10 great horror books to read this October

It’s that time of year again!

There’s a chill in the air, everything smells a bit like apple cider donuts and wood smoke, people have the theme from Practical Magic on repeat, the sun is setting earlier, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that something ancient and terrible is watching you from just out of sight as you’re walking home at night. That’s right, folks: Spooky season is finally upon us!

While there’s truly no hard-and-fast rule on the best time of year to read scary stories, if you’re anything like me, you like to pack in as many as possible in the days leading up to Halloween. Below you’ll find a list of 10 recent horror novels that are perfect for the month of October (and beyond).

Cover art for Emily Carroll’s A Guest in the House. A gray person walks down a gray staircase, while a large being made of bright colors and dripping red peers over the staircase at them.

Emily Carroll published a collection of horrifying horror stories, beautifully illustrated with grotesque and visceral imagery in the year 2000. The Woods. If, like me, you were a fan of this collection (I still think about the story “His Face All Red” fairly regularly), then you’ll rejoice to hear that Carroll’s recent adult graphic novel is every bit as unsettling as her early work.

The Guest at Home tells the story of Abby, a quiet and lonely young woman who, upon learning about the sudden death of her new husband’s first wife, Sheila, begins to question his innocence. Is it true that she died of natural causes, or is there something else? All of her belongings were they really destroyed in the fire? Why does he live by a lake if he doesn’t swim, and why won’t he let his daughter go near the water? As Abby adjusts to married life, her obsession with Sheila continues to grow until a startling encounter with her predecessor’s ghost changes everything.

The book is a gothic story, with spooky color shocks in the black and white pages. The Guest at HomeIt is an excellent blend of supernatural and domestic horror. There’s a pervasive sense of wrongness simmering just under the surface of this story that will make readers’ skin crawl from the first page.

Cover image for Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions, which depicts five duplicate images of the same person wearing a bonnet and a dress and holding an apple.

Trust me when I say that you’ll be sleeping with the lights on and listening intently to every ambient sound your house makes while you’re reading this book.

After the sudden and mysterious death of her husband, Elsie is sent to his family’s sprawling country estate, The Bridge, to see out the final months of her pregnancy away from the overwhelming hustle and bustle of London. The manor is in disrepair, and the staff seem to be resentful of her presence even though they have never met before. Worse still is the ominous wooden creation lying in wait behind a locked door — a life-size, free-standing, flat figure that has been painted in painstaking detail to look as realistically human as possible. If that isn’t terrifying enough, it bears an uncanny resemblance to Elsie herself. At first the figure appears harmless, but that quickly changes when more appear in the home and start to move.

Cover image for John Milas’ The Militia House, a red background with a group of helicopters in an oval that make them look kind of like bugs with wings and legs.

2010 is the year, and Cpl. Loyette’s unit is counting the days to their final departure from Afghanistan.

They spend their days doing nothing more than unloading and loading cargo out of helicopters. So when rumors spread about a haunted Soviet era militia home near their base they leap at the chance to investigate it. The men are not frightened when they first enter the building. However, as the days go by their distrust and unease grows. Porcupine-quills appear around the building’s base. Strange drawings start to appear on walls. Some of the men experience night terrors. Loyette himself is determined to write off his company’s behavior as a combination of boredom and exhaustion, but there’s something about the old building that he cannot ignore.

John Milas’ debut novel, The Militia HouseThe novel is unique and unlike anything else you’ve read about haunted houses. Milas seamlessly blends the horrors of war with psychological turmoil, and the result is a deeply unsettling and propulsive story that elegantly tackles the trauma that young service members face — both when abroad and coming home — and the supernatural.

Cover image for Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy. It is an image comprised of blocks set against a red background. A plague doctor looks to the left while a skeletal figure picks up what looks like a head from a pile of block heads.

The story is set in a magical world, where creatures from fairy tales have become real. Salt Grows HeavilyThe film follows the journey of a mermaid, who is missing her tongue, and a mysterious doctor on a frozen wasteland. The chemistry they share is unmistakable, even though their dialogue is a bit one-sided. Like many of the fables before, this story is about a bloody love. Along the way, the mermaid and the plague doctor stumble across a village of bloodthirsty children — think Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, but much, much worse — and the terrifying, cannibalistic saints who watch over them.

The best horror stories are those that have a masterfully creepy feel to them. Blackened Teeth,Hammers on Bone, Salt Grows Heavily” The Dead take the A TrainCassandra Khaw, who has a new horror film (co-written by Richard Kadrey and out on October 3), is one of today’s most interesting voices. Salt Grows Heavily stands out in particular for its spectacular world-building and cringe-worthy depictions of body horror — this one isn’t for the faint of heart. While it’s only 112 pages, you’ll wish there were 200 more to go by the end of it.

Cover image for Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep. It features an angry-looking black sheep with red eyes against a pink background with black dots.

It’s fair to say that Vesper Wright had one hell of a childhood.

Her mother, Constance, is a beloved horror movie star who never gave Vesper the time of day and filled her home with monster movie paraphernalia, Vesper’s father was never around, and she was raised in a remote, strictly religious community. Vesper left home when she was 18 years old. When an envelope with a wedding invite appears at her door, she decides that she will return to where she grew.

When Vesper’s return reveals the ugly truth about her family and a deadly secret that has been kept from her all her life, she finds herself torn between the people who love her and saving the world.

