101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered

by Sadie Hartmann

recommend starting with Due’s short story collection, Ghost Summer. Each story is a showcase of Due’s ability to draw readers into a provocative narrative across a variety of subgenres.

A cryptid is a creature or beast that is believed to exist, but has never been scientifically proven to be real.

Quintessential reading in this subgenre includes Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, as well as classic horror stories like Dracula by Bram Stoker and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

GHOUL BY BRIAN KEENE (2007)

THE CHILDREN ON THE HILL BY JENNIFER MCMAHON

BOYS IN THE VALLEY BY PHILIP FRACASSI (2023)

THE DEMONOLOGIST BY ANDREW PYPER (2013)

Grady Hendrix Recommends: “Three staggering monuments of horror that don’t get read enough are Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer, which feels like Stephen King’s Needful Things as written by Cormac McCarthy; Elizabeth Engstrom’s When Darkness Loves Us, which is a collection of two novellas, one stomach-churning, one heartbreaking; and Bari Wood’s The Tribe, which might just be the great work of Jewish horror.”

Horror is often expressed trauma, so horror fiction concerning the occult or witchcraft are typically tales of religious-fueled persecution or oppression on those thought to be practicing paganism. The pagans are the protagonists, the religious organizations represent the antagonists.

THE NIGHTMARE GIRL BY JONATHAN JANZ (2015)

KNOCK KNOCK BY S. P. MISKOWSKI (2011)

THE BOTTOMS BY JOE R. LANSDALE (2000)

This is my big push for Joe R. Lansdale to be a household name. He is an iconic storyteller, not just in the horror genre, but in all genres of fiction. I’m picking the first book I read, and it one hundred percent belongs on a list of the best horror has to offer because if people recommend Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life or Stephen King’s Joyland, The Bottoms also belongs here.

PENPAL BY DATHAN AUERBACH (2012)

THE BONE WEAVER’S ORCHARD BY SARAH READ (2019)

THE LISTENER BY ROBERT MCCAMMON (2018)

RED BY JACK KETCHUM (1995) There were so many hidden realities in the world, so many secret lives. It seemed like nobody lived just one.

I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS BY IAIN REID (2016) Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.

THE LAST DAYS OF JACK SPARKS BY JASON ARNOPP (2016) How I wish Jack had never attended that exorcism. How I wish Jack had never laid eyes on that YouTube video.

THE TWISTED ONES BY T. KINGFISHER (2019)

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT Stephen Graham Jones

In 2017, I read my first SGJ book, Mapping the Interior, about a twelve-year-old boy who wakes up one night and sees the ghost of his father.

Mongrels is a book about a family of werewolves isolated from other people like them, so they rely on each other to create a sense of place, culture, and identity as werewolves.

NUMBER ONE FAN BY MEG ELISON (2022)

CHILDREN OF CHICAGO BY CYNTHIA PELAYO (2021)

BROKEN MONSTERS BY LAUREN BEUKES (2014) Everyone lives three versions of themselves; a public life, a private life and a secret life.

RING SHOUT BY P. DJÈLÍ CLARK (2020) I ain’t no scared girl no more. I hunt monsters

my favorite Alma Katsu book (hard to choose) is her Bram Stoker Award®-nominated novel, The Fervor, a supernatural twist on the very real historical hardships endured during World War II in Japanese American internment camps.

THE RUINS BY SCOTT SMITH (2006)

ANNIHILATION BY JEFF VANDERMEER (2014) That’s how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.

THE GHOST SEQUENCES BY A. C. WISE (2021) There’s a reason we want to believe in ghosts. We need them.