Halloween Books to Read: Indie Picks for Every Kind of Spooky Reader

Sorcery, the third and final book in Michael W. Huard’s Daughter of the Witch trilogy, finds Roma facing the diabolical witch Salem, who has unleashed a monstrous beast upon the land. Roma must master her own powers, form unexpected alliances and finally embrace the fate waiting for her.

Witches, monsters and a battle fueled by magic and malice? Michael may have known exactly what he was doing when he suggested a Halloween list.

The Last Lunar Witch by S.F. Henne follows Nyssa Thornheart, a witch whose power has always been wild and unpredictable. When it erupts, tearing open the veil between realms, demonspawn begin stalking the streets, people start vanishing, and Nyssa realizes something even darker may have slipped through.

With dangerous magic, demons on the loose, and a witch who may be the city’s biggest threat or its only hope, this one feels right at home in the Halloween pile.

Rise of the Dragonwitch by Timothy K. Clark pulls college student Finley Maguire from New York City into Tir Na, a hidden medieval world where creatures humanity dismissed as myths are very real. A prophecy says she’s destined to stop a mad king from becoming an immortal emperor, sending an untrained Finley into a world of deadly alliances, cunning knights, fiery dragons and beasts straight out of nightmares.

This one brings a little epic fantasy to our Halloween pile. When dragons, mythical creatures, nightmare beasts and a king chasing immortality are involved, I’m willing to wander a little farther from the traditional spooky stuff.

In Ann Paquette’s Cursed Shadows of Greythorn, reports of missing fairies send King Devlyn and High Mage Kyron into the elven realm of Amnestria, where they discover their friends trapped in the nightmare web of someone calling himself the Walker of Dreams. With the help of fairies, elves and spider-riders, they must unravel the mystery of the Cursed Fairies before they become his next victims.

Fairies and elves may not scream Halloween at first, but a Walker of Dreams trapping people in a nightmare web changes things pretty quickly. This is exactly the kind of unexpected find I was hoping would turn up when we wandered beyond the Horror shelf.

Autumn Kaufer’s Kingdom of Forgotten Curses begins with a bloodthirsty prince whose life changes in a single night. Eighty years later, the king’s barrister discovers a reference to the long-forgotten prince and is sent to investigate. His search leads to a chateau, a deadly mistake and a price someone will have to pay.

Inspired by Beauty and the Beast, Dracula and romantic fairy tales, this one brings a little gothic romance to our Halloween pile. A cursed prince, an old chateau and something dangerous waiting inside feels like a pretty good place to end our first wander through the Fantasy shelves.

Nicole Zele’s Nicala, A Vampire Story begins with Nicala surviving the man who tried to kill her and waking up changed: faster, stronger, sharper, and suddenly part of one of the most feared species on the planet. When she turns a man against his will to save him, his rage and bloodlust ignite a string of attacks that leaves her caught between furious humans, vengeful vampires, and a pack of Lycans with their own reasons to hate her.

Vampires, Lycans, bloodlust, and a city edging toward open violence bring plenty of teeth to our Halloween pile. This one isn’t about what might be lurking in the shadows. Nicala already knows exactly what’s out there.

In Ina Harrington’s Death Becomes Her, Rose Walker has always been able to see the dead. She heads to Banecroft University hoping to leave that part of her life behind, but when her roommate Eleanor dies under mysterious circumstances, Rose finds herself haunted by her ghost and pulled into the search for what really happened. As another student is attacked, restless spirits, ancient magic and secrets from Rose’s own past begin closing in.

A haunted college student, a ghost who may want answers or revenge, and a murder that refuses to stay buried give us a different kind of supernatural story for the Halloween pile. This one brings the ghosts, but it also gives mystery readers something to chase.

Stevie Hosler’s Shadow of Lilith follows Piper Gorecki, the chosen leader of the vampire hunters, as she faces covens whose bloodlust is becoming increasingly difficult to control. Ancient vampires are appearing more often, the Council of Elders seems strangely unconcerned, and Piper is convinced they’re hiding something. Meanwhile, her own encounters with death have left her haunted by nightmares and keeping secrets of her own.

This one takes our vampire theme to a much bloodier place. Ancient vampires, hunters, nightmares and a growing sense that something is very wrong make Shadow of Lilith an easy addition to the Halloween pile.

In Brian Joseph Bechtel’s The Night Watchmen, four friends test their courage by spending the night on haunted grounds at a condemned property with a long and disturbing history. Once inside, they relive the misfortunes of those who came before them through ten short stories, all while facing the malevolent forces that still inhabit the house.

