Spooky season is officially here! As the leaves turn orange and the evenings draw closer, there’s no better time to curl up with a good book that sends a shiver down your spine…

In collaboration with our friends at Doubleday, we’ve selected eights haunting reads for this October – including four from the Women’s Prize library. Whether you’re a fan of the Gothic, love a murder-mystery or just looking for a seasonal thrill, find a book recommendation below!

From our friends at Doubleday

Tall Bones

by Anna Bailey

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‘When a 17 year-old-girl goes missing, the façade of Whistling Ridge, Colorado – a tinder-box of small-town rage ruled over by a crazy preacher – is split wide open. Based on the author’s first-hand experience of an American small-town community and religious rage.’

Spitting Gold

by Carmella Lowkis

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‘A creepy, propulsive historical debut with a fresh voice and sumptuous Parisian setting. Combines classic gothic paranormal mystery with a touching lesbian romance.’

Freakslaw

by Jane Flett

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‘A classic insider-outside tale of disruption, Freakslaw is a novel about chosen family and the risks it takes to become the person you want to be. A travelling funfair of seductive troublemakers arrive in a repressed Scottish town. What could possibly go wrong?’

Carrion Crow

by Heather Parry

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‘A claustrophobic and gloriously gothic novel in which a young woman, following an ill-advised engagement, is imprisoned in an attic bedroom by her own mother for two decades.’

From the Women’s Prize Library

Woman, Eating

by Claire Kohda

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Written by 2025 Discoveries judge, Claire Kohda

A young, mixed-race vampire must learn to reconcile the conflicts within her – between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.

And Then She Fell

by Alicia Elliott

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Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024

On the surface, Alice’s life is picture perfect – until strange things start happening. Alice finds herself hearing voices she can’t explain and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours’ passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening…

Children of Paradise

by Camilla Grudova

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Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023

Newcomer Holly joins one of the city’s oldest cinemas, Paradise, thinking it will be like any other shift work. But it’s not long until she discovers its rotten core – unearthing its secrets, learning its history and haunting its corridors after hours with her fellow ushers.

The Birds And Other Stories

by Daphne du Maurier

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Written by the classic author, Daphne du Maurier

A classic of alienation and horror, The Birds was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man’s sense of dominance over the natural world.