Halloween Reading List: 31 Spine-Tingling Books to Get You in the Spirit

Sage Kay

Writer, reader, outfit repeater.

October is here! Look, over the misty horizon with a blood moon at its center, demanding you recognize its spooky atmosphere. What better way to do that than with a spooky read that’ll send a chill up your spine and get you in the spirit. Here are 31 spooky reads for your reading displeasure.
﻿$ Beyond Haunted Houses: 8 Scary Book Subgenres To Explore$ ﻿
Psychological HorrorFor those looking for a story that focuses on the mental torment of a couple of unlucky main characters, meet psychological horror. Content can range from modern stories with emotionally symbolic scares to some rather speculative fiction in varying time periods or science fiction settings. A truly jack-o'-lantern-of-all-trades medium of horror. 
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1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonThis novel follows an odd collection of investigators who temporarily move into a haunted house hoping to prove the existence of ghosts. (The Netflix show is also fantastic and entirely different.)
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2. Thr3e by Ted DekkerIn Thr3e, Kevin Parson is living a mundane life where he rarely thinks of the twisted events of his childhood—that is until he receives a call from a mysterious "Slater" who says his car will explode if he doesn’t confess his sin. Buckle in for this one, because what follows is truly one of the most gripping and complex plots I’ve ever read. 
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3. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El SaadawiThis novel isn’t your average haunted house spooky read. It focuses on the horrors of living as a woman in a patriarchal society, and what this mistreatment forces some women to do. 
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4. Skin by Ted DekkerSkin further illustrates Dekker’s love for complex plots with its story of three tornadoes uplifting an entire town, leaving only five survivors to deal with the serial killer forcing them to kill the ugliest of the group. 
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5. Imaginary Friend by Stephen ChboskyWhen fleeing an abusive relationship, you’d think an isolated town in Pennsylvania would be perfect for starting over. At least, that’s what Kate Reese hopes for. And it almost works—until her son disappears for six days and returns speaking of a voice in his head urging him to do unexplainable things. 
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6. The Bride Collector by Ted DekkerThis is the last Dekker suggestion, I promise. Fans of true horror will enjoy this novel about a serial killer who claims to be called by God to send various "Eve"s back to heaven. This dual perspective book between a serial killer and the detective right on his tail will have you screaming at the pages for the detective to see the totally obvious clues you do.
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7. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia ArmfieldWhat’s more terrifying than your wife coming back from a deep-sea submarine mission, irreparably changed by an unknowable evil? This novel tells the dual perspective of two wives, one fighting for her sanity during a submarine mission gone wrong and the other dealing with the reality that this woman is no longer the person she married. 
Comedic HorrorSo, not everybody is looking for mind-numbingly traumatic stories with horrific descriptions and dismembered main characters, fine. What about stories with a little of all that stuff but with some laughs to break up the scares, too. Much easier to stomach, right?
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8. Meddling Kids by Edgar CanteroMeddling Kids is basically a marriage between Scooby Doo and It—what a beautiful couple they’d make. In this story, a gang of former kid detectives return to their hometown to finally crack the case that sent them running as children.
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9. Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson A novel only for the undead girlies, Undead Girl Gang follows a teenager who’s convinced her best friend’s death was not an accident. Luckily, she’s a novice witch who manages to bring her best friend and two other similarly killed girls back to life to solve their deaths. 
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10. The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham JonesIn a high school of girls who have survived serial killers time and time again, Lindsay must find replacements for the girls in her homecoming court that didn’t survive. What follows is a bloodbath between survivalists with enough references to classic horror to make any horror fanatic swoon. 
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11. Queen of Teeth by Hailey PiperA true body horror novel, Queen of Teeth follows Yaya Betancourt, a girl who discovers that her vagina is growing a sharp set of teeth. Naturally, one of the most powerful corporations in the country wants her for testing and will stop at nothing to catch her. This horror gets more sickening with every page while maintaining a comedic atmosphere. 
Paranormal HorrorIf you’re looking for your classic hauntings, poltergeists, possessions, and the like, look no further. Paranormal horror gives you all that and more with a little extra lingering fear that makes you scared to be alone in your own home. 
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12. Come Closer by Sarah Gran Ever worry that you’re possessed by a demon? What about that this demon will start messing with your job, marriage, and overall life? Well, count your blessings cause main character Amanda is dealing with exactly this in this short horror novella.
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13. Experimental Film by Gemma Files For lovers of classic film, this novel follows a history teacher looking to escape from her familial conflicts by investigating the disappearance of a beloved filmmaker. What she finds are his lost tapes that just may contain the ghosts of his past in their very film.
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14. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons You’d think if it was the next door to you that was haunted, you could just mind your own business and go unscathed, right? Main character Col Kennedy finds this impossible, so when she hears of the tragedies that befell the past three owners of the house next door, she decides to investigate… Just guess what happens next.
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15. The Cipher by Kathe KojaWhen a young couple finds a seemingly bottomless hole in a forgotten closet of their apartment, they do what any normal person would do and start dropping things into it… but they never expected what might start coming out of the hole. Simple cause and effect here, really.
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16. What Moves the Dead by T. KingfisherIn this retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher," a nonbinary soldier rushes to help their dying friend, but only finds the shell of a person they used to know in an overgrown lake full of mysterious fungus and possessed animals. 
