chapter is also a self-contained narrative focussed on a specific event or problem that delivers scares and laughs in equal measure.

The progress of the overall narrative is slow, with the Mieruko-chan manga’s first few chapters serving as scary/funny setups and payoffs as we spend time getting to know Miko and Hana.

Eventually, we’re introduced to a few new characters, such as the hot-tempered Yuria, a girl who can also see spirits but only smaller, less ferocious ones. Her introduction to the story adds a new layer of terror and comedy, but also a new level of stress for Miko to deal with.

In an memorable early chapter, Miko and Hana find a stray cat and work to rehome it. They meet with a sweet-looking young man but Miko sees that he is haunted by a host of cat ghosts clawing at him, implying that he killed them.

When a tattooed and scary-looking guy comes along, Miko sees that he too is haunted, but by two glowing and happy cats that he must have loved until they passed. Miko happily hands over the cat to him. The first man (the potential cat-killer) comes back around later in the story, in a very clever way.

The balance between a slow-crawling larger narrative and smaller, self-contained events full of horror and comedy, makes the Mieruko-chan manga a brilliantly well-paced story.

The art of Mieruko-chan

As for the art of the Mieruko-chan manga, that’s where the horror really shines. I haven’t seen the anime adaptation but, seeing how cleverly the manga is drawn, I’m not sure I want to.

What makes the manga of Junji Ito stand out isn’t just his innovative approach to setups and characters, or his penchant for delivering Lovecraftian cosmic horror on both a major and a minor scale, but it’s also how all of this is expressed through his art.

Junji Ito has a talent for bringing to life the darkest, most twisted things from the depths of human imagination; things that should never be seen. He draws them with stomach-churning detail.

Tomoki Izumi manages to almost reach those same heights with the ghosts that he creates in his Mieruko-chan manga. These ghosts have monstrous designs: hollowed-out faces, elongated necks, empty eyes, distended bodies, harrowing expressions, and so much more.

They are drawn with thick, deep black ink, scratched and scrawled into life. And it’s this heavy approach to drawing his monsters that sets Tomoki Izumi apart.

There is a very clear and striking difference between Izumi’s human designs and his monster designs. This visually compliments the strange blend of horror and comedy that he’s going for. His human characters are drawn with soft, delicate lines. They’re cute, squishy, but still “realistic” in their design.

Conversely, his creatures are impossibly dark, larger than life, and have a depth to them that just doesn’t work. This juxtaposition of art styles is striking. It makes the ghouls feel as though they truly don’t belong. That they are wrong. A mistake.

It’s unsettling, stomach-churning, and also makes the human world and its characters feel so much warmer, more welcoming, and more comfortable.

Read More: Manga with Strong Female Characters

The one downside…

The only downside to the way in which Izumi draws his characters is a typical problem with a lot of manga (especially manga by men) in general: what we charitably call “fan service”.

In the early chapters of the Mieruko-chan manga, Izumi draws his teenage female characters with the male gaze in mind, and it is exhausting and tiresome. Again, this is nothing new but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pointed out.

In this manga in particular, there’s a focus on Miko’s arse and crotch. While Hana has big bouncing boobs (a tired joke), Miko’s crotch is occasionally the focus of a few panels. A very discomfiting choice.

Who knows why male mangaka choose to do this but I wish they would stop. It’s degrading to the characters, the readers, and even the creators themselves.

Fortunately, this tired “fan service” eases off very quickly, after a handful of chapters. It implies that Izumi may have been leaning on it as a means to grab male readers’ attention before calming down. But who knows.