If what gripped you in The Merciless was being trapped with Sofia as Riley’s pious clique turns a basement “exorcism” into something truly monstrous, you’ll love the sickly, haunted atmosphere of Sawkill Girls. On Sawkill Rock, girls keep vanishing, and Marion, Zoey, and Val are tangled in a predatory legend that feeds on them—much like how Brooklyn becomes prey to faith-fueled cruelty. It’s fierce, female-centered horror with teeth, secrets, and a constant sense that the island itself wants blood.

You got through the knife-edge scenes in The Merciless—Brooklyn duct-taped, the salt and holy water, the escalating cuts—and wanted more horror that doesn’t blink. Anna Dressed in Blood delivers. Ghost-killer Cas Lowood meets Anna Korlov, a murdered girl in a blood-soaked dress who tears intruders apart. The confrontations are visceral and shocking, but like Sofia’s uncertainty about what’s really inside Brooklyn, Cas has to figure out what, exactly, Anna is—and whether she deserves the fate she’s been given.

If the contested “possession” at the heart of The Merciless—Riley’s holy rhetoric versus Brooklyn’s pleas—hooked you, The Exorcist is the definitive plunge into that struggle. When young Regan MacNeil changes in terrifying ways, Father Karras and Father Merrin confront the possibility of real evil. Like Sofia’s dawning dread in the basement, the novel balances skepticism and belief until the ritual becomes a razor’s edge between salvation and sadism.

Loved how The Merciless pulls the rug—making you question whether Brooklyn is a victim, a liar, or possessed—and how that last-act reveal redefines everyone? The Tenth Girl plays a similar game. At a remote Patagonian finishing school, Mavi confronts hauntings, hidden agendas, and a truth that detonates everything you thought you understood. It’s that same dizzying shift in perspective that turns cruelty, guilt, and innocence inside out.

If watching Riley and her friends justify ever-harsher “purification” of Brooklyn fascinated you, Wilder Girls offers another pressure cooker of girls making brutal choices. On quarantined Raxter Island, Hetty, Reese, and Byatt do what they must to survive the Tox—lies, betrayals, and violence included. Like Sofia’s complicity and crisis of conscience, the book probes how far you’ll go when the rules rot and the body count rises.