7 (Fun) Spooky Books to Read for the Halloween Season
Dealing with the paranormal, necromantic, and downright spooky.
I don’t like horror and I don’t like gore, but I do like spooky books. This list of spooky books is perfect to chill your bones while you curl up with a warm cup of tea.
My specific spooky book vibe is one that is kind of scary, but not a jump-scare. It’s one I could still read at night if I wanted…so long as I left a light on. There is no Stephen King on this list of spooky books. These spooky books contain death, dead things, hauntings, maybe some vampires and werewolves.
If this sounds like your spooky cup of tea, read on.
1. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Since I read Gideon the Ninth, I have not shut up about it, nor do I ever anticipate doing so. It tops all my lists: best fantasy, best LQBTQ+ fantasy, best series, best books, and certainly best spooky books. I recommended it to a friend who claimed to hate fantasy — she loved Gideon the Ninth. I adored the sequel, Harrow the Ninth, and I expect I’ll love Nona the Ninth too.
The story follows Gideon, our titular swordswoman. She is trapped on the House of the Ninth planet, which she hates. She wants to escape. Her lifelong nemesis, necromancer Harrow, receives an invitation to visit the spooky First House — but only if she brings a cavalier/guardsperson. Harrow promises to free Gideon on one condition — she must defend Harrow and help her unravel the fog around the House of the First.
Why’s it one of my spooky book recommendations, you ask?
It features a very heavy dose of necromancy. It’s crawling with dead things. What I loved about the magic system is that it’s underpinned by necromancy, but all different kinds. House of the Ninth specializes in raising skeletons. Seventh House is better at animating dead corpses. Fifth House deals in blood and fat.
Aside from being a really spooky book, it’s a delightful romp through a haunted house trying to kill our protagonists, who kinda hate/kinda rely on each other. There’s a murder mystery. There’s a larger conspiracy theory. There are memes!
2. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Nine must be a spooky number, because second on my list of spooky books is another book about nine houses, Ninth House. The author of the Grishaverse also released this really dark and grim story about a girl who is haunted by her ghosts, both literally and figuratively. Alex Stern is my favorite kind of unlikeable protagonist. She makes horrible choices I disagree with, but because Bardugo does such a good job building up character and backstory, I understand why she does it all.
In Ninth House, Alex is training as a sort of inspector of the necromantic houses at Yale University. She watches over them to ensure they don’t accidentally kill people. There’s tension — Alex grew up poor, basically on the streets, while Yale is full of rich, pretentious snobs. Amongst the chaos, her loveable and very sexy mentor goes missing. Alex investigates, much to the annoyance of the baddies.
This book contains a lot of heavy material such as sexual abuse of minors, drug use, graphic depictions of murder, and sexual harassment, so be ready for that. But it’s also a great spooky book with different types of hauntings. Perfect for a ghostly read.
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
No, I’m not ashamed to include Stephenie Meyer’s masterpiece quartet on this list! I reread the Twilight series every so often, and there’s no better time than Halloween. Lose yourself in these books — which could, conceivably, be called spooky.
I won’t bother summarizing the plot since you should be familiar with it, but I will quickly defend its position on my spooky book lists.
- Vampire murderer out for blood
- Vampire lover originally out for blood, then falls in love
- Vampire coven in unsuspecting small town
- Random weirdo watching our protagonist sleep!
- Life after death
All in all, it’s a great autumn read if you want to feel cozy and maybe believe in the possibility of a world beyond our own.
4. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Speaking of ancient, wealthy vampires falling in love with hapless, clumsy, beautiful-but-unaware-of-it humans, A Discovery of Witches is next on my list of spooky reads for the spooky season.
The plot is superficially similar to Twilight, but there are some key differences. First of all, our protagonist Diana is actually a witch herself. While conducting research at the University of Oxford, she accidentally finds a book that’s been lost for centuries due to her magical connection. Many haunting and spooky creatures are also looking for this book, and they begin to pursue her. Matthew Clairmont, an ancient (and smolderingly handsome) vampire, finds her and makes it his mission to save her life.
It’s got a great touch of the occult plus my favorite paranormal tropes, like witches and vampires. Oh, and the witches and vampire clans hate each other. Real Romeo and Juliet stuff.
The best part is the first book takes place during Sept 18th-Oct 31st, so you can read along in spooky real time! (It’s October 12th as I write this, but I recommend you simply catch up 😃.)
5. Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett’s entire Discworld is worth reading. The entire thing is 40+ books following different story arcs, not all of which qualify as spooky books, necessarily. But one of his novels has lingered with me due to its genuinely creepy nature. That book is Lords and Ladies.
Imagine elves, but they’re evil. They’re not just evil, they’re careless and cruel. They torture humans for fun. They’re out for blood on a Midsummer Night’s Eve, and the only one who has a chance of stopping them is Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven of witches.
It sounds like a caper, and it is. But Pratchett has a piercing understanding of the human psyche that allows him to write deeper (and spookier) than you’d think on the surface. I always curl myself up a little tighter in my blanket when I read it because it’s slightly chilling, the way he describes these elves. You can feel the cold malevolence radiating off the page.
In other words, a perfect spooky book.
6. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
There are two meanings of the word “chilling” and The Bear and the Nightingale accomplishes both. I felt both scared and actually a little cold as I read it.
I’m not super familiar with Russian folklore and mythology, and that’s what made this read all the more compelling. In it, we follow our protagonist Vasilisa, who lives at the freezing edge of the Russian wilderness, where winter is its own personified force. There, she finds she has to fight against the expectations of her family and her village to ally with the forces they fear in order to save them.
It’s sprawling, it’s atmospheric, it’s fresh. New religion clashes with ancient tradition. If you want to scoot a little nearer to the fire and hug your loved ones a little closer, this is the perfect spooky book for you.
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This is the only non-fantasy book on the list, but it’s a real scary one and it’s earned its place on my list of spooky books.
If you haven’t read Gone Girl, this festive season is the best time to pick it up. Gone Girl is one of the books that brought the unreliable narrator trope to the forefront of literature again. It’s packed full of twists and turns, and I don’t want to spoil a single page, so I’ll leave you with this ingredient list instead of a plot summary:
- Alleged murder
- A deeper conspiracy
- A truly psychotic set of narrators
- A famous monologue that made a lot of people feel extremely seen
- Suspense
- A missing-person case covered by the media in a way that is oddly prescient of today
- You can’t really decide which of the protagonists you hate most
In other words, one of the best spooky books out there.
Books are my favorite type of comfort. If you’re like me and you enjoy some spooky books that don’t actually make you fear for your life but do give you a delightful frisson of unease and perhaps a hint of a chill, these spooky books should be right up your alley.
It’s Halloween, and there’s no better way to get into the festive spirit than immersing yourself in one of these spooky books.
If you enjoyed this list, please follow me and leave a comment! I’d love to hear what you think of my list. Did I miss any classics? Are you going to fight me about Twilight? Let me know!
