Top 30 Horror Books -
Voted by You!
At Cozy Book Cafe, we have a passion for new books! Discover the top selections perfect for your book clubs.
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Horror books are a type of literature meant to stir up feelings of fear, anxiety, and suspense in readers. They typically feature disturbing themes, supernatural occurrences, or psychological tension. These stories delve into the darker sides of human nature, the mysteries of the unknown, and the monstrous. They often tackle deep themes about existence, societal fears, and personal worries, making them both exciting and reflective.
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★ BOOK CLUB TOP PICK ★
BETA: A Technological Nightmare by Sammy Scott
Michael Danvers’ life of self-imposed seclusion is interrupted when he receives a strange invitation: the unique opportunity to move into and beta-test a fully automated, state-of-the-art smart home.
A true marvel of modern innovation, the house is controlled by a sophisticated AI that ensures all routine tasks are taken care of, limitless forms of entertainment are just a voice command away, and nearly every physical need is met with efficiency.
But soon Michael realizes that what at first presented itself as a futuristic utopia may be quickly devolving into a technological prison.
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Our Review -
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The mix of sci-fi and horror in Beta: A Technological Nightmare was truly impressive! Both Dylan and Michael's storylines were captivating on their own, and we were completely drawn into each of them. We particularly found Dylan's plot to be a relatable and realistic scenario, which definitely added to the tension while reading. When it came to the house storyline, we were on edge from the start, eagerly anticipating what would happen next. This heightened our excitement and kept us thoroughly entertained with the unfolding events. In the final part of the book, the horror escalated significantly, tapping into our existing fears about AI in a thrilling way! We highly recommend this book to fans of both sci-fi and horror.
Ghosts by Iain Rob Wright
The latest viral sensation has arrived. All the kids are doing it. It's called 'Summoning the Dead.' It's just a silly Latin sacriment someone found online. They call it 'Nomon's Ritual.' It can't be real, right?
After a spate of grizzly teen deaths occur, all seemingly connected to a new online trend, bizarro reporter and perpetual man-child Shane Mogg employs the help of his only friend and fellow journalist, Ed, to help him investigate just what in the 'hell' is going on.
Rumours suggest the dead are returning, brought back by careless words. Ripped from Hell or pulled from Heaven, they are angry. The dead are always angry.
If you love the tense, investigative horror of the Ring or enjoy the otherwordly scares of the Conjuring Universe, then Iain Rob Wright's Ghosts is for you!
The Shining by Stephen King
Danny is only five years old, but in the words of old Mr Hallorann he is a 'shiner', aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Danny's visions grow out of control.
As winter closes in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seems to develop a life of its own. It is meant to be empty. So who is the lady in Room 217 and who are the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why do the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive?
Somewhere, somehow, there is an evil force in the hotel - and that, too, is beginning to shine . . .
Billy's Experiment by Jonathan Dunne
A dark tale of mistaken identity...
On the night of a blood moon eclipse, park ranger Bill Steward saves a newborn baby on the misty moors of Old Castle's national park.
Seven autumns later, Bill and his wife, Dorothy, discover a ghastly experiment in a treehouse and a mysterious medical prescription written in a childish scribble.
Bill realises what he'd observed on the moors seven autumns ago wasn't what it seemed. Who was saving who, exactly?
Just as Bill's eclipse is beginning, so, too, is Billy's.
By the Light of Dead Stars by Andrew Van Wey
On the Lost Coast, some things should never be found.
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When tragedy shatters thirteen-year-old Zelda Ruiz’s adolescence, she retreats with her uncle Mark to the bucolic town of Greywood Bay. It’s a chance to heal, a chance to build a new life together.
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But nothing can prepare them for the malignant terror that has long coveted these lands.
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It looms over redwood groves and lurks in the foundations of homes. It festers in the dark hearts of the wounded. And now, this cosmic horror has found a new weapon: a means to worm its way into our world.
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To save their community—and each other—Zelda and Mark will need to confront their darkest demons, both inside and out. For what stalks Greywood Bay hungers for suffering above all else.
And soon it will feast… By the Light of Dead Stars.
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
The terror begins unobtrusively. Noises in the attic. In the child's room, an odd smell, the displacement of furniture, an icy chill. At first, easy explanations are offered. Then frightening changes begin to appear in eleven-year-old Regan. Medical tests fail to shed any light on her symptoms, but it is as if a different personality has invaded her body.
Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest, is called in. Is it possible that a demonic presence has possessed the child? Exorcism seems to be the only answer...
First published in 1971, The Exorcist became a literary phenomenon and inspired one of the most shocking films ever made.
Seven Rabbits by Timothy King
In the town of Tall Oak, high school football reigns supreme. Led by star Quarterback Justin Jackson, the players walk the halls of their school like gods, but a sinister side lies behind their "Golden Boy" facade. Despite their best efforts, their atrocities will come to life.
Every year, the star players take a retreat to an isolated cabin in the woods for a week of debauchery. This drug-fueled party is intended to be their final send-off before college.
