10 Chilling Reads for Friday the 13th

Friday September 13, 2024

Today is the first Friday the 13th of the year, and with fall just around the corner, (and the full Harvest Moon next Tuesday, September 17th), there are so many reasons to pick up your first bone-chilling read of the season! From thriller, to horror, suspense, and mystery, there are endless options available at your fingertips for a spooky evening of thrill and fright.

Below is a list of a variety of books to curl up with for a cozy weekend of scare, shock, twists, and turns! (All of them have been published this year. These books are listed in no particular order of scariness, type, or favorite):

 

1. Dead Girls Walking follows the story of a girl who is searching for her dead mother’s body at the summer camp that was once her serial killer father’s home.

Tags: Young adult, horror slasher, serial killer

2. The New Couple in 5B tells the story of a couple who inherits a luxury apartment – but darkness is lurking.

Tags: Thriller, lies, surveillance

3. The God of the Woods also takes place at a summer camp, but back in August 1975. Barbara Van Laar is missing, but she is not the first. How could this have happened again? And what is the truth?

Tags: Multi-storied, historical fiction, thriller

4. The Five Year Lie, a thriller debut from romance author Sarina Bowen, tells the story of a woman who receives a text from her deceased ex. As she works to uncover the truth, she realizes she will have to find it before it finds her.

Tags: Lies, romantic suspense, mystery

5. You Like it Darker: Stories is a collection of twelve stories by Stephen King that dive into darkness – both metaphorically and literally. Tags: Short stories, horror, death 6. All the Colors of the Dark is a story of missing people, a serial killer, and a love story, all wrapped into one. Girls are disappearing in the town of Monta Clare, Missouri in 1975, and an unlikely hero works to uncover the mystery.

Tags: Missing persons, love story, serial killer

7. Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead follows Charlie Colbert, who has rebuilt her life nine years after she witnessed “nightmarish events” at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve. In this debut novel by Jenny Hollander, Charlie is forced to face what happened and won’t let anyone or anything stand in her way.

Tags: Dark academia, horror, suspense

8. One Perfect Couple is where reality TV meets your worst fears. A couple of two years joins the cast of a new reality romance, and at first, they are swept up in the beauty of the Indonesian island that sets the background of the show. Then a storm hits, isolation ensues, and one person makes it their mission to be the last one standing.

Tags: Secrets, storms, relationships

9. What Have You Done? takes place in the small town of Fairhill, Vermont. A high school student is found dead in a local farmer’s field. Someone in Fairhill knows who did it, but no one is talking. Tags: Paranormal, small town murder, multiple point of views 10. Tell Me Who You Are tells the story of a psychiatrist with a shocking past and a dangerous patient who confesses he is going to kill someone. However, when police come knocking on her door about a missing person, she becomes the prime suspect.

10. Tell Me Who You Are tells the story of a psychiatrist with a shocking past and a dangerous patient who confesses he is going to kill someone. However, when police come knocking on her door about a missing person, she becomes the prime suspect.

Tags: Unreliable narrator, captivity, psychological thriller

 

Why not thirteen recommendations? Because that would be unlucky, of course.

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