No one knows a scary book like a horror writer, but even they sometimes read a novel that keeps them up at night.
Every year around Halloween, USA TODAY surveys 10 authors with new horror novels to ask what they consider the scariest books ever. Master of horror Stephen King usually shows up on these lists, but "scary" means different things to different people, so readers will see other genres represented in their picks. Though, of course, there are quite a few horror books in here, from classic prose to newer stuff.
With Halloween upon us, this year's crop of authors give us the rundown on their freaky favorites.
'Behind the Attic Wall' by Sylvia Cassedy
I’m going to answer this honestly with a book
that’s had a huge impact on my writing. I was 8 when I read it, but I still think about it today. It’s about a wonderfully unlikeable young heroine whose only friends are dolls possessed by ghosts. It’s for kids! I find this incredible. It still unnerves the heck out of me. Man, the 1980s were something else."
– Jennifer Thorne, author of "Newbourne Park,' a new take on the werewolf mythos that follows a 20-something woman invited by her brother to a lavish English country estate where a vicious monster comes out at night.
'The Buffalo Hunter Hunter' by Stephen Graham Jones
"As much as horror traditionally inhabits the realm of the supernatural, the worst horrors are the ones that actually happened, and continue to happen. Jones takes a both/all approach, giving us the monsters that inhabit our dreams and the monsters that inhabit our past, creating a masterpiece that is at once a homage to a classic and something entirely new."
– Mathilda Zeller, author of "It Looks Like You in the Dark," an Indigenous horror tale that weaves in Alaskan folklore as it centers on a high school graduate who goes searching for her missing sister as a mining operation is launched near their village.
'The Changeling' by Victor LaValle
"I had to put 'The Changeling' down three times before I was finally able to finish it. It is nightmare fuel, heartbreaking, and one of the most brilliant books I've ever read. A story that asks us if we can ever truly keep our children safe when we inadvertently invite monsters into our homes every day. Scared the hell out of me and made me cry."
– Tanya Pell, author "This B Just Won't Die!," a darkly humorous feminist slasher novel about a 40-year-old scream queen recruited to host a horror docuseries who's stalked by a serial killer mimicking the kills from her iconic movie franchise.
'The Cipher' by Kathe Koja
“Rising from the dark pantheon of all-time greats is 'The Cipher' – a book that some of us, and if you know you know, quietly rechristen 'The Funhole' every time we speak of it. Which we do often. No other book I know so ruthlessly and brilliantly interrogates not just the void and the terror, but the seedy awfulness of how and why we crave them.”
– China Miéville, author of "The Rouse," an ambitious supernatural and historical epic about a grieving man looking for answers about her fallen soldier son and a military man haunted by mysterious supernatural forces.
'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson
"A haunted house. Ghosts. Trauma. 'The Haunting of Hill House' is the blueprint for horror and the scariest novel I’ve ever read. The eeriness of the story goes beyond rickety floorboards and peeling paint and delves into something much more terrifying: the mind. Jackson’s prose is haunting and poetic. It gets inside readers’ bones and stays there long after the final page is turned."
– Kate Mooney, author of "The Woman of the House," a supernatural thriller about a wife who begins to be creeped out about her new house on a lake and has questions about its dark history of disappearing residents.
'Johnny Got His Gun' by Dalton Trumbo
"Not often categorized as horror – but it is. The main character, Joe, was a soldier, now a quadriplegic patient in a hospital, a victim of brutal shelling in World War I. He has no face or tongue either. The book is anti-war, fully human. Concerned mostly with Joe’s attempts to communicate with his nurse and reflect on his life prior to WWI, it’s gut-wrenching body horror but full of emotional depth. You will cry. I did."
– Kyle Winkler, author of "The Ship of Death," a cosmic horror story about a couple who playtest tabletop role-playing games and find their latest project beginning to take over their lives in sinister fashion.
'Our Share of Night' by Mariana Enriquez
"I think about this book all the time even though I read it three years ago. It has several bone chilling scenes that I still can't shake. I also love that it’s a story about real world horrors – the horror of family, the horror of living under a dictatorship – cleverly wrapped in a story about a supernatural cult."
– Megan Mostyn-Brown, author of "The Need," a horror book about members of two families – a mom and her son, and a famous supermodel – dealing with a rare genetic disorder where they have to consume human flesh to live.
'The Sluts' by Dennis Cooper
"Told across male escort review pages and emails, 'The Sluts' is a graphic, violent, nasty exploration of the gay kink scene. Dennis Cooper never holds back in incredibly detailed depictions of truly terrifying scenes that will stick with you forever. With several unreliable narrators and multiple diverging claims, you never quite know what to believe, but you will still shudder in horror and disgust at every new post's appalling additions."
– Samantha Josephs, author of "Carrying," a horror novel about a trans woman who keeps her sexuality secret from her family and becomes pregnant after taking an experimental treatment for a mysterious chronic illness.
'Tampa' by Alissa Nutting
"I felt like I was breathing glue while reading 'Tampa.' It confines readers to the perspective of a putrid monster from our own world: Celeste, a junior high teacher who desires only to prey on boys who make her feel young. It's a nightmare character portrait and indictment of a culture that dismisses female sexual predators as a joke. Nutting has given us an exquisite example of disturbing fiction that continues to make my skin crawl."
– Gillian Daniels, author of "Jenny Will Eat You Now: A Meat Cute," a horror romance about a river monster living beneath Boston's streets who decides to explore the world above when she has a chance encounter with an attractive academic dude.
'Tender is the Flesh' by Agustina Bazterrica
"As a kid, Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary' and Lois Duncan's 'Summer of Fear' imprinted. These days, the evocative feelings a great novel are most likely to elicit are shock, dread and awe. I felt all of these while recently reading 'Tender is the Flesh.' On the surface, it's an horrific dystopian cannibalism story. But it's more than that – it's about an ever-moving morality, illustrating the ways absolute power corrupts absolutely."
– Sarah Langan, author of "Trad Wife," a timely chiller about a disgraced journalist hoping for a comeback by exposing a tradwife influencer but instead finds herself in a terrifying predicament.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is the scariest book? 10 horror authors pick the most terrifying
