Spooky, scary skeletons send shivers down your spine. Shrieking skulls will shock your soul with what books they have in tow!
Halloweentown has dusted off the big pumpkins, the Sanderson sisters have brewed their potions, and Jack and Sally have put the final touches on the biggest bash of the year! Halloween is not only the spookiest time of year for our ghoulish friends, but the best time of year for some scarily good stories.
There are hoards of epic reads lurking in the shadows to fill your spooky evening - you just need to know where to look…
Read on (if you dare) to discover the best horror books of 2023 - you’re in for a scare. Grab a cuppa, your skeleton pj’s, and devour some spine-chilling reads with your ghostie pals this Halloween.
1. A House with good bones
BY T. KINGFISHER | TITAN BOOKS PUBLISHING
Dark and twisted family roots threaten to strangle their home's foundations…
In this ordinary North Carolina suburb, family secrets are always in bloom.
Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house.
Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it's very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won't hear a word against Sam's long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small southern town.
The longer Sam stays, the stranger things get. And every day, more vultures circle overhead…
2. The dark magic Series
BY Jamie Lee Fry | BIG MOUNTAIN PUBLISHING
Magic. Witches. Curses. They Aren't Real. . . Right?
After inheriting the house of her dear departed Gran-gran, Izzy and her dad are off to East Gate, Connecticut for a fresh start - that is until strange things start happening in this quiet town and Izzy learns of rumors surrounding her late relative.
Could Gran-gran really have been a cursed witch?
Eager to find out more about these tales, Izzy’s new found friends - Jessa, Tahlia, and Margo - insert themselves into Izzy’s life, and upon discovering a spellbook, the four girls become mixed up with some dangerous forces trying to undue the curse of Izzy’s late grandmother.
When a spell to undo the curse goes awry and enemies intervene, Izzy must now save the people she cares about—including her crush—before it’s too late.
3. Playing the witch card
BY KJ Dell’Antonia | titan books publishing
When Flair Hardwicke returns to the tiny town of Rattleboro to take over her grandmother’s beloved bakery, she believes she’s prepared for anything. All she needs is her daughter Lucie, and to get as far away from her cheating ex-husband as physically possible. But sweet treats weren’t the only thing her grandmother was known for in Rattleboro, and as determined as Flair is to avoid it, a misbehaving deck of tarot card-shaped cookies draws her back into the web of family magic she’s fought so hard to escape.
Even worse: her first love is in town. Flair hasn’t spoken to Jude Oakes, now a famous chocolatier, since he broke her heart at seventeen. When Flair finds she’s accidentally summoned Lucie’s father to Rattleboro under a curse she can’t break, the recipe for Halloween chaos seems to be complete.
But not everything in Rattleboro is as it seems. As Flair’s family is threatened, she is forced to put aside everything she thinks she knows about love, witchcraft, motherhood―and herself. Because Flair might think she’s done with magic, but magic certainly isn’t done with Flair.
4. Schrader’s Chord
BY Scott Leeds | titan books publishing
After his estranged father’s mysterious death, Charlie Remick returns to Seattle to help with the funeral. There, he discovers his father left him two parting gifts: the keys to the family record store and a strange black case containing four ancient records that, according to legend, can open a gate to the land of the dead.
When Charlie, his sister, and their two friends play the records, they unwittingly open a floodgate of unspeakable horror. As the darkness descends, they are stalked by a relentless, malevolent force and see the dead everywhere they turn.
With time running out, the only person who can help them is Charlie’s resurrected father, who knows firsthand the awesome power the records have unleashed. But can they close the gate and silence Schrader’s Chord before it’s too late?
5. TWISTED
BY maggie giles | rising action publishing
Detective Ryan Boone thought the simple jewelry heist was an open-and-shut case. That is until he discovers an unknown drug, and this minor crime he was investigating may be tied to a string of seemingly unconnected murders.
Meanwhile, Mel Parker, unscrupulous leader of a less-than-legal high-end escort service, stumbles across the same pills. On top of protecting her “investment,” she has her own reasons for attempting to unravel the mystery behind the medication.
Ryan knows someone has the answers he seeks, and Mel can’t come forward. To complicate things further, five other women are implicated in the murders despite most having never met.
As the trail turns up as many mysteries as resolutions, Ryan and Mel must discover the twisted connection before someone else ends up dead.
6. edenville
BY sam rebelein | titan books publishing
When young horror writer Cam Marion is offered a teaching opportunity at a prestigious liberal arts college upstate, his long-time girlfriend Quinn is skeptical. She knows the college is located in Edenville, in infamous Renfield County. The county where people seem to go missing. The county where Quinn's high school best friend was mysteriously killed. Quinn figures the job opportunity is a trap somehow, so she follows Cam upstate to investigate some of the county's mysteries (including her own).
She quickly discovers that there's an entire society dedicated to solving Renfield's many riddles. A society that puts on plays dedicated to Renfield's macabre, blood-soaked history. A society that meets in the library basement once a week. A society made up of people who might not be people at all....Meanwhile, Cam discovers that his newest story idea isn't an idea so much as it is a vision of another world. A world that the faculty at Edenville College need his help to access before it accesses them.
7. the pale house devil
BY richard kadrey | titan books publishing
Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries—one living, one undead; one kills the undead, the other kills the living. Heading west to look for work and wait for the heat from their last job to cool down.
There Tilda, a young woman, hires them to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California for wealthy landowner, Shepherd Mansfield.
As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they've faced before, they come to learn the biggest monster in this story might just be the person paying them.
Looking for some more breath-taking book recS?
Take a look at the cover coven, keep up with the latest insider deets via the Miss Nat Mack blog, or simply follow me down this dark alley *cackles maniacally*