It’s indisputably the best time of year for a good spooky read! Here are 13 books that come highly recommended by at least the one person who is writing this post. NOTE: These books are NOT kid-friendly and are meant for adult readers only. You have been warned!
*All synopses pulled from the book’s official listings on Amazon.
Synopsis: “A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.”
Why I liked it: I LOVE any book that has an unexpected plot in a genre of writing that tends to have repetitive themes. This book is dark, almost funny, and creative. It’s difficult to fully explain this book to someone who hasn’t read it. Which is why you should!
2. Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Synopsis: “Twenty-five years ago, Maggie Holt and her parents moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. Three weeks later they fled in the dead of night, an ordeal her father recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His story of supernatural happenings and malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.”
Why I liked it: The story is twisty-turny, mysterious, and a little supernatural. I generally find books by Riley Sager to be easy reads that you can get through quickly. I also read this book a couple years ago and still remember how much I liked the ending, which says a lot.
3. Murder Road by Simone St. James
Synopsis: “July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.”
Why I liked it: This is a great book if you’re looking for something ghosty. You do need to suspend reality a bit with the plot, but is that such a bad thing?
4. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
Synopsis: “Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.”
Why I liked it: Again, Simone St. James can pull off a pretty great ghost story. This book also has a twist that I didn’t see coming and really enjoyed.
5. The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James
Synopsis: “1920s England. Sarah Piper’s lonely, threadbare existence changes when her temporary agency sends her to assist an obsessed ghost hunter. Alistair Gellis—rich, handsome, and scarred by World War I—has been summoned to investigate the spirit of the nineteen-year-old maid Maddy Clare, who is said to haunt the barn where she committed suicide.”
Why I liked it: Ok, so I didn’t realize that I had three books by Simone St. James on this list until I sat down to write this. I liked the 1920s setting of this one, and found it to be perfectly creepy. NOTE: This book contains mentions of suicide.
6. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Synopsis: “A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”
Why I liked it: This series is classified as ‘Young Adult’, so some older kids might do well with this one. I LOVED this story and the use of old timey photos that are dispersed throughout the book. The story is incredibly unique, and is the first in a series of six books for when you end up loving it and wanting more.
7. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
Synopsis: “During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.”
Why I liked it: This book reminded me of the classic ‘Rebecca’, which is the highest compliment I can give. I don’t think I’ve ever read another book set during the Mexican Revolution and enjoyed that aspect of it. This one is pretty high on my list of spooky season books.
8. The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Synosis: “‘At seventeen, Lenora Hope, Hung her sister with a rope’….Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.”
Why I liked it: I thought the characters in this book were interesting and unpredictable. The story has several switchbacks and keeps you guessing until the end. And a murder that inspires a children’s rhyme? It doesn’t get much creepier than that.
9. The Six Women of Salem by Marilynne K. Roach
Synopsis: “Six Women of Salem is the first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the twenty who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been “afflicted,” 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbors, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn’t include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders. All this adds up to what the Rev. Cotton Mather called “a desolation of names.”‘
Why I liked it: I firmly believe that if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat. it. This author uses real people in fictionalized scenes to tell the story of the Salem Witch Trials. It’s a difficult part of our history that needs to be remembered.
10. The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston
Synopsis: “My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. If you will listen, I will tell you a tale of witches. A tale of magic and love and loss. A story of how simple ignorance breeds fear, and how deadly that fear can be. Let me tell you what it means to be a witch.”
Why I liked it: Look, not all witches are bad, ok? The timeline of this book is non-linear, which I don’t always love, but for this book it worked perfectly. There is also a sequel which is equally as enthralling.
11. Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
Synopsis: “Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold. Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…”
Why I liked it: This is the only book on this list that I haven’t read yet, but have sitting on my nightstand! I included it because it has come so highly recommended in several reading groups that I am a part of. I am looking forward to diving in!
12. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Synopsis: “It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . .Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.”
Why I liked it: This book takes a hard look at how poor mental health can affect the world around you. You can feel the main character unraveling, but she is also not totally wrong about what she sees.
13. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Synopsis: “Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked-room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense.”
Why I liked it: This book is polarizing. I for one could not read this book fast enough! It was the most creative plot that I have a read in a very long time and have literally never read another book like it. The writing is great, but dense, so it doesn’t pull you in as quickly as some of the others. However, I would highly recommend you give this one a chance!
