Adam Cosco Recommends Books of Influence

 

And so we continue our Writers Recommend - a series where we ask writers to, well, you know.. recommend things. Like the books that they've enjoyed. To you. Because who doesn't like being recommended new and interesting books, right?! Think of it as a PSA. Only it's more like an LSA -Literary Service Announcement. 

Hey, my name is Adam Cosco. I started as a screenwriter and then became a novelist, mostly because I hated waiting for financing to get my stories made into movies. Most of my books started as scripts, and they read like movies. I’m still learning how to make them more novelistic, but I wanted to take the opportunity in this article to talk about some of my influences and discuss some books that I really like but haven’t gotten a chance to talk about anywhere else.

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

In my reading journey, no book has made me laugh as hard as this one. What you have to know about this book is that it’s autobiographical, but in a highly unique way. The book casts its own author as the protagonist, but this version of Bret Easton Ellis is not a gay man; he is instead domesticated and living with his wife in the suburbs. There is something so hilarious about just imagining this scenario.

To me, reading it was like the novelistic equivalent of seeing Fellini’s 8½ for the first time, that idea that anything was possible, and that movies and books were a way to be playful and mine your own life while blurring the truth. It's done in the same way Orson Welles would embellish his own life to the point where the legend and the lie were indecipherable.

There are so many pleasures in this book. The writing is hilarious, as it focuses on Bret, his complicated relationship with his father, and his even more complicated relationship with his fictional son, who is troubled in the same way Bret was growing up. But what I really love about it, as it goes on, is that the book kind of acts as therapy for Bret. We see that the fictional son Bret invented is a stand-in for his younger self, the one he fashioned as an edgy writer, the cool guy who was part of the literary Brat Pack. Ultimately, the book reveals itself to be about an author accepting the process of growing up and becoming uncool. In that sense, it has a lot of heart, just buried under a blackened crust.

Parallels in my work: Even though I wrote it well before reading Lunar Park, the book of mine that is most similar to it is Perverts. It’s a caustic journey through LA’s underbelly, set in the summer of 2012 against the backdrop of a raging forest fire. If you like the style of Bret Easton Ellis, you might like it. Check it out here.

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The Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

I have always said that the best horror stories are the ones that don’t let people off the hook. The Song of Kali by Dan Simmons is less of a standard story and more of a slow, plodding march toward what seems like inevitable doom.

The story follows a husband and, later, his wife as they journey to Calcutta. The lead character, a writer working for a literary magazine, is sent to write an article about newly discovered poetry by M. Das. In his search to meet M. Das, he learns of secret societies and the Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of death and destruction.

This is probably a good time to address what has become the elephant in the room regarding this book: in recent years, it has been labeled as xenophobic at best and racist at worst. This is a perception that was intensified by the fact that Dan Simmons expressed anti-Muslim views in his later years. I personally reject that hypothesis regarding the book itself, but I am the first to admit that I might be wrong, and this book very well may have some racist undertones in it. I am not one to allow someone's personal politics, especially later in life, to color their work.

In my defense of it, I liken it to movies like Straw Dogs, which views the rural English countryside as sinister and backward, or books and movies like Don't Look Now, which casts Venice, Italy, as sinister and perverse. The thing is, xenophobia is a word and a feeling for a reason. Certainly, hatred of any culture should be looked down on, but when it comes to horror stories, the fear of "otherness" is ingrained into the DNA of the genre, and mining those fears to create a feeling of dread is totally fair game.

Besides, it would be a great travesty to Dan Simmons to make his politics his sole legacy. Song of Kali is a masterclass in building dread. It may be one of the most downer books of all time, but to me, it belongs in the same category as the great downer movies like Blow Out, The French Connection, or Don’t Look Now. Nothing rattles an audience like taking the idea of a "happily ever after" and yanking it out from under them.

Parallels in my work: I wrote a book called The Heart of a Child which shares the same spiritual DNA as Song of Kali. I admittedly wrote this before I knew about Simmons or his work, but I assume I admire his writing because I am drawn to darker stories that leave no refuge for the reader. The Heart of a Child is loosely based on the McMartin Preschool trial of the '80s and is about a young girl who tells her parents she witnessed her teachers performing Satanic Ritualistic Abuse on some of her fellow classmates. Learn more about it here.

