Halloween Reads

As the days grow shorter and a chill creeps into the air, it can only mean one thing - Halloween season has arrived. The Pumpkin Patch Shelf is here to celebrate it in all its spine-tingling glory, with stories that are as eerie, enchanting, and addictive as a night spent under a full moon.

We’ve gathered the perfect Halloween reads: from haunted houses that whisper secrets in the dark, to cold-blooded serial killers lurking just beyond the porch light. You’ll find vampires who seduce and terrify in equal measure, creatures that crawl out from your nightmares, and witches who wield their power with a touch of mischief and magic.

So light a candle, pour yourself something warm (or wicked), and settle in. These books are your invitation into the haunting heart of autumn where every page turns like a crunching leaf, and every story feels just a little bit cursed.

Haunted Houses

There’s something irresistibly eerie about a home that remembers, walls that whisper, floors that creak with secrets, and rooms that never quite let you leave. These Halloween-perfect stories take the familiar warmth of a house and twist it into something chillingly unforgettable.

In We Used to Live Here, a young couple’s dream home becomes a nightmare when strangers arrive, claiming to have once lived there and the house itself seems to agree. How to Sell a Haunted House blends family drama with supernatural chaos, as siblings try to offload their childhood home filled with possessed puppets and old grief. Mexican Gothic draws you into a decaying mansion shrouded in fungus, madness, and family curses, while The Shining remains the ultimate haunted house classic where isolation and evil converge in the snowbound Overlook Hotel.

Each of these novels redefines what it means to feel at home, proving that sometimes the real horror isn’t what haunts the house… but what it awakens in us.

Serial Killers

Cold, calculating, and disturbingly compelling, these Halloween reads pull you into the darkest corners of the human mind, where obsession and violence intertwine. The thrill lies not only in the chase, but in the unnerving realisation of how close madness can feel to reason.

In My Sister, the Serial Killer, a sharp, darkly funny tale unfolds as a woman struggles between sisterly loyalty and moral duty when her beautiful sister keeps leaving behind bodies. Psycho by Robert Bloch remains a genre-defining masterpiece of suspense, where Norman Bates and his mother still reign as the ultimate portrait of fractured sanity. Jar of Hearts follows Georgina “Geo” Shaw, whose seemingly perfect life unravels when her dark past resurfaces revealing her connection to a serial killer, a missing friend, and a web of secrets that refuse to stay buried. Meanwhile, Mindhunter takes you behind the scenes of real FBI investigations that inspired countless fictional killers.

Twisted, tense, and impossible to look away from, these books will have you questioning just how well you really know the people around you.

Vampires

Seductive, immortal, and endlessly tragic, vampires have long embodied our darkest desires and deepest fears. These stories sink their teeth into the myth, reimagining what it means to crave blood, power, and connection across centuries.

A Dowry of Blood offers a haunting retelling of Dracula’s brides through the eyes of a wife reclaiming her freedom. Thirst, a breakout feminist gothic from Latin America, follows a nineteenth-century vampire fleeing the Church and a modern woman confronting loss—two lives intertwined by desire and mortality. In Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling, a young girl awakens in the woods with no memory of who she is, only to discover she’s a fifty-three-year-old vampire fighting to survive among humans. And Interview with the Vampire remains the genre’s defining masterpiece—a haunting confession of eternal life, exquisite hunger, and the beautiful horror of immortality.

Lush, lyrical, and devastatingly human, these vampire tales will leave you haunted long after the last drop, making them the perfect reads for Halloween nights.

Creepy Creatures

From haunted forests to shape-shifting families, these stories crawl, slither, and stalk through the uncanny exploring what it means to be human, monstrous, or something in between. The perfect ingredients for a spooky Halloween night read.

In Mongrels, Stephen Graham Jones delivers a spellbinding coming-of-age story about a boy growing up on the fringes with his werewolf family caught between worlds, hunted by society, and torn between his human and beastly sides. The Only Good Indians, also by Jones, is a chilling tale of guilt and revenge as four friends are hunted by a vengeful spirit years after a forbidden elk hunt, blending cultural identity and supernatural terror with heart-stopping precision. In The Fisherman, John Langan spins an eerie story of grief, obsession, and the dark lure of a mythical river that offers more than just good fishing. It promises resurrection, at a terrible cost. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human plunges into visceral horror, where parasitic hives grant salvation through grotesque symbiosis, forcing one man to confront what he’s willing to sacrifice for belonging.

Disturbing, lyrical, and unforgettable, these tales of monsters, both real and imagined, will make your skin crawl and your heart race in equal measure.

Witches and Magic

From whispered spells to burning stakes, these stories capture the enduring power and peril of witchcraft. Whether they wield broomsticks or ballots, these witches remind us that magic this Halloween lies in rebellion, resilience, and sisterhood.

In The Once and Future Witches, three estranged sisters in 1893 New Salem rediscover the lost language of witchcraft and ignite a movement where women’s rights and witch’s rights become one and the same. A Discovery of Witches blends romance, history, and fantasy as scholar Diana Bishop uncovers an enchanted manuscript and a forbidden love with a vampire that threatens to unravel the fragile balance between magical creatures. Practical Magic is a beloved tale of two sisters bound by love, loss, and a family legacy that refuses to fade - a story where the real magic is found in forgiveness and connection. And How to Kill a Witch takes a powerful nonfiction turn, exposing the brutal truth behind Scotland’s witch trials and the patriarchal forces that condemned thousands of women for their strength and difference.

Spellbinding, fierce, and full of fire, these books remind us that witches have never truly disappeared, they’ve simply changed their form.