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Blog – Posted on Monday, Feb 04

100 best (and scariest) horror books of all time.

The definition of scary changes from person to person. For some, it might be ghosts and haunted houses. For others, serial killers. For still others, the most frightening things are the ones that go bump in the night, unseen.

Despite the width of this spectrum, what unites all lovers of horror is the thrill that horror novels inspire within us: that universal sensation of your heart thumping out of your chest, as cold sweat breaks on your forehead when you turn the page.

To create this list, we went to the darkest, most ghostly corners of the literary world. Without further ado, here are the 100 best horror novels of all time — it's safe to say that we hope they'll keep you up at night. Happy reading!

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great horror books out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized horror book recommendation  😉

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1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Is there a name more synonymous with horror? The story of Dr. Frankenstein and the anguished, tragic monster he unwittingly creates has become a cultural icon, both macabre and quintessential. When Mary Shelley set out to write Frankenstein over two centuries ago, she said that she wanted to create a book that would “speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.” We can safely say that she succeeded.

2. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is a mixture of Moby Dick-esque maritime detail (it later inspired Herman Melville) and H.P. Lovecraft-style cosmic horror . The titular Pym stows away on the Grampus, a whaling ship headed for southern waters. But after mutiny breaks out on the upper deck, Pym is left stranded by one of his friends, only to face a series of gruesome situations once he’s retrieved.

3. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1839)

Could you really call a list of the best horror books complete without a nod (or two) to the genius of Edgar Allan Poe? Sibling dynamics are given new meaning in The Fall of the House of Usher , a work of gothic fiction that centers on a spooky household. Roderick is a sick man with acute sensitivity to everything, who lives in constant fear he is about to die. His sister, Madeline, suffers from catalepsy (a sickness involving seizures). An unnamed narrator visits them both and gets more than he bargained for.

4. Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell (1851-1861)

Just as the tin says! Gothic Tales is a collection of (surprise!) gothic tales — more specifically, fairy tales intertwined with short stories. Written by 19th-century author Elizabeth Gaskell, these stories deliver everything: disappearances, Salem witch hunts, mysterious children wandering lost in the moors, and local legends that may or may not return to haunt the townspeople. And with every story, Gaskell shows her uncanny talent of blending reality and the supernatural with spine-tingling dexterity.

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5. Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

Before Dracula , there was Carmilla . This tale of a female vampire who attracts a lonely young girl served as the foundation for the “lesbian vampirism” trope (and, no doubt, inspired Bram Stoker to some extent as well). So fans of the emerging cult classic Jennifer’s Body , you’ve found your literary horror match.

6. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

Meet the most famous vampire of all time. Dracula was born out of Bram Stoker’s imagination over a century ago — yet he still lives on today in our collective consciousness. Dracula is his story, one in which he roams from Transylvania to England to spread the curse of the undead amongst innocents. More than a simple tale about vampirism, Dracula is an era-defining masterwork about sexuality, technology, superstition, and an ancient horror that’s too terrible for words.

7. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)

The Turn of the Screw is the original children of the damned! When a governess is hired to take care of Miles and Flora, the niece and nephew of a wealthy Englishman, she has no idea what she’s in for. As she discovers the tragic fate of her predecessor, she starts seeing things that can only be explained in one of two ways: either she’s mad… or the specter of the late governess wants her job back!

8. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft (1928)

Perhaps the most influential of American horror writers, H.P. Lovecraft was responsible for creating an entire mythology of elder gods, sinister sea-dwellers , mysterious cults, and men of science who are driven to the edge of their sanity. The Call of Cthulhu remains one of the most accessible entry points into Lovecraft’s works — some of which, if we’re being honest, are a bit hard for the uninitiated to follow.

9. Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James (1931)

M.R. James essentially originated the “antiquarian ghost story.” Indeed, his writing was revolutionary for its time, discarding old Gothic clichés and using more realistic settings — which as we know by now, only makes a scary story scarier. His Collected Ghost Stories includes a whopping 30 tales, most of which involve a mild-mannered academic stumbling upon an artifact that calls forth some malevolent, otherworldly presence. Yes, the ghosts are fascinating; but what’s really admirable here is James’ signature subtlety of style.

10. At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft (1936)

This post-Cthulhu novella by Lovecraft is so long and twisty that even Lovecraft himself couldn’t get it published at first. At the Mountains of Madness relates the horrifying details of an Antarctic expedition gone wrong, in which the remains of a prehistoric species seemingly came to life and slayed humans. As the narrative spirals further, both the characters and the reader come to realize that instead of a life-changing discovery, the explorers may have brought about a death-wracking monster.

11. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)

“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Perhaps the most famous first line of any novel in the 20th century, this intoxicating blend of romance and suspense was seemingly made for Alfred Hitchcock, who went on to direct Rebecca 's silver screen adaptation. After a whirlwind romance, a shy American marries a wealthy Englishman and returns to his estate in Cornwall. She soon realizes that she’s now living under the (literal or figurative) shadow of her husband’s first wife: the seemingly perfect and recently deceased Rebecca de Winter.

12. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

One man’s hero is another man’s villain. If there’s only one lesson we learn from Matheson’s survival classic, let it be that. Doctor Robert Neville is the last man left alive. In the daylight, he hits the streets, stocking up on supplies and vanquishing the vampiric creature that lurk in the shadows. But when night falls, he squirrels himself away in his fortress of a home and works desperately on a cure for an epidemic that has ended the human race.

13. The Bad Seed by William March (1954)

Now synonymous with any misbehaving child, the original “bad seed” was Rhoda Penmark, the sociopathic eight-year-old. Her mother Christine suspects her of hurting and possibly killing a classmate, an elderly neighbor, and even her own dog — and as Christine discovers the truth about her own mother’s dark past, she realizes that Rhoda has to be stopped at all costs, before The Bad Seed sprouts any further.

14. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)

You know how some people say that the setting is almost like another character in the story? Well, in the case of this spooky classic, that’s the literal truth. When a parapsychologist invites a group of volunteers to stay at an old mansion with a bloody mystery, he hopes to uncover evidence of the supernatural. As the tension ratchets up, each of the guests is confronted by inexplicable phenomena. Listed by Stephen King as one of the best horror books of the 20th century, The Haunting of Hill House is a must-read for any fan of the genre.

15. Psycho by Robert Bloch (1959)

If you’re into horror, you’re no stranger to Psycho . But let’s recap one of the best horror plots of all time anyway: inspired by the real-life story of psychotic murderer Ed Gein, Norman Bates and his Mother own the Bates motel, with the unlit neon sign out front. When a woman checks into the motel one night, Norman can’t help but spy on her. Displeased, Mother plans to rectify her son’s behaviour by eliminating the woman, and anything that might purge Norman of his dark thoughts.

16. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

We learn three things in the first paragraph of Jackson’s final novel: Mary Katherine Blackwood lives with her sister Constance; she loves the death-cap mushroom; and everyone else in her family is dead. From the supreme master of shivers-down-your-spine horror comes a tale of Gothic surroundings and even more sinister, yet inscrutable, inner lives. You’ll be guessing the wicked truth about Mary and Constance right up to the very end.

17. The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell (1962)

Bearing strong superficial resemblance to a certain classic, Russell’s novel also features a pair of priests tasked with examining a young girl who may be possessed by the devil. Between The Case Against Satan , The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, contemporary readers can sense a Catholic-tinged fear of the devil pervading through American horror of the 60s. If you like the other two, why not give this one a chance?

18. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962)

At the beginning of Something Wicked This Way Comes , twelve-year-olds Will and Jim can’t wait to visit “Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show.” But during their visit, they witness something odd: ol’ Cooger riding backwards on the carousel, which turns him into a boy of their own age. As Will and Jim tail the Benjamin Button-ized Cooger, searching for answers, they find that the mysteries of the carnival are even darker than they anticipated — and that that darkness may not be limited to the carnival alone.

19. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (1967)

If, for some reason, you’re doubting whether Rosemary’s Baby is one of the best horror books of all time, let us remind that it was the bestselling horror novel of the 1960s, launching a boom in the commercial success of horror fiction in general. As with many stories in the genre, Rosemary’s Baby starts out pretty innocently, and then things take a turn for the worst: Rosemary and Guy have just moved into a beautiful Manhattan apartment, and life is good. That is, until their dream home starts to turn into a living nightmare, and they begin to feel that the devil lives only a few doors down.

20. Hell House by Richard Matheson (1971)

In Hell House , the I am Legend scribe reaches terrifying new heights by expertly combining his flair for suspense with an intuitive eye for horror. The story opens on a dying millionaire who pays $100,000 each to a physicist and two mediums for them to retrieve “proof” of life after death. The group’s plan: travel to Maine and spend the week in the Belasco House, the most haunted house in the world. Whether any of them make it out alive — without going mad — is another question altogether.

If you don’t trust us, believe Stephen King, who once said: “ Hell House is the scariest haunted house novel ever written. It looms over the rest the way the mountains loom over the foothills.”

21. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971)

No author creates sensation quite like William Peter Blatty and no story has satisfied a nation’s capacity for horror quite like The Exorcist . A literary landmark of the 21st-century , The Exorcist is the deeply troubling tale of one child’s demonic possession and two priests’ attempts to save her from a fate worse than death. Part family drama and all horror, it delivers on all fronts.

22. Carrie by Stephen King (1974)

Allegedly fished out of the trash by his wife, it’s hard to believe that this classic was only the first novel published by Stephen King. As one of the most put-upon teenage girls in literature, the title character struggles with school bullies, a puritanical mother, and unusual (to say the least) physical changes. Even before it went on to become a famous film, Carrie gave early fans a glimpse of King’s greatest gifts: his ability to write sympathetic, fully fleshed characters while also delivering on the big shocks. (Want more King? Check out this list of every Stephen King novel , ranked from most popular to least popular.)

23. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976)

Speaking of debuts that made a splash: with her first published novel, Anne Rice redefined Southern Gothic for a new generation. The titular interview takes place in modern day, as the vampire Louis recounts his story to a cub reporter. Once a plantation owner in pre-Civil War Louisiana, his life as a creature of the night is marked by his various encounters with Lestat, the vampire responsible for his undeath. Interview with the Vampire went on to be an incredible success, spawning a series of popular novels and a film adaptation starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

24. The Shining by Stephen King (1977)

What do you get when you take a frustrated writer, a creepy old hotel, and a blizzard that locks everyone inside? An absolute cornerstone of horror, that’s what! If you’ve never read The Shining , brace yourself for a marathon of mounting tension and terrifying twists, with a family fighting for their lives, even as they’re not exactly sure who or what they’re fighting.

25. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (1979)

Angela Carter is one of the preeminent magical realist writers of the twentieth century, female or male. The Bloody Chamber , a collection of darkly reimagined fairy tales and folktales, takes a distinctly feminist slant with its portrayal of female characters: many of the heroines in these stories save themselves, rather than waiting for a hero on a white horse. Of course, they have to go through some pretty scary stuff first. Horror lovers who also enjoy a bit of Holly Black or Marissa Meyer, this is unquestionably the collection for you.

26. Ghost Story by Peter Straub (1979)

A group of old men in a quiet town call themselves The Chowder Society. Every so often, they gather to share ghost stories with each other. It’s all just fun and game… until it isn’t. In the wake of a horrific accident, the men are forced to confront one of their stories — and the consequences of the worst thing that they’ve ever done in this brilliant homage to “Night of the Living Dead.”

27. Whispers by Dean Koontz (1980)

Whispers stars Thomas, a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. One day, she is attacked by Bruno Frye, the proprietor of a vineyard she recently visited. She forces him to leave at gunpoint and immediately calls the police — who then call Bruno’s home, where he answers, not more than seconds after the attack. Later on, she is once again attacked by Bruno but manages to get injure him as he escapes. When she called the cops again, she learns that her assailant was found dead hundreds of miles away. But if you think that will put an end to her assaults, then you’re in for a big surprise.

28. The Mask by Dean Koontz (1981)

Not to be confused with the Jim Carrey comedy, The Mask is a shudder-inducing novel from Koontz follows Carol and Paul, a hopeful couple who welcomes a young, amnesiac foster girl into their home. But though “Jane” (who can’t remember her real name) seems angelic at first, her increasingly strange behavior and the mystery of her true identity begins to worry her potential adoptive parents… who may have a closer connection to her than they realize.

29. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (1983)

Now a major motion picture starring Daniel Radcliffe ( as well as a long-running stage play in London), The Woman in Black is often described as “if Jane Austen wrote horror.” This take on a classic ghost story follows solicitor Arthur Kipps as he travels to the English moors to settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. What he finds really finds is a mansion haunted by the elusive “Woman in Black”. Readers who love a slow build-up and the sensation of being watching will be thrilled.

30. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)

Frank Cauldhame is sick in the head, even by the standards of the horror genre. Though only sixteen, he lives in isolation and has developed a number of sociopathic tendencies, including torturing wasps in a machine he calls “the wasp factory.” As the reader gets to know more about Frank’s twisted past, they begin to understand why he’s like this — and another twist toward the end of The Wasp Factory makes Frank’s everyday activities seem practically banal.

I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago.

These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: \'The Midnight Meat Train,\' a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; \'The Yattering and Jack,\' about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; \'In the Hills, the Cities,\' an unusual example of an original horror premise; \'Dread,\' a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; \'Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament,\' about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

31. Books of Blood by Clive Barker (1984)

As Britain’s leading purveyor of shocking horror, Clive Barker has made a bit splash as both an author and a film director. While cinephiles may recognise his works Candyman and Hellraiser , he first appeared on the horror radar with his short story collection, Books of Blood . Compulsively blood-curdling, these contemporary stories see regular people sucked into grotesque, disturbing, and often comic scenarios. A brilliant gateway for Barker newbs.

Ghosts and The Locked Room are the next two brilliant installments in Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy .

32. City of Glass by Paul Auster (1985)

City of Glass is the first installment in Auster’s landmark New York Trilogy , and a genuinely psychedelic work of intertwining narratives. It begins with a private investigator and former fiction writer who’s driving himself crazy trying to solve a case, then unspools into countless more intertextual threads and questions — the possible answers to which will have readers questioning their own sanity and stability by the end of this book.

33. It by Stephen King (1986)

In the story that injected clowns straight into the nightmares of an entire generation, the title character is a demonic entity that disguises itself while pursuing its prey. And for the children of Derry, that mostly involves taking the form of Pennywise the Clown. Alternating between two time periods (childhood and adulthood), It is packed with fascinating tangents that expertly flesh out the sad, traumatized, and occasionally nostalgic natives of this quiet Maine town.

34. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

The horrors of Beloved , considered by many to be Morrison’s seminal work, are thoroughly intertwined with the ghastly history of America. Sethe is a former slave who had to slit her infant daughter’s throat to prevent her from enduring the same profound injustices and trauma as her. Eighteen years later, the child still haunts her — in some ways more than others. Between the intensely surreal atmosphere that pervades the entire book and Morrison’s deep-cutting prose, Beloved is a masterpiece beyond that of most contemporary horror novels.

35. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (1988)

In the 1960s, Harriet and David Lovatt are normal parents with four normal children in England — until Harriet gives birth to their fifth child. Ben is the devil incarnate: he is too strong for his own good, insatiable when it comes to sustenance, and abnormally violent. As he grows up, the family becomes increasingly paralyzed by fear and indecision. Underneath the thrills and agony of The Fifth Child lies a dangerous question about parenthood and the obligations of family.

36. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (1988)

The basis for the Oscar-winning film, The Silence of the Lambs is the follow-up to Red Dragon , which was the first novel to feature cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In this sequel, FBI trainee Clarice Starling enlists the help of Dr. Lecter to find “Buffalo Bill” — another killer on the loose. In order to do so, the inner workings of a very dark mind are probed, and spine-chilling suspense ensues.

37. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons (1989)

Carrion Comfort is based on a brilliantly unique premise: that throughout history, a select group of individuals with psychic powers (known as “The Ability”) have compelled humans to commit horrific violence. Acts such as the cruelty of Nazi guards, John Lennon’s assassination, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis can all be attributed to people with The Ability — and they may be planning something even worse. It’s up to one man, a Holocaust survivor, to extinguish this ancient evil before they do any more harm.

38. Ring by Kōji Suzuki (1991)

The premise is a modern-twist on a classic trope: there is a videotape that warns viewers they will die in one week unless they perform an unspecified act. And, yes, the videotape does keep its promises. This Japanese mystery horror novel was the basis for the 2002 film, The Ring , a film which kickstarted the trend of adapting Asian horror for English-speaking markets. Indeed, the nineties was when international readers really started to pay attention to the chilling work being produced by Japanese genre writers like Suzuki.

39. Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite (1993)

In Drawing Blood , Trevor McGee avoids his childhood home in North Carolina for a reason. Years ago, when he was only five years old, his father murdered his mother and his younger brother before hanging himself. Now he’s determined to return and confront his past, but there’s a small problem: the demons that drove his father to insanity might never have left the house.

40. Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena (1995)

Described as a “medical fantasmagoria,” comparable to Frankenstein in its scientific acuity, this Japanese sci-fi horror follows Dr. Nagashima, who is overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his wife. To cope, he begins the process of reincarnating his wife using a small sample of her liver. What he isn’t prepared for is when her cells begin to mutate, and an ancient, unseen consciousness starts rising from its long sleep.

41. Uzumaki by Junji Ito (1998)

Uzumaki is a seinen horror manga series. Kurôzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is plagued by a supernatural curse in the form of uzumaki — spiral, otherwise known as the hypnotic secret shape of the world. As the hold of the curse over the town strengthens, its inhabitants begin to fall deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of madness.

42. From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (1999)

The peerless Alan Moore put aside V for Vendetta and Watchmen to write this graphic novel, bringing to life the world of Jack the Ripper and his reign of terror in the 1880s. From the grisly theories surrounding the Ripper to the personalities that stood tall during the desperate investigation, Moore spares no gruesome detail as he examines the motivations and identity of the most famous serial killer of all times. With Eddie Campbell’s stark illustrations, this extraordinary graphic novel is a reminder that the most horrifying truths lurk inside the depths of the human soul — and that not all monsters live in Hell.

43. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)

Though Danielewski’s experimental debut remains largely uncategorizable, it definitely contains strands of horror DNA. This mammoth 700-page novel follows "The Navidson Record" — a documentary about an apparently haunted house (if by "haunted" one actually means "alive"). The Navidson house seems to mutate, changing size and sprouting corridors in a dizzying labyrinths, all while emitting an ominous growl. But what makes House of Leaves truly frightening is Danielewski’s intertwining of plot and structure, the latter’s chaotic layout mirroring the former.

44. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson (2001)

Skin Folk is a short story collection that includes science fiction, Caribbean folklore, passionate love stories, and downright chilling horror. While not all the stories would be described as horror, the darkest of the collection is “Greedy Choke Puppy,” which features a bitter woman who discards her skin at night, and replenishes herself by killing children for their life force.

45. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (2002)

There’s a mysterious door in Coraline’s new house. The neighbors all warn her that she shouldn’t open it under any circumstances… but Coraline never was a girl who listened to other people’s advice. From the mind of the bestselling author who brought you American Gods and Neverwhere comes a novel of wondrous and chilling imagination. Coraline is one of the staples in Gaiman’s remarkable oeuvre for a reason.

46. 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith (2002)

This dramatic comic book miniseries brings supernatural terror to life: for a town in Alaska, prolonged periods of darkness means that vampires can openly kill and feed upon humans at almost any time. Their victims are rendered helpless by both the incapacitating darkness and the vampires’ vicious attacks — attacks that Ben Templesmith depicts with such gory immediacy that his illustrations could almost be crime scene photographs.

47. Come Closer by Sara Gran (2003)

Come closer, indeed. This 2003 novel by Sara Gran revolves around a woman named Amanda, who has an ostensibly perfect life. But one day she realizes that some things are a little off. Like the quiet but recurrent tapping in her apartment. And the memo that she sent earlier to her boss that was somehow replaced by a series of insults. Then there are the dreams: those of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth, and a seashore the color of blood. As this mystery escalates in size and terror, Amanda is forced to confront nothing less than her own self.

48. The Good House by Tananarive Due (2003)

The Good House is named after a Sacajawea, Washington home that was much-beloved… until a young boy died behind its doors. Two year later, Angela hadn’t planned on returning to the house that bore silent witness to her son’s death, but then terrible things start happening to the community. Now Angela has the chance to lay to rest once and for all what exactly happened to Corey — and what it has to do with a curse that Angela’s grandmother may or may not have placed on the community decades ago.

But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door---a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night.

49. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004)

Oskar is a young boy living with his divorced mother in a suburb of Stockholm. Mercilessly bullied by kids at school and increasingly insular, he makes a much-needed connection when Eli, a child of a similar age, moves in next door. Little does he know that his new bestie isn’t as young as he thinks… and that he has a peculiar set of appetites. Titled after the lyrics of a Morrissey song, this sweet but frightening novel has been adapted twice into film and once as a stage show.

50. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (2005)

To read one of Octavia E. Butler’s book is to become a fan for life. In Fledgling , Butler demonstrates her mastery of horror once again. On the surface, Shori seems to be a young girl who suffers from severe amnesia. Yet a discovery leads her to the horrifying revelation that she is in fact a 53-year old vampire who has been genetically modified by someone who wants her dead. Now she must decide whether to pursue more answers, even though it might lead her to her own doom.

51. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005)

Kostova’s debut novel is a complex interlacing of spooky fiction and chilling historical fact. It follows a professor and his daughter who become entrenched in the folklore of Vlad the Impaler, a major inspiration for Dracula. They soon realize that their connection to Vlad goes far beyond the scholarly. This connection becomes especially critical when their father disappears, and his daughter (our narrator) must use her knowledge to track him down.

52. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Cormac McCarthy is no slouch when it comes to publishing gripping tales, and The Road is one of his most haunting books. Spurning an equally well-received film adaptation, the story follows a father and son as they make their way through barren, post-apocalyptic America. They’re headed for the coast, not sure of what they will find there, but in the hope that they will find, well, something . All they know is that the road is dangerous, and all they’ve got to protect themselves is a single pistol and each other.

53. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

This tantalizing thriller from Norwegian crime writer Nesbø is about a series of brutal murders all connected by snowmen, and the jaded former FBI agent who tries to understand why. As Detective Harry Hole delves further and further into the investigation, he starts to believe that the murderer may be someone he knows… but who can say for certain when so much of the evidence has melted away?

54. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (2007)

Heart-Shaped Box centers on Judas Coyne, a retired rockstar who now spends his days collecting “items of the macabre” — snuff films, confessions, anything deathly and disturbing. Naturally he jumps at the chance to acquire the suit of a dead man (with his ghost still allegedly attached). But when it arrives in a heart-shaped box, Coyne realizes that this addition to his collection is less of a novelty than liability. If he can’t control it, he’ll suffer the dire consequences of its wrath.

55. Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory (2008)

Del Pierce has been possessed by a demon with a penchant for deadly mischief. Desperate to rid himself of the demon, Del turns to three sources: a likewise possessed former sci-fi writer, a nun who tends to inspire unchaste feelings rather than an inclination to pray, and a secret society devoted to the art of exorcism. Can he find the cure to the plague of demonic possessions hitting society? And if so — at what cost? Pandemonium gives us the spine-chilling answer.

56. Last Days by Brian Evenson (2008)

Meet Kline, a former detective with an amputated hand. However rather than giving him a handicap in the gumshoe business, it makes him the perfect candidate to investigate a dismemberment-based cult — the ghastly nature of which even Kline can’t foresee. Evenson’s brilliantly economic writing depicts this story in such a way that each sharp, shocking revelation of Last Days does indeed feel like a knife to one of your extremities.

57. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (2009)

You might not expect the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife to deliver on the creepiness front, but Audrey Niffenegger will outdo your wildest expectations in Her Fearful Symmetry . Julia and Valentina Poole are 20 year-old twins and best friends when they’re told that their aunt has died of cancer. She bequeaths her London apartment to them, on one condition: that Julia and Valentina live in the flat for a year — alone — before selling it. Easy, right? And yet Julia and Valentina are visited by a host of unnerving characters while there… including their aunt, who may not be entirely gone after all.

58. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (2009)

There’s just something about a seemingly sentient house. If you agree, you’ll surely enjoy White Is for Witching . Four generations of Silver women have lived in the big house in isolated Dover, England. The house has witnessed a lot of history — much of which has been tragic or outright horrific — and seems to cope by working mischief. Check it out for a modern take on Gothic horror.

59. Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett (2010)

The widespread and severe poverty created by the Great Depression has carried thousands of people to the American railroad system, desperately looking for work. But one more has been driven by more than just poverty — he’s on revenge-fueled journey, and will not rest until he makes one Mr. Shivers pay for the brutal murder of his daughter. Mr. Shivers tells his horrifying tale of vengeance.

60. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (2010)

One of the eeriest ghost stories in recent memory, Dark Matter tracks a five-man expedition to a remote part of the Arctic, where there is no sunlight whatsoever for months during the “polar winter.” All the men are optimistic going into the expedition; it’s only when they get there that they realize something is terribly, terribly wrong. And not only will they have to get to the bottom of it if they want to survive, they also have to do it in complete and utter darkness.

61. Feed by Mira Grant (2010)

The Rising: the moment when the world froze in horror and watched as the dead came back to life, driven by genetically engineered viruses. The infected move with only one motivation in mind: to feed. Now it’s twenty years later and two journalists are determined to uncover the truth behind the origins of the catastrophe. More than a zombie horror novel, this blockbuster work transcends the form to ask serious questions of politics, power, and the right to information.

62. The Passage by Justin Cronin (2010)

In The Passage , a governmental experiment to develop an immunity-boosting drug based on a South American bat goes horribly wrong. Suddenly the world is dealing with a highly contagious virus that turns people into vampire-like beings — beings that are always on the hunt for fresh blood. At the center of it all is Amy, a young girl abandoned in a terrifying world, and the key to saving humanity.

63. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake (2011)

One of National Public Radio’s Top 5 YA Novels of 2011, this highly unusual and vividly imagined horror story centers around Cas Lowood, an exorcist’s son who carries on his father’s legacy by expertly killing ghosts. But when Cas sets off to vanquish a violent spirit known by the locals as “Anna Dressed in Blood,” he has no idea what he’s getting himself into — especially when Anna starts communicating with him, spilling the secrets of her past.

64. Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman (2011)

In Those Across the River , failed academic Frank Nichols and his wife move to the sleepy Georgian town of Whitbrow. There, Frank intends to write about the history of his family’s old estate and the horrors that took place there. But as Frank knows, history is not easily forgotten — and under the small-town charm and southern hospitality lurks an unspoken presence that has been waiting for a debt of blood to be paid.

65. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan (2011)

This sexy thriller centers on Jacob Marlowe, a werewolf with class: he reads Kant, drinks Scotch, and enjoys all means of modern sophistication. However (like so many intellectuals), he’s also undergoing an existential crisis: Jacob has to kill and eat a person every time there’s a full moon, and he doesn’t want to do it anymore. Fully prepared to commit suicide, he’s stopped in his tracks when he learns one of his friends has been murdered, and embarks on a path of fatal vengeance — which, ironically, just might give him a reason to live again.

66. Zone One by Colson Whitehead (2011)

The pandemic that wreaked havoc on Earth is finally starting to subside, and the first goal for civilization is to start rebuilding Manhattan, aka Zone One . In order to do so, they need to start by getting rid of those who have been infected but not yet died, aka zombies. But what seems like a fairly straightforward first step in reclaiming the Big Apple is about to take an (even more) chilling turn.

67. The Croning by Laird Barron (2012)

Fans of H.P Lovecraft and Richard Matheson, this one’s for you. In The Croning , Laird Barron has crafted a weird horror story for the ages: one in which affable geologist Donald Miller discovers dark things existing in the shadows of our vision… and savage secrets about his family that will make him re-examine everything that he thought he knew. Creepy and atmospheric, this novel from the rising star of cosmic horror will make you understand that we are all Children of the Old Leech.

68. The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle (2012)

New Hyde Hospital has a psychiatric ward that keeps its patients up in the evenings: they claim that a hungry monster prowls the hallways at night. According to them, it has the body of an old man and the head of a bison. And Pepper, the newest resident who was falsely accused of mental illness, is about to meet it for himself. Victor Lavalle knocks it out of the park again in this riveting read in which the most horrifying thing might not even be the horrifying Devil in Silver — but your own mind.

69. The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan (2012)

Caitlin R. Kiernan is one of the finest horror writers out there when it comes to blending the gothic and the fantastic. She elevates her game even more with this ghost story about India Morgan Phelps, a schizophrenic girl who one day picks up Eve Canning on the street — and who, in turn, might be a werewolf, mermaid, or siren. Kiernan is one of the rare authors who can up the suspense quotient to insane levels while writing about mental illness with the sensitivity that it deserves.

70. Fiend by Peter Stenson (2013)

A zombie apocalypse novel with a twist, Fiend presents a universe where the people turned into zombies are the ones who aren’t crystal meth junkies. For some reason, meth has granted Chase and his friends against the plague. More than anything else, it almost seems like a second chance… but as the excuse to continue using meth presents itself, Chase starts to question what separates him from the zombies.

71. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (2013)

Countless monsters inspired by Frankenstein have cropped up in the 200 years since Mary Shelley first published her seminal novel, but none have come closer to recreating the surrealist terror than Frankenstein in Baghdad . Black humor and true fright clash in Ahmen Saadaw’s chilling retelling about a man named Hadi who aimlessly stitches together the body parts that he finds on the streets of Baghdad. It’s then that a wave of brutal murders begins to overwhelm the city… and Hadi realizes at the same time that his corpse has gone missing.

72. Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (2013)

The town of Black Spring, New York is haunted — not just by any old ghost, but by a centuries-old entity called the Black Rock Witch. She roams Black Spring with her eyes and mouth sewn shut, vestiges of when she was first put to death for her crimes. And even as the townspeople (who are cursed to remain in Black Spring forever) put practical measures in place to avoid her — such as a mobile app to keep track of her movements — her wrath cannot be quashed. This supremely scary mashup of both old-school witch hunting and the consequences of new-age technology is perfect for fans of Black Mirror and Robert Eggers’ The Witch alike.

73. Night Film by Marisha Pessl (2013)

Night Film stars Stanislaus Cordova, a reclusive cult-horror film director who hasn’t been seen in public for over thirty years. His daughter, 24-year old Ashley Cordova, has just been found dead in an abandoned warehouse — and while her death has been ruled a suicide, investigative journalist Scott McGrath isn’t buying it. Especially when another strange death connected to the Cordovas occurs shortly after. Scott is now on a mission to uncover and expose the family’s deadly secrets.

74. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (2013)

The Kings of Maine are thoroughly represented on this list — and with good reason. Having established his own reputation with Heart-Shaped Box and Horns , Joe Hill’s third novel contains countless nods to his father’s works while also leaning on his own brand of chilling prose. The book opens with Vic McQueen, a girl with an ability to magically create bridges to things she’s looking for — a talent that brings her into contact with a serial killer with a penchant for abducting children.

75. The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher (2013)

A paranormal take on western fiction, The Six-Gun Tarot takes place in 1869 Nevada, in a tiny desert cattle town called Golgotha. The residents of Golgotha are no stranger to the supernatural — the mayor is guarding a hoard of mythical creatures, a banker’s wife is part of a secret order of assassins, and the town deputy is half human, half coyote. But what’s really strange about this town is the abandoned silver mine, out of which an ancient evil seems to be spilling. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Deadwood , the Golgotha series is for you.

76. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (2014)

Described as a “nightmare come to life,” Fever Dream will grip you in the throes of a dread that lasts for days. A young mother lays dying in the hospital and a boy sits next to her bedside — only he isn’t her son. Indeed, this story about broken souls and family unraveling might just shake you to the core. Note that Fever Dream was originally written in Spanish by Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin, but this English translation is no less unsettling, disturbing, and electric.

77. The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith (2014)

Based on traditional Vietnamese ghost stories, The Frangipani Hotel is a fantastical collection of short stories that functions on another level as a meditation on the lasting legacy of the Vietnam War. From beautiful women who’re oddly attached to bathtubs to truck drivers who pick up mysterious hitchhikers, the short stories never stray far away from the supernatural that lurks in the shadows nearby.

78. Bird Box by Josh Malerman (2014)

Recent memes notwithstanding , the original source of the Netflix film Bird Box was none other than this innovative work by Josh Malerman. In the book version, something has arrived on the scene, and no one knows what it is, how it got there, or why it’s targeting civilians: all they know is that its appearance drives people mad with violence, leading them to attack others and commit suicide. Mother of two, Malorie must decide whether to keep her young children enshrouded in darkness for all their days, or risk all of them dying at the hands of “The Problem” in order to find a better shelter.

79. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes (2014)

No matter how many Greek myths you’ve read, there’s no way to prepare for the broken monsters that Beukes puts on display in this book. The creature that catalyzes the action of this book is a malformed half-deer, half-human hybrid that Detective Gabriella Versado finds dead in an abandoned warehouse — and if you can believe it, things only get more upsetting from there. Versado is set on tracking down the perpetrator of this grotesque science experiment, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy with what she finds.

80. Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest (2014)

Few American figures have taken on such mythical status as Lizzie Borden, the woman tried and acquitted for murdering her parents with an ax. This fantastical, Lovecraftian take on the urban legend sees Borden (post-acquittal) and her sister take up residence in a seaside manor, only to find an evil spirit bubbling up from the ocean deep.

81. The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley (2014)

Nate is a “storyteller” in a society wherein women have become extinct. As his clan craves more and more details about these women of yore — all of whom died of a mysterious fungal disease — Nate realizes that stories will never be enough. But the men’s wishes for physical manifestations of women turn into a horrific reality when curvaceous mushroom-like creatures, known as The Beauty , join the tribe and quickly upend the fragile life they’ve built.

82. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix (2014)

Ever wondered what it’d be like to get trapped in a haunted IKEA? The characters of Horrorstör know. When furniture store “ORSK” starts experiencing strange acts of vandalism, its employees decide to stay overnight to investigate. Little do they know that, rather than getting to the bottom of the mystery, they’ll be unleashing a reign of terror upon both themselves and their beloved customers…

83. The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman (2014)

In this twisting tale told by self-described unreliable narrator Joey Peacock, the vampires of 1970s NYC have a perfectly organized (if violent) system of getting the sustenance they need. That is, until a group of vampire children appear on the scene — kids who require way more blood than the other vampires to survive, and whose presence will threaten not only the vampiric hierarchy, but also the lives of Joey and his companions. If you thought vampires weren’t afraid of anything, think again…

84. Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville (2015)

The world is a strange place, and humans, perhaps, are strangest of all; this strangeness is the very core of Miéville’s collection. One story begins with the city of London waking up to find icebergs floating in the sky. In another, an anatomy student find intricate designs carved into the bones of a cadaver he is examining. Stranger things follow.

85. Shutter by Courtney Alameda (2015)

In Shutter , Micheline Helsing is one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing family, and is an expert at destroying monsters. One day, a routine ghost hunt goes awry and Michelina finds herself plagued by a curse that spreads “ghost chains” through her body — turning her into one of the very monsters she’s spent her life hunting. Deemed a renegade agent by her own monster-hunting father, she must now find a way to rid herself of the curse before it’s too late.

86. Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (2015)

Violet is a ballet dancer on the cusp of stardom; Oriana was Violet’s friend and once stepped in between Violet and her tormentors in a self-sacrificing act; and Amber has been living in the Aurora Hills juvenile center for so long that she scarcely remembers what it’s like to be free. This suspenseful story is told from two of these perspectives — one living and one dead. But all three women are tied together together through a dark and terrible secret.

87. A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay (2015)

Is 14 year-old Marjorie Barrett schizophrenic or is she possessed by a demon? This is the question at the heart of the Barretts, an otherwise normal suburban family. When a reality television production company catches wind of Marjorie’s strange condition, they sense a business opportunity — one that Marjorie’s cash-strapped father cannot easily turn down. With each page evoking blood-curling dread, the unraveling of this book’s events become a gripping tale of psychological horror. Winner of the 2015 Bram Stoker Award, A Head Full of Ghosts might just leave you with a head full of fear.

88. Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw (2016)

Cassandra Khaw’s “banging” debut novel takes the traditional detective P.I. story and gives it an appealing Lovecraftian makeover. In this fascinating blend of noir and cosmic horror, private investigator John Persons gets an unexpected client one day — a ten year-old boy who asks Persons to murder his stepfather. As Persons delves deeper into the case, he realizes that his subject might not actually be human. But that’s fine, because Persons isn’t all that he appears to be, either. As the saying goes, it sometimes takes a monster to kill a monster.

89. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff (2016)

Lovecraft Country breaks down the complexities of American racism in the mid-twentieth century, and how Lovecraft himself was complicit in that racism. Our hero, Atticus Turner, is a young black man who must seek out his missing father, facing countless horrors along the way — both to do with the color of his skin and mysterious, mythological threats that seem to have escaped the pulp fiction he reads. The closely related nature of these two elements becomes more and more clear over the course of Ruff’s book, and the shocking twist at the end will ensure that you never see Lovecraft (or America) in the same way again.

90. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones (2016)

The unnamed young narrator of Mongrels faces an unusual quandary: while he’s aware that he carries the werewolf gene, he has no idea whether or not it will come to fruition. As a mongrel, he lives life in limbo, uncertain of his destiny, constantly being shuttled around. This werewolf bildungsroman of sorts is pretty much the only one of its kind, and Jones' sharp, moving prose will have you sympathizing with monsters (or almost-monsters) in a way you never thought you could.

91. Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez (2016)

Fans of the macabre should be sure to add this collection to their list of best horror books of all time. In Argentina, violence and corruption are the laws of the land for people who vividly remember recent military dictatorships and masses of disappeared citizens. Within these fiercely disturbing stories, three young friends distract themselves with drugs in the middle of a government-enforced blackout, and encounter dark supernatural forces themselves.

92. The Changeling by Victor LaValle (2017)

Fairy tale meets horror in Victor Lavalle’s critically acclaimed The Changeling . Apollo Kagwa’s life is full of disappearances — first, his father goes missing when he is four. Then his wife vanishes, right after she commits a terrible act of violence. Now Apollo must journey through a dark underworld to bring back a family that he might not have really known in the first place. Be warned: this is a novel where nightmares lurk in every nook and eeriness is perpetual, right up until the terrifying crescendo of a climax.

93. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (2017)

Named after the recurring catchphrase of all Scooby-Doo villains, this comic horror novel finds the members of a worryingly young detective team reunited in their twenties to reinvestigate an unsolved mystery. Pitched by the author as “Enid Blyton meets H.P. Lovecraft”, Cantero’s novel has also been compared to Stranger Things and Stephen King’s It , as his young protagonists face off against a danger that’s somewhat more menacing than an old prospector in a rubber mask.

94. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)

Called a “love letter to an obstinate genre that won’t be gentrified,” Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection was heralded when it was published. And it’s easy to see why: Machado deftly stretches the borders of horror, as evidenced in “The Husband Stitch” (a retelling of “The Green Ribbon” in which the wife refuses her husband’s pleas to remove a green ribbon around her neck) and “The Resident” (in which a writer’s time in the mountains goes horribly wrong). It’s a book that seriously examines the pre-set narratives that women are forced to live and breathe in society. And it’s a must-read for anyone who’s tired of heteronormativity in horror.

95. Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (2017)

In this homage to his cosmic horror, Lovecraft’s Deep Ones are brought to life, and the government isn’t a fan. In 1928, Deep One Aphra and her family are captured and banished to the desert… until the government becomes certain that Russians is attempting to win the Cold War with dark magic. With the promise she will help the people that stole her community’s way of life, Aphra returns home to contend with her lost past, and a potentially dark looming future.

96. The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell (2017)

The Silent Companions combines spine-chilling thrills with compelling characterization. When her husband dies just weeks after their wedding, Elsie feels more alone than ever. This is made worse by the fact that her new servants are resentful and the local villagers are openly hostile towards Elsie; she starts to believe her only companionship will come from her husband’s awkward cousin. Until she opens a locked door and finds a painted wooden figure that not only bears uncanny resemblance to Elsie, but also seems to be watching her...

97. The Grip of It by Jac Jemc (2017)

You probably know of couples like James and Julie: young and optimistic, they’re looking to leave behind their home in the city to get a fresh start in the country. But something is amiss with their new house. The air becomes suffocating. Children’s voices are heard, but the children themselves are never seen. The forest seems closer than it was before. And the stains on the walls are somehow appearing mapped as bruises on Julie’s body… to say too much is to ruin the impact of this novel, but rest assured that you will get a full night’s worth of terror when you pick it up.

98. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (2018)

When the dead start walking on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, the fate of the nation suddenly doesn’t seem quite so important anymore. As the country is thrown into disarray and scrambles to erect combat schools to learn how to put down the dead, Jane McKeene studies to become an Attendant to protect rich white people… but her true motives are much more revolutionary. Jane is indeed the star of this stunning alternate history novel: a black zombie hunter who defies society’s expectations, fighting against a conspiracy that threatens to overwhelm all of America.

99. The Hunger by Alma Katsu (2018)

The Hunger will have you on the very edge of your seat with its story of a group of travelers who are slowly unraveling. Not only do they face obstacle after obstacle of basic bad luck — low food rations, freezing weather, and a general predilection to take every wrong turn — but there also seems to be something darker, even more menacing, lurking in the mountains. And is it their imaginations, or does it all seem to be linked to beautiful, mysterious Tamsen Donner? You may have heard of the Donner Party before, but not like this: Katsu’s historical horror novel will cast both the people and the situation in a whole new, terrifying light.

100. Obscura by Joe Hart (2018)

This incisive work from Joe Hart demonstrates that new horror can be just as thrilling as classic. Obscura speculates about a near-future in which dementia afflicts people of all ages, rendering scientists and doctors powerless to even try and stop it. Dr. Gillian Ryan, who’s still of sound mind, determines that she will travel to a space station to gather unique data points that could help her cure the disease… not knowing that in embarking on this mission, she’s only putting herself in more danger, and not necessarily from the ravages of the disease.

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Reviews :: Book Genre :: Horror

This archive contains links to all of the Fiction Book Reviews we've written over the years. Creepy, and scary, and icky, and sticky, and the more it makes you want to squeal, the better the thing is. If you've come here looking for something in that realm, you're in luck! We just happen to have more than a few suggestions lying around the place waiting for your perusal.

If you're looking for something else, say a book in another genre or maybe just any book that we happened to think was awesome-sauce, browse around the site for a bit and check out our reviews.

Just don't forget to let us know what you thought of a book you've read or if there's a suggestion you have for something we'd like to read! We're always looking for something to scare us into last week, and we hope that you are too!

Blood Countess

If you haven’t heard of Countess Elizabeth Bathory ( Wikipedia ) you’ve missed out on a fascinating true story from history. Because she was born in 1560, our understanding of the events that surrounded her life are a little sketchy, but we do know she was beautiful, well-educated, rich, and well-connected. And she was accused of killing 600 girls.

Lana Popovic decided it was a story worthy of trying to tell in BLOOD COUNTESS. Read the rest of this review »

The Girl in Red

I have a thing for constancy. When I drive somewhere I usually take the same route. When I’m feeling down, I like to hit the used book store. Things I do on a regular basis are safe and known quantities. But I also have a thing for new stuff. Surfing YouTube for new music. Trying out some new kind of food. I may or may not really like to find new breakfast cereals, despite the fact that I know pretty much anything else would be better for me in the mornings. When it comes to books and stories, I also like to see new things. All the sequels that Disney puts out frequently annoy me. Although it seems as if Pixar can do no wrong. So when I come across a story that is a “re-telling of a classic fairy tale”, I’ll typically pass. For whatever reason, the third time I picked this book up off my EBR-TBR shelf, I decided that I’d read it. Must have been my “constancy” having a surge of strength that day or something. Whatever. I picked this one up, and boy am I glad that I did. Read the rest of this review »

Well, here I am again at the tail end of the reading experience for a book that has left me absolutely stymied. Sometimes it surprises me just how different my opinion can be from other readers, not just around the world, but from those in my own backyard as well. Finishing this book has brought me to the conclusion that I am completely oblivious when it comes to understanding the “literary” merit of a story. I just don’t get it. Like, at all. In fact, I think I can safely say that any literary aspects of a story come across as 100% transparent to me. Not only do I not understand them, I don’t even see them when I read a story. A Google search for the term “literary merit” currently brings up a 2017 article from Medium.com . It seems to do a fairly decent job of relaying the main ideas of what literary fiction is about. My take is that a literary story’s primary concern will be to try to relay a “theme” or “well-posed question” dealing with society or humanity… or something else equally boring and, for me, pointless. As such, they typically make lots of mistakes along the way when it comes to telling a story that is actually engaging and worth being told. Read the rest of this review »

The Last Astronaut

First contact is the kind of experience that’s ripe for miscommunications and misinterpretations that can literally reshape the world. From more traditional hard sci-fi stuff, like Clarke to Reynolds, to the more literary offerings of LeGuin or Russell (she wrote THE SPARROW), first contact is a recurring theme in speculative fiction. While there’s a million different ways to parse and taxonomize this (sub) genre, you can trace a big divide between texts that explore first contact with aliens who share fundamental premises of existence with humans (in psychology, if not in size or number of eyes) and texts in which the aliens are really, really… alien (think “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, which is portrayed in the movie Arrival). David Wellington’s THE LAST ASTRONAUT belongs to the latter category. Let’s just say that there are no little green moon men here. Sunny Stevens knows something that no one else does. There’s an object heading […] Read the rest of this review »

Into the Drowning Deep

INTO THE DROWNING DEEP ( Amazon ) is the kind of book I would normally recommend as a beach read. First, I guess I should clarify that by beach read, I don’t mean trash. A good beach read is straightforward enough that you can pick it up and put it down whenever you need to take a dip in the water or reapply that sunscreen. Ideally, beach reads also have enough forward motion that I can while away the hours with ease. INTO THE DROWNING DEEP meets those criteria–it’s engaging and fun with a good dose of horror and an embrace of the absurd.

