The Scariest Horror Books We're Most Looking Forward to in 2021

After a horrifying incident at boarding school, Eleanor Zarrin flees to the last place that feels safe: the home of her wild and estranged family. But settling in to her old life isn't so easy—she struggles with fitting in amongst her monstrous relatives. As her family prowls the woods and reads fortunes in the guts of dead birds, Eleanor must learn to tame her own darkness. And if she wants to save her family, she must figure out a way to hold it together.

When a young woman is rushed to the hospital, doctors rush to deliver a baby with an angel face and the tentacled body of a monster. All of them agree the child must die. But deep in a tunnel under London, Engineer Gemma spots ghostly figures she could have sworn were children... And Tooting Police's DC Jerry Pardoe and DS Jamila Patel may be used to investigations into the occult, but nothing prepares them for the dead coming back to life in the sewers.

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You won't want to miss this exciting new release from the Master of Horror himself, Stephen King. The book's main character, Jamie Conklin, wants nothing more than to just have a normal childhood. But normal isn't in the cards for a kid with the unnatural ability to see and learn what others can't. His mother pushes him to keep his ability a secret, as the price of his gift is far too high. A lesson Jamie learns when the police drag him into the investigation of a killer who may strike from beyond the grave.

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In this terrifying collection, author Eric LaRocca delivers two spine-chilling novellas which explore humanity's dark side. In “You’re Not Supposed to Be Here,” a sinister couple drags a young family into a game with frightening consequences. In “Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass,” a widower and his daughter cross paths with a strange and nefarious man in the Costa Rican rainforest. These tales expose those horrors and depravities which live out in broad daylight.

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Drawing inspiration from the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, Whisper Down the Lane follows Richard, a man without a past. Living firmly in the present, Richard has a new marriage, a first chance at fatherhood, and a pleasant life as an art teacher. Then the body of a ritualistically murdered rabbit appears on school grounds, complete with a birthday card for Richard. Richard doesn't have a birthday—but Sean does.

At five years old, Sean helped to unite the nation under one blazing cause. After hearing word that his favorite teacher was under investigation, he told one little lie. A lie that preyed upon the fears of the 1980s that evil could be lurking inside anyone.

Thirty years may have passed, but someone has to pay the price for the lies told. Sean may not exist anymore, but Richard does.

Rachel Chavez is new to Manhattan Prep, a school full of kids as bored as they are rich. She buries herself in horror movies to avoid the memories from her past that she'd prefer to keep out of her mind. But when she's recruited into the Mary Shelley Club, she becomes a part of a mysterious group of students who perform Fear Tests. It's fun at first—the pranks based on urban legends and movie tropes. But as the Fear Tests begin to escalate, Rachel realizes she's in the middle of a game she can't afford to lose.

Keira—homeless and desperate to escape the raging storm—takes refuge in an abandoned cottage. But set on the edge of the cemetery, her new abode is surrounded on all sides by gravestones and a dark whispering. She's the only person who can see the spectral shapes swarming the cemetery, and now the specter—a woman who died before her time—leads the horde that has put a target on Keira's back. Keira determines to put the spirit to rest, but as a dangerous web tangles around her, the price may be her own life.

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Who can resist the Final Girl trope? In this heart-pounding thriller, six women are part of a group of survivors which has come together for two decades. They have survived the unthinkable. Now someone's coming for them—will they make it out a second time?

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When Aaron Decker's wife, Allison, is murdered, his entire life is turned upside down. Tormented both by Allison's absence and her ghost, Aaron discovers a strange motel receipt from the other side of the country. Fueled by unending grief and curiosity, Aaron sets out to investigate the weeks leading up to Allison's death. Though as Aaron uncovers more and more dark secrets about the woman he married, his own life is put at risk.

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In this spine-chilling contemporary horror novel, the woods of the Pisgah National Forest bear witness to indescribable terrors. Two women go out to backpack in the woods, and it's not long before things go terribly wrong. And it only gets worse when they cross paths with a serial killer.

Jade lives in a rural lake town falling quickly to gentrification. But when tourist start to go missing, it feels more like it's falling into slasher tropes. As tensions rise between her community and the celebrity newcomers, she watches the town she loves fall into chaos—compounded by the rich development of Terra Nova on what was supposed to be designated park lands.

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