The Best New Horror Books for Book Clubs

In 1920s Florida, a young girl made a wish for a friend that simultaneously thrust her into stardom. Decades later, her grandson, now a filmmaker himself, takes his family to Mazywood, his grandmother’s California retreat, when a major film project falls through. But wishes are tricky things. There’s a legacy of painful memories in the forests surrounding Mazywood, and they aren’t the only thing haunting the cabin: a beast stalks these woods. Soon, Johnny and his family are fighting for their lives to survive the very thing that helped make his grandmother famous. —Rachel Brittain

This debut is getting a ton of buzz. It follows Martha, a stealth trans woman—even her husband doesn’t know she’s trans. When she develops a mysterious chronic illness and insatiable cravings, she tries an experimental treatment. But the most surprising change her body goes through is that she’s inexplicably, undeniably pregnant. This body horror novel is being pitched as Rosemary’s Detransition, Baby. —Danika Ellis

From the award-winning author of sci-fi bestseller The Space Between Worlds comes a fresh take on the haunted house. The house in question is not quite what you’d expect from something haunted. It stops Tobias from smoking, gets Avery more in touch with her emotions, and quells her best friend Shantell’s anxiety—even after having lost her father, mother, and brother. The sanctuary Avery hoped this inherited house to become seems more and more possible. But there is something to the calm. Something so disconcerting that it is a comfort when the trio discovers they’re not alone in the house. Something that goes all the way back to 170 years ago, when a daughter of the Confederacy thought to build a house where nothing bad ever happened. —Erica Ezeifedi

If Cañas’s name sounds familiar, that’s likely because you know of her adult horror novels, including The Hacienda. She’s now trying her hand at YA, bringing her skills at writing Gothic horror to a new audience.

Minerva Treviño lives in a politically violent city in a home where she’s mistreated and abused. At 16, she’s had enough and runs away, taking a job as a lady’s maid to a wealthy widow–someone who happens to agree with the deposed viceroy who made Minerva’s home community so difficult.

Minerva is happy with the job, though. She’s finally not hungry, and it doesn’t hurt that her employer has a house warmed by magical crystals. But then the viceroy comes back into power, and even though Minerva’s employer is happy about this, she retreats to a mountainside home to wait out the bloodshed. Minerva’s with her employer and family, but being in this home feels anything but safe–and it’s not just the other scheming and cruel servants and family members. There are restless spirits here, too, promising anything but safety. —Kelly Jensen

The first Never Whistle at Night anthology was a chilling and brilliant success, and now, the editors are back to gift us more gruesome and delightful dark fiction. Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. have compiled a rockstar lineup of Indigenous authors for this anthology of horror stories. These stories range from the supernatural to the everyday horrors Indigenous people and marginalized communities experience under colonialist rule. This is a perfect book for discovering new talent and experiencing veteran writers crafting the hell out of horror in their element—a perfect read for your Halloween season TBR. —Lyndsie Manusos

Inspired by the real Walter White, who posed as a white man to uncover lynchings, American Nightmare’s Walter White is recruited by the NAACP to infiltrate racist organizations. Then a new chapter of the KKK, and one man (a butcher) who can see past White’s disguise, make his spying much deadlier. —Erica Ezeifedi

This debut gothic horror novel set in nineteenth-century Brazil follows a young pregnant woman who finds herself in the care of a strange doctor after a carriage accident leaves her injured. The man she hoped would soon be her husband is with her, but he’s no longer the charming man she remembers. He’s quiet and obsessed, slowly unraveling before her eyes. The men tending to her are hiding dark secrets, and if she can’t uncover them and escape this house, she might find herself stuck in their web of deceit forever. —Rachel Brittain

Mexican American and Indigenous novelist and poet Jennifer Givhan has been killing it in the horror game (Salt Bones, River Women, River Demon), and I’m thrilled to see her latest comped to greats like Stephen Graham Jones, Gabino Iglesias, and Carmen Maria Machado. Inspired by true events, it’s the story of Fortuna, a mother who moves her family to a better neighborhood across the Rio Grande in hopes of outrunning a violent family curse, and Jeanette, a detective who’s spent decades chasing the ghosts of her murdered cousins. Fortuna and Jeanette’s paths collide when a body is found in this Chicanified remix of the legend of the headless woman. —Vanessa Diaz

This historical queer gothic horromance is set in 1968 Oakland. Violeta Miramontes, heiress to Spanish colonial wealth, is stricken with a mysterious illness. Natalia Fuentes thinks it’s dark magic, and she works to get close to Violeta, hoping for a handsome reward. This is a delicious novella that celebrates the working class. It’s also one for people who love a creepy doll (it’s me, I’m people). —Isabelle Popp

Yes to queer Southern Gothic horromance! This story follows Judith, aka Jude, who escaped an abusive home and found herself a measure of peace as a wisewoman living in a decrepit old haunted house. Then a beautiful and mysterious woman shows up on her doorstep and turns her life upside down. It’s a supremely satisfying book about the all-consuming nature of desire, but do check the content notes for topics you may wish to avoid. —Isabelle Popp