Terrifying Literary Horror Novels to Sink Your Fangs Into (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

A few of our favorite literary horror novels.

Horror is difficult to define, but for me, it’s literature that seeks to inspire fear in the reader. This is what distinguishes it from suspense novels and thrillers, which focus more on creating tension and excitement. But isn’t fear moreinterestingthan page-turning? What frightens us is more revealing, more psychologically profound than any rollercoaster ride (and don’t get me wrong – I love rollercoaster rides!) At its best, horror can show us aspects of our psyches that remain unknown even to ourselves.

Over the past couple years, I’ve been thinking a lot about A.I. and the various threats it poses to humanity. This is where my novel,William, came from: my fear of something being born into the world whose wants or identities are completely unpredictable. It also poses questions about what it is to be human.

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The robot antagonist of my new novel,William— through his wordsandhis inspiration of fear — has something to say about that. Just like these 10 horror novels have something to say about being human while scaring us silly in the most artful ways.

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Penguin Classics

Of course we all know the story — it could, after all, be reasonably credited with originating sci-fiandanticipating the main themes of contemporary horror, despite being published in 1818 — but have you actuallyreadShelley’s novel?

It’s not what you expect. Clear prose, a deeply sympathetic monster, a potent warning against the unregulated ambitions of science. It’s not too much to say thatFrankensteincontains the ingredients of modernity a full century before the rest of genre literature could catch up to it.

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Hell’s Hundred

I like William Blatty’sThe Exorcistas much as the next horror nut, but if you’re looking for a nuanced, personal — even funny — account of demonic possession, Gran’s novel tops the list. What begins as an urban woman’s tracking of what may be her descent into madness slides grippingly into the supernatural when she attributes her increasingly violent actions to the influence of a demon who also happens to be her only real friend.

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Penguin Books

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Gallery Books

Full disclosure: Cutter is a friend of mine. But I promise this has no bearing on my declaration ofThe Troopas the most effective — and often moving — work of body horror I’ve ever read. It also has the veracity of a journal, a believable account of real events that’s been kept from the public. Who knows? Perhaps it is.

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Berkley

On a personal level, Straub’s masterpiece was an enormous inspiration (and I’m not alone), combining as it does rich characterization, a grounded sense of place in an upstate New York town in a blizzard and the most seductive villain since Dracula himself.Ghost Storyis a tale of a woman’s supernatural revenge that parallels in genre fiction the history of anger and injustice that led to Me Too.

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Tor Nightfire

The Will Smith movie was fine, but sidelined what Matheson’s novel so heartbreakingly captures: the depths of solitude that comes with being the last man alive. The zombies outside the protagonist’s barricaded home are terrifying, but the particular one I’ll never forget is his undead lover, shambling up to the door, pleading with him to let her in … and hiswantingto.

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Vintage

A novel that approaches the legacy of slavery through, among other means, a ghost story about a murdered child seeking vengeance. The real, historical themes of Morrison’s book demand our attention in such a way that a reader can sometimes forget howscaryit is. If there’s a more powerful marriage of literary prose and full-barreled horror in American literature, I don’t know what it is.

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Gallery/Scout Press

A masterwork of mystery and mood over plot,I’m Thinking of Ending Thingscasts a spell so effective, it’s impossible to know how Reid pulls it off. What presents itself as the world’s creepiest break-up or perhaps a slasher origin story keeps its horrors within itself, an existential nightmare that pulls the reader in deep if we let it.

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Independently Published

First published in 1898, James’ open-ended psychological thriller is, in my estimation, the finest ghost story ever written. All the gothic tropes are here — a troubled young governess, the lovely young brother and sister she’s responsible for, a secluded manor — but the novel adheres to no rules other than the English refusal to name horrific actions out loud. Then again, perhaps what really haunts this novel is the unnamable itself.

source: people.com