13 Top-Rated Horror Books of 2023
If you’re anything like me, fall is the season you come alive. Temperatures chill, leaves change, and the best holiday of the year is coming - Halloween.
There’s no better time of the year than autumn to read some of the highest rated NEW horror books. Each of these scary books have been released in 2023, and I made sure to feature a wide variety of authors, some of which you probably have never heard of before. After all, though Stephen King is a great horror writer, I’m sure some of us are eager to read some good horror books from new, underground authors.
So what are you waiting for? Read on to find out my 13 top-rated horror book recommendations – each of which are perfect to get you in the mood for Halloween.
1. Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
Average Rating: 4.07/5
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Synopsis:
A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
2. Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Average Rating: 4.10/5
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Synopsis:
A searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down.
They’ll scare you straight to hell.
Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold.
Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed “most effective” gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.
3. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Average Rating: 4.57/5
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Synopsis:
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
Gracetown, Florida
June 1950
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.
4. Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
Average Rating: 4.04/5
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Synopsis:
From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.
When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she’s hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they’ll be safe as they wait out the storm.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing…only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport…and they’re far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.
5. Rouge by Mona Awad
Average Rating: 3.96/5
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Synopsis:
From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.
6. Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
Average Rating: 4.18/5
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Synopsis:
Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.
There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.
Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?
But nothing with fairies is ever simple.
Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…
7. Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
Average Rating: 3.86/5
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Synopsis:
Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.
The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
8. Fever House (Fever House, #1) by Keith Rosson
Average Rating: 4.03/5
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Synopsis:
A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand whose dark powers threaten to destroy them all.
When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client’s refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch’s tail, more of the city’s residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . .
But it’s all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a singer whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall were followed by the mysterious death of her estranged husband—suicide, allegedly. Her trauma has made her agoraphobic, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her son, Nick, has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living working for Hutch’s boss.
When Hutch calls Nick in distress, looking for someone else to take the hand, Katherine and Nick are plunged into a global struggle that will decimate the walls of the carefully arranged life they’ve built. Mother and son must evade both crazed, bloodthirsty masses and deceitful government agents while exorcising family secrets that have risen from the dead—secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to humanity’s survival.
Can you resist the hand? Find an excerpt from the next Fever House novel at the end of the book.
9. Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
Average Rating: 4.21/5
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Synopsis:
From major new storytelling talent Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, a blazing, bodily, raucous journey through contemporary Hawaiian identity and womanhood. “A knockout. Eleven knockouts, one KO for every story.”-Elizabeth McCracken
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai’i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth.
A childhood encounter with a wild pua’a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman’s fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.
Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.
10. The Hills of Estrella Roja by Ashley Robin Franklin
Average Rating: 4.18/5
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Synopsis:
In this delightfully creepy and unapologetically queer horror romp of a graphic novel, sometimes dreams do come true. Nightmares are technically dreams, after all….
When college freshman Kat Fields receives a mysterious email urging her to visit a relatively unknown Texas town with a history of witchcraft, strange sightings, and “devil lights”—glowing red stars that appear above the town’s hills every night—she ditches her plans for spring break and takes a solo road trip to Estrella Roja to investigate for her podcast, Paranormal Texas, catchphrase: “Y’all stay spooky!”
Meanwhile, Marisol “Mari” Castillo, is also headed for Estrella Roja to attend the funeral for her abuela whom she hasn’t seen since childhood, when her mom cut ties with the family and left town. Feeling lost and bored, she decides to help Kat after a chance meeting at the local diner—and, okay, it doesn’t hurt that Kat is super cute.
As the two girls grow closer not only to each other, but to uncovering the dark legacy that the town was built on, they discover that something hungry lurks beneath the strange stars and that in the hills of Estrella Roja, some secrets should stay buried.
11. 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered by Sadie Hartmann
Average Rating: 4.63/5
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Synopsis:
The Ultimate List of Must-Read Horror! Curious readers and fans of monsters and the macabre, get ready to bulk up your TBR piles! Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann has curated the best selection of modern horror books, including plenty of deep cuts. Indulge your heart’s darkest desires to be terrified, unsettled, disgusted, and heartbroken with stories that span everything from paranormal hauntings and creepy death cults to small-town terrors and apocalyptic disasters. Each recommendation includes a full synopsis as well as a quick overview of the book’s themes, style, and tone so you can narrow down your next read at a glance.
Featuring a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Josh Malerman and five brand-new essays from rising voices in the genre, this illustrated reader’s guide is perfect for anyone who dares to delve into the dark.
12. Don’t Want to Be Your Monster by Deke Moulton
Average Rating: 4.44/5
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Synopsis:
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Two vampire brothers must set aside their differences to solve a series of murders in this humorous and delightfully spooky novel for young readers. For fans of Too Bright to See.
Adam and Victor are brothers who have the usual fights over the remote, which movie to watch and whether or not it’s morally acceptable to eat people. Well, not so much eat . . . just drink a little blood. They’re vampires, hiding in plain sight with their eclectic yet loving family.
Ten-year-old Adam knows he has a better purpose in life (well, death) than just drinking blood, but fourteen-year-old Victor wants to accept his own self-image of vampirism. Everything changes when bodies start to appear all over town, and it becomes clear that a vampire hunter may be on the lookout for the family. Can Adam and Victor reconcile their differences and work together to stop the killer before it’s too late?
13. Sinister Legacy by Harleigh Beck
Average Rating: 4.33/5
Find it on Goodreads
Synopsis:
Keira
I was born with darkness in my veins.
My name is Keira Hill. I’m the daughter of one of the country’s most notorious serial killers.
I hide in plain sight. Pretending to fit in. Pretending I’m not haunted by my father’s skeletons.
In two months’ time, he’s scheduled to be executed.
With a copycat killer on the loose, my world is turned upside down when I find myself at the center of the killer’s twisted mind games—the queen on the chess board.
If I want to win, I must embrace my own darkness.
The legacy I have spent my life running from.
I must play the game.
King
It started out as a silly dare. Fuck Jimmy Hill’s daughter. But it quickly morphed into something far more.
Especially now that Blackwoods is terrorized by a vicious serial killer who has his eyes on Keira, the girl who’s quickly slithering inside my veins.
I’m the only one who sees her—the only one who knows how to purge her darkness. The only one twisted enough to match it with my own and offer it back in spades.
The only problem? Keira belongs to someone else.
As if that will ever stop me.
Author’s Note
Sinister Legacy is an 18+ erotic horror novel. This book is very dark and includes graphic sexual content, intense scenes of primal play and CNC, graphic violence, and strong language. A full list of trigger warnings can be found in the front matter of the book. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
I hope you like this list of new horror books! If something stood out to you, let me know in the comments. And if you have any other scary book recommendations, leave them in the comments as well!
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Today's bookish quote:
"When there is no imagination, there is no horror."
-Arthur Conan Doyle
Today's The Office gif: