Tag: Strange Fiction

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The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang is a haunting debut about grief, isolation, and the strange pull of belonging

Mandy Webster

Some novels hook readers with plot. Others cast a quieter spell, slowly wrapping themselves around your imagination until you realize you’ve been completely pulled under. The Jellyfish Problem blends magical realism, sea monster folklore, grief narrative, and literary mystery into an ambitious debut that will strongly appeal to readers who enjoy atmospheric, character-driven speculative fiction.

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Dr. Jo Ness is a marine biologist who has spent the last seven months barely existing after the death of her closest friend and collaborator, Aldo. Hidden away at a struggling aquarium, she immerses herself in jellyfish research and the unfinished field guide the two of them had been writing together. Aldo still exists in the margins of those pages through handwritten notes and observations, and Jo clings to them because she doesn’t know how to move forward without him. When Nadia—a woman Jo once loved during college—contacts her with stories about a giant glowing jellyfish off the coast of Maine, Jo seizes on the opportunity. Officially, she goes because of the creature. Emotionally, she goes because Nadia gives her a reason to leave her grief-stricken isolation behind, even if only temporarily.

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Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes is a haunting Southern Gothic that demands to be felt

Mandy Webster

Some horror novels rely on monsters lurking in the shadows. Others understand that the most terrifying things are the systems people willingly protect. Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes, releasing June 9, 2026, is a Southern Gothic horror novel that understands this completely. Beneath its ghostly atmosphere and supernatural elements lies a brutal examination of generational trauma, misogyny, power, and the impossible expectations placed upon women to absorb suffering quietly so that everyone else can remain comfortable.

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Recently, I’ve seen discussions online asking readers to name books they’ve loved that were written by authors of color. Inevitably, there are always people who respond with things like, “I don’t pay attention to the race of the authors I read,” as though being “colorblind” is somehow the ideal approach to literature. But stories like Our Sister’s Keeper are exactly why intentionally seeking out voices different from our own matters. This is a novel that forces readers to confront lived experiences they may never have otherwise considered. It explores generational trauma, gendered expectations, institutional abuse, and the long shadow of racism in ways that feel both deeply personal and horrifyingly systemic. It’s impossible to walk away from this novel unchanged if you are willing to truly engage with what it is saying.

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Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller: A haunting story about the ache to belong

Mandy Webster

Some hungers have nothing to do with food. Some thirsts cannot be quenched. In Hunger and Thirst, Claire Fuller builds a quietly unsettling novel about loneliness, guilt, and the dangerous places people wander when they want love badly enough.

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Claire Fuller has long excelled at writing stories that feel atmospheric without sacrificing emotional complexity. Readers familiar with Our Endless Numbered Days (one of my all-time favorites!), Swimming Lessons, or Bitter Orange will recognize her gift for creating settings that feel slightly unsteady, places where human relationships become as unsettling as any ghost story. Hunger and Thirst, releasing June 2, 2026, continues that tradition while leaning more openly into gothic territory.

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Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley is a twisty thriller that may frustrate romance readers—but thriller fans looking for chaos and curveballs will probably have a blast

Mandy Webster

There’s a very specific kind of thriller setup that immediately hooks me: an intense romantic connection that feels just a little too perfect to trust. Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley initially seemed poised to deliver exactly that kind of story. Ivy Harcourt, a bestselling romance author unlucky in love, meets Liam—an attractive British architect who eerily resembles the male lead from the novel she’s currently writing. What follows at first feels like the beginning of a glossy psychological thriller in the vein of the 1995 film Never Talk to Strangers, with mounting suspicion, romantic tension, and the creeping sense that something underneath the fantasy is deeply wrong. Then the book swerves hard.

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About a third of the way through, Man of My Dreams reveals what kind of story it actually wants to be, and that pivot will likely determine whether readers end up loving or hating the novel. For me, the transition didn’t entirely work. I didn’t feel like there was enough groundwork laid to support the shift, and several developments later in the novel left me questioning the internal logic of the narrative. By the end, there were enough loose ends dangling that I found myself more distracted than shocked.

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The Children by Melissa Albert is a haunting story about the danger of becoming someone else’s myth

Mandy Webster

There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea of growing up inside a story that never really belonged to you. In The Children by Melissa Albert, releasing June 2, 2026, childhood becomes both a performance and a prison as two siblings struggle to survive the legacy their mother built from their lives. The result is a darkly hypnotic literary fantasy that feels as though it’s flickering between reality and nightmare the entire time you’re reading it.

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Guinevere and Ennis Sharpe grew up as the unwilling inspirations for their mother Edith’s wildly beloved Ninth City fantasy novels. To the world, they were magical children adventuring through an enchanted realm. In reality, they were neglected kids growing up isolated in rural Vermont, half-feral and largely abandoned while their mother disappeared into the mythology she was creating around them. Albert builds both timelines—the children’s traumatic upbringing and adult Guin’s unraveling in the present day—with a sense of inevitable catastrophe. Every chapter feels like a countdown toward something terrible waiting just beyond the firelight.

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