Happy Halloween my ghoulies and ghosties! Today we’re talking about about some spooky reads perfect for chilling your spine, heebie-ing your jeebies, and keeping you occupied between giving handfuls of candy to stranger’s children. I’ve tried to provide a variety of spook levels and book types so there’s something for everyone from the hard-core horror-lover to those for whom a scary movie is only ever viewed from between fingers (and with the lights on).
So in no particular order, lets get into it.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
This is tech-fueled body-horror freak-out that will leave you with little appetite for miniature KitKats. In Persona, a transwoman scraping out a bleak existence in a grim, bug-infested apartment finds a disturbing video that sends her down a nightmareish rabbit hole full of fractured memories, bodies morphing into insects, and the industrial production and destruction of human bodies.
The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson
If even the idea of reading something like Persona gives you nightmares I suggest The Saturday Night Ghost Club. This is the perfect fall read following a kid and his wacky uncle through their (possibly haunted) small town. Reading this feels like returning to how Halloween felt when you were a kid - before all the skepticism of adulthood crept in and you realized you could just go buy all those mini-chocolate bars at the dollar store. Its spooky, it’s a lot of fun, its unexpectedly heart-warming, and it involves an attempt to contact the dead through one of those toddler toys that spins and makes farm animal noises.
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
This one is for those who like their horror served fantasy-style. In The Starving Saints, Starling takes us to a medieval-ish castle whose inhabitants are starving under an endless enemy siege. As the castle denizens get hungrier and more desperate things start to get unsettling, especially once a trio of beings claiming to be the living embodiments of the inhabitants deities show up. Told through the eyes of three different women living in the castle this is a wild ride through religious hedonism, cannibalism, and all manner of freaky phenomena.
When We Spoke to the Dead by Ilise S. Carter
A little non-fiction to spice things up while staying firmly on-theme, When We Spoke to the Dead explores the history of the Spiritualist movement in the United States and the many ways in which it influenced American popular culture, politics, and the early feminist movement. It also covers the commodification of grief, the connections between Victorian séances and the modern cult of the wellness influencer, and our ever-evolving perceptions of death and dying all while feeling much more like you’re reading a novel than a sociological textbook.
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo
This isn’t the first time I’ve extolled the many virtues of Mandelo’s historical-Appalachian-revenge-horror novella and it will not be the last. This is a perfectly atmospheric story from the perspective of an outsider in a small town gripped by religious fanaticism and surrounded by endless woods in which something is said to lurk. The pacing is incredible, the social commentary is biting without leaning preachy, and there’s a soupçon of monsterfucking for those who like a beating heart of desire in their horror.
Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran
As classic a combination as tricks and treats Spoiled Milk features a isolated boarding school, the tragic death of a student, and something strange oozing through the ancient halls. Also lesbians. While this may be a classic plot, there’s nothing stale about it as Curran weaves horror hallmarks like reappearing corpses, messages from beyond the grave, and a gloriously gruesome final bloodbath with an exploration of queer desire and a perfectly-crafted enemies-to-lovers subplot that (unlike some popular series I could mention) involves actual character growth.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
While this may not technically count as horror, I had to include one for the pretentious among you (you are seen and I am one of you) who need something a little more literary for your spooky fix. This is a wild ride of a novel in which the capital-D-Devil shows up in Moscow along with a few demonic pals and proceeds to wreak absolute havoc. At its core, this is a satirical looks at Soviet society and a commentary on Christian philosophy with enough demonic happenings and dark magic to make it an ideal October read.
The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder
Because there is nothing scarier than late-stage capitalism and the global rise of the authoritarian right.