Top Ten Books to Get into the Halloween Spirit
Susan and I are huge Halloween/horror fans. We grew up watching horror films with our Dad, so it's kind of tradition with us every year to embrace the spookiness and have horror movie marathons. However, we love watching creepy movies all year long, and immersing ourselves in the scariest of reads. Anyway, we just really love Halloween, because it gives us the opportunity to gush even more about the horror genre and everything that is creepy, haha.
In no particular order:
1. The Night She Disappeared by April HenryGabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete’s Pizza. One night, Kayla—another delivery girl—goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can’t move beyond the fact that Kayla’s fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete’s. Together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn’t dead—and to find her before she is.
I read this earlier this year and it's the perfect Halloween read. It's a very gripping horror/thriller told through multiple perspectives, that will have you biting your nails in anticipation. There's also a nice dash of romance on the side, so it's not
all scary. ;)
2. Desperation by Stephen KingThere's a place along Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It's known as Desperation, Nevada.
It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die.
Let the battle against evil begin.
Welcome to ... Desperation.
This is one of my very favorite reads when I was younger. It's extremely frightening and Stephen King is genius, of course.
3. Monster by Christopher Pike
She said she killed them because they were monsters.
Mary Blanc walked into the party with a loaded shotgun. In the blink of an eye she blew two people away. She wanted to kill more, but was stopped by her best friend, Angela Warner, and the police. The next day, when Angela visits Mary at the jail, she asks why she did it. Mary responds, "Because they were no longer human." Angela thinks she's crazy. At first.
Until she probes deeper into Mary's claims and discovers a horror so unimaginable that she thinks she is going crazy. She even gets to the point where she wonders if she should have let Mary keep on killing. While there was still time to stop the thing from spreading. The very old thing. The hungry thing.
This one is not just a favorite of mine, but my sister's as well. It really made an impact on us when were younger, and it's just amazing. It's an intelligently written book about monsters, and it's full of suspense, and action, and of course major, major creepiness.
4. Chicagoland Vampires Series by Chloe Neill
Turned into a vampire against her will, twenty-eight-year-old Merit found her way into the dark circle of Chicago’s vampire underground, where she learned there was more to supernaturals than met the eye—and more supernaturals than the public ever imagined.
I just got into this series earlier this year, and it's one of my all time favorites.(so good, you guys) Of course you can read them any time you want, but it's even better to read around Halloween because of all the Vampire goodness.
5. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.
There is.
She doesn't believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.
She’s wrong.
This is a romance, but I cannot stress this
enough: This is one of the most eeriest books
ever written, beware. Keep the lights on for for this one.
6. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.
Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of "them." The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked--and given the ultimate choice. Die...or become one of the monsters.
Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.
Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend--a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.
But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what--and who--is worth dying for.
Vampires! Rabids!!! There atmosphere is dripping with dread in every page, and not to mention this book is absolute perfection and one of absolute favorites here at the Sisters' Tale.
7. Sleeping Beauty by Phillip Margolin
Seventeen-year-old Ashley Spencer learned what true horror was the night a serial killer invaded her home and brutally murdered her father and her best friend. But the terror did not end there . . .
A year after the unspeakable events, Ashley is still trying to piece together what is left of her life. But the nightmare is reawakened at the elite private school that had appeared to be a safe haven for Ashley and her mother, Terri, when a new book called "Sleeping Beauty" hits the national bestseller lists--a shattering true account of the crimes that ripped Ashley's world apart.
And now Ashley must run for her life again
I read this ages ago, but this will always be one of my favorite 'scary' reads. The whole plot is
beyond terrifying. The mystery is just phenomenal and you won't be able to stop flipping through those pages!
8. The Woman's Murder Club series by James Patterson
James Patterson, bestselling author of the Alex Cross novels Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, and Pop Goes the Weasel, offers the first of a new series dubbed The Women s Murder Club, featuring a four-woman team that occasionally works outside the system. None of the gritty darkness or frenzied action is lost in 1st to Die, although the female protagonists offer an even deeper emotional context to this suspense thriller.
I fell behind on this series, but it will always be one of my favorites. It's about a group of woman who solve crimes together, and some of the stuff that happens in these books is downright gruesome.
9. Ten by Gretchen McNeil It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—an exclusive house party on Henry Island. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their reasons for being there (which involve T.J., the school’s most eligible bachelor) and look forward to three glorious days of boys, booze and fun-filled luxury.
But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.
Suddenly people are dying, and with a storm raging, the teens are cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?
Ten is like '
I Know What You Did Last Summer' meets every other 90's teen horror slasher. If you have to pick one book to read for Halloween, let it be this one!
10. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare BlakeCas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
For fans of the show
Supernatural, you will love this and it will be the most awesome Halloween read for you. Ghosts and blood and death galore.
