Frightening Fall Reads

All summaries below are from their publishers, with the exception of my own thoughts on the titles.

No horror list would be complete without Stephen King. The man has done so much for the landscape of horror (and literature itself), that to not include him would be a crime. Part of what makes Stephen King so prolific is that he’s got the ability to write across the genres of fantasy and horror so effortlessly. A bit of light mysticism? Check out The Green Mile. Looking for a claustrophobic haunting set in a giant hotel? Go for The Shining. Looking for a creepy clown and a group of wily kids who have to work together to send him on his way? Look no further than It.

The books that I’ve highlighted below are personal favorites of mine from King (the exception being The Stand – which I confess I’ve never read, but WPL’s Technical Services Manager, Jenna, says is awesome). And yes – I’ve included two short story collections. For me, Stephen King really shines best when he’s limited to a shorter format and both collections listed below are incredibly worth your time.

Skeleton Crew

Available at Warren Public Library

The #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the 1986 Locus Award for Best Collection, Skeleton Crew is “Stephen King at his best” (The Denver Post)—a terrifying, mesmerizing collection of stories from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time. A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driving a Jaguar finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil. And a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged. King is best known for his iconic, immersive long novels, but he is also a master of the short story, and this is a magnificent collection.

Night Shift

Available at Warren Public Library

Stephen King’s first collection of short stories showcases the darkest depths of his brilliant imagination and will “chill the cockles of many a heart” (Chicago Tribune). Here we see mutated rats gone bad (“Graveyard Shift”); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (“Night Surf,” the basis for The Stand); a possessed, evil lawnmower (“The Lawnmower Man”); unsettling children from the heartland (“Children of the Corn”); a smoker who will try anything to stop (“Quitters, Inc.”); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation (“Gray Matter”); and many more shadows and visions that will haunt you long after the last page is turned.

Pet Sematary

Available at Warren Public Library

When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…

The Shining

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

The Stand

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive (eBook and eAudio)

When a man escapes from a biological testing facility, he sets in motion a deadly domino effect, spreading a mutated strain of the flu that will wipe out 99 percent of humanity within a few weeks. The survivors who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge–Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them–and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

MORE AWESOME FRIGHTENING FALL READS

Devolution by Max Brooks

Available at Warren Public Library

As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined…until now. But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing – and too earth-shattering in its implications – to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the beasts behind it, once thought legendary but now known to be terrifyingly real. Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death. Yet it is also far more than that. Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us – and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Julie says:  Brooks wrote World War Z, which was arguably one of the best zombie novels ever written. In Devolution, he takes on the sasquatch. While I love cryptids, the sasquatch was never anything that I found to be that creepy…but Brooks managed to deliver terrors that pushed any Harry and the Hendersons comparisons entirely out of my mind.

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Available at Warren Public Library

A criminal mastermind creates violent tableaus in abandoned Detroit warehouses in Lauren Beukes’s genre-bending novel of suspense. Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams? If you’re Detective Versado’s geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you’re desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you’re Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you’ll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe — and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world. If Lauren Beukes’s internationally bestselling The Shining Girls was a time-jumping thrill ride through the past, her Broken Monsters is a genre-redefining thriller about broken cities, broken dreams, and broken people trying to put themselves back together again.

Julie says: This was hands down the best book that I read during the pandemic. Beuke’s writes what starts as a detective thriller with grisly crime scenes and creates a plotline and a villain that’s so out there and so bananas, it was unlike anything else that I’ve ever read. The race in this one isn’t to figure out who the bad guy is…it’s figuring out how they can stop him before he brings an entire city to its knees.

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Available at Warren Public Library

Jaws is the classic, blockbuster thriller that inspired the three-time Academy Award-winning Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again – or for the first time! Jaws was number 48 in the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Movies, and the film earned the coveted number-one spot on the Bravo network’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments countdown.

Julie says: Jaws was the first horror film that I ever saw as a child. I can remember watching it on TV with my dad when I was probably way too young. This past summer I dove into the book that the blockbuster film was based on and really got a kick out of it. Reader beware though: I watched the film version of Jaws again this summer and found myself rooting for the people. However, when I read the book, I found myself rooting for the shark.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

Available at Warren Public Library

When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again.

Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?

Julie says: Wylding Hall is a really quick read, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pack a punch. There are a lot of epistolary type novels on this list (books which are written as a set of documents – I like to call them “found footage” books) because the style always keeps me engaged as a reader. Wylding is told in a documentary film style and the closer you get to the end, the more the dread keeps creeping ever closer.

Blood Cruise by Mats Strandberg

Available at Warren Public Library

On the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream.

Tonight, twelve hundred expectant passengers have joined the booze-cruise between Sweden and Finland. The creaking old ship travels this same route, back and forth, every day of the year.

But this trip is going to be different.

In the middle of the night the ferry is suddenly cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who they can trust.

Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma.

Julie says: Not gonna lie. The cover for this one pulled me in when I saw it in a book store. It’s vampires…On an overnight European party ferry. Do you really need to know anything else? This is one of the longer titles on the list, but it reads incredibly fast. I loved the range of characters and loved the ridiculous premise. Blood Cruise may have a silly title, but it’s an incredibly fun read. (Similar to Devolution, vampires aren’t my favorite trope…but this book is a wonderful exception.)

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Available at Warren Public Library

In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious, a victim and a hero. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece.

That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized–someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again. But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife…they will never, ever give up.

Julie says: Grady Hendrix is definitely a horror author who writes like no one else. His first novel Horrorstor is set up like a famous-Swedish based quick-build furniture company catalog (starts with I – ends in kea) and if the format isn’t fun enough, the story about the shenanigans happening inside the store will keep you hooked. The Final Girl Support Group is another read that just felt fun. As a big fan of the slasher film and the idea of the final girl, I was excited to delve into a Hendrix universe with a wily support group full of final girls. The story, in typical Hendrix fashion, always skews humorous more than scary, but I was more than happy to be along for the ride.

