Riot Recommendation

Riot Recommendation: What’s Your Favorite Horror Novel?

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. So tell us in the comments below: what’s your favorite horror novel? And check back next week for a reading list!