27 Halloween Books for Adults to Read During Spooky Season

Even if you’ve already binged the Netflix series, the original 1959 gothic horror novel by Shirley Jackson (The Witch) is more than worth a read—especially because the two differ in more ways than one. The book concerns four people who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly, likely haunted property. They’re led by Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a haunting. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with some inexplicable phenomena, but Hill House is gathering its powers and none of the four know just how terrifying things will soon get.

Good evening, Clarice. Before it was a pee-your-pants scary movie with an all-star cast of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs was an equally terrifying novel. First published in 1988, it’s the sequel to Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon. Both novels feature the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, though the latter sees him pitted against FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling.

When a young nanny in London is found dead, Tash, a new mother, is intrigued, particularly because she’s been looking for a story to launch her freelance journalism career. At the same time, she’s searching for new friends to help her navigate motherhood. She meets said friends, a group of sleek, sophisticated and wealthy women, at her son’s play group. But when another young woman is found dead, it’s clear there’s much more to the community than meets the eye, and the more Tash investigates, the more she’s led uncomfortably close to the other mothers. Are these women really her friends? Or is there another reason why they’ve accepted her into their world so quickly? 

A young woman went missing from her affluent liberal arts school on graduation weekend. At the same time, a quiet loner who most people on campus didn’t think much of died by suicide. One text bound the two dead students together and was enough for law enforcement to close the case. But they got it wrong. Twelve years later, college friends gather to celebrate an engagement on a swanky private island in Maine, where one guest, Sierra, senses something is wrong. Soon, the group finds a dead man in the trunk of a car with a note: time to tell the truth. As a storm strands them together, the group’s secrets come to the surface as they try to survive this deadly party, in the latest from best-selling thriller writer Darby Kane (Pretty Little Wife).

Abandonment, betrayal and cannibalism all play into Bram Stoker Award-nominated Ally Wilkes’s (All the White Spaces) eerie gothic novel. William Day should’ve been an acclaimed Arctic explorer until he led a failed expedition—in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades—and returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command goes missing in the same frozen waters, and William thinks it could be his chance to restore his reputation. Following a trail of cryptic messages and old bones, the search becomes more and more unnerving, and the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, forcing Day to face the things he’s done.

In a classic horror movie, the "final girl" is the one young woman who makes it out alive--but barely, and usually not with all her clothes. In Sager's more subversive novel, Quincy, who survived a mass murder, refuses to play into the "final girl" trope. Instead, she creates a fulfilling life in New York City. Then, a woman like her dies of an apparent suicide, and Quincy's well-crafted facade begins to unravel. This one will keep you guessing until the very last page.

In a similar vein, Hendrix’s (My Best Friend's Exorcism) 2021 thriller is about Lynnette, a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she's been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group to put their lives back together. But when one woman misses a meeting, their worst fears are realized. Someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

In 1982, Viv wants to move from upstate New York to Manhattan. To help pay for the move, she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. Then she disappears. In 2017, Viv’s niece Carly moves to Fell and visits the motel, desperate for answers about her aunt’s life. There, she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982, and she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

For more than 200 years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: As children, the sisters were taunted, talked about and pointed at. After they escape their hometown, the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic. Oh, and after you finish the book you should absolutely watch (or rewatch) the movie version with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock.

It wouldn’t be Halloween without at least one vampire, right? Irish author Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897 as an epistolary novel told through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. It’s the story of a vampire, Count Dracula, and his move from his native Transylvania to England in the search for victims of his undead curse. At the same time a group of people led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing are determined to stop him. Fashion Editor Abby Hepworth, who wrote her thesis on Frankenstein, says of Dracula, "I adore Dracula. It's a slow burn but oh boy is it a classic for a reason. I highly recommend reading in a quiet room late at night for maximum spook factor."

There’s no whodunit in this perfectly plotted thriller. We know from the start that the killer is Alicia Berenson, a famous photographer who, one night, shoots her husband five times in the face in their posh London home. What we don’t know—what no one knows—is why. Since the shooting, Alicia hasn’t spoken a single word. But as she sits silently in a psychiatric hospital, one therapist is determined to break through, even if it leads to his own demise.

The book isn’t too far from the movie (projectile vomiting, anyone?), but you get more background information on some of the supporting characters that makes the whole thing just a little more unsettling—if that’s possible.

Associate Fashion Commerce Editor Stephanie Meraz raves, "If you love a guessing game, then look no further because Foley will have you playing detective with every turn in this thriller.” Here's the gist: In need of a fresh start, Jess asks if she can crash with her half-brother, Ben, who lives in Paris and doesn’t sound thrilled about the arrangement. When she shows up to Ben’s address, Jess find a very nice apartment—one that she’s not sure how Ben can afford—and he’s not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother's situation and the more questions she has. Ben's neighbors are an eclectic bunch, not particularly friendly, and Jess suspects they all know things they’re not sharing. Jess might have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s looking more and more like it's Ben's future that's in question.