Fantastic Land by mike bockoven

Available at Warren Public Library

A modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online. Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?

Julie says: At its core, what makes FantasticLand so terrifying isn’t your typical horror trope of monsters or ghosts or aliens…it’s that the main villains are the employees left behind at the amusement park who quickly devolve once the park is isolated. With a great setting and engaging storytelling, FantasticLand grabs the reader quickly and forces them to watch the chaos explode. I found this book scary because it’s probably the most realistic thing that could happen in this list of suggested titles. It’s told from the point of view of the survivors, so sit down and buckle your seatbelts. FantasticLand is a bumpy ride for sure.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Julie says: Mexican Gothic feels both old and new at the same time. While there are threads of classic gothic literature, the setting and the heroine feel fresh and exciting. Historical fiction isn’t normally my thing, but the atmosphere that Moreno-Garcia creates is just so lush and inviting, you’ll find yourself rooting for Noemi to get to the bottom of what’s happening at High Place.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Available at Warren Public Library

Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy…or the feelings that someone–or something–is stalking them. Whether it’s a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history. As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains…and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along. Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

Julie says: Weird tragedies have always fascinated me. Whether it’s the Dylatov Pass incident, the sinking of the Titanic, or the Donner Party, I always find myself wanting to know more about the people, what happened, and what can be learned from it all. Katsu’s The Hunger was written with quite a bit of research into the Donner Party…but then she takes the tragedy, gives it a horror twist, and spins it on its head. What if the incident wasn’t merely a bunch of terrible choices, but something much darker? Katsu also wrote The Deep (available on OverDrive!) which featured the sinking of the Titanic with a ghostly twist. Alma Katsu’s books were a highlight for me last year and I can’t wait to see what historic event she reimagines next.

The Shadows by Alex North

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive

You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile–always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet–and inspired more than one copycat. Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree–and his victim–were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and suffering from dementia, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home. It’s not long before things start to go wrong. Paul learns that Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck in the nearby town of Featherbank. His mother is distressed, insistent that there’s something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago. It wasn’t just the murder. It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again…

Julie says: The Shadows has got to be the tamest title on this list and is probably more of a mystery/thriller than straight up horror, but it has moments that are so creepy, I had to include it. Alex North is still a fresh new author, but one that has me very excited to see where his books go next.

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Available on OverDrive

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

Julie says: There’s something about the dissolution of the human mind that is deeply unsettling. Tremblay does a great job in this novel of straddling the line between what’s real and what’s paranormal. I loved that the story is told from Merry’s point of view, because the reader is often left wondering if what she witnessed is to be believed, or if she’s simply trying to rationalize things in the way that only a child can.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Available at Warren Public Library

A masterful twist on the serial killer novel from the award-winning author Lauren Beukes: the girl who wouldn’t die hunts the killer who shouldn’t exist. Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future. Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times. At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of these shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He’s the ultimate hunter, vanishing without a trace into another time after each murder — until one of his victims survives. Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on an impossible truth…

Julie says: After enjoying Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes, I quickly ordered The Shining Girls. I really enjoyed delving into each girl’s backstory and following Curtis’ killing spree was dizzying as it jumped across time. As the “final girl”, Kirby is a likable tenacious heroine who stops at nothing to track down her impossible attacker. Beukes does a great job of fleshing these characters out…they’re not just victims, they’re believable women with a myriad of stories, which makes their demise even more heartbreaking and makes you root even harder for Kirby to win.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

Julie says: The Sun Down Motel was a pretty buzzy book in 2020. It’s a classic ghost story set in a run down motel. I loved the dual time frames and St. James did a great job writing what felt like a spooky summer beach read that’s eerie, but not horrifying.

The Return by Rachel Harrison

Available at Warren Public Library

A group of friends reunite after one of them has returned from a mysterious two-year disappearance in this edgy and haunting debut. Julie is missing, and no one believes she will ever return—except Elise. Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and feels it in her bones that her best friend is out there and that one day Julie will come back. She’s right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she’s been or what happened to her. Along with Molly and Mae, their two close friends from college, the women decide to reunite at a remote inn. But the second Elise sees Julie, she knows something is wrong—she’s emaciated, with sallow skin and odd appetites. And as the weekend unfurls, it becomes impossible to deny that the Julie who vanished two years ago is not the same Julie who came back. But then who—or what—is she?

Julie says: The Return reminded me a lot of Broken Monsters. While it’s not a detective story, it does start out feeling like a missing person thriller, mixed with the complicated dynamics of female friendship. It’s not until the threads start to unravel that you realize that you’re not in a thriller, but a full-on horror novel set in a really interesting hotel. By the time that the final act began, I had no idea what was going to happen and was loving the ride that it took to get there. Harrison’s debut novel made a splash with me.

Full Throttle by Joe Hill

Available at Warren Public Library and on OverDrive

Thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In the Tall Grass,” one of two stories cowritten with Stephen King.  A little door that opens to a world of fairy-tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.” 

 In “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain”—now an episode on Shudder TV’s Creepshow—two young friends stumble on the corpse of a plesiosaur at the water’s edge, a discovery that forces them to confront the inescapable truth of their own mortality. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” cowritten with Stephen King.

Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.

Julie says: We started the list with a collection of short stories by Stephen King, so it only feels fitting to end the list with a collection of short stories by his son, Joe Hill. Full Throttle is a wonderful mix of genres and stories. Personal favorites from the collection are “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” (who doesn’t love a lake monster) and “Late Returns” (as a librarian, I found this to be such an awesome premise).