Spine-Tingling Books to Read this Spooky Season
October 15, 2022
The days are getting shorter, and the weather is getting cooler, which means Spooky Season is right around the corner. Whether you’re looking for a nail-biting mystery or a slasher horror, these five books are guaranteed to keep you turning their pages long into the night– just remember to read with the lights on!
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The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Hendrix, author of the horror-parodies My Best Friend’s Exorcism and Horrorstör, is back with another unique spin on possibly the most popular horror trope there is: the final girl. Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
The Butcher and the Wren by Alaina Urquhart
The debut novel from the co-host of the wildly popular podcast Morbid is a twisted cat-and-mouse thriller about a serial killer stalking the Louisiana bayou, and the medical examiner who is hot on his trail. Urquhardt is an autopsy technician, and she brings her knowledge of this creepy and disturbing area of true crime to a thriller that you’ll want to binge-read in one sitting.
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
In this genre-bending thriller, a 22-year-old woman desperate to escape the trauma of her past takes a job as a nanny for an affluent family, caring for a shy 5-year-old boy. At first, the job seems like a dream– until the boy’s innocent drawings take a sinister turn, depicted on the page by artist Doogie Horner. As Teddy’s drawings become more realistic and disturbing, Mallory begins to suspect the images are glimpses of an unsolved murder from long ago, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force lingering in the forest behind the Maxwell’s house.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
The Hugo-winning author of The Twisted Ones returns with a creepy and atmospheric retelling of a classic Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Fall Of The House of Usher.” When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling
If your taste is less Nightmare On Elm Street and more Hocus Pocus, this follow-up novel to Sterling’s bestseller The Ex Hex is the perfect read for you. When Gwyn Jones, who comes from a line of witches, kisses handsome rival shop owner Wells Penhallow, chaos ensues– including the arrival of a new coven of witches in town. Can Gwyn and Wells work together to stop Gwyn’s powers from fading and save their town before it’s too late?