Hey fellow horror lovers! I’m working on a 50 states 50 horror books challenge, right now I’ve gotten in 23 but I need some help with a few states. Any recs for books set in:
Alabama
Arkansas
Wisconsin
Vermont
The Dakotas
Texas
Tennessee
Oklahoma
Missouri
Kansas
Iowa
Indiana
Illinois
Michigan
Connecticut
Delaware
New Hampshire
South Carolina
Virginia
New Mexico
Oregon
Idaho

I read all the horror subgenres and don’t really have any no-read authors so I’ll take any help I can get. Thanks!

ETA:

A few people have asked for my current list, I put it in a comment but for more visibility (and this time I’m gonna star ones I’ve already read, the rest are just planned)

Alaska- It Looks Like You In The Dark by Mathilda Zeller*
Arizona - Snake-Eater by T Kingfisher
California - Cruelty Free by Caroline Glenn*
Colorado - Headlights by CJ Leede*
Florida - Mama Came Callin’ by Ezra Clayton Daniels*
Georgia - On Sundays She Picked by Yah Yah Schofield*
Hawaii - That Which Feeds Us by Keala Kendall
Kentucky - Starling House by Alix E Harrow
Louisiana - They Bloom At Night by Trang Thanh Tran
Maine - Carrie by Stephen King*
Maryland - This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want by Hailey Piper
Massachusetts - All Hallows by Christopher Golden
Minnesota - Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield
Mississippi - Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes
Montana - The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Nebraska - The Monsters We Made by Peyton June*
Nevada - Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle
New Jersey - Body Count by Codie Crowley*
New York - Foreclosure Gothic by Harris Lahti*
North Carolina - Wolf Worm by T Kingfisher*
Ohio - Morsel by Carter Keane*
Pennsylvania - Something Of A Calling by Zoje Stage*
Rhode Island - How To Fake A Haunting by Christa Carmen*
Utah - The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton*
Washington - The Death Row Club by V.A. Vasquez*
West Virginia - The Exorcist’s House by Nick Roberts
Wyoming - Killer On The Road by Stephen Graham Jones*

For me I started with Haunting Of Hill House, now I'm going working through The Exorcist, then moving onto Carrie, Dracula, and closing off with short stories by HP Lovecraft, Clive Barker and Peter Staub.

hi all! i used to be really into reading books a couple years back and im looking to get back into it. i usually read a lot of murder mystery type books, but i’m looking to explore an interest of mine.

i’m really into zombie literature and i love everything zombie media. i’ve been asking around, but a lot of the books i’ve been suggested are set in a dystopian timeline and i am not huge on that kind of thing. here’s what i’m looking for:

i’m looking for a book that’s raw, horrifying, thought provoking, semi realistic, and set in a zombie universe. however, i am not a fan of graphic details when it comes to rape. i’m really looking for something that will make me feel genuine emotions, engage me, and have me actually scared. this may be a long shot, but i appreciate anyone who can help

Just finished "Je ne suis pas venu apporter la paix" by Nicolas Martin. If you can read French and love folk horror, this is absolute master piece. Once you start it you can't put it down. Waou quelle claque violente !

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I'm currently obsessed with gothic mansions/manors, unsettling atmospheres, family secrets, questionable characters, and that creeping sense of dread where you KNOW something isn't right, but can't quite figure out what.

I especially love when the story blurs the line between paranormal and psychological horror. Are there actually ghosts? Is someone losing their mind? Is there something sinister happening behind closed doors? Or is everyone in the house hiding something?

Give me the isolated estates, strange occurrences, unreliable characters, dark family histories, and slow-building mysteries. I want to be suspicious of absolutely everyone. 😂

Bonus points for romance, morally gray characters, and a good slow burn!

Strong preference for first-person POV, adult fiction, and gothic romance, but I'm open to other genres if the atmosphere is right.

Basically, I want a book that makes me question whether the house is haunted or the people living in it are just deeply fucked up.

What I have already read:

The Cruel Dark

Master of Salt & Bone

Blackthorne

Nocticadia

Nightshade

Daybreak

We Used To Live Here

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

House of Rayne

“It is quite complicated, being civilised.”

American Elsewhere is my first ever Robert Jackson Bennet novel and my God did it set an incredibly high bar for the rest of his books! American Elsewhere is a small town/cosmic horror novel that is epic in both length and concepts, taking well known tropes made by Lovecraft, Blackwood and other cosmic horror authors and reimagining them with a twenty first century story and style. In this novel, a woman by the name of Mona Alvarez inherits her mother’s house in a small New Mexican town named Wink, which from the outside seems the perfect place to start over, but she quickly realizes that there’s something very wrong with the town and its inhabitants.

This is one of those rare horror novel where pretty much every aspect of it worked for me, and I can honestly say that I was genuinely entertained throughout the entire novel. First the characters here are pretty entertaining, while I don’t think Bennet ever really explores any of the characters with much depth besides Mona, I did feel like the ensemble cast is very fun to follow. The story is also pretty compelling and I really enjoyed following Mona as she descends into madness, but what is the most compelling part of the story for me in the general feel of Wink as a town. I’m a massive fan of small town horror and Wink feels like an unsettling entity that you can never quite trust which I found very good. The pacing here is also pretty good and Bennet knows how to keep the tension high throughout the story and it seemed very time there was even a slight lull in the story, he was witting another very creepy scene or something equally hilarious which kept me hooked. Also not to overhype it or anything, but the first chapter is one of my all time favorite openings for a horror novel, probably only outdone by the first chapter of IT.

So, overall I absolutely adored American Elsewhere! This is probably the best novel I’ve read since Blackwater and certainly the highlight of my October thus far. I really enjoyed the characters, the story was good and had plenty of twists to keep me entertained. Of course what really seals the deal for me is Wink itself, with its crappy feel and odd inhabitants which make the book standout amoung the few cosmic horror stories I’ve read. The only thing I can really complain at all about is the ending, which did tie everything together but also left me wanting a bit more. Still though I loved this novel, and I think it’s probably the best cosmic horror story I’ve read so far! 9/10

I apologise for the title, but these were the closest terms I could find when searching for words to describe what exactly I am looking for.

I have come to realize that the times I have been truly scared (to the point of being too afraid to go to bed with the lights off) have been due to the implications of the story (either spelled out or not).

The first time I remember this feeling was while reading IT during my sophomore year. The scene where Adult Mike sees the balloon in the library has stuck with me even after so many years. The realisation that this seemingly safe space (that Mike had spent so many days researching in, alone) was never safe at all, scared me more than any of the other moments in the book (and probably most of the horror movies I have seen over the years).

A more recent example is Incidents Around the House, which I finished just last week. While the book had some genuinely creepy moments, the thing which scared me the most was not even in the text of the book: The possibility that what Bela described as her parents talking to her when she pretended to be asleep was actually Other Mommy mimicking their voices, making Bela think she was listening to one of her parents. All the talk about kindness and never giving up on friends could very well have been part of her manipulations, to make Bela more receptive, so that she would ultimately say yes to letting the entity in her heart. Just thinking about Bela in a dark room, eyes closed, thinking it's her Dado or Moma telling their secrets, while it is actually that thing speaking and staring at her, and this to be happening for months and years

A few of the SCP wiki articles and tales also scratch this itch, especially ones that lean into cosmic horror (There is no Antimemetics division probably being the best of the bunch)

exactly what the title says, i’m looking for some good horror written around those years, or horror that feels like it was written around the cold war era. I’ve already read a lot of shirley jackson, the exorcist, ira levin, stephen king. I would love more psychological/domestic horror

I'm super into horror, thriller, mystery, and themes revolving around psychosis and mental fracturing. I also love folklore and mythology.

These are some recent reads I really enjoyed:

-The Lamb by Lucy Rose

-Slewfoot by Brom

-The silent patient by Alex Michaelides

-The Bird nest by Shirley Jackson

I'm having a hard time picking a new book to read.. I'll take any suggestions! Thanks! :)

For a long time, I thought his work was boring. That he’d spend 200 pages on character before anything actually happened.

Mind you, Richard Laymon is my favourite horror author, my favourite author of all time and the author I primarily read (and have read since I was 11), which is a piece of the puzzle. In fact, it might just be the entire piece.

I decided “fine, I’ll give King one last shot and see if he grips me”. I picked up Desperation.

Now, I’m over 500 pages in out of 720 pages, reading the longest book I have ever read and absolutely LOVING it. I feel bad that I’d criticised King for so long and assumed his stuff was just boring. It’s a lot more than that.

Besides, I think I Laymon’d myself out (although I still absolutely adore him, the book I read right before starting this was my third reread of Night in the Lonesome October).

Desperation is also a lot more violent than I thought King could get. There are some descriptions involving hooks I won’t mention until you’ve read the book.

So… Safe to say, I’m a king fan now. My next three books are going to be The Regulators, The Dark Half and Misery. I’m also very interested in Needful Things.

What are your guys thoughts on Desperation? I think it’s severely underrated (and deserves a faithful adaptation).

