Books like “The Ballad of Black Tom”

What to read after “The Ballad of Black Tom” by Victor LaValle: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The City We Became
N. K. Jemisin · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Cosmic
- Creeping Dread
In a New York where great cities are born as living avatars, a homeless artist becomes the spirit of the city. As a hostile force called the Woman in White spreads through the streets, five avatars of the boroughs must unite to defend a city still struggling to be born.
2
The Fisherman
John Langan · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After his wife's death, Abe takes up fishing and befriends a coworker who has also lost his spouse. Dan suggests a trip to Dutchman's Creek, a spot with a dark reputation. There they meet a fisherman trying to land a primordial creature, and are offered a chance to recover the people they have lost.
3
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Four women cross into Area X, a coastal region sealed off for decades, to survey it as the twelfth expedition. The biologist records the abandoned bunker, the writing on its walls and the animals that seem almost aware. She also knows her husband went in before her and came back changed.
4
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
H. P. Lovecraft · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A Penguin Classics selection of Lovecraft's stories, from 'Dagon' and 'The Picture in the House' to 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Colour Out of Space' and 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. Scholars, sailors and dreamers glimpse buried civilisations and vast indifferent forces, and the knowledge slowly takes their minds apart.
5
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers · 1895
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A collection of linked horror stories built around a forbidden play, The King in Yellow, that disturbs everyone who reads it. Around it are tales of artists, masks and a lake city where ordinary life slides, without warning, into dread.
6
Between Two Fires
Christopher Buehlman · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Morally Grey Character
In 1348, as the Black Death empties France, a disgraced knight finds an orphan girl in a dead village. She says the plague is only part of a larger war between heaven and hell, and persuades him to carry her across a ruined land toward Avignon.
7
The Library at Mount Char
Scott Hawkins · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Carolyn and a dozen other orphans were raised by a man they call Father, who taught them strange arts from a library that may hold the secrets of creation. When Father vanishes, the siblings turn on one another for his power, and Carolyn must decide what she will trade to win.
8
Ghost Story
Peter Straub · 1979
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Revenge
Four elderly friends in a small New York town have spent a lifetime telling each other ghost stories at their club. Now something from a winter forty years earlier, a death they all helped to hide, has returned to collect the debt.
9
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski · 2000
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Forbidden Knowledge
A tattoo artist assembles the scattered notes of a blind old man who wrote a study of a film. The film records a family discovering that their house is larger inside than out, with a hallway that opens onto darkness where the rules of space break down.
10
Bird Box
Josh Malerman · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
Something outside drives anyone who sees it to violence, so the survivors live blindfolded. Malorie has kept two children safe for years. Now she must row them downriver without looking, toward a refuge that may or may not exist.
11
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to act strangely, and her family turns first to a priest and then to a reality-television crew. Years later her younger sister tells the story of what happened in the house, though her memory is not entirely trustworthy.
12
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Revenge
Aging rock star Judas Coyne collects macabre curiosities. When he buys a haunted suit online, the dead man tied to it begins to stalk him and the women in his life. To survive, Jude must confront the violence in his own past. A supernatural horror about guilt and revenge.