Death is a theme I write about often, and in various ways —sometimes, it’s characters coping with the loss of a loved one, sometimes it’s a person being brought back to life briefly via magic, knowing yet again, their time here is temporary. In the case of Psychopomp & Circumstance, my debut adult upcoming Southern Gothic fantasy, it’s the preparations for an estranged loved one’s funeral.
In the early stages of writing this novella, I hadn’t yet come up with an appropriate title. I couldn’t recall the name I’d saved the in-process file under, so I searched my computer for the word “funeral” to locate it. More than ten Word documents popped up, and I thought, Huh, I guess it really *is* a recurring theme in my work.
Some people shy away from reading fiction with such themes because they’re uncomfortable with mortality or they believe doing so will set a place at the table for a certain unwelcome guest. I’m not one of those people, so here are five reads that feature encounters with death, death magic, or those who have passed on to the other side, and still want to keep in touch.
King of Dead Things by Nevin Holness
When I found out about this book, I didn’t know what to expect. To my delight, what I got was a group of teens on an engrossing quest through a fantasy version of London’s underbelly to find a magic artifact – the fang of the leopard god Osebo. With a heaping helping of necromancy and magic stealing included. Teen years can be fraught, but when Holness adds in Malcom’s and Eli’s troubled relationships with their own personal powers, it ups the ante. It reminded me of the best storytelling in a tabletop RPG, where as you’re reading (or playing), you’re thinking of all the ways the plot could possibly resolve itself, metaphorically keeping your fingers crossed that it will be fine. And the resolution that happens is something you never saw coming.
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho
Inspired by Malaysian mythology, the stories in this collection bind together the worlds of the living and those of the dead. Resonant and lingering, these tales show love and life endures beyond the border of death. Spirits Abroad is don’t-bother-me-I’m-busy-reading fare that tackles romance across folkloric species, a spirit having landlord trouble, and a friendship between an undead teen and a living classmate that somehow endures overbearing aunties who eat people. I adore reading dialect and Cho uses it to firmly enmesh readers in stories that are already rich with entities enjoying, and sometimes enduring their afterlives.
Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
Does everything in fantasy have to be resolved by fighting? There are so many ways to kill and be killed in the pages of speculative fiction. While all that destruction can be fun, sometimes I crave reading about a protagonist that has a different approach to problem-solving.
Lanie was born into a family of royal assassins, but she has a birth defect of sorts: she is allergic to violence. On top of that, Lanie is proficient in necromancy—maybe because she has an especially personal relationship with the Goddess of Death. Which carries its own tenuous issues when unknown parties are plotting against your entire family line. Some people might think that makes her soft or weak (one of those people being Lanie’s unsavorily vicious sister), but I loved seeing this on the page because I am a believer that soft characters can be incredibly strong and brave, and can drive even an action-focused story forward.
Imagine my delight book two of this duology, Saint Death’s Herald, came out in April of this year.
“Come, Lady Death” by Peter S. Beagle
It’s unusual to mention a single short story, but it was too good to resist this one. Plus, I started my writing career penning short stories and they are near and dear to my reader’s heart.
Beagle, of The Last Unicorn fame—the book turned animated movie that tore me apart as a child—has written a fantastic “Fuck Around and Find Out” story. It’s at first quiet and gentle in its dialogue and action, and ruthless in its final scene. A wealthy woman who has little regard for death and those it impacts invites the Lady herself to attend a lavish party thrown in her honor, daring her to show up. Well, Lady Death is all too delighted to attend and bring the changes for which she is renowned. It’s not only a beautiful portrayal of Death in a human-like form, it also shows her as charming and gracious, but resolute and unyielding in her finality.
The Dead Withheld by L. D. Lewis
I love the work Lewis puts out and have done since reading the novella A Ruin of Shadows. This novella is no different. Rich, well-described settings, and a magic that feels at once grounded in real diasporic traditions and freshly worked for this book. Plus, I love gumshoe noir as a sub-genre of mystery: the jaded private investigator working hard to solve a case and even harder to keep themselves together, the powerful killer hiding in plain sight with his league of lackeys of varying competency, and the damsel that started it all.
Lewis takes these themes of traditional noir and twists it all around, wrapping this paranormal story up in a neo-noir vibe with a female P.I.—Dizzy Carter—obsessed with finding her wife’s killer. Dizzy is a Deadwalker: a witch who is very much alive that communes with the dead, mostly to help her solve cases. But deadwalking leaves footprints that both ghosts and demons can follow, and while the trail of her wife’s killer has gone cold, the path to Dizzy’s front door hasn’t. To make this read all the better, I found out from Instagram that the sequel to this novella, The Dead Redux, is coming out in 2026 so there will be more work from Lewis soon.
Buy the Book
Psychopomp & Circumstance
First thought:
On a Pale Horse, by Piers Anthony, even if there are bits that really haven’t aged well.
Second thought: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, particularly Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time.
I loved Saint Death’s Daughter and the sequel. A book 3 was just announced.
I was so gone for this book after the “And in more astonishing news” on page 2.
This is an amazing list! I already had Psychopomp and Circumstance in my TBR but now I’m even more excited!
Spirits Abroad is one of the best short story collections I’ve ever read.
I love C. S. E. Cooney’s short stories and have only put off reading Saint Death’s Daughter because I am worried it is not a complete story unto itself. (I will not read incomplete series where the books have “wait and see” endings. For my own sanity! :-)
I’m immediately putting King of Dead Things and The Dead Withheld into my library TBR!
As for additional recommendations, the story “Asphalt, River, Mother, Child” from Isabel Yap’s collection Never Have I Ever is horrifying in its reality (children who have died) and humane, even sweet, in its story of Mebuyen who cares for them after death. (The whole book is wonderful.)
Saint Deaths Herald closes the most important story arcs. I can’t wait for book 3, but I wouldn’t have any problems recommending it even if book 3 somehow never came out.
One of the classic series dealing with the dead is Abhorsen by Garth Nix.
Another Peter S. Beagle work is the haunted graveyard with one alive inhabitant novel, “A Fine and Private Place.” It is a comfort read for me. Not horror in tone.