What to read next
10 books like The Twisted Ones
Mouse and Bongo give the horror an ordinary emotional center, while the repeated carved stones and wrong-moving animals make reading the journal feel dangerous. If that is what you want more of after The Twisted Ones, these recommendations preserve that appeal in different ways, without pretending every similar book offers the same experience.
Start with our The Twisted Ones review by T. Kingfisher.
Choose by reading mood
Where to start
For the fastest read
Wolf Worm
BalancedFor the darkest read
The Curse of Hester Gardens
Very darkFor the strongest romance
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
CentralFor the easiest entry
A Sorceress Comes to Call
AccessibleThe full shortlist
Why each book belongs here
Each match is judged against The Twisted Ones, not merely placed beside it because the books share a broad genre label.
1
The Hollow Places
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- The Hollow Places offers stronger cosmic geography and a central friendship; Twisted Ones is earthier and more folkloric.
- Best for
- Readers new to cosmic horror who want impossible spaces, body unease, friendship, and relief from unbroken bleakness.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
2
What Moves the Dead
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- What Moves the Dead is a shorter literary retelling with tighter biological logic.
- Best for
- Readers looking for a short Gothic retelling, fungal horror, and body unease with a practical narrator and flashes of dry humor.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
3
A Sorceress Comes to Call
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- A Sorceress Comes to Call moves horror into polite domestic space and gives coercion a human face.
- Best for
- Readers wanting dark fairy-tale revision, coercive-control horror, older heroines, and humane humor.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
4
Wolf Worm
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Wolf Worm has a similar overall reading load, but changes the emphasis. The novel keeps bodily vulnerability and unreliable perception close together, so even quiet observations can alter the apparent shape of the danger.
- Best for
- Horror readers who prefer paranoia, isolation, and body unease to constant action or elaborate lore.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Very dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
5
The Curse of Hester Gardens
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- The Curse of Hester Gardens is more measured than The Twisted Ones. The house's unstable geography, inherited records, and buried violence create sustained unease, while the family history gives the supernatural threat emotional roots.
- Best for
- Gothic-horror readers who prefer inherited secrets, oppressive houses, family trauma, slow dread, and supernatural violence to constant jump scares.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Very dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
6
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Someone You Can Build a Nest In is more romance-led than The Twisted Ones. Shesheshen's improvised bodies and reproductive instincts remain genuinely alien, while Homily's family reveals how ordinary cruelty can be harder to identify than monstrosity.
- Best for
- Readers wanting queer monster romance, body horror, disability themes, abusive-family recovery, dark comedy, and a protagonist whose nonhuman nature remains meaningful.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Central
- Difficulty Accessible
7
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil has a similar overall reading load, but changes the emphasis. María, Charlotte, and Alice make immortality mean something different in each century, allowing desire, reinvention, predation, and loneliness to echo without collapsing into one moral.
- Best for
- Adult readers wanting sapphic vampires, historical settings, nonlinear structure, sensual prose, violence, hunger, toxic intimacy, and meditations on freedom.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
8
The Metamorphosis
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- The Metamorphosis is more measured and more demanding than The Twisted Ones. Kafka treats transformation as an immediate household problem.
- Best for
- Readers wanting a brief, strange classic about labor, family obligation, shame, disability, and conditional love.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Moderate
9
The Shining
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- The Shining is more measured than The Twisted Ones. King keeps the family triangle emotionally legible.
- Best for
- Readers who want a long haunted-house novel grounded in addiction, family fear, and a child's vulnerable perception.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Moderate
10
Between Two Fires
- Shared ground
- Both books build unease from a threat the characters cannot safely understand at first.
- What changes
- Between Two Fires has a similar overall reading load, but changes the emphasis. Thomas, Delphine, and the priest form an unstable moral company, while each monstrous episode grows from a historical or theological fear.
- Best for
- Readers wanting medieval horror, plague, faith, demons, violence, and a damaged knight's redemptive journey.
- Pace Balanced
- Darkness Very dark
- Romance Minimal
- Difficulty Accessible
Side-by-side
Pace, darkness, romance, and difficulty
Use these labels as directional guidance. The individual notes above explain the tradeoffs.
| Book | Pace | Darkness | Romance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Twisted Ones | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Hollow Places | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| What Moves the Dead | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| A Sorceress Comes to Call | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| Wolf Worm | Balanced | Very dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Curse of Hester Gardens | Balanced | Very dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| Someone You Can Build a Nest In | Balanced | Dark | Central | Accessible |
| Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Accessible |
| The Metamorphosis | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Moderate |
| The Shining | Balanced | Dark | Minimal | Moderate |
| Between Two Fires | Balanced | Very dark | Minimal | Accessible |
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