I'll go first, I have two:

1. House of Leaves is garbage. There is nothing scary or spooky about the book, aside from the thought of having to read it. Anyone who says they enjoyed it are taking the piss.

2. The Reformatory is an overrated knock off of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. It's better suited as a thriller, than horror.

You know, I expected King to have at least one book that I didn't like. Like, how many books did he write, 63? I can't possibly like them all. And here is the first one.

Desperation tells the story of how a maniac policeman kidnapped several fellow travelers in order to kill them, or maybe do something even worse. Here's the beginning, namely the first chapter, is good. It's intense, scary, and its ending is unexpected. And then... There were a couple intense scenes, but otherwise the book was very boring. The plot is moving so slowly, even for King. There are also many questions in the book, some of which will be answered, which are so stupid. And the topic of religion is too intrusive. I even laughed in the scene, where, >!in front of the entrance to the villain's lair, the heroes began to pray.!<

There are some cheesy moments in the book. Like, how do you like the phrase "Mom has a beautiful butt" from a little girl? Or the scene where the villain tells one of the characters to suck his bleeding ding?

There's a less to say about the characters. They're boring and cardboard. The worst of them, David. This is the most Marty Sue character King has ever written. He is so kind, so pious, >!God himself guides him!<, everyone is following him.

The villain of the book is one of the dumbest villains King has ever written. >!Realizing that he needs a body to do... terrible things, and they decompose quickly, what is he doing? That's right, he kills everyone in the city, leaving an old alcoholic, and then kidnaps fellow travelers, mutilates some, kills the only good-looking man, and decides to make a middle-aged woman his new vessel!<. He scares only at the beginning, and then nothing but bewilderment causes.

I didn't like the author's writing style here. And here the problem is not in the writing style itself, King's peculiarity is that he gives a lot of information about the characters. The problem here is that the author himself doesn't seem to know what to say about them, so King just repeats the same facts about the characters, rarely adding anything new. For example, did you know that Johnny is a great writer? Or that Ellen Carver was talking to her neighbors at a restaurant and behaving like an ordinary middle-aged woman?

As a result, I found the book boring, trashy, with cardboard characters and an overly obsessive theme of religion. This book had a good start, but as events unfolded, things got dumber and more boring.

Option 1: The gathering by CJ Tudor

Option 2: Boys in the valley by Philip Fracassi

I'm going to be reading either for a small town reading prompt which I think both would work for? Looking for some thoughts on the books to decide which of the 2 I'd like to read.

Thank you!

Apologies if this doesn’t fall under horror as I’m not familiar with horror lit at all but reading posts on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix absolutely terrify me and I was wondering if there were any books that read like posts on there.

I just finished it a couple hours ago. I was enjoying it at first I mean it was weird af, sometimes so weird that I thought it was funny. But that is just the 1/3 of the book. The rest of the books isn't that good imo. The main character also doesn't make any sense. That could be intentional but I didn't like it. The whole Pauls vs Brotherhood of the mutilates thing didn't work for me as well. There was also absolutely no fat to this book, but I think it needed some. It was all very fast paced and often felt like the the main character was just doing objectives written for him in a game. Do this, Do that, kill them all, Go back to your house etc etc. I don't know what else to say, I'm not good at reviews I just felt like needing to say something. Still a 3/5 from me. Thank you

Any novels where a woman such as: girlfriend, wife, serial killer, criminal is an antagonist and very scary as well

Do you have a work of horror lit being published this year?

in 2024 r/HorrorLit will be trying a new upcoming release master list and it will be open to community members as well as professional publishers. Everything from novels, short stories, poems, and collections will be welcome. To be featured please message me (u/HorrorIsLiterature) privately with the publishing date, author name, title, publisher, and format.

The release list can before here.

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Do you have a work of horror lit being published this year?

in 2024 r/HorrorLit will be trying a new upcoming release master list and it will be open to community members as well as professional publishers. Everything from novels, short stories, poems, and collections will be welcome. To be featured please message me (u/HorrorIsLiterature) privately with the publishing date, author name, title, publisher, and format.

The release list can before here.

So I finished reading Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McCleod Chapman. Aside from Tell Me I’m Worthless by Rumfitt, it upsets me that most horror tends to be apolitical. This book is certainly a unique experiment and I absolutely applaud its deservedly brutal critique of Republican values, as well as taking the fact that conspiratorial thinking (yes, my mom) holds a near-total sway over people to the extreme. Film-wise, I would say it’s a cross between a vintage Black Mirror episode, The Dogtooth/Lobster by Lanthimos, and I Saw the TV Glow. There is also the idea that some people are more prone to suggestion than others and while it is crucial to the main theme, it is never developed. Then the focus changes inexplicably and now information itself is akin to a virus, regardless of its content, the values and beliefs it conveys. Which seems to cancel the earlier searing critique of republicanism/capitalism.

