12 Halloween season books you haven’t seen on social media (bookstagram and booktok are sleeping on these)

Alright, disclaimer, I haven’t read all of these. But, quite frankly, I’m not in the business of not placing a book in front of you, for your consideration, if I haven’t read it. You’re big enough and pretty enough to make your own life choices. Especially when it comes to spooky season, right?

I love a Halloween read. Horror and the spookums are my go-to at any time of year, but there is something extra special about it during October.

So, here’s a list of books I’ve read, found and added to my TBR recently. In case you need something a bit different to those you’ve seen paraded around on TikTok and Instagram. I’ve made it a mixture of more "intense” horror and softer paranormal hijinks.

Here we go. Welcome to your best worst nightmare!

‘The Hollow Places’ by T. Kingfisher

A protagonist called Carrot and a story that promises to be as fascinating as a cabinet of curiosities.

“Recently divorced and staring down the barrel of moving back in with her parents, Carrot really needs a break. And a place to live. So when her Uncle Earl, owner of the eclectic Wonder Museum, asks her to stay with him in exchange for cataloguing the exhibits, of course she says yes.

The Wonder Museum is packed with taxidermy, shrunken heads, and an assortment of Mystery Junk. For Carrot, it's not creepy at all: she grew up with it. What's creepy is the hole that's been knocked in one of the museum walls, and the corridor behind it. There's just no space for a corridor in the museum's thin walls or the concrete bunker at the end of it, or the strange islands beyond the bunker's doors, or the whispering, unseen things lurking in the willow trees.

Carrot has stumbled into a strange and horrifying world, and They are watching her. Strewn among the islands are the remains of Their meals and Their experiments. And even if she manages to make it back home again, she can’t stop calling Them after her.”

‘The Summer that Melted Everything’ by Tiffany McDaniel

Hanging on to the last threads of summer. Don’t play with the devil.

“Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984. The year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil. When a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy turns up in Breathed claiming to be Satan himself, everybody assumes he is just a runaway. But when strange things start happening to the townsfolk, there are some who start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be.”

‘The Ex Hex’ by Erin Sterling

Nom de Plume of Rachel Hawkins (oh, you know the one) this book screams “for fans of Sabrina”

“'You broke my heart, Rhys Penhallow. And we curse you. You and your whole stupid, hot line.'

Vivienne Jones handled the biggest break-up of her life the way that any witch would: vodka, bubble baths, and a curse on her ex.

That was nine years ago. Now Rhys Penhallow, descendant of the town's founders, breaker of hearts and still irritatingly gorgeous, is back. Rhys has returned to the quaint town of Graves Glen to recharge the ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival. But when his every move results in calamity, Vivi realises that hexing her ex might not have been so harmless after all . . .

As the curse starts to affect the magic of the town, resulting in murderous wind-up toys, an outraged ghost, and a surprisingly talkative cat, Vivi and Rhys must put their personal feelings aside and work together to break the curse and save not just the town, but also Rhys's life.”

‘A Dowry of Blood’ by S. T. Gibson

Dracula’s brides as you’ve never seen them.

“Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets.

With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.”

‘The River Has Teeth’ by Erica Waters

Recommended for fans of ‘Bone Gap’ by Laura Ruby and that’s enough for me.

“Girls have been going missing in the woods…

When Natasha’s sister disappears, Natasha desperately turns to Della, a local girl rumored to be a witch, in the hopes that magic will bring her sister home.

But Della has her own secrets to hide. She thinks the beast who’s responsible for the disappearances is her own mother—who was turned into a terrible monster by magic gone wrong.

Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose. Both are each other’s only hope.”

‘Dark and Shallow Lies’ by Ginny Myers Sain

I read and reviewed this one here. Beautifully creepy.

“When seventeen-year-old Grey makes her annual visit to La Cachette, Louisiana – the tiny bayou town that proclaims to be the “Psychic Capital of the World” – she knows it will be different from past years: her childhood best friend Elora went missing several months earlier and no one is telling the truth about the night she disappears.

Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something―her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave.

When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou – a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town’s bloody history – Grey realizes that La Cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood. She doesn’t know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent―and La Cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.”

‘The Haunting of Aveline Jones’ by Phil Hickes

Don’t let the “middle grade” target put you off. This book is curiously spooky and fun!

“Aveline Jones loves reading ghost stories, so a dreary half-term becomes much more exciting when she discovers a spooky old book. Not only are the stories spine-tingling, but it once belonged to Primrose Penberthy, who vanished mysteriously, never to be seen again. Intrigued, Aveline decides to investigate Primrose's disappearance.

Now someone... or something, is stirring. And it is looking for Aveline.”

‘Dark and Starless Forest’ by Sarah Hollowell

A new release for this October! It looks like it will walk the line between horror and fantasy.

“When her siblings start to go missing, a girl must confront the dark thing that lives in the forest - and the growing darkness in herself - in this debut YA contemporary fantasy for fans of Wilder Girls. Derry and her eight siblings live in an isolated house by the lake, separated from the rest of the world by an eerie and menacing forest. Frank, the man who raised them after their families abandoned them, says it's for their own good. After all, the world isn't safe for people with magic. And Derry feels safe - most of the time. Until the night her eldest sister disappears. Jane and Derry swore to each other that they'd never go into the forest, not after their last trip ended in blood, but Derry is sure she saw Jane walk into the trees. When another sibling goes missing and Frank's true colours start to show, feeling safe is no longer an option. Derry will risk anything to protect the family she has left. Even if that means returning to the forest that has started calling to Derry in her missing siblings' voices. As Derry spends more time amidst the trees, her magic grows more powerful... and so does the darkness inside her, the viciousness she wants to pretend doesn't exist. But saving her siblings from the forest and from Frank might mean embracing the darkness. And that just might be the most dangerous thing of all.”

‘Lobizona’ by Romina Garber

Paranormal activity abounds. I love the way this winds personal identity with supernatural explorations.

“Some people ARE illegal.

Lobizonas do NOT exist.

Both of these statements are false.

Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who's on the run from her father's Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.

Until Manu's protective bubble is shattered.

Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past--a mysterious Z emblem--which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.

As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it's not just her U.S. residency that's illegal. . . .it's her entire existence.”

‘All These Bodies’ by Kendare Blake

The grandmaster wizard of YA horror. Everyone loves a Kendare Blake novel. Facts.

“For months, a gruesome killer has been plaguing the Midwest. The murderer’s calling card? The bodies they leave behind are completely drained of blood.

Aspiring journalist Michael Jensen, desperate to escape his small-town life, can hardly believe it when the Bloodless Murders come to sleepy Black Deer Falls, Minnesota. Or that his father, the sheriff, located the only suspect: fifteen-year-old Marie Catherine Hale.

Tiny Marie doesn’t look capable of committing the grisly, inhumane attacks that are gripping the nation. At least, not on her own. With Marie refusing to talk to anyone but Michael, he agrees to tell her side of the story.

But how can Michael trust Marie’s confession when it calls into question everything he's ever known . . . when falling for her lies, may cost him his life?”

‘The Death of Jane Lawrence’ by Caitlin Starling

Gothic inspired horror with hints of faves like ‘Crimson Peak’ and Shirley Jackson.

“Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town.

Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man--one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.”

‘Nothing but Blackened Teeth’ by Cassandra Khaw

This mentions it combines ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ with ‘The Ring’ and I don’t know if I can go there… Without the light on…

“A group of thrill-seeking friends in search of the perfect wedding venue plan to spend the night in a Heian-era mansion. Long abandoned, and unknown to them, this mansion rests on the bones of a bride, and its walls are packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company.

Their night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare, as the house welcomes its new guests. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.”

So, what are you reading this October?

Written by Sarah