Best Kelly Link Books
Kelly Link occupies a strange and singular corner of contemporary fiction — her work dissolves genre boundaries so completely that calling it fantasy or horror or literary fiction feels beside the point. Stories from White Cat, Black Dog drift between fairy tale logic and domestic realism with an eerie, dreamlike confidence, never quite explaining themselves and never needing to. Her prose is precise and strange in equal measure: each sentence lands cleanly, but the accumulated effect is deeply unsettling. The Book of Love shows her expanding that sensibility into longer form without losing the uncanny compression that makes her short fiction so memorable. Link is essential reading for anyone who finds conventional genre fiction too tidy — readers who want their stories to leave a residue of unease long after the last page.
Where to Start with Kelly Link
- Best entry point → The Book of Love
- Best standalone → Shadow Show: New Short Stories and Fantasy from Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, and 24 Writers – A Ray Bradbury Tribute
- What readers keep coming back to → White Cat, Black Dog: Stories
- Highest rated by readers → Zombies: The Recent Dead
Best Kelly Link Books
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White Cat, Black Dog: Stories
by Kelly Link, Shaun Tan
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Link updates Brothers Grimm tales for the modern world: princesses navigate divorce proceedings and witches deal with gentrification in their enchanted forests.
★ 3.79 Goodreads (7.7K ratings) - 2
Shadow Show: New Short Stories and Fantasy from Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, and 24 Writers – A Ray Bradbury Tribute
by Sam Weller, Mort Castle, Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers, Harlan Ellison, Joe Hill, Alice Hoffman, Kelly Link, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Audrey Niffenegger, Ray Bradbury, Jay Bonansinga, David Morrell, Thomas F. Monteleone, Lee Martin, Dan Chaon, John McNally, Joe Meno, Robert McCammon, Ramsey Campbell, John Maclay, Gary A. Braunbeck, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Charles Yu, Julia Keller, Bayo Ojikutu
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Twenty-six writers honor Ray Bradbury with original stories that capture his vision of Mars rockets, traveling circuses, dystopian futures, and the magic lurking in small-town America.
★ 3.91 Goodreads (1.9K ratings) - 3
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010
Kyle Murchison Booth • Book 4
by Paula Guran, Kelley Armstrong, Holly Black, Ramsey Campbell, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Stewart O'Nan, Sarah Pinborough, Norman Prentiss, Barbara Roden, Lucius Shepard, Peter Straub, Michael Shea, Kelly Link, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, Gerard Houarner, Gemma Files, Kurt Dinan, Elizabeth Bear, Roby Davies, Maura McHugh, Dale Bailey, Deborah Biancotti, Gary McMahon, Holly Phillips, John Mantooth, Marc Laidlaw, Margo Lanagan, Michael Marshall Smith, Nadia Bulkin, Nathan Ballingrud, Paul Tremblay, Peter Atkins, Sarah Monette, Seth Fried, Stephen Graham Jones, Steve Duffy, Steve Rasnic Tem, Suzy McKee Charnas, John Langan
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Darkness lurks everywhere — in small-town picnics, behind dumpsters where harpies dwell, and in The Nowhere where lost things go — across stories that find horror in the mundane.
★ 3.84 Goodreads (431 ratings) - 4
Zombies: The Recent Dead
by Paula Guran, Steve Duffy, Max Brooks, Nik Houser, Andy Duncan, David J. Schow, Joe R. Lansdale, Neil Gaiman, Alice Sola Kim, Gary A. Braunbeck, Francesca Lia Block, Tobias S. Buckell, David Wellington, Tim Waggoner, Kit Reed, Brian Keene, Kelly Link, Gary McMahon, Scott Edelman, Kevin Veale, Michael Marshall Smith, Tim Lebbon, David Prill
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Twenty-three authors reimagine zombies as everything from Romero's living dead to dancing thrillers, proving these monsters adapt to any apocalyptic permutation.
★ 3.66 Goodreads (939 ratings) - 5
The Book of Love
by Kelly Link
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Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath their high school after dying, navigating Link's weird magic and exploring different forms of love—friendship, romance, family—with her signature compassion. January LaVoy's narration perfectly captures Link's distinctive voice and tonal shifts.
★ 3.49 Goodreads (11.1K ratings)