Horror books to read before the year ends
A serial killer on the loose, a vampire set to suck out every last drop of your blood, a haunted house full of evil spirits - who doesn’t like such elements in a horror book? Horror books - despite making us wake up in the middle of the night out of fear - are extremely popular among bibliophiles. After all, it’s in human nature to be curious about the unknown and the mysterious. Furthermore, there are several horror books that won’t fail to scare the wits out of you. Here’s a look at five such horror books you need to read before the year ends.
‘The Woman in Black’ by Susan Hill
A 1983 gothic horror novel, its plot concerns a mysterious specter that haunts a small English town. A television film based on the story, also called 'The Woman in Black', was produced in 1989. A sequel of the book named 'The Woman in Black: Angel of Death' was first published in the United Kingdom in 2013 and was published in the United States in 2014, written by Martyn Waites.
Pic credit: Profile Books
‘The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes’ by Neil Gaiman
A monthly publication that started in 1989, the series combines mythology, forgotten comic book characters, and a lot of horrors! From the dreadful story of how Augustus became Julius Caesar’s heir, to a nightmare-made flesh who terrorizes an equally terrible serial killer convention - the series has it all.
Pic credit: Vertigo
‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker
It is a Gothic horror masterpiece about the undead Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, and his battle with a group of vampire hunters fronted by Professor Abraham von Helsing. Written in the epistolary form, it is a collection of fictional yet highly convincing diary entries, letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and ships’ logs.
Pic credit: Pan Macmillan India
‘IT' by Stephen King
The story follows the experiences of seven children as they are terrorized by an evil entity that exploits the fears of its victims to disguise itself while hunting its prey. 'IT' primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to attract its preferred prey of young children.
Pic credit: Hodder & Stoughton
‘Rosemary’s Baby’ by Ira Levin
The book centers on Rosemary Woodhouse, a young woman who has just moved into the Bramford, a historic Gothic Revival-style New York City apartment building, with her husband, Guy, a struggling actor. The pair is warned that Bramford has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder, but they ignore this.
Pic credit: Corsair
‘White is for Witching’ by Helen Oyeyemi
Combining elements of ghost, vampire, and haunted house stories, the novel concerns a twin named Miranda and her relationship with the xenophobic house she inhabits.
"High on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the loss of Lily, mother of twins Eliot and Miranda, and beloved wife of Luc. Miranda misses her with particular intensity. Their mazy, capricious house belonged to her mother’s ancestors, and to Miranda, newly attuned to spirits, newly hungry for chalk, it seems they have never left. Forcing apples to grow in winter, revealing and concealing secret floors, the house is fiercely possessive of young Miranda," reads the book's blurb.
Pic credit: Picador
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