Suspense, mystery and romance—what else would you expect from a novel that takes place in an English estate run by a creepily stubborn housekeeper? It’s like a spooky Downton Abbey.

Though the name Frankenstein has become more associated with the creature itself, it’s actually the name of the mad scientist who created the creature in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. A combination of gothic horror story and science fiction, it centers on Victor Frankenstein, a Swiss student of natural science who brings an artificial man to life. Though it initially seeks affection, the monster eventually turns on its creator. Associate SEO Editor Marissa Wu tells me, "Honestly, one of the best books I've read. we know the monster from pop culture, but the book is such a tender depiction of what really makes us human. As Shelly paints the picture of this creature, you really start to wonder if his creator is the sinister one."

If creepy, scary Halloween books aren’t your thing, try this lighter take on a spooky novel. Phoebe is a PhD candidate who’s always been obsessed with true crime. While spending a summer in Florida cleaning out her childhood home and grappling with the complicated feelings of mourning a father she hadn't had a relationship with for years, she starts to think the new neighbor, Sam, is a serial killer. But it's not long before Phoebe realizes that Sam might be something much scarier—a genuinely nice guy who wants her to give him a chance.

Any number of King’s books deserve a spot on this list, but I'm partial to Pet Sematary, his 1983 novel about the Creed family, recent Maine transports who encounter endless horrors in their new neighborhood, not limited to freak accidents, murder and more than a few dead animals.

In the winter of 1952, London was struck by two killers: One, the Great Smog that killed thousands, and the other, John Reginald Christie, who murdered at least six women. Drawing on extensive interviews and archival research, Dawson recounts the intersection of these two brutal forces and their lasting impact on modern history.

Locke was a writer and producer on Fox’s Empire, and her second novel (after Black Water Rising) is part murder mystery, part historical fiction. The Cutting Season is a heart-pounding thriller that interweaves two murder mysteries—one on Belle Vie, a historic landmark in the middle of Lousiana’s Sugar Cane country, and one involving a slave gone missing more than one hundred years earlier.

If your favorite thing about The Girl on the Train was the train, you’re in luck. This classic is the original railway murder mystery, telling the story of passengers on the same train who somehow agree to commit each other’s murders. Read it, then invite your book club over to watch the Hitchcock film.

Antoinette Conway is a newbie detective looking for an interesting case. What she gets is an open-and-shut lovers' quarrel. That is, until her colleagues start acting strangely, and someone shadowy is lurking outside her house…

This one is super short, but super scary. Set in Italy during carnival season, this terrifying tale concerns revenge and being buried alive. Told from the perspective of the murderer, it’s cold and vengeful and will make you pray you never piss anyone off as much as the story’s victim did. Hepworth adds, "All of Edgar Allen Poe's works are wonderful, but the Cask of Amontillado is definitely a top favorite for me. The slow realization of what is happening is such a good reveal. And great if you want to indulge in a taste of spooky season without taking up a full weekend."

Get ready for some serious twists and turns. In this 2018 thriller, a woman who is making dinner and waiting for her husband to come home gets a disturbing phone call, then abruptly wakes up in the hospital, with no memory of what happened next. The police suspect she was up to something, her husband doesn't believe it and the rest of the people in her life aren't so sure. Lapena's smart and suspenseful novel will have you believing so many different points of view, you'll never see the ending coming.

Another true crime masterpiece, this one about a mysterious stranger, a secret love affair and a dead body—all set against Savannah, Georgia’s high-society in the early 1980s. All in all, a Southern Gothic epic that Berendt unravels with rich, obsessively researched detail.

A gothic novella about two young, possessed children. James wrote this spooky story in 1898 and it’s just as horrifying today. It’s sinister and weird and blurs the lines between sanity and insanity a little too well.

If ever there was a good time for a feminist revenge fantasy, I'm pretty sure this is it. Three sisters—Grace, Lia, and Sky—have been raised in total isolation on an island and taught that men are the enemy. In fact, they’ve only ever seen one—their father, King. But one day, King disappears and two men and a boy wash up on the island, and the girls are caught up in an intense psychological game. It’s a strange, dystopian tale, but I promise you’ll get deeply invested in their fate.

Creepy thriller, anyone? When a woman named Kat wakes up from a coma, she sees Jude, her twin sister. Jude’s face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident, and as she tries to make sense of things, she thinks Jude will provide all the answers. Jude, for her part, sees the situation as an opportunity to give her sister a brand-new past that’s worlds away from their actual lives. But if everything was so perfect, who are the mysterious people following Kat? And why is she having uncontrollable flashes of violent anger? Duped by the one person she trusted, Kat begins to investigate what Jude has been telling her, without having any idea of the Pandora’s box she’s opening.