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I love Halloween and all things scary. Like, I’m obsessed. I even listen to Halloween music year-round. I decided that I need to start reading more scary books and wanted to share them with you as well.
You are reading: Spooky books for october
These are some awesome spooky, spooky, and downright scary books to read this October to get you ready for Halloween. This is the first list of books that I’ve read quite a few and I’ll be working my way through the others, or as many as I can, in the coming weeks.
You’ll find a mix of scary adult books, creepy books, and nothing by Stephen King, but his son Joe Hill makes two appearances.
I’d love to hear what the scariest book you’ve ever read is or if you have any other suggestions to add. I would also recommend reading all of this at night with creepy background music and minimal lighting.
If you’re interested in trying audible, you can get your first month free! this is a great option if you want to listen to more books. if you have more of a budget, try scribd! you can get your first two months free there.
shattered
This dean koontz novel was the first book that I think really scared me, like I was up all night. alex and colin drive from philadelphia to san francisco, their new home, where courtney will be waiting for them. they soon realize that a van is following them. you know your route, your stops and even your destination.
heart-shaped box
Judas Coyne is an aging, self-absorbed rock star with an interest in the macabre, including a collection of serial killer memorabilia.
Soon, your assistant tells you about a ghost for sale on an auction site where you immediately balk at a bid. he receives the suit and the dead man’s revenge in a black box in the shape of a heart.
turns out he just bought the ghost of the stepfather of a former groupie who killed himself after he used it and dumped it. The ghost wants to kill Coyne and anyone who helps him as he begins his assault on the rocker’s sanity.
nos4a2
Although nos4a2 didn’t keep me up all night, I did think it was creepy enough. Victoria McQueen hops on Ella’s Raleigh Tuff Turner bike and heads over a rickety covered bridge that will take her wherever she needs to go to find lost things, whether it’s across town or across the country.
charles talent manx drives a 1938 rolls royce wraith that can take you out of the everyday world and onto the hidden paths that lead to the terrifying place he calls christmasland.
One day, vic is looking for trouble when he finds manx, but that was a long time ago. Vic was the only child to escape Manx’s evil and she is desperate to forget about her, although Manx remembers her and now she has a new passenger: hers her son.
12 Nights At Rotter House
Felix Allsey is a travel writer with a unique and not-so-lucrative niche of haunted places. After much hard work, he convinced the owner of the Rotterdam mansion to let him stay for 13 haunting nights after convincing himself that this would be his big break.
Soon, his oldest best friend Thomas joins him and the two avoid talking about a recent rough patch in their friendship before falling into their old grooves of dark humor. soon things start to go wrong when they hear screams and see figures around the house. Felix notices the book about him, and his mind swerves from non-fiction to true horror.
ruthless
ruth carver is tough, ambitious and some people even say ruthless. One day, Ruth wakes up with a concussion in a pickup truck on the way to a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
her captor wants to punish mean girls like ruth and has already done it six times. While she may never have heard from them again, Ruth won’t be that easy. she soon escapes and the chase begins. Ruth has to decide how far she will go to survive.
diary of a ghost
Paige is forced to move to a new house with her mother and brother in small town Idaho after leaving Los Angeles. They’re renting an old mansion and weird things start happening: a can of ravioli turns into 12, garbled words appear on the walls, and Paige’s brother wanders into the house at night.
Not to mention the downstairs neighbor who knows more than he’s letting on. Paige begins to investigate and discovers a cult used to perform ritual experiments on the house. This is a collection of letters, photographs, and diary entries left behind in the harrowing aftermath.
A Head Full of Ghosts
Part psychological thriller, part supernatural horror, A Head Full of Ghosts is the story of the Barrett family. This normal New England family falls apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to show signs of acute schizophrenia.
Her doctors are unable to stop her descent into madness and soon her stable home becomes a house of horrors. they soon turn to the homeless father, the local priest, who suggests an exorcism. he also contacts a production company who is eager to film the family’s plight. The family takes on a bunch of medical bills after Marjorie’s dad was out of work for over a year.
possession becomes a hit reality show that ends in tragedy and becomes the subject of urban legends. 15 years later, Marjorie’s sister, Merry, is being interviewed about the events by a bestselling author when we find out what really happened.
dead house
Two decades have passed since tragedy struck Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers and leading to the disappearance of a student, Carly Johnson. the main suspect is kaitlyn, “the girl from nowhere”. Kaitlyn’s journal is found in the ruins of the school, soon revealing the dark thoughts of a troubled mind.
its charred pages tell a sinister story of what happened that night and kaitlyn is at the center, but kaitly is carly johnson’s alter ego. Carly has the day, Kaitlyn has the night, and it is at night that the mystery surrounding Dead House is revealed.
asylum
dan crawford is a sixteen year old going to the new hampshire college prep program, the opportunity of a lifetime. Once he arrives for the summer program, he discovers that the regular housing is closed, so they will be living in the dormitory at Brookline, a former psychiatric hospital.
