Fresh Voices, Frightening Stories: Horror Books for Halloween
Looking for your next Halloween read? These unforgettable horror and thriller novels deliver chilling twists, haunting atmospheres, and stories that will stay with you long after the final page. Featuring standout voices from a wide range of authors, this collection is the perfect way to discover a new favorite while embracing the spooky season.
A threatened mother and a relentless detective collide when a series of murders awaken something long buried in the New Mexican desert in this mesmerizing novel of literary horror, perfect for fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Stephen Graham Jones.
“A marvelously strange story of murder and motherhood. . . . I have no idea how to describe what I just read, but it was really, really cool.” —T. Kingfisher, author of What Moves the Dead
A mother’s love is the oldest curse
Fortuna Miércoles has finally moved her family to a better neighborhood across the Rio Grande, desperate to outrun the curse that’s stalked her bloodline since her greatest grandmother crossed the desert with a cactus thorn splitting her throat. But burying a family’s violent legacy—or her own haunting secret—isn’t so easy. Twenty years ago, girls and women vanished into the Albuquerque night, their bones later unearthed on the mesa. The so-called Reaper was never caught. Now, beneath the dormant volcanoes called the Sleeping Sisters, the killings have begun again, and they’ve called forth something in Fortuna that she has long fought to keep buried…
Detective Jeanette Palacio has spent decades promising justice to the ghosts of her murdered cousins—alongside the memory of the other women she couldn’t avenge. When a new body turns up in Fortuna’s backyard, both women are pulled into a dangerous, ancient plot. Are the Sleeping Sisters awakening—or has someone in Fortuna’s family set a trap?
Inspired by true events, The Sleeping Sisters begins as a taut mystery shot through with myth and a Chicana-Indigenous reimagining of the legend of the headless woman—but by its cataclysmic end has spiraled into a fevered, feral hymn to motherhood and a mesmerizing portrait of trauma and the monstrous bargains we make to protect those we love.
“A haunting mystery and a fierce ode to motherhood. It will lodge in your heart like a cactus spine.”―Nat Cassidy, author of When the Wolf Comes Home
“Givhan’s lovely prose brings incisive introspection to this pulse-pounding mystery with a mythic twist.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“It’s everything I love—a wily mystery, blood-stirring Indigenous folklore, and complicated ties to land and family.”―Laurie L. Dove, author of Mask of the Deer Woman
“A folkloric masterpiece. Givhan winds a story as supple and horrifying as a bloody silk ribbon, and the result is electrifying.”―Taylor Grothe, author of Lethal Kiss
In a spicy, contemporary fantasy novel, private investigator Linda Villanueva runs a detective agency for troubled souls using her mystical powers—all while wrestling with her own heart. Cebo Campbell, author of Sky Full of Elephants, calls it “Lush, provocative, and deeply human.”
AN EVIL FORCE IS FEASTING ON DESIRE.
Evelyn Kendricks is having a day. An overworked manager, she’s been dumped by her toxic boyfriend while struggling to cope with the recent ghost invasion that’s shocked the world. Devastated, she is mysteriously summoned to an eerie townhouse where she meets Linda Villaneuva, a private investigator who runs a secret mystical detective agency. She’s able to sense the emotions of others, especially those suffering from heartache.
Linda would like nothing more than to help her latest client, but she soon makes a gruesome discovery: People are losing their memories and wandering DC streets in a zombie-like daze. Their eyes, demon red. Their skin, blistered, burning… and no one understands why. Panic has begun to consume the city as more folks succumb, putting Evelyn and other residents at risk.
In the biggest case of her life, Linda follows a trail of clues to unearth an evil force far deadlier than anything she could’ve imagined. And all the while, she must reckon with the tragedies of her past and the price she’s paid for her supernatural gifts.
A layered urban fantasy that serves up spicy romance, titillating mystery, and otherworldly horror, The Broken Hearts Agency is the latest page-turner from an acclaimed storyteller.
