Scary Reads for Halloween

Halloween falls on a Monday this year and the Astros will be playing in the World Series (yay!!), but it is still fun to squeeze in some creepy books to celebrate the season. While I enjoy writing about spooky books, I do not personally enjoy reading them very often so I pulled scary book recommendations from my book friends on Instagram as well as ones that I have read myself.

Here are some other fun reads for the season. I have starred the books that I have read and enjoyed, and they are listed below in no particular order. I have generally sorted the books by theme to help guide people towards the right type of scary read for them. A number of these books could fit in more than one category so I tried to slot them into the one that I felt fit best. 

Mildly Creepy:

• *The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
• *One by One by Ruth Ware
• Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
• *Broken Harbor by Tana French (or anything else by her)
• *The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe (short story)
• The Collective by Alison Gaylin
• Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
• Sign Here by Claudia Lux

Really Dark Reads:

• The Shadows by Alex North
• The Stand by Stephen King (as the master of suspense and horror, he has numerous other books that qualify here)
• Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
• The Chain by Adrian McKinty
• Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Gothic Reads:

• *The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James
• *The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
• *The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
• *The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
• *Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier 
• *The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
• The Haunting of Brynn Wilder by Wendy Webb

Ghost or Supernatural Stories:

• *A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan
• *The Last to See Me and I See You So Close by M. Dressler 
• *The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (she has numerous other ghost stories too)
• *The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Scarier Ghost/Supernatural/Horror Stories:

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 
• The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
• Pet Cemetery by Stephen King
• The Deep by Alma Katsu

I want to hear about your favorite creepy books below in the comments!

For more book recommendations and bookish thoughts, see Cindy’s monthly Buzz Reads column, her Thoughts from a Page Podcast or follow @ThoughtsFromaPage on Instagram. Find upcoming Conversations from a Page events here.