There are a lot of scary things right now: Grocery prices, A.I.'s exponentially evolving capabilities, a looming El Niño winter, and countless horrors committed by our own government. But with Halloween coming up, it’s the perfect time to trade worldly fears for fictional ones—namely feminist thrillers, or page-turners that’ll leave you saying, “Good for her,” or speak to political-social issues in innovative ways.
Luckily, we have a list of heart-pounding nail-biters for you to sink your teeth into this chilly—and chilling—season. Read on for a list of must-read thriller novels spanning everything from dark academia to body horror, all centered on women: a murderous understudy, a femme fatale food critic, a CIA-trained sex worker, and a college dropout who will go to great lengths just to pay off her medical debt. (Relatable!)
Set against the backdrop of the real-life humanitarian crisis of thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women, this thriller follows a young Anishinaabe woman hellbent on finding out what happened to her missing sister.
After cashing a bad check from a customer to whom she’s sold a magazine subscription, Kay is thrown in jail. What follows is a claustrophobic, stream-of-consciousness exploration of the cell where she’s held, and all the other people locked up with her.
This slim French tome takes place over the course of a single day in rural France, where a man plans a surprise party for his wife’s 40th birthday, when strange, nightmarish events start to encroach on the sleepy hamlet.
Inspired by Ted Bundy’s murders, this true crime novel centers on the survivors of a deadly attack on a sorority house in 1978. Decades later, they join forces with a woman convinced her missing friend was a victim of the same man to seek answers.
Everyone is about to be talking about this unhinged body horror debut—soon to be adapted into a film by Tommy Dorfman’s production company—about Martha, a stealth trans woman who, against all odds, becomes pregnant.
This gruesome, scintillating, and delectable debut follows a femme fatale food critic with a taste for the finer things in life: food, sex, oh, and plunging an ice pick into a man’s neck on Fire Island.
This best-known work by the renowned British mystery author Ruth Rendell is a terrifying family saga. It follows Faith Severn, whose aunt Vera was hanged for a crime she committed. When a journalist comes searching for the truth of the crime 30 years later, Faith must reconsider an image she has tried to forget: Her aunt, with a knife in hand, walking into a child's nursery.
Winner of the Nobel Prize, this internationally celebrated murder mystery is set in a remote Polish village, where animal-loving recluse Janina looks after the summer homes of the wealthy. When Big Foot, a neighbor, turns up dead and bodies start being discovered, she’s determined to help figure out who did it—but nobody will listen to her.
In Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking first novel, a young amnesiac realizes she's a 53-year-old genetically modified vampire. Whether you’ve yet to dive into the master of Afrofuturistic, feminist sci-fi and horror, or you’ve read her hits, you’ll be wowed by her prose and inventive storytelling in her debut.
This page-turning thriller takes inspiration from the real-life horror of medical experimentation on Black bodies. In this modern take, Lena Johnson must pay off a mountain of debt after her grandmother’s death, so she takes a mysterious job in Lakewood, Michigan, where she’s highly paid to test foreboding medicines.
Catherine Lacey described this breakneck work as “Gone Girl for the Luigi Mangione era.” In this fresh take on the assassin thriller, a 32-year-old sex worker is tapped to assassinate a politician, only to realize they picked her because the government sees her as disposable. What is there to do but seek revenge on an investigative podcast?
A psychological thriller about the brutal murder of a 16-year-old girl in a coastal British town and the disgraced journalist who, a decade later, writes a so-called definitive account. Only, we’re left questioning what is real and what is fabricated.
This classic Gothic horror novel follows a nameless young bride whose life changes when she moves into Manderley, a sprawling estate haunted by her new husband’s deceased wife: Rebecca.
In one of the rare instances where the film is just as good as the book (it’s basically a frame-for-frame remake!), Rosemary’s Baby is the quintessential feminist horror that’s not only about motherhood, but about the lengths Rosemary will go to keep a good apartment in N.Y.C.—even if it means spawning the devil himself.
Inspired by Ted Bundy’s murders, this true crime novel centers on the survivors of a deadly attack on a sorority house in 1978. Decades later, they join forces with a woman convinced her missing friend was a victim of the same man to seek answers.
Even if you’ve seen the iconic film adaptation, you still won’t be able to guess what’s coming in this best-in-class mystery about an effeminate orphan turned murderous grifter on the run.
From an acclaimed writer deemed the Agatha Christie of Japan, this classic mystery was first published in 1958. The haunting story kicks off when the bodies of a couple are found in a rocky cove; signs point to cyanide poisoning, but two detectives sense there’s more to the story, and they’re determined to unravel it.
Kit is getting her big break in the world of N.Y.C. opera with a role in an adaptation of the 1960 film Barberella—at least until her understudy, Yolanda, tries to usurp it. When a murder rattles the production and threatens her chance at a leading performance, Kit realizes just how far she's willing to go.