So, theoretically, the book gets muddled and it doesn’t have a whole lotta legs to stand on. I say this as someone who worked on this stuff in grad school. At the same time, this is so far the strongest contender for my Fave of the Year.

The titles I suppose are pretty funny and his general persona in interviews/events veers towards comedy but looking back at his books themselves I don't really think they're on the comedic side.

Off the top of my head the one bit that comes to mind as being funny was in My Best Friend's Exorcism >!when the main character goes "the power of Boy George compels you"!< but even there the context is more emotional. (Edit: Also the exorcist guy himself.)

Besides that he's more or less on the same level as Joe Hill tone-wise IMO. There's nothing very funny about The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires for example; on the contrary it's pretty grim.

Not a complaint as he's one of my favorite authors just something I've thought of.

Spoilers ahead for the plot of the book, please take caution if you havent read Carmilla.

I have loved Carmilla since I was about 17, its a favorite gothic vampire novella of mine, and I wanted my partner to read it. I read that the Machado edit is a fantastic way to read the book so I bought a copy of it for them to read.

Personally I found this was a mistake.

First of all my partner hates any spoilers at all. Thankfully i had to foresight to read the intro before they read it and realized that 1. it spoils the whole story and 2.it felt really dumb to me, how she made up this whole self-insert origin story (Marcia Maren is literally an anagram of Carmen Maria…. It just felt like she was stroking her ego) and with none of it being true it just felt pointless.

So, I went in and covered up footnotes with sticky notes that spoiled things, or footnotes that felt really unnecessary/ridiculous and take you out of the story, so I covered about half of all of them lol. (“Imagine dear reader a river of blood” made me roll my eyes, personally. I dont need someone to tell me thats symbolism. The whole point of books is to show not tell.)

Anyway, there were certain footnotes I didnt cover because i thought it had interesting anecdotes—however this was a huge mistake too, and thats completely on me and my judgement, because my partner didnt even know Carmilla was a vampire going into this book and I thought they did. One of the notes i left uncovered alludes immediately to the fact that she’s a vampire before theres any such suspicions, and I didnt think about the fact that someone who knew nothing about the story beforehand wouldnt immediately pick up the fact that she was a vampire at all. So this really hurt my partners experience of the book—they wanted to figure that out for themselves and Machado just barges in and spoils so much. I ended up covering every single footnote after they got about halfway through the book, just in case, but it was already too late.

I am just frustrated that I trusted this edit to be a good first time read for my partner, as I was so excited for them to read it for the first time. So my question is: Does anyone else feel this way or is it just me? Both of us agree that the way she writes her footnotes is kind of maddening and just flat out unnecessary. Id love a discussion on this edit.

By the way the drawings are fantastic, and I actually like how she edited it to feel easier to read; its the footnotes and the intro that had me really frustrated and disappointed, and Im really upset that this is advertised as being a great first read through of the book, because it definitely is not. It should have spoiler warnings all over everything, and Machado shouldn’t be taking credit for a masterpiece she didnt write by just slapping super self explanatory footnotes on the story that feel like an afterthought, or stuff that she seems eager to over-explain to everyone when someone might not know anything yet and want to figure it out themselves.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts, whether you agree or disagree.

TLDR i disliked her edit a lot and it ruined my partners first read through because despite me trying to cover spoilers there were still spoilers and frustrating footnotes that were so unnecessary.

Hello horrorlit,

I have just read some exceptional books and am looking for more similar to:

• Dead Water by C A Fletcher
• Starve Acre, Devil's Day and The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
• The Ritual, The Vessel, The Reddening and Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill.

I am particularly interested in the British Isles setting - especially stories that involve rural communities and descriptions of landscapes.

Any and all recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Jack in Wonderland: The Killer Reiki Master

A One-of-a-Kind Horror Tale

Jack was a Reiki master. A healer. A man who had dedicated his life to balancing energy, restoring peace, and guiding lost souls.

But something had changed.

It started with a single session—an old man came to him, desperate and weak, his energy drained by years of suffering. Jack placed his hands on him, channeling light, but something twisted in the exchange. The old man’s breath hitched. His body stiffened. And when Jack pulled away, the man was dead.

Jack felt… incredible.

The energy of the dying man had flooded into him, filling the gaps he never knew were there. It was intoxicating. Addictive. And in that moment, Jack realized—he had been doing it wrong all these years. Healing was a lie. True power came from taking.

That night, as he meditated, something pulled him under.

When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else. Wonderland.

But this was not the Wonderland of fairy tales. The sky was black, pulsing like a living thing, and the trees twisted like gnarled fingers. The air was thick, humming with an unnatural energy that prickled his skin.

A figure approached—an eerie, white-furred rabbit with glassy eyes and a too-wide grin. “You’ve arrived,” it said, voice like a blade scraping against bone.

Jack smirked. “And where exactly am I?”

The rabbit’s grin widened. “Where you belong.”

Jack followed the creature through a landscape of nightmares—rivers of blood, flowers that whispered secrets, shadows that moved on their own. Wonderland, it seemed, was sick.

Or maybe, it had always been this way.

He arrived at a dark castle, its walls breathing like lungs, its doors parting like a mouth. Inside, on a throne of rotting wood, sat a Queen. Her eyes were hollow, her skin stretched too tight, her fingers long and clawed.

“Jack,” she whispered. “Reiki Master. Taker of Souls. You have come home.”

Jack stepped forward, his hands itching with hunger. “You called me here. Why?”

The Queen rose, gliding toward him, her presence suffocating. “Wonderland is dying,” she said. “And only you can feed it.”

Jack felt the darkness stir inside him. He had been searching for purpose. Searching for power. And here it was, laid at his feet.

He grinned.

Raising his hands, he reached out—not to heal, but to drain. The Queen gasped, her body convulsing as he pulled the very essence from her bones. Her screams echoed through the halls, blending with his laughter.

And as the castle walls pulsed with new life, as the shadows whispered his name, Jack knew—

He was exactly where he was meant to be.

People are always mentioning getting scared from reading books and I cannot ever remember that happening, yes, I've been disgusted, surprised, let down etc , all the emotions but not scared. They're has to be a large percentage of readers just like me.

And you’re not sure what….Or what direction it’s going to go in… there’s just a gradual sense of foreboding…. and the mounting certainty that somethin just ain’t right

Examples: turn of the screw, the shining, the yellow wallpaper (scariest thing I have ever read in my life hands down), everything shirley jackson has written, the terror, fall of the house of usher, all things lovecraft

Please check out my interview with Felix Blackwell, the first in my series Ice Voices!

Stay tuned for the upcoming interviews with Nick Roberts and Philip Fracassi!

The well-known two that come to mind as excluded are >!Haunting of Hill House where it’s evil!<, and >!Rebecca where it burns at the end.!< Although I do admire their atmospheric style.

Sucks being a horror fan who’s crazy about grand old manors. I’ve yet to find a fictional and spooky one that isn’t doomed to fall to ruin, or else blamed as a sentient demon-building that eats people. I could maybe deal with >!Hill House!< being this, since it’s ugly, except I like my haunted houses to be gorgeous with lots of history. Preferably English, although I don’t suppose my dream-novel exists lol.

The closest so far I’ve found is the titular “ancestral pile” in The Children of Green Knowe, which is middle-grade level. I do love children’s literature, but give me proper scary ghosts with my winding corridors and old-school keyholes.

Everyone else can die, I guess—just spare my historic houses, please….

Figuring this is a long shot. Thanks for reading and for any suggestions!

I (like a lot of people here) completely devoured Between Two Fires and I think a big reason why for me was the central relationship. I've read a lot of horror that has the main characters relationships fall apart or they all become just outright unpleasant characters as the horror ramps up and I think I'd like some books where the characters really band together and the adversity brings out their best qualities.

I know I said optimistic but that's just the best word I could think of, it doesn't have to be a happy ending or anything like that ✌🏼

Edit: camaraderie! that's the word I was looking for. Horror with good camaraderie between characters 😊

I’ve been craving some horror stories set in space for a while. But I’m not sure if there are any collections of short stories centered on horror in space.

Any good suggestions?

I was just wondering what this book is like. Like, this is a story about a zombie soldier who only wants to kill, and four war veterans are trying to stop him. At least that's what it seemed to me from the synopsis. And it has about 864 pages), which I think is a lot for such a plot. Those who have read, please write, did you like this book or not?

P.S. I know that this is part of a trilogy.

Looking for books about infinite spaces. I've recently read A Short Stay In Hell, and House of Leaves, and enjoyed the terror of being thrust into a liminal place you couldn't escape (like the backrooms). I would love something similar with people being trapped in infinite or semi-infinite spaces or labyrinths.

