Freaky Friday Files: Thriller/Horror Book Recommendations
- Ash
- Sep 12
- 5 min read
Quick Disclaimer - This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase through these, I may earn a small commission. Please see my "privacy policy" for more information. Also, these books are recommendations - I haven't read all the books.
Hello, happy Fri-yay! It's been a crazy week for me personally and for the world. OMG. So I wanted to have a more light-hearted Freaky Friday Files where we take a look at some recommended thriller/horror books. I always find reading is a great way to dissociate from the horrors of the world. I also like to be in control of the scary, so things like reading a horror book or watching a horror movie are a lot easier than dealing with reality sometimes.
I'll also include the Goodreads/Amazon blurb for each book. Hope you enjoy!
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Thriller/Horror Book Recommendations
The Eight by Katherine Neville - "Computer expert Cat Velis is heading for a job to Algeria. Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful...."
11/22/63 by Stephen King - I love Stephen King, he's so great, and he has a corgi called Molly, so I always want to read his books. "On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King--who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer--takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it."
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - I love both the book and TV show, but I think the book leaves more to the imagination. I know the stories aren't the same, but it's good to see both creations. "Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House- Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own."
Dracula by Bram Stroler - A great book. "When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival."
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - I've always loved this book, and I enjoyed watching the comedians on Taskmaster AU screw up this task, except for Dave Hughes, who knew that Frankenstein is the doctor and not the monster LOL. "Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity."
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - Another book I love, I read this at university, and tbh it took me a long time to understand it, but it was worth all the thinking. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" follows the captivating journey of a young man who remains eternally youthful while a hidden portrait ages in his place, reflecting the consequences of his immoral deeds. Oscar Wilde's masterpiece explores the dark allure of beauty, the seductive power of indulgence, and the depths of human corruption."
Phantoms by Dean Koontz - A big shout-out to my mum for introducing me to Dean Koontz when I was a teenager, because I fell in love with his stories, and they often gave me really weird nightmares. I need to read this book again because it's been so long since I last read it, but I know I thought it was great. "Closer... They found the first body hideously swollen and still warm. Then they found two severed hands. Then two staring heads in wall ovens. 150 were grotesquely dead and it had hardly begun in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, California.
and closer...
At first they thought it was a maniac. Then they thought it was an obscene new disease. Then they thought it was the Russians.
and closer...
Then they found out the truth. And they saw it in the flesh. And it was worse than anything any of them had ever imagined..."
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe - "This is a precisely crafted, often lyrical, portrait of the descent into madness of a young killer in small-town Ireland. "Imagine Huck Finn crossed with Charlie Starkweather," said The Washington Post. Short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award and England's prestigious Booker Prize."
Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell) - "Experience the blazing, surreal sensation of a fever dream...
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.
Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel."
King Sorrow by Joe Hill - I've read some of Hill's short stories, and they are written so well, so I wanna check out more of his work. "Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings. But his idyll—and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot—is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine: stealing rare books from the college library.
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.
But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal."
What's your favourite horror/thriller book? Let me know in the comments below.
Ash
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