2024's Most Terrifying Horror, True Crime, and Paranormal Bestsellers

New York Times–bestselling author Robert McCammon combines historical fiction and paranormal horror to make one terrifying and propulsive work of supernatural noir. 

Set at the height of the Great Depression, the book follows a nine-year-old girl from Louisiana, Nilla, who can telepathically communicate with other Listeners like herself.

Her special ability allows her to form an unlikely bond with Curtis, a struggling porter at the Union Station—just in time for Nilla to be kidnapped and held for ransom by a bloodthirsty hustler and her unwitting accomplice. 

Curtis is about to see just how deep his strange connection with Nilla runs, and how far he's willing to go to save her. 

The only thing scarier than a good horror anthology is a horror anthology in which every story is true. That's exactly what It Was a Dark and Creepy Night is. 

Editor Joshua P. Warren, a paranormal investigator, has compiled a supremely creepy combination of short and scary stories. 

repare to be spooked by true tales of time-traveling ghosts, reptilian mutants, demonic dreams that bleed into reality, and more.

Celia Fremlin blends psychological and supernatural horror in her first anthology. 

In thirteen eerie stories, Fremlin spins tales of “paranoia and passion” (Savannah Morning News): a wife snaps against her oppressive lover; a woman who wants to remain young forever discovers a doctor who can turn back the clock; a mother takes playing “The Quiet Game” with her kids a little too seriously.

These tightly-written stories are perfect for all those who appreciate a good scare—as the TLU community clearly does!

The Encyclopedia of Haunted Places is your go-to guide for the most haunted locations in the world, compiled by a team of twelve experienced paranormal investigators.

Plan your next supernatural tour of the country, or the world, from private residences to inns and restaurants, battlefields to museums and libraries, graveyards to churches. 

The encyclopedia comes complete with first-hand testimony, interviews with leading paranormal researchers, photographs of otherworldly presences, and more information on hundreds of haunted locations across the globe. 

Smuggler Dodd Raines has a dilemma: he's just been given the opportunity of a lifetime, one that would secure a bright future for his young daughter and allow him a fresh (and lawful) start.

The problem? His cargo consists of devastatingly radioactive moon rocks. 

When the rocks transform him into a vengeance-seeking undead rabbit set to collide with his daughter, smuggling them across the border without getting caught becomes the least of his—and everyone else's—worries. 

Originally published in 2010, this horror-noir cult classic was completely out of circulation until October of this year; print copies still retail on Amazon for almost $5,000.

Lucky for TLU readers, It Came From Del Rio is back in circulation as an eBook, so you can see why it's become so sought-after for yourself! 

Sometimes, what you really want isn't a good scare, but a great real-life thrill. If that sounds like you, look no further than Nemesis. 

In this book, journalist Peter Evans exposes the dramatic love triangle between Bobby Kennedy, Greek Tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and Jackie Kennedy that ended in the death of one and the union of the others. 

Nemesis is your go-to for a true tale of passion, politics, and murder plots that reads like fiction. 

An unknown evil lurks within Summer Palace, and not even ghost hunter Professor Gabriel Kennedy's endeavors to investigate the Victorian mansion in the Pocono Mountains could explain it, let alone stop it.

In fact, all it did was end in tragedy and destroy his career.

Gabriel is ready to leave that all behind him, but TV producer Kelly Delaphoy wants to film a Halloween episode there for her hit ghost-hunting show, and she wants Gabriel to be a part of it. 

Gabriel begrudingly agrees, if only to have one more chance at vanquishing the evil that lurks within once and for all. With the help of his eclectic team of ghost-hunters, the Supernaturals, he thinks they may really be able to do it this time. Evil, of course, has other plans…

Forensic scientist Vincent DiMaio pulls from a lifetime of autopsies to offer readers a rarely-seen peek into what goes on behind the morgue doors.

He walks us through his career of over 40 years and 9,000 autopsies, among them those of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswold and slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

With its chilling tales of life with the dead, Morgue reads like a short story anthology, macabre enough to make you forget that every gruesome word is true.  

Get engrossed in the twisted true stories of 45 infamous murderers as told by acclaimed hard-boiled detective fiction author Craig Rice.

From Hollywood’s Black Dahlia to the Arkansas Bluebeard, this is true crime like you've never experienced it before, as gripping as any fictional mystery or thriller. 

The works of Gahan Wilson, cartoonist, writer, and lover of all things macabre, find a home within one collection for the first time ever in The Cleft and Other Tales.

The anthology, which Stephen King hails as "genuine weirdness combined with wit and intelligence," showcases 24 stunningly strange stories of Wilson's, each paired with an equally otherworldly illustration. 

