Pumpkin-spice everything is back in stock; CVS has some suggestions for this year’s Halloween decor; and so help you, you will be dressing for sweater weather even if you have to crank the AC to make it happen. That’s right: Fall is in full swing—and what better way to celebrate than with a deliciously chilling new read? From pulse-pounding thrillers to tales of annoying ghosts and magical exes, this list of bewitching new releases has it all. Read on to find your number-one must-read for spooky season.
A Slow Fire Burning
In the latest thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, a grisly murder is discovered on a London houseboat. As the case unfolds, three women—the victim’s aunt, his last one-night stand, and a nosy neighbor—are drawn into the investigation.
All’s Well
Miranda used to be a rising star of Shakespearean regional theater, but all that changed after the accident that left her with chronic pain that no doctor can manage to treat—which may have something to do with the fact that most of the specialists Miranda has seen are convinced she’s made it all up in her head. Add to that an unsatisfying job as a theater director at a tiny liberal arts college, where Miranda’s mutinous cast of young actors is hell-bent on wresting control of the play away from her—until three mysterious strangers at the local pub offer to make her life just a little bit easier. This one is a deliciously sinister tale about women’s pain from the author of Bunny.
If I Disappear
After a miscarriage and a divorce, Sera is all alone in the world, with only the podcast Murder, She Spoke for company. She listens to it so obsessively that she’s started to think of its host, Rachel Bard, as her closest—and maybe only—friend. So, when Rachel suddenly goes missing, Sera takes it upon herself to find her. An eerie, twisted thriller sure to shake up the most seasoned true crime die-hard, If I Disappear marks Eliza Jane Brazier as one to watch. (We’re already eagerly anticipating her second novel, Good Rich People, out in January of 2022.)
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
Described as the “Jordan Peele of horror literature,” the author of 2020’s The Only Good Indians is back with a meta meditation on displacement and gentrification. Thanks to a recent wave of upscale newcomers, the lake town where horror buff Jade lives with her Blackfeet father has become increasingly unrecognizable. But as tourists go missing, Jade begins to suspect that gentrification may not be the only evil threatening her community.
Certain Dark Things
Count on the author of Mexican Gothic to deliver a heady and wholly original take on just about any myth or monster you can imagine. Originally published in 2016, the author’s Mexico City-set vampire neo-noir has been reissued just in time for spooky season.
Never Have I Ever
Banish thoughts of Netflix and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from your mind: Instead of a sweet high school coming-of-age series, you’ll find in this volume an enchanting, monstrous, and macabre debut short story collection. In these 13 tales, Isabel Yap skillfully weaves sci-fi and fabulist elements together with classic horror tropes to create something entirely new.
Nice Girls
When Mary returns to her quiet Minnesota hometown, she’s a different person from when she left: cynical instead of nice, thin instead of chubby, and freshly kicked out of Cornell for reasons she won’t share. Then, pretty, perfect Olivia Willand—Mary’s former best friend—goes missing, and Mary thinks there’s more to the story than the rest of the town is willing to admit. When Mary begins to suspect Olivia’s disappearance is connected to another recent missing-person case, she sets off on an investigation that opens up old wounds—and unearths a painful truth.
No Gods, No Monsters
What looks at first like a case of police brutality soon reveals itself to be something much stranger in this creature-feature novel—the first in a new series—by the author of The Lesson. Weaving classic hallmarks together with sharp social commentary, No Gods, No Monsters imagines a world where monsters are real, and they are the ones seeking safety from the dark.
Nothing but Blackened Teeth
If it just doesn’t feel like pumpkin-spice season until you’ve gotten your haunted house fix, pick up Cassandra Khaw’s “gorgeously creepy” new horror novel for a dose of Shirley Jackson by way of Japanese folklore. When a group of friends celebrating a wedding descend upon the ruins of an abandoned mansion, an evening of revelry quickly unravels into a living nightmare.
Payback’s a Witch
Lana Harper’s charming, cozy rom-com follows Emmy Harlow, the prodigal daughter of an esteemed magical clan, who has reluctantly returned to her hometown for a family spellcasting tournament. She’s been dreading the prospect of running into her magically powerful ex, Gareth Blackmoore, but a chance encounter with Talia Avramov—Gareth’s latest spurned lover—has Emmy dreaming of revenge … and unable to get Talia out of her head. If that’s not enough to hook you, the book is described as Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The L Word—need I say more?!
Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir
Daniel Barban Levin was a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College when one of his housemates, Talia Ray, asked if her father, Larry, could stay with them for a little while. Levin and the others said yes, and at first, Larry served as a sort of father figure to all the young adults living there. Over the course of the next year, though, Larry’s presence morphed into something a lot more sinister. If you’ve already devoured Amanda Montell’s Cultish and finished every available NXIVM docuseries, this memoir is for you.
Summer Sons
Southern Gothic but make it gay: Days before Andrew is supposed to move in with his best friend, Eddie, in Nashville, Eddie dies by suicide—at least, that’s what the authorities are calling it. Andrew sets off to uncover the truth, immersing himself in both the academic world of Eddie’s graduate program and the underground street racing scene where Eddie got his kicks. But the more he uncovers, the more Andrew realizes that he may not be prepared for what he finds.
The Comfort of Monsters
Peg’s sister, Dee, vanished in Milwaukee 30 years ago, during the summer of 1991—the period when Jeffrey Dahmer’s reign of terror was at its height. When their dying mother hires a psychic to help the family get closure on Dee’s disappearance, Peg plunges headlong into the past, reliving the final months with Dee before everything changed forever. Can Peg fully trust her own memories of that summer? And was there anything she could have done to save her sister?
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
In Mariana Enriquez’s latest collection, monsters walk among us—as do zombies, witches, and ravenous women. The result is a deliciously chilling patchwork of stories where our inner demons are made flesh and our worst decisions literally haunt our waking hours. Imagine Edgar Allan Poe as a disaffected elder millennial with a master’s in gender studies.
The Gold Persimmon
Set at the titular institution—a cloistered New York City hotel, home to many closely guarded secrets—this novel follows Clytemnestra, a check-in girl whose world is upended when she forms an unexpected connection with a troubled hotel guest. In a parallel reality, a nonbinary writer named Jaime takes refuge from a mysterious fog at what turns out to be a sex hotel, where Jaime is soon trapped with six strangers.
The Queen of the Cicadas
In 2018, Belinda returns to Texas for a friend’s wedding at a farm with a sinister past: a migrant farmworker named Milagros was murdered there in the 1950s. But what Belinda doesn’t know is that when Milagros died, the Aztec goddess of death vowed that both she and Milagros would be eventually reborn and take their vengeance. The result is another deliciously sinister story from the exciting new author of Goddess of Filth.
The Sentence
Acclaimed author Louise Erdrich’s irresistible new novel dares to ask the question: What if you were haunted by the ghost of the most annoying person you’ve ever met? That’s the dilemma facing the workers at a small indie bookstore in Minneapolis. The store’s newest hire, Tookie, sets out to get to the bottom of the incredibly irritating ghost story that’s taken over her workplace.
When the Reckoning Comes
If you liked last year’s Mexican Gothic, LaTanya McQueen’s debut novel is a can’t-miss. Mira, a Black high school teacher, has spent her entire life trying to outrun memories of her hometown. Then Celine, her white best friend from childhood, invites Mira to her wedding at the Woodsman Plantation—the haunted site of the tragic event that drove Mira to leave town more than 10 years ago.
Within These Wicked Walls
Lauren Blackwood’s can’t-miss debut is a magical, Ethiopian-inspired remix of Jane Eyre. When handsome Magnus Rochester hires Andromeda, a type of exorcist known as a debtera, she knows it’s a treacherous position—so much so that every debtera hired before her has quit. Still, she needs the money so badly that she has no choice but to take the job and hang on for dear life … even as Magnus’s most dangerous secrets begin to reveal themselves to her.
Women and Other Monsters
If you like to get a healthy dose of feminist analysis with your spooky fix, look no further than Jess Zimmerman’s complicated love letter to 11 of Greek mythology’s most infamous female monsters. So often, women are told that experiencing and expressing human emotions—like hunger, rage, and ambition—will make them monstrous. Taking cues from Medusa, the Furies, and more, Zimmerman flips that idea on its head, encouraging female readers to ask ourselves: What is it we’re really afraid of?
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The 20 Best Halloween Reads to Mark the Start of Spooky Season
Source: Filipino Journal Articles
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