Fantasy may be in our name, but there are plenty of horror fans amongst the team, and it wouldn’t be October if we didn’t treat you to big old list of our favourite spooky reads – RIP your TBR!

We’ve gathered the team together and asked them to share their spooky recommendations; they didn’t necessarily have to be horror, it could be witchy, supernatural, dark academia, haunted house, murder mystery, dark fantasy or even just a book filled with monsters. Whatever they thought would be perfect for this season. Where applicable, book titles are linked to reviews.

Let’s see what they came up with…

Vinay

My tastes on the spooky/ horror side run mostly towards the atmospheric side of things. I like the level of dread to seep into my books rather than it be overtly horror.

A couple that really stand out from that in recent times have been Cold Eternity by SA Barnes and Ascension by Nicholas Binge.

Cold Eternity is pretty much like a haunted house in space with vengeful spirits in the guise of holovids looking for revenge but mostly closure. The dread just pulls you in and it gets increasingly creepier, weirder and darker.

Ascension brings together one of my favorite literary narrative device, the epistolary format to tell the tale of a mysterious object that can warp reality and the set of human experts who want to explore its mysterious before falling prey to the object/ tower’s machinations. I love those kind of books with Sphere by Michael Crichton and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer as stellar examples of this and Ascension slots right into that category.

Gunmetal Gods, Zamil Akhtar’s Middle Eastern set fantasy series starter is just fantasy enough to hide the eldritch horror lurking within it. While the leads themselves commit numerous horrors, the fleeting moments of the Lovecrafian inspired godly horrors really make for a chilling read and is a recent one I would love to add to the set of recommendations

Kat

I’ve definitely upped the level of spooky in my reading in the last couple of years and my favourites have to be:

Slewfoot by Brom – historical folk horror, a lonely housewife near Salem makes a deal with the monster in the woods to survive the rampant misogyny and religious zealotry of a town not far from Salem in the heat of the witch trials. Brom’s illustrations absolutely nail the unsettling creature horror of this story and the way he writes feminine rage and vindication in this novel is a drug like no other.

What Feasts at Night by T Kingfisher – historical folk horror. Second in the series, our protagonist returns to their home to find it changed as a local legend has seemingly begun to haunt the village. A great portrayal and then upheaval of domesticity that managed to pick the exact trope that seriously freaks me out. A whole host of characters that are easy to root for and yet still hard to trust.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns – contemporary folk horror (are we sensing a theme yet??). A young Cree woman is haunted by a traumatic event in her past that severed her ties with her family. As creepy occurrences and horrific dreams begin to plague her, she must reconnect with them to find the answers. This was such a great portrayal of how complicated families can be and how perceptions get warped over time, with a hefty dose of seriously unsettling creature horror.

RSL

Spooktober BEGINS:

Thomas Ligotti —  My Work is Not Yet Done. Probably one of the first iterations of corporate horror, written while Ligotti was working at an editorial office, plagued by the boring mundanity of late capitalism that banalises terror. (bonus, Teatro Grottesco if you want more!) 

Michael Wehunt — The Inconsolables. Quiet, eerie, a milky fog of dream and slow revelatory dread. This collection has it all. 

Emma E. Murray —  Shoot Me in the Face on a Beautiful Day. Beautiful prose with the grim reality of neglect, abuse, and murder. 

Ivy Grimes —  Glass Stories. Jackson meets Flannery O’Connor, Grimes slowly moulds an entire new mythology of dreamy, feverish anxieties that all rely on the recurring motif of glass. 

Nils 

My recommendations are going to be more on the atmospheric, Gothic, fantasy and horror blend side because that’s my personal favourite type of spooky reads. 

The Silent Companions/House of Splinters by Laura Purcell – these are fantastic historical haunted house novels that drip with an eerie and unsettling atmosphere.

So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison – this is definitely for fans of vampire novels, or anyone who wants some feminist horror. Harrison always delivers messy and unhinged female characters and I am here for it! 

