Scared To Start? A Beginner's Guide To Reading Horror
Whether you are new to the world of horror or looking to expand your horror horizons, picking up a book can be scary. Much like in film, horror literature has traversed through many phases and stereotypes and branched out to include many subgenres. Unlike horror in film, horror in literature began roughly 3,800 years ago with the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in 1800 BCE, with half of the 12 epics written on stone containing tales of ghosts, murders, rising from the dead, and monsters. Isn’t it astounding that the first recorded written work in human history is half horror?! In more recent years, meaning the last 260, the Horror Novel was born with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1764. Instead of becoming overwhelmed with over 3,800 years' worth of horror stories and literature to choose from, look at it as a finite means to finding the horror book that is uniquely perfect for you!
This guide is designed to help you find your horror niche based on your likes and dislikes. It offers two options varying in fright factor. Whether you enjoy suspense, psychological thrills, supernatural page-turners, or need something light to ease yourself into the genre, there's a horror story out there just for you.
A Beginner's Guide To Reading Horror
The Thrill Seeker: For the reader who enjoys mystery and thrillers but is looking for a little something more frightening.
Scary: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
Casey, a recently widowed actress, copes with her grief by existing in a drunken stupor. In an attempt to escape a streak of bad press, she retreats to her family’s cabin with binoculars and bourbon. As time passes, she befriends Katherine, who is vacationing with her husband, Tom. Casey watches them from across the lake, and it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.
A fast-paced and engaging read that will keep you guessing until the final page. This is not your typical thriller and definitely leans towards the horror genre rather than mystery. Perfect for the first-time horror reader as it has minimal gore and focuses on high tense, somewhat predictable scenes rather than a feeling of unease and darkness.
Terrifying: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars for the murder of her entire family. Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before and begins to realize that everyone in her family had something to hide that day. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find. Who did massacre the Day family?
A beautifully written, slowly untangling mystery that you will not want to put down. Reminiscent of Truman Capote's “In Cold Blood”, this feels like a true crime investigation into a satanic massacre of a family. Detailed descriptions of horrific scenes make this novel perfect for a well-versed horror lover.
The Psychology Inquisitor: For the reader who is interested in what makes people tick. Now put them in a life-threatening, mind-boggling situation.
Scary: FantasticLand by Mike Brockoven
Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where "Fun is Guaranteed!" But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts? Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events.
Because of the incredibly unique formatting of this novel, readers are immersed in the recountings of the key players of the tragedy at FantasticLand. Although it contains some descriptions of body horror, the purpose is to highlight the frightening nature of man rather than paint a terrifying image in the mind of the reader.
Terrifying: The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname―Buffalo Bill―is stalking particular women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the F.B.I. Academy, is surprised to be summoned by the Chief of the Bureau's Behavioral Science section. Her assignment: to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and grisly killer now kept under close watch in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Lecter's insight into the minds of murderers could help track and capture Buffalo Bill.
Although the movie adaptation is infamous, the novel is where it all began and offers a deeper look into the mind of Clarice and Dr. Lecter. Similar to Dark Places, this story is frighteningly believable. For readers interested in the psychology of criminology, this book will enlighten you to the true darkness of the human psyche.
The Witchy Spellcasters: For the fantasy reader who loves a spellbinding tale. Shall we add some witchcraft?
Scary: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic.
What first seems to be a charmingly sweet story about the magic of sisterhood also addresses loss, abuse, grief, complicated family dynamics, and the people that haunt you, figuratively and literally. The fantastical elements are one of the least scary aspects of this book, but our witches still have to face their internal and literal demons despite their powers, which makes for the perfect cozy intro to the horror world.
Terrifying: White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyimi
In a vast, mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the hole punched into its heart. Lily is gone, and her twins, Miranda and Eliot, and her husband, the gentle Luc, mourn her absence with unspoken intensity. The house creaks and grumbles and malignly confuses visitors in its mazy rooms. Generations of women inhabit its walls. And Miranda, with her new appetite for chalk and her keen sense for spirits, is more attuned to them than she is to her brother and father.