This time, it will be different.
This time, they've pushed their victims too far.
Trapped in an isolated cabin, they will finally know what it means to be the victim.
The Town the World Forgot by Boris Bacic
Newlyweds Lisa and John’s summer drive through the Oregonian wilderness takes a chilling turn when an unexpected blizzard traps their car. Desperate for refuge, they find hope in a sign: WELCOME TO ____. Bundling up, they trek through the storm and find that, within the town, the blizzard ceases, though it rages just beyond the town's limits.
The streets are eerily quiet, lined with lifelike ice statues. Lisa and John soon realize they are being watched by the wary townsfolk, who reveal a haunting truth: this town is a prison, and the storm is a trap. As night falls, a deadly entity stalks the streets, claiming victims and leaving ice statues in its wake.
Trapped in this perpetual winter nightmare, Lisa and John must unravel the town's dark secrets to survive—or become the next frozen monument.
Watchers by Dean Koontz
On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains.
But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever who will let him go no further into the dark woods.
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That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life.
What he finds is a dog of alarming intelligence that soon leads him into a relentless storm of mankind’s darkest creation....
Fireman by Jonathan Dunne
Firefighter Max Power makes a chilling discovery in the dark recesses of the sewers below the streets of Old Castle during routine maintenance. He tries to forget the unsettling encounter, but Max finds it hard to shake off the haunting image of the individual he would come to know as Ash Man.
Not long after setting eyes on the strange vagrant in the myriad of passageways, Max's life changes forever when he is called to a blazing house fire...his house.
Stoking the flames of revenge, Max descends once more into the depths of the underground, drawn into a cryptic alliance with the diabolical Ash Man.
The Devil's Shallows by Debra Castaneda
Residents trapped in a remote neighborhood confront the unimaginable in this horror novel from award-winning author Debra Castaneda.
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The salt marsh at Devil's Landing is home to a terrifying urban legend.
Adam Gray knows the old stories about the Slough Devil, the missing children, and the mutilated animals. But the naturalist and wilderness survival expert doesn't believe in monsters. Not even when a tourist on his boat sees a strange creature in the tidal channel and captures it on video.
When Adam moves into a controversial housing development next to the marsh, shocking new evidence emerges, and it's not long before he's confronted with a series of horrifying and unexplained events.
It takes Christina, his feisty new neighbor, to get him to believe something lurks in the slough. Something disturbed by the new community.
When a massive storm maroons the residents, Adam and Christina find themselves trapped and tested in a fight for their lives.
Bunker Dogs by Gage Greenwood
Don't just fear what you're hiding from, fear what you're hiding with.
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Cassie's night of babysitting goes to hell when bombs explode in the distance, planes fly overhead at low altitudes, and alerts on her phone tell her to seek shelter. Luckily, the boy she babysits tells her his father has a bunker in the yard.
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When they make their way to this underground shelter, they soon discover they aren't alone. Something is living in the bunker, lurking in the walls, and it's hungry.
What started as a simple night of babysitting will descend into a psychological and claustrophobic nightmare Cassie couldn't have prepared for.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to find an escaped murderer named Rachel Solando.
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As a killer hurricane bears down on the island, the investigation deepens, and the questions mount.
How has a barefoot woman escaped from a locked room? Who is leaving them clues in the form of cryptic codes? And what really goes on in Ward C?
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The closer Teddy gets to the truth, the more elusive it becomes. And the more he begins to believe that he may never leave Shutter Island. Because someone is trying to drive him insane....
Psycho by Robert Bloch
Norman Bates loves his mother. She has been dead for the past 20 years, or so people think. Norman knows better, though.
Ever since leaving the hospital, he has lived with Mother in the old house up on the hill above the Bates Motel. One night, after a beautiful woman checks into the motel, Norman spies on her as she undresses. Norman can’t help but spy on her.
Mother is there, though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife.
If you love to be scared, or are a fan of classic movies, then you know the story of Norman Bates, his mother, and the dark and frightening Bates Motel. Alfred Hitchcock’s taut, shocking scare-fest starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh is a classic movie, as scary today as it was in 1960 when it was first released, and this is the 1959 novel upon which the movie is based.
It was here that the legend of the Bates Motel was born.
Dead End Tunnel by Nick Roberts
Maverick Hall has spent years trying to forget the chilling events of his thirteenth birthday in the summer of 1999. That fateful night, he and his best friends ventured through a seemingly innocuous tunnel on their bikes — a journey from which not all of them returned.
Now, as an adult, Maverick is haunted by a sinister force that compels him to return to his old neighborhood, a place shadowed by secrets, deceit, and an unsettling sense of death. Drawn back against his better judgment, he must face the dark forces that have lurked in waiting, eager for his return. As Maverick confronts the shadows of his past, he finds himself entangled in a web of mystery that threatens not only his sanity but his very survival.
