April's Horror Picks

I like my horror books with a dash or sci-fi or literary fiction. More Stephen King than slasher. My ideal horror mashup would be as if Cuthulu and Wednesday Adams wrote a book together.

Updated June 8, 2023
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Leave the world behind a novel
Alam, Rumaan
Paper Book
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award (Fiction) One of Barack Obama's Summer Favorites A Best Book of the Year From: The Washington Post * Time * NPR * Elle * Esquire * Kirkus * Library Journal * The Chicago...
Something wicked this way comes
Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012
Paper Book
Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope...
When no one is watching a thriller
Cole, Alyssa
Paper Book
An instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "I was knocked over by the momentum of an intense psychological thriller that doesn't let go until the final page. This is a terrific read." - Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author *A Marie Claire Book...
House of leaves
Danielewski, Mark Z.
Paper Book
"Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an...
The lathe of heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-2018
Paper Book
George Orr is a man who discovers he has the peculiar ability to dream things into being -- for better or for worse. In desperation, he consults a psychotherapist who promises to help him -- but who, it soon becomes clear, has his own plans for George and his dreams. The Lathe of Heaven is...
Slenderman : online obsession, mental illness, and the violent crime of two midwestern girls
Hale, Kathleen
Paper Book
The first full account of the Slenderman stabbing, a true crime narrative of mental illness, the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internet On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to...
Strangers on a train
Highsmith, Patricia, 1921-1995
Paper Book
The world of Patricia Highsmith has always been filled with ordinary people, all of whom are capable of very ordinary crimes. This theme was present from the beginning, when her debut, Strangers on a Train, galvanized the reading public. Here we encounter Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno,...
POE: Stories and Poems
Hinds, Gareth
Paper Book
In a thrilling adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's best-known works, acclaimed artist-adapter Gareth Hinds translates Poe's dark genius into graphic-novel format. It is true that I am nervous. But why will you say that I am mad? In "The Cask of Amontillado," a man...
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" : the authorized graphic adaptation
Hyman, Miles
Paper Book
Winner of the 2017 Solliès Comics Festival's Best Adult Graphic Novel The classic short story--now in full color Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" continues to thrill and unsettle readers nearly seven decades after it was first published. By turns...
Attack on Titan. 1
Isayama, Hajime
Paper Book
Humankind is down to just a few thousand people who live in a city surrounded by three concentric walls. The walls protect them from their enemies, the ravenous giants known as the Titans. The Titans appear to have only one purpose: to consume humanity. For one...
We have always lived in the castle
Jackson, Shirley
Paper Book
Shirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secret Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly...
Carrie [a novel of a girl with a frightening power]
King, Stephen, 1947-
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Stephen King's legendary debut, the bestselling smash hit that put him on the map as one of America's favorite writers * In a world where bullies rule, one girl holds a secret power. Unpopular and tormented, Carrie White's...
What moves the dead
Kingfisher, T.
Paper Book
An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller A Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" from Hugo, Locus, &...
The road
McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive that "only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). One of...
Lovecraft country a novel
Ruff, Matt
Paper Book
Now an HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out) The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this...

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