Fall books tend to be some of the best books. After a summer full of breezy beach reads, it's time to dig into something more substantial. But with so many literary novels coming out in September, October, and November, it's easy to forget Halloween is the season of horrors — the perfect time to crack open a creepy, crawly tale you could stay up all night reading. Something that's convenient when you're wondering if you'll ever sleep again.
Ahead, we rounded up a few of 2022's most disturbing pages — from page-turning thrillers and horror books to mysterious whodunits to true crime so graphic you'll wish it was fiction. Grab a PSL and your coziest throw blanket. You'll need all the comfort you can get.
The Best New Horror Books And True Crime Reads To Try This Season
Just Like Home
When Vera comes home to the house she grew up in — the one where her serial killer father buried all the bodies — she thinks she knows everything she needs to about its dark history. Yet, somehow, new secrets are revealed.
Reluctant Immortals
From award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a horror book inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature, from Lucy Westnera, a victim of Stoker's Dracula, and Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester's attic-bound wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre‚ as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.
The Butcher and the Wren
Written by the host of the true crime podcast Morbid, this New York Times best seller has two narrators: a serial killer and the medical examiner following his trail. Together, they tell the story of a series of murders in the Louisiana bayou.
Killers of a Certain Age
What do four women who've worked as elite assassins do when they reach 60? Not become coastal grandmothers. After being targeted by fellow assassins on a blowout trip to celebrate their retirement, they quickly find themselves back in the game.
Daisy Darker
Set in a rundown Gothic house on a rocky coast, Daisy Darker tells the story of an estranged family's reunion that takes a murderous turn — and then another and another.
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries
Twelve authors take on the iconic late author and mystery queen, embodying her voice, wit, and style in each of these short stories about Jane Marple — an elderly British sleuth who travels the world while solving crimes.
Spells for Forgetting
After her boyfriend was accused of murdering her best friend, Emery thought she put the worst behind her. But as one strange thing after another happens on the remote island she lives on, the past seems to find her.
Travel tip: Don't ever go to a remote island.
A Lovely Girl
This true crime story takes on the brutal murder of a 10-year-old girl in 1950s Santa Barbara and the trial that followed, which resulted in California's last execution of a woman.
The Other Side of Night
When a disgraced police officer trying to redeem herself takes an interest in the mysterious death of a father, things get complicated when she suspects her ex — whom she still considers the love of her life — is the killer.
Malice House
A woman goes to her late father's remote beach house to clean it out when she discovers an unpublished manuscript of short horror stories, which she decides to have published. But when people start turning up dead in the woods and an actual monster appears under her bed, the stories become all too real.
Lavender House
When the matriarch of a secretly queer family in 1952 dies mysteriously, a recently fired police officer comes to their estate to help the family find answers. He falls in love with the free lives everyone behind its gates lives but quickly gets pulled into its darker side.
A Haunted Road Atlas
The hosts of the podcast And That's Why We Drink take readers on a tour of America's spookiest, most disturbing locations — crime scenes, haunted buildings, and places known for their supernatural sightings — in this interactive travel guide.
The Bird Eater
Aaron Holbrook is no stranger to grief. First, he experiences the death of the aunt who cared for him as a child and then his young son dies in an accident. Filled with sorrow, he descents into darkness until he decides to go back to the place he grew up. It sounds like a great way to face hurt head-on but unnatural experiences begin to fester the longer he remains at home. What happens over the course of The Bird Eater is enough to make you burrow under your cozy comforter.
Salem's Lot
Ben Mears is a writer who's looking for inspiration and redemption in Salem's Lot but his childhood town has a dark secret he wasn't expecting. Only time will tell if Mears is able to face his own darkness to defeat the true evil that awaits him.
The Silent Patient
When the perfect world of Alicia Berenson crumbles after she fatally and drastically shoots her husband in the face, she refuses to utter any words. She remains silent within the halls of the Grove as criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber works to desperately figure out what happened.
How To Sell A Haunted House
When news of her parents' deaths send her back home to Charleston, Louise decides to swallow her pride and make the journey anyway. Faced with the task of selling their childhood home, she and her brother Mark do their best to put aside their differences to make it market-ready. But this home has a mind of its own - one they'll have to outwit if they want to make it out alive.
Then She Was Gone
After the unexplained disappearance of her youngest daughter Ellie, Laurel Mack struggles to piece her life back together. However, things seem to change when she meets Mr. Perfect aka Floyd. When their bond quickly deepens and she's introduced to his youngest daughter Poppy, Laurel can hardly believe her eyes. For some strange reason, Poppy looks just like her missing daughter Ellie and it's driving her insane.
As Laurel begins to feel like her world is unraveling again, she works to solve the mystery the police failed to and even begins to question Floyd's intentions.
Hidden Pictures
Mallory Quinn decides to turn her life around after being in rehab by becoming a live-in babysitter for young Teddy. They develop a quick and deep bond that warms her heart. Also, Mallory adores Teddy's sweet drawings. But when he begins to shift from innocent depictions to grisly ones, she finds herself paying attention to unspoken patterns that lead her to begin her own investigation - one that might help Teddy if his life is in danger.
What Moves The Dead
Retired soldier Alex Easton returns to the family home of his dying friend Madeline Usher. When they arrive, they find that the area seems to be afflicted with something. As Madeline's condition continues to worsen, Easton works feverishly to uncover what ails the Usher home before it's too late.
Chasing The Boogeyman
Trigger warning: Chasing The Boogeyman contains depictions mutilations of young people's bodies.
College grad Richard Chizmar is just venturing back to his hometown when a curfew is set in place due to the horrific murders that have been taking place. Despite being in the middle of wedding planning and building career as a writer, he decides to start tracking the murders as they continue to unfold.
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This post has been updated.
Lead image via Vlada Karpovich/Pexels
