Delilah S. Dawson is the author of the botanical horror novellas Bloom and Monstera—out this week from Titan Books. Below, she recommends three of her favorite botanical horror reads.
There’s something slightly terrifying about plants—and I say this from a desk featuring a Monstera deliciosa, a Philodendron tatei ‘Rojo Congo’, and a Ficus microcarpa. On the surface, plants are beautiful, decorative objects that clean the air and make a space feel lively, fresh, and natural. Below the surface, however, they are living things with an alien intelligence that blindly probe for light, move so slowly we can’t perceive it, and will gladly feast on a human corpse for their desired nutrients. They’re the perfect vehicle for a horror story, and here are some of my favorites.
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
A young woman moves in with her parents and finds a job in the florist’s shop of a dying mall. She is entranced by the shop’s owner but soon learns that a different intelligence is in charge. Part Little Shop of Horrors and part Clerks, it’s a lush and atmospheric read.
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran
In this creepy Southern gothic climate horror YA tinged with Vietnamese mythology, Noon’s coastal Mississippi town is ruled by a red algal bloom after a catastrophic hurricane, and now she and her mother hunt through the wreckage for mutated wildlife to sell. But Noon is transforming, too…
A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock
When two Victorian gentlemen, a taxidermist and a plant specialist, obtain an unusual tropical fungus, they use their skills to explore how it might be given a more human life. This queer sporror is a delightful and unexpected journey.
And of course, my own Bloom and Monstera fit the bill. Blame it on the 63 plants in my house—I can’t get enough of botanical horror!
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