Botanical Horror from our Summer Reading List

This year the theme for the Summer Reading Challenge is Plant a Seed, Read, but that doesn't have to mean all sunshine and daisies. These stories from our Summer Reading list explores a natural (and supernatural) darker side to plants that will have you looking differently at the garden next door.

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

Sam Montgomery is an archaeo-entomologist on furlough from her most recent archaeological dig. After her brother mentions that something seems off with their mother, she decides to drive home to North Carolina to visit her and spend time drinking wine and catching up on British crime shows while working on a side project cataloging insects. When she arrives, it is clear something is very wrong. The cozy home she once knew has been whitewashed, and her late grandmother's creepy decor has replaced their beloved thrifted finds. Even stranger, the flawless roses her mother does nothing to maintain harbor no insects, unlike the other yards in the neighborhood, like the eccentric wildlife rehabber who keeps an unreleaseable vulture as a pet. As this southern gothic unravels, the picture-perfect facade chips away to the bone, leaving readers with the remains of a toxic family foundation and an unbelievable darkness within.

Eat The Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

After a lost job and a breakup with her girlfriend, Shell Pine moves back in with her parents in Dublin. While out shopping for groceries at a dying retail complex on the verge of condemnation, she sees a help needed sign posted at a florist shop and thinks flowers will be just the thing to brighten her spirit. Shell also takes an interest in the pretty florist, Neve. But in this shop also resides Baby, a hungry, sentient orchid with a dark obsession with Neve and a penchant for human flesh. As Shell and Neve grow closer, Baby learns more about them both, biding his time until he can act. Through its strange premise and unsettling and liminal setting, Eat the Ones You Love explores modern loneliness and the broken promises of capitalism amidst its slow collapse.

Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell

Raised with her brother in an orphanage charity school, Cordelia, tired of the school's rigidity and craving the comfort of the only family she knows, flees to find her missing brother, Edward. Cordelia pieces together information on where he could be by examining his past letters. This leads her to Farrow, where he claimed he worked as an apprentice. When Cordelia arrives, no one knows Edward, and Cordelia has run out of leads. Desperate for a place to stay, she accepts a job offer from Lady Evangeline, a local botanist with an expansive estate. Here, Cordelia becomes a maid to Evangeline's daughters Prim and Briar. As Cordelia gets to know the daughters, and she and Briar develop a relationship, Cordelia begins to unravel the manor's secrets. In this process, she finds clues that point to her missing brother having been at the manor as well. Her Wicked Roots is a retelling of Nathanial Hawthorne's classic gothic story, "Rapaccini's Daughter."

They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran

They Bloom at Night takes us to Louisiana, to a town amidst the aftermath of a hurricane that is overtaken by a strange red algae bloom. In the wreckage, Noon and her mother survive by trading mutated animals they capture to a local harbormaster. As they look for biological treasures, they also search for what Noon's grief-stricken mother thinks are creatures that are her reincarnated husband and son. All the while, something lurks amidst the algae and is drowning local residents. Soon, it becomes Noon's job to find it and capture it for the harbormaster. Along the way, Noon must not only confront the monster that stalks the deep but her own trauma and horror within. This lyrical novel weaves in themes of eco-horror, self-acceptance, and body horror to uproot what it means to be a monster.

Hazelthorn by CG Drews

Ever since he was a child, Evander has lived at the Hazelthorn estate and been confined away, plagued by a mysterious illness. His wealthy guardian Byron Lennox-Hall, forbids him from leaving the estate, going into the gardens, or being alone with his grandson, Laurie, who despite trying to bury Evander alive years ago, has worked his way into an obsession in Evander's mind. When Byron dies and Evander inherits the estate, he is certain their guardian has been murdered, but now Evander must team up with his guardian's once murderous grandson to discover the truth before Evander becomes the next victim. All the while, the malevolent garden is creeping beyond the confines of its walls, stretching into Hazelthorn. It's searching and hungry for blood. Through this botanical horror novel laced with sentient plants, Hazelthorn explores the dichotomies of self hatred and self acceptance, familiar legacy and inherited violence, and the complexity and entanglement of nature versus nurture that leads to shades of gray.

Do you have any botanical or eco horror books you are reading or are on your TBR? Let us know what you recommend in the comments! You can check out more plant-themed books on our 2026 Summer Reading List.

plant a seed read Summer Reading Recommendations 2026 (4).pdf

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