As the crisp autumn leaves fall and the nights grow longer, there's a certain magic in the air that beckons us to explore the mysterious and the eerie. Halloween is just around the corner, with its haunted houses, jack-o'-lanterns, and costumes, provides the perfect backdrop for diving into the world of spine-tingling tales and supernatural adventures.
If you're on the lookout for the ideal Horror Books or Mystery Books to immerse yourself in this Halloween season, look no further. In this spine-chilling edition of my book blog, I've curated a list of macabre masterpieces, eerie classics, and haunting new releases that are guaranteed to send shivers down your spine and make your Halloween reading experience truly unforgettable. So, grab a cozy blanket, a warm mug of your favourite beverage, and prepare to be transported into worlds where ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night lurk around every corner. These are the stories that will keep you up well past the witching hour, eagerly turning pages, and perhaps even glancing nervously over your shoulder. Whether you're a fan of Gothic horror, psychological thrillers, or supernatural mysteries, there's something on this list to satisfy every literary craving this Halloween. Dare you venture into the shadows with me?
Title: Mr Moon Light
Author Ben Cheetham
Genre Crime, Mystery
Date Published 2019
Book Length 256
About Book
There’s a darkness lurking under the surface of Julian Harris. Every night in his dreams, he becomes a different person, a monster capable of evil beyond comprehension. Sometimes he feels like something is trying to get inside him. Or maybe it’s already in him, just waiting for the chance to escape into the waking world. There’s a darkness lurking under the surface of Julian’s picture-postcard hometown too. Fifteen years ago, five girls disappeared from the streets of Godthorne. Now it’s happening again. A schoolgirl has gone missing, stirring up memories of that terrible time. But the man who abducted those other girls is long dead. Is there a copycat at work? Or is something much, much stranger going on? Drawn by the same sinister force that haunts his dreams, Julian returns to Godthorne for the first time in years. Finding himself mixed up in the mystery of the missing girl, he realises that to unearth the truth about the present he must confront the ghosts of his past. Somewhere amidst the sprawling tangle of trees that surrounds Godthorne are the answers he so desperately seeks. But the forest does not relinquish its secrets easily.
Title Don’t Look Back
Author Ben Cheetham
Genre Mystery
Series Fenton House series book 1 of 2
Date Published 2018
Book Length 252
About Book
Adam’s eyes swelled in horror at the sight that confronted him. Henry was standing with his back against the front door, pale and rigid, his left hand pressed to his neck. Blood was seeping between his fingers, running down his wrist and dripping from his elbow onto the back of Jacob’s head. Jacob was face down on the tiled floor; arms outstretched to either side with blood pooling around his wrists. There was a faintly metallic butcher’s shop smell in the air... After the tragic death of their eleven-year-old son, Adam and Ella are fighting to keep their family from falling apart. Then comes an opportunity that seems too good to be true. They win a competition to live or free in a breathtakingly beautiful mansion on the Cornish Lizard Peninsula. There’s just one catch – the house is supposedly haunted. Mystery has always swirled around Fenton House. In 1920 the house’s original owner, reclusive industrialist Walter Lewarne, hanged himself from its highest turret. In 1996, the then inhabitants, George Trehearne, his wife Sofia, and their young daughter Heloise disappeared without a trace. Neither mystery was ever solved. Adam is not the type to believe in ghosts. As far as he’s concerned, ghosts are simply memories. Everywhere he looks in their cramped London home he sees his dead son. Despite misgivings, the chance to start afresh is too tempting to pass up. Adam, Ella, and their surviving son Henry move into Fenton House. At first, the change of scenery gives them all a new lease of life. But as the house starts to reveal its secrets, they come to suspect that they may not be alone after all…
Title Our Share of Night
Author Mariana Enriquez
Genre Mystery, Horror
Publisher Fenta
Date Published 2023
Book Length 736
About Book
His father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind. The dead travel fast. Gaspar is six years old when the Order first come for him. For years, they have exploited his father's ability to commune with the dead and the demonic, presiding over macabre rituals where the unwanted and the disappeared are tortured and executed, sacrificed to the Darkness. Now they want a successor. Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar break free? Spanning the brutal decades of Argentina's military dictatorship and its aftermath, Our Share of Night is a haunting, thrilling novel of broken families, cursed inheritances, and the sacrifices a father will make to help his son escape his destiny.
Title Infested
Author Stephen King
Genre Horror
Date Published 2017
Book Length 137
About Book
Four new horror adventures to let you discover courage in the face of fear. To push past the worries of death and try to continue. Could you survive while frozen in your deepest fears? Find out what happens next in the tales of INFESTED.
Title She is Haunting
Author Trang Tranh Tran
Genre Horror
Publisher Bloomsbury YA
Date Published 2023
Book Length 352
About Book
Jade Nguyen has always lied to fit in. She's straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough - at least for this summer with her estranged father in Vietnam. Just five weeks of ignoring the quietly decaying French colonial house he's fixing up, then college and freedom are hers. But soon Jade begins waking up every morning certain that something has clawed down her throat. . . from the inside. Then the ghost of a beautiful bride visits her with a cryptic warning: DON'T EAT. When her father and little sister don't believe her, Jade decides to scare them into leaving by staging some haunting events of her own. She recruits Florence, the daughter of her dad's business associate (and more of a distraction than Jade bargained for) to help. But the house has other plans. It's hungry. A home, after all, is only as powerful as those who breathe new life into its bones. And this one is determined never to be abandoned again.
Title The Ruins
Author Scott Smith
Genre Horror
Publisher Transworld Publishers
Date Published 2007
Book Length 528
About Book
Craving an adventure to wake them from their lethargic Mexican holiday before they return home, four friends set off in search of one of their own who has travelled to the interior to investigate an archaeological dig in the Mayan ruins. After a long journey into the jungle, the group come across a partly camouflaged trail and a captivating hillside covered with red flowers. Lured by these, the group move closer until they happen across a gun-toting Mayan horseman who orders them away. During the confrontation, one of the group steps inadvertently backwards into the flowering vine. And at that moment their world changes for ever...