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The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

Unlike the other books I am suggesting, The Dogs of Babel did have a direct influence on my writing. I first read this as a screenplay and later as a book, and I was just struck by how unexpectedly moving it was. It’s about a man whose wife commits suicide, and the only witness to it was his dog. He then embarks on a journey to teach the dog how to speak because he is unconvinced that his wife took her own life and suspects there was something more, perhaps something sinister.

I just love the premise of trying to teach a dog to speak. In the script, he, I believe, buys floor pads and attempts to teach the dog to communicate that way. This is funny because at the time this book was written, that was considered far-fetched. Since then, I have become obsessed with a dog named Bunny on TikTok who does exactly this, she uses floor buttons to speak English, and it’s amazing!

I was always struck by the beginning of this book, the idea of a man who is unable to accept the suicide of someone he loves and goes searching for answers. After some life experience, knowing people in my own life who died by suicide, and thinking about my own attempts to join self-help groups and philosophical societies, I decided to write my own spin on this type of story.

My version starts out similarly: a man’s girlfriend unexpectedly kills herself by submerging herself under ice until she drowns. The man is unable to reconcile with what has happened, and instead of turning to a dog, he turns to a philosophical group that counts “listening to the dead” among its core tenets.

I wanted to write something about the siren's lure of belief. I really dislike movies and books that condescend to religion. Most of the world is religious, and if you are going to explore this territory, I feel you have to at least attempt to understand what makes people believe in something beyond the material world. When I wrote The End, I was trying to answer that question for the characters—to understand how grief leads people to need to believe in something. I wanted to make those answers a revelation for the audience as well. So instead of just reading about how a skeptical character becomes a believer, you yourself are lured into the belief system, feeling the magnetic pull of that cult-like atmosphere.

I owe a debt of gratitude to both the novel and the script of The Dogs of Babel for giving me the jumping-off point to take my story in a completely different direction. I really love that book, I love dogs, and I'm a sucker for anything that features animals in an un-Disneyfied way.

If you are interested in reading my book, The End, you can find it here: https://adamcosco.com/theend.

 

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Adam Cosco is an award-winning author and filmmaker whose work dives deep into the shadows of the human psyche. A graduate of the prestigious American Film Institute, Adam cut his teeth in Hollywood before turning his focus to novels—crafting stories that blend horror, psychological suspense, and dark satire.

His novels—Little Brother, Say Goodbye to Jonny Hollywood, Lowlands, The Heart of a Child, and his latest mind-bending thriller The Dream Killer—have captivated readers with their atmospheric dread and sharp psychological insight.

Fearless, provocative, and impossible to ignore, Adam Cosco writes the kind of stories that leave a mark.

What I Read in March

 Here's what I read in March. Another strong month with 14 books total.

Of the fourteen, two were 5 stars. Three were a solid 4 stars. Twelve of them were review copies... eleven of those I even managed to read before their release dates! Seven were from netgalley. Five were print copies from the author/publisher. Two were on audio. The longest read was The Boatman at 398 pages. The shortest was The Fifth Year at 80 pages.

A total of 3643 pages read.

The Boatman by K Bengston

The rites are failing. Potter’s Field is unraveling. And the Boatman isn’t just a ferryman of the dead.

Ring the church bell. Offer final confession. Place two silver coins over the eyes to pay the toll to Shoel. That’s the burial ritual Father Boone was taught when he arrived in Potter’s Field, a strange little town still reeling from the death of Father Orin, who burned alive in a house fire. But after this most recent death, something goes wrong. Horribly wrong.

The townsfolk gathered graveside are attacked by a murder of crows. The body vanishes from its half-filled grave. A debt collector shows up looking for payment and ends up neck-deep in something ancient and hungry. And the local whore begins seeing visions of two soggy, spectral children who sing a chilling rhyme: “Off he goes. Pays his tolls. Two for the eyes, one for the souls.”

Something old has awakened. And it’s waiting to be fed. "Save them. Show Mercy." The Boatman always collects.