It’s also about killer mermaids. Read the rest of this review »

Every Dead Thing

I forget when or how I first came across this book, and I’ve been wanting to read it again for quite some time now so that I could write up a coherent review of it. Just never got around to it. Well, the 17th book in the series that grew from the roots of this book was recently released in the UK (US release coming mid-October), and so I figured this was as good a time as any to dive back into this one, and find out if it would be just as good this time around as I remembered it being the first time. Read the rest of this review »

The Empty Grave

Arriving at the final book of the Lockwood & Co series, THE EMPTY GRAVE, leaves me with mixed emotions: so happy to see our gang of heroes find the answers they’re looking for, but also sad to see this fantastic series come to an end. Over this series we’ve watched as Lockwood, Lucy, and George have navigated the dangerous and mystifying world of ghosts and ghost hunting. They may only be kids, but this small and independent company has uncovered secrets small and large, fought dangerous ghosts, and dealt with the frustrating politics of being the little guy in a big industry.

Now we get to see the fruition of all their hard work. THE EMPTY GRAVE ends the series in a way that won’t let you down. Read the rest of this review »

Mockingbird

I’ve been waffling for a long time over whether to read these books or not. I don’t know why. You see, there’s this moment when you’re reading a review–even when it’s a review from the very site that you write for–that you just know you’re going to read the book. That happened to me when our illustrious reviewer, Nickolas, reviewed BLACKBIRDS by Chuck Wendig ( EBR Review ). Because, you see, I go in pretty hard for a good character. Especially a good tortured character, and once you’ve read Nick’s review and the actual book, you can almost see the torture spread across that skein of words. They rend you and twist you, and after you leave those pages behind, they haunt you with the understanding that not only is Ms. Miriam Black a real person under all of that grime and grit, but she also might as well be you, or me, or anyone else for all the good it does her. Because Miriam’s life is like none you’ve ever seen, and anyone, given her life, might have understandably made the same choices as she. Read the rest of this review »

Terror Is Our Business

I have a confession to make. I’ve never read any Lansdale before. I know, I know . Withhold the tomatoes. I blame Steve for always taking them when I was a newbie here at EBR. Now I realize what I was missing and will quickly remedy this failing.

Because if you love horror, mysteries, thrillers…. heck, anything well written, you should be reading Lansdale. Read the rest of this review »

The Creeping Shadow

I suppose I should be embarrassed for the squees involved in a series meant for middle grade readers. Certainly I am an Elitist, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give recognition where it is due. And Johnathan Stroud is due recognition for a smart, well-written, engaging horror series known as Lockwood & Co.

In THE HOLLOW BOY Lucy’s ability to talk to ghosts changes everything, and she learns that if she stays with the company her presence may be the result of Lockwood’s death. So, out of loyalty and love for her friend and co-worker, she leaves to become a freelancer. In the opening of THE CREEPING SHADOW we see how Lucy is handling her new life–and learning the hard way how much more competent Lockwood and Co. is than other ghost hunting groups. Sure she misses her old team, but is determined to never go back.

She sticks to her plan until the day Lockwood shows up at her little apartment to hire her for a job that the famed Penelope Fittes wants them to do–and it requires Lucy’s special listening skills. How can she say no? Read the rest of this review »

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The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time Will Scare You Sh*tless

Our number one pick has inspired generations of nightmares.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Horror is a broad church. Definitions abound.

For some, horror is a genre founded on trope and convention: a checklist of blighted houses and monstrous secrets, men in masks and women in white nightgowns. For others it hinges on atmosphere and tone.

This is before we even attempt a historical context. Scholars trace the legacy of literary horror back to the British Gothic fictions of the eighteenth century, when castles were haunted, monks were evil, and anywhere beyond the edges of Protestant England was tinged sinister. Others locate the genre’s origins in a slate of late-Victorian novels and their roster of horror icons. Dracula, Dorian Gray, Dr. Jekyll–these figures emerged from a culture in crisis, when twin anxieties about masculinity and modernity birthed urban nightmares. Contemporary readers may look no further than the horror ‘boom’ of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. It was an era dominated by brand-name authors, with epic sales and matching page-lengths.

With such a weight of contention, any attempt at a list of ‘best’ horror novels is doomed to disagreement. That’s fine. All lists are subjective. We have, however, tried to celebrate the breadth of horror—to highlight those books that establish something about the genre or push it forward into new realms. It’s worth noting that we have confined our choices to novels. Short horror fiction has a parallel ­­but distinct history that would require a survey all of its own.

You will see some unexpected inclusions in this list, and some surprising absences. Certain big names are missing because their greatest contributions are in short form, or because their books tread ground better travelled by others. Equally, some of these choices may cause horror fans’ eyes to wrinkle in confusion. But perhaps, in the end, that’s the secret of horror: it’s personal. It’s about how it makes you feel.

Here, then, is our ranking of the best horror novels of all time.

Gallery / Saga Press The Loop

You could argue that body horror is the purest horror. It taps into our basest fears: the vulnerability of our own bodies to infection, mutation, and destruction. In The Loop, a Pacific Northwest town falls prey to a parasite that transforms its youth into ravening fiends. After a short build-up, young adult sensibility blossoms darkly into scenes of extreme violence and bodily damage. The Loop is fiction’s closest equivalent to the films of David Cronenberg, with a jaw-dropping central set-piece that rivals the most fevered excesses of horror cinema.

Open Road Media Harvest Home, by Thomas Tryon

After quitting his career as a Hollywood star, Thomas Tryon turned to writing and gave us a pair of bestselling horror novels. The Other may be better known, but Harvest Home is the true chiller. In classic New England Gothic style, a nice family relocates to a Quaint Little Town™ only to discover hideous secrets about the corn crop. What follows is an ultra slow-burn of tightening anxiety, with a folk-horror finale that rivals 1973’s other pagan classic, The Wicker Man , or even Ben Wheatley’s 2011 shocker, Kill List. The final passages are as bleak as horror got in the ‘70s.

Atria Books The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris

At first glance, the terrors of The Other Black Girl appear slight. Harris’ workplace thriller spends ample time cataloguing the microaggressions endured by Nella, the only woman of color at a major New York publishing house. However, when Hazel, the titular other Black girl, joins the firm, the novel moves into more uncanny territory. The result is a scalpel-sharp instrument of social horror—a book that exposes monstrousness in the minutiae of office politics and the complacent evil of white privilege. It’s particularly telling that Harris wrote the book after working in New York publishing…

Valancourt Books The Auctioneer, by Joan Samson

The Auctioneer may be the bestselling horror novel that most people have never heard of. It sold a million copies on release, garnered praise from genre heavyweights, and was further distinguished by the author’s death soon after publication. Yet Samson’s novel remained in obscurity for decades until Grady Hendrix and Valancourt Press reissued it as part of the Paperbacks from Hell series. In the figure of the titular auctioneer, Perly Dinsmore, and the havoc wreaked by his manipulation of a rural New Hampshire community, Samson’s novel refers back to Shirley Jackson’s ”The Lottery,” and must surely be the inspiration behind Leland Gaunt, the malignant shopkeeper in Stephen King’s Needful Things.

G.P. Putnam's Sons The Hunger, by Alma Katsu

The Hunger takes one of the darkest incidents in American history and makes it more horrible still. Katsu’s retelling of the Donner Party’s catastrophic attempt to cross the Sierra Nevadas in winter begins with the death of a child and heads onward, like the wagon train, into deeper horror. It’s slow progress, too. The Hunger takes its time to get to the awful fate we know is waiting. Some people may buck at the pace and the way Katsu dangles the grisliest elements of the story just out of reach. But for those who appreciate authenticity and great character work, it’s a piece of historical horror that takes exactly the route it should.

Simon & Schuster Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

It’s hard to overstate Bradbury’s contribution to speculative fiction. His unique blend of horror and fantasy is a clear influence on later giants like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. But his macabre whimsy was never more powerful than in Something Wicked This Way Comes, a tale of romanticized boyhood in the golden decades of post-war America. Best friends Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade (neatly born on either side of the same Halloween midnight) confront the loss of innocence in the form of Mr. Dark’s traveling carnival. The scene in which the aging Miss Foley is granted her wish to become young again stands out as the most horrifically poignant moment in a novel obsessed with the boundary between youth and adulthood.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, by Eric LaRocca

At only 120 pages, Eric LaRocca’s novella is the shortest book on this list, but it may also be the most distressing. It is an epistolary period-piece—taking place in the internet chat-rooms of the early 2000s—in which two broken souls come together in a pact of extreme body horror and emotional degeneration. If that sounds fun, well, it isn’t. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke pulls not a single punch, offering perhaps the single most upsetting scene to be found on this list (The Little Christ—if you know, you know!) and a question for the ages: “What have you done today to deserve your eyes?”

Dark Valley, by Joe Donnelly

Joe Donnelly’s books arrived at the tail-end of horror’s paperback boom, all gaudy covers and pulpy premises. Yet his final horror novel is an almost unknown classic: an adolescent trial set on the West coast of Scotland, where five young friends on a camping trip encounter a child killer. The Scottish setting gives a different tone and a grittier vernacular to the oft-romanticized coming-of-age tradition. Think Stand by Me refracted through Trainspotting. It’s a violent story, with the rare threat that simply being a child is not enough to save Donnelly’s characters from a brutal end.

Ace The Red Tree, by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlin R. Kiernan floats freely across the map of speculative fiction, from hard sci-fi to lyrical fantasy. The Red Tree is their purest horror offering. When Sarah Crowe relocates to an isolated cabin in order to write and grieve, she falls under the influence of a strange manuscript and the history of a nearby oak tree. The found document and faux-lore locate Kiernan’s novel in the arcane tradition of M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft. But a postmodern unreliability pervades, with doubts about Sarah’s sanity, as well as ‘editor’s notes’ complicating easy separation of truth and fiction. Narrative trickery aside, The Red Tree also contains the creepiest cellar in horror.

Penguin Classics The Monk, by Matthew Lewis

Horror’s roots extend far back into the 18th century Gothic tradition, beginning with The Castle of Otranto in 1764 and evolving in Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho in 1794. It is Lewis’ novel, however, that first showcases the genre’s power to shock. Written when Lewis was still a teenager, The Monk relates the demonic corruption of the devout Ambrosio. Upon its release, the novel was considered a danger to society; even now, its details of rape, incest, murder, and black sorcery remain eyebrow-raising. If the scares are dulled by archaic language, some moments still hit hard, such as when the prioress’ body is mutilated by a mob “till it became no more than a mass of flesh, unsightly, shapeless, and disgusting.” Remember, this was written in 1796!

Open Road Media Experimental Film, by Gemma Files

Files worked as a film critic for years, and in Experimental Film, all that insider knowledge is put to uncanny use. She blends a verité blogging style with the story of cursed film footage from the early 20th century and a frightening Slavic demon named Lady Midday. As so often happens in Files’ fiction, things get very weird, but the industry detail coupled with biographical allusions grounds the high strangeness into something truly unnerving. This is a too-often overlooked postmodern gem, one of the best in a string of books about the spectral effects of film.

Vintage Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho may be the most controversial novel of the late 20th century, but Lunar Park is the more affecting horror story. Ellis’ faux-memoir slides from authentic early experiences into a fictional middle-age as reluctant husband and father. Out in the suburbs, reality and fiction collapse, ushering horrors into Ellis’ home. These include a version of Ellis’ infamous killer, Patrick Bateman, and—in the centrepiece scene—a doll that undergoes a truly terrifying metamorphosis. Readers are never sure where truth or sincerity lie. The novel could be a big joke, or it could, as is suggested in the scenes between Ellis and his make-believe son, be a yearning for a life not lived. If American Psycho is the book that made Ellis the enfant terrible of contemporary fiction, Lunar Park is the book that exposes his heart.

Tordotcom The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle

H.P. Lovecraft’s imagination endures in countless derivations of his Cthulhu Mythos, but his bigotry remains a cancer at the heart of it all. Most imitators borrow the lore, but ignore the ideology. In The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle takes a different approach, choosing to explore the events of Lovecraft’s notoriously racist “The Horror at Red Hook” from the Black point-of-view of Lavalle’s own protagonist, Tommy Tester. Though there are ‘Old Ones’ aplenty, LaValle’s retelling suggests that cosmic peril is of less consequence to the Black community than the threat of white power. After all, the book asks, “What was indifference compared to malice?”

Ecco Press Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

Some books have a conceit that makes other authors seethe for not thinking of it themselves. Birdbox , you would imagine, is such a book. There are monsters, and if you see them, you kill yourself. It’s a riff on the Lovecraftian notion that the human mind can only withstand a certain degree of otherness. Yet Malerman has none of Lovecraft’s pomposity. Instead, he examines everyday humanity under extreme, inexplicable pressure. Trapped in a house with strangers, our protagonist Malorie gradually hardens into a pitiless survivor. Her journey to possible refuge is a masterclass in sustained tension and sensory storytelling.

Pan MacMillan Apartment 16, by Adam Nevill

Each of Adam Nevill’s novels is imbued with an unclean disquiet, a grimly British social-realist horror stripped of all romance. It’s never more effective than this story of an exclusive London residence haunted by a fascist, occult-obsessed artist. Apryl Beckford quickly discovers the supernatural menace within Apartment 16, but the real nightmares belong to a secondary character, addled security guard Seth. His repeated failures to escape the building lead to a chokingly claustrophobic breakdown. People will tell you to read The Ritual, but Apartment 16 is the Nevill book that’ll have you looking at the corners of rooms to make sure the shadows are still where they should be.

