31 Books For Halloween:
Scary Stories to Tell… 
October 2025
In the Future
Cold Eternity
by S. A. Barnes

"Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth's most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago...The cryo program, created by trillionaire tech genius Zale Winfeld, is long defunct, and the AI hologram "hosts," ghoulishly created in the likeness of Winfeld's three adult children, are glitchy. The ship feels like a crypt, and the isolation gets to Halley almost immediately. She starts to see figures crawling in the hallways, and there's a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents. It's not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from..."
The unworthy : a novel
by Agustina Marâia Bazterrica

In a dystopian convent sheltering women from a climate-ravaged world, a narrator yearning to ascend within the Sacred Sisterhood confronts her forgotten past and unsettling truths when a mysterious stranger breaches the convent's walls.
The scourge between stars
by Ness Brown

Acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jaclyn Albright, tasked with keeping the last of humanity alive, reaches her breaking point when a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in a gruesome, bloody fashion and must hunt down this intruder to make it back to their solar system alive.
Overgrowth
by Mira Grant

Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her.
Titan of the stars
by E. K. Johnston

Celeste is optimistic for the Titan's maiden voyage from Earth to Mars, while Dominic feels trapped on his dad's ship, and ancient aliens displayed for entertainment are released through an act of sabotage, in a science fiction horror story.
By the Sea
Polybius
by Collin Armstrong

"When Polybius-a new bleeding-edge game of unknown origin arrives-the dingy local arcade shop is suddenly overwhelmed with players fighting for time on the machine. Seemingly overnight, a virus-like epidemic grips Tasker Bay while a violent coastal storm rolls in, isolating it from the outside world. People begin experiencing fits of anger, paranoia, and hallucinations-no one can be trusted. After a grisly act of violence goes unsolved, the town descends into chaos. Is the arrival of this mysterious game and the disorder in Tasker Bay a coincidence?"
Sphere
by Michael Crichton

Four American scientists are summoned in great secrecy to the South Pacific to investigate a giant spacecraft at least three hundred years old.
The deep
by Alma Katsu

Surviving the sinking of the Titanic, Annie takes a job as a nurse on the Britannic before encountering a fellow survivor who forces her to reckon with past demons. By the award-winning author of The Hunger.
The night birds
by Christopher Golden

An atmospheric horror novel by a New York Times best-selling author is set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, Texas.
In Your (Haunted?) House
House of monstrous women
by Daphne Fama

In 1986 Philippines, Josephine accepts an invitation to a childhood friend's eerie, labyrinthine house to play a game that promises her heart's desire, only to find herself trapped in a deadly contest where winning may cost her blood.
A house with good bones
by T. Kingfisher

Warned by her brother that their mother seems“off,” Sam visits and discovers a once-cozy home with sterile white walls, a her mom a jumpy, nervous wreck and a jar of teeth hidden in the rosebushes.
The September house
by Carissa Orlando

Determined to stay in her dream home—a haunted Victorian in which, every September, the walls drip blood, Margaret, when her husband leaves abruptly, finds every attempt at made at finding him causes the hauntings to grow more harrowing because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
We live here now : a novel
by Sarah Pinborough

"Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house-and a marriage-gone terribly wrong. After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move from London to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous, striking-and to Emily, something about it feels deeply wrong. Old boards creak at night, fires go out, and books fall from the shelves, and all of it stems from the terrible presence she feels in the third-floor room. But these things happen only when Emily's alone, so are they happening at all?"
Strange houses
by Uketsu

"From the bestselling author of the wildly inventive Strange Pictures and a phenomenon in Japan-unnatural layouts, trap doors, windowless rooms- a sinister conspiracy is concealed within a house's warped and unsettling floor plans When a writer fascinated by the macabre is approached by an acquaintance, he finds himself investigating an eerie house for sale in Tokyo. At first, with its bright and spacious interior, it seems the perfect first home. But upon closer inspection, the building's floor plans reveal a mysterious "dead space" hidden between its walls. Seeking a second opinion, the writer shares the floor plans with his friend Kurihara, an architect, only to discover more unnerving details throughout. What is the true purpose behind the house's disturbing design? And what happened to the former owners who disappeared without a trace? When a body suddenly appears and a young woman reaches out about a second house, it soon becomes clear that the writer and his friend may be in over their heads."-- Provided by publisher
In the Woods
Imaginary friend
by Stephen Chbosky