A condemned house, four friends who willingly go inside after dark, and ten haunted tales waiting for them once they do? This is the point in our Halloween pile where I’m perfectly happy to stay home and read about their decisions instead.

R.J. Field’s The Malediction takes us to Parsons, a quiet mountain town in Montana with a troubled history, old myths and secrets buried beneath its picture-perfect surface. Reece Henderson is expecting an ordinary summer break until a new arrival begins stirring up stories and reopening old wounds, leaving Reece and his friends fighting for more than the summer they thought they were going to have.

“Old myths don’t die. They wait.” That pretty much earns its place in the Halloween pile all by itself. A seemingly peaceful town with something ugly buried underneath gives us that slow-creeping kind of horror where you know something is coming long before you know exactly what it is.

Andrew Harrowell’s Who Watches the Horror? begins when Frank Post wakes to discover he is no longer in the prison cell where he has spent the last twenty-five years. Freedom, however, isn’t what’s waiting for him. Instead, Frank and six strangers are forced through a series of torturous trials while a mysterious figure known only as the Controller watches their every move.

By this point, we’ve had haunted houses and old myths waiting beneath a quiet town. This one takes us somewhere much more sinister, with strangers trapped together, life-or-death choices and someone watching it all unfold. If you came to the Halloween pile looking for actual horror, we have officially arrived.

In Megan G. Hart’s Hollow Faith, Ava Chapman is grieving the loss of her husband when a charismatic new pastor arrives in her quiet Georgia town and a series of fires begins. As each blaze moves closer to home, sermons hide secrets and whispers turn to panic. Ava and Detective Mark Sanders begin to see the same troubling pattern, leading them toward an evil rooted not in ghosts or monsters, but in the people around them.

This Southern Gothic thriller brings us smoky churches, buried sins, small-town secrets and the creeping feeling that something is very wrong in Pemberton. Turns out we don’t need anything supernatural to keep the Halloween mood going.

Pat Arneson’s The Empty Dark, the second book in the Maguire Mystery Series, finds therapist Abby Maguire trying to settle back into her work after surviving a murder investigation and helping catch a killer. As summer turns to autumn and the days grow shorter in the woods of central Minnesota, Abby’s hope for a little peace disappears when death once again comes dangerously close.

Shorter days, quiet woods and another killer somewhere in the picture give this mystery a natural place in our Halloween pile. No ghosts or monsters needed here. Sometimes knowing that not everything quiet is safe is unsettling enough.

Carrie Ray’s Midnight at Blackwood Creek, the fifth book in The Secrets of the Hollow series, sends the usually reserved Leo Miller out from behind his paperwork to lead a search party after a driverless car is discovered in the creek. Somewhere in the rain-soaked woods, a woman is missing, the water is rising, and Leo has to confront his own fears while trying to find her before the truth is swept away.

A missing woman, a deserted car, wet woods and a search happening as the creek keeps rising gives this mystery plenty of October atmosphere. Nothing supernatural needs to be waiting between those trees for me to be concerned about going in there.

In Abby Woodland’s Dolls Kill, Margo is reeling after being betrayed by both her boyfriend and her best friend when she finds a support group for the brokenhearted. There she meets Lennox and a vigilante group called The Dolls, who are more than willing to help Margo get revenge on the people who hurt her. It feels like exactly what she needs, until Margo becomes the target herself.

This one gives our Halloween pile a sharp turn into revenge thriller territory. No ghosts, curses or creatures here, just heartbreak, bad decisions and the unsettling realization that the people helping you get even might be the people you should be worried about.

In Ruchita Gupta’s The Devil’s Waiting, Eris has always been an outsider, feared for a power no one understands and touched by a darkness she keeps hidden. When the world she knows begins to shatter, betrayal and buried secrets pull her into a journey where angels, demons and monsters collide, leaving Eris to decide whether she can save the people she loves without being consumed by the darkness within herself.

This one sneaks Young Adult into our Halloween pile with demons, monsters, supernatural powers and a heroine carrying a little darkness of her own. At this point, I’m becoming convinced Halloween can find its way onto just about every shelf in the bookstore.

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda’s We Are the Ones Possessed takes horror into poetry with a collection steeped in mortality, murder and death. Serial killers, fatal femmes and poisoners move through grave-inspired verses, turning some very dark subjects into something meant to haunt readers one poem at a time.

After witches, vampires, ghosts, monsters, killers and haunted houses, ending with horror poetry feels strangely perfect. Halloween doesn’t need to belong to one genre, one shelf or even one kind of storytelling, and this collection proves it.