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Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, begin to explore the bedroom and discover the secrets of what really happened here in the asylum’s dark past.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
merricat is 18 years old and lives with her sister constance and invalid uncle julian on the blackwood estate, the only survivors of a poisoned sugar berry massacre. The farm is isolated, and Merricat only goes into town twice a week to buy groceries and library books.
Soon Cousin Charles shows up and becomes Merricat’s enemy. He tries to convince Constance, the recluse, to leave the estate and show him the combination to Merricat’s safe in order to steal her silver coins and get rid of her. Merricat decides that he needs to get rid of Cousin Charles, an evil demon, and soon the property is burning to the ground.
strange
willow jane doesn’t think anything is wrong when lightning blacks out all of boston, until time begins to stop and she comes face to face with her familiar and her sister goes missing.
However, these are not the only strange occurrences. The Shadowless One, an ancient witch, has been awakened and escaped from her crypt and now seeks revenge on Willow Jane’s family.
through the forest
This is a collection of spooky fairy tale tales in graphic novel form. there are five short stories in this that will keep you on the edge of your seat. if you want to switch things up, this may be a great option for you.
House of Salt and Sorrows
annaleigh lives a sheltered life on highmoor with her sisters, father and stepmother. there used to be twelve, but four of the girls’ lives have been cut short, each death more tragic than the last, and the surrounding villagers think the family has been cursed by the gods.
Annaleigh is disturbed by a series of ghostly visions that make her suspect that her sister’s death was not really an accident.
Soon Annaleigh becomes involved with a mysterious stranger with secrets of his own. it’s a race to uncover the darkness that has fallen on her family before he claims her.
house of furies
louisa ditton escapes from a harsh school where punishment is the lesson of the day and the seventeen year old is delighted to get a job as a maid in a boarding house.
Shortly after starting work at Coldthistle House, he discovers that Mr. morningside, the mysterious owner, offers much more than lodging to his guests.
mr. morningside and his unusual staff execute their own justice on those who can no longer be saved. Louisa cares for Lee, a young man unlike the other guests, and it may be up to her to save him from an untimely trial.
sawmill girls
Marion is the rookie, Zoey is the outcast, and Val is the queen bee. Her stories come together on Sawkill Rock Island where horses graze on pastures, waves crash against cliffs, and children whisper legends of an insidious monster. girls have been disappearing for decades and these girls are ready to fight this evil.
Coraline
the day after moving in, coraline started exploring her new home. it has twenty-one windows and fourteen doors, thirteen of which open. the fourteenth is closed off with a brick wall on the other side until the day coraline opened it and found a hallway to another apartment in another house that looks just like theirs.
Things seem great at first with better food, more toys, moving picture books and chattering dinosaur skulls. another mother and another father want to keep her there. they want to change it and never let it go. She soon finds other children trapped and she is the only hope of rescuing her.
the haunted one
hendricks becker-o’malley’s parents said it was a clean slate when they moved to the small town of drearfield, new york. she just wants to lay low and forget her traumatic past, but things don’t go according to plan.
He learns from new friends that Steele House, the new home his parents are so excited about, is known around town for being haunted. Is she being haunted by the ghosts of her past or her present?
memory trees
Sorrow Lovegood’s family takes pride in the strange story of the Vermont apple orchard that was her whole world for the first eight years of her life, despite the abrams family next door ridiculing her habits.
After a winter night tragedy strikes, Sadness is forced to live with her father in Miami, far from the only home she’s ever known.
Now sixteen, her memories of Vermont are hazy. she is determined to return and learn more about the troubled childhood she left behind eight years earlier. It turns out that some of her questions have difficult and dangerous answers and there may be a price for asking.
House
Jack and Stephanie Singleton are about to get divorced and get lost on a deserted Alabama highway on their way to a counseling session. They follow a long dirt road on the advice of a highway patrolman when their tires are crushed by nails along the way.
Conveniently, they’re not far from an old Victorian house in the woods that’s run as an inn by an odd family of three. They check in and meet another couple, Randy and Leslie, who ended up there under the same strange circumstances.
Things go downhill fast when white, a serial killer, locks them in the house after the lights go out and throws a can down the chimney with a message: unless they kill one of their own by dawn, he will kill. all of them.
anna dressed in blood
cas lowood kills the dead. so did his father before he was horribly murdered by a ghost. Now Cas travels the country with his kitchen witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, following legends and lore to destroy the murderous dead.
The next hunt is a ghost the locals call Anna dressed in blood and expects the usual: track, hunt, kill, but instead finds a girl entangled in curses and rage. she wears the dress she was killed in and kills every single person who sets foot in the victorian house she used to call home, except cas.
the girl from the well
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okiku is a lonely soul who releases the spirits of the slain dead, though it does not bring him peace. once a victim herself, she now takes the lives of killers with their due vengeance.
He soon meets Tark, who lives with misspelling under his skin. her neighbors are afraid of him, but she knows he is not bad. the malevolence that clings to it needs to be released, but if the demon dies, so does the host.
Baby Teeth
hanna is a sweet but silent seven-year-old girl, understood only by her father. Her mother, Suzette, stands in her way and will try any trick she can to get rid of her, ideally for good.
Suzette loves her daughter, but her sanity and health are slipping by the day after years of expulsion and strained homeschooling. She, too, is freaking out over Hanna’s petty games, while her husband, Alex, remains oblivious to the failing family dynamic. Suzette begins to fear that there is a truly sinister agenda behind Hanna’s actions.
the whisper
tom kennedy gives his son jake a fresh start at the pen bank after the sudden death of his wife. however, his new home has a dark past, a serial killer kidnapped and murdered five residents twenty years ago.
Before Frank Carter was caught, he was called “The Whispering Man” because he lured victims by whispering at their windows at night.
Just as they settled in, a young boy went missing under circumstances similar to the Frank Carter murders, bringing back old rumors that he was working with an accomplice. The detectives have to find the boy before it’s too late, but soon Jake starts acting strange and hears a whisper at his window.
the curse of the house on the hill
Four seekers arrive at a notoriously hostile house, the house on the hill. dr Montague, an occult scholar searching for evidence of a ghost; theodora, his cheerful assistant; Eleanor, a frail and friendless young woman familiar with poltergeists; and luke, the future heir to hill house. At first, his stay seems creepy, but Hill House is gathering her powers to make one of them her own.
The Diviners
It’s 1926 and Evangeline O’Neill has been sent to New York City to live with her Uncle Will, who has an unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie is worried that he will discover his secret supernatural power that has only brought trouble until now.
evie realizes her gift could help catch a killer when a young girl is found murdered and marked with a cryptic symbol and her uncle is called. she jumps into a dance with the killer and, unknown to all, something dark and evil has happened. woken up.
slasher girls and monster boys
This horror anthology comes from some of the best authors. each story draws on one or two classic tales (not always horror) to inspire something new and terrifying.
You’ll be on the edge of your seat with these thought-provoking stories. you’ll find bloody horror, supernatural creatures, and a little too much realism possible.
let the right one in
It’s the fall of 1981 in Bleckeberg, Sweden, when a bloodless teenager’s body is found and reported to be part of a ritual murder. Twelve-year-old Oskar hopes this is payback for the bullying he has suffered at school day after day.
Soon, murder isn’t foremost on his mind, but a girl who just moved in next door. She has never seen a rubik’s cube, but she can solve one right away. something happens to him and he only comes out at night.
Penpal
I first read this on reddit nosleep and literally couldn’t sleep. my mom came into my room around 4am after reading every part and all the comments and asked me why i was awake and couldn’t actually sleep because i was so scared. I reread it probably once a year.
In this novel, a man begins to investigate a series of unrelated strange, tragic and horrific events throughout his childhood. he soon discovers that these first fragments are actually part of a terrifying story that shaped his entire life, as well as those around him.
blue is for nightmares
stacy is a 16 year old witch in a boarding school. she has nightmares that come true, but now she has them about her roommate, her best friend. She sees Drea as the target of a psycho stalker and is using her candles, cards, charms, and spells to protect her.
hexadecimal
Black Spring is a Hudson Valley town that turns out to be haunted by the Black Rock witch who has had her eyes and mouth sewn shut. he enters the houses, sees the children sleeping and wanders the streets. everyone knows that their eyes will never be able to open or the consequences will be dire.
The city has been quarantined by the city elders thanks to hi-tech surveillance equipment, but the city’s teenagers are fed up with being locked up and go viral, but with this, they bring the city. back to his dark and evil practices.
The Troop
every year, timm riggs takes his troop of scouts out into the canadian wilderness for a good old-fashioned weekend camping trip. but this weekend is anything but when an unexpected intruder shows up.
He is thin, pale and hungry, a human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. This is the story of a fight for survival against the elements, the infected, and each other.
kill stream
the house of the finches is almost forgotten at the end of a dark road in the middle of the kansas countryside. Sam McGarver, a bestselling horror author, receives an invitation to spend Halloween night at the house after it has been empty and overgrown for years.
He is joined by three others who helped shape modern horror for a publicity stunt that soon turns into a fight for their lives. the awakened entity will follow and torment them, trying to make it part of the legacy of kill creek.
ten
this teen horror novel was inspired by agatha christies and then there was none. Ten teenagers are having an exclusive party on Henry Island, having the weekend of their lives when they find a DVD with a sinister message: vengeance is mine. they are cut off from the outside world thanks to a raging storm.
A killer is soon picking them off one by one, growing more violent as he goes and now it’s up to meg to find out who it is before more people die.
other book publications you might like:
Have you read any of these? what is the scariest book you have read? What do you like most about Halloween?
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