Under-the-Radar Reads for Spooky Season

I admit to being a coward when it comes to the horror genre. I don’t even watch horror movie previews. But I can’t deny that this time of year, with the longer, colder nights, Halloween lights flickering from houses and the urge to stay cozy, safe and warm inside, there’s something about a bone-chilling tale by the fire that’s just…delicious. Even a chicken like me finds herself seeking spooky thrills. Here’s my round-up for the best scary books you may not know about at the bookstore this fall.

Multiple Jackson and Stoker award-winner Stephen Graham Jones’s latest, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” (2025) is a historical novel following a man (or is he a man?) who haunts the Blackfeet reservation, taking violent revenge, an agent of justice. Some compare Jones to a literary Quentin Tarantino, and this novel is an excellent starting place for his highly regarded body of work.

T. Kingfisher might write horror, but it’s kind of cozy. Or it’s more like horror adjacent. Her novella, “A House with Good Bones” (2023) is a contemporary take on the Southern Gothic, with an entomologist protagonist (plenty of creepy crawlies in the story!) returned to her childhood home that festers with twisted family secrets, casual racism and horrifying monsters just under the surface of things. Oh, and vultures.

Horror’s foremost magazine, “Dark Matter”, published Bend’s own Stephen Schreffler for one of its first novels. “The Bleed” (2024) is a cosmic horror romp of 90’s nostalgia and monsters, following two high school outcasts who, after a series of brutal murders in their small Michigan town, are forced to prove their innocence while a super-secret organization tries to contain the tear in reality. With “Stranger Things” vibes and a heavy metal heart, it’s been called “binge-worthy” and “a hell of a good time.”

I read a lot of mystery novels, and this atmospheric thriller set in Wales with a supernatural twist is a perfect fall read. “The Madness” (2024) by Dawn Kurtagich plays with Gothic themes, the Dracula myth and the all-too-familiar phenomenon of missing women to create a thoroughly contemporary tale of crime, violence, and survival.

Short Stories:

If you’re looking for something more bite-sized, “Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology” (2023) edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. is a collection of 26 short stories by Indigenous authors exploring Indigenous supernatural themes. It’s so good, it won a hat-trick: the Stoker, the Jackson, and the Locus.

Stephen King isn’t exactly under-the-radar, but you may not know of his new short fiction collection, “You Like it Darker” (2024). It has a range of spooky, sci-fi and suspense tales, including a sequel to Cujo.

Non-Fiction:

Law enforcement officer and Navajo Ranger, Stanley Milford, Jr.’s “The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained” (2024) had me diving under my covers and awake at 2am for weeks. He details his experiences with paranormal events on the 27,000-mile Navajo Nation: UFO and alien encounters, livestock mutilations, skinwalker visitations, Bigfoot sting operations and malevolent hauntings. Fascinating, freaky and told with a calm authority that only adds to its credibility. And terror.

Teens:

My favorite Young Adult horror writer is Krystal Sutherland, and I’m obsessed with “The Invocations” (2024) and its feminist angle on the serial killer subgenre. Three young women–one a witch, two desperate for what her magic can do for them–band together when someone starts killing girls with magical powers. Bloody, unflinching and badass, it was my top book of last year.

Natasha Preston is the queen of YA thrillers. Her latest, “The Party” (2024), takes the teen slasher back to its roots in Gothic literature as a group of friends partying at a remote English castle are picked off by a killer, one by one.

Kids:

For upper elementary kids, “Small Spaces” (2018) by Katherine Arden is THE Middle Grade horror series. Each book of the quartet is set in a different season and “Small Spaces”, the first, is set in autumn, with creepy scarecrows, graveyards and the sinister “Smiling Man,” who pursues the three eleven-year-old protagonists while mysterious things happen all around them.

Another spooky kids’ trilogy is Victoria Schwab’s Cassidy Blake series, beginning with “City of Ghosts” (2018). After resurrecting from drowning, Cassidy can enter the world of the dead and her best friend is a ghost. Her parents’ investigations into haunted places bring Cassidy deeper into a shadow world that’s far more dangerous than she knew.

Come on by Roundabout Books, and let us help you find one of these titles, or something more catered to your tastes. We have the perfect stormy night books for the most seasoned horror fans, and for the total scaredy-cats like me.

Joanna (Joey) Roddy writes fantasy novels, narrates audiobooks, works as an event designer at Authors Unbound–a full-service author event agency, and generally lives and breathes books. After three years as a bookseller at Roundabout, she still fills in some weekends and leads the Out of This World Book Club.

WHAT CASSIE’S READING:

“Exiles” by Mason Coile

A terrifying locked-room mystery —this time set on a remote outpost on Mars.

The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent to set it up in disarray — the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names, and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each must be interrogated. But one of them is missing. Exiles is a terrifying, taut, one-sitting read, and Mason Coile once again blends science fiction and psychological horror to engage some of humanity’s deepest questions.