All the Best Horror of 2023

There were so many good horror novels in 2023. Here are just a few of my favorites I read this year! What Kind of Mother is a Southern Gothic horror novel that follows Madi Price, who has reluctantly returned to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. Madi scrapes by working as a palm reader, which is how she encounters Henry McCabe, whose son went missing five years ago. Everyone assumes Henry’s son is dead, but when Madi reads his palm, she sees something different. This book is so unique and disturbing in the best way. And you will never look at crabs the same way again. Trust me!

This is the second book in Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy, and we can look forward to the third book in the series, The Angel of Indian Lake, in 2024. Don’t Fear the Reaper sees Jade Daniels return to the rural lake town of Proofrock on the same day serial killer Dark Mill South escapes to exact his revenge. A lot has changed since Jade’s senior year, but after Dark Mill South’s 36-hour rampage and 20 dead bodies, many of the horrors of that year come flooding back.

Natural Beauty combines horror and humor to tell the story of an unnamed narrator who quits her job as a pianist to care for her parents in New York City. There, she takes up a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store called Holistik and grows close to the owner’s niece, Helen. The two form a friendship that slowly becomes more, and the narrator becomes deeply wrapped up in the products and ideology of Holistik. But underneath its glossy surface, Holistik hides something sinister.