r/horrorlit

I just read A Short Stay In Hell by Steven L Peck in one sitting and I need more!!! I know it is likely one of a kind but if anyone has suggestions for books that gave them the same feeling I would appreciate muchly!

Ideally short books because I think this really plays into how impactful this book is.

I've only few a heard of these. SGJ's Off the Reservation is an instant read for me. The rest I am curious about.

Just not splatter punk. Preference is to indie, but mainstream recommendations are fine.

I’m a huge fan of George RR Martin as a horror author. Reading about the absolute hopelessness of the situation at the wall and the Hardhome letter actually makes my heart beat faster.

I'm curious: if you had a major publisher want to make an anthology of short fiction chosen by you, to show what kind of person you are, what would the ToC be?

1. Laird Barron, "Tiptoe" or "The Forest"
2. George Saunders, "Puppy"
3. Thomas Ligotti, "The Bungalow House" or "Our Temporary Supervisor"
4. Joe Hill, "Pop Art"
5. Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"
6. T.E.D. Klein, "Petey" or "Children of the Kingdom"
7. Karl Wagner, ".220 Swift" or "Where the Summer Ends"
8. Michael Shea, "The Autopsy" or "Uncle Tuggs"
9. Bruno Schulz. "Street of Crocodiles," or "The Cinnamon Shops"
10. Kelly Link, "Stone Animals"

Several years ago, after hearing that Charlie Kaufman was adapting Iain Reid's short novel I'm Thinking of Ending Things into a movie, I checked the book out from the campus library at the university where I taught. I started reading it during my 30-minute walk home... kept reading it when I got home... skipped my workout to keep reading... and, after taking a break for dinner and putting the kids to bed, finished reading it that evening. It was a glorious experience, a kind that I so rarely enjoy as a middle-aged person with grown-up responsibilities. I feel like the novella (which I'll roughly define as a work that would be difficult to finish in one sitting but could reasonably be read in a day) is an underrated form. Stephen King has a bunch of great ones, and they're among my favorite works of his (e.g. all four entries in The Bachman Books and Different Seasons, etc.). I'm looking for recommendations for other short-ish works like this. Books you can get through fairly quickly and that punch above their weight class. Thanks!

Looking for some haunted house stories with REALLY evil/ dangerous haunted houses.

Priority Elements are:

-Actual deaths caused by haunting

-Haunted houses behaving in ways architecture shouldn't

-Heavy on dread and actual mortal peril

-No splatterpunk stuff, Hell House by Matheson is also a hard no.

Books I've already found and liked along these lines are:

-The House of Leaves

-Kill Creek

-Episode Thirteen

Hey all I’m a bit in a reading funk at the moment. My most recent read was ‘Trad Wife’ by Saratoga Schaefer around a month ago. I think having a reading buddy to read and discuss one horror book a month with would be fun! Lmk!

I’ve been on a major kick lately with survival horror stories involving teens stuck in remote locations. I grew up obsessed with Survivor and Total Drama Island, and recently I’ve been devouring books that scratch that specific itch.

I loved The Troop by Nick Cutter, the body horror was visceral and the "trapped on an island" vibe was perfect. I just finished a new book I picked up on KU, Don’t Feed the Campers, and honestly, it was exactly what I was looking for: that trashy reality TV survival trope blended with absolute, depraved horror. Does anyone have recommendations for books where teenagers are stranded (island, forest, boat, whatever) and things go horribly, violently wrong? I’m looking for high stakes, isolation, and preferably some gnarly gore.

I have a few books on my shelf like this but I'm always looking for more. I've always loved gore , (probably a disturbing amount), so books with detail fascinated me. I have also just started reading Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker and am drawn in immediately. There's plenty of fantasy and romance on my shelves so I'm looking to expand the darker side of my shelves. Not too drawn in by murder mysteries but dystopians are interesting. Novellas and full books welcome

Books I've read:

- The Employees by Olga Ravn

- A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck

- Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drew's

- The Southern Reach series by Jeff Vandermeer

- Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki

- Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

- Every book Rebecca Schaeffer has written

- The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

- The Long Walk by Stephen King

On my TBR already

- I Am Legend by Richard Mathison

- Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

- The Vegetarian by Han Kang

- It by Stephen King

- The Dorians by Nick Cutter

- The Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy

Love the spooky empty atmosphere! Looking for amazing reads! Doesn’t need to have the comedy aspect. Happy for motel settings as well!

Hello! I am looking for some surrealist horror recommendations. I’ve read a lot of reddit nosleep stories, and I think the best example of what I’m looking for would be like “The Hidden Webpage.” with more dreamlike elements and world building. I also like human vs environment stories such as Annihilation and “The Left Right Game” that have a touch of adventure or exploration aspects. I am also open to scifi/dystopian horror.

Bonus points for audiobooks as I drive very far for work and need something to listen to on the way.

Thanks!

But nobody ever mentions “Ghoster” which I personally find is the author’s best work.
Bleak. Unsettling. Disturbing in ways you would never imagine. One of the best horror books I’ve read and the ending haunts me to this day.

Gostaria de saber a opinião de vocês sobre esse que é o livro mais controverso e que mais divide opiniões, dos livros de King.

Sempre que vejo comentários, não há meio termo, ou a pessoa detestou, ou então amou o livro. E o que mais me desperta curiosidade foi que o King estava inconsciente e drogado quando escreveu o livro, e nem lembra os detalhes( o meu lado supersticioso me sugere que ele teve alguma ajuda do "mundo espiritual" para escrever esse livro, pois sim acredito no sobrenatural)

Mas é aí o que acham?

Tô querendo ler, mas estou em dúvida entre Needful Things e Cujo.

Warning: SPOILERS!!

I just finished reading Penpel by Dathan Auerbach for the first time and it was disappointing for me to say the least, but not in the way most people would expect.

I read reviews of the book of people saying they had to put the book in their freezer or under their bed to not be as scared but for me, this book was devastating. It was well written, but I didn't find it scary at all, I found it immensely sad and heart breaking.

I was expecting a slow burn of scariness but instead I got hit with waves of sadness, loss and death. Am I the only one that feels this way?

To clarify, I am not dissing the book in any way, it was not bad. I just wish I prepared myself to cry a lot instead of preparing myself to be scared. Because I wasn't scared, I was crushed. By the reveal of Josh's last moments, imagining everything from the mother's perspective, Victoria's accident and death, and honestly just the ending as a whole. I'm finding it difficult to explain because I wasn't expecting a happy ending, but I wasn't expecting this either.

TLDR: Does anyone else find PenPal very sad and not scary?

PLS READ BELOW FOR MORE CONTEXT ON WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR🙏🏻

To be fair, I am actually looking for a book similar to the kdrama Revenant.

Without spoiling the show too much, what I really liked was how it explored folkloric myths, rituals and traditional beliefs by building a tense mystery around a series of murders. The characters were constantly racing against time, trying to figure out how to stop the ghost before more people die.

A big part of the appeal for me was the investigation aspect like going through old stories, hidden histories, specific rituals and a lot of trial and error to understand why the spirit is haunting them in the first place and how they can finally put an end to it.

So I’m basically looking for books with that same mix of folklore, supernatural mystery, urgency, rituals and uncovering the truth behind a haunting.

I tried to keep the story as vague as possible to not spoil anything about the show. But yes, pls pls recommend any book with something similar to this.

I just finished A Short Stay in Hell and I genuinely think this is the most unsettling book I have ever read.

The book kept forcing me into these thought spirals I couldn't escape from. My mind genuinely cannot comprehend ninety-five raised to the one million three hundred twelve thousandth power. And what does it even *mean* to be eternally happy or eternally sad? If happiness exists forever without sadness, would it even hold meaning anymore?

Another scary bit was how casual and calm everything felt. No dramatic torture scenes, no screaming demons just the horrifying time scale. The idea that time can stretch so far that human concepts like hope, identity, love, memory, and even patience stop functioning.

Death itself didn’t bother me that much. But this book unlocked an entirely new fear because of all the “what ifs.” if this life is just a tiny trailer for something infinitely worse !

If anyone has more recommendations from this author let me know please!

Hey, looking for some suggestions for some great audiobooks, mostly interested in horror/suspense but open to anything really - as you'll see below, I love King so any of his great stories might be a good fit.

Here's a list of what I've listened to:

• The Outsider — Stephen King
• There Is No Antimemetics Division — qntm
• The Institute — Stephen King
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter — Stephen Graham Jones
• The Troop — Nick Cutter
• Needful Things — Stephen King
• Fairy Tale — Stephen King
• Doctor Sleep — Stephen King
• The Devils — Joe Abercrombie
• Duma Key — Stephen King
• 'Salem’s Lot — Stephen King
• It — Stephen King
• 11-22-63 — Stephen King
• Pet Sematary — Stephen King

Additionally, I've listened to some Sanderson which I liked and the 'famous' ones - Project Hail Mary which I loved and Dungeon Crawler Carl (the 1st) which was... fine, I guess.

In terms of King stories - I'm debating between getting into the Bill Hodges trilogy (which isn't really horror), seeing as I've liked The Outsider alot, or maybe going for something scarier?

In terms of 'pure' horror - I've heard good things about The Exorcist (narrated by the author), The Exorcist's House, and The Girl Next Door, but would love some more recommendations!

I would love to read them, especially “Don’t let the Forest in”, “A thousand perfect notes” and “Scorpion Deep” (once it comes out).
I’m aware that there are many content warnings for all of their books. But I have a specific question to anyone who might have read them already: do any of the books (or more specifically, the ones I mentioned) include toxic/abusive romantic relationships? Or even toxic/abusive romantic relationships that are being romanticised in any way? I know that’s a spoiler but I wanted to know before I read them and based on the content warnings, I wasn’t entirely sure.

Edit: Same question for CG’s other books as far as you may have read them/remember.