Reading roundup · Halloween
Six Creepy Indie Books for Halloween
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. Here are six creepy indie books, and one spooky bonus, for the dark evenings leading up to it.
Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, which leaves a whole run of dark evenings to fill first. The pumpkin can wait. Pick a book.
Indie authors write some of the strangest, most unsettling stories around, because nobody is telling them to play it safe. These six come from the IndieFiction shelves: a cursed lighthouse, a restaurant that won't let you leave, witches and demons, and one gloriously campy slasher. Every one is self-published and picked by hand. Each title links to its page here, and from there to wherever the author sells it. There are no affiliate links and we take no cut, so buying one supports the author directly.
Start with the kind of scared you like
- A haunted place that won't let you goInstructions For Leaving The Lighthouse
- Friends, a small-town summer and something strangeThe Counterwritten: The Shroud of Crown Point
- Trapped, with the doors lockedThe Final Reservation
- A slasher you can laugh atThey Will Surprise You
- Witches, demons and a very old bargainThe Apothecary's Debt
- Nightmares that come trueEverything She Dreamed
Six creepy indie books for Halloween
Instructions For Leaving The Lighthouse
by P.J. ThorneijkThriller/Mystery/Crime
Read it if you wanta haunted lighthouse that remembers.
The old Tidehaven lighthouse has stood abandoned since the night its light failed and dozens of sailors drowned, and the locals say it's cursed. Elias, a guarded investigator of the supernatural, would rather keep his distance, until Benji, a friend from his childhood, turns up asking questions he shouldn't. Curiosity turns into survival when the lighthouse stirs awake and pulls them both into its shifting halls. A modern gothic tale about the dead left behind, and the ghosts we carry ourselves.
A short read.
The Counterwritten: The Shroud of Crown Point
by Gregory StarkYoung Adult
Read it if you wantfour friends, one summer and something that writes back.
The summer of 1979 was supposed to be their last chance to be kids. Then four fourteen-year-old friends in Northwest Indiana uncover impossible visions, a century-old disappearance and beings that can rewrite reality. To survive, they have to find the truth behind Eliza Shroud before someone else decides how their stories end. A young adult supernatural mystery set in Crown Point, Indiana.
The opening book of the Oneirion Trilogy.
2likesSee the bookThe Final Reservation
by ROLANDO CABRALHorror
Read it if you wanta locked room you can't explain your way out of.
Sue and Jane sit down to an ordinary dinner just as a violent storm hits. Then the restaurant doors lock, their phones stop working, and the people around them begin collapsing and disappearing. Every attempt to make sense of it leads to more questions, and the longer the night goes on, the clearer it gets that something worse than the storm is keeping them inside. A supernatural psychological thriller full of twists.
Tera wants one last party with her cheerleading squad without having to come out. Katie wants a new life after one last job with a scumbag crew. Timothy wants a final family camping trip before his sons grow too old to care. And Slater wants to kill them all, except he promised his family he'd refrain on their vacation to Diamond Lake, and someone else at the campground is beating him to it. Boat shenanigans, wicked traps, final girls and, of course, family values.
It's a slasher, so expect violence.
The Apothecary's Debt
by Anne VellenFantasyPre-order
Read it if you wantwitches, demons and a bargain made before she was born.
Mina Vale has always had demons in her life. Some steal socks; one likes pizza, old films and having his neck scratched. She's a witch and an apothecary in Cambridge, happy to mind her own business, until the city's magical circles go to war and demons start being summoned as weapons. Then she learns why an infernal lord cares so much about keeping her brother alive: before she was born, her parents made a bargain, and Mina was the price. Funny, dark and very witchy.
First in a series.
Everything She Dreamed
by Ivy ValeThriller/Mystery/Crime
Read it if you wantnightmares that start coming true.
Ashley Chapman teaches kindergarten, has a good marriage and a quiet small-town life, and has spent years shrugging off her nightmares by breakfast. Then she dreams of a wave crashing through her holiday villa, and days later a real tsunami hits the exact resort where she should have been sleeping. It happens again, and again, each disaster closer to home, until the people she loves start appearing in the dreams. The answers are buried in three days she can't remember from when she was seven, and something has been feeding on her fear ever since.
2likesSee the book
Still not scared enough?
The Creepy and unsettling shelf holds 64 books, each one tagged by its own author. For a shorter start, the creepy indie books for Halloween reading list has five more, and none of them repeat the six above.
Can't decide? Let a blind date choose
Try Blind Date with a Book. Tell us you're in the mood for something creepy and we'll hand you three books, wrapped. No covers and no titles until you unwrap one.
More for the dark evenings
Want something you can finish tonight? Our free short stories are complete and on the page. And our newsletter, the Shout-Out, brings four indie books most weeks. Join on the readers page, and tick the ARC box if you'd like to hear from authors looking for ARC readers.
Wrote something creepy?
List it on IndieFiction for free. Tag it Creepy and unsettling and it joins the shelf above, where readers like the ones on this page are already looking. It might turn up in the next roundup, too.
So, which one are you reading with the lights on? Tell us on Instagram at @indie.fiction.