Dell Lost Souls, by Poppy Z. Brite

There is no more ‘90s novel on this list than Lost Souls. I’m not sure a more ‘90s novel exists. Poppy Z. Brite’s lament for misspent youth is as pitch black as the kohl around the characters’ eyes, and saturated with the angsty existentialism that typified the decade. The teens of Missing Mile, North Carolina are damaged—by substances, by hard living, and abuse—and that’s before the vampires arrive. When they do, the novel explodes in a debauch of violence and sex. It’s a road trip, a love story, and a brutal horror odyssey in which a vampire taking his own son as his lover remains one of the less transgressive elements of the plot.

Ballantine Books Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice

Anne Rice died in late 2021, leaving behind a legacy that few modern horror authors can match. Her Vampire Chronicles spans over a dozen novels, with numerous offshoots. Everyone has their favorite, but Interview is where the intricate, baroque tapestry of her alternative vampiric history begins. The interview in question is with Louis, an 1800s plantation owner turned into a creature of the night by the vampire Lestat. Over the course of the novel, Louis relates the history of their immortal companionship, including the perverse family they form with child vampire Claudia. The later series develops in outlandish directions (Atlantis!), but Interview anchors itself in the romantic tragedy of eternal life.

Gallery Books The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons

Haunted houses don’t need to be old. That’s the revolutionary premise that makes Siddon’s novel so freshly disquieting. Through Colquitt Kennedy’s polite, hyper-observant narration, we watch as a sequence of families move into the newly-built property next door, only for tragedy to unravel their lives. There isn’t a history of murder to taint the land, nor a single disturbed grave—just a random malignancy that suggests modern walls are no guarantee of safety. It’s a souring of the American Dream that Stephen King called one of the best horror novels of the 20th Century.

Simon & Schuster The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks

Frank Cauldhame wanders the beaches of his isolated island home, killing small animals. He has built an elaborate mechanism to ritualistically kill wasps. We are told he has killed three children before he entered his own teens. Oh, and he is the hero of this story. The Wasp Factory was Banks’ first novel, and it has the provocativeness of all great debuts. It was acclaimed for its mixture of horror and the blackest of comedy, just as it was pilloried for its depravity. Both sound like good reasons to read it. Be warned, though, this one contains some truly disgusting scenes.

Scribner Tender Is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica

In Bazterrica’s brutal dystopia, a lack of animal meat has resulted in state-sanctioned cannibalism. Marcos works in a slaughterhouse, where human cattle (or ‘heads’) are bred for slaughter, and where he tussles with his inner morality within the industrial normalization of the universal taboo. The plot focuses on Marcos’ relationship with a head named Jasmine; what ensues is as disturbing as expected, though it’s the wider world-building that makes Tender is the Flesh a truly dispiriting read. Through both gorgeous metaphor and blunt statement, Bazterrica drives home the realization that we are all either meat or butcher in capitalism’s grinder.

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13 best horror books that will send a chill up your spine

From bone-chilling thrillers to grisly tales, you’ll be sleeping with the light on by the end of these horror books, article bookmarked.

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There’s nothing like a good creepy story to scare the living daylights out of you – there’s a reason we’ve been indulging in ghost stories and tales of the supernatural since ancient times. If you’re a fan of a fright-night thrill, you’ll be pleased to hear we’ve rounded up the best horror books of all time.

From tormented spirits to soul-eating demons and everything in between, nearly every culture has some form of horror story designed to spark fear.

Although spooky season is still a few months away, you don’t need to wait until Halloween to pick up a book  that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. To help you whittle down the options, we’ve reviewed some of the most chilling tomes within the horror genre.

Our list is by no means exhaustive – there are thousands of excellent novels spanning all sorts of themes and genres (techno-horror or femslash, anyone?). There is also plenty of debate about what can be classified as “horror”.

For this round-up, all but one of the books we’ve chosen have some element of the supernatural, whether that be ghosts or witchcraft. We’ve also tried to include books from across the spectrum, to appeal to as many readers as possible. If the book gave us the creeps, we’ve included it.

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How we tested the best horror books

Not all books are created equal. We’ve flipped through many pages to find books that don’t rely on tropes and vague storytelling, while also keeping us engaged with the story throughout. Most importantly, we looked for stories that were truly scary and left us with a sense of unease long after we reached the final page.

The best horror books for 2024 are:

• Best horror book overall − The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell, published by Raven Books: £9.19, Amazon.co.uk
• Best for ghost stories − Ghost edited by Louise Welsh, published by Head of Zeus: £14.15, Amazon.co.uk
• Best classic horror book − We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, published by Penguin Classics: £8.96, Amazon.co.uk
• Best horror for beginners − The Shining by Stephen King, published by Hodder Paperbacks: £10.11, Amazon.co.uk
• Best weird fiction book − Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird , edited by Mike Ashley, published by British Library Publishing: £9.19, Amazon.co.uk

‘The Silent Companions’ by Laura Purcell, published by Raven Books

• Best : Horror book overall
• Pages : 384

Our list begins with Laura Purcell’s haunting work The Silent Companions . This gorgeously written novel tells the story of The Bridge, a crumbling estate in the countryside that is plagued by wooden figures that resemble the inhabitants. The eerie, and at times, downright horrifying, story is told through three timelines: the newly widowed Elsie in 1865; dairies written at The Bridge during the 17th century, and, eventually, back to Elsie, who is now rendered mute, accused of multiple murders and interred in a psychiatric ward sometime later.

All the elements of gothic horror are here – a secluded mansion in the countryside, eternal rain and creepy goings-on – but the book also hints at witchcraft and demonic happenings. While the ending is perhaps a little predictable, Purcell’s gift for creating a stifling atmosphere that slowly builds into something very sinister by the final page makes this a must-read.

Bone China (£8.27, Amazon ) is also a good option, if you find yourself wanting more of Purcell’s work.

‘White is For Witching’ by Helen Oyeyemi, published by Picador

• Best : Haunted-house horror book
• Pages : 256

You might think the haunted-house novel has been done to death (sorry), but Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching is a wonderfully tragic take on the genre. The book begins with a question: where is Miranda? Young Miri – who is suffering from an eating disorder that causes her to literally consume parts of the family home – is missing, and it appears the house, a mysterious dwelling near the cliffs of Dover, might have something to do with it.

We witness Miranda’s spiral in graphic detail, from multiple viewpoints, including her twin and the house itself, while the story is made even more chilling by impossible passageways, hints of witchcraft and a house hell-bent on consuming its victim. Oyeyemi is skilled at blending horror and tragedy, and is definitely one to read.

Shiver by Junji Ito, published by Viz Media

• Best : Graphic novel horror book
• Pages : 392

Japanese mangaka Junji Ito, considered to be a master of the macabre and the grotesque, has been scaring people with his creations since 1987. Our reviewer previously recommended Uzumaki (£28, Waterstones ), a twisted tale of a town haunted not by ghosts or demons but by spirals. However, for this round-up, we’ve decided to include Shiver , a collection of Ito’s most beloved, and chilling, stories chosen by the artist himself. Our reviewer’s favourite ones were “Marionette Mansion”, about a knife-wielding puppet with a penchant for holding grudges, and “Grease”, a story that will have you reaching for the nearest facial cleanser (and probably swearing off oil forever). This beautifully illustrated manga collection is grotesque, unsettling and, depending on which story you read, truly horrifying.

‘The Dangers of Smoking in Bed' by Mariana Enriquez, published by Granta Books

• Best : Urban horror book
• Pages : 208

If the gorgeous cover isn’t enough to give you the creeps, the many twisted tales in this book certainly will. Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, this collection of horror stories explores a nightmarish version of modern-day Buenos Aires, through the women who reside there. While fetishes for beating hearts, and madness induced by the ghosts of dead children might not be reality for most, the topics explored by Enriquez here are dark and very much real. It should be noted that, as this book deals with so many real-life horrors – more so than any other book on this list – readers should be careful if they want to avoid certain triggers. If you’re after stories that don’t shy away from the brutalities of urban living – and have the added bonus of being laced with feminism – this is the book for you.

‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (Penguin Clothbound Classics) by Oscar Wilde, published by Penguin Classics

• Best : Gothic horror book
• Pages : 252

A classic of the gothic horror genre, Oscar Wilde’s novel was considered so debauched it sent moralistic Victorians into a frenzy and was even used as “evidence” in his 1895 public indecency trial. The Picture of Dorian Gray explores the terrifying effect greed and vanity can have if allowed to consume a person. The novel tells the story of its titular character who becomes obsessed with his own portrait and sells his soul in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. One corrupt double life later, in which he indulges in every impulse (immoral or not), only his portrait shows the true evil that lies under Dorian’s flawless exterior. The horror here is very much psychological, but that’s not to say Wilde hasn’t created an eerie study of morality and decadence.

'Coraline’ by Neil Gaiman, published by Bloomsbury Publishing

• Best : Children’s horror book
• Pages : 192

If you’re looking for a way to introduce little ones to the horror genre without traumatising them, Coraline , Neil Gaiman’s novel about parallel worlds and missing children, is a great choice (an excellent one for adults, too).

The titular character is a young girl who discovers there is another world behind a small door in her house where Other Mother and Other Father live. They have buttons where their eyes should be and want Coraline to be their daughter in their fantastical world. It soon becomes clear she is in grave danger and must use all her wits to escape. If you’ve seen Henry Selick’s 2009 adaptation, you’ll know this is a wonderfully sinister tale involving creepy houses with dark secrets and sinister monsters who steal and eat souls.

'Something Wicked This Way Comes’ by Ray Bradbury, published by Orion Publishing

• Best : Dark fantasy horror book
• Pages : 288

When it comes to quintessential fantasy horror books, this is high up on the list. When Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in town, malevolent individuals appear and strange happenings occur. After being drawn in by promises of adventure, the two young protagonists, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, must fight Mr Dark and his carnival of mirrored mazes and time-twisting carousels to escape. This wonderfully creepy novel will have you hoping for the circus to come to town.

‘Nothing but Blackened Teeth’ by Cassandra Khaw, published by Titan Books

• Best : Horror novella
• Pages : 128

This wonderfully creepy novella, written by Cassandra Khaw, sees five people stuck in a haunted house in Japan because someone has decided they simply must get married in a building that may or may not have thousands of girls buried in the walls. One ill-advised séance later and all hell breaks loose – you’ll have to read it to find out what happens next. The book draws heavily on various elements of Japanese folklore and historical practices, combining them to create this claustrophobic and nightmarish take on haunted houses. Our only critique is that the book assumes the reader has knowledge of Japanese words and phrases and doesn’t really explain certain aspects. Otherwise, this a haunting (we’ll stop) read that won’t take you hours to get through.

‘Ghost’ edited by Louise Welsh, published by Head of Zeus

• Best : For ghost stories
• Pages : 816

Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? Individuals who refuse to move on from this world is a classic trope of horror fiction, but that doesn’t mean such tales are boring. This collection of 100 stories will definitely get you in the spirit for tales of disembodied souls. The collection, chosen by award-winning author Louise Welsh, includes everything from ancient tales to Victorian greats to more-modern creations. This is quite a hefty book (coming in at more than 800 pages), so, this is more of a read-under-the-covers-in-the-dark sort of thing. The range of authors in this collection is also noteworthy: everyone from Charles Dickens to Hilary Mantel feature, while surprising names such as JG Ballard and Kazuo Ishiguro offer up their best takes on ghostly spectres.

‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ by Shirley Jackson, published by Penguin Classics

• Best : Classic horror book
• Pages : 158

Shirley Jackson has long been considered a significant voice in the genre, ever since the release of her short story The Lottery in 1948. However, her final novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle is arguably her masterpiece. Sisters Merricat and Constance live as recluses in the Blackwood family home, the latter having been acquitted of murdering the rest of the family with arsenic. Both live as outcasts in society, with Constance suffering from agoraphobia, which left her unable to leave the house for six years. Jackson made a lasting career from her ghost stories, but the only spectre to be found in her final novel is that of isolation. Whether it’s the house’s smothering emptiness or their estrangement from wider society, the feeling of loneliness is all-encompassing and deeply unsettling.

Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird, edited by Mike Ashley, published by British Library Publishing

• Best : Weird fiction book
• Pages : 352

All too often, women are written out of history, and it’s no surprise the horror genre is just as susceptible. We’ve chosen to include Queens of the Abyss , an anthology that collects previously unpublished stories from the “weird fiction” genre, a somewhat vague term that refers to stories that blend elements of horror, fantasy and sometimes even sci-fi. HP Lovecraft, with his cosmic horror creations, is considered the father of weird, but many women were penning tales of the uncanny, too.

This collection has stories from Frances Hodgson Burnett (yes, of The Secret Garden fame) and a whole host of authors from the late 19th and early 20th century, so, you’ll be guaranteed to find something that floats your boat. The book itself is part of the immense “Tales of the Weird” collection published by the British Library. The series, which is on 48 books and counting, collects tales on everything from killer plants (£9.99, British Library ) to technology behaving badly (£9.99, Amazon ). The beautifully designed covers alone should be enough to make you pick up a copy and get reading.

‘The Shining’ by Stephen King, published by Hodder Paperbacks

• Best : Horror for beginners
• Pages : 512

Sometimes, you just want a straightforward horror story to get lost in, not a tome full of vague descriptions or ridiculous plots that indulge in the worst of horror’s excesses. This is where Stephen King, one of horror’s modern masters, comes in. His 1977 novel The Shining is legendary – and for good reason. Chaos and axe-wielding ensues when the Torrance family move to The Overlook Hotel, a building swimming with evil spirits, and recovering alcoholic Jack, the hotel’s new caretaker, is slowly driven to insanity by supernatural forces. King’s wonderfully sinister tale is a good introduction for those wanting to get started in the horror genre and even seasoned readers will find something in this bizarre and unsettling world. 

‘Cursed’ edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, published by Titan Books

• Best : Anthology

Who doesn’t love a story with a good curse? Whether it’s a “plague on both your houses” à la Shakespeare or an ancient malediction rearing its ugly head, curses are the bread and butter of horror. This thrilling anthology of short stories, edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, explores them in all (gory) shapes and sizes. Both authors have done a great job curating stories from an eclectic mix of modern writers, including Neil Gaiman, Christina Henry, and Charlie Jane Anders. Our reviewer found “Skin” by James Brogden, in which a man pays the ultimate price for judging someone with a skin condition, particularly disturbing (in the best horror book way).

The verdict: Horror books

It all depends on what you want from your horror reading – are you looking for supernatural elements? Are you more interested in the themes being discussed in the story? Are you looking for things outside the box? While we’d recommend every book in this list , The Silent Companions is likely to tick most people’s boxes – it’s got horror, emotion and beautifully written prose (not to mention the stunning cover). For something a bit different, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is an excellent choice. Finally, if you’re someone who wants all the horror stories you can get your hands on, then Ghost , simply for the sheer number of its pages, is a top choice.

Need help choosing your next read? Take inspiration from the Booker Prize shortlist or the Women’s Prize for Fiction

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"The fire you like so much in me / Is the mark of someone adamantly free," Liz Phair declared in her 1993 song "Strange Loop."

