20 Horror Books for People Who Don’t Like Horror

This YA horror novel is a twist on the Frankenstein motif. Lady Hazel Sinnet is desperate to be a surgeon but is rejected from anatomy courses due to her sex. With the help of her new friend, Jack, a black-market corpse dealer, Hazel is determined to pass her medical exams. Hazel and Jack soon discover that something far worse than anatomy classes is happening inside the lecture hall. This book has just enough gruesome details to keep you on your toes, paired with adventure and romance.

Before The Hunger Games, there was Battle Royale. A class of junior high students are left on an island and forced to kill one another until only one student survives. Dark, violent, and allegorical, this 1999 classic is an exploration of psychology and fear. 

First-date jitters turn to dread when James and Amelia find an entire home at the bottom of a secret lake. What else are they supposed to do but go exploring? This novella is a great stepping stone into horror, with unsettling eeriness and unanswered questions. 

These macabre tales of retribution are light on the scares, heavy on the jealousy and uncanniness. The first story features a writer that moves into an empty apartment, only to discover that her new landlady murdered her husband. When the landlady’s stepson begins to share weird stories from his stepmother, the writer is further unsettled. In another story, a surgeon meets a woman with her heart outside of her body and vows to repair it, but is detained by a man with unusual desires. These 11 stories connect and drift apart, leaving spidery trails behind them.

If you love imaginative settings and graphic design, you’ll love this unsettling book. There’s something happening at the Orsk furniture store in Ohio: things going missing, furniture smashed to bits, and no security footage to figure it out. Three employees volunteer to work the night shift, but the truth is much worse than they could have imagined. Part parody, part social commentary, this book is a fresh take on the haunted house story. 

High school was already a game of survival for Jake, but his ability to see the dead makes getting to class more difficult. When Jake meets Sawyer, an angry ghost with dangerous unfinished business, Jake becomes a moving target. This paranormal YA novel addresses serious topics, paired with a few good frights. 

If true crime is more your thing, then this fictionalized version of the legendary Lizzie Borden case might be more appealing to you. Schmidt brings readers into the intimate, violent Borden household with lurid details and gruesome, sweltering prose.

The first in an alternative history duology, this book’s scariest parts have nothing to do with the zombies plaguing the nation. Trained to fight the zombies from childhood, Jane is desperate to return home. Jane’s plans are derailed when she and her classmate Kate are taken to a remote, dangerous community. Their fight is only beginning.

This novel is made of two converging narratives that will draw you in and fill you with creeping dread. When three friends begin their renovation project in the remote Icelandic forest, they soon begin to feel uneasy. As things get stranger, they realize there is no easy escape from whatever is bothering them. In town, a doctor is investigating the death of a woman when he makes an unnerving discovery. Switching back and forth between storylines, this book is tense and fast-paced. 

After a personal tragedy, Angela returns to her beloved Grandmother’s Good House, hoping for answers. As Angela digs into her own past, she uncovers shocking events from the town’s past — could they be connected to the house? To heal herself and her family, Angela has to find the truth about the Good House, before it’s too late. 

This book is perfect for anyone who wants to try just a taste of horror. After Mila ages out of the foster system, she takes a job at a secluded farm on the California Coast. In the fog, ghosts dance and play, as the farm’s young residents grieve and heal together. 

As the only two Black girls in their community, Cherish and Farrah were drawn to each other from the beginning. When Farrah’s family is faced with hard times, she takes refuge with Cherish’s much wealthier family. Something is bubbling under the pristine surface, though, and Farrah’s losing control.  

For feelings of unease without any monsters or gore, this dual timeline novel feels like a Jane Eyre retelling meets a Christie whodunit. In 1988, Beth is sent to live at Raven Hall and becomes fast friends with Nina. Beth feels welcome and happy, until the family asks her to do the unthinkable. Thirty years later, actress Sadie Langton is hired to play a party guest for an unusual game at Raven Hall. When the game takes a dark turn, Sadie decides to uncover the truth about her host. 

The nameless protagonist of this dark contemporary novel abandons a promising future as a pianist in favor of working in a high-end spa. She becomes increasingly preoccupied with the spa’s sinister aesthetics, vowing anything for the next treatment, the next beautifier. This book grapples with obsession, assimilation, and manipulation.

This is the novel I recommend to people who want to try King’s horror, but don’t want monsters or jump scares. It’s simple: keep walking, stay alive. One hundred boys compete annually for the prize of a lifetime. This year, Ray is going to win. Peppered with humor and moments of hope, this book is an exercise (ha) of growing anxiety and despair.

After a cross-country move and the birth of her third child, Alejandra is struggling with major depressive episodes. When she begins to see visions of the Mexican folk demon, La Llorona, Alejandra worries that she will succumb to the same fate of drowning her children. To save herself and her children, Alejandra digs into her family history, looking for clues on how to end the curse. Folkloric and powerful, this book focuses on Alejandra’s personal journey in strength.

This German classic is certainly gory, but it’s also a lush, sensorial fairy tale. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in the slums of 18^th century Paris with an extraordinary sense of smell. He begins his journey as an apprentice perfumer to distill unusual smells: brass, wood, rotting food. Grenouille’s truest obsession is the smell of one young woman. To perfect her scent, he will stop at nothing. 

Somewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, ghosts, gods, and spirits seek vengeance and justice. This mosaic novel is several stories as one, with plots crossing one another in the middle. Iglesias uses elements of horror, noir, and crime fiction to create one stunning novel. 

Vera’s family is complicated: her estranged mother is dying and her father was a serial killer. When Vera returns home to visit, she finds the home is being taken apart by a strange artist living in the guest house. Disturbing notes begin to appear all over the house, but the artist claims he isn’t writing them. Unsettling and claustrophobic, you’ll want to discover the truth with Vera. 

This YA fairy tale retelling is all vibes, but lower stakes. Annaleigh and her sisters live in Highmoor Manor, locked away to keep them safe after their four eldest sisters tragically passed away. Each night, as Annaleigh receives ominous visions, her sisters escape to attend ghostly, glittering dances. Determined to keep herself and her sisters safe, Annaleigh will do anything to break the curse plaguing her family.