The 5 Best Horror Novels I Read in 2025
Every year since 2002, I’ve published my top ten favorite horror movies of the year. This time, with books becoming an increasingly important part of this site, I’m adding a best novels list as well.
We’re lucky to have so many talented contemporary authors who are interested in writing horror. The genre has been blessed with many high quality works and I have high hopes that 2026 will equal or surpass 2025.
Here are my favorite novels that I read in 2025. I consumed fewer novels than movies this year, so I’m doing a top five instead of ten. All of these novels have received full reviews on the site. I have summarized my thoughts on them below and included links to the full reviews.
5. Wake up and open your eyes by Clay Mcleod Chapman
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes doesn’t need to be so unrelenting to get its point across, but it’s an effective and memorable novel that could be remembered as a quintessential work of the 2020s.
4. Guillotine by Delilah Dawson
Guillotine is an implausible but hugely entertaining populist revenge tale written in hilariously descriptive prose.
3. I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones it again. I Was a Teenage Slasher somehow manages to wring freshness from the old slasher formula, proving that there’s still life left in this well-worn subgenre.
2. Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle
Lucky Day is a brilliantly imaginative near-masterpiece that will grab you and never let go. Of enjoyed Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays, but Tingle surpassed both of them this time.
1. Mister Magic by Kiersten White
With resonant themes and a consistently eerie atmosphere, Mister Magic is the creepiest horror novel I’ve read in the past year.