The song, which appeared on her debut studio album, Exile in Guyville , was a fitting introduction to the Chicago-raised singer-songwriter ⁠— Phair was serving notice that she was unwilling to be anyone other than herself, and if people didn't approve of her sexually frank and defiantly profane lyrics, or her lo-fi sensibility, they were more than welcome to listen to something else.

Phair has built her career on defying expectations. Ten years after Exile in Guyville , she released a self-titled pop album that horrified indie-rock snobs, and never seemed to care ⁠— once again, she was doing things her way. And as her new book, Horror Stories , proves, she still is. The book is an unconventional rock memoir that doesn't hew to the genre's norms. And like her entire musical catalog, it's honest, original and absolutely remarkable.

Many memoirs by rock musicians are marked by either self-serving braggadocio or humblebragging about how they managed to make good. In Horror Stories , Phair takes a very different tack ⁠— she spotlights some of the darker moments in her life. "It's about the small indignities we all suffer daily, the silent insults to our system, the callous gestures that we make toward one another," she explains. "Horror can be found in brief interactions that are as cumulatively powerful as the splashy heart-stoppers, because that's where we live most of our lives."

The form of Phair's memoir is similar to an essay collection that jumps back and forth in time, with each chapter detailing an incident in her life. The book opens with a story about a party she attended her first year in college, when she encountered a passed-out woman in a bathroom, and failed to help her. "We can be monsters, we human beings, in the most offhand and cavalier ways," she writes, with an honesty that's almost shocking.

Another chapter details the birth of her child after a difficult 32-hour labor. She writes openly about her feelings about the changes in her body, and the experience of having a room full of strangers gazing at her as she delivers her son. Her account of the birth is free of vanity, and it's also, at times, quite funny — particularly when she's recounting the surreal experience of having her anesthesiologist ask her what guitar she uses as she's trying to deliver her child.

Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows her songs, Phair writes about love and sex with a refreshing frankness. In one chapter, she details an affair she had, and doesn't spare herself her own judgment. "I wrecked my marriage, and he wrecked his — essentially for nothing," she writes. "We both wholly and totally suck as human beings, and we know it." Later in the book, she writes about the dissolution of another relationship with straightforward but beautiful prose:

"Losing love can turn you into a ghost in your own life. You go to all the same places, do the same things, but you're not really there. ... You're physically present, but emotionally, you're in some parallel dimension from which you cannot escape, no matter how hard you try. Time will refasten what's come unmoored inside you."

Much of the attention given to Horror Stories will likely focus on her chapter about the #MeToo movement, which details in part her working relationship with one unnamed male singer-songwriter. It's a powerful chapter about, as she writes, "being female in the entertainment industry can sometimes feel like running a never-ending gauntlet of horny dudes." She writes about her own experiences with sexual assault and harassment, and ends with a call to action that doesn't mince words:

"What I want is for the whole fabric of society to improve. I'm tired of women having to call out men for their violence against us. Police your own damn selves. You do these awful things to us, and then it's somehow our responsibility to get you to change."

There are so many things to admire about Horror Stories , it's hard to list them all. It's a memoir with an original and fascinating structure — Phair recognizes that a chronological account of her life could only go so far in explaining how she became the person she is. She mostly avoids writing about her own songs, and while this may seem to be an odd choice, it's actually quite refreshing — her music, she seems to indicate, can speak for itself.

But the real star of Horror Stories is Phair's elegant but unpretentious writing, which proves she's as adept at writing prose as she is at writing songs. And anyone familiar with her music knows how great a thing that is. It's a truly wonderful memoir, and a rare look into, as she writes, "the haunting melodies I hear over and over again in my head."

Book Review: THE BLACK DAHLIA

by Nora B. Peevy | Jun 4, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

The Black Dahlia: A Slick Noir Crime Thriller J.C. Macek III SpellBound Books (March 30, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy This is the fourth novel in the Jake Slater Private Detective series. Wow! Not only was I impressed by the fantastic dialogue exchanges and the...

Book Review: SAM AND MILO AKA S&M: A SPLATTER COMEDY

by Nora B. Peevy | May 14, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Sam and Milo aka S&M: A Splatter Comedy Chisto Healy Unveiling Nightmares, Ltd. (May 15, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy Have you ever wondered what it would be like getting abducted by the world’s funniest and most sadistic serial killer? Well, Marty doesn’t have...

Book Review: BALM OF GILEAD

by Nora B. Peevy | May 8, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Balm of Gilead Aaron Lebold Independently published (April 5, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy If presented with a magical balm that could cure you of a fatal disease, what would you do? Would you do anything to get it? This is the question that faces Ryan, ex military...

Book Review: BEING FOLLOWED

by Nora B. Peevy | May 6, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Being Followed Derek Muk DEMAIN Publishing (January 31, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy WOW. Derek Muk’s Being Followed is a hard pill to swallow, making America look at the seedy underbelly of White Nationalism rebranded throughout our nation’s history and around the...

Book Review: UNMARKED GRAVE

by Nora B. Peevy | May 4, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Unmarked Grave Carietta Dorsch Independently published (March 25, 2024) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy I read Unmarked Grave, Carietta Dorsch’s debut novella, in one sitting. There was a raging thunderstorm, the perfect setting for a light late night serial killer tale. It...

Book Review: GODS OF A NAMELESS COUNTRY

by Andrew Byers | May 2, 2024 | Author News , Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Gods of a Nameless Country Jeffrey Thomas JournalStone Publishing (March 1, 2024) Reviewed by Andrew Byers Jeffrey Thomas is an extremely prolific writer, perhaps best known for his Punktown setting and series, but he’s also written a great many stand-alone novels and...

Book Review: THE DARK DIARIES

by Nora B. Peevy | Apr 30, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

The Dark Diaries Mark R. Vogel Independently published (December 8, 2023) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy Mark R. Vogel’s The Dark Diaries is his fifth book following The Crestwood Lake series, The Ripper’s Time, and Food for Thought. The cover art is haunting and...

Book Review: TOXIC CANDY

by Carson Buckingham | Apr 28, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

TOXIC CANDY Weldon Burge Smart Rhino Publications (May 1, 2024) Reviewed by Carson Buckingham This author’s work is always worth anyone’s time, and Toxic Candy is no exception. It’s a highly diverse horror collection, bouncing from the end of the world, a hungry sea...

Book Review: LIVING IN CEMETERIES

by Andrew Byers | Apr 26, 2024 | Author News , Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Living in Cemeteries Corey Farrenkopf JournalStone Publishing (April 19, 2024) Reviewed by Andrew Byers Imagine a world superficially similar to our own in which we have absolute proof that ghosts are real because we can all see and interact with them on a daily...

Book Review: DEN OF THE WERERATS

by Nora B. Peevy | Apr 24, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Den of the Wererats Terry Miller Gloom House Publishing (August 7, 2022) Reviewed by Nora B. Peevy Devin is a pizza boy down on his luck and Kelly Tate is the unluckiest girl at closing time. Both are turned by the den of wererats led by their maniacal leader,...

Book Review: BABYLON TERMINAL

by Andrew Byers | Apr 22, 2024 | Author News , Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Babylon Terminal Greg F. Gifune JournalStone Publishing (September 28, 2018) Reviewed by Andrew Byers Buckle up for a wild ride through the twisted corridors of the mind in Greg F. Gifune’s Babylon Terminal. In this gripping tale, Gifune masterfully constructs a world...

Book Review: THE GIRL IN RED

by Carson Buckingham | Apr 18, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

The Girl in Red Christina Henry Berkley (June 18, 2019) Reviewed by Carson Buckingham In this clever re-imagining of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Red is a young woman on her own in an apocalyptic world decimated by a disease called “The Cough,” as well as something more...

Book Review: THIS MORTAL COIL

by Mario Guslandi | Apr 16, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

This Mortal Coil Cynthia Asquith Solar Press (March 2024) Reviewed by Mario Guslandi Originally published in 1947 by the legendary Arkham House, the present collection includes nine weird and macabre stories penned by Lady Cynthia Asquith ( 1887-1960), a British...

Book Review: ORPHANS OF WONDERLAND

by Andrew Byers | Apr 8, 2024 | Author News , Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

Orphans of Wonderland Greg F. Gifune JournalStone Publishing (July 27, 2018) Reviewed by Andrew Byers Originally published in 2015 by Samhain Publishing, Orphans of Wonderland was re-released by JournalStone in 2018. The protagonist of Orphans of Wonderland is Joel...

Book Review: THE REFORMATORY

by Carson Buckingham | Apr 6, 2024 | Book Reviews , Reviews , The Horror Review News | 0 Comments

The Reformatory Tananarive Due S&S/Saga Press (October 31, 2023) Reviewed by Carson Buckingham From page one, The Reformatory pulled me in and didn’t let go until I reluctantly turned the last page. This book was a real eye-opener for me, as I knew very little...

• December 23, 2017 in Authors M-Z // Thrift Store Finds: Save the Last Dance for Me
• October 23, 2017 in Authors A-L // ‘Death Rituals’ by Josh Hancock (Review)
• May 20, 2017 in Featured Articles // When in Paris, Revisit Gaston Leroux’s Timeless Masterpiece ‘The Phantom of the Opera’
• August 11, 2016 in Interviews // Interview: Jack Ketchum Talks Horror Roots and New Book ‘The Secret Life of Souls’
• August 3, 2016 in Featured Articles // ‘The Dice Man’ Still on its 45 Year Roll
• July 30, 2016 in Featured Articles // 5 Horror Novels That Deserve a Video Game Adaptation
• April 20, 2016 in Featured Articles // Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell and 16 Other Amazing Horror Authors Tell Us What Books Terrify Them!
• April 1, 2016 in Featured Articles // Is Stephen King Really the Greatest Horror Contributor of All Time?
• January 17, 2016 in Featured Articles // Here are 10 Classic Scary Stories to Read for Free!
• January 17, 2016 in Featured Articles // 5 Horror Authors You Have to Read and Follow in 2016!
• January 13, 2016 in Featured Articles // Ranking Every Stephen King Novel, From Worst to First!
• January 1, 2016 in Featured Articles // Slenderman Video: Author Lee McGeorge Explores the Home of Slenderman!
• December 30, 2015 in Featured Articles // Top 10 Horror Novels of 2015
• December 28, 2015 in Featured Articles // Fear the Future: 10 Great Post-Apocalyptic Horror Novels
• October 31, 2015 in Fiction // Read Kevin Wetmore’s ‘Halloween Returns’ Contest Winning Story “Ben Tramer’s Not Going to Homecoming!”
• October 22, 2015 in News // Download the ‘Halloween Returns: A Fan Fiction Anthology’ Now for Free!
• June 4, 2015 in Featured Articles // Five Reasons Drunks Will Always Survive Horror Stories
• April 29, 2015 in Bloody Good Writing // Bloody Good Writing Volume 2: Does Sex Sell?
• March 10, 2015 in Featured Articles // 5 Zombie Novels that Don’t Bite
• February 16, 2015 in Movie Editorials // [Movie Talk] Top 5 Creepy Episodes of Anthology Shows
• February 8, 2015 in Horror Story of the Week // Horror Story of the Week – Mark Allan Gunnells: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
• January 9, 2015 in Authors A-L // Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla ‘Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale’ Review
• November 21, 2014 in Featured Articles // Five Vampire Novels that Don’t Suck
• November 17, 2014 in Authors A-L // Joe R. Lansdale ‘Prisoner 489’ Review
• October 2, 2014 in Featured Articles // The 100 Scariest Horror Novels of All Time
• May 20, 2024 in Authors M-Z // Book Review for The Devil’s Lieutenant by Shervin Jamali
• May 13, 2024 in Authors A-L // Book Review for Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer
• May 6, 2024 in Authors M-Z // Book Review for Pieties by Marc Ruvolo
• April 29, 2024 in Authors M-Z // Book Review for The Witches of Wildwood Cape May Horror Stories and Other Scary Tales from the Jersey Shore by Mark Wesley
• April 24, 2024 in Authors A-L // Book Review for Whispers of Apple Blossoms by Brett Mitchell Kent
• April 15, 2024 in Authors M-Z // Book Review for The Dreamer by Travis McBee
• April 8, 2024 in Authors M-Z // Book Review for What Happened at Hawthorne House by Hadassah Shiradski
• April 1, 2024 in Authors A-L // Book Review for Conjuring the Witch by Jessica Leonard

The 100 Scariest Horror Novels of All Time

Thrift Store Finds: Save the Last Dance for Me

‘Death Rituals’ by Josh Hancock (Review)

When in Paris, Revisit Gaston Leroux’s Timeless Masterpiece ‘The Phantom of the Opera’

Interview: Jack Ketchum Talks Horror Roots and New Book ‘The Secret Life of Souls’

‘The Dice Man’ Still on its 45 Year Roll

5 Horror Novels That Deserve a Video Game Adaptation

Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell and 16 Other Amazing Horror Authors Tell Us What Books Terrify Them!

Is Stephen King Really the Greatest Horror Contributor of All Time?

Here are 10 Classic Scary Stories to Read for Free!

5 Horror Authors You Have to Read and Follow in 2016!

Ranking Every Stephen King Novel, From Worst to First!

Slenderman Video: Author Lee McGeorge Explores the Home of Slenderman!

Top 10 Horror Novels of 2015

Fear the Future: 10 Great Post-Apocalyptic Horror Novels

Read Kevin Wetmore’s ‘Halloween Returns’ Contest Winning Story “Ben Tramer’s Not Going to Homecoming!”

Download the ‘Halloween Returns: A Fan Fiction Anthology’ Now for Free!

Five Reasons Drunks Will Always Survive Horror Stories

Bloody Good Writing Volume 2: Does Sex Sell?

5 Zombie Novels that Don’t Bite

[Movie Talk] Top 5 Creepy Episodes of Anthology Shows

Horror Story of the Week – Mark Allan Gunnells: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla ‘Afterlife with Archie: Escape from Riverdale’ Review

Five Vampire Novels that Don’t Suck

Joe R. Lansdale ‘Prisoner 489’ Review

Why is Dean Koontz Loathed in Such Heinous Fashion?

The 10 Scariest Novels of All Time

We Want Your Votes for Best Horror Novel of 2016!

Today’s Top 10 Horror Authors

The Top 10 Most Violent Horror Books

Addressing Some Serious Bullsh*t Talk about Samhain Publishing

Dathan Auerbach ‘Penpal’ Review

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Book Review for The Devil’s Lieutenant by Shervin Jamali

Book Review for Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer

Book Review for Pieties by Marc Ruvolo

Book Review for The Witches of Wildwood Cape May Horror Stories and Other Scary Tales from the Jersey Shore by Mark Wesley

Book Review for Whispers of Apple Blossoms by Brett Mitchell Kent

Book Review for The Dreamer by Travis McBee

Book Review for What Happened at Hawthorne House by Hadassah Shiradski

Book Review for Conjuring the Witch by Jessica Leonard

Book Review for Magnolia House by Kathryn Trattner

Book Review for Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

Book Review for Staked: A Vampire’s Tale by Kim Catanzarite

Book Review for Craving Beauty by Jennifer Silverwood

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Book Review for Haunting in Hartley by Janice Tremayne

Book Review for The Vanishing Forest by Jaysee Jewel

Book Review for Convergence by Jesse Clary

Book Review for Grave Love by Audrey Rush

Joe Mynhardt, Shallow Waters Vol.1 review

Jonathan Winn, The Martuk Series Vol. 1 review

Alessandro Manzetti, Shanti: The Sadist Heaven review

Order shackled now, order frankenstein here.

by robingoodfellow12 in Authors M-Z

Featured Articles

Buried Hatchet Publishing: NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS! 

