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25 Spooky Books Perfect for Fall & Halloween Reading 🎃

25 items

Andrea Reiher

Curl up with a creepy page-turner this spooky season. 🎃 From chilling murder mysteries and Gothic classics to haunted houses, witches, ghosts and books that might actually keep you up at night, these are some of the best spooky books to read for fal...

Ten strangers are invited to an isolated island, only to discover that someone is killing them one by one. This is my favorite kind of spooky read: atmospheric, claustrophobic and genuinely impossible to put down. Absolutely the gold-standard of the ...

And Then There Were None

A mysterious carnival arrives in a small Illinois town in October and brings something sinister along with it. Few books capture the eerie, nostalgic feeling of Halloween quite as perfectly as this one.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

A young bride arrives at her husband's magnificent estate only to find that his late first wife, Rebecca, still seems to haunt every corner of it. The Gothic atmosphere and slowly unraveling secrets make this perfect for fall.

Rebecca

A group of strangers gathers at the notoriously haunted Hill House to investigate its paranormal activity. This is a must-read haunted-house story that manages to be unsettling without relying on nonstop scares.

The Haunting of Hill House

A young woman travels to a remote mansion after receiving a disturbing letter from her newly married cousin. The house, the family and the secrets she uncovers just keep getting stranger in this wonderfully atmospheric Gothic horror story.

Mexican Gothic

A family becomes the winter caretakers of an isolated Colorado hotel, which turns out to have some very unwelcome permanent guests. If you want a book that will genuinely creep you out, this is one of King's best.

The Shining

Something is terribly wrong in the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot, where residents have begun disappearing. King's take on vampires is creepy, atmospheric and especially good during spooky season.

'Salem's Lot

There's a reason we're still reading about Count Dracula more than a century later. Castles, vampires, graveyards, mysterious deaths and Victorian Gothic atmosphere make this essential Halloween reading.

Dracula

Victor Frankenstein's attempt to create life produces one of literature's most famous monsters, but the original story is far more complex than most movie versions. It's dark, surprisingly moving and ideal for a chilly fall night.

Frankenstein

A mother desperately searches for answers when her young daughter's increasingly disturbing behavior appears to have a supernatural cause. This one is for readers who don't just want spooky. They want scary.

William Peter Blatty's Own Story of The Exorcist

Two sisters live in isolation with their uncle after most of their family died under mysterious circumstances. It's strange, darkly funny and quietly unsettling in that uniquely Shirley Jackson way.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

A young lawyer travels to an isolated house to settle a deceased client's affairs and encounters a terrifying local legend. This is an old-fashioned ghost story filled with fog, marshes, secrets and things that go bump in the night.

The Woman in Black

Decades after her aunt mysteriously disappeared while working at a roadside motel, a young woman takes the same job to investigate what happened. Come for the cold-case mystery, stay for the seriously creepy motel.

The Sun Down Motel

Guests gather on a remote island for a glamorous wedding, but old grudges and buried secrets quickly begin surfacing. If you love And Then There Were None, this locked-room-style murder mystery is a great modern follow-up.

The Guest List (Reese's Book Club Pick)

A woman moves into her new husband's remote estate and quickly realizes there may be something very wrong with the house. It's a wonderfully moody blend of Gothic romance, historical fiction and supernatural horror.

The Hacienda

A centuries-old New Orleans family of witches is connected to a mysterious supernatural being with plans of his own. This sprawling Gothic saga is dark, decadent and perfect for disappearing into on chilly fall nights.

The Witching Hour

A woman takes a job as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy family and quickly discovers that their beautiful home hides some very ugly secrets. It's an incredibly fast, twisty psychological thriller that's hard to put down.

The Housemaid

A famous artist shoots her husband and then refuses to speak another word. A psychotherapist becomes obsessed with discovering why, leading to a dark psychological mystery with a memorable payoff.

The Silent Patient

A lonely witch is invited to a mysterious house to teach three young witches how to control their magic. This is my pick for anyone who wants cozy fall vibes, magic, romance and found family instead of actual scares.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Three estranged sisters reunite and bring forgotten magic into the women's suffrage movement. It's an atmospheric mix of witches, history, sisterhood and fairy-tale darkness that feels made for fall reading.

The Once and Future Witches

A woman returns to the supposedly haunted house her family fled when she was a child, determined to learn what really happened there. It's part ghost story, part mystery and full of creepy haunted-house atmosphere.

Home before Dark

What happens to the lone survivor after the horror movie ends? This clever thriller imagines that real-life "final girls" attend a support group together, until someone apparently decides to finish what the killers started.

The Final Girl Support Group

Ancient books and mysterious letters lead to a centuries-old search for the truth about Dracula. This is a big, immersive Gothic mystery filled with libraries, monasteries, European history and wonderfully spooky atmosphere.

The Historian

A struggling young woman receives an unexpected inheritance from a grandmother she's never heard of and travels to a crumbling estate to claim it. A creepy mansion, suspicious relatives and buried family secrets make this a terrific fall mystery.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway By Ruth Ware

A young boy is raised by ghosts and other supernatural residents of a graveyard after losing his family. It's eerie, imaginative and surprisingly warm, making it a great Halloween read when you want spooky rather than terrifying.

The Graveyard Book