There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.
That phrase always bothered me as a child. I wouldn’t be scared if there weren’t very real, monstrous dangers lurking behind obscure shadows and armoire doors. The concept of fear itself didn’t scare me, but the terrifying tales which induced it certainly did.
At its core, the phrase was political propaganda – used by Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural address to encourage the nation not to be paralysed by fear. Parents later co-opted it as a means to tell little ones that the monster under the bed isn’t real, dear, and the only scary thing is the idea of the monster that we’d invented. If a tree has fallen in a forest but there’s nobody around to hear it… it still makes a sound. Just because the tangible reality of said monster remains unproven and unknown, doesn’t mean I’m not scared, mum.
But enough with the philosophical thought experiments. Fear serves as an innate, physiological reaction to danger or the threat of harm. It's why fear has historically been used to perpetuate myths which work to control and manipulate populations – from the wrath of the Greek Gods to folkloric tales of demons lurking in dark woods.
Depending on who you are in crisis, it sparks you to fight, flee or freeze. Adrenaline pumps through our veins, resulting in an array of unsettling symptoms ranging from sweating and chills to a rapid heart rate, dizziness and trembling. So why do some of us enjoy it?
The neurophysiological response to horrifying stimuli which releases adrenaline also releases endorphins and dopamine, creating a reaction akin to euphoria. Fear itself isn’t innately scary, but instead often serves as an adrenaline-boosting wild ride.
Modern horror film and literature derive from classic Victorian Gothic novels, written by the likes of Henry James, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe and H.P Lovecraft. The pioneers of writing which invoked pure horror often hid underlying societal commentary within the folds of beloved novels like The Turn of the Screw and Dracula, which links back to the idea that fear has a purpose – on both a bodily and intellectual level.
The Romantics, credited with pioneering the Gothic genre, were guided by the literary and philosophical notion that the Sublime and the Beautiful go hand in hand – one cannot be truly appreciated without experiencing the other. To wholly appreciate rolling hills and pastoral elegance, one must be exposed to the awe and fear-inspiring behemoths of nature – jagged mountaintops and terrifying precipices, natural disasters and powerful waterfalls.
It’s also incredibly cathartic. Being scared silly and knowing you’re not in any real danger can serve as a much-needed release. Thus, we’ve curated a selection of some of the best horror novels to have been written in the last few decades – because there’s so much more to fear itself.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Set in a world where cannibalism has become normalised, Tender is the Flesh is certainly not for the faint of heart. After an infectious virus deemed all animal meat poisonous to humans, governments initiated a transition into a global lifestyle which sees eating ‘special meat’ legalised, and protagonist Marcos has found himself working in a local slaughterhouse. It’s an incredibly provocative, wildly unsettling and horrifying tale of the human capacity for horror when social norms collapse.
Buy now £22.43, Amazon
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
Grief-stricken Richard and Juliette Willoughby are desperately mourning the death of their five-year-old son, Ewan – but Juliete is convinced that he’s still alive in some way, shape or form. She seeks the help of a seemingly benevolent group of occultists known as the Beacons, while Richard turns his attention to the woods surrounding their property known as Starve Acre. What’s unearthed in the shadows should never have been released.
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
Necroscope by Brian Lumley
What’s a Necroscope, we hear you ask? It’s Harry Keogh, the boy who knows the thoughts of corpses as they lie in their graves. Unfortunately, this supernatural talent works both ways, and the true horrors of his ability are unleashed when Harry is recruited by the British Secret Service. Filled to the brim with necromancy, vampirism and sheer terrifying mayhem, it’s a must-read for any classic horror fanatic.
Buy now £13.15, Amazon
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
In fleeing the crime-stricken, foul-aired city to improve the quality of life of his asthmatic daughter, Theodore Constantine finds himself exposed to untold horrors. Theodore and his wife believed the farming village of Cornwall Coombe to be the perfect, idyllic spot within which they could begin a new life. Yet in all its bucolic quaintness, something horrifyingly sinister lurks beneath the surface – and it seems to have something to do with the town’s annual harvest ceremony.
Buy now £21.74, Amazon
The Troop by Nick Cutter
A book which scared the hell out of the King of Horror himself, Stephen King, The Troop is un-put-downable. The scouts of Troop 52 are all set to enjoy three full days of camping, hiking and survival lessons on Falstaff Island, but when an emaciated figure stumbles into their camp asking for food – their adventure turns into a nightmare. The man isn’t hungry, but sick – in a way the boys never could’ve imagined existed.
