Best Horror Books

Horror at its best is not about fear — it is about what fear reveals. The best horror novels use dread and the uncanny to expose the anxieties that realistic fiction politely avoids. These are the horror books that stay with you.

21 expert-reviewed books

The Green Mile book cover
Bestseller

The Green Mile

by Stephen King

4.6

A death row corrections officer in 1930s Louisiana encounters a gentle giant with miraculous healing powers awaiting execution for a crime he may not have committed.

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Frankenstein book cover
Bestseller

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

4.5

Victor Frankenstein's obsessive creation of life — and his abandonment of the creature he brings into being — with consequences that pursue them both to the ends of the earth.

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The Shining book cover
Bestseller

The Shining

by Stephen King

4.5

A recovering alcoholic writer takes a winter caretaker job at a remote Colorado hotel where the building's evil history begins to consume his sanity and endanger his family.

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The Stand book cover
Bestseller

The Stand

by Stephen King

4.5

A superflu kills 99% of the human population, and the survivors are drawn into a final confrontation between the forces of good and evil across the ruins of America.

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Dracula book cover
Bestseller

Dracula

by Bram Stoker

4.4

Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula with a London property purchase — and discovers that his host is a centuries-old vampire with designs on England.

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It book cover
Bestseller

It

by Stephen King

4.4

Seven children in a small Maine town band together to fight an ancient evil that preys on their fears — and are called back as adults to finish what they started.

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Misery book cover
Bestseller

Misery

by Stephen King

4.4

A bestselling novelist is nursed back to health by his self-proclaimed number one fan after a car accident, and discovers that his rescue has become his captivity.

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The Outsider book cover
Bestseller

The Outsider

by Stephen King

4.3

A seemingly airtight case against a beloved teacher accused of murder begins to unravel when impossible evidence suggests someone — or something — else was responsible.

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Carrie book cover
Bestseller

Carrie

by Stephen King

4.2

A telekinetic teenage girl pushed to the breaking point by her fanatical mother and bullying classmates unleashes catastrophic revenge on her entire town.

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Doctor Sleep book cover
Bestseller

Doctor Sleep

by Stephen King

4.2

A middle-aged Danny Torrance, now a hospice worker battling alcoholism, must protect a young girl with extraordinary psychic powers from a tribe of psychic vampires.

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Needful Things book cover
Bestseller

Needful Things

by Stephen King

4.2

A mysterious new shop opens in Castle Rock, Maine — and its proprietor offers every customer exactly what they desire, at a price that will destroy the town.

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Mexican Gothic book cover
Bestseller

Mexican Gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

4.0

In 1950s Mexico, glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada investigates her cousin's mysterious illness at a decaying English family's remote estate — and uncovers something monstrous.

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Annihilation book cover
Bestseller

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer

3.9

The twelfth expedition into the mysterious Area X sends four unnamed women scientists into an environment that defies biological and physical understanding.

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Red Dragon book cover

Red Dragon

by Thomas Harris

4.4

Retired FBI profiler Will Graham, who was nearly killed capturing Hannibal Lecter, is called back to help catch a serial killer called the Tooth Fairy — and must return to Lecter's cell to get inside the new killer's mind.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes book cover
4.3

In a small Illinois town in October, a carnival arrives just after midnight — Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show — and two thirteen-year-old boys discover that its attractions offer exactly what people most desire, at a price that cannot be paid.

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The Turn of the Screw book cover

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

4.1

A young governess at a remote English estate becomes convinced that the children in her charge are in contact with the malevolent spirits of two dead servants.

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