“Cho Yeeun is amazing. Insanely amazing.” ―Bora Chung, author of The Midnight Timetable
A young woman and a possessed teddy bear set out on a revenge quest unlike any other in this stylish slasher from Cho Yeeun, a rising star in Korean horror.
When the fledgling coastal town of Yamu is rocked by a mass-poisoning attack at the Seaview Parc, a luxury high-rise apartment, Hwayoung is one of many who lost family members. Except, she has never believed that her mother was poisoned.
Now, fueled by grief and a desire for revenge, Hwayoung spends her time hustling to save every penny and bring those responsible to justice. Across town, Doha wakes up in a teddy bear and realizes something sinister has taken his body.
When fate brings Hwayoung and Doha together, the two team up for a revenge quest that will shake the city’s shiny façade to its rotten core.
This time, revenge is not just personal—it’s supernatural.
“The perfect mix of horror and heart.” —Kylie Lee Baker, author of Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
Quaint Folk is a sharply satirical queer folk horror novel that peels back the idyllic veneer of a seemingly perfect island town to reveal the rot beneath, from Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Bitter Karella.
“The folk horror I always wanted: queer, funny, bloody, and outrageous in the best way.” —Laura Cranehill, author of Wife Shaped Bodies
From the outside, it looks like Jessica has the perfect life. She’s a stay-at-home mom, married to a man with a respectable job, raising a son they adore. Her family is as wholesome as all-American pie. But deep down, Jessica knows there’s something wrong with her; she knows she can’t escape her past.
When her husband’s job has them move abroad, Jessica thinks this is her chance for a fresh start. On the remote island of Hasenhurst, the modern world can’t get in. The people there grow their own herbs, make their own jam, and mind their own business. They believe in folk tales and the power of dreams. They tell visitors, we’re a quaint, quiet people.The right sort of family would do well here.
Jessica is determined to be the right kind of person for a family—and a life—like this. But as she tries to befriend the townsfolk and learn their ways, she soon realizes that beneath the town’s cozy idyll, something sickly-sweet and rotten lays buried …
“To experience Karella’s cheerfully unhinged fiction is to surrender to a spectacularly fierce and uncompromising literary force. Quaint Folk astonished me with its charming, mythical weirdness threaded with genuine moments of pure tenderness. A bold, potent brew of all the best elements of folk and queer horror.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance—similar to bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images.
There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief—with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires, werewolves and more.
Many of these legends existed long before their European counterparts—passed throughout the Americas via word of mouth, collected just like the tales the Brothers Grimm. These are indeed fairy tales—Latin American fairy tales—but with a horrifying slant.
NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD AND THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD!
Annihilation meets Manhunt in this gloriously queer psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of (cis)terhood.
I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.
They call it the King’s Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of disappearing hikers and strange cults that worship the divine feminine abound.
Sarah is a trans woman who makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King’s Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. But as she descends deeper, she realizes she’s not alone. Something in the forest is waking up. It’s hungry—and it wants her.
★ “A bizarre and fiercely original splatterpunk phantasmagoria of queerness. Deranged and gleefully weird as f*ck, this is an impressive debut from a singular literary talent.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
★ “As eldritch and grimy as the terrifying forest it’s set in. I loved this book!” —Trevor Henderson, author of Scarewaves
★ “Weird, wild, and oh-so-wretched, Moonflow is the trans botanical horror we need in the world right now.” —Drew Huff, author of The Divine Flesh
★ “Is it legal to have this much fun reading a book? I’m in awe of Karella’s incredible gift for creating biting satire. I had a f*cking blast.” —Joe Koch, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Wingspan of Severed Hands
An Eisner Award Nominee
A GNCRT Outstanding Comics Award Honor Book
“Beautiful, spooky, and emotional.” —Kirkus
“Excruciatingly heart-wrenching and deeply affecting, drawn with nostalgia and care.” —Booklist, starred review
“Supernatural suspense keeps readers on their toes while complex characterizations create fodder for nuanced and empathetic discussion surrounding mental health stigma and bullying.” — Publishers Weekly
“A bold accomplishment that provides an unflinching yet compassionate look at schizoaffective disorder, and how love can help those living with it.” – School Library Journal
In this lush and romantic queer horror graphic novel, a troubled teen disappears from his small town—sending his loved ones on a paranormal journey to bring him home.
