The world of horror literature is rich and diverse, offering readers many stories that can cause fear, awe and admiration. This article presents the top 5 horror books that deserve your attention and are sure to leave a vivid impression.
Jenny Kiefer «This Wretched Valley»
This nail-biting, bone-chilling survival horror novel is inspired by the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident, and is perfect for fans of Alma Katsu and Showtime's Yellowjackets. This is going to be Dylan's big break. Her friend Clay, a geology student, has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness, and she is going to be the first person to climb it.
Together with Clay, his research assistant Sylvia, and Dylan's boyfriend Luke, she is going to document her achievement on Instagram and finally cement her place as the next rising star in rock climbing. Seven months later, three bodies are discovered in the trees just off the highway.
All are in various states of decay: one body a stark, white skeleton; the second emptied of its organs; and the third a mutilated corpse with the tongue, eyes, ears, and fingers removed. But Dylan is still missing. Followers of her Instagram account report seeing disturbing livestreams, and some even claim to have caught glimpses of her vanishing into the thick woods, but no trace of her dead or alive has been discovered.
Were the climbers murdered? Did they succumb to cannibalism? Or are their impossible bodies the work of an even more sinister force? Is Dylan still alive, and does she hold the answers? This page-turning debut will have you racing towards the inevitable conclusion.
Tim Lebbon «Among the Living»
Estranged friends Dean and Bethan meet after five years apart when they are drawn to a network of caves on a remote Arctic island. Bethan and her friends are environmental activists, determined to protect the land. But Dean’s group's exploitation of rare earth minerals deep in the caves unleashes an horrific contagion that has rested frozen and undisturbed for many millennia. Fleeing the terrors emerging from the caves, Dean and Bethan and their rival teams undertake a perilous journey on foot across an unpredictable and volatile landscape. The ex-friends must learn to work together again if they’re to survive… and more importantly, stop the horror from spreading to the wider world.
A propulsive horror thriller––fast-moving, frightening, and shockingly relevant―this adventure will grip you until the final terrifying page.
Kaaron Warren «The Underhistory»
Pera Sinclair was nine the day the pilot intentionally crashed his plane into her family's grand home, killing everyone inside. She was the girl who survived the tragedy, a sympathetic oddity, growing stranger by the day. Over the decades she rebuilt the huge and rambling building on the original site, recreating what she had lost, each room telling a piece of the story of her life and that of the many people who died there, both before and after the disaster. Her sister, murdered a hundred miles away. The soldier, broken by war. Death follows Pera, and she welcomes it in as an old friend. And while she doesn't believe in ghosts, she's not above telling a ghost story or two to those who come to visit Sinclair House.
As Pera shows a young family around her home on the last haunted house tour of the season, an unexpected group of men arrive. One she recognises, but the others are strangers. But she knows their type all too well. Dangerous men, who will hurt the family without a second thought, and who will keep an old woman alive only so long as she is useful. But as she begins to show them around her home and reveal its secrets, the dangerous men will learn that she is far from helpless. After all, death seems to follow her wherever she goes…
Josh Malerman «Incidents Around the House»
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There's Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: "Can I go inside your heart?"
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror about a family as haunted as their home.
Gwendolyn Kiste «The Haunting of Velkwood»
The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter–and only one has in the past twenty years, until now.
Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she's just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she's been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?
Award-winning author Gwendolyn Kiste has created a suburban ghost story about a small town that trapped three young women who must confront the past if they're going to have a future.
