Happy Indie Bookstore Day! 13 Spooky Books I Love

It’s Independent Bookstore Day! Today, more than 1,600 bookstores across the US states and territories will open their doors and celebrate with in-store events.

Indiebound has a map of participating bookstores that makes it easy to see if anything’s happening near you. I also recommend checking this list of 170+ Black-owned independent bookstores, many of whom are participating in the festivities!

I find a lot of joy in being an enabler of low stakes impulse purchases, treats, and tattoos. So if you were looking for an excuse to add a spooky book to your collection, let this be your sign! I put together a list of 13 of my favorite horror novels.

And if splurging isn’t in your budget or shelf-space, it can still be fun to go for a stroll and see what’s happening in your local bookstore. I wish I remembered the creator so I could tag them, but I saw a fun TikTok recently of someone browsing Barnes & Noble with their local library’s app pulled up on their phone. Each time a book caught their eye, they’d add it to their hold list. So fun AND great for keeping your library funded!

There’s Something Wrong With the House

Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

Last summer, a friend of mine asked for pulpy 1970s recs and I immediately handed her Burnt Offerings. In it, a family finds an incredible deal on a summer vacation rental complete with sprawling grounds and a pool. But the low rent comes at a high (and undisclosed) cost. It’s got that slightly dry, uneasy aesthetic quality paperbacks from that era seem to possess. The 20th anniversary edition, which I’ve linked above, includes an introduction by Stephen Graham Jones!

The September House by Carissa Orlando

I tore through The September House this month, and I regret sleeping on it for so long. It’s a deeply original, utterly spooky, and completely charming haunted house tale that’s even more impressive once you realize it’s Orlando’s debut. This is a perfect book for anyone who grew up loving Eva Ibbotson’s novels for young readers, but with gory imagery even seasoned horror fans might shudder at.

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

I saw this domestic horror novel—Siddons’ only straightforwardly scary book—recommended by Carmen Maria Machado on Twitter years ago, and man, did it deliver. The story follows Atlanta DINKs Colquitt and Walter Kennedy as a modern new house is built on an empty lot on their tony suburban street. But the house seems to have a strange power, drawing out its residents’ darkest impulses. Don’t let the book’s pastel cover fool you: Siddons will take you to some freaky places.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Waters is one of my favorite authors, and The Little Stranger was my introduction to her work. As the old British aristocratic order crumbles, a country doctor insinuates himself into the local Big House family. This is a poltergeist story that plays out against a rich and meticulously researched backdrop of shifting class and social politics. While this book is more subtly queer than Fingersmith or Affinity, there is a subtext there if you know where to look for it.

You Can’t Leave the Past Behind

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Jones has unquestionably earned his reputation as a modern master of the horror genre. He’s extraordinarily prolific, he has incredible range, and his stories are funny and moving and very scary. Of the half a dozen Jones novels I’ve read, The Only Good Indians is my very favorite. It’s an unnerving story about a group of men who did something terrible in their youth, and how that act comes back to bite them. It scared the shit out of me and the ending was so sweet and beautiful and moving that I almost cried—which for me, is the equivalent of actually crying.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

I’ve been a fan of mysteries and thrillers for all my life, and it’s gotten harder and harder for a story to catch me by surprise. Ward’s twisty, turny psychological mystery gradually reveals new details that turned my understanding of her story upside down and backwards again and again. I’m not even going to describe the plot here because I recommend going in completely cold.

Horror Classics

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

When I was in my early twenties and still living in DC, I found an old paperback copy in the laundry room of my basement. What a fortuitous start! Levin is one of my favorite midcentury horror authors (although his work from the ‘90s is pretty great, too). Rosemary’s Baby is a not only spooky, but also part of Levin’s larger project of examining culture through a distinctly feminist lens.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

In my opinion, Dracula is like Gideon’s Bible: Every home should have a copy. This book is so, so much weirder and kookier than I expected. There’s a Texan? Multiple paragraphs about how stinky and smelly Dracula is? Van Helsing laughing hysterically at a funeral and making a multi-page philosophical speech about it? Be so serious. I also recently learned that Stoker was in a (likely) lavender marriage with Oscar Wilde’s ex-partner, which is a very interesting tidbit of queer horror history.

J-Horror

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

I’ve read several Murakami novels—Piercing, Coin Locker Babies, Audition—but In the Miso Soup has a special place in my heart. There’s a serial killer murdering women in Tokyo, and it’s put everyone on edge—including Kenji, who works as a tour guide for foreigners visiting the city’s thriving sex clubs. As Kenji shows American tourist Frank around, he begins to grow suspicious of his client. Could Frank be the culprit? This book is so strange, so shockingly violent, and has some of the most deliciously uncomfortable social horror I’ve ever read. (The baseball scene lives rent-free in my head—if you know, you KNOW.)

Ring by Koji Suzuki

We all know the story of cursed videotape, but how many of us have sought out the novel that started it all? In my opinion, no movie adaptation has captured the curse’s absolute, all-consuming dread as well as the novel does. Imagine having only seven days to find a way to save your life, then having to subtract sleeping, meals, your job, and travel time. One of my favorite horror tropes is the “let’s go to the library” scene, and Suzuki delivers this in such a satisfying way.

Just be warned: Suzuki does not write sensitively about sex and gender, particularly regarding women and intersex people. I’m also personally mad at him for retconning Ryūji into being a good person in later installments of the series, but what can you do.

Wild Card, Bitches

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

It’s hard to choose my favorite Rachel Harrison novel, but Such Sharp Teeth is high on my list. Rory Morris fled her hometown with no intention of returning. But as her twin sister, Scarlett, nears the end of her pregnancy, Rory is drawn home to help. She’s promptly confronted with memories of the past—and by a large animal that attacks her after a car accident. Soon, strange hungers begin to plague her. Also: It’s a love story!

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

Nat Cassidy writes such fucking weird books, and I love that about him. Mary is a rare horror novel that centers a lonely, menopausal woman who returns to her childhood hometown. (It’s worth reading the afterword, where Cassidy offers a thoughtful and nuanced explanation of how and why he chose to write from this perspective.) There are mutilated ghosts, a serial killer, auto-writing, and…a cult? Not to mention the mirrors, or the ants, or the Loved Ones. I cannot prepare you for how wild this book is.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Bury Your Gays was my surprise favorite novel of last year. Tingle has built a career around the idea that “LOVE IS REAL,” and whether he’s writing dinosaur erotica or literary horror, he is authentically himself at all times. Bury Your Gays is about a screenwriter named Mischa whose studio execs are pressuring him to conform to the trope of killing off gay characters on his popular TV show. As Mischa defiantly resists, horrifying characters from his past TV shows begin to pursue him around Los Angeles. It’s a joy to watch Tingle weave this story, incorporating horror and campy humor and suspense. For me, his world building hit the perfect blend of plausible explanation without getting bogged down in tedious specifics. A deeply, deeply satisfying novel.

Scare Me! graphics by Sam Pugh