21 Recent Horror Books You Need To Read Before Halloween
Halloween is on the horizon, and for some of us, there’s nothing quite like curling up with some hot cider, sweet treats, and a spooky book guaranteed to make us check over our shoulders not-so-infrequently.
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Luckily, the past few years have been a boon to fans of terrifying tomes, with horror writers, both fresh and established, offering some of their most pulse-pounding writings to date. With this in mind, I’ve assembled 21 exceptional horror books from recent years that will have your heart racing throughout every petrifying page this Halloween season.
1.The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman (2019)
Though Chapman has been receiving rave reviews for his latest novel, Ghost Eaters, The Remaking is one of the most original and chilling novels this writer has read in recent memory, as it follows a supernatural tragedy whose story is retold over different mediums through several generations, but the cost of preserving this lurid local legend is far more grievous than anyone could imagine.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
2.Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth (2022)
A buzz-worthy and ferocious horror comedy from one of the genre’s most promising voices, Motherthing surrounds a woman who must resort to desperate measures to save herself and her husband from the vengeful and sadistic ghost of her mother-in-law. As funny as it is surprisingly emotional, Hogarth hits a nerve by transforming a timeless domestic nightmare into a literal nightmare.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
3.Anybody Home? By Michael J. Seidlinger (2022)
Guaranteed to give you goosebumps and double (or triple) check the locks on your doors, this intense, voyeuristic novel follows an expert home invader as he recounts his bone-chilling experiences sneaking into suburban homes to a new generation of ambitious criminals. Seidlinger landed on a lot of horror hounds' radar with his other 2022 novel, My Pet Serial Killer, but Anybody Home? is a different beast altogether, as it makes the reader feel oddly complicit at every unnerving turn.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here.
4.Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (2022)
With the most unique perspective on one of the most well-trodden genres of the past several years, Manhunt takes no prisoners in its twisted tale of transgender and non-binary people in a post-apocalyptic wasteland whose fates become intertwined and must rely on one another to face down the cruel horrors that await them and the demons of their past that relentlessly pursue them.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
5.A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons (2022)
A chilling and subversive blend of road trip and cosmic horror, A Black and Endless Sky’s story of estranged siblings that come face-to-face with an unspeakable terror while traveling back home to Albuquerque will absolutely keep readers on the edge of their seat, especially given the narrative’s break-neck pacing and grotesque moments of gore.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
6.Goblin by Josh Malerman (2017)
From the mind of Bird Box writer, Josh Malerman, Goblin shares six interconnected novellas to tell the creepy and compelling story of the citizens of Goblin, a peculiar town where the quirks and traditions seem to be hiding things both haunting and ominous.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
7.Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (2017)
A love letter to Scooby-Doo and The Hardy Boys that trades the outright scary for spookier and sillier thrills, Meddling Kids pits a group of former teenage detectives who must band together as jaded adults to get to the bottom of a Lovecraftian nightmare that has cast a shadow over their lives for years.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
8.Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill (2021)
A frightening folk horror tale from one of the best authors specializing in that subgenre, Cunning Folk follows a family who moves into a rural house, only to find their fixer-upper to be the least of their problems once tensions arise with their elderly neighbors.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
9.The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry (2020)
A satisfying and scary page-turner with shades of Stephen King throughout, The Ghost Tree surrounds a young woman experiencing disturbing visions who may be the only person that can stop a local monster from tearing through the town of Smith’s Hollow.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
10.Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare (2020)
A gore-laden, over-the-top horror novel that operates as both an homage to, and loving subversion of, slasher stories, Clown in a Cornfield is the story of a high schooler who moves to Kettle Springs, a town that’s gone to hell over a potent generational divide. However, the deciding factor in this battle between the young and old may be Frendo, a clown in a pork-pie hat that decides the kids of Kettle Springs need to be cut down to size…literally.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
11.Tastes Like Candy by Ivy Tholen (2020)
Fostering the Halloween spirit in every word of this bloody literary bash, this fun frightener follows a group of teenagers who break into a carnival as a part of an esteemed scavenger hunt, yet find themselves falling prey to bizarre attacks from a masked madman.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here.
12.The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (2021)
A riveting YA novel that breaks the macabre mold, The Taking of Jake Livingston tells the tale of an ostracized Black teenager who has to deal with popularity problems, social anxiety, and the ghost of a school shooter who pledges to make his life a living hell.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
13.Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (2017)
This chilling gut-punch of a novel from the mind behind the Mountain Goats surrounds a small-town video store clerk in the late ‘90s who learns that someone has been recording deranged scenes over their video tapes, sending him down a rabbit hole from which there may be no return.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
14.Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal (2019)
With her upcoming novel, The Storyteller’s Death, accruing some exemplary reviews, Ann Dávila Cardinal’s breathtaking supernatural story of two begrudging friends striving to solve a string of murders in Puerto Rico proved her to be a bold new voice in the horror genre.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
15.The Fervor by Alma Katsu (2022)
Readers have been raving about Alma Katsu's spine-tingling and psychologically fraught novel, which posits supernatural storybook scare fare into a mother-daughter tale of survival and demonization in the Japanese American internment camps in 1944.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
16.If It Bleeds by Stephen King (2020)
Comprised of four previously unreleased novellas, If It Bleeds offers King's dark and demented voice with the strength of his most classic stories, including a chilling tale of a supernatural phone, a Holly Gibney mystery, and a nail-biting Faustian freak-out sure to rob you of some sleep.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
17.Lock Every Door by Riley Sager (2019)
Any fan of contemporary horror literature can speak to the talent of Riley Sager, who has cemented himself as one of the most enrapturing voices in the genre today and delivered one of the most unnerving home invasion horror stories in his 2019 tome, Lock Every Door.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
18.A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson (2021)
S.T. Gibson's spellbinding and sordid reimagining of the tale of Dracula's first bride is as eerie as it is elegant, and makes for a perfect new tale of terror for fans of classic horror.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
19.The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson (2020)
Jeremy Robert Johnson's jaw-dropping shock fest is a sci-fi horror hybrid that surrounds an Oregon town that is overrun by a sadistic bio-mechanical hive mind after a botched government experiment infiltrates the teenage populace.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
20.My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (2021)
The first book in the "Indian Lake Trilogy" from lauded author Stephen Graham Jones and the deserving winner of the 2021 Bram Stoker Award for Novel, My Heart is a Chainsaw is a teeth-chattering chiller that follows an isolated horror fan who utilizes her fright film knowhow into stopping IRL bloodshed in her small town.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
21.The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (2021)
With one of the most brilliant premises in recent memory, Grady Hendrix continued to build upon his catalog of stellar horror stories with The Final Girl Support Group, which crafts a familiar yet uncanny world of slasher film-esque survivors who attempt to face their trauma head-on when it becomes apparent that someone is attempting to finish them off for good. With moments of white-knuckle intensity, pitch-black humor, and Easter Eggs that will keep horror movie die-hards grinning from ear to ear, The Final Girl Support Group is the undoubtedly most essential Halloween read of 2022.
Get it from Bookshop or from your local indie bookstore via Indiebound here. You can also try the audiobook version through Libro.fm.