Noah is heartbroken. He returns from Bible camp to find that Alex, his secret boyfriend, has had a breakdown and disappeared. He wishes more than anything that he hadn’t left that day.
Sky is determined. She’ll stop at nothing to find her childhood friend, even if it means alienating the people she loves.
Izzy is ashamed. She knew something weird was going on with Alex, and she didn’t say anything to her boyfriend, Jamie—Alex’s twin brother. If she had, would Alex still be here?
Jamie is angry. Angry at Alex for being gone, angry at himself for not noticing something was wrong, and angry at his long-dead mother, Desdemona, who had problems of her own.
But what if there was something more to Desdemona’s demons? Why is Jamie seeing her ghost? And can he get past his hatred of her if it means finding out what happened to his brother?
“Like the objects collected in this deliciously haunting book, Midnight Timetable will absorb you in the shadows of its imagination, marvelous oddness, humor, and heart.” —Gerardo Sámano Córdova
From the author and translator of the National Book Award finalist and Booker Prize shortlisted Cursed Bunny, comes a novel-in-ghost-stories, set in a mysterious research center that houses cursed objects, where those who open the wrong door might find it’s disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they’re running from are their own…
The acclaimed Korean horror and sci-fi writer’s goosebump-inducing new book follows an employee on the night shift at the Institute. They soon learn why some employees don’t last long at the center. The handkerchief in Room 302 once belonged to the late mother of two sons, whose rivalry imbues the handkerchief with undue power and unravels the lives of those who seek to possess it. Meanwhile a live-streaming, ghost-chasing employee steals a cursed sneaker down the hall, but later finds he can’t escape its tread. The cat in Room 206 begins to reveal the crimes of its former family, wanting to understand its own path to the Institute’s dimly lit halls.
But Chung’s haunted institute isn’t just a chilling place to play. As in her astounding collections Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia, these violent allegories subtly excavate the horrors of animal cosmetic testing, “conversion therapy,” domestic abuse, and late-stage capitalism. Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political, Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time’s greatest imaginations.
Jennifer’s Body meets Heartstopper in this terrifying, tender, and bitingly hilarious supernatural horror about a boy who must save his best friend from a demon that wants to steal his heart—literally.
Ren says he’s in love, but Colin knows better.
Sure, he can’t remember much about how it all began. But he remembers dancing at a club he and Ren were too young to dance in. He remembers the boys who harassed them on their way home. He remembers a ghost emerging from the trees, and a white hand reaching for Ren through a thick fog. What Colin can’t remember is what happened next. Only two things are clear to him: Ren is different now, and the new guy vying for his heart is not who he claims to be.
With the help of two unlikely allies and a cranky old medium, Colin must learn to conquer his self-doubt and save his best friend from a love that could cost him his life.
Equal parts campy and bewitching, Corey Liu’s debut YA novel explores predation, isolation, and what happens when a childhood dream of fairytale romance turns into a deadly nightmare.
Mira is a desperate young woman, hired by a wealthy single mother to tutor her lonesome son, Yuchan. But Mira is not who she presents herself to be; she is haunted by the death of her own family and motivated by the dark pulse of vengeance. Yuchan was cruel to Mira’s mother. A kind of cruelty she can’t ever forgive.
And then there is Jiwon, the boy’s mother, a bad mother, Mira thinks—or so Jiwon tells herself she must not be.
But as Mira spends more time in the family’s sprawling home, she begins to suspect Yuchan is not the culprit she’s after. Someone else in the family has been pulling the strings. Someone with a deviant plan she can’t begin to imagine.
Structured around four different letters and journal entries: Mira’s, Jiwon’s reply, Yuchan’s younger brother’s diary entry and, finally, Mira’s own written recollection. Each new section brings us deeper into a web of cruelty, consequence, and closer to the truth.
Zora Robinson is an ambitious grad student in her dream program at her dream university. When her thesis advisor hands her a strange diary and suggests she research the local folklore about a beast roaming the woods surrounding campus, Zora finds a community uneager to talk to an outsider.
As she delves into the history of the beast, she uncovers a rumored secret society called the Keepers that has tenuous ties to the beast…and Bricksbury itself. Zora soon finds herself plagued by visions of the past, and her grip on reality starts to slip as she struggles to uncover what is real and what is folklore. But when a student goes missing, Zora starts to wonder if the Keepers ever really disbanded.
There’s something in the woods and it has its eyes on Zora.
The perfectly twisted word-of-mouth horror phenomenon that set the internet on fire.
When Eamon and his two closest friends, Caroline and Mark, journey to Addington Isle, they hope to explore the island that inspired their favorite book, Winterset Hollow—a timeless tale about a tribe of animals preparing for their yearly end-of-summer festival. But when the trio break into the author’s apparently abandoned estate, they discover that much of what the world believes to be fantasy is real, and that the truth behind their beloved story is darker and more dangerous than they ever imagined. In fact, making it through the final chapter might just cost them everything.
How do you celebrate Barley Day? You run, friend. You run.
This edition features the complete version of the book within the book, Winterset Hollow, as written by Edward Addington!
“Winterset Hollow is one of the most interesting books I’ve read in years … astonishingly powerful and multilayered! It’s like you’re sitting on a log by a pleasant pond, dabbling your toes, and then you see a dark shape in the water…then another … and while you’re holding your breath, suddenly you realize the log you’re sitting on … is … moving!” —Diana Gabaldon, New York Times bestselling author of Outlander
A speculative horror-romance that combines the magical dark academia of The Atlas Six, the unsettling atmosphere of Mexican Gothic, and the psychosexual power dynamics of The Last Housewife.
Saige Chambers, Arcane Bioengineering student and blood witch, is constantly anxious and chronically over-prepared. When Saige and her fellow witch doctoral candidates depart for a conference, she plans and anticipates every last detail. Except she’s not prepared for the moment their bus turns off the highway and takes them to a remote mansion in the Appalachian Mountains, the gates sealing shut behind them.
The mansion’s owner, Arius Medea, issues a simple mandate: fix his injured, rotting leg or die. But it’s no ordinary injury—the flesh melts off the bone, emitting waves of foul magic that set Saige’s blood alight. Saige’s colleagues want to fight back and escape. Saige thinks their best chance is to fix him fast and get out.
As tensions rise, Saige finds herself growing closer to Vaishnavi Sri, a poison witch and Saige’s long-term crush. But first impressions can be misleading, and as Saige’s reluctant attraction to Arius grows, she begins to wonder if there’s a better life waiting for her in the walls of this mansion.
But, as one by one, Saige’s colleagues start to disappear, Saige realizes that dying may not be the worst option—because there are far worse fates lurking in the woods.
Twenty-five years after the making of a notorious found-footage horror movie, the estranged cast return to the site of filming – including the former final girl, whose dreams are still haunted by that night. One of Us Is Already Dead is a propulsive and chilling horror novel from USA Today bestselling author and new star in horror, E. L. Chen.
Twenty-five years ago, four college kids snuck into an abandoned house to film a found footage horror movie. Only three returned.
Now, newly divorced Josie Wu’s life is monotonous, and her time as the Final Girl in the cult classic The Bleeker House Tapes is firmly in her past. Her main concerns these days are paying the bills, raising her daughter, and the real-life horrors of perimenopause.
So when hotshot director and former crush Sean Maher invites her back to the abandoned house for a reunion shoot, Josie can’t resist. She misses the reckless, daring girl she used to be, as much as she denies it, and the sizable paycheck certainly doesn’t hurt.
But not all the terror in the original film was scripted, and there’s a reason Josie left her Final Girl days behind. Something lingers in the shadows of the Bleeker House – something dangerous.
As the cast and crew retrace the making of their indie movie, haunting memories blur into the present, and one thing becomes clear: someone needs to pay the price for what happened in the Bleeker House.