From the subtle disquiet of “The Campfire” to the outright horror of “blot,” Wilson, a Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement winner, has something for every type of horror fan in this anthology. 

This collection presents four true crime novels by #1 New York Times–bestselling author and former Los Angeles Times reporter Karen Kingsbury. 

In Final Vows, a Christian woman's charitable letters turn into a love affair gone horribly wrong. Deadly Pretender follows the fallout of a CIA agent's double life after his two wives find out about each other. 

InThe Snake and the Spider, two innocent spring-breakers come face-to-face with two cold-blooded killers.

Finally, Missy's Murder tells the story of a teenage girl who vows to avenge her best friend's murder…until new evidence reveals her to be one of the killers. 

The world is full of unsolved mysteries and conspiracies a little too persuasive to dismiss.

Was someone else behind the JFK and Lincoln assassinations? What happened to Malaysian Flight 370? Who killde JonBenet Ramsey? 

With Spirits Speak, you can learn to use spirit boards to communicate with the other side. Who knows?

You may find answers to earthly questions that only the dead can know. 

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as the “yardstick by which future ghost fiction will be measured,” this award-winning horror anthology features some of the biggest names in the genre, such as Tanith Lee, Gahan Wilson, Joyce Carol Oates, and more. 

Acclaimed horror anthologist Ellen Datlow has assembled a truly terrifying collection of ghost stories, unlike any you've read before. 

It's no secret that most of your favorite modern fairytales have darker origins than their cartoon counterparts would have you believe, and the same goes for the mythical creatures for whom they are named: fairies. 

In The Kind Folk, fairies are not the benevolent magical creatures you think of them as today, but tricksters and mischief-makers who swapped children for changelings and led humans astray—and in this magically twisted anthology, that's just the terrifying tip of the iceberg. 

For anyone who's spent many an hour on the conspiracy theory side of YouTube, this is the book for you.

In That's What They Want You to Think, Paul Simpson analyzes 29 of the most famous conspiracy theories, from the staged moon landing to Area 51, with an attention to facts and history that will impress both believers and skeptics alike. 

Whether you are looking for confirmation of your suspicions, a breakdown of the most popular theories, or to understand their lure, this book will illuminate conspiracy theories for you in a way media on the subject rarely does. 

Weird Tales was one of the earliest publications, if not the first, to feature bizarre tales of the occult and alien invasions at a time when few magazines held space for weird horror.

This compilation of stories from its early years, 1923-1925, features stories from the likes of Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft, and Greye La Spina. 

Both a fascinating primary source and a spectacularly strange collection of stories in its own right, this collection is the perfect way for weird fiction lovers to tap into the subgenre's origins. 

Part of McCammon's bestselling Matthew Corbett series, this work of historical horror takes readers to 1704 Italy, where the titular hero is on the hunt for answers about an evil mirror from the son of the wicked sorcerer who created it.

His search leads him to Golgotha, an island so beautiful it would be easy for Matthew to escape reality altogether on it…too easy.

As Matthew and his companions find their grip on reality and their very identities slipping away from them, their island dream deteriorates into a nightmare—one that Matthew is not sure he will escape this time. 

The Yorkshire Witch tells the story of con artist and serial killer Mary Bateman, who exploited the psychological weaknesses of the growing number of desperate and poor people who flocked to the British city of Leeds in the early 19th century. 

In March 1809, Bateman, also known as “The Yorkshire Witch,” was hanged before an estimated crowd of twenty thousand people, many of them victims of her trickery.

Books Monthly praises this thrilling account of her story as "a fascinating tale of witchcraft and skulduggery in darkest Yorkshire in the early 19th century. . . . An extraordinary story, brilliantly told."

Two sub-categories of horror that have been gaining traction in recent years are erotic horror and short stories. This anthology that combines both is hair-raising in more ways than one.

Winner of a World Fantasy Award, this anthology includes dark tales of desire by Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Dedman, Harry Crews, and more.

Another TLU true crime favorite that reads like fiction, By the Side of the Road tells the harrowing true story of Ann Harrison, a Missouri teenager who was kidnapped off the side of the road in the early hours of March 22, 1989, and murdered.

It would be three decades before her family saw her killers brought to justice. 

By the Side of the Road is not only a riveting work of true crime narrative, but a powerful story of one family's search for justice. 

This World Fantasy Award–winning anthology showcases the most lethal women from across genre fiction, from women warriors and fighter pilots to female serial killers, superheroes, wizards, and bandits.  The collection features an original Game of Thrones novella and work from twelve New York Times-bestsellers, including new stories from Diana Gabaldon, Jim Butcher, and many more.