From the Haunted Stacks: Return of the Horror Honker

This (now) cult classic, immersive, liminal space, haunted house novel, ushered readers into the new century with a book that was utterly unsettling. Its plot follows a young family, who move only to find out that their new home is bigger on the inside than the outside.

House of Leaves altered how readers experience the story on the page, as the book requires the reader to engage with the text as it is untraditionally deployed on the page.

It seemed like we were off to a strong start; however, it would be five more years before another honker captured readers’ attention so thoroughly.

Less outwardly terrifying than House of Leaves, Kostova had one of the biggest books of the year with this creepy literary thriller. 

The plot follows a young woman as she researches the provenance of a mysterious book linked to Vlad the Impaler, thought to be the real-life Dracula. 

With a slow-burning pace, the story moves from academic to oppressive to bloodthirsty. Kostova’s novel also signals the beginning of the Vampire trope’s stranglehold on the horror honker.

First published in its original Swedish in 2004, and later translated into English, Lindqvist's novel enthralled readers all over the world. 

Oskar, a 12-year-old outcast who is obsessed with serial killers, develops a friendship with Eli, a young, pale, foul-smelling girl who happens to be a vampire. 

Haunting, disturbing, and violent, Let the Right One In is now considered a must-read in the vampire cannon.

Widely considered one of the best books in any genre that year, Cronin’s novel presents a North America decimated by a vampiric virus.

Following a series of survivors, fed up with living in fear, they join forces with an ageless young girl in an attempt to defeat the vampires and regain control of the world. 

Despite its high page count, The Passage is absorbing, frightening, and action-packed, ending with a huge cliffhanger and leading readers to another 1,200 pages in two more books to complete the story: The Twelve (2012) and The City of Mirrors (2016).

Remaining in the vampire subgenre but introducing Stephen King’s son to horror honker status, Hill gives readers one of the most terrifying villains in all of horror literature—Charlie Manx.

He has been kidnapping children, sucking out their souls to extend his own life, and transforming them into monsters forced to live in a horrific parallel world known as “Christmasland.” 

Vic McQueen, one of the only people to have escaped Manx, is out to stop him after her own son is kidnapped.

Readers have not only eagerly followed this story on the page, but it has been spun off into a TV series and a graphic novel, Wraith, that more deeply explores Manx and Christmasland.

Yes, I have Hill back-to-back here, but The Fireman marks an important moment in the 21st Century’s evolution of the Horror Honker. 

It is the first time in eight years that we have seen an epic horror novel break through into the mainstream consciousness that is not framed by a vampire, and its success has opened the door for more authors to be given a chance to tell their epic stories in the years to come.

Welcome to a near future where a deadly fungus, capable of causing spontaneous combustion, has begun infecting humanity. Readers follow a group of survivors and their “hero”—The Fireman—as they create a community where the sick have learned to live symbiotically with the fungus. 

Since Hill has called The Fireman his take on his father’s honker classic, The Stand, it won’t take much for readers to imagine where all of this is going. 

Across America, a group of people begins to sleepwalk. They cannot talk or be woken up, and they are all joining each other in a flock as they walk across the country. 

Their family and friends help to shepherd and protect the sleepwalkers, as a reaction to the flock brings responses of violence from some people. 

As society begins to collapse around them all, the sleepwalkers keep going, but the truth behind their situation may signal the end for all of humanity. 

Wendig followed up Wanderers with 2021’s The Book of Accidents (530 pages), 2022’s Wayward (816 pages), a sequel to Wanderers, and 2023’s Black River Orchard (640 pages), for a total of over 2,700 pages over 4 years, all of which were both critical and sales successes. 

Using real-world events, connected to the author's personal histories, Enriquez unveils a hidden horror and terrifies readers. 

Enriquez takes readers on a journey through time from London in the 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-83) and into its devastating and turbulent aftermath. 

This is the story of a family and intergenerational trauma, filled with ghosts, the occult, and monsters both human and supernatural.

Due investigates the infamous Dozier School for Boys with an engrossing, heartbreaking, and personal story set in 1950s, Jim Crow, Florida.

One boy is sent to the reformatory for 6 months, facing not only the guards but also the ghosts who live on the school’s grounds, ghosts who are not willing to wait any longer for justice, and his sister, fighting to get him out.

Like Our Share of the Night, the fear in The Reformatory actively surrounds the reader, making it impossible to avoid, forcing them to confront their own complicity in these (and other similar) horrors, and hopefully compelling them to act.