Now is the perfect moment to create the ideal horror TBR, as fall is rapidly approaching and Halloween and the spooky season vibes are arriving! As you immerse yourself in these spine-tingling tales, picture the crisp autumn air, bright pumpkins, and your favorite fall beverage! Here are 8 most anticipated horror books of fall 2024.
So Thirsty
Rachel Harrison
Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity.
But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live.
Release Date: September 10, 2024
Memorials
Richard Chizmar
1983: Three students from a small college embark on a week-long road trip to film a documentary on roadside memorials for their American Studies class. The project starts out as a fun adventure with long stretches of empty road and nightly campfires where they begin to open up with one another.
But as they venture deeper into the Appalachian backwoods, the atmosphere begins to darken. They notice more and more of the memorials feature a strange, unsettling symbol hinting at a sinister secret. Paranoia sets in when it appears they are being followed. Their vehicle is tampered with overnight.
Release Date: October 2, 2024
American Rapture
CJ Leede
From CJ Leede, the author of Maeve Fly, comes a scorching new apocalyptic novel. American Gods meets The Last of Us in this epic and sweeping story about the end of the world as we know it.
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust.
Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin…
The end times are coming.
Release Date: October 15, 2024
Rest Stop
Nat Cassidy
A young musician finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside.
Nat Cassidy is the author of the acclaimed novels Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings. His books have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, and more, and he was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire. His award-winning horror plays have been produced throughout New York City.
Release Date: October 15, 2024
Candy Cain Kills Again
Brian McAuley
After surviving the horrors of Christmas Eve at the Thornton house, Austin, Mateo and Fiona head to the Church of Nodland to get some confessions from Pastor Wendell and his congregation. Little do they know that Candy Cain is coming to town to wish one and all a very merry axe-mas!
Brian McAuley’s debut novel Curse of the Reaper was named one of the Best Horror Books of 2022 by Esquire. His holiday slasher novella Candy Cain Kills earned praise from Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. The sequel Candy Cain Kills Again: The Second Slaying will be published in Winter 2024.
Release Date: November 12, 2024
Good Dogs
Brian Asman
No one ever said being a werewolf was easy. Take Delia, for instance. She’s spent much of her life fighting against her own nature, plagued by nightmares of childhood trauma, and trying to find her place in the world. Many werewolves are just like her: ostracized by their families, forced to live alone and in secret as they await those nights when the Change overtakes them.
Becoming the den mother to an odd bunch of lycanthropes in Southern California isn’t exactly the answer Delia was looking for. But under the strict rules of the house, they are able to manage the Change safely and hunt without endangering their San Diego suburb. And they aren’t lone wolves anymore, they’re a pack—a family.
Release Date: October 1, 2024
Sleep Tight
J.H. Markert
Father Silence once terrorized the rural town of Twisted Tree, disguising himself as a priest to prey on the most vulnerable members of society. When the police finally found his “House of Horrors,” they uncovered nineteen bodies and one survivor–a boy now locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane.
Nearly two decades later, Father Silence is finally put to death, but by the next morning, the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer is taking credit for the murder and calling himself the Outcast.
Release Date: September 10, 2024
The Haunting of Moscow House
Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva’s ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.
Release Date: September 3, 2024