I’m a horror girlie every month of every year, but in 2025 I really outdid myself. I read 52 works of horror fiction and 6 works of horror nonfiction, plus 5 rereads. Most of them (aside from the rereads) were published new in 2025. I blame the excellent Jump Scares by Emily C. Hughes, which features a list of upcoming horror releases that is both fantastic and devastating to my to-read list.
While I’m planning to spend more time focusing on the back catalogue in 2026 instead of chasing new releases, 2025 did have some serious heavy-hitters in the genre. I’ve somehow narrowed down my top 5, so here are my horror favourites of the year:
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix – Yes, it’s a book about witchcraft, and yes, it’s a horror-genre cliché to say “humans were the real monsters” but it’s true that the real horror of this book is in the way the girls (pregnant teenagers sent to a home for unwed mothers in 1970s Florida who take up witchcraft in an attempt to exert some control over their manipulated lives ) at its center are used and manipulated and neglected and traumatized by their conditions and their situations and everyone who surrounds them. But every girl in this book felt so real, so alive. Their hopes, their desires, their pains, they were so vivid I could almost feel them myself. And if you feel like you’re lacking the true “scariness” that you expect from a horror novel, well, then you must have skipped over the birth scenes.
Old Soul by Susan Barker – I was shook at the end of Old Soul. Unsettling from the jump, this novel begins with two people, Jake and Mariko, meeting by chance after both missing their flight. Thrown together by circumstance, they decide to have dinner although they think that they have nothing in common. That is, until they realize that they both have one chilling connection in that they both lost a loved one in an unusual and tragic way involving a strange and charismatic women. With horror both intimate and cosmic, and writing that is as elegant as it is disturbing, Old Soul is a new favorite.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones – Stephen Graham Jones’ novels are not easy to read, not only because of their content (name an unsettling topic or horrific detail and this book probably has it) but because he is not an author who will hold your hand through his stories. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is no exception; the Pikuni words that Good Stab uses go unannotated, and the historical events referenced are in the context of the conversation between Beaucarne and Good Stab, as in both men are aware of their details whereas the reader may not be.These writing choices make SGJ’s novels divisive to some horror readers; however, even if you have struggled with some of his previous work or if you’re not normally a fan, I urge you to give The Buffalo Hunter Hunter a try. It’s truly a masterpiece that is well worth the effort, immediately destined to be a classic of the genre.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab – V.E. Schwab’s latest novel is a perfect example of how melding of traditional elements and new ideas can successfully be achieved. The title may be a mouthful, but every word of this exquisite story is something to relish. The story follows three vampiric women across centuries as they live and die and feed and as their fates entwine. Schwab in turns stays faithful to the classic elements – the thirst, the exile, the decadence and decay that permeate in equal measure – and then lays bare the themes that often simmer under the surface in vampire novels but traditionally were only subtext – the queerness, the feminine rage and desire – to create a modern classic of the genre. It’s a character-driven book, with each of the three women’s voices distinct even as their desires converge, but there is still plenty of action across the course of the stories and timelines. Schwab’s prose is excellent as always, poetic and atmospheric and incredibly fitting for the novel.
The first half of 2025 was a particularly strong one for horror, so you’ll notice that the first four books on my best-of list already appeared on my previous post about best 2025 horror:
However, there is one book from the second half of 2026 that was an easy addition:
King Sorrow by Joe Hill – I listen to a lot of horror podcasts and so inevitably when a book as anticipated as King Sorrow Comes out there’s a period when I listen to 5-7 different interviews with an author within the span of a few weeks. And so I heard several instances of Joe Hill comparing elements of this novel to a) It, b) The Secret History, and c) Friends.
An eclectic mix of references, but an accurate one. The friend group protagonists of King Sorrow (plus a number of excellent side characters) are the heart of this novel that is sure to join the canon of epic bildungsroman stories across genres.
And this novel itself crosses genres, with aspects of horror, fantasy, thriller, and more. I love low fantasy (fantastical elements in an otherwise real world) and this is a stunning example. It’s a hefty tome, to be sure, but I was quickly sucked in, and every time the action appeared like it might briefly slow, instead it took a new turn and hurtled forward in an exciting, unexpected way.
It was also a real love letter to fantasy and horror literature, with quite a few great references (including one notable turn of phrase that opens another genre-crossing epic fantasy… if you know, you’ll know). And I loved that it also explores big questions about morality and chain reactions, bringing a philosophical bent to an action-packed plot.
And back to the characters, because they’re what’s going to give this book lasting power. They’re complex, contradictory, and fascinating. There were characters I loved immediately, but there were also characters for whom my feelings changed over the course of the novel in ways I would have never anticipated. And then there’s the titular King Sorrow. What a character, what a villain.
thebestpossibletime 