Grave Empire by Richard Swan – this is a blend of supernatural horror and fantasy which doesn’t shy away from a little bit of goriness. If you’re looking for some supernatural fantasy, I would recommend all of Swan’s books.

The Way Up is Death by Dan Hanks – this is a fantasy mystery where the horror and death toll builds the further you read. It is filled with tension because no character is ever safe. 

Mothtown by Caroline Hardaker – this is an atmospheric and melancholic tale which is both unsettling and heartbreaking throughout. I would say the horror is rather subtle here and is more conveyed through the themes of the book rather than anything else. 

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed – this is a dark fairytale-esque novella with some pretty gory scenes. If you’re looking for a short read for Halloween or wanting something similar to a Brother’s Grimm tale then this is it.

Monstrous Tales anthology – this is a collection of short stories that centre around the British Isles and focuses on folklore surrounding mythical beasts and demons. My personal favourite stories were by Sunyi Dean and Stuart Turton. 

Emma 

While the majority of what I read features monsters quite heavily, I’ve picked a few out that are perfect for the most wonderful time of the year.

Spread Me by  Sarah Gailey. Imagine “The Thing” but make it smutty. That’s this book in a nutshell. Prepare to be intrigued, horrified and somewhat aroused. 

Lights Out by Navessa Allen. I can’t bring myself to watch home invasion horror films, that’s one of my biggest fears so reading this had me a bit unnerved, but I can’t say I regretted it. Masks, creepy stalkers and mafia dealings, this has it all. Oh and it’s real spicy. 

The Grimdale Graveyard Mysteries series by Steffanie Holmes – Dear reader, I binged this so hard. More of a cosy romance “why choose” with three ghost boyfriends, a crumbly old house, a graveyard and a lot of mysteries. Perfect to snuggle down with, pumpkin spice latte in hand and a blanket or two. 

Gray

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite. Confronted with an audience obsessed with romanticising vampires in horror, Brite gave the readers exactly what they wanted. A romance between serial killers, and their victims. Often imitated, never matched. This career defining book was the birth of the splatterpunk movement.

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. An entirely alien intelligence slips through into our plane of existence, creeps over and peers through your window so that it can understand humanity and know how to interact with it. The intelligence sees you bent over your lover’s lap, getting spanked. This is now the sum of this godlike entity’s understanding of how humans work. From this foundation of pain as the greatest gift that can be bestowed, a story of betrayal and lust unfolds as the human players prove just as monstrous as the Engineer.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is, technically a work of sci-fi horror but all of the terror crammed into the stygian darkness of this story comes from the reality it reflects. What is frightening about this book is not the possibility of ghosts and monsters, it is the awful reality of cave exploration and the very real, and well-researched outcomes that placing a human body into a place completely hostile to its survival can produce.

Jonathan

Fuck yeah, spooky season! The most magical time of the year. The time when all of the freaks and weirdos get to crawl out of the woodwork and fly our flags before we get crammed back underground for another year. Horror is a lot like metal – go hard or go home. If it’s not gonna scrape out the inside of your head what’s the point. Anyway, here are some favourites of mine:

Kathe Koja: The Cipher. The all-time greatest work of nihilistic punk rock grungy body horror. Two slackers find a hole in their crappy flat that consumes everything they put in it. From this simple yet brilliant beginning spirals out the most profound exploration of perversity and human desires you will ever read.

Lisa Tuttle: Familiar Spirit. Thank you all other possession stories for turning up, you can go home now. A ghastly and disturbing exploration of loss of agency and control. Tuttle goes where others fear to tread.

Gretchen Felker-Martin: Manhunt. The ultimate splatterpunk gender apocalypse. Felker-Martin’s gore-choked exploration of two trans women trying to survive after an infection has turned all men into flesh-eating cannibal monsters broke new ground for transgressive horror.

Alison Rumfitt: Brainwyrms. Everyone, including myself, thought Rumfitt might struggle to write a book even more urgent, brilliant and viscerally repulsive than Tell Me I’m Worthless. We were wrong. This is a delirious masterpiece of parasite horror that brutally dissects transphobia and fascism in modern Britain. 

Rivers Solomon: Model Home. A haunted house story with a difference. The estranged children of a black family return to the largely white gated community their parents brought them up in on their parents’ death, and begin to uncover the generational trauma of America’s racism. Brutal, challenging and brilliant.

Em Reed: More Bugs. I’ve just finished reading this. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but make it hot. And a brilliant dissection of modern small town ennui. 

That’ll do for now I guess? Remember, horror isn’t just for spooky season – it’s a way of life

Cat

As an Old Goth, I adore this time of year too! Happy orange wreaths on doors, pumpkins everywhere and dark evenings to snuggle under blankets with books. 

Salem’s Lot – vampires. There had to be a Stephen King on here, and I just received the gorgeous 50th Anniversary edition. Genuinely creepy small-town horror that manages to riff on Dracula and make vampires truly scary again. 

I Want Candy by Azzurra Nox – Halloween Witches! While ‘Hocus Pocus’ has its place, this is a more… traditional view of those child-targeting ladies. A short tale that will now forever be in my head when I think about trick-or-treating. Be suspicious of unmarked sweets. 

The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis – haunted house. A recent release, this is a horror movie in book form. Lost teens stumble upon a mysterious house; what could possibly happen? A ride where the author is fully aware of the tropes, making the twists even more fun.

In the Mouth of Madness by Sutter Cane – Lovecraftian end of the world. Yes, it’s a movie tie-in, but a unique one – as it’s about the apocalypse caused by the author himself, and the book exists within its own universe. It sends any readers who dare to pick it up completely mad…

Slashvivor! by Stephen Kozeniewski – slasher. I had to include this, it’s a true favourite! A reality TV show where contestants must fight to survive, this is a knowing romp along familiar horror paths while nodding to other notorious villains along the way. Hugely entertaining with a surprisingly clever heart (literal and figurative).

Beth

This is hands down my favourite time of year! I love the turning of the season, I think it’s one of the prettiest times of year (I’m surrounded by hills and forests, it’s stunning), and I love the evenings drawing in and the cosiness and privacy of that. I feel like our house is an island of warmth and light whilst the weather rages outside. Now, whilst I enjoy atmospheric reads, particularly Gothic reads, I don’t like things that are too scary and will play on my mind too much, so my recommendations aren’t going to be out right scary! I came up with a list I was going to talk about, then remembered we’ve done recommendation lists like this before, so I’ll try to talk about books I haven’t previously!

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson – first up on my list, I love books about witches! And this goes back to childhood, when I had a collection of bedtime stories about witches. There’s just something about how they are women who stand outside the social norm that I was just drawn to. Dawson’s HMRC trilogy is quite dark in terms of witchcraft, think ‘The Craft’, with plenty of violent magic and demonic possession.

Blood Over Bright Haven by M L Wang – Speaking about violent magic, Blood Over Bright Haven has a properly heart-racing, devastating opening. What follows is a dark academia that explores the consequences of magic; not the spookiest book on this list, but in terms of darkness I absolutely think it deserves a spot on here!

An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson – If you like dark academia, but heavier on the dark, then this one would be a good shout. It’s set in an all-girls New England college in the 1960’s, and if memory serves, during the fall too. It’s also really claustrophobic, and very spicy, with plenty of jealousy and toxic relationships. It’s a very moody story.

Cinder House by Freya Marske – This is one of my more recent reads, and if you like spice in your atmospheric reads then Marske isn’t about to let you down. It’s a retelling of ‘Cinderella’. but our Cinderella in this instance dies in the first page and is a ghost. It’s a truly beautiful story, and again, not necessaraily scary or even spooky, but deals with the supernatural and the Gothic in a very clever way.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher – And finally, to keep with the Gothic and retellings, I appreciate Kat has already given us one recommendation from Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier trilogy, but I had to recommend What Moves the Dead. Out of all my recommendations, this is one I genuinely found unsettling and spooky, in the way it explores not just the Gothic but also the uncanny and the grotesque. It’s a retelling of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, but whereas the original was somewhat lost on me, Kingfisher really struck a chord!