The Shining cover
Horror The Shining

Stephen King

A family takes up winter residence in a remote hotel -- and the building has its own plans for the father.

4.3 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Family
It cover
Horror It

Stephen King

Seven children face a shapeshifting evil in small-town Maine -- and must return to face it again as adults.

4.2 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Friendship
Frankenstein cover
Horror Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

A young scientist creates a living being from dead flesh -- and cannot face the consequences of what he's made.

3.8 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
The Haunting of Hill House cover
Horror The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson

Four people spend a summer in a deeply unnerving house -- a masterwork of psychological dread and ambiguity.

4.0 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
House of Leaves cover
Horror House of Leaves

Mark Z. Danielewski

A labyrinthine novel about a house that's larger on the inside than the outside -- and the madness of trying to map it.

4.1 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
Rebecca cover
Horror Rebecca

Daphne du Maurier

A shy young woman marries a wealthy widower and moves to his grand estate -- but the shadow of his first wife never left.

4.2 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
Pet Sematary cover
Horror Pet Sematary

Stephen King

A family moves to rural Maine, where a burial ground behind the pet cemetery has the power to bring the dead back -- but not as they were.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Family
Mexican Gothic cover
Horror Mexican Gothic

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A glamorous socialite in 1950s Mexico travels to a decaying English mansion to rescue her cousin -- and finds something growing in the walls.

3.7 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Survival
The Troop cover
Horror The Troop

Nick Cutter

Five boy scouts and their scoutmaster are stranded on an island with a stranger carrying something horrifying inside him.

3.8 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Dracula cover
Horror Dracula

Bram Stoker

The novel that invented the modern vampire -- still more unsettling, sensual, and strange than any adaptation has managed to capture.

4.0 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Survival
The Silence of the Lambs cover
Horror The Silence of the Lambs

Thomas Harris

An FBI trainee must bargain with one serial killer to catch another -- and Hannibal Lecter's help always comes at a price.

4.2 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
Bird Box cover
Horror Bird Box

Josh Malerman

Something outside will kill you if you look at it. A mother and two children must navigate a river blindfolded -- or die.

3.6 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
The Terror cover
Horror The Terror

Dan Simmons

Two Royal Navy ships trapped in Arctic ice face starvation, madness, and something on the ice that is hunting them.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Plain Bad Heroines cover
Horror Plain Bad Heroines

Emily M. Danforth

A cursed New England boarding school, a century of dead girls, and a horror movie that might be awakening something that should have stayed buried.

3.6 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
The Exorcist cover
Horror The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty

An actress's twelve-year-old daughter begins speaking in tongues and displaying impossible strength. The only explanation is the one no rational person will accept.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Rosemary's Baby cover
Horror Rosemary's Baby

Ira Levin

Rosemary Woodhouse moves into a new Manhattan apartment, falls pregnant, and begins to suspect her neighbors have a special interest in her unborn child.

4.0 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
📚 No cover
Horror Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

A dark carnival arrives in a small Illinois town on the eve of Halloween, offering the townspeople their deepest desires -- at a price they cannot imagine.

4.2 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Coming of Age
NOS4A2 cover
Horror NOS4A2

Joe Hill

Victoria McQueen has a supernatural gift for finding things. Charles Manx has one for stealing children. One day their paths will cross -- and it will not be the last time.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
The Stand cover
Horror The Stand

Stephen King

A government-engineered superflu kills 99% of humanity. The survivors must choose sides in a battle between good and evil taking shape across the ruins of America.

4.3 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Misery cover
Horror Misery

Stephen King

Romance novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued from a car crash by his number one fan -- and realizes he is not being nursed back to health. He is being kept.

4.3 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
I Am Legend cover
Horror I Am Legend

Richard Matheson

Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth. Every night the vampires who used to be his neighbors come to the door and call his name.

4.1 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
📚 No cover
Horror Interview with the Vampire

Anne Rice

A vampire named Louis tells a journalist the two-century story of his undead life -- including the mentor who made him and the child he should never have let exist.

4.1 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
We Have Always Lived in the Castle cover
Horror We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson

The Blackwood sisters live in isolation, shunned by their village for reasons involving arsenic and a family dinner six years ago.

4.1 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
Doctor Sleep cover
Horror Doctor Sleep

Stephen King

Danny Torrance, the traumatized boy from The Shining, is now a middle-aged alcoholic who uses his gift to help the dying -- until a girl with even stronger powers needs him.

4.2 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Uzumaki cover
Horror Uzumaki

Junji Ito

A small Japanese town is cursed by a spiral -- a shape that begins appearing in the clouds, in a man's eyes, in the hair of the living and the bodies of the dead.

4.4 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
The October Country cover
Horror The October Country

Ray Bradbury

Nineteen stories set in a country of autumn and dread, where the dead keep to their own calendar and the strange is simply a fact of local life.

4.1 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
Psycho cover
Horror Psycho

Robert Bloch

A young secretary steals $40,000 and checks into a remote motel run by a shy young man with a very controlling mother.

3.8 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
📚 No cover
Horror The Hellbound Heart

Clive Barker

A man solves a puzzle box that opens a door to the Cenobites -- beings who exist beyond the limits of pleasure and pain -- and cannot be returned.

3.9 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity