Horror Reads for Your October Book Club

Season of Fear

by Emily Cooper

In the Bavarian village of Heulensee, women feed their terror to an ancient Saint of Fear. In return, it protects them from the monsters of the Hexenwald, the haunted forest on their doorstep. Born unfearing, Ilse Odenwald has felt like an outsider all her life. When the Saint discovers Ilse’s divergence, it levels a threat: she must find her fear, or the Saint will devour her sister, Dorothea—the only person who loves Ilse unconditionally. 
Unwilling to lose Thea, Ilse enters the Hexenwald. She hopes that its horrors will finally unleash her fear and, in turn, save her sister. But during her quest Ilse inadvertently uncovers something more sinister than the monsters that hunt her: a darkness within herself. As the forest closes in, Ilse’s hopes for a normal future begin to slip away, as well as the chance to save not just Thea, but all women in Heulensee.

He’s So Possessed with Me

by Corey Liu

Ren says he’s in love, but Colin knows better.
 
Sure, he can’t remember much about how it all began. But he remembers dancing at a club he and Ren were too young to dance in. He remembers the boys who harassed them on their way home. He remembers a ghost emerging from the trees, and a white hand reaching for Ren through a thick fog. What Colin can’t remember is what happened next. Only two things are clear to him: Ren is different now, and the new guy vying for his heart is not who he claims to be.
 
With the help of two unlikely allies and a cranky old medium, Colin must learn to conquer his self-doubt and save his best friend from a love that could cost him his life.

Hello Sunshine

by Keezy Young

Noah is heartbroken. He returns from Bible camp to find that Alex, his secret boyfriend, has had a breakdown and disappeared. He wishes more than anything that he hadn’t left that day.
 
Sky is determined. She’ll stop at nothing to find her childhood friend, even if it means alienating the people she loves.
 
Izzy is ashamed. She knew something weird was going on with Alex, and she didn’t say anything to her boyfriend, Jamie—Alex’s twin brother. If she had, would Alex still be here?
 
Jamie is angry. Angry at Alex for being gone, angry at himself for not noticing something was wrong, and angry at his long-dead mother, Desdemona, who had problems of her own.

But what if there was something more to Desdemona’s demons? Why is Jamie seeing her ghost? And can he get past his hatred of her if it means finding out what happened to his brother?

So Witches We Became

by Jill Baguchinsky

For high school senior Nell and her friends, a vacation house on a private Florida island sounds like the makings of a dream spring break. But Nell brings secrets with her—secrets that fuse with the island’s tragic history, trapping them all with a curse that surrounds the island in a toxic, vengeful mist and the surrounding waters with an unseen, devouring beast.   

Getting out alive means risking her friendships, her sanity, and even her own life. In order to save herself and her friends, Nell will have to face memories she’d rather leave behind, reveal the horrific truth behind the encounter that changed her life one year ago, and face the shadow that’s haunted her since childhood.  

Easier said than done. But when Nell’s friends reveal that they each brought secrets of their own, a solution even more dangerous than the curse begins to take shape. 

Clever Creatures of the Night

by Samantha Mabry

Something bad happened here.

When Case arrives at a run-down, ivy-covered house tucked deep in the West Texas woods, an ashy haze lingers in the air and the sky is tissue-paper pink. Her best friend Drea has been living here with a few classmates Case has never met, and Drea asked her to visit in a letter dated two weeks ago. But now Drea is nowhere to be found.

Drea’s roommates can’t—or won’t—answer questions, leaving Case to search alone. She finds bits of Drea’s journal hidden in the tiles of the bathroom wall, in a beat-up cooler by the muddy river, and wedged into the frame of her closet door. As Case pieces together Drea’s life in this strange house, the roommates’ behavior puts her increasingly on edge—and she’s not the only one. The animals nearby are lashing out, attacking each other, threatening the humans.

Something bad happened in this house. Something that must be connected to Drea’s disappearance. And if she gets too close to the truth, Case just might be next. 

Our Shadows Have Claws

by Yamile Saied Méndez, Amparo Ortiz, Ricardo López Ortiz

In these fifteen original short stories, bloodthirsty vampires are hunted by a quick-witted slayer; children are taken from their beds by “el Viejo de la Bolsa” while a military dictator steals their parents; and anyone you love might be a monster waiting to strike. The sinister worlds of these narratives are also magical ones, where supernatural beings can be avatars for justice, vengeance, sisterhood, and empowerment. Some monsters need to be slain; others should be embraced.

So, step into the darkness. See what you find.

Dead Flip

by Sara Farizan

Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for pop culture, Halloween, and arcade games. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead, and Maz has good reason to believe he was kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine?
 
These days, all Maz wants to do is party and run away from his past. Meanwhile, Cori hides her abiding love of horror movies and her queer self under the bubblegum veneer of a high school queen bee. But then Sam returns—still twelve years old, while his best friends are now seventeen. What really happened the night he disappeared? And just because he’s back, does that mean he’s safe? To find answers, Cori, Maz, and Sam will need to reveal secrets they never told one another, then and now. And Sam’s is the darkest of all . . .

Mirror Girls

by Kelly McWilliams

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. 

Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie’s beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.

The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.

The Drowning Summer

by C. L. Herman

Six years ago, three Long Island teenagers were murdered—their drowned bodies discovered with sand dollars placed over their eyes. The mystery of the drowning summer was never solved, but as far as the town’s concerned, Evelyn Mackenzie’s father did it. His charges were dropped only because Evelyn summoned a ghost to clear his name. She swore never to call a spirit again.

She lied.
 
For generations, Mina Zanetti’s family has used the ocean’s power to guide the dead to their final resting place. But as sea levels rise, the ghosts grow more dangerous, and Mina has been shut out of the family business. When her former friend Evelyn performs another summoning that goes horribly wrong, the two girls must uncover who was really behind the drowning summer murders—and navigate their growing attraction—before the line between life and death dissolves for good.