Buy now £6.62, Amazon
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Described as reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Shining, Tremblay’s novel follows the lives of the Barrett’s, a suburban New England family torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display symptoms of schizophrenia.
Out of options, drowning in medical bills and desperate to cure their daughter, Majorie’s father enlists the help of a priest called Father Wanderley, who also convinces the Barrett’s to let a production company cover their plight – which in turn sees the family become the reluctant stars of a reality show called The Possession.
Buy now £8.45, Amazon
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
Set in the 1930s, Paver’s ghost story is a timeless classic. As war looms over England, twenty-eight-year-old Jack is desperate for a new life. When he’s offered a chance to join an Arctic expedition, he quickly finds himself on a ship holding five men and eight huskies bound for Norway. They are set to camp for the year at an uninhabited bay called Gruhuken, but as members of his team are plucked off one by one, Jack’s supposed adventure becomes a psychological nightmare. Could Gruhuken be inhabited after all?
Buy now £6.49, Amazon
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Originally published in 2009, Heart-Shaped Box has all the horror aesthetics of that wonderfully supernatural era of cultural history. It’s about an ageing death-rock metal star called Judas Coyne who collects all things macabre, but the latest addition to his curated horrors possesses a uniquely horrifying quality. It’s the suit of a dead man, housed in a heart-shaped box, which is said to still carry his spirit. Now everywhere Coyne goes, the man follows – all the while dangling a razor blade on a chain.
Buy now £14.99, Amazon
Brother by Ania Ahlborn
An isolated Appalachian family, The Morrows, keep to themselves. They aren’t even questioned when a girl goes missing off the nearby highway – a strange decision, given that she’s buried in their backyard. Nineteen-year-old Michael longs to be rid of his dreadful family, and when he meets Alice, he begins to believe that there’s a life beyond the pines. But Michael's brother, Rebel, isn’t going to let him go easy.
Buy now £8.50, Amazon
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
Told through a series of jagged, non-linear recollections, the unnamed narrator of Penpal attempts to piece together mysterious events that he experienced throughout his childhood. Avid horror fans will know that Auerbach’s novel is based on a collection of creepypasta stories that the author posted to the r/nosleep thread on Reddit.
Buy now £6.39, Amazon
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Simultaneously deeply moving and incredibly horrifying, Lindqvist’s vampire tale is like no other. Set in a Swedish suburb in 1981, 12-year-old Oskar strikes up an unlikely friendship with his new next-door neighbour. Eli doesn’t go to school and never leaves the flat during the day. Oskar knows there is something off about her, but is fascinated by her nonetheless, as she offers him an escape from the daily horrors of his school bullies.
Buy now £10.99, Amazon
Incidents Around the House Hardcover by Josh Malerman
From the best-selling author of Bird Box comes this chilling yarn about a home haunted by an entity referred to by the narrator as “Other Mommy”. It’s told from the perspective of eight-year-old Bela, whose world is turned upside down by this terrifying, yet seemingly maternal spectre. Think: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, only scarier.
Buy now £20.88, Amazon
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Riveting, spine-tingling and wholly unique, Hex is about a North American town called Black Springs which is haunted by an entity they refer to as the Black Rock Witch – a menacing 17th-century woman who has her eyes and mouth sewn shut. She’s become part of the furniture, so the townspeople don’t seem to fret when they wake up to the witch peering over their beds. But they do keep an eye on her through their very own smartphone app; keeping tabs on where she’s appeared to prevent outsiders from discovering her.
Black Springs is essentially a self-governed state, ruled by the protections put in place by the townspeople against the Black Rock Witch. Fed up with restriction, a set of teenagers seek her out in an attempt to go viral, but they’ve forgotten what could happen if her eyes ever open.
Buy now £5.99, Amazon
‘Salem’s Lot
There’s something about supernatural fiction taking place within small towns in the United States which affects the soul like no other. Stephen King is the master of such work, and ‘Salem’s Lot might just make you believe in vampires once and for all.
It takes place in a small New England town in which strange occurrences are commonplace. The frame narrative is spearheaded by Ben Mears, who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in Maine to write a novel about the local haunted house which fascinated him from a young age.