Bengston's debut is a feverish blend of folklore and cult horror, with some serious echoes of the TV series From — the creepy "anghkooey" children, the crows as harbingers, the sense that nothing is what it seems and everything is about to go sideways. It’s a story where fairy tale logic curdles into nightmare, and the world you thought you understood gets ripped apart, piece by piece, right before your very eyes.

Yes, the middle is a mess. Yes, the style takes some getting used to. But once you surrender to the chaos, it’s a wild, eerie ride into ritual, regret, and a madness that doesn’t ask permission before it arrives.

The Feeding by Flint Maxwell

The fifth and final book in the Whiteout series!

And it was just meh. I think Flint had fizzled out at this point.

While Grady and group start settling in at the City of Light and making new friends, they also start getting a little too comfortable - living in warm, fortified buildings with more than enough to eat, no longer stuck outside battling the elements and wraiths, has lowered their defenses a bit. It all seems too good to be true and that's because it is. While on night watch one evening with his BFF and fellow musketeer Stone, Grady catches a woman running and flailing outside towards the city gates and since that was him not too long ago, he convinces the others to let her in. And, surprise surprise, along with this new stranger, the group also unknowingly ushers in their greatest and bloodiest battle yet.

Will our rag tag family make it out unscathed? Will the City of Lights be able to withstand the approach of the Matron? Will we ever find out where the hell these evil shadows and the summer snow came from?!

Are we seriously ending things like this?!?!

I had loved where this series was going. Each book was better than the last. Up until now. Pffft. I could take or leave this one.

3 stars for the series as a whole - a cool concept with characters I really enjoyed hanging out with. It sputtered around here and there but definitely kept me engaged and entertained as I listened during my drive.

Sarafina by Philip Fracassi

Sarafina is a wicked little cocktail of war torn historical horror dusted with dark fairytale magic and a heaping spoonful of religion — the kind of story that lures you in gently before sinking its claws and teeth into you.

The story follows three brothers, Ethan, Mason, and Archie, who flee the brutality of their widowed father hands by enlisting in the Civil War, only to discover the front lines offer their own brand of cruelty. After barely surviving the carnage and watching friends torn apart beside them, desertion becomes less a choice than a desperate instinct for survival.

They vanish into the woods, starving and exhausted, and find brief refuge with a small Indigenous community who feed them and tend their wounds. But the respite shatters when the patriarch betrays them, forcing the brothers back into flight — straight into a swamp that nearly claims Mason’s life.

Just as the last of their hope begins to dissolve, Ethan spots a young boy watching them from across a river where fruit trees bloom impossibly out of season. He rouses his brothers, and they follow the child to a secluded cabin.

There, a beautiful woman waits in the doorway with three enormous dogs at her side, offering warmth, food, and a dreamlike sense of salvation. The brothers fall under her spell, but Ethan can’t shake the feeling that something beneath the surface is terribly wrong. And the longer they stay, the clearer it becomes that they didn’t find sanctuary. They have escaped one hell only to stumble willingly into another.

On a side note: I’ve always loved the strange synchronicities that crop up in my reading life, and Sarafina was no exception. It pulled in the underworld of Shoel from my last read (The Boatman by K. Bengtson) and the Choctaw nation woven through the book before that (The Walls Are Closing In On Us by Joshua Trent Brown). When stories start aligning like this, I get a buzzy, uncanny feeling... like I’m following some hidden path and the books are quietly nudging me forward. Has that ever happened to you?

The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer

Holy shiiiiit.

It’s been a very long time since a book crawled into my head and actually scared me while I was reading it alone at night. I’m talking real anxiety, that “maybe I should turn a light on, close all the blinds, and double check the doors" energy. The Caretaker got under my skin in a way I wasn’t prepared for, and the dread just kept building in my chest like something alive.

And listen, I wasn’t one of the people foaming at the mouth over Kliewer’s debut. But this? This book is going to give my current favorites of the year a serious fight. This one completely redeemed him for me.

It’s sharp, claustrophobic, and so psychologically invasive that I kept wanting to put it down just to breathe... and then immediately picked it back up because I had to know.

I finished it and instantly wished I had someone next to me so I could scream about it. I totally would have failed the rites. And nope. Don't ask me to housesit for you. Ever. Homie don't play that.

