The Moss & Ink Society: November 2025 Prompt
Welcome, friends, to the inaugural gathering of the Moss & Ink Society.
Each month, this space will offer a prompt- something atmospheric and aesthetic- for those who want a gentle nudge toward books that match a particular mood, image, or theme, rather than a strict reading challenge or a pre-selected “book club” book.
For November, our prompt is Forestcore: damp moss and rot, mushrooms and evergreens. In the darkest part of the forest, you never know who (or what) might be watching. If you want to participate, you’re welcome to choose any book that evokes this mood, whether through setting, tone, or just the feeling the book gives you.
Below, I’ve included a moodboard to inspire your choices, along with a few suggested titles to spark some ideas. So settle in, pour yourself a warm coffee, and I hope you enjoy your book. Please feel free to let us know what you decided to read and what you thought below.
Some of my suggestions:
- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. A dark reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, which follows a retired soldier who arrives at a friends’ decaying estate to find those inside slowly consumed by something uncanny growing in the walls and the woods outside.
- The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. One of the lesser-known books by the horror king, this book follows a young girl lost in the woods during a hike, who must survive alone as an unseen presence closes in. It’s a tense read, suffocating at times, and no less disturbing for its small cast of characters.
- Where the Dark Stands Still by A.B. Poranek. A lush Slavik-inspired fantasy steeped in folklore, which follows a girl who wanders into a haunted forest, only to fall under the protection of its enigmatic guardian, a monster bound by ancient magic.
- Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Not quite as dark, more a cosy fantasy following a brilliant scholar trying to document the hidden fae of a remote Northern village, only to find herself entangled with both the locals and her frustrating but handsome academic rival.