Buy now £11.65, Amazon
The Shining
Widely considered to be King’s greatest horror story, The Shining is set in a beautiful, grand hotel overlooking the Rockies. The Overlook Hotel has hired a new caretaker for the winter called Jack Torrance, who moves into the resort with his wife, Wendy, and their five-year-old son, Danny.
While Jack sees the move as a journey away from failure and despair, and Wendy sees it as an opportunity to repair her family, young Danny’s precognitive, psychic gifts allow him to see the horrors which lurk within the walls of the maze-like hotel – horrors which he is too young to comprehend but plague his mind and soul. Danny is a ‘shiner’, and when a ghastly winter the family off from the rest of the world, the supposedly empty hotel develops a life of its own.
Buy now £10.33, Amazon
Pet Sematary
A novel that King himself initially thought too disturbing to print, Pet Sematary is set in a small town in Maine. New to the area is young doctor Louis Creed, who has just moved from Chicago with his family into a seemingly perfect house in and amongst the pastoral, rolling hills of this supposedly safer state.
Behind the house away from the highway lays a clear path up into the woods where generations of children have buried beloved pets. Beyond the Pet Sematary, however, lies another burial ground which lures innocents with horrifying temptations.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
Tomie Complete Deluxe Edition by Junji Ito
One for the lovers of all things horror, Tomie by Junji Ito is about the eponymous femme fatale who can seduce every man that she meets, forcing them to commit heinous crimes. No mortal can escape the immortal succubus and this complete edition contains all of her terrifying adventures.
Buy now £19.79, Amazon
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
A deeply moving psychological horror which not only served as inspiration for the works of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, but for the 10-part Netflix series of the same name – the influence of Jackson’s terrifying 1959 novel within the realm of supernatural literature and media cannot be understated.
The story follows anthropologist Dr. John Montague who has an innate interest in the supernatural. Intent on using the supposedly haunted Hill House as a case study for the paranormal, he invites Eleanor Vance (reported to have had a brush with a poltergeist as a child) and Theodora (a potential psychic) to join him on a three-month sojourn.
Buy now £8.49, Amazon
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Whether you’ve consumed countless retellings of the Dracula myth in popular literature or are exploring the realms of vampiric history for the first time, there is no tale of supernatural horror quite like Stoker’s historical feat. Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to aid his wealthy client Count Dracula in purchasing a London home. While staying within the Count’s castle walls, Harker makes a series of gruesome discoveries which seem to correlate with spontaneous, violent events across England.
Buy now £6.98, Amazon
The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft
A Lovecraftian classic and perhaps his most impressive novel, The Call of Cthulhu is narrated by Francis Wayland Thurston as he recounts the series of notes and papers left behind by his late uncle. The documents detail a mysterious cult which worships the monstrous entity Cthulhu – a menacing, chimeric combination of human, octopus and dragon which resides in the sunken city of R'lyeh.
Buy now £8.26, Amazon
Babel by R.F. Kuang
If you’ve ever found yourself enraptured by the mythological concept of the Library of Alexandria, then R.F. Kuang’s Babel is for you.
The capital of all knowledge and progress in the world is an alternate, mythical re-imagining of Oxford, England. At its centre lies the Royal Institute of Translation (nicknamed Babel), and our orphaned protagonist Robin Swift can think of no better location to spend his days. Following themes of the power of language and imperialism, Swift quickly discovers he must do all he can to battle the systemic injustice brought about by the world's most prestigious institutions.
Buy now £5.00, Amazon
The Turn of The Screw by Henry James
One of the first horror narratives to begin with a retrospective tale told around a crackling fire, James’ beloved novella begins with a man named Douglas who tells the story of his sister’s old governess who was said to have encountered paranormal apparitions. We learn that the governess is given charge of two young pupils named Miles and Flora whom she grows to adore. Yet the poor governess is slowly plagued by ghosts which appear throughout the manor where they reside, threatening the lives of them all.
Buy now £6.74, Amazon
Bunny by Mona Awad
Don’t be fooled by the hot pink exterior and saccharine title of this horrifying novel.
Samantha Heater Mackey has just joined a highly selective fiction writing MFA program at Warren University in New England. Funded by a scholarship and contented in keeping to herself, Samantha is frankly disgusted by her strange cohort – a group of girls who refer to one another solely as “Bunny” and seem to be inherently connected by invisible synaptic strings.
Yet when Samantha is invited by the Bunnies into the intimate, monstrous and ritualistic folds of the Smut Salon, she finds her priorities shift towards something far more sinister.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