Fuck me. This was good.

These Familiar Walls by CJ Dotson

These Familiar Walls solidified something for me: Dotson’s characterization of women and children just doesn’t work for me. Her women tend to be abrasive in ways that feel more grating than complex, and her child characters never quite land... they are either overly adult or oddly infantile.

Amber Hughes, our protagonist, was particularly rough for me. The story bounces back and forth between Amber as an adult as she moves her husband and their two kids into her childhood home after her parents' gruesome murder and Amber as a middle schooler with her younger sister when they befriend Nathan, a deeply unsettling neighborhood boy. Nathan is malicious, Amber is desperate to belong, and the dynamic between them is really uncomfortable. She becomes obsessed with him, even as he acts cruely towards her and her sister, and starts mirroring his rage. I get why we need her childhood timeline, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed reading it.

Meanwhile, in the present, spooky things start happening: reflections misbehaving, there are unexplained whispers and shadows, and a sudden and unhealthy fascination with fire. Much like in The Cut, Dotson also has her characters making baffling parenting decisions. Kids are left alone during supernatural chaos, danger is shrugged off, all the red flags are ignored. You’re left thinking what a terrible mother. What an absent partner. What is wrong with these people.

And... as with any haunted house story, the longer she stays there and tries to ignores it, the more the activity starts to ramp up. Once her husband begins experiencing it himself, the haunting really escalates, and the plot starts peeling back its layers. A few twists at the end saved this from being a total flop, nudging it from a 2 star rating to a 3, but overall? Not my favorite.

The Cellar Below the Cellar by Ivy Grimes

Ooof. This one was rough. Like… Grasshands rough. The concept was sooo good, but the execution? Absolutely not.

The Cellar Below the Cellar follows Jane, who stops by her grandmother’s house in the woods and ends up stranded there when a massive solar storm wipes out the power grid. With no way to contact the outside world, she and Grandma check on the nearest neighbors and decide to pool resources to survive. Meanwhile, Grandma — who is so suspiciously obtuse and obviously keeping some secrets — keeps pushing Jane to take over as guardian of the cellar below the cellar. And Jane is terrified of whatever’s down there.

Sounds promising, right? Except the writing is… bad. Like, distractingly bad. Jane is supposed to be thirty-three, but she thinks, talks, and reacts like a sulky teenager. I genuinely assumed she was sixteen until the author casually dropped her age. She even plays dolls with the neighbor girl — dolls her late mother made, dolls with “special powers” like taking over your skin and doing your chores for you if you feed and water them. I wish I were joking.

Grandma is hiding something, everyone is acting weird, and the writing is painfully clunky. Honestly, this should’ve been a DNF, but I kept going because I needed to know what was in the cellar below the cellar. And by the time we finally got there, there weren't that many more pages to go so...

This is absolutely landing on my Worst Of 2026 list. And that sucks, because I had such high hopes. And seriously... with a cover that gorgeous, the book had no business being this bad.

Books like this make me wonder if I should create a "books I suffered through so you don't have to" goodreads shelf.

The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy

I’ve read and appreciated a few of Percy’s previous novels. But no matter which one I pick up, I always seem to hover between 3 and 4 stars. I want to love his work more than I actually do. And interestingly, each book is wildly different from the last... he brings something new with each one.

The Wilding is a generational camping trip turned dark and creepy. The Dead Lands reimagines Lewis and Clark in a post-apocalyptic future ravaged by super flu and nuclear fallout. Red Moon is basically a war on werewolves. And now, with his Comet Cycle trilogy—set in a world reshaped by comet debris—we kick things off with The Ninth Metal, which cleverly blends sci-fi, eco-horror, thriller, and superheros together.

Set in Minnesota, the meteors that crashed there contained omnimetal, a new element with the potential to become the next great energy source. Once discovered, it sparks a modern-day gold rush. Two rival mining families battle for land rights (think Yellowstone, but with more pickup trucks and dirty deals), while others snort the metal dust and retreat to a compound to worship the comet in peace and heightened consciousness. Meanwhile, a child who was closest to one of the original impact sites begin to change in ways that science and the military can’t quite explain.

