Books That Kept Me Up Way Past My Bedtime

“It’s just one more chapter,” is always a lie.

You know the feeling. It's late. You have to be up in the morning. You tell yourself you'll stop at the end of this chapter, and then the chapter ends on that line, and suddenly it's 2:00 AM and you're making genuinely terrible decisions about your sleep schedule. No rest for the reader.

These are the books that did that to me. The ones I could not put down, no matter how much my future self was going to regret it. Read them on a weekend if you're smart. (I was not smart.)

But first I was so lucky to get my dear friend Neil McRobert on the show.

Niel hosts Talking Scared, one of the most beloved horror podcasts out there, and he's the author of the novella Good Boy. After five years of interviewing basically every horror legend you can name, Stephen King included, Neil stepped out from behind the mic to write a warm, genuinely moving little monster of a book about a man and his dog.

We start at the very beginning: his dad telling him the plot of Carrie on holiday in Greece, and the Point Horror books he handed out at school until his mum got called in. We talk about his PhD in Gothic studies, his year as a manny in Switzerland, and how he quit his job in lockdown and emailed Paul Tremblay out of the blue to be his first guest. Neil opens up about the imposter syndrome that finally pushed him to write his own story. And he tells me how one walk with his Jack Russell, Ted, gave him the whole plot of Good Boy in twenty minutes flat.

Plus, a sneak peek at House of Butterflies, set in a 1964 New Jersey leaded gasoline refinery and coming in December, and Bad Home, the home invasion novel he's drafting now about inequality, bigotry and violence.

I had so much fun with this one.

So grab your copy of Good Boy and check out the episode on Youtube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Music.

Find all the books below on my shelf here

I simply had to know what was happening. This is the thriller I recommend most for a reason, and "I'll just read to the next twist" is a doomed strategy here, because the twists never stop coming. A perfect, propulsive, sleep-ruining read.

The pacing, the intensity, the mystery, and yes, I suffered for it the next morning. Adams writes the kind of high-octane, never-slows-down thriller that makes going to bed feel like a personal failure. Worth every bleary-eyed minute.

This was the classic "I'll just read one more chapter" that turned into two, turned into five, turned into ten. Oh god, I have to get up tomorrow — but it was so good I kept going anyway. Tremblay builds dread like almost no one else, and this one burrows in deep.

It never stops, which means I couldn't stop either, which is exactly why it's on this list. Cassidy just does not let you catch your breath, and I love him for it (and I loved getting to tell him so on the podcast). Relentless in the best way.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, and I had to know how it ended because I genuinely could not see it coming. This is one of those books that rewires your brain a little. Go in knowing as little as possible, and cancel your morning plans.

I LOVE this book. I really thought at times I knew what was happening, it turns out I didn’t and as it became clear that i was getting doped I had to know what was really going on. I kept saying I’d get to a place where I could put it down… plot twist: I never did.

So now I have to know: what's a book that kept you up way past your bedtime? Reply and tell me, so we can be exhausted together. Solidarity.

Host of Talking Horror Podcast