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65 of Your Favorite Horror Novels

S. Zainab Williams

Executive Director, Content

S. Zainab would like to think she bleeds ink but the very idea makes her feel faint. She writes fantasy and horror, and is currently clutching a manuscript while groping in the dark. Find her on Twitter: @szainabwilliams.

This Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Only the Dead Know Burbank by Bradford Tatum.

onlythedead-pb_bookriotWith Lon Cheney and Boris Karloff among its characters, this sweeping and stylish love letter to the golden age of horror cinema tells the wonderful, tragic story of Maddy Ulm, taking readers through her rise from the complicated shadows of Berlin’s first experiments with expressionist cinema to the glamorous deserts of Hollywood, where she insinuates herself as the genius secretly behind The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula and Frankenstein. Nick Seeley, author of Cambodia Noir, says Only the Dead Know Burbank is “a dreamy, mysterious waltz with the famous monsters of filmland. . . a must-read for the modern monster.”


It’s a scientific fact that October is the best time for horror and leaving the lights on at night. Whether you’re into monsters, haunted houses, gothic or psychological themes–there’s a book out there for every chill-seeker.

We asked you to share your favorite horror novels, and you responded. Here are 65 of your favorites!

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke

The Devourers by Indra Das

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

The Shining by Stephen King

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Christine by Stephen King

The Langoliers by Stephen King

It by Stephen King

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

Misery by Stephen King

Cell by Stephen King

Carrie by Stephen King

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

The Stand by Stephen King

The Cipher by Kathe Koja

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Coraline by Neil Gailman

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Hannibal by Thomas Harris

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft

The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft

Mountain Man series by Keith C. Blackmore

Will Trent  series by Karin Slaughter

The Adversary Cycle by F. Paul Wilson

Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

Halloween by Curtis Richards

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul G. Tremblay

The Troop by Craig Davidson

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Wytches by Scott Snyder

The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert

The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker

The Wolf’s Hour by Robert R. McCammon

Stinger by Robert R. McCammon

They Thirst by Robert R. McCammon

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

In the Dark by Richard Laymon

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

The Insect God by Edward Gorey

The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

Ticktock by Dean Koontz

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

The Deep by Nick Cutter

The Ruins by Scott Smith

The Omen by David Seltzer

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Midnight by Dean Koontz

Harvest Home by Tom Tryon

Imajica by Clive Barker

World War Z by Max Brooks

Jake’s Wake by Cody Goodfellow and John Skipp