We’ve come to the end of another year and another 12 months of publishing that proved horror fiction’s vastness, versatility, and sheer visceral power. In 2024 we saw new novels from some of the brightest minds in the genre, short fiction collections from masters and relative newcomers, marvelous debuts, established voices going deeper and darker, and so much more. It’s a world of fiction impossible to boil down into just 15 titles, but I’m once again willing to try.
Here are the best horror books of 2024 (and stick around until the end for an even longer Honorable Mention list).
Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram
A suicidal man takes the train to its final destination and steps out into a labyrinthine concrete nightmare world in the debut novella from Sofia Ajram, a decadent psychological journey into a world of endless, paralyzing doubt, confusion, and yes, fear.
Full of evocative, carefully constructed prose and featuring some formalist flourishes that transform its final pages into even more of an emotional gut punch, Coup de Grâce is one of those books you can read in an afternoon, and then think about for months. It’s an incredible debut from Ajram, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron
Laird Barron, author of books like The Imago Sequence and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, returned this year with his latest collection of short fiction and reminded everyone why he’s one of the best writers working in the form, not just in horror but in any genre.
In stories that blend, cross, and outright obliterate subgenres ranging from Westerns to his signature cosmic horror, Barron weaves a dark, layered spell of encroaching madness, sudden outbursts of violence, and haunting experiences that shape entire lives. He also gives us “Tiptoe,” a strong candidate for the scariest short story you could read anywhere this year.
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
After her breakthrough novel Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez returned in 2024 with this sumptuous, unforgettable collection of short fiction that merges horror, fantasy, and raw humanity into a singular reading experience.
Whether she’s exploring one woman’s unique, all-encompassing relationship with ghosts, telling the tale of a mysterious riverbank populated by strange birds, or probing one of the most haunting true crime cases of the 21st century, Enriquez always delivers the profound, the unexpected, and the beautifully dark. It’s another essential from one of horror’s brightest rising stars.
So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison
When So Thirsty came out earlier this year, I described it as “everything you could want from a Rachel Harrison vampire novel,” and that’s still true. It’s funny, it’s violent, it’s sexy, and it’s got all of those wonderful character observations and quirks we’ve come to expect from Harrison’s particular voice.
But So Thirsty also digs deeper, using Harrison’s monster-as-metaphor conceit to say something profound and beautiful about aging, regret, and becoming the person we always wish we could be. After all, it’s never too late when you live forever…
House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias
Gabino Iglesias’ “barrio noir” style, blending crime fiction with outright supernatural territory, has always thrived when it’s at its most tactile, giving us images, people and places we feel we could brush up against on the street, in the dark, late at night. With House of Bone and Rain, Iglesias further refines that quality in his work, and uses it to build the most emotionally stunning work of his career so far.
Set in his homeland of Puerto Rico, Iglesias’ latest novel about a group of friends out for a particular brand of revenge feels like the author holding up his own still-beating heart to the world, squeezing out the blood, then using that visceral, emotional material to reach a new level with his craft. It’s a stunner.
I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is so immersed in slasher lore and mechanics that he’ll never run out of ways to explore the subgenre. His latest, I Was a Teenage Slasher, is proof of that skill and it’s also proof that Jones’ slasher explorations are about much more than conceptual leaps.
Yes, Jones’ willingness to pull from his own West Texas childhood to tell the story of a teenage boy infected by a slasher curse is impressive, but that’s only the hook to get Teenage Slasher started. The story of Tolly Driver is deeper, darker, and much more emotional than a high-concept trick, and it’s what Jones does after he gets us in the door that makes this one of his best novels.
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
Four friends and colleagues head into the American wilderness in search of a new rock climbing spot that could make several careers at once, and instead find a nightmare in this immersive, propulsive novel.
Writing about a very specific skillset or talent is always a tricky business, and from the beginning, Jenny Kiefer establishes This Wretched Valley as a tactile landscape of climbing gear and camping mishaps. But what really makes the book special, beyond its human authenticity, is the way Kiefer evokes the unvarnished reality of the wild, a place where anything might be waiting and watching. It’s a frightening book because you can imagine so much of it happening to you, and then it goes to places you can’t possibly imagine.
You Like It Darker by Stephen King
For more than five decades now, Stephen King has been exploring horror short fiction, and his output is so vast that he’d be forgiven for a collection that simply retreads old territory. But with You Like It Darker, King not only proves that he doesn’t need old territory, but that he can remake it.
A sequel to Cujo, a story of a psychic dream turned nightmare, a tale of unexpected talent, and a trio of visits from a mysterious figure are all contained in this volume, King’s first fiction collection of short stories in nearly a decade, and they all reveal an author who’s just as curious and imaginative as he was 50 years ago. Stephen King is still at the top of his game, and this collection is proof.
The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste
A woman returns to the site of a traumatic, supernatural event from her childhood, and finds secrets as frightening as they are beautifully strange in the latest novel from Gwendolyn Kiste. As she has in past work like Reluctant Immortals, Kiste sets out to explore classic horror tropes in new ways, and this time she turns her attention to an entire haunted neighborhood where time is broken, faces are fading, and the past is never really gone.
