I love spooky season, and I always dive into all things horror. I love the genre… in books, in movies, in TV. Here are 13 of my favorites. Because why not 13?

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1. The Bird Eater by Ania Ahlborn

Everything about this book was creepy! It started out with a bang in just the first chapter. With madness at the center of the story, it’s just as much a psychological thriller as a true horror novel. There is no HEA, and that’s probably what I loved most about it. It matched an intensely dark story of madness, ghosts, fear, and sadness. There is a sense of disjointedness and disconnections within the tale that I loved, feeling that it mirrored the descent into madness and despair that was so significant to the story. It is a horror novel, a novel that makes the reader question everything. I like the not knowing, the wondering, the suspense of it all. That is the point of a horror novel…. to leave you hanging with the “what if’s” still there waiting to terrify you around the next corner,

I love this author and have read most of her books, all of which I recommend. BUT this is horror not meant for the faint of heart!

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2. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

The story is told through alternating timelines, that of the 1970s and 2017. The present is narrated by Shea, a true-crime blogger who suffers from the aftermath of her own trauma. The past is told by Beth, a woman accused and acquitted of two murders, whom Shea is interviewing for her blog. One of the reasons I loved this book was the narrators, each unreliable in their own way. For Shea, it was childhood trauma that affected her life, the way she lived it and the way she saw the world around her. And Beth… it’s hard to feel warmth for her, even if you push aside the presumed murderess label. But she’s a deeply intriguing character. There was a weird vibe between them that really amped up the eerie, spooky feeling, which I LOVED!

Honestly, any of her thrillers are fabulous. I also loved The Sun Down Motel and The Broken Girls, both great books for the season!

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3. Those Empty Eyes by Charlie Donlea

This book captured me as soon as I began to read it. It has such a complex plot, in every good way. It’s very layered as it moves between the present and various points/incidents in the past. On the surface, it often felt like these moments were rather disconnected from one another, but there was always that sense that there were connecting threads just out of sight. I loved that as it lent itself to the suspense and anticipation. I also loved that there were a lot of red herrings, none of which were obvious. It’s a dark and twisty read that is very well paced. This was my first book by the author, but it definitely won’t be my last.

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4. The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon

This book is hands-down one of the most sinister and chilling ones I’ve ever read. Part of that is due to the unusual, and strangely powerful, structure. Like others, it was told from multiple perspectives: the daughter, the girlfriend, and the sole surviving victim. But what was different was the voice in which those perspectives were told. Most were told in first person, but one was told in the rare-to-be-found-in-fiction second person. That made for an interesting layer to the story. It’s a slower paced story, the true focus on the characters, who were masterfully created. Each of the women sees and knows Aiden in a different way. He is a chameleon, capable of disguising himself as a good man, a devoted father who’s grieving the recent loss of his wife. But beneath that is a much darker man, cunning and manipulative, dangerous. The book is deep, intense, and gripping, a story that digs deep into your soul. It’s very unique and thought-provoking, a story that won’t let you go even after the last page.

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5. The Lies We Told by Camilla Way

This book was a wild journey! It’s told in alternating timelines, which, for much of the books, seems to create two separate stories. But then tiny threads begin to draw them together in deliciously horrific ways. The book has all the elements of a great psychological thriller… overly picture-perfect families, a violent and psychopathic child, twists and turns galore, missing people, and dark secrets. There were some utterly chilling moments, which made for a page-turner. So many times I was convinced I had it all figured out, only to be proven wrong. I love the not knowing! It’s a dark read that I found to be very thought-provoking. I think the mother aspect to the book, being a mom myself, made the story that much more sinister to read!

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6. Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison

This is a twisty thriller that takes place in an elite, all-girls, private boarding school, and it’s a school that comes with an interesting history. The school’s honor code is the most important covenant to the school community, and to break it is virtually unheard of. But there are exceptions… the secret societies that are a barely hidden secret. The atmosphere of the book is very gothic, giving the story a deliciously creepy feeling. The old buildings of the school, the iron gates, the sometimes dark history of the school. And that atmosphere really underscored the dark aspects of the story. From the very beginning, there is the overwhelming realization that things are not what they appear in the school and with some of the girls. There are secrets at every turn.

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7. Last Seen by J.T. Ellison

You’re getting a two-for here! The two books, while standalones, are loosely connected, with Good Girls Lie coming first.

