Top 12 Trending, Spellbinding Horror & Suspense Books – Mystery + Mayhem
Ready to dive into the dark and twisted world of horror and suspense? Whether you’re a fan of spine-tingling thrillers or hair-raising supernatural tales, this list has something for every brave reader. Grab a blanket, turn the lights down low, and get ready to explore books that will keep you on the edge of your seat (and maybe make you sleep with the lights on)! *In all honesty not all of these are super scary, but hopefully, you’ll find the right one to raise the hair on your arms!
Covering horror and suspense books this week only seemed fitting with Halloween right around the corner!
These were some of the top trending horror books of 2023. *Book summaries from Barnes and Noble – Check out some popular fantasy reads of 2023!!
Table of Contents
Popular Horror Books of 2023
Lone Women
Victor Lavalle
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.
How To Sell A Haunted House
Grady Hendrix
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world. – Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market. –
But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
Don’t Fear The Reaper
Stephen Graham Jones – The Indian Lake Trilogy
Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.
Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.
Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.
Monstrilio
Gerardp Samano Cordova
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago’s lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family’s decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family’s communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
A thought-provoking meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo Sámano Córdova blends bold imagination and evocative prose with deep emotional rigor. Told in four acts that span the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, Monstrilio offers, with uncanny clarity, a cathartic and precise portrait of being human.
Holly
Stephen King
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.
Vampires of El Norte
Isabel Canas
As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. – Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. – Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. – When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer, striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh. – And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.
A House With Good Bones
T. Kingfisher
“Mom seems off.”
Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.
She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.
But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.
To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.
My Darling Girl
Jennifer McMahon
Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call.
Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter’s family. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of.
But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family — Possession horror that grabs a hold of you in the way you would want in a novel, but certainly not in real life. This is genuinely terrifying and yet wholesome and human in its emotion resonance.
The September House
Carissa Orlando
A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.
Margaret is not most people.
Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
Nineteen Claws & A Black Bird
Agustina Bazterrica
From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica, this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories takes into our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways—often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound. In “Roberto,” a girl claims to have a rabbit between her legs. A woman’s neighbor jumps to his death in “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,” and in “Candy Pink,” a woman fails to contend with a difficult breakup in five easy steps.
Written in Bazterrica’s signature clever, vivid style, these stories question love, friendship, family relationships, and unspeakable desires.
Rouge
Mona Awad
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
The Dead Take The A Train
Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey
Julie is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-year-old whose only retirement plan is dying early. She’s been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she’ll work the most gruesome gigs, exorcize the nastiest demons, and make deals with the cruelest gods to claw her way to the top. But nothing can prepare her for the toughest job yet: when her best friend, Sarah, shows up at her door in need of help. Keeping Sarah safe becomes top priority.
Julie is desperate for a quick fix to break the dead-end grind and save her friend. But her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts Sarah – and the entire world – directly in the path of annihilation.
As you turn the final pages of these chilling reads, remember, there’s no better time to indulge in the eerie and suspenseful than as Halloween approaches. So cozy up with your favorite book, sip something warm, and let the spooky season ignite your love for reading—just don’t be surprised if you find yourself looking over your shoulder!
Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think? Let us know in the comments!!
ADMIN
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This is a great list. So far, I have only read HOLLY and this is highly recommended for those who love this genre.
Although I am not a horror books fan, some of your recommendations are interesting. A valuable read indeed as a book lover!
Thank you! I’ve been in a reading slump so I hope some new additions will help 🙂
That’s a great list of horror movies. I don’t like to watch them as I get scared my husband would love this list to watch.
I always struggle with horror, but have a booky friend that really loves them! Thank you for this list, it’s so helpful around Christmas time.
My partner loves these horror books and I have just been looking which ones to buy for Christmas so I will be purchasing a few from your list so thank you x
I have been meaning to pick up Steven King’s Holly as I have seen great reviews. I will be sure to grab it next time I go to the bookstore!
Oh wow, these books sound perfect for both my mum and me. We both love horrors. I would love to get a copy of The Dead Take the Train. It sounds like a book that would be perfect for me and mum can have it once I’m done.
I don’t really a lot of horror but I read Mona’s other book Bunny and it’s still hands down the strangest thing I’ve read. I do like Grady Hendrix, although I’ve not read this one. I liked my best friends exorcism, very 80s horror inspired x
I haven’t read any of those books and that’s because I am a scaredy cat. LOL. I do love to read a good murder mystery.
Great list of recommendations. I need a good book and haven’t read this genre in a while so will consider it.
I do enjoy a good horror book, it is one of my favourite genres. I will have to look into reading some of these over the next couple of months!
I love reading books especially when I’m sad. This is a great book recommendation for me.
I love the variety on this list It’s great to see both classic and modern horror making waves. Perfect for spooky season!
This list is perfect for any horror fan! Each book sounds it will keep you on the edge of your seat. Definitely adding a few to my reading list
I don’t like horror! I’m such a wuss!
There are some great books on this list! I’m starting with Vampires of el Norte. I have a huge thing for vampire books!
oh wow, these are amazing…Super like all the books especially the Vampire ones. I will order a few, thanks a lot.