101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered

by Sadie Hartmann

as Sadie so perfectly describes it, coming-of-age is as powerful as body horror, as powerful as possession, too?

Sometimes I think us readers don’t quite grasp how rare we are. To read a book a month is no less a feat than to read a dozen in the same four weeks. It’s the reading that places you, me, us in the same circle, the same scene. And the horror reader is a unique animal. We recognize this in the eyes of our fellow junkies. There’s a dark sparkle ever-present, and it never shines as black as it does when two of us cross paths.

Note: The intentional omission of older classics was a telling move: what Sadie’s saying is, modern books can and will become classics of their own. The books we’re writing and reading right now. How thrilling is that?

I do not live deliciously (buuuut I actually did see that movie and liked it).

My mother is an avid reader with a large library. She gave me unrestrained access to her shelves. Although I wasn’t sure if that included her adult “scary books,” I still snuck Stephen King books up to my room and read them late into the night like it was a big secret. Salem’s Lot was my first. Is this where I get to talk about how Stephen King has changed my life?

King is the one. My hero. Reading his books formed all of my future preferences in literature and influenced all of my biases toward very specific tropes and storytelling styles. He is the reason I gravitate toward horror centered around child protagonists: Danny from The Shining, The Loser’s Club from IT, the brothers in Eyes of the Dragon, Jake from The Dark Tower series, Jack from The Talisman, and the friend group in The Body—which was adapted into my all-time favorite movie, Stand by Me.

Nothing compares to coming-of-age horror, to growing emotionally attached to a child protagonist on their journey toward adulthood while facing impossible evil.

If you are familiar with the genre of horror, you know Stephen King. Love his books or not, you know them. That’s why you won’t find any King books on this list. Chances are you’ve already read my favorites, and if you haven’t, you have your reasons. In my opinion, his books are the blueprints for horror. Everything in the genre that has come after builds on the framework he has built. He’s the cornerstone of modern horror and my Constant Storyteller.

It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to the horror genre or if you have been reading it your whole life. This book was written with you in mind. And it probably goes without saying, but I feel like I have to be clear: Nobody is the last word on good horror books. Taste is so supremely subjective. All I can do—all anyone can do—is make honest recommendations on what they feel is quality horror and hope that others will read it and enjoy it too. So read this book with a grain of salt. Your all-time favorite horror book might not be in here. I either didn’t read it or didn’t like it or thought something else was better. You’re not wrong. I’m not wrong.

This is a modern horror list. Almost everything included is from 2000–2023. Recency bias? Yes. This is a list of horror right now.

These recommendations are books that I think offer great representations of where horror has been, where it is now, and where it’s going. Your “catch up” list before you … you know …* slicing throat gesture*

I strongly believe that short fiction is the best format for horror. Authors who are skilled in this discipline manage to maintain heightened suspense, tension, and horror for the duration of the short story.

::Someone raises their hand:: Yes, you in the back row. Do you have a question? ::They stand up:: “So all of the books on this list are scary, right? You picked these books because they’re scary?” No. I’m not sure any of these books will be scary for you or anyone else in this room. What scares us is as unique to ourselves as our fingerprints. We all move through this life with individual experiences that are special to us—nobody lives the same life you do. What you find to be scary is based on the way you engage and interact with this world, and that’s different from the way I do it, or anyone else does it.

I would never hold up a horror book and say, “This isn’t horror because it’s not scary.” I don’t think a horror book’s main objective is to be scary. There are lots of other ways writers can tell stories to unsettle our souls.

I’m going to provide a more textbook explanation of paranormal, but the following traditional Scottish prayer captures my definition of what classifies as paranormal horror pretty well: “From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggety Beasties, and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord, deliver us!”

According to science, everything in the natural world around us can be observed and ultimately explained scientifically after some investigation. Except for that which is beyond normal. Abnormal. Paranormal. In other words, freaky shit that defies explanation.

Mulder would say the truth is out there and he wants to believe. And Scully is your classic skeptic: I’ll believe it when I see it and I have no other choice.

think about Paranormal Romance books—have you seen that section in a bookstore? It’s a subset of literature where there is a romance between a human and something paranormal: a vampire, werewolf, ghost, or even—hold on to your butts—a doctor falling in love with the actual Coronavirus and having a sexual relationship with it. With the virus. I know. Seems strange, but it has almost nine hundred reviews with a four-star rating so … *shrugs*

Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. —Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Hauntings are a universally held paranormal phenomenon. It’s the belief that ghosts or spirits manifest themselves regularly, and in one location. In horror, there are two common types of houses: a “Manderley” house and a “Hill House.”

Manderley is the blueprint for stories that ask the reader, “Is it the house or the people?”

The house is a supernatural entity that can, if it chooses to do so, take the life of anyone that enters it. In fact, I would assume that it desires to do so. It can be said that those who sleep in its beds or wander its halls do not leave in the same condition as when they arrived.

I enjoy that horror fiction has the potential to be emotionally devastating. In the hands of the right author, a story will pull the reader into the lives of fictional characters wholly and completely, creating a very real, heartfelt connection. When horror or trauma is introduced, threatening those fictional lives, it’s almost unbearable for the reader.

And this does get dark, but it never loses sight of hope.

Is one possible without the other? I think you have to know someone in order to truly love them, and you have to love someone in order to really hate them.