July 16, 2017 // 1 Comment

Casting a Critical Eye Over the Shirley Jackson Award Shortlist

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August 15, 2017 // 1 Comment

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is Back in Print

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Gruesome Magazine’s Spring 2017 Issue is Now Available!

Joe Hill Wins a Locus Award for ‘The Fireman’; Paul Tremblay Grabs a Nom and Tor Tears it Up!

Where Nightmares Come From review, Edited by Joe Mynhardt and Eugene Johnson

November 17, 2017 // 1 Comment

Interview: Lee Mountford – Author of The Demonic

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Exclusive Interview: Terry M. West Dishes On New Novella “Honger”

Interview with An American Demon Hunter, J. Thorn

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Horror Palace

The Best in Horror - You have everything to fear!

Horror Book Reviews

Horror Palace provides honest succinct horror book reviews.  Each is a concise summary of the book providing a description, critical analysis, and evaluation of its significance as a horror book.  Importantly, our evaluation will help you determine if you would appreciate and enjoy reading it.

Latest Horror Book Reviews

• Never DEAD (Book Review) Never –DEAD has a very interesting origin. Typically, a book will inspire a film or TV program, but here the reverse is true. Never – DEAD was inspired by a short television program screened at the 2016 MystiCon Independent Film Festival. Furthermore, Never-DEAD Author Ann Greyson was a leading actor in the program portraying ...
• I Wish (Book Review) Editor’s Note: Horror Palace has reviewed more books by author Lex Sinclair than any other horror writer. Needless to say, he holds a special place in our horror literature heart. As his books continued coming thru the office for review, I would think to myself that I would like to review the book. Something seemed to ...
• Abhorrent (Book Review) After finishing this collection of short horror stories, entitled Abhorrent, I had one distinct thought; Michelle Merz is a talent waiting to explode into great things. So, if you can appreciate a fresh voice, in the process of finding its calling inside the world of horror, give Merz a shot at keeping you up at ...
• Ancient Illusions (Book Review) Ancient Illusions is the third book in the Ancient Secrets series, and the hero of the story will be facing a challenge that is more personal than anything he has faced before. More importantly, Joanne Pence has added another great adventure to a collection that was impressive from the start. Her experience shines through the ...
• The Slime (Book Review) The Slime is a book by Lex Sinclair that does not disappoint, and it gives “deadly infestations” a whole new shape and form. With the unique style I have come to recognize from Sinclair, I got swept away fairly quickly by the ordeal he places in front of his characters. And on top of always ...

Reviews are sorted alphabetically by title, with an excerpt from each book linked to the complete horror book review.

• “Beasts Shall Reign Over the Earth!” by Michael and Danny D’Agostino (Book Review) Beasts Shall Reign Over the Earth! is a detective thriller/horror novel by two brothers, namely Michael and Danny D’Agostino. Their combined efforts aim to bring you into a story that unfolds in downtown Manhattan, and they use quite a distinct style doing it. In fact, it puts a very light spin on what would be ...
• “Big Smoke” The Apocalypse Virus Trilogy – Book 1 by R.F. Blackstone (Book Review) R.F. Blackstone is the debut author of Big Smoke, the first book in a fast-paced action novel series entitled The Apocalypse Virus Trilogy that goes from political to apocalyptic in one smooth motion. With a style that is likely to keep your attention right up until the last page, Blackstone creates a female hero that ...
• “Dark: a collection” by Michelle Merz (Book Review) For readers looking to take a journey into the darkest part of your soul, Michelle Merz has put together the perfect selection of stories. The title of the collection, Dark, is definitely appropriate once you finish the first short nightmare, and you probably won’t forget about it for a while. With an amazing style and ...
• 2 pm on a Black Summer’s Day V1 (Book Review) 2 P.M on a Black Summer’s Day is the debut horror book by IP Spall. The plot involves enemies working together to fight the greater evil. It is a mixture of popular horror genre topics, such as witchcraft and demons, but is not as dark as one would expect. Instead, there’s always a silver lining ...
• A Collection of Short Horror Stories (Book Review) Horror stories combined into one text. The leading tale is about a man who is practically brainwashed to kill. He murdered his wife, parents, and 52 others.
• A Dark and Winding Road (Book Review) The collection of short stories entitled “A Dark and Winding Road”, written by Matthew Weber, is refreshing to say the least. It’s great to find a writer that is able to complement his original ideas with a superb talent for writing. He has truly breathed new life into a genre that has been lacking creatively ...
• A Demon Lies Within (Book Review) This story is based on an abusive husband and father who gets murdered. In the depths of hell he discovers the ability to possess and torture the living, which turns into a quest for revenge against his family. Great book for those who like tense exorcisms and demonic possession.
• A Life of Death (Book Review) A Life of Death is not your typical horror novel, but it can definitely pass as a very suspenseful and sometimes gruesome read. Weston Kincade is the author of the series, A Life of Death being the first book in the trilogy captivates his audience by tapping into a slightly old-school style of writing. Kincade ...
• A Pack Of Wolves (Book Review) A werewolf pack known as “The Family” tries to keep their intentions good and moves away from over-population. However, they run into problems with mercenaries that want them dead and a rogue family member who goes an apocalyptic mission. A unique mixture of Western action and Fantasy storytelling.
• A Psycho’s Medley by Terry West A true perspective from the minds of 6 serial killers, separated into 6 different short stories. The first story, which also shares the title of the book, is mostly written in a diary format. It explores the motivation and details of killing from a man who is waiting for his trial to start.
• Ancient Shadows (Book Review) An Archeologist finds himself pitted against ancient demons and modern conspirators where one by one, a horror film director, a judge, and a newspaper publisher meet brutal deaths. A link exists between them, and the deaths have only begun…
• Antitheus (Book Review) G.A. Minton, award winning author of the book Trisomy XXI, delivers his second supernatural horror novel entitled Antitheus. The stage is set in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and it focuses on a group of clergymen who get slaughtered while attending a conference. Minton does not take very long to get the action started, and from ...
• Arcane (Book Review) An angel called Arcane defends the human race against an onslaught from Arioch, the president of Hell. Arcane only has willing mortal humans on his side while Arioch enjoys the full arsenal of demons spawned from Hell. Will the human race manage to survive this reign of terror?
• As the Blade Cuts (Book Review) For extremely dark poetry lovers, this collection by Eric Kapitan should soothe the aching beast. It’s called “As the Blade Cuts” and the poems within the pages are nothing short of stylishly gruesome. Kapitan goes on a journey with his internal struggles, passionate about everything associated with pain and mutilation. In fact, this collection allows ...
• Ascendance (Book Review) C. Jones makes her debut with the short story entitled “Ascendance”, and what a debut it is. It’s graphical and dark nature is enough to make veterans like Stephen King take another look at true horror. Within the pages of this book is a story that is very difficult to read. Not because it doesn’t ...
• Barrow of The Damned (Book Review) Barrow of the Damned is a young adult novel by Jonathan J. Drake, and it introduces a plot you will not typically read about. Live Action Role Playing (LARP) is the engine that drives the book into a dark place underneath the ground, where life is anything but a game. It is the first time ...
• Blackstone (Book Review) Blackstone Penitentiary is well-known for being haunted due to its source of existence. Now the seemingly lifeless and deserted prison will welcome a caretaker called Anthony Creighton and his team, which has taken on the mission to find life after death. Getting out alive is the tricky part.
• Bled Out (Book Review) An 18 year old Kenny Arthur has a near death experience, only to return with the message that an unnatural plague is going to strike. His desire to save the world without a real clue on how to do it takes him through a couple of difficult and painful situations.
• Bray Road (Book Review) Scott Newman is a new author on the horror scene, and he makes his debut with Bray Road, a re-take on some classic werewolf horror. While Newman was quite brave to take on this particular theme out of the shoot, he did a good job of keeping the story fresh and interesting. Therefore, along with ...
• Burning Down Paradise (Book Review) Burning Down Paradise is a poetic story by Eric Kapitan, and it’s a tale the reaches the depths of hell. My first thoughts as I write this review is that sensitive readers should steer clear of this title because it’s really as gruesome as the title suggests. With a good handle between telling a story ...
• Burning House (Book Review) The fire is unlike anything anyone has ever seen. With one poor soul still trapped inside, a group of firefighters suit up and head into the flames on a rescue mission. But an ancient evil has awoken. As the walls burn around them, the crew soon find themselves trapped and prey to a shape-shifting force ...
• Cicada Summer (Book Review) Readers who appreciate the outdoors and a good dose of horror, will find Cicada Summer a very entertaining book if you are scouting for something good. Written by Jeff Dosser with a clear love for nature and all the things that crawl in it, Dosser’s knowledge and research really help to provide a deeper level ...
• Cirque Du Mort (Book Review) Cirque Du Mort by Anastasia Catris isn’t just a collection of flash fiction horror stories. It’s a visual and literary journey into a freak show circus that will leave chills running down your spine. The combination of illustrations along with the dark tales makes this book a collector’s item every horror fan should own. With ...
• Class Four: Those Who Survive (Book Review) Class Four: Those Who Survive is the latest novel by Duncan P. Bradshaw in a continuous apocalyptic story. It picks up where Class Three left off and it explores several different storylines, but the main focus comes down to a man and his mission to find safety for the boy within his care. With a great ...
• Class Three (Book Review) Duncan P. Bradshaw is the author of the new book entitled “Class Three” and he delivers somewhat of a different spin on a zombie apocalypse. With rather colorful characters the reader is thrown into a world where a typical day turns into something nobody expected, except for one particularly eager character called Phillip. Bradshaw starts the ...
• Cobra Z (Book Review) Sean Deville delivers a different perspective on what it could be like if a zombie outbreak occurs in modern day London. His novel, entitled “Cobra Z”, is the first of three books that take a serious look at a very popular epidemic. The biggest challenge staring Deville in the face is to stand out in ...
• Come As You Are: A Short Novel and Nine Stories (Book Review) Come As You Are: A Short Novel and Nine Stories is a collection, featuring a short novel and several short stories. Steven Ramirez is the capable voice behind the supernatural gloom and thrills, and you will quickly learn that this author has a very subtle skill. His target audience for the short novel and I assume ...
• Crogian (Book Review) As Crogian, a top secret military operation in Speaker (Alaska) takes a turn for the worst; the residents are forced to journey to Houston in order to find sanctuary. The only problem is that the journey involves abominations that want to kill them and very harsh forces of nature.
• Dark Shadow of Babylon (Book Review) Dark Shadow of Babylon is a paranormal/horror book written by Julian Speed. The cover is a clear indication that readers will encounter a series of gruesome events, but there is also a great adventure awaiting. The first chapters look at the origin of the evil that creeps into modern times and Speed adds a nice ...
• Dark Teardrops (Book Review) Catherine Tramell is the voice behind the horror novel entitled DarkT eardrops, a story that is fuelled by a classic inspiration, namely “The Exorcist”. Although it bears a striking resemblance to this cult classic thanks to the eerie atmosphere and relatively slow pace, Dark Teardrops can easily be separated as a contemporary piece. It is disturbing ...
• Dead Rage (Book Review) Dead Rage: A Zombie Apocalypse is the third book from Nicholas Ryan and it sees him building on the zombie stories he has written so far. Ryan has been compared to writers such as Max Brooks and many of his readers appreciate his descriptive style. His choice of genre is definitely daring, given it has ...
• Dead Religion (Book Review) A hotel explosion in Mexico that seems to be connected to an American citizen causes something much more sinister to surface. FBI agent James Allison is sent to investigate, but only finds that religion has deeper dimensions than he originally thought, especially the religion of the accused Alex Valdez.
• Dead! Dead! Dead! (Book Review) From the collaborative efforts of Paul Mannering and Bill Ball comes the zombie novel entitled “Dead! Dead! Dead!” Given the popularity of the genre it’s not the easiest challenge to come up with something that is truly original. But it has to be said that Mannering and Ball have delivered a solid story with enough ...
• Desert Flower (Book Review) Two girls are thrown together by fate. One, an unwilling vampire, and the other a victim of infant marriage. Both are alone, scared and lost. Their paths cross and their sisterhood strengthens their ability to overcome the odds. However, some of the decisions they have to make are simply too difficult.
• Devil Let Me Go (Book Review) A collection of thirteen short stories covering numerous elements all based on fear and horror. The tales are varied as they are interesting and it promises to entertain readers from all types of horror genres. Some of the stories have been published before and some are new editions.
• Devils Maintenance (Book Review) Thaxson Patterson II is the author of Devils Maintenance, a psychological thriller based on a very interesting concept. It’s an all-out war of the minds with the trickiest creature in all creation, namely the Devil. The most attractive element of the book has to be the original plot. It gets the reader thinking and inspires ...
• Don’t Fear The Reaper (Book Review) Don’t Fear the Reaper: Vol. 1, is the latest horror novel by Lex Sinclair. His experience in the genre shines through a story that ventures into the supernatural world of death. In fact, Sinclair mixes up a few elements we’ve seen before, creating something unique to his style and taste. With an obviously high-quality standard of ...
• Don’t Fear the Reaper Part 3 (Book Review) This is it. This is Lex Sinclair’s final book for the “Don’t Fear the Reaper” trilogy, and it’s everything I thought it’d be…and then some. Sinclair puts his distinct skill and style to the test when he offers you an ending you won’t quickly forget, to a trilogy you probably won’t want to put down. ...
• Don’t Fear The Reaper Part 2 (Book Review) Lex Sinclair’s nightmare continues with Don’t Fear the Reaper Part 2. It picks up where the first book ended, and you can be sure that you’ll be getting that distinct Sinclair style with it. This is a man who will stay true to his precise way of writing, and he’s not showing any signs of ...
• Double Barrel (Book Review) From six different writers come a collection of twelve horror stories, entitled “Double-Barrel”. Does it do justice to the rather picturesque name? It definitely does, and it’s good to know there are upcoming writers who can perfectly measure shock value. There’s just something brilliant about the indie writing scene regarding the horror genre, which is ...
• Evil Among Us (Book Review) This book is based on facts gathered by the author regarding a man called Kleason who butchered two young men from Texas. The strange part is that these murders took place in the same year as the Chainsaw Massacre killings. Ultimately it builds the case leading to his execution.
• Frozen: A Short Story of Horror (Book Review) An archeology adventure becomes a nightmare when an expedition party sets out to investigate the findings of a perfectly preserved creature. When the party reaches the half human creature, terrifying events start to occur. For some it means death and others permanent emotional damage.
• Hell’s Shadows (Book Review) The first thing to notice about Hell’s Shadows is the sophisticated style translated through a simplistic choice of words. Dean Klein, the author, has no intentions of confusing his readers. Instead, he wants to tell them a tale of horror, within a fashion that will leave them bound till the end. Klein really got the ...
• HouseBroken (Book Review) From the author simply known as The Behrg comes the twisted tale entitled “Housebroken”, and it is sadistic as it is haunting. Horror and thriller fans that pick up this book will have to ready themselves for an experience that will affect them mentally and physically. Even though it’s not the most original plot, it ...
• In The Mind of Revenge (Book Review) In the Mind of Revenge is the first book in Liv Hadden’s new series entitled The Shamed, and she’s definitely off to a good start. Don’t expect a typical hero and don’t expect anything less than brutal honesty. Through the eyes of the main character the reader gets caught up in a mass of emotional ...
• Inheritance: The House Pledged to Evil (Book Review) Inheritance: The House Pledged to Evil is the first book by debut author Randolph Lord, and it comes with a rather dark twist. Unlike most of the books that have gone through this review process, Lord’s story is based on personal experience. Although this can be considered a novel, there are elements of a manuscript ...
• Island of the Dolls (Book Review) Island of the Dolls is a thriller/horror novel by Jeremy Bates and it’s based on an actual island covered with dolls. The story takes the reader on a special trip to that mysterious, strange, and most of all, terrifying place. A very engaging Bates introduces an entertaining cast of characters while giving them life in ...

