To help bookstores and libraries share titles in October and year-round, we’ve put together this roundup of 13 books with elements of horror and the supernatural.
A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers
Akashic Books | September 5, 2023
Distributor: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9781636141343
In this anthology edited by Joyce Carol Oates, writers including Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott “explore, subvert, and reinvent one of the most vital subgenres of horror.”
This New Dark by Chase Dearinger
Belle Point Press | February 20, 2024
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781960215109
This debut novel “explores the haunted, broken hills of eastern Oklahoma, where over the course of just two cold days in November, the residents of Seven Suns will each face their own kind of weird.”
Zombie Vomit Mad Libs by Duy Đoàn
Alice James Books | November 12, 2024
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781949944686
According to Tamiko Beyer, “these poems exist on the razor-thin edge that divide the states of waking and sleep, of being high and sober, of living and not living.”
Let Gravity Seize the Dead by Darrin Doyle
Regal House Publishing | July 9, 2024
Distributor: Independent Publishers Group
ISBN: 9781646034451
This novella “is an intergenerational literary horror story featuring a blend of suspense, beauty, and terror.”
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due
Akashic Books | April 18, 2023
Distributor: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9781636141794
In these fourteen stories, “Due further cements her status as a leading innovator in Black horror and Afrofuturism.”
Deena Undone by Debra K. Every
Woodhall Press | October 8, 2024
Distributor: Independent Publishers Group
ISBN: 9781960456137
According to S. T. Joshi, this horror novel’s supernatural motif is “incorporated into a broader tale of searing domestic conflict fueled by love, betrayal, and hatred.”
Caramelle & Carmilla by Jewelle Gomez and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Aunt Lute Books | October 14, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781951874094
Published alongside the 1872 classic vampire novella Carmilla, Gomez’s Caramelle “offers a supernatural alternate history where vampires seek love, laughter, and blood in 1860s slavery America.”
Other Shane Hintons by Shane Hinton
Burrow Press | October 31, 2025
Distributor: Asterism Books
ISBN: 9781941681350
This short fiction collection “follows eight Shane Hintons (not including the author) through the forking paths of a life, where visceral Florida realism meets the surreal and the absurd.”
Perfect Happiness by You-Jeong Jeong
Translated from the Korean by Sean Lin Halbert
Creature Publishing | September 30, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781951971335
This novel is “a domestic nightmare centered on Yuna Shin: wife, mother, sister—and covert narcissist.”
Translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott
Two Lines Press | May 14, 2024
Distributor: Publishers Group West
ISBN: 9781949641592
Martínez’s debut novel is “class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun.”
Creature Publishing | March 25, 2025
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781951971250
This debut novella “explores predatory family dynamics, the boundaries of bodies and home, and how individuals choose to participate in or push back against structures that would harm them.”
Sundown in San Ojuela by M. M. Olivas
Lanternfish Press | November 19, 2024
Distributor: Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
ISBN: 9781941360750
According to Nalo Hopkinson, this horror novel is “a wild ride of brujas and old Aztec gods, chupacabras and haunted houses that gets stranger, darker, and more dire with each turn of the page.”
Pour One for the Devil: A Gothic Novella by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.
Lanternfish Press | March 5, 2024
Distributor: Pathway Book Services
ISBN: 9781941360712
According to Kimberly Davis Basso, “What should be a simple visit by an academic to a Carolina island historical society becomes a gothic nightmare with a Chicago twist” in this novella.