Rachel Harrison is the queen of deliciously pulpy horror that is a blast to read from start to finish, and she’s back once again with Black Sheep. It’s a gory and often laugh-out-loud-funny love letter to cult-classic horror films, scream queens, and indestructible final girls.

Cover image for Samantha Allen’s Patricia Wants to Cuddle. Set against a teal background, it shows a woman taking a selfie while being held in the hand of a bigfoot-like creature.

Patricia wants to cuddleSamantha Allen has many facets. This is first of all a horror novel, clearly inspired from box-office thrillers. It’s also a queer rom-com, satirical to its core, and contains biting commentary on America’s obsession with sensational reality TV shows such as The Bachelor. It also so happens that there is a misunderstood, murderous lady Bigfoot who’s love language involves physical affection.

Located in the Pacific Northwest region, Patricia wants to cuddleThis story tells of four women competing in a reality dating show. Each woman has her own motivation to win — brand sponsorships and true love included — but their plans are thrown for a loop when dead bodies begin to appear. In the first page of Patricia wants to cuddleA severed hand is seen bobbing on the seashore, and from then things get even more violent. Patricia is watching them in the shadows, along with the locals, who are willing to do whatever it takes, at any cost, to defend her.

Cover image for Isabel Cañas’ Vampires of El Norte. A woman wearing a long red dress walks in the desert, as lightning strikes behind her.

Peanut butter chocolate. Vanilla ice cream and apple pie. Biscuits with gravy. There are some things that go perfectly together, and now, thanks to Isabel Cañas, vampires and cowboys can be added to that list. It’s not just vampires and cowboys that go together. Thanks to Isabel Canas, you can add them as well. The Vampires Of El Norte, Cañas once again blends historical fiction, romance, and horror to fantastic, swoon-worthy results.

Set in the border region between Texas and Mexico during the 1840s. The Vampires Of El Norte tells the story of Nena, a wealthy rancher’s daughter, and Néstor, a ranch hand on the farm where she lives. It’s clear from the first pages of this book that Nena and Néstor are meant to be together — they’re practically inseparable — despite her father’s disapproval of their relationship. After Nena, a bloodsucking, terrifying monster attacks her, the vaquero has to flee in order to save himself. It’s only when the United States attacks Mexico six years later that the two finally meet again. Néstor, haunted by the memory of his childhood sweetheart, is rightfully shocked to find her very much alive and furious with him for seemingly abandoning her. The tension between the two is palpable, despite their miscommunications and stubbornness. Their reunion is made infinitely more complicated, however, when Mexican soldiers begin to fall mysteriously ill and the creature from Nena and Néstor’s past threatens their future.

Cover image for Jade Song’s Chlorine, featuring a large fin in the ocean waves.

Teenage girls can be some of the most frightening and toughest people in the world. Chlorine’s main character, Ren Yu, is no exception.

ChlorineThis is a deeply disturbing and dark sapphic tale of a young woman obsessed with proving to family and friends that she’s a real mermaid. She will go to any lengths to do so. It is a fever dream of a book, and Ren’s quest for a tail becomes increasingly intense until it culminates in a uniquely grotesque and viscerally upsetting scene best left for you to discover on your own. Caught in Ren’s wake is her best friend, Cathy, who is struggling with her own feelings for Ren. As the two girls grow closer, Cathy finds herself torn between what is best for Ren and her friend’s insatiable desire to return to the water.

Cover image for Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s Monstrilio, which features a little monster with bat ears at the bottom of the page, and colored shapes scattered around the cover.

Told in four parts and in four distinct voices, Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s debut literary horror novel, MonstrilioThis is a masterpiece, an eloquent look at family life and what we are willing to do for the people we care about.

Losing a child is the hardest thing to bear. When Magos’ son dies, she cuts out a piece of his lung to keep with her in a startling act of anguish and violence. It’s enough to drive away her husband — who’s already grappling with the weight of his own grief — and their relationship crumbles as a result. Magos tries to conceal the creature when the lung grows limbs, a thin fur layer, and a semblance sentience. Monstrilio is a creature that begins to look like her dead son. She must keep Monstrilio hidden and away from people who will kill him.

Cover image for Daniel Kraus’ Whalefall, which features a giant whale as a person i nscuba gear starts to fall towards the whale’s mouth.

WhalefallIt is very different from the horror novels listed here. The book does not contain any possessions, or horrors of the body. The shadows are not filled with vampires and monsters. There is a 60-ton sperm, which has no idea what it’s doing, and a man that the sperm accidentally swallows.

The story is a survival horror that will make you scream and pound your heart. WhalefallJay Gardiner is a man racked by guilt for his complex relationship with his father who has just died. He sets off on a journey to retrieve his remains from the coastline of Monastery Beach. It starts off without incident but soon takes an unexpected turn as Jay is caught in the tentacles a huge squid. As if that isn’t terrifying enough, things go from bad to much, much worse when the squid and Jay are both drawn into the mouth of a hungry whale in a moment that feels straight out of Moby D.. Jay, who is literally stuck in the stomach of a killer whale, has just an hour’s worth of oxygen left to save himself from a drowning grave.

WhalefallThe story is one of love and survival that will leave readers captivated by the sea wondering what’s hidden below the waves.

#great #horror #books #read #October