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The horror zine’s book of monster stories (2024) book review – these stories will absolutely knock your socks off.

What sorts of things go bump in the night? What monstrous things come to feast upon your flesh and bone? Are they real or imagined, and in the end does it really matter?

Jeani Rector and Dean H. Wild bring us an exciting anthology of horror stories, featuring both tried and true masters of the genre and up-and-coming practitioners. The Horror Zine’s Book of Monster Stories brings together more than thirty spine-tingling tales of terror, each of them featuring some monstrous being of myth and modern culture. Writers such as Bentley Little, Tim Waggoner, Terry Grimwood, Brian J. Smith, and even Jeani Rector herself have all crafted wonderful stories that are original to this anthology. And when I say wonderful, I mean exactly that, because these stories will absolutely knock your socks off.

The book opens with a poem by Jeff Oliver, a rising star in the horror community for his dark poetry. “The Monsters That We Fear” sets the tone for what we are about to enjoy, and in so doing seems to craft a ritual for going out into the darker reaches of monster lore. Jeff’s verse rings true, as any good poetry should.

And with that, some highlights from the actual stories themselves:

Bentley Little’s story, “That Summer,” really stood out to me—he didn’t get called the poet laureate of horror for nothing (Stephen King called him that, and the name is plastered on every paperback reissue of every BL novel). A story of a young boy who meets another boy, carrying his “mama” around in a waterlogged sack seems silly on its premise alone, but it’s just the kind of wonky premise that Little can pull off brilliantly. This tale was a personal highlight out of the whole book.

Another highlight would be Tim Waggoner’s tale. “The Man Who Could Talk to Monsters” deals with a different sort of private investigator called a “tulpamancer”, as in someone who investigates tulpas, the strange creatures born out of a guilty, shamed, or fearful person’s memories and traumatic events. These monsters vary in size and appearance, but they all border between reality and the other plane of existence. If the person to whom these creatures are tied to does not deal with the root cause of their trauma, these monsters will consume them. Edgar Manning is this story’s tulpamancer, and he helps a man named Ryan get to the root cause of his tulpa only to find out it has to do with a rival for his wife’s affections many years ago. The ending will twist you up inside, but it will also make you laugh at the cruel dark humor of it.

My third favorite story would have to be “The Scarecrow” by Keiran Meeks. Simply put, if spooky, seemingly lifeless scarecrows show up in your field from out of nowhere, don’t touch them. Don’t let them bite you, lest you become something “other”; something infested; something not quite dead but no longer alive. That carved-out smile of theirs has teeth, and the hay smells like rotted flesh…

This was a fantastic assortment of stories, as the three examples above will illustrate. I dare not give more away, as I want for you to dig in for yourself and see what terrors await you. Something monstrous, it would seem.

The Horror Zine’s Book of Monster Stories is available to purchase in paperback and e-Book formats here .

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10 Incredible Horror Books That Still Need Movies

• Many horror book adaptations have been successful, proving that the genre has untapped potential for the audiovisual medium.
• Different horror sub-genres, such as zombies and occult horror, have already been successfully adapted into movies.
• Several chilling horror novels, including House of Leaves and The Only Good Indians, deserve to be explored in a movie storytelling format.

The success of several horror book adaptations proves that many other novels of the genre deserve to be traversed into the audiovisual medium of storytelling. From Alex Garland's Annihilation to Stephen King's The Shining , many epic horror movies are adaptations of equally epic books. In recent years, filmmakers like Mike Flanagan have also joined the roster of directors who manage to bring new life to horror literature by effectively adapting it into live-action movies and TV shows.

Almost every horror movie sub-genre now consists of a book adaptation. For instance, while the zombie genre includes movies like I Am Legend , occult horror adaptations like The Exorcist and The Omen have been around for quite some time. Considering the success of so many horror novel adaptations, it is hard not to wonder how many other books with unrealized potential could translate well into movies. Therefore, here is a rundown of ten chilling horror novels that deserve to be explored in a movie storytelling format.

RELATED: 10 Incredible Sci-Fi Books That Still Need Movies

I Found A Circus Tent In The Woods Behind My House, By Ben Farthing

Although relatively obscure, I Found A Circus Tent In The Woods Behind My House follows a simple storyline where a father and a son get swallowed into a creepy world of endless circus tents. Using this strange setting as a narrative device, the Ben Farthing book highlights the lengths a father would be willing to go to protect his child. The book also leverages the universal phobia of clowns, tapping into a reader’s primal fears with its bone-chilling exploration of the fragile boundaries between the supernatural and reality.

House of Leaves, By Mark Z. Danielewski

Given how Mark Z. Danielewski's debut novel, House of Leaves , is often touted as one the best horror novels of all time, it is strange how it still has not received a movie adaptation. Perhaps the book's uncanny structure and constantly shifting setting make it so challenging to translate to the big screen. The book also has other unique traits where some words are color-coded while others are crammed into tiny corners, reflecting the nature of the central maze-like haunted house in its story. Owing to these details, a movie may not be able to accurately adapt the book but could still adopt its own unique style to bring new life to Danielewski's story.

The Fisherman, John Langan

Cosmic horror rarely translates well to the big screen. However, time and again, movies like Annihilation and The Endless have proven that if executed well, films can make sense of the unknown without completely alienating audiences. The Fisherman , too, offers one of those Lovecraftian narratives that may not traverse easily to the audiovisual medium. However, if handled with the right approach, the book's depiction of a malevolent fishing spot that threatens the sanity of two characters could become another plausible cinematic portrayal of the proverbial fear of the unknown.

How To Sell A Haunted House, By Grady Hendrix

Grady Hendrix's How To Sell A Haunted House follows siblings Louise and Mark, who reunite to sell their late parents' home. Little do they realize that there is more to their childhood house than meets the eye, and selling it would not be as easy as they had anticipated. As How To Sell A Haunted House walks through all the campy terrors that await Louise and Mark in their childhood home, it also explores themes of nostalgia and the impact of the past on a family.

The Only Good Indians, By Stephen Graham Jones

Touted as a treat for Jordan Peele fans, The Only Good Indians merges culture, identity, and tradition with horror. The book walks through a tale of four Native American friends who blatantly break their tribe's law and moral values by going on a ruthless elk killing spree. Their act of defiance gives birth to a curse that gradually comes into existence over the span of a decade. Like a Jordan Peele movie , The Only Good Indians takes its time to find its find and waits until its final arcs to connect the dots and make sense of its overarching mysteries. However, this approach pays off incredibly well as it allows the book to bring a lot more than cheap, one-dimensional terrors to the table.

The Last House On Needless Street, By Catriona Ward

From its title, The Last House on Needless Street comes off as another run-of-the-hill haunted house novel that may not rise above the tropes of the genre. However, the book is far from being a typical addition to the horror genre. Unfolding from several perspectives, The Last House On Needless Street highlights the complex nature of psychological wounds and how trauma can often skew one's sense of memory and perception. With an unreliable narrator at its fore, The Last House On Needless Street is a character-driven horror story that could become a successful film if crafted with meticulous storytelling and attention to detail.

Penpal, By Dathan Auerbach

Auerbach initially started publishing Penpal in a short-story format on Reddit's famous Nosleep subreddit. As these interconnected stories caught on, the author compiled them into a book, creating a full-fledged novel. Auerbach's initial stories were so influential that many readers adapted them into illustrations, short films, and audio formats. The early success of the stories and the book alone reveals how Penpal has the potential to become a great full-feature film. The core concept behind its story, exploring a man's pursuit of unfolding the truth behind his horrific childhood, may not be unique. However, Auerbach has his way with words that allow his story to gradually creep under a reader's skin.

The Wasp Factory, By Iain Banks

First published in 1894, Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory unfolds on a Scottish Island where a 16-year-old teen, Frank, lives with his father. Disturbed by his circumstances, Frank spends his days performing bizarre and violent rituals, which are somehow connected to harrowing mysteries of his past. Although controversial in some ways, The Wasp Factory explores psychological and transgressive fiction like no other, allowing readers to briefly see the world from the skewed perspective of its protagonist. Given its psychological depth, adapting The Wasp Factory to the audiovisual medium may not be an easy feat, but if executed carefully, it could be an epic horror drama.

Bluejay, By Megan Stockton

Unfolding like an episode of Black Mirror , Bluejay focuses on three characters, Noah, Jack, and Phil, who collect horror items for fun. However, their pursuit of chasing terror and thrill takes a grim turn when, on one of their weekly boys' nights, they acquire tickets to an exclusive club that promises an immersive torture simulation experience. Naive about the world they will step into, Noah, Jack, and Phil visit the club only to discover that nothing there is a simulation. By gradually unraveling the tapestry around the dark underworld where Noah, Jack, and Phil end up walking, Bluejay shows the potential to become the next Hostel .

Experimental Film, By Gemma Files

In Experimental Film , author Gemma Files seamlessly merges the word of audiovisual cinema with literature by walking through the story of former Canadian film history teacher Lois Cairns, who becomes obsessed with the silent films of Mrs. A. Macalla Whitcomb. The deeper she delves into the mysterious works of the early 20th-century filmmaker, the more she unknowingly opens the gates to the hauntings that led to Whitcomb's disappearance. Often blurring the lines between reality and fiction, Experimental Film 's immersive and inventive take on the horror genre would perfectly traverse to the big screen.

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The top reads from our June issue, ranging across mystery, suspense, romance, fiction, horror, science fiction, fantasy, arts, science, and more.

MYSTERY & SUSPENSE

Barton, Fiona. Talking to Strangers . Berkley.

Hunter, Cara. Hope To Die . Morrow.

Mizushima, Margaret. Gathering Mist . Crooked Lane. 

Wood, Katherine. Ladykiller . Bantam.

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Carpenter, Shawn. The Price of Redemption . Saga/S. & S. 

Corey, James S.A. The Mercy of Gods . Orbit. 

Harkness, Deborah. The Black Bird Oracle . Ballantine. 

Harris, Joanne. The Moonlight Market . Pegasus. 

Hur, Anton. Toward Eternity . HarperVia. 

Peynado, Brenda. Time’s Agent . Tor.com. 

Revis, Beth. Full Speed to a Crash Landing . DAW. 

Shaffer, Meg. The Lost Story . Ballantine. 

Hughes, Emily C. Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need To Know About the Films You’re Too Scared To Watch . Quirk. 

Pedersen, Kailee. Sacrificial Animals . St. Martin’s. 

Trías, Fernanda. Pink Slime . Scribner. 

Borison, B.K. Business Casual . Berkley. 

Burke, Andie. Fall for Him . St. Martin’s Griffin. 

Harrow, Jamie. One on One . Dutton.

Nava, Danica. The Truth According to Ember . Berkley.  

Tschida, Sam. Errands & Espionage . Forever: Grand Central.  

Wilkens, Colby. If I Stopped Haunting You . St. Martin’s Griffin.

Barry, Kevin. The Heart in Winter . Doubleday. 

Brodesser-Akner, Taffy. Long Island Compromise . Random.

Pitts Jr., Leonard. 54 Miles . Agate.

Platzová, Magdaléna. Life After Kafka . Bellevue Literary. 

Zaher, Yasmin. The Coin . Catapult. 

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Burns, Charles. Final Cut . Pantheon. 

ARTS & HUMANITIES

Bar-Nadav, Hadara. The Animal Is Chemical . Four Way. 

Butler, Dean. Prairie Man: My Little House Life & Beyond . Citadel. 

Carson, Anne. Wrong Norma . New Directions. 

Charney, Noah & James Charney. The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need To Know About Movies . Rowman & Littlefield. 

John, Elton. Farewell Yellow Brick Road: Memories of My Life on Tour . Hyperion Avenue. 

Leonard, Rodney Terich. Another Land of My Body . Four Way. 

Notley, Alice. Being Reflected Upon . Penguin Poets.

Nussbaum, Emily. Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV . Random. 

Seuss, Diane. Modern Poetry: Poems . Graywolf. 

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Mithen, Steven. The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved . Basic. 

Murphy, Wendy J. Oh No He Didn’t!: Brilliant Women and the Men Who Took Credit for Their Work . Cynren. 

Somerstein, Rachel. Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section . Ecco: HarperCollins. 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Byrn, Anne (text) & Rinne Allen (photos). Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories (A Definitive Guide to Southern Baking) . Harper Celebrate. 

Chambers, Caroline. What To Cook When You Don’t Feel like Cooking . Union Square & Co. 

Graham, Jasmin. Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist . Pantheon. 

Hunter, Linda Jo. Lonesome for Wilderness: Tracking and Trailing in Forest, Desert, or Your Own Back Yard . Jolibro. 

Sando, Steve. The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans, from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen . Ten Speed. 

Shah, Khushbu. Amrikan: 125 Recipes from the Indian American Diaspora .  Norton.

Garner, Brian A. & Jack Lynch. Hardly Harmless Drudgery: A 500-Year Pictorial History of the Lexicographic Geniuses, Sciolists, Plagiarists, and Obsessives Who Defined the English Language .  Godine. 

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Related , ‘the moonlight market’ by joanne harris | sff pick of the month, ‘errands & espionage’ by sam tschida | romance pick of the month, ‘hope to die’ by cara hunter | mystery pick of the month, 'cross the line' by simone soltani | romance debut of the month, ‘the god and the gumiho’ by sophie kim | sff pick of the month, "what is this" design thinking from an lis student.

Run Your Week: Big Books, Sure Bets & Titles Making News | July 17 2018

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