Best books to read this Halloween

In praise of horror, Catriona Ward once said of the genre that, beyond any other art form,

it explores those uncharted, deep places we’re really afraid to go to in the waking world.

An acclaimed horror novelist herself, Ward understands the questions it raises about our most impenetrable fears. 

Reading, or indeed writing horror is like stepping inside a dark, chilling room even though every cell in our body is imploring us to leave as fast as possible. It exposes us and provides a language for the terrors that we lock away and bury within ourselves. With Halloween right around the corner, it is the perfect time to round up our favourite horror novels of 2023. Whether it’s body gore, Gothic narrative or a new spin on classic horror tropes, this list will satisfy every morbid taste.

1. Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

It’s only natural that we should start with Catriona Ward, who recently released what we think is her best novel yet. The award-winning author describes Looking Glass Sound as a “love letter to Stephen King”, and the thematic similarities between this psychological horror and King’s The Body are easy to spot. Both are coming-of-age stories about the loneliness of young adulthood, which play tricks on the reader. But Ward, with her knack for capturing the visceral experiences of isolation, fear and pending doom, has achieved something uniquely eerie here. The novel takes us to a New English seaside town, where Wilder Harlow, a friendless 16-year-old with wide, protruding eyes, hopes to make a fresh start after being badly bullied at school. He meets Harper and Nat, who immediately take him under their wing. An intimate friendship blossoms between the teenagers, but their summer days of boating and swimming are overcast by a series of horrific events. The seemingly paradisiacal town harbours the Dagger Man, a mysterious presence who leaves photographs of sleeping children with a dagger held to their throats.

2. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

This impressive debut novel delves into the nefarious underbelly of the beauty industry. Ling Ling Huang skillfully weaves body horror and dark humour, satirising the insidious beauty standards perpetuated by cosmetics companies in the West. The story is narrated by an unnamed Chinese-American woman who, after her parents are caught in a terrible accident, sacrifices a promising career as a piano player to support them in New York. She finds a well-paid salesgirl position at an upscale beauty company called Holistik. At first, the young woman is seduced by Holistik’s irresistible pursuit of perfection and surrenders herself to the company’s invasive technologies. She begins to notice freakish transformations in her body, and little by little, morphs into a replica of her colleagues. It’s not until Holistik’s appalling machinations have poked and prodded at her that she realises what’s at work here.

3. Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Even if you’re not a fan of Westerns, this one is worth a read. Lone Women is an interesting blend of historical fiction, horror and a pinch of fantasy. Written by the award-winning author of The Ballad of Black Tom, it’s another feat of suspenseful storytelling. In his new novel, LaValle leaves the airless streets of New York for the wide, untamed expanses of 1915’s Montana. When we meet Adelaide Henry, she’s on the run. After setting her family’s farmhouse ablaze — with her parents’ corpses tucked inside — she heads to Montana. There, 320 acres of homestead that she’s acquired from the federal government await her. But as much as she wants to reduce the past to ashes, it remains dangerously close, in the form of a heavy steamer trunk that she hauls along on her perilous journey. A fathomless horror is locked inside, which is connected to the death of her parents and people’s disappearances.

4. Piñata by Leopold Gout

At the centre of Mexico City are the remains of the Templo Mayor. Once a grandiose structure dedicated to ceremonies, it was ravaged along with the Aztec Empire during the Spanish conquest. Today, its lifeless ruins speak for the city’s blood-stained history. Leopold Gout’s possession tale, Piñata, is set on the border between modern-day Mexico and its gruesome past. The spirits of the Nahua people, one of the destroyed civilizations, aren’t resting:

The pain of erasure, the fury born from helplessness, and the grief of so much lost had twisted this powerful goddess, this woman warrior, into a demon of revenge.

When Carmen returns to her native Mexico for a reconstruction project, the architect unwittingly stirs these blood-thirsty phantoms from their grudging sleep. She brings her two daughters along and encourages them to reconnect with their origins. Little does she know that 11-year-old Luna’s keen interest in Mexico’s history exposes her to ravenous spectres.

5. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix