Horror Books for Every Kind of Reader

I think horror is for everyone. I said, and I mean it.

Because here's the thing about horror that I will defend until my last breath:

It is not a monolith.

Horror contains multitudes. It has romance. It has fairy tales. It has literary fiction. It has books that will make you laugh so hard you cry and books that will make you think about your life and books that make you think about the world. And of course, books that will scare you so deeply you are tramuatized, but it’s okay, because that’s what you wanted!

The point is: there is a horror book for you, specifically, no matter what kind of reader you are.

So I made a list. Seven reader types, seven horror books. These are categories I just invented, validated by nothing but vibes , but I stand behind every single pairing.

But before we jump into that, I interviewed the beloved thriller author Noelle Ihli this week on Talking Horror.

Noelle Ihli is the international bestselling, Bram Stoker Award longlisted author of Ask for Andrea, Grey After Dark, and her latest, The Last to Drown. Noelle writes about ordinary women, on a girls' trip, a late night drive, a wilderness retreat, thrown into nightmares with no way out. Her pacing makes "just one more chapter" completely impossible. We go back to her start as an editor and ghostwriter, and the fifty rejection letters that led her to self-publish her debut, The Thicket.

Noelle opens up about the cover redesign that turned Ask for Andrea into a BookTok sensation, and the real Ted Bundy documentary that inspired its ghosts. She talks about basing Grey After Dark on the true abduction of an Olympic athlete, and how the real serial killer Israel Keyes shaped the stalker in The Last to Drown.

Plus, a first look at her next book, already finished and set for next year, which she says might be her darkest yet.

So grab your copy of The Last to Drown and check out the episode on on Youtube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Music.

Find all the books listed below on my shelf here

If you love romance → read The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Let me be very clear: I am Isabel Cañas's number one fan and I will not be taking questions at this time. The Hacienda is gothic horror with a deeply romantic heart, the kind of book where the longing and the dread are braided so tightly together you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. The prose is gorgeous, the atmosphere is suffocating in the best way, and the romance is the kind that makes you clutch the book to your chest when you're done. If you think horror can't also be sweeping and sensual, Cañas is here to prove you wrong. (And while we're here: Vampires of El Norte is also phenomenal. I will never stop talking about either of them.)

If you love literary fiction → read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I know, I know, recommending a classic feels a little bit like recommending oxygen. But here's the thing: The Haunting of Hill House is genuinely one of the most literary horror novels ever written, and if you've only seen the Netflix show, you haven't experienced this book. The show is great! It's also a completely different thing. The novel is quiet and suffocating and sad in a way that sneaks up on you. It's short. It's perfect. It's the book that made me realize horror is literary fiction, and I'll die on that hill. (Pun intended.)

If you love fantasy & fairytales → read When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Okay, listen. I went into When the Wolf Comes Home expecting one thing and got something entirely, beautifully different. This book has a kind of dark fairy-tale energy running through it, the sort where the rules of the world feel just slightly off, where things that should be metaphorical turn out to be terrifyingly literal. Nat Cassidy writes horror the way I want all horror written: with emotional stakes that feel real, characters you would die for, and a narrative that keeps shape-shifting until the very last page. Oh, and the ending?!!!! Five stars. No notes. If you love the feeling of a fairy tale where the woods are actually dangerous and the magic has teeth, start here.

If you want queer horror → read Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Chuck Tingle is an auto-buy author for me, and Bury Your Gays is exactly why. I had no idea what was happening for approximately the first half of the book, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. It's meta, it's furious, it's wildly inventive, and underneath all the chaos is something genuinely heartfelt about the stories we tell and who gets to survive them. Tingle writes with this impossible mix of sincerity and absurdity that I have never encountered anywhere else. Go in knowing it's a wild ride, and let it take you wherever it wants to go.

If you want something dark and disturbing → read The Troop by Nick Cutter

I need to be upfront with you: this book is horrifying. Not spooky. Not creepy. Horrifying. Nick Cutter writes body horror with unsettling attention to detail and absolutely no mercy. The thing that makes The Troop truly effective, though, isn't the gore, it's the way he writes these boys. They feel real. You care about them. And then Cutter does what Cutter does, and you're left staring at the wall questioning every choice that led you to this moment. This is not a book for everyone. Check your triggers. Check them twice. But if you want something that feels plausible and realistic in a way that makes it so much worse, this is the one.

If you love emotional, character-driven stories (that are also funny) → read Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

Yes, Nat Cassidy is on this list twice. No, I will not apologize. Mary is the book that made me fall in love with Nat as an author. Mary is one of the most emotionally devastating, darkly hilarious explorations of invisibility and rage that I have ever read. I was laughing out loud on one page and weeping on the next. The horror community doesn't talk about perimenopause nearly enough, and Cassidy writes Mary with so much tenderness and ferocity that I wanted to personally fight anyone who had ever made her feel small. If you think horror can't be both emotionally annihilating and genuinely funny, this book will change your mind.

If you want to say "what the actual f--- did I just read" → read Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

I have never read anything like this book. Not once. Not even close. It is the kind of novel that melts your brain a little bit. The horror here is the horror of media saturation, of the ways we lose ourselves to screens, of the slow, creeping realization that the people you love most might not be coming back from wherever they've gone. Clay McLeod Chapman writes with this frantic, propulsive energy that makes you feel like you're the one losing your grip on reality. I recommend it, genuinely, but also: don't come for me if you hate it. It's a lot. It's supposed to be a lot. And some of you (you know who you are) are going to love exactly that about it.

Now I want to hear from you: what kind of reader are you, and what's the horror book you'd pair with yourself? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and honestly, this is how I build my TBR — you all have better taste than any algorithm.

Host of Talking Horror Podcast