It’s a wild premise, and Percy throws a lot into the pot—corporate espionage, cults, government agents, and a rookie cop caught in the middle. But despite all the moving parts, or maybe because of them, it never fully clicked for me. While the concept is cool, the execution didn’t fully deliver the punch I was hoping for.

Still, I’m intrigued enough to continue. Each book in the trilogy is a standalone story set in a different location, struggling with a different result from the meteors crashing, and I’m curious to see how Percy plays with genre in the next installment. The Ninth Metal didn’t blow me away, but it laid enough groundwork to keep me invested. Onward to The Unfamiliar Garden.

Seasons of Iron and Glass by Amal El-Mohtar

Interestingly, this collection isn't supposed to release until March 24th but I saw it on the new and noteworthy shelf at Barnes and Noble this weekend. So I guess I couldn't have picked a better time to pull this one out of the review pile.

The stories in Seasons of Glass and Iron are the wispy, feathery things of fairy tales — delicate on the surface, but edged with teeth.

Some, like the title story, feel like the fables we grew up with: a woman perched atop a glass mountain, far out of the reach of men, befriending another woman in iron shoes who climbs her way to the summit.

Others find comfort in their strangeness. The Lonely Sea in the Sky follows a planetary geologist studying an alien mineral called Lucyite, only to be locked underground after being diagnosed with Meisner Syndrome... a kind of deadly infatuation with diamonds. It’s bizarre, shimmering, and oddly tender.

Across the collection we meet shapeshifters, dream-hoppers, bird people, witches, and secret keepers. El-Mohtar’s worlds are lush and glimmering, full of magic that feels both ancient and startlingly new.

Always stunning, sometimes frustratingly complicated, these stories drift between the accessible and the inscrutable. Some will resonate deep in your bones; others you may set aside simply because they’re beyond you in that moment. But no matter what, you’re bound to fall in love with something within these pages — a line, a character, a moment of wonder that lingers long after you close the book.

Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Is it me or does Invasive Species remind you of the glossy neighborhood drama of 90210 and the suburban horroresque tension of Fright Night, with the scrappy, kid vs evil charm of The Monster Squad, only set in a small seaside town? Teen angst, adult drama, and a creepy house on the hill that contains something ancient and awful... all coexisting in one claustrophobic cul‑de‑sac.

This is a book where the mundane meets monsters in a suffocatingly suburban setting. It’s slow but steady. Cute but forgettable. The charm is definitely there - the tight knit neighborhood, the eerie house, the sense that something is very wrong - but the execution never fully grabbed me.

It’s the kind of book you breeze through on a rainy afternoon and enjoy in the moment, but one that doesn’t linger long after. A solid three stars for me. Pleasant, cartoonishly spooky, entertaining enough, but not one that’s going to haunt my shelves.

And for a book supposedly set in the ’80s? The nostalgia is MIA. If the jacket copy hadn’t told me, I’d never have guessed.

The Great Houses of Pill Hill by Diane Josefowicz

The Great Houses of Pill Hill is an entertaining literary spin on the cozy, whodunit, crime fiction genre that follows Cookie, an interior decorator hired to restore a historic home for one of New Preston’s wealthiest couples.

Things get messy when one of her crew discovers a strange hidden room tucked behind a wall that's connected to the chimney’s ventilation system. They get messier when Cookie decides to throw herself into an affair with her client's husband. And they get messier still when the house goes up in flames during the housewarming party and her lover is found among the ashes... wrapped in a rug... with his head bashed in.

The detective on the case taps into Cookie’s unusual hobby of building miniature dioramas of famous murder scenes, commissioning one of the property in hopes it might help reveal who, exactly, has blood on their hands. And Cookie can't seem to help conducting a little investigation of her own to see if she can't get to the bottom of things herself.

The book has its charms, yet it felt a bit all over the place and though it's not a super chunky book, something about Diane’s writing made it feel like a much longer read than it actually was.

And since I'm complaining... lols... there’s the infidelity, which is a pet peeve of mine. Cookie seems to have slept with half the men in town, which was exhausting and made it pretty hard to root for her. Every time the plot threatened to move forward, we detoured into yet another hookup, another secret, another questionable decision.

