08/03/2026 Kerry E.B. Black helps Uncomfortably Dark celebrate National Girlfriends Day!
- Candace Nola
- Aug 3
- 2 min read
In honor of National Girlfriend’s Day, which was August 1, I hope to embrace the lovely sentiment with all of you! Of course, if you are or identify as a girl, I’d like to wish you the very happiest, most magical day! And if you’re not a girl but have female friends, then much happiness to you, too!
Of course, we here at Uncomfortably Dark prefer to keep things - well - Dark, so here are my suggestions for reading about girlfriends to keep your day properly lit.
The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste is a tale of feminine transformation into the monstrous, and it’s told with such a lyrical voice. Bonesetter’s Daughter
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia finds a glamorous and strong-minded young woman who travels into an estate to check on the well-being of her sickly friend and cousin, but in this decadent decay, something sinister happens.
The Dread Nation series by Justine Ireland finds a couple of industrious and well-trained gals in an apocalyptic post-Civil War America fighting hoards of the undead.
Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song also involves zombies, but in it, a pregnant woman bitten by zombies enlists the help of the only person she trusts - her best friend and pediatrician.
Grady Hendrix has embraced the idea of female friendship in his novels My Best Friend’s Exorcism and Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. In both of these, there’s a nostalgic sweetness to threaded through the horrors, which makes them great fun to read.
Rachel Harrison is the queen of female friendships. Seriously, check out almost any of her works, but maybe start with Cackle for this theme.
While we’re kicking up witchy heels, check out Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. In it, sisters and best friends navigate life and love - with a little murder and haunting thrown in! Though not shelved as horror, the bits with Gillybean’s boyfriend are chilling.
Of course, sisters can be the best friends. (Mine are, in any case!) So, that leads to the incomparable Shirley Jackson and her We Have Always Lived in the Castle. This 1962 novel is a classic for a reason!
Staying with the classics, J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, with its sapphic vampire and the poem Christobel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge set chilling scenes where the love may be more than a mere mortal can bear.
These are what springs to my beleaguered mind when I think of horror for National Girlfriends’ Day. What are your recommendations?
More about Kerry E.B. Black
Kerry E.B. Black writes from an over-stuffed little house situated along a fog-enshrouded river in the land where Romero's Dead roamed. Her children think she's dull, and their dogs agree, but the family cats, Poe and Hemingway, feel differently. The felines find a kinship with their nocturnal buddy and encourage Kerry to write.
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