Halloween may be for the little ghosts and ghouls to run through the pumpkin-lit streets in search of tricks or treats, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a delicious scare or two.
As the shadows stretch into early nights and the cooler nights send a chill down the spine, it’s the perfect season to conjure up a terrifying fright.
And we’ve got you covered. Here are nine creepy novels guaranteed to haunt you all month long.
Delicate Condition
All Anna Alcott wants is a baby. She knew IVF wouldn’t be easy, but she can’t help but feel like someone is going out of their way to make sure pregnancy never happens for her.
After all, there’s her disappearing medication. And her ever-changing appointments without her knowledge—or consent. She breathes a sigh of relief when she finally gest pregnant, hoping the threats will finally stop.
But they don’t. When her doctor tells her she’s miscarried, Anna fears she might be losing her mind.
She’s convinced she’s still pregnant. As her symptoms get worse, the only thing more horrifying than no one listening to her is the question of what she’s carrying inside of her.
My Darling Dreadful Thing: A Novel
Roos Beckman is caught red-handed in a murder. Only she claims a spirit did it. That’s why she was at the crumbling estate with the young widow Agnes Knoop.
Agnes needs Roos’ ability to see the dead and Roos needed to escape her mother. Now, Roos life hangs in the balance. Doctor Montague is assigned to determine if Roos can stand trial
Is her insistence on seeing spirits a defense mechanism? Or are the dead her only hope to live?
Through the Midnight Door
The Finch sisters used to love exploring the abandoned homes in their dying town. Until they found one filled with endless doors and three keys.
What waited inside was unspeakable horrors that they spent their lives trying to forget. But when the youngest sister is found dead inside that same dilapidated house years later, Meg and Esther are forced to confront the past they’ve fought to bury.
If they want to understand their sister’s death and escape the shadow that has haunted them their entire lives, they have to go back—before one of them is next.
Ghost Camera
Cameras are meant to capture a moment in time. Some can capture more. They can see ghosts.
But the catch comes with a price. The ghosts use the film to come after humans. Jenine had no idea the abandoned Polaroid camera she found in a lighthouse was one of those cameras.
She thinks the ghostly shapes are a glitch. Maybe a prank.
But when the spirits begin hunting her, she has to find a way to break the deadly course before she runs out of time.
The Haunting of Ashburn House
Despite the legend of darkness and malevolent spirits walking the halls, Adrienne sees inheriting the crumbling mansion as a lifeline. But strange things keep happening.
Messages are etched into the walls. The furniture moves. And she can feel the presence of something powerful and angry.
Desperate for peace, she sets out to solve a decades-old mystery connected to a grave in the forest carrying an unforgivable secret. But Adrienne soon realizes whatever it is has marked her as prey.
Suddenly, it isn’t a matter of understanding. She has to escape if she wants to survive.
And she has to go through Ashburn’s dead first.
Let Him In: A Novel
Alfie’s twin daughters insist there’s something in their room. Bleary-eyed he investigates only to find nothing. He isn’t surprised they’re having nightmares.
The family is still reeling from their mother dying only nine months earlier. So when they mention a new imaginary friend, Alfie assumes it’s a coping mechanism.
But when the girls start setting a place at the table and whispering that he’s going to take them away, Alfie is worried there is something else at play.
And when he starts having visions of something dark watching him at night, he begins to suspect this is more than an imaginary friend.
It’s something connected to his own shameful secrets. If he wants to save his daughters, he has to face the darkness lurking in his past before he loses everything he’s ever loved.
October
In 1970, four boys in Maplewood, NH, notice strange events following the arrival of a mysterious magician.
As children begin to disappear, the boys uncover a dark connection between the magician and a reclusive horror writer who hasn't left his home in decades.
When no one believes them, they must confront the evil on their own.
Perfect for fans of Something Wicked This Way Comes and All Hallows.
The Drowning House
After a violent storm hits a rural beach in the Pacific Northwest, a mysterious house is washed away. Only one woman knows what that might mean, but her heart stops and her grandson disappears.
Now, two of his childhood friends are left to find answers. But time has distanced the friends and old rivalries and grudges have kept them apart. The only thing they know for certain is something sinister is happening.
And if they want to learn more about the man who built the mysterious house and the evil it harbors, they have to find the man who brought them all together in the first place.
The Pecan Children
For the families in Clearwater, Arkansas, pecan season is mixed with celebration and heartbreak. The town is struggling and more people are selling their orchards and moving away.
Lil Clearwater refuses to be forced off her land. That’s why she comes back to join her sister after years of being away. It should be a time of connection and rekindling.
Only, there’s something rotting beneath the surface of their orchard. As phantom fires start lighting the Southern night, the sisters realize some of the terrifying folklore just might be true.
As they confront the ghosts of their past, the only thing they can be certain of is that nothing is what it seems.
The Specimen
It’s 1826 and Isobel Tait is transfixed by a human heart in a jar. It’s part of Dr. Burnett’s collection of oddities and medical specimens but she can’t escape the flutter in her heart warning her that something isn’t right. It could be that the heart has a damaged mitral valve. Exactly like the one her missing son had. People go missing all the time in Edinburgh. But the heart makes Isobel how far Dr. Burnett would go to add to his beloved collection. Determined to uncover the truth, she joins his staff of keepers. But what she finds is nothing but short of a living nightmare.
Featured photo: Neven Krcmarek / Unsplash
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