10 Books That Shaped the Way I Write

Every writer is built from the books they have read. These are the ones that changed something in me. Not just as a reader, but as a storyteller. They taught me what was possible. They broke rules I did not know existed. They made me want to write the kind of books that leave marks.

1. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This book taught me that atmosphere is a character. The house in this novel breathes. It watches. It consumes. The walls are alive and the air is thick with something you cannot name but cannot escape. When I write settings that feel alive, that press against the characters like a physical force, this is the book I am channeling. Moreno-Garcia proved that horror does not need to be loud. It just needs to be patient.

2. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The blueprint for writing morally compromised characters you cannot stop caring about. Tartt proved that beauty and horror can live in the same sentence. That you can tell the reader exactly what happened on the first page and still make them desperate to understand why. This book taught me that the most compelling mysteries are not about what happened but about what it cost.

3. Verity by Colleen Hoover

Love it or hate it, this book understands pacing. It understands the power of an unreliable narrator. And it understands that the most terrifying thing in a thriller is not the twist. It is the doubt. The space between what you think happened and what actually happened. Hoover made me rethink how I structure reveals. She taught me that sometimes the best twist is the one the reader saw coming but hoped was wrong.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Miller writes love like it is the most important thing in the universe and the most destructive. That balance is everything I aspire to in my own romance arcs. The way she builds intimacy through small moments, through years of proximity and devotion, through the quiet accumulation of a life shared. And then she destroys you with it. That is the contract of great romance writing: make them believe, then make them grieve.

5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The book that made me realize women could be the villain and the hero in the same story. Flynn writes female rage with surgical precision. She does not apologize for it. She does not soften it. She lets it be ugly and brilliant and terrifying. Gone Girl gave me permission to write women who are not likable but are absolutely unforgettable.

6. The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Enemies to lovers done with teeth. Black understands that the best romantic tension comes from characters who genuinely want to destroy each other and genuinely cannot stay away. The push and pull in this book is masterful. It taught me that desire does not have to be pretty. It can be furious. It can be humiliating. It can be the thing you hate most about yourself. And it can still be the truest thing you feel.

7. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The grandmother of gothic romance. Every brooding hero, every haunted house, every unnamed narrator standing in the shadow of someone else owes something to this book. Du Maurier understood that the most powerful ghost in a story does not have to be dead. Sometimes the ghost is a memory. Sometimes it is a comparison. Sometimes it is the version of yourself you are afraid you will never become.

8. The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

This book broke me. It taught me that fantasy can be brutal and political and emotionally devastating. It raised the bar for what I expect from the genre. Kuang writes power as a curse, not a gift. She writes war as something that changes you at the molecular level. She writes a heroine who becomes something terrifying and makes you understand every step of the transformation. This book made me braver.

9. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

Say what you will, but this book understands emotional complexity. It does not give you easy answers. It makes you sit in the discomfort. That is brave writing. The courage to write a love story that does not end the way the reader wants it to, that prioritizes truth over satisfaction, that trusts the reader to handle ambiguity. It reminded me that the bravest thing a writer can do is refuse to make it easy.

10. Circe by Madeline Miller

A story about a woman who was underestimated by everyone, including herself. Miller writes transformation with such patience and grace that by the end you feel like you have transformed too. Circe taught me that a character does not need to be powerful to be compelling. They need to be honest. They need to keep choosing themselves even when the world tells them they are not worth choosing. That is the kind of heroine I want to write for the rest of my life.

These books live in my bones. They show up in my writing whether I intend it or not. If you have read any of them, you will probably recognize their fingerprints in my work. And if you have not read them yet, consider this your invitation. Start anywhere. They will find you where you need to be found.