A highly anticipated follow-up to The Perks of Being a Wallflower finds a single mother's desperate efforts to escape an abusive relationship thrown into turmoil by her son's disappearance and reappearance days later with an imaginary friend.
In the house in the dark of the woods
by Laird Hunt

A Puritan woman goes missing deep in the woods of colonial New England, and soon must face the supernatural horrors that her people had only imagined up until then.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Camp Damascus
by Chuck Tingle

Situated high up in the mountains, Camp Damascus offers a sin-free and“saved” life to its ultra-conservative Christian patrons as the self-proclaimed“most effective” gay conversion camp in America, while hiding a host of very unholy secrets. 
The staircase in the woods
by Chuck Wendig

Twenty years after a childhood friend vanished on a mysterious staircase in the woods, a group of former high school friends reunites to uncover the truth, facing the dark secrets and horrors that await beyond the staircase.
In… a Knockoff IKEA?
Horrorstör
by Grady Hendrix

After strange things start happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, three employees volunteer to work an overnight shift to investigate, but what they discover is more horrifying than they could have imagined.
In the Dark
Whistle : a novel
by Linwood Barclay

A woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.
Old soul : a novel
by Susan Barker

Strangers Jake and Mariko realize their lost loved ones both knew the same beguiling woman, and when Jake gathers testimonies of shattered souls around the world who knew her, he finds dying sculptor Theo, who might know who, or what, she is.
Victorian psycho : a novel
by Virginia Feito

In Grim Wolds, England, Winifred Notty takes on the role of governess at Ensor House, where she must navigate the twisted dynamics of the dysfunctional Pounds family while suppressing her own violent past; as Christmas approaches, she plans sinister gifts for her charges, revealing her true nature.
The buffalo hunter hunter
by Stephen Graham Jones

In 1912, a Lutheran pastor documents the chilling confessions of Good Stab, a Blackfeet vampire seeking justice for a historical massacre, intertwining themes of revenge, survival and haunting truths on the Blackfeet reservation.
When devils sing
by Xan Kaur

Four unlikely allies in a small Southern town investigate the disappearance of a local teen, uncovering a dark and ancient evil rooted in their community, far more sinister than they could have imagined. In a small Southern town, four unlikely allies investigate the disappearance of a local teen, uncovering a dark and ancient evil lurking beneath their community, far more sinister than they ever imagined.
Do what Godmother says
by L. S. Stratton

"A dual-timeline psychological thriller about a sinister white patron of Harlem Renaissance artists known as "Godmother" and a contemporary young Black woman who has inherited what may be a cursed painting."
House of Hollow
by Krystal Sutherland

Reappearing in their Scotland suburb a month after going missing, three sisters with no memory of what happened begin to transform, while strange phenomena begin occurring around them in ways that impact their coming-of-age a decade later. 
Scary Stories for Kids
It's watching
by Lindsay Currie

Josie and her best friends, Jackson and Alison, sneak into a haunted cemetery on Halloween night hoping to prove the existence of a famous ghost and instead get sinister memes on their phones and must discover who is terrorizing them.
The boo hag flex
by Justina Ireland

"Moving to the Shady Pines trailer park, Tasha hears rumors of a terrifying creature sucking the life from its victims after an elderly neighbor dies suddenly, and as more people become unwell, Tasha fears the stories are true-- and that danger ismuch closer than she thinks."
Blood in the water
by Tiffany D. Jackson

"Brooklyn girl Kaylani McKinnon is thrust into an intricate web of lies when a shocking murder on Martha's Vineyard threatens to expose dangerous secrets."
Dread detention
by Jennifer Killick

While in Saturday detention, Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira must work together to survive when unspeakable horrors emerge from the shadows and the evil grows stronger by the minute.
Another
by Paul Tremblay

"When Casey Wilson's parents tell him that his friend is coming for a sleepover, he has no idea who that might be. Ever since the Zoom Incident, everyone treats him like a pariah, and his tics are worse than ever. When Morel appears, he's not like any friend Casey has ever met.  As his normally loving parents grow distant from Casey, they gush and fawn over Morel. Casey knows something is wrong--but with no end in sight to the sleepover, he's exhausted. And in the dark, out of the corner of his eye, Morel doesn't look like a kid at all. . . ."