10 New Horror Novels To Add To Your Summer Reading List

It’s not a horror book list without some vampires, and what better way to indulge a fascination with bloodsuckers than with the ones who started it all? The Brides reimagines Dracula through the lens of his infamous brides, setting them on a collision course for Transylvania and the mysterious count that lives there. While we’ve seen plenty of reinterpretations of Bram Stoker’s classic over the years, this is the latest in a new wave of feminist retellings of the tale, leaving all the blood and guts while replacing its heart with something just a bit more complex.

If you love Elton John and gross, gory body horror, this is right up your alley. Bram Stoker Award finalist Chuck Tingle brings us his latest adventure in chaos this summer, about a young influencer moonlighting at a grave robber who gets the surprise of her life when her latest corpse — and the body of her favorite singer, no less — magically reanimates. While he’s best known for parody erotica novels like Space Raptor Butt Invasion (yes, that’s a real title), the pseudonymous author recently pushed into the mainstream with great success, and we’re amped to see what ridiculous adventure he takes us on next.

With Widow’s Bay summer in full swing (yes, that’s a thing, don’t question it), we had to include an aquatic horror novel on this list. This novel from the author of Eye of the Ouroboros mixes the terror occult with the claustrophobia of The Descent in a story about a group of researchers studying an ancient underwater cult. When the entrance to their subterranean site collapses and traps them inside, each member must atone for their greatest sins, making this a perfect spooky read for your next beach trip. (Just…watch where you swim, yeah?)

Spooky old mansions and contracts that aren’t what they seem? Sounds like a Gothic novel to me, and that’s exactly what’s in store in The Residency, which picks up a struggling mother from London and drops her straight into the Scottish highlands after she accepts an artist’s residency from a generous benefactor. But naturally, nothing goes as planned, and soon, whispers begin to follow both Ginny and her daughter as mysteries unfold, and you can uncover them for yourself when the book hits shelves next month.

As one of the most beloved horror authors of the last few years, Riley Sager’s newest novel is a shoe-in for one of our most anticipated reads of the year. Hot on the heels of his 2025 novel With a Vengeance, the Home Before Dark author transports readers back to the 1920s as they meet Marin Keane, an actress starring in a new film about a mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century. Filming quickly goes awry, trapping Marin and her castmates on a remote island as they quickly realize nothing is quite as it seems, even without movie magic.

Plenty of us have described our exes as demons. (Don’t lie to me — we’ve all had them.) But cheating partners and oceans of red flags are nothing compared to dating an actual demon…right? Well, if you’ve ever been curious about it, author Clay McLeod Chapman’s latest novel, Devil Inside, explores just what happens when someone falls in love with a literal monster. In the tradition of his previous novels like Ghost Eaters and The Remaking, this new book is equal parts creepy and clever, with a happily ever after that’ll make your toes curl.

Described as “From Dusk Till Dawn meets The Thing,” this debut novel mixes sex, identity, and body horror into one nasty (and we mean that as a compliment) concoction. Transporting us to a tiny town not unlike the ‘Salem’s Lot of Stephen King fame, Tapeworm presents us with a group of friends on an annual weekend trip, not aware that something is hiding in the quaint vacation destination, waiting to strike. What results is a group bonding experience like none you’ve ever seen before, in good ways and in really bad ones.

It’s not a reading list without a little bit of satanic panic, and Jake Arnott’s debut novel delivers that in spades. Following a couple who move to the English seaside after recent misfortunes, Netherwood tangles its main characters up in the occultism of the 1980s as they uncover the mysterious doings of their new home’s former owner. What they find transports them back to a time of hair metal and blood magic as the line between reality and the mystic begins to blur, and bodies start piling up in a line that leads all the way back to Aleister Crowley and the occultists of old. 

With his novel Incidents Around the House getting a big screen adaptation this fall, bestselling author Josh Malerman is turning his sights towards a less demonic and more Hitchcockian mystery this time around. When a woman wakes up in a mysterious room with no memory of how she got there, she becomes the focus of an artist’s disturbing new painting — one she cannot leave, fearing for her own life and that of her boyfriend’s. As terrifying as the otherworldly Other Mommy, the unseen artist has made her into an unsettling still life, and she’ll have to think like an artist in order to escape, lest that prophecy comes true.  

After her first adult novel Slashed Beauties hit shelves last year and brought historical fiction and body horror together, we knew author Allison Rushby’s newest creepy concoction would be an immediate must-read. While her last novel took on the world of anatomical Venuses, All Her Beautiful Deaths dives into the macabre practice of Victorian death photography, once again mixing the past and present to create the heartbreaking, mindbending story of women whose lives collide in ways they never thought possible.