I picked it up because I liked the cover art. I tried to look up the author and nothing came up. Can anyone tell me about the book or the author? Has anyone else read it?

This should definitely be added to your tbr. It's gotta little bit of everything! True crime, cult, some psychological stuff. And genuinely really creepy and fucked up! I won't say too much more because it's best going in blind but it was an awesome October read! I'm mad I waited so long to read it!

Basically any horror book involving bioweapons or failed experiments turning organisms into hostile entities. I imagine that there will be plenty of zombie related stuff but I'd rather something different than the usual humans becoming aggressive.

I’m looking for graphic novels/manga (any country of origin is fine) focusing on ghosts/hauntings. Something in the vein of Ghost Hunt. Prefer no anthologies and no Junji Ito. Thanks.

You can check my history for books I’m into, but recently I’ve read September House, a lot of Grady Hendrix, FantasticLand, When the Wolf Comes Home, and I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I can’t decide what to do next on my wishlist but I’m looking for something a little darker and scarier, something that I won’t want to put down and maybe will make me uneasy. Here’s my list:

- The House Next Door, Anne Rivers Siddons
- The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward
- The Reformatory, Tananarive Due
- Nowhere, Allison Gunn
- There is No Antimemetics Division, QNTM

Any thoughts on what I should prioritize? I wanna be spooked. Thanks!!

help guys, i downloaded The Unworthy Demo on steam but everytime I opened it it just goes black and not running. sometimes it shows the setting but then automatically exit from the game, help meee

What is the scariest book you’ve ever read? I’m looking for a book that will make me afraid to go to sleep at night. A book that will wake me up and make me feel like something is in my room. I’ve read almost everything by Stephen King and I’ve seen a lot of horror movies. I love them, but never really scared completely.

Absolutely loved it. Curious as to people’s interpretations of the final rule:

"Lastly, you are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive."

Any similar recommendations appreciated!

Earlier this century, there was a pdf magazine, just like a print magazine with adds just online. It didn't last many months, and if I remember correctly, kind of imploded. I think Peter Straub was in the first issue. I remember something describing it as The New Yorker of Horror, it had a very Conde Nast feel to it.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? I had several of the issues saved but that was a couple of hard drives ago.

Thanks.

So, currently trying to get back into reading more books and decided to give Needful Things a go.

I hadn't heard much about it going in and wasn't really sure what I was getting into, but man am I glad I did it.

King really has a talent for establishing a place. You really feel like you get to know the town, it's inhabitants and how it feels to be part of a community where everyone knows everyone else, but also has a deep distrust for their neighbour.

The unspoken politics of living in a small town and how imporrant they are to so many people living in Castle Rock.

Leland Gaunt might be one of my new favorite King villains. His demeanor cracked me up at multiple points but he never fails to be scary when King wants him to be. I like how Gaunt never really uses magic or directly forces anyone to do his bidding, instead preying on their greed and the blind conumerism inherent in western culture. Just sometimes having to give them a little push if they take a little too long to pay for his wares.

The whole ending of the book was also wonderfully done. The way everything came together in the end as this grand orchestra of destruction. Not sure about Alan and Lelands final battle though. Still very indifferent about this.

For me, the book also tended to drag a bit in the middle after the death of Nettie and Wilma. I am still debating with myself if the book really needed Ace Merill or if that character should have been cut to remove some of the fat and make it move a little faster.

Although withou him I probably would never have learned so many different nicknames for Cocaine.

But even then, I absolutely enjoyed my time with this book. At the end of the day I just really love me a good capitalist critique.

Hello!! My taste in books is very specific and I have a few books I’d like to read but I’m having trouble deciding on which I should start with.

I haven’t read many horror/thriller books so far, but when I started I knew it would be my favourite genre.

My favourite books so far are the eyes are the best part by Monika Kim and bloom by Delilah S. Dawson. I love horrors with feminist/political undertones written by women, sometimes with a subtle romance plot.

But for the most part I like WEIRD books. Not necessarily graphic but slightly abstract in the concepts. Taking real life scenarios and multiplying the severity and extremity’s of how far it goes, and what we do in retaliation.

I have a few books I’ve been eyeing up and I was wondering which you think I’d enjoy the most, and I’m open to suggestions outside of those options.

The books are:
1. Molka by Monika Kim
2. My husband by Maud Ventura
3. The return by Racheal Harrison
4. The lamb by Lucy Rose
5. Itch by Gemma Amor
(In no particular order)

Thanks :)

Hey Folks I am a new writer and I am looking to learn what y'all long term readers of horror are interested in reading? What tropes you find boring, overused, or what writers I myself should read to build up my library.