I love a good unreliable narrator, especially when they make me consider how much of my life is truly my own. You’ll be trying to sort out fact from fiction in this story about Jule, a girl on the run from the police, and her best friend, Imogen. Lockhart is a master of keeping you on your toes, so don’t expect to put this one down once you’ve picked it up.

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I found this novel because of the new Lifetime series of the same name, and it definitely didn’t disappoint (I recommend both the TV show and the book, for once!). Follow along as Joe Goldberg, your quintessential nice guy, meets Guinevere Beck and proceeds to trawl her online presence to become “the perfect boyfriend”. He’ll stop at nothing, not even murder… If you want to be warned off of your public social media accounts, this is the book for you.

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This read is a genre staple, and with good reason. French manages to weave a fascinating and chilling tale of three children who wandered into the woods (and only one returned) and connects it seamlessly to the murder of a preteen girl in the same area. While you may be able to guess the ending before finishing the book, it is a solid, gritty police procedural to get you through this spooky season. It is the first in a series, so if you’re a fan, you have plenty more to move on to.

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They say fact is often stranger, or in this case, scarier than fiction, and this book will confirm that. If you’re a true crime fan, you’ll already have heard of the Manson murders, a series of crimes so unspeakable that I shudder to think about them (despite a tolerance for gory details). Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the 1970 trial of Charles Manson and his first-hand account of the investigation, arrest and prosecution of Manson and his followers may leave you questioning your faith in humanity…

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You may know Margaret Atwood from her classic The Handmaid’s Tale, but I’m also a huge fan of Alias Grace (also a Netflix special worth watching). Is Grace Marks a murderess? Atwood will leave that to you to decide. Based on the true story of one of the most infamous women in the 1840s, Alias Grace is at once both sinister and seductive. Under Atwood’s spell, you’ll keep questioning the truth and turning the pages – I got through this one in just a few sittings.

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You can’t have a Halloween book list without an appearance from Stephen King, and this one haunted – and let’s be real, continues to haunt – my dreams for many years. If you’re already not a fan of clowns, I probably would not recommend this for you. The narration follows alternating timelines, sometimes even in between chapters, in case a creepy clown wasn’t enough to keep you on the edge so be warned that this can be a confusing read on top of being a terrifying one. Beyond this, the less said about the novel the better, but I’ll leave you with this – it’s a horror classic for a reason.

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