It’s no secret I love true crime and thrillers. So naturally, you’d think I love scary stories, right? Nope. I’m a huge chicken when it comes to being scared. While my friends were all out visiting “haunted” houses and “haunted” hotels for Halloween when we were younger, I hung back. Call me crazy, but I don’t like shit jumping out at me. So when people ask me for reading recommendations around Halloween time for “scary” or “spooky” books, I might not give you exactly what you’d expect. I like my spooky books on the less scary side. Meaning, I’m not one for gore and straight up horror i.e. Stephen King.
But these seven books strike just the right balance of spooky and creepy, especially for Halloween time.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
Like most of Palahniuk’s books (all of which I’ve read), this is not for the faint of heart. Haunted is a novel made up of 23 horrifying, hilarious and stomach-churning stories. They’re told by people who have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly joined a “Survivor”-like scenario where the host withholds heat, power and food. As the storytellers grow more desperate, their tales become more extreme, and they ruthlessly plot to make themselves the hero of the reality show that will surely be made from their plight.
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
In this short Australian classic, a group of girls from the Appleyard College for Young Ladies venture out for a picnic at Hanging Rock on a beautiful afternoon. Three of the girls set out for a hike, and are never seen again. It’s mysterious and subtly erotic, perfect for Halloween.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Most people have read Bradbury’s classic, Fahrenheit 451, but I prefer his horror novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes. I mean, satanic carnival? Screams Halloween to me! Bradbury’s epic rumination on childhood and adulthood tells the story of a magical circus that comes to a small town, offering the residents dark gifts they weren’t aware they wanted—most notably the carousel that can change your physical age, making boys who yearn to be adults grow older, and middle-aged men and women who yearn for their lost youth to grow younger.
The Whisper Man by Alex North
OK, this book is terrifying. Everyone I’ve lent it to has felt the same way, it makes you jump out of your skin. But only when it really wants to. It’s the perfect balance of thriller and scare-the-crap-out-of-you spooky. In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a multi-generational tale of a father and son caught in the crosshairs of an investigation to catch a serial killer preying on a small town.
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
A childhood drinking game gone wrong sets up the mystery for this twisty, turny read. A group of friends find a chalk man leading them to the woods. They follow the message, only to find the dead body of a teenage girl. Flash forward to 2016, the group of friends receive the same note of The Chalk Man. When one of them is killed, Eddie realizes that saving himself means figuring out what happened all those years ago, but that’s about as dangerous as it gets.
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
This book majorly creeped me out and kept me guessing until the very end. Jules Larsen lands an amazing dream job: Apartment sitting in one of the most prestigious buildings in New York. But no visitors are allowed, no nights away from the apartment and no talking to the other residents. When one of the other apartment sitters Jules meets vanishes, she digs deeper into the Bartholomew’s sordid past and into the secrets kept within its walls. Suddenly Jules is against the clock as she races to unmask a killer, expose the building’s hidden past and escape the Bartholomew before her temporary status becomes permanent.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
It’s likely you’ve never read a novel quite like House of Leaves, an epistolary novel. It is a story within a story (within a story). It’s a haunted house tale. But more than any of that, it is a literally labyrinthine reading experience all centering around the central conceit of a house that is vastly larger on the inside than it appears from the outside. House of Leaves is claustrophobic, unnerving and entirely original.
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