In a year full of great ghost stories, this is one of the best, a slim volume that moves like a rocket, yet lingers in your head like a bad dream. If you’re not reading Kiste yet, this is a perfect entry point.
American Rapture by CJ Leede
CJ Leede’s follow-up to her brilliant debut, Maeve Fly, possesses the same wit and evocative prose that helped establish her as a rising star in the horror space but reaches for an entirely new level of ambition. Set in the American Midwest amid the outbreak of a strange pandemic that transforms humans into beings of pure, savage desire, American Rapture follows one girl’s sexual and emotional awakening after years of repression, set against the backdrop of an America intent on devouring itself.
Drawing on everything from The Stand to Night of the Living Dead, in the end, American Rapture succeeds because it grows beyond its influences and delivers a singular portrait of a broken American viewed through the lens of desire, shame, and indulgence. It’s proof that CJ Leede is just getting started, and a must-read from 2024.
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
This list is arranged in alphabetical order specifically because I don’t want to rank these titles and tell you which one is “best,” but I will tell you right upfront: Incidents Around the House is the single scariest horror novel I read all year.
It starts with one of the oldest stories in all of horror: There’s a monster in a little girl’s closet. But what happens next, as Bela and her parents try to grapple with the reality of said monster, is what pushes the book into masterpiece territory. A family saga with a child’s eye view and a masterful exploration of how aging changes our fears, it’s one of those books we’ll be passing around to new horror fans for years to come.
Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen
This shattering, gorgeously rendered debut novel is special for a lot of reasons, but what sticks out most is the confident, exquisite control Pedersen retains over her prose. If you love to read books for the sheer style of an author, getting lost in each paragraph and each carefully structured sentence, then Sacrificial Animals is for you.
The story of a broken family who reunites on their ranch, the site of numerous childhood injustices for a pair of distant brothers, the book is also much more than its word choices and sentence structures. Pedersen digs deep, casting dark spells with each passing page, enveloping you in a brutal world where control reigns supreme and history runs deeper than anyone is willing to admit, and the result is one of the best debut novels in any genre this year.
All The Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper
Hailey Piper just keeps getting better, and one of the queens of modern horror reached yet another stylistic and narrative apex this year with this tale of a small town haunted by a mysterious dead girl, an island with a legendary aura, and three locals who are trying to get to the bottom of it all.
Steeped in influences ranging from Twin Peaks to The Lost Boys and packed with humor and heart, All The Hearts You Eat is both a vampire novel unlike any other you’ve read and a book that further cements Piper as one of our great chroniclers of the lost, the broken, and the people who see beyond what the rest of the world can perceive. It’s a triumph in a career increasingly full of them.
Model Home by Rivers Solomon
Another of the year’s best ghost stories, Model Home follows three siblings as they deal with the death of their parents, and the mysteries surrounding the Dallas McMansion those same parents moved them into when they were small. It’s a classic setup for a ghost story, but it’s what Solomon does next that makes the book shine.
The horror in Model Home is rich, layered, and wonderfully imaginative, jumping out to grab you on a sentence-by-sentence level as well as on the grander scale of haunted worldbuilding, but Solomon is not content to stop there. In their hands, the book becomes a horrifying, visceral exploration of racism, classism, and social mobility in the American South, all wrapped up in an unconventional ghost story that’ll have you hanging on every page.
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
A group of friends sets out to make an independent horror movie in the 1990s. They never finish, but the film they tried to make has become a legend among horror fans, so much so that a remake is in order. Told from the perspective of the cast and crew’s one surviving member, interspersed with bits of the script, Horror Movie is Paul Tremblay’s best book since A Head Full of Ghosts.
Why? Well, it starts with the formalist daring that permeates the book, continues through his misanthropic narrator’s voice, and culminates in Tremblay’s ability to say something profound about the kind of horror he loves while also telling us another great Paul Tremblay story. This might be as close to a key to Paul Tremblay’s mind as we’re ever going to get, and that makes it both an essential and a deeply entertaining read.
Honorable Mention
The landscape of horror in 2024 was so much bigger than 15 books, so if you’ve read these titles and you’re looking for more, here are 30 additional favorites from throughout the year.
- The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
- Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud
- I Believe in Mister Bones by Max Booth III
- Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy
- Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo by Adam Cesare
- Letters to the Purple Satin Killer by Joshua Chaplinsky
- Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman
- Memorials by Richard Chizmar
- Dead Girls Don’t Dream by Nino Cipri
- Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton
- The Queen by Nick Cutter
- The Black Girl Survives in This One, edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell
- Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
- Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson
- The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden
- No Gods Only Chaos by L.P. Hernandez
- The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones
- The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
- Pay the Piper by Daniel Kraus and George A. Romero
- This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca
- Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima
- Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi
- Woodworm by Layla Martinez
- Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo
- The Devil By Name by Keith Rosson
- Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan
- This Cursed House by Del Sandeen
- Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
- Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
- Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd-for-hire who’s been writing about entertainment for more than a decade. His writing about movies, TV, comics, and more regularly appears at SYFY WIRE, Looper, Mental Floss, Decider, BookPage, and other outlets. He lives in Austin, Texas, and when he’s not writing he’s usually counting the days until Christmas.