A literary commentary on race, familial legacies, mental health, and sexuality all while taking place in a haunted house. Unsettling is an understatement. Read the full review HERE.
The Haunted House: For fans of the paranormal who enjoy watching the slow descent into madness as homeowners come to terms with unwanted guests.
Scary: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who loved her best. Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
The book is packed with horror, humor, fun, and tragedy with an ending you won’t see coming. Not particularly unsettling, A modern twist on a classic haunted house story that is a bit lighter on the horror aspect. Unearthing the past and reckoning with the future are terrifying enough, now add a haunted house stuffed with dolls. Full review HERE.
Terrifying: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
A modern, experimental ode to The Exorcist, this story is told through various channels. Between eyewitness accounts, internet forum discussions about the cult classic documentary, and a family member giving a “tell all” testimony, readers must piece together this eerie tragedy and discover the true cause of the Barrett family tragedy.
The Truth Seeker: For readers of true crime and non-fiction who are satisfied with this already terrifying and fantastical world.
Scary: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.
Terrifying: Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker
In chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases—and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares. During his twenty-five-year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time. As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins. Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves.
This grizzly first-hand account of the study of murderers will shock and terrify. As Douglas breaks down the relatively new study of criminal behavioral science, the darkest parts of humanity are revealed.
The Classic Cinephile: More of a movie person who enjoys the oldies? Give a book a try. Then you can finally decide which is better.
Scary: Carrie by Stephen King
The story of misunderstood high school girl Carrie White, her extraordinary telekinetic powers, and her violent rampage of revenge remains one of the most barrier-breaking and shocking novels of all time. Make a date with terror and live the nightmare that is...Carrie.
A classic cautionary tale that shows readers what can happen when someone reaches their breaking point.
Terrifying: The Hellhound Heart by Clive Barker
In a quiet house on a quiet street Frank and Julia are having an affair. Not your ordinary affair. For Frank it began with his own insatiable sexual appetite, a mysterious lacquered box- and then an unhinged voyage through a netherworld of imaginable pleasures and unimaginable horror… Now Frank - or what is left of Frank - waits in an empty room. All he wants is to live as he was before. All Julia can do is bring him her unfulfilled passions… and a little flesh and blood…
The book that inspired the 1987 film “Hellraiser”, is just as terrifying, disturbing, and sinister as the film… if not more so.
The Romance Reader: For lovers of a good rom-com or romance novel.
Scary: The Black Winter Series by Darcy Coates
Clare remembers the cold. She remembers abandoned cars and children's toys littered across the road. She remembers dark shapes in the snow and a terror she can't explain. And then... nothing. When she wakes, aching and afraid in a stranger's gothic home, he tells her she was in an accident, a crash in the snow. He claims he saved her. Clare wants to leave, but a vicious snowstorm has blanketed the world in white, trapping them together, and there's nothing she can do but wait.
Sure it is unrealistic to find the man of every girl’s dreams during the apocalypse, but a girl can read about it!
Terrifying: La Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost. But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined. When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz’s sleep. Desperate for help, she clings to the young priest, Padre Andrés, as an ally. No ordinary priest, Andrés will have to rely on his skills as a witch to fight off the malevolent presence haunting the hacienda and protect the woman for whom he feels a powerful, forbidden attraction.
Romantic wild west vibes, forbidden love, and a vengeful ex-wife haunting you. Think Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca.
No matter where you choose to begin your horror reading journey, remember to be patient with yourself. Don’t be afraid to put down books you aren’t enjoying. Know your limits and know what grabs your attention. At the end of the day, reading is a form of entertainment and joy. Don’t let it stress you out! Utilize the tools available to you, like audiobooks, ebooks, the library, and local book shops, to help you gain easy access to your next read.
Happy horror reading!
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