What to read next
Books Like Savage Lake: Isolated Cabins, Family Secrets, and Horror
Oscar recognizes a horror setup the moment his trip to Torchlight Lake becomes hard to cut short. The closest books here make a cabin or an inherited house part of the danger. The later picks have more to do with family secrets and how quickly the woods can separate people who thought they knew each other.
Read my review of Savage Lake by Nick Medina.
Nick Medina's books, from Takoda to Torchlight Lake
The full shortlist
Why each book belongs here
The threats here range from a group of strangers at a cabin to a family that has its own reasons to keep a visitor in the dark.
1
The Cabin at the End of the World
- Similar because
- Wen and her dads are on vacation at a remote lake when four strangers show up with a terrifying demand. Like Oscar and Nell, they find that the distance from other people matters once the place they were counting on for privacy starts working against them.
- Different because
- The strangers bring their own explanation of what will happen if the family refuses them. The danger is already at the door. Medina lets Oscar piece together an earlier summer while the sounds and sights around Torchlight Lake are still hard to read.
2
The Twisted Ones
- Pace
- Balanced
- Darkness
- Dark
- Romance
- Minimal
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Similar because
- Mouse goes to rural North Carolina to clear her late grandmother's house. Like Nell, she has a job she expects to finish and leave behind. The things Mouse sees near the property make it harder to keep treating the trip as a household chore.
- Different because
- Mouse finds a journal that gives her a way to investigate the woods. Oscar lives with someone who remembers the earlier trouble and has reasons to keep it private. Kingfisher also makes more room for Mouse's humor in the middle of an awful job.
- Reading note
- The woods provide the immediate danger here, with the inherited house serving as a base for the investigation.
3
The Hollow Places
- Pace
- Balanced
- Darkness
- Dark
- Romance
- Minimal
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Similar because
- Kara finds an opening in her uncle's oddities museum and discovers a landscape of water and willows. Both stories make it hard to tell what is watching from an area that looks open enough to see clearly.
- Different because
- Kara and her friend Simon can go through the opening and explore the place on the other side. At Torchlight Lake, Oscar is trying to understand a place his family already knows and a mother who knows more than she will tell him.
- Reading note
- The museum story has a comic friendship and a more overtly impossible setting once Kara steps through.
4
The Whistler
- Pace
- Quick start, slower middle
- Darkness
- Dark
- Romance
- Minimal
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Similar because
- Henry knows how to frame an eerie moment for a video, much as Oscar knows how one is supposed to look on screen. Both find that genre familiarity offers very little control once the fear comes home and the people they depend on get involved.
- Different because
- The Whistler builds its threat around a sound and a warning in Takoda. Torchlight Lake puts more pressure on the enclosed space and gives the reader a second timeline from the person who knew the cabin first.
- Reading note
- Henry has his own haunting. Savage Lake can be read before or after it.
5
The Last One at the Wedding
- Similar because
- Frank goes to his estranged daughter's wedding at a private New Hampshire estate. Like Oscar, he is in an unfamiliar place with someone he wants to trust, trying to tell when a silence is merely awkward and when it is keeping him from something important.
- Different because
- This is domestic suspense. Frank has to read the people around the wedding and their reasons for protecting the family, while Oscar has to contend with the sounds and sights of a place where he can't easily get help.
6
The Woods Are Always Watching
- Similar because
- Neena and Josie go hiking in Pisgah National Forest before college takes them in different directions. They leave the trail after tensions surface. The woods make it harder to reach help, just as the distance around Torchlight Lake makes small changes in Oscar's plans matter.
- Different because
- Perkins writes a young adult survival story about two friends on foot. What they've left behind is their route. Oscar and Nell are stuck at a place where an earlier generation of the family has already left things for them to reckon with.
Side-by-side
Pace, darkness, romance, and difficulty
| Book | Pace | Darkness | Romance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Twisted Ones | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Hollow Places | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Whistler | Quick start, slower middle | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
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