Gothic HorrorThis subgenre uses dark, decrepit land and cityscapes to portray issues of the crumbling mind and the supernatural forces that are behind them.
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17. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-GarciaWhat starts as a caring woman traveling to the mountains to answer her cousin’s distressed message that her husband intends to kill her turns into a wild tale of exploitation, misogyny, and generations of familial abuse. It's always the stories that take place in the mountains, isn’t it?
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18. Black Spider by Jeremias GotthelfPersonally, this book cover alone was enough to make me hide under my bed… didn’t help that I found a spider there. In this gothic horror story, with a single kiss, a woman seals a deal with the devil that causes generations of terror for her small community.
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19. Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. DanforthWhen two young students become obsessed with each other and the works of a scandalous writer, they form a secret club in the author’s name. Soon after this, they’re found, in true tragic queer fashion, stung to death by hornets with the author’s book open between them. A century later, an accomplished writer visits their death site to film an adaptation of her book and soon finds that those who died there are still very much around. 
Lovecraftian HorrorThis genre of weird fiction focuses less on physical frights and more on the unknowable, incomprehensible evil that lurks just beyond our plain of existence. Not sure how you can be scared of something you can’t even comprehend? These reads will show you how.
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20. The Croning by Laird BarronA geologist and academic has unknowingly been walking the too-thin line between a completely mundane, absent-minded life and a world of reality-shattering realizations. When he’s finally tipped over the edge, he discovers a world of black magic, cults, and other mysteries.
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21. The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht The city of Elendhaven sits on the edge of the ocean, wracked with disease and left to die. Still, a monster stalks this dying city, seeking revenge on behalf of a supernaturally compelling man. But when a mage-hunter arrives to stop their plans, a game of cat and mouse ensues, leaving the reader to wonder who’s the true monster in this dark fantasy.
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22. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValleThis novella follows a young street hustler who unknowingly gets involved in a millionaire’s quest to find the Great Old Ones, a host of Cthulu-like gods. As a revisiting of Lovecraft’s "The Horror at Red Hook" from the perspective of a Black man, it explores racism, police brutality, and other modern horrors.
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23. The Fisherman by John LanganLikely the most subtle horror on this list, it explores the grief of two men, who separately struggle to deal with the grief of losing their families but find solace in fishing and each other’s company. When they decide to brave Dutchman’s Creek, a body of water with a mysteriously dangerous history, their peaceful, therapeutic hobby quickly turns horrific. 
Short Story CollectionsLooking for the most bang for your buck and a variety of horror all in one place? These collections deliver more than enough horror for the entire month, each story dedicated to turning that shadowy corner in your room into endless nightmare fuel.
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24. Starlight by Hannah Lee KidderWritten by one of NovelPad’s own writers, Starlight contains 12 stories ranging in length from microfictions to proper short stories, each packed with enough spooky prose and dreadful atmosphere to have you sleeping with the lights on. Don’t forget a box of tissues, though, as Kidder manages to squeeze in enough heart within her horrific stories to elicit a tear or two.
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25. Diet Riot: A Fatterpunk Anthology edited by Nico Bell and Sonora TaylorThis collection is filled with 12 fat-positive stories, each with relatively positive content considering the genre it's a part of. These stories focus on the celebration of curves, coming of age, and plus-sized people saving the day.
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26. Let’s Play White by Chesya Burke Another collection that brings much needed positivity to the genre, Let’s Play White addresses issues of race, identity, and privilege in its 11 stories. Burke doesn’t utilize over-the-top gore and suspense to tell her stories, instead allowing the horrors of humanity to do all the talking.
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27. The Bloody Chamber by Angela CarterThis collection is for fans of retellings. While the author doesn’t consider them "versions" of Disney classics, her goal was to "extract the latent content" from some Disney stories and aspects of various folklore. Some of its stories bear resemblances to Beauty and The Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, and Alice in Wonderland.
If this subgenre intrigues you, don't miss out on these $ 10 dark fairytale retellings.$ ﻿$ ﻿$ ﻿
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28. The Tricker-Treater and Other Stories by Briana MorganWith its titular story taking place on Halloween night, this collection is perfect for the holiday. These stories by another NovelPad author vary wildly from classic hauntings to a pirate treasure hunt, all while exploring themes of love and loss.
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29. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan EllisonDubbed the Grand Master of Science Fiction, Harlan Ellison delivers seven truly chilling stories about technology, AI, and post-apocalyptic worlds. The title story itself, a tale about a self-aware AI turning on its creators, contains enough torture by technological hands to make you think twice about that AI cover of Toad singing Creep.
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30. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRoccaWhile this collection consists of only three stories, its spooky factor cannot be understated. The first story went viral for its disturbing content and unique online chat-room format, while the latter two stories focus on grief, stranger danger, and characters getting involved in plots much bigger than them.
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31. How to Recognize a Demon has Become your Friend by Linda AddisonThrough horror, science fiction, and poetry, Addison delivers a collection that illuminates the demons in your life—from their most obvious hiding places to ones you’d never expect. 

There you have it, more spooky book recommendations than you know what to do with… unless you’re a real one and plan on reading one recommendation a day. Let the spirit of Halloween fuel you!