Supernatural thrillers blend gripping suspense with otherworldly scares — making them the perfect fireside read on those dark and stormy nights. If you’re in the mood for some literary thrills and chills, we’ve got you covered.
12 Scary-Good Supernatural Thrillers
By Brandon Miller
These eerie reads are sure to get your pulse racing.
The Angel Maker
By Alex North
New York Times bestselling author Alex North excels at conjuring gripping narratives suffused with the otherworldly. For proof, check out the author’s previous supernatural thrillers, The Whisper Man and The Shadows. In The Angel Maker, North delivers a tale that will leave you unsettled in the best of ways. The new novel follows Katie Shaw, whose little brother Chris was attacked on her watch when she was a teenager. Now an adult with a child of her own, Katie still wrestles with the guilt and fury she feels over her brother’s attack. Then she receives word that Chris has gone missing, propelling her on a race to save him from further harm. Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page investigates the grisly murder of a professor of fate and free will. As the detective pieces together the puzzle of the slaying, he keeps coming back to two old cases: the assault on young Christopher Shaw and the brutal crimes of a serial killer who, if the rumors are true, could see the future. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a “delightfully bone-chilling tale” that weaves “an intriguing cast of characters across multiple time periods into a story rich with layers and plot twists,” The Angel Maker belongs at the very top of your new mystery and thriller TBR list.
A Book of Bones
By John Connolly
In A Book of Bones, Edgar Award–winning author John Connolly delivers a “seamless, expansive, and chilling blend of police procedural and gothic horror tale” (Kirkus Reviews). Like Connolly’s other dark thrillers, such as The Furies and The Woman in the Woods, A Book of Bones is packed with complex characters and a profoundly scary atmosphere. The novel follows private investigator Charlie Parker as he pursues an otherworldly killer named Quayle. Parker’s quest for justice sends him on a mission around the globe, from the woods of Maine to the deserts of Mexico to the streets of London, all in search of a killer who may not even be human.
The Only Good Indians
By Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians sent shockwaves through the literary world when it hit shelves in 2020, and for good reason — it’s fantastic. In the New York Times bestselling narrative, Jones blends supernatural elements into a compelling tale of identity, tradition, injustice, and revenge. The plot revolves around four American Indians bound together by a deadly tragedy from their youth. Years later, the friends find themselves pursued by an unstoppable paranormal force out for retribution.
The Winter People
By Jennifer McMahon
The Winter People is an incredible supernatural thriller by Jennifer McMahon, the bestselling author of Promise Not to Tell and The Drowning Kind. The mystery begins in 1908 Vermont, with the suspicious death of Sara Harrison Shea, mere months after the death of her little girl. Sara’s body is found in the field behind her farmhouse. Flash forward to the present: Teenage Ruthie now lives on the old Shea property with her mother Alice and sister Fawn. When Alice vanishes, Ruthie searches for clues and soon uncovers Sara’s secret diary — a diary that suggests that the ghosts of the past have returned to wreak havoc on the present.
Broken Monsters
By Lauren Beukes
From internationally bestselling writer Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls, Broken Monsters begins as a crime thriller before transforming into a twisted supernatural treat. The narrative follows Detective Gabriella Versado, who’s tasked with investigating a series of ghoulishly arranged corpses discovered in the abandoned warehouses of Detroit. Complicating Versