Listen, it’s okay to admit you like pumpkin spice. We won’t judge you. And, it’s fall, so why not give in? But we have one rule: you have to like horror. Fall is the spooky season, and sure winter has its A Christmas Carol and The Terror; spring has folk horror, like Wicker Man; summer is all about the blockbuster horror flicks like Jaws and Midsommar. But Autumn has Halloween! It has trees shedding their verdant foliage, giving us classic spooky fall colors.
If you need to get into this season for horror, HOWLS member CB Jones gives us a list of 5 scary books for to consider for this autumn.
Why?
That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts.
Ray Bradbury
“This week’s book club selection goes out to my fellow autumn people. I know y’all are out there. Sometimes toward the end of August, there is that first subtle shift in the air and our blood begins to sing, because we can feel it coming. The cool mornings the sun’s golden light and the early darkening of days. Soon to be followed by the trembling leaves and overcast skies and sweaters and the brisk wind. We autumn people relish these days’ beginnings and mourn their passing.
“Autumnal horror has been a thing for a long time now, and being as autumn is Halloween’s home season, it is all but impossible to not associate this time of year with the horror genre.
“While there are many horror books out there that could be designated as autumnal, I thought that I would approach this a bit more literally, looking to the calendar itself to select my titles. All of the books in this week’s poll feature a month in the title.” – CB Jones
The “Autumnal Horrors” Book List:
The September House (2023) by Carissa Orlando*
Night in the Lonesome October (2001) by Richard Laymon
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement.
Most people would flee.
Margaret is not most people.
Margaret is staying. It’s her house.
Why?
“This is the first month of fall and I’ve heard nothing but good things about this book.” – CB JONES
2. Night in the Lonesome October by Richard Laymon
Everything changed for Ed that day in the fall semester when he got a letter from Holly, the girl he loved. “Dear Ed,” it began, “I will always cherish the times we had…” Holly was in love with someone else. It was as if his whole world had changed in a second. That night, heartbroken and half mad with despair, Ed couldn’t sleep, so he decided to go for a walk. But it’s a dark, scary night in the lonesome October, and Ed is not alone…
There are others out there in the night, roaming the streets, lurking in the darkness—waiting to show Ed just how different his world could be. Some of them are enticing, like the beautiful girl who wants to teach Ed about the wonders of the night. Some are disturbing and threatening. Some are deadly…and in search of prey.
WHY?
“Not to be confused with A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (which was already a HOWLS Bookclub selection), this is a pulpy, sleazy horror paperback that is largely hailed as one of Laymon’s best among his fans.” – CB JONES
When Amy Burton’s mother-in-law buys her and her husband Eric a lovely old mansion, it sounds like a dream come true for the young couple. But there’s something not quite right about the house. Old Mrs. Mac, who has psychic gifts, is the first to notice a sinister aura, and then there are the weird cries in the night and the scratching of a ghostly black dog at the door. Even stranger is the fact that the old house is not really old, but for some mysterious reason has been made to look that way.
At last Amy learns the unspeakable truth about a horrible deed committed in the house. But Amy has secrets of her own, buried deep within her memory and struggling to break free to the surface. The terror at the Burton house mounts, but is it really haunted, or is it all just in Amy’s mind? Readers will find the book impossible to put down until its final shocking revelation.
WHY?
“I discovered this one while perusing horror books with months in their titles. It’s fresh off a reprint from Valancourt (the publisher responsible for the Paperbacks From Hell reprints).” – CB JONES
Bleak November (1970) by Rohan O’Grady has had such striking cover art over the decades.
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.
WHY?
“A bit of a technicality here. The month of November is in the title, albeit in its numerical form. A sprawling sci-fi caper about a teacher who travels back in time to stop the assassination of JFK, this is not technically horror. But hey, it’s Stephen King we’re talking about here.” – CB JONES
In the fall of 1993, fifteen-year-old Angelo Mazzone sees his first dead body. The murder is linked to the Piper, the possible abductor of three other children—who haven’t been found—over the past few months.
Some people in town say the woods are haunted, but Angelo and his friends head in anyway, to search the darkness for a monster. What they find there will change who they are—and everything they once believed in . . .”
WHY?
“Now what’s going on here? one might ask. December is winter. You said these were autumnal horror books.
“However, if one were to follow the calendar as set by the solstices and equinoxes, they would find that winter doesn’t begin until December 21st. Thus, the majority of December is technically made up of the fall season.
“Besides, December Park by Ronald Malfi takes place in the fall and carries with it the tradition of other autumnal, coming-of-age horror, such as Something Wicked this Way Comes.” – CB JONES
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