Here's what to read this Halloween
With Heather Parry, M.L. Rio, Alison Rumfitt, Erin E. Adams and more.
When it comes to Halloween, TV and cinema tend to have the market cornered. There are all-out horror movies, gore fests and lightly spooky family fare, as well as myriad true crime documentaries and very special episodes. But when the night draws in and the trick-or-treaters have done their thing, it really is time to check out a suitable book.
It may be the season of the witch, but don’t let that limit you. From supernatural crime-fighters to haunted houses, frightening pasts to the unsettling present, read on for more inspiration on Halloween reading in 2025.
Shy Trans Banshee by Tony Santorella
Atlantic, Hardback
The new novel from the author of the hugely popular Bored Gay Werewolf, Shy Trans Banshee follows three supernatural crime-fighting friends on a trip to London to hunt down a misplaced colleague. But while they’re there, the group stumble across a clairvoyancy smuggling ring. Matters are further complicated by the arrival of Maeve, a timid trans woman who says she’s looking for her birth mother – and who has an uncanny ability to predict what’s going to happen next.
Read more about Shy Trans Banshee on Bookshop.org
Carrion Crow by Heather Parry
Transworld, Paperback
Engaged to a much-older, broke solicitor, Marguerite Périgord’s has been confined to the attic of her family home by her mother. She is left alone, save for a carrion crow nesting in the rafters, with only a sewing machine and Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management to entertain her. Cécile will not allow her to bring the family into disrepute – not when she herself has worked so hard at betterment. But both women have secrets, and soon Marguerite’s mind and body begin to unravel themselves.
Read more about Carrion Crow on Bookshop.org
Hot Wax by M.L Rio
Wildfire, Hardback
The only witness to a desperate act of violence as a child, Suzanne spends her adult life running from what she saw when she was ten years old. She thinks she’s got away when she leaves behind music and mayhem and moves to the suburbs with a mild-mannered husband. But the past has other ideas, and soon Suzanne finds herself running across the country – away from her increasingly desperate husband, and back towards the chaos of her youth.
Read more about Hot Wax on Bookshop.org
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Cipher Press, Paperback
Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends. Since then, she has been living a fraught existence. She goes to parties she doesn’t like, drinks to fall asleep, and finds herself haunted by the poster of the sensitive rockstar-turned-racist hanging in her bedroom. She hasn’t spoken to Ila since they went into the House. She hasn’t seen Hannah either. But when Ila asks her to return to the House, past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth, she knows she must go.
Read more about Tell Me I’m Worthless on Bookshop.org
Jackal by Erin E. Adams
Dead Ink Books, Paperback
Liz, a Black woman, doesn’t exactly have fond memories of her predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, and so she goes back, ready for whatever the town has to throw at her. Except: on the day of the wedding, the happy couple’s daughter Caroline disappears. With the police searching the woods, Liz seems to be the only person who sees a pattern. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl at Liz’s high school, disappeared in the same manner years before. As she digs deeper into the town’s past, Liz finds out that Keisha and Caroline aren’t the only two Black girls to be swallowed by the forest – and realises it will be up to her to end it.
Read more about Jackal on Bookshop.org
The Hole by Hye-Yung Pyun, translated by Sora Kim-Russell
Oghi wakes up after a car crash to find his wife dead, and himself trapped in his own body, watched over by his vengeful and grieving mother-in-law. Unable to move and forgotten by his nurse, Oghi is left to turn over the memories of his wife and her garden. Meanwhile, however, his mother-in-law is obsessively uprooting the now abandoned garden, and digging a series of ever-larger holes.
Read more about The Hole on Bookshop.org
Tender by Lauren DuPlessis
Influx Press, Paperback
Archaeobotanist Nell has curated the perfect pastel facade. But underneath is a wildness, stemming from an unsettled childhood which has left her with a difficult relationship with her sister. When Nell is called to help excavate a pair of ‘bog bodies’ buried in elaborate floral graves, she finds herself uncovering more of her own memories instead, unearthing a sense of chaos which begin to bloom across her body.