Best Spooky Reads 2026

You'll Be Sorry

by Lisa Gardner

A family disappears one night when the power goes out and is never seen again. No bodies. No explanation. A dog wandering town with dried blood on its back. And then there’s the witch lore. This book had me one hundred percent convinced something paranormal was going on. Absolutely convinced. And then it said: nope. Just plain old human beings being absolutely horrifying to each other. Which, honestly? Might be worse.

The Witch

by Freida McFadden

The Witch runs two timelines side by side: present-day Julia, who moves back to her family’s ancestral estate and immediately starts having a very bad time, and 1692 Caroline, who is being systematically destroyed by everyone around her for the crime of being a woman who helps people, also known as being a witch I guess. Both timelines are building toward the same house, the same legacy, and a twist I did not see coming quite the way it came. By the time everything clicked into place, I had to just sit with it for a minute.

The Intruder

by Freida McFadden

We’re talking a twelve-year-old showing up covered in blood, a grown woman who may or may not be about to commit a murder, and a dual timeline that slowly reveals exactly how connected these two stories really are. And I loved every single second of it. This is not a romance. There is zero steam. What this is, is a thriller that earns its twists — and there are several — and a story about two women who both survived something terrible and ended up tangled together in ways neither of them could have predicted. 4.9 out of 5. That’s how good this was.

The Safe Room

by Sarah A. Denzil

19 years. That is how long Amber has been living under the shadow of Peter Harlow. 19 years of tracking, stalking, court orders that mean nothing, and a man who refuses to accept that a 15 year-old girl rejecting his advances was not, in fact, the beginning of a love story. So Amber does what any person ground down by nineteen years of this would do: she builds a fortress. Literally. Security cameras everywhere, reinforced barriers, a cellar safe room designed to survive anything. Then one night, during a blizzard, a woman shows up at her gate. Bruised. Bleeding. Barefoot in the snow. Claiming she is running from a husband who wants her dead. And Amber, who has one ironclad rule about never letting strangers in, breaks it. That one decision changes everything.

The eternal Realm

by Michael Connelly

The concept is genuinely interesting. A professional skeptic investigating a writer’s death and uncovering that antique safes are literal portals to the spirit realm? That’s a solid premise.

Spellcaster

by Jaymin Eve

Mysterious creatures and dark magic are wrapped up in mystery on the grounds of Weatherstone College.

Phantasma

by Kaylie Smith

It's not a new release, but it has a gothic manor that teleports to new locations to host a death game run by demons, a necromancer looking for her runaway sister, and a phantom love interest with amnesia hiding a MASSIVE secret. Phantasma throws a lot at you, but the surprising part is that it works.