HALLOWEEN BEST READS

Who doesn’t love a good spooky read around Halloween? I am a sucker for it and will never heal. I am always getting my horror reads out end of October to be on trend with the pumpkin spiced lattes, scary decorations and autumn chills.

This season I found some proper horror – the sort that crawls under your skin and infects your dreams and leaves you double-taking your own shadow as you walk home at night . I won’t be able to read them all but definitely few got me obsessed about and I cannot wait to read.

THE ORPHAN CHOIR by Sophie Hannah is on top of my list

Louise’s seven year old son has been sent away to boarding school against her wishes, and she misses him desperately. And her neighbour from hell is keeping her awake at night by playing loud, intrusive music. So when the chance comes to move to the country, she jumps at it as a way of saving her sanity. ONLY IT DOESN’T. Because the music has followed her. Except this time, it’s choral music sung by a choir of children only she can see and hear …

THE TAKEN OF ANNIE THORNE by C.J. Tudor comes next

THEN

One night, my little sister went missing.

There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst.

And then, miraculously, she came back.

She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say what had happened.

But she wasn’t the same afterwards. She wasn’t my Annie.

Because sometimes my own little sister scared me to death . . .

NOW

The email arrives in my inbox:

I know what happened to your sister.

It’s happening again . . .

Another book I am keen on reading this spooky season while curled up on my sofa sipping a hot tea and holding my breath has to be….

FOLLOW ME TO THE GROUND by Sue Rainsford

In house in a wood, Ada and her father live peacefully, tending to their garden and the wildlife in it. They are not human though. Ada was made by her father from the Ground, a unique patch of earth with birthing and healing properties. Though perhaps he didn’t get her quite right. They spend their days healing the local human folk – named Cures – who visit them, suspiciously, with their ailments.

When Ada embarks on a relationship with a local Cure named Samson, and is forced to choose between her old life with her father, and a new one with her human lover. Her decision will uproot the town – and the Ground itself – for ever.

Last but not least I will most definitely get myself into reading another horror story and that has to be….

THE DEVIL’S DETECTIVE by Simon Kurt Unsworth

Solving crimes was the purpose of Hell’s Information Men, yet they almost never achieved it, and even when they did, the facts they scraped free were lost, buried again in the labyrinthine mess of the infernal Bureaucracy. When an unidentified, brutalised body is discovered in Hell, the case is assigned to Thomas Fool. But how do you investigate a murder where death is commonplace and everyone is guilty of something?

What are the stories you are going to read this Halloween?