Once again, during the month of October I’m going to be participating in Frighteningly Good Reads, hosted by Molly over at Silver Button Books. There are no strict guidelines to it, it’s just a way for people to share and discuss the spooky books they’re reading for the Halloween season.

As I did last year, my plan is to share the books I want to read for the month here, review them as I do normally throughout October, and then put up another post around Halloween looking back at how I did.

Be sure to check out Molly’s blog if you’d like to participate.

Unfinished Business

Before I get to properly reading some spooky books, I need to finish up what I’m in the middle of, namely Thermopylae by Paul Cartledge. There isn’t anything especially scary about ancient Greek history, so I want to get this done as soon as possible so it isn’t taking up too much October reading time. I’ll need to review it too, but hopefully I can get through all of this relatively quickly.

On the topic of reviews, I also need to finish writing one for Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. It does deal with existential dread and trying to “power lift” abject terror, but it’s far too funny to be a frightening read.

Books to Read

I’m going to try and keep it a little more subdued this year, since last year I bit off a little more than I could chew. The selection of books I’ve chosen for 2020 is as follows:

Out of necessity I’m going a little off-script from my yearly to-read list. For some reason I didn’t add very many horror novels. The Night Will Find Us by Matthew Lyons is an ARC I received a little while ago and will be the first book I tackle. I’m new to the author’s work and a tale of teenagers trapped in a seemingly infinite forest, beset upon by cosmic horrors, sounds perfect.

Alien: Sea of Sorrows by James A. Moore is the sequel novel to Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon, which I read a couple years ago. I didn’t like Out of the Shadows very much, thanks to them shoehorning Ripley into the story in a way that spoiled it all for me, but with this next novel seemingly more separated from that contrivance, I’m hoping I’ll like it more. This book is the only one actually on my to-read list too, so there’s all the more incentive to get it done.

If I have time, so it’s more of a bonus, I want to read The Grip of It by Jac Jemc as well, which is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while now. I already own it, in fact. In it, a couple is plagued by strange happenings in their new home, so it sounds like a classic sort of haunted house story. It seems that the house itself is more the source of the paranormal happenings, rather than something dwelling in it, which sounds especially intriguing.

Comics to Read

I don’t really have a wealth of horror comics to choose from at the moment, but here are a couple I nonetheless want to get through:

Tremor Dose by Michael Conrad and Noah Bailey is a digital comic I’ve had my eyes on since it was published. I haven’t purchased a copy yet, but I’d really like to finally give it a look. It deals with nightmares, taking inspiration from the “This Man” hoax that circulates online as a mysterious occurrence to this day. It’s a creepy idea that I look forward to seeing fleshed out in fiction.

I got two digital volumes of Adventures into the Unknown for free some time ago…I think? Perhaps they appeared on my tablet by unknown means. Wouldn’t that be thrilling? In any case, it’s an archive of old horror comics that I’d love to comb through. I suspect the first volume will be a long enough that I won’t need to get into the second one, but we’ll see.

Got any horror reads you’re excited to start this month? Feel free to share below.

Thank you for reading!