I just finished this last week, and I LOVED IT!! It has a deep and layered plot with shifting perspectives, timelines, and voices, which added to the suspense and anticipation in perfect ways. These interwoven aspects made for an intense, twisty read. And it was the use of some of the changing voices, between first and third person, that led me to a theory that I held for much of the book, only to discover just how wrong I was. Much of the story takes place in the fictional twin of Brockville, a small town created to be a utopia. The author created such an eerie vibe, culty meets Stepford Wives. It is a purposely and meticulously planned town that seems perfect on the surface. But that perfection hides deep and dark secrets, which creates a pool of suspects to keep the reader guessing. And I love a flawed character, the feeling of reality and authenticity that they bring to a story. This book had several, all very believable. J.T. Ellison is masterful in the way she creates mind-bending plots that mess with the readers in all the right ways. She creates red herrings that are so subtle that only later does the reader recognize them as such, allowing for delicious twists and turns. I love being wrong when I read mysteries and thrillers, so I appreciated that I had a lot of different theories throughout, very few of them correct. And the ending suggests there might be more for these characters in store.

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8. None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

This is a deeply twisty read that revolves around two women whose lives couldn’t be more different. Alix Summers is a famous podcaster whose content focuses on women who have used their second chances in life to achieve great things. She lives in a nice home, in a nice part of the city, with a handsome husband and two beautiful children. Josie Fair has a run-of-the-mill job, lives in a poorer part of the city with her far older husband and her recluse daughter, her other daughter having run away years earlier. But the two women do have something in common: a shared birthday, even born on the same day in the same hospital. And upon meeting Alix, Josie wants what she has. And so the story truly begins, a riveting tale told by two unreliable narrators. It’s dark, it’s sinister, and it’s so twisty. The format the author used to lay out the story really kept it atmospheric with short chapters bookended with extracts from a in-the-book Netflix documentary and from the fictional podcast. Right from the very beginning, the reader knows horrible things have happened, but so much of it is intimated that, for a long time, one is kept guessing, trying to riddle out the truth of it. That created a heavy dose of anticipation that was sustained throughout the book.

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10. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

NOTE: This is definitely not a book for a casual horror reader. It’s deeply disturbing, albeit masterful. But it is very graphic.

I read the 2011 anniversary edition, which differs from the original 1971 novel with an additional character and scene. The original was written in nine short months, the author receiving the screenplay offer for the famous movie before even the first draft was complete. As such, Blatty never had the opportunity to revise the original, so it was published as is. The author himself has said that he prefers to be remembered for the 2011 version! And is it a disturbing novel? Absolutely, but it’s also revolutionary in its presentation of themes and in how it went on to shape the entire horror genre, whether in books or movies or TV. It is incredibly dark, with no attempt to smooth or soften the unpalatable parts of it. The story is complex, with few characters existing outside the grey areas. “Atmospheric” doesn’t seem like a big enough word to characterize this book.

There is a second book, Legion, written years later, that I have yet to read.

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These last three are pure nostalgia. I’m a feral child of the 1970s, who read John Saul, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz at far too young an age. But they instilled my love of the genre, and I love them!!

11. The Face of Fear by Dean Koontz

This is the first I remember reading by Koontz, and it was originally released in 1977, when I was 6-7. I think I read it a few years later, no older than 9 or 10. It’s about a clairvoyant who sees the murders in his mind, sometimes even as they are happening. In desperation, the NYPD has brought him into a case, hoping that he can help them stop a brutal killer. But then he sees a vision of his own murder, But his open connection to the beyond leaves him, and those he loves, vulnerable to the killer, known only as The Butcher. It’s a read-with-the-lights-on horror novel, the kind I truly love to sink my teeth into. It’s utterly terrifying, in all the best ways. I read it as a kid, but I’ve read it as an adult… still terrifying!!

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12. ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Originally published in 1975, this is the first King I read. It’s a vampire novel, without all of the sparkly nonsense of Twilight. The story is about an author who returns to ‘Salem’s Lot to write about a house that has disturbed him since he was a child. When he arrives, he finds his hometown crawling with vampires. As they continue to kill, the author convinces a group of people to help him destroy the vampires. This is King’s second novel, following the famous Carrie, firmly establishing him as the King of Horror. It was a terrifying novel then, and it still is! I’ve read it several times over the years, and it never fails to keep me totally engrossed.

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13. Punish the Sinners by John Saul

This came out in 1978, hot on the heels of his first novel, Suffer the Children. Neither should I have read at so young an age! Part of this one takes place in 1252 Italy, during the Inquisition. It was a time of women burning at the stake for crimes real and imagined. Then it jumps to 1978, when a man moves to teach at a Catholic high school. He quickly realizes that something is happening to the girls, something dark and evil. The horror of the past is revisiting the present in the most horrifying ways. This book is dark, disturbing, and intense, so be warned. It is for the serious horror reader, to be certain. But it is also a quintessential horror novel, embodying the best of the genre.

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