A teenager follows her ghost-hunting dads back to a haunted Oregon town where a hungry darkness stalks the living. Teaming up with a local girl tied to the town’s secrets, she sets out to name what the shadows hide before it swallows them whole. The Dead and the Dark is a moody, slow-burn mystery with teeth.
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Start or resume Shelf TalkThese picks are popular with readers who enjoyed this book. Possible spoilers below.
In The Dead and the Dark, did you enjoy a creeping, unexplained supernatural presence stalking girls in a real-world setting?
If you were hooked by Logan and Ashley tracking the Dark through Snakebite’s forests while Logan’s dads’ ghost-hunting fame made everything messier, you’ll love how Sawkill Girls unleashes a predatory force on an island community. Like the way the Dark’s rules stay elusive in The Dead and the Dark, the monster here is terrifyingly inexplicable, and the girls who face it forge fierce bonds—queer romance and all—while confronting a centuries-old hunger.
In The Dead and the Dark, did you enjoy the small-town menace where teens uncover buried history and monsters?
If Snakebite’s claustrophobic secrets and the teens’ investigation into disappearances pulled you in, The Devouring Gray delivers that same small-town chill. As Logan and Ashley peel back town grudges and family history to understand the Dark, so too do Violet and friends uncover their families’ past sins and a hungry dimension stalking Four Paths’ woods—complete with conspiracies, memorials, and a monster that feeds on fear.
In The Dead and the Dark, did you enjoy shifting perspectives that piece together a haunting mystery?
If you liked how Logan and Ashley’s alternating viewpoints in The Dead and the Dark slowly revealed the truth behind Snakebite’s hauntings and Tristan’s disappearance, We Were Restless Things uses multiple voices to unravel a death that shouldn’t be possible and a forest that doesn’t play by our rules. The chorus of perspectives builds that same moody, paranormal mystery vibe—where every chapter adds a new, eerie angle.
In The Dead and the Dark, did you enjoy a slow-bloom, sapphic romance tangled with a dangerous mystery?
If the chemistry between Logan and Ashley—sparking in the middle of stakeouts, attic whispers, and town confrontations—was your sweet spot, A Lesson in Vengeance threads a similarly charged sapphic dynamic through a gothic mystery. Felicity and Ellis circle each other in the haunted halls of Dalloway School, where witchy rumors, unreliable memories, and the pull of a dangerous partner-in-crime echo that intoxicating mix of romance and dread.
In The Dead and the Dark, did you enjoy queer and Latinx-led supernatural sleuthing with heartfelt family dynamics?
If you connected with the queer heart of The Dead and the Dark—from Logan’s two dads navigating their past to Logan and Ashley’s bond—Cemetery Boys brings that same warmth amid ghosts and mystery. Yadriel, a trans brujo determined to prove himself to his family, summons the ghost of school bad boy Julian and winds up investigating his death. The found family feels, cultural roots, and tender romance will hit the same notes.