Does anyone have any horror series they’re engrossed in and eagerly awaiting the release of next book? My wife was so excited about Onyx Storm and I was kinda jealous cause I’m always waiting on standalone books (with the exception of The Indian Lake Trilogy). Would love to pick something up - preferably something that will have a sequel; in my fantasy reading life I am still waiting on Winds of Winter and book 3 of The Kingkiller Chronicles

When I was a kid I read a TON of horror. Stephen King and Robert McCammon were my favorites (The Stand & They Thirst are my two favorite horror novels) but when I read these two zombie-themed anthologies I felt I'd found my niche. I've always loved zombies though I feel the genre's been a bit overdone for a while now. These anthologies contain what I feel are some of the very best zombie stories ever. Sadly, I lost my copies a long time ago, and haven't been able to find them available as ebooks anywhere. There's a third book in the series titled Mondo Zombie that I've managed to find a copy of though I haven't had a chance to read it.

Has anyone else read these? There are some really great pieces in them. A few of the stories can be a little (or a lot) weird/gross to read but I always got a kick out of how edgy the authors could be. Hoping to get ahold of some paperback editions someday. If you want stories that are a great mix of old-school horror mixed with the kind of edgy (in a good way) horror people were reading in the late 80's & early 90's you can't go wrong with Skipp & Spector's collections.

Curious to what you all would do

Just finished the audiobook version. Although I did enjoy the narrator and most of the story. The ending was sort of underwhelming. I know a lot of folks love this book and I’m not saying it was bad at all. I just didn’t love it really. Anyone else??

I’m trying to find good scary/gore books about like mass virus or an apocalypse. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions

i came across this book years ago on tumblr and now i cannot find it. basically the story involved moving to a small town, a couple or a widow and bodies turning up in a river. possibly the dead coming back to life. i know this isnt much to work with but maybe it rings a bell for someone! thanks

I read this book quite a long time ago and I recently revisited it. I love this book so much because it is quite clear that Straub did a lot of research. There is layers upon layers of hidden meaning in this book that is begging to be analyzed. Unfortunately, not a lot of ppl talk about it. I looked at every possible article discussing the book but they all say the same thing. I was hoping if there is anyone out there who to is a fan help me analyze this book like its Kubrick‘s ”The Shining” faking moon landings, etc.

Trying to get back into reading and looking for some sapphic horror recs either current or older. I’ve read Carmilla (although not explicitly sapphic but still) and liked that.

I recently noticed that I can't think of being scared by any female-authored horror story, but there are plenty of male-authored ones that have scared me. So I am looking to hopefully expand my horizons. Please note that I am not necessarily looking for an outright terrifying story - like many people, most horror doesn't terrify me. But in general, a lot of horror novels by men have seriously spooked me out and I just want to experience a similar feeling from a novel by a woman.

I'll try to explain what scared and didn't scare me about the books I've read. Here are some horror stories by women that I didn't find scary:

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House (Loved both. But there is very little supernatural horror)
• The Yellow Wallpaper (Loved it. But more psychological than supernatural)
• Our Wives Under the Sea (This one simply felt a little eerie and just a good story on grief)
• Our Share of Night (DNF. Unfortunately, got quite bored with this, but it was certainly unique)
• The September House (This felt like a cozy-and-fun sort of scary rather than actually scary)
• Comfort Me with Apples (Loved it. But didn't find it scary at all. It was interesting as a drama/psychological read)
• The Twisted Ones (Couldn't get into this at all. The YA-ish attitude, quirkiness, and coziness didn't work for me)
• The Carrow Haunt and some other stories by Darcy Coates (I only recall that her stories were pretty light and not too scary)
• I have also tried some of Angela Carter's short stories.

In contrast, these are some popular books by male authors that scared me.

• Incidents Around the House (The innocence of the protagonist and the descriptions of the antagonist is what scared me)
• Pet Sematary (I think the emotional themes in these were relatable and made it scarier? Even though it wasn't outright terrifying.)
• Between Two Fires (In general the settings and that statue part)
• The Fisherman (Scenes like descriptions of the lake and the undead woman)

I think part of the reason that the female-authored stories didn't scare me is that they seem to focus more on psychological subtext and metaphors, and it might be that I am unable to relate with them. And I didn't find the supernatural descriptions as imaginative and scary as I did for the male-authored stories.

I loved Kill Creek and just finished We used to live here.

I also liked Episode Thirteen, but prefer the other two.

I've read The September House and The Night House and they were fun, but not what I'm looking for.

Any recs?