Not traveling this summer? Me neither!
So, I’ve prepared some spooktastic horror recommendations to take you away.
Pick your ideal vacation and cuddle up with your next summer read. But be warned, these books bite and aren’t for the faint of heart.
Summer Camp
With a side of cannibal
It’s a local legend. No one is sure if this “Camp Slaughter” place is real or not. But a group of college kids renting out a cabin deep in the woods of Pennsylvania will soon realize the truth. They’ll realize the danger, too.
Or rather, the cannibal out in the woods will bring the danger to them…
Going to Visit Your Sister
You just might never leave
An unsettling, hypnotic descent into the visceral heart of “mommy horror,” Afterbirth is a story of fractured sisterhood, aching hunger, and irrevocable transformation—reverberating with the echoes of classic horror cinema.
In the wake of a fraught and ill-omened romance, Brooke arrives in Vancouver to care for her sister Izzy, who is preparing to undergo reproductive surgery. But Izzy’s rapidly decaying apartment building, its hallways stalked by an ominous figure known only as Medusa, offers little of the refuge the sisters need.
Seeking solace in the horror movies her ex-girlfriend loved, Brooke soon finds traces of horror bleeding from the screen into their lives. Old wounds reopen and new tensions surface. When Brooke begins to exhibit strange symptoms of her own, the line between self and sister blurs, and their concern for each other twists into a tangled obsession.
Eerie, threaded with yearning, and startlingly original, Emma Cleary’s haunting literary debut explores loneliness, motherhood, and the body’s threatened autonomy. The novel blooms with the dark desires we suppress or surrender to—until only one question remains: who, or what, will survive when all unravels?
Tropical Island
Don’t let that sea breeze fool you, there’s something not right about this place
A tropical island full of secrets. Two Victorian ghosts, trapped for eternity. And a seventeen-year-old girl determined not to be next.
Eulalie Island should be a paradise, but to Addie Spencer, it’s more like a prison.
Forced to tag along to the remote island on her mother’s honeymoon, Addie isn’t thrilled about being trapped there for two weeks. The island is stunning, with its secluded beaches and forests full of white flowers. But there’s something eerie and unsettling about the place.
After Addie meets an enigmatic boy on the beach, all the flowers start turning pink. The island loves you, he tells her. But she can’t stop sleepwalking at night, the birds keep calling her name, and there’s a strange little girl in the woods who wants to play hide-and-seek. When Addie learns about two sisters who died on the island centuries ago, she wonders if there’s more to this place, things only she can see.
Beneath its gorgeous surface, Eulalie Island is hiding dark, tangled secrets. And if Addie doesn’t unravel them soon, the island might never let her go.
Colder Climate
How about the COLDEST climate?
From the author of To Break a Covenant comes an edge-of-your-seat read that will leave your heart pounding.
One week ago, Riley Kowalski joined a team of four other teens for an internship on climate change research in the Antarctic, sponsored by one of the world’s largest tech companies. It was just the opportunity she had been searching for—an escape from the ridicule she’d received after a panic attack at school, a fresh start.
But their small team isn’t alone in the remote, frozen reaches of the polar south.
In the eerie haze of evening sunlight, Riley sees something out of the corner of her eye—something that’s watching them. She writes it off as the effects of her anxiety, but when their expedition leader begins to change—her limbs elongating, her body contorting—and grow violent, Riley knows the danger she feels is real. Something is stalking them, infecting them, and slowly infiltrating the team.
There is more to this research trip than any of them bargained for, and if they aren’t careful, none of them will make it out alive.
Colorado Road Trip
As a multigenerational Coloradoan, I can say that this book gets everything right in vivid detail
Every instinct tells him to run. Every memory tells him he can’t.
Special Agent Daniel Stansfield is ready for a change. Burnt out and defeated by the job, it’s his last day with the FBI. But before he can turn in his badge, he’s summoned back to Denver, the city he ran from four years ago, with a chilling message: it’s happening again.Seemingly innocent people are waking up on the side of the highway, with no memory of how they got there, wearing the skin of victims they’ve allegedly never met. And they each share one haunting detail: a strand of a stranger’s hair is tied around their tongue.
Now Daniel is pulled back into the gruesome cycle, and every clue leads him deeper into the shadows of his own past. He will have to confront the ghosts of his traumatic childhood and face what’s been hunting him all along— before he and the people he loves become the next victims.
Perfect for fans of The Shining and Longlegs, bestselling author CJ Leede’s Headlights is a pulse-pounding hunt across the frozen wilderness of Colorado.
Mexicali Borderlands
A heart wrenching and timely book with gorgeous prose that demands to be read
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Book Riot Best Mystery & Thriller of the Year
A Marie Claire Best Mystery-Thriller of the Year
A Library Journal Stellar Selection
A RUSA 2026 Reading List SelectionThree women in one twisted family race for answers in this striking mystery set in the Mexicali borderlands that “breathes new life into the myth of Persephone and Demeter” (Ana Reyes, author of The House in the Pines).
At the edge of the Salton Sea, in the blistering borderlands, something is out hunting…
Malamar Veracruz has never left the dust-choked town of El Valle. Here, Mal has done her best to build a good life: She’s raised two children, worked hard, and tried to forget the painful, unexplained disappearance of her sister, Elena. When another local girl goes missing, Mal plunges into a fresh yet familiar nightmare. As a desperate Mal hunts for answers, her search becomes increasingly tangled with inscrutable visions of a horse-headed woman, a local legend who Mal feels compelled to follow. Mal’s perspective is joined by the voices of her two daughters, all three of whom must work to uncover the truth about the missing girls in their community before it’s too late.
Combining elements of Latina and Indigenous culture, family drama, mystery, horror, and magical realism in a spellbinding mix, Salt Bones lays bare the realities of environmental catastrophe, family secrets, and the unrelenting bond between mothers and daughters.
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