Overall, a solid three stars. Not terrible, not great, and not one that I can see sticking with me for long. Although as I was reading it, it did bring to mind Stacy Wilder's Charleston Conundrum, and that series as a whole, which is also a cozy murder mystery, but with a cool twist!

Morsel by Carter Keane

I have feelings about this one. Boy do I have feelings. But overall, I kinda really liked it.

Let me explain.

For starters, I have some qualms with the cover. There’s some major mismatching happening between it and the actual content. I can’t quite put my finger on why... because yes, Morsel deals with death and rebirth, and yes, cicadas are everywhere, but the cover lends itself more towards a fairytale‑eco‑mushroomy vibe, and the book is… well, absolutely not that.

The first half? I loved it. Carter crushed it. The characters, the dialogue, the situation our MC finds herself in... pure horror fodder. She knows it, and we know it, every damn step of the way. And it keeps us hanging on, curious to see what's going to happen next.

I also appreciate that the author tells us up front the dog is going to be fine, because phew, that was one less thing to stress over as the tension and oh‑shit‑girl‑you‑better‑run energy started kicking into high gear.

Then you hit the twist... and yes, I'm ashamed to say that once it landed I immediately thought, “How did I not see THAT coming?” From that point on, things start to spiral. What was weird is now totally unhinged, and we're left feeling like two different books got split down the middle and glued together 0r like the characters stepped out of one story and jumped right into another. And while I didn't hate the book post-twist, I just wasn't expecting it to go there and needed some time to adjust.

I know I’m probably not doing a great job of explaining the actual plot, but honestly? I think it’s best to go in blind. Read the description, avoid the reviews, and just ride the waves. See where it takes you. And if you finish it feeling the same way I did, I’d love the validation.

The Fifth Year by Marlen Haushofer

I find it funny that the Haushofer book I’m most interested in — The Wall — is still sitting untouched in my TBR, while I’ve already read Killing Stella and now The Fifth Year. And unfortunately, this one didn’t do much for me.

It’s part fever dream, part fairytale, following a five‑year‑old girl living a secluded life with her grandparents in a pre‑technology world. Days are spent outdoors from sunup to sundown, or inside crafting paper families out of old newspapers. Time itself becomes elastic here... slowing to a crawl, then lurching forward without warning. I’m assuming that’s meant to mimic how a child experiences time, but it often left me feeling disoriented rather than immersed.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed. The narrative felt too hazy, the story too shapeless. Read at your own risk.

The Girl With A Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean

This book took me by complete surprise! It's definitely going to be a 2026 top-read contender for sure.

The publisher reached out and sent a print arc. I like a lot of what Tor puts out but I was super hesistant going into this one because (1) I wasn't a huge fan of The Book Eaters and (2) I am not generally a fan of most fantasy novels. So... I set the expectations real low. But within the first few pages, I had a feeling this was going to be different — and I was right.

The story is set in an alternate Hong Kong during WWII, where ghosts coexist with the living. Most of them have been pushed into the cramped, chaotic Kowloon Walled City, and this is where Mercy Chan ends up after washing ashore with no memory of who she is or where she came from. Once inside the city, she discovers she has a very valuable gift. She can talk to ghosts and help them achieve the revenge they need so they can finally rest. But while she is helping ghosts find peace, another spirit has infiltrated Kowloon's waterways, and is leaving drowned civilians in its wake. And it claims to know Mercy.

What takes place is a deliciously twisty story of a woman haunted by a past she cannot recall, while the very thing she seeks is hunting her down for the justice it believes it deserves.

I can't say too much because it will ruin things for you but OMG the twist that hits and how it changes everything ... it was so well done and so gripping that it was almost impossible to put the book down to go and do the necessary things like laundry and cooking and sleeping.

And honestly? This might be the first time I’ve liked an author’s second book more than their first. I usually fall in love with the first book I read from someone, no matter where it lands in their bibliography, but this one completely outshone its predecessor.

If you’ve been hemming and hawing over this one, just go for it. And if it wasn’t on your radar until now, consider this your nudge. You’re going to love it.