This harrowing tale of memory, fear, and the power of the unseen delves deep into the heart of a nightmare that refuses to be forgotten, beckoning Maverick to resolve the terrifying mystery that has haunted him for decades.
The Terror by Dan Simmons
The most advanced scientific enterprise ever mounted, Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition in search of the fabled North-West Passage had every expectation of triumph.
But for almost two years his ships HMS Terror and Erebus have been trapped in the Arctic ice. Supplies of fuel and food are running low. Scurvy, starvation and even madness beging to take their toll. And yet the real threat isn’t from the constantly shifting, alien landscape, the flesh-numbing temperatures or being crushed by the unyielding, frozen ocean. No, the real threat is far more terrifying.
There is something out there in the frigid darkness. It stalks the ships and snatches men. It is a nameless thing. At once nowhere and everywhere, this terror has become the expedition’s nemesis...
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
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Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Will Graham was a brilliant profiler of criminals for the FBI - until he suffered terrible injuries in the process of capturing Dr Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter.
Years later, a serial killer nicknamed 'the Tooth Fairy' is massacring entire families each full moon. With the FBI desperate for progress, Will reluctantly agrees to consult. But he soon realises that he alone can't crack the case; he needs the help of the only mind even better than his own at understanding the mentalities of psychopaths.
The mind of Hannibal Lecter.
But Hannibal is playing his own twisted game from the asylum for the criminally insane. Will isn't alone in getting advice from the cannibal. So is the Tooth Fairy - the man haunted by visions of the murderous Red Dragon...
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth ... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville''s blood.
By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.
How long can one man survive like this?
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband, Guy, move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents.
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Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them; despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them.
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Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant, and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets' circle is not what it seems.
Relic by Douglas Preston
The New York Museum of Natural History is built over a subterranean labyrinth of neglected specimen vaults, unmapped drainage tunnels and long-forgotten catacombs.
And there's something down there.
When the mutilated bodies of two young boys are discovered deep within the museum's bowels, Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta of the NYPD fears a homicidal maniac may be at large. FBI agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast believes they may be facing something much worse.
As the death toll mounts, and with the opening of the museum's new 'Superstition' exhibition just days away, the two men must work together to prevent a massacre.
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
It is autumn 1981 when inconceivable horror comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenager is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last―revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.
But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door―a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night. . .
The Omen by David Seltzer
Jeremy Thorn and his wife, Katherine, have just welcomed the newest member of their family to the world: their beautiful son Damien.
But as the boy grows, so does the terror surrounding him.
Fatal accidents, suicides, and unexplained violence seem to follow the Thorns wherever they go—but why?
And how can Damien have anything to do with the carnage and bloodshed?
He is only a child.
But Damien Thorn is like no child on Earth.
He bears the mark of the beast. And his time is at hand.
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
It's the summer of 1960 and in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys are forging the powerful bonds that a lifetime of change will not break.
From sunset bike rides to shaded hiding places in the woods, the boys' days are marked by all of the secrets and silences of an idyllic middle-childhood.
But amid the sundrenched cornfields their loyalty will be pitilessly tested.
When a long-silent bell peals in the middle of the night, the townsfolk know it marks the end of their carefree days.
From the depths of the Old Central School, a hulking fortress tinged with the mahogany scent of coffins, an invisible evil is rising.
Strange and horrifying events begin to overtake everyday life, spreading terror through the once idyllic town.
Determined to exorcize this ancient plague, Mike, Duane, Dale, Harlen, and Kevin must wage a war of blood―against an arcane abomination who owns the night...
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Something is out there . . .
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Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
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Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?
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Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?
Dracula by Bram Stoker
​During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count's transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula's grim fortress, but a friend's strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt.
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Dracula is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunt Dracula and, in the end, kill him.
World War Z by Max Brooks
We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic.
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere 24 hours before is gone forever.
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But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, 50 years before their realisation, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn't just like ultra-violence - he also enjoys rape, drugs and Beethoven's ninth. He and his gang of droogs rampage through a dystopian future, hunting for terrible thrills.
But when Alex finds himself at the mercy of the state and subject to the ministrations of Dr Brodsky, and the mind-altering treatment of the Ludovico Technique, he discovers that fun is no longer the order of the day.
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Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom.
In the Dark by Richard Laymon
Nothing much happens in Donnerville. At least not to the young librarian, Jane Kerry. Then one day Jane finds an envelope containing a fifty-dollar bill and a note instructing her to 'Look homeward, angel.' Jane pulls a copy of the Thomas Wolfe novel of that title off the shelf and finds a second envelope. This one contains a hundred-dollar bill and another clue. Like the first, it's signed 'MOG (Master of Games).' The game has begun...
But this is no ordinary game. As it goes on, it requires more and more of Jane's strength and ingenuity. It pushes her into actions that she knows are crazy, immoral or criminal - and it becomes continually more dangerous. More than once, Jane has to fight for her life. But she soon learns she can't quit this game. MOG won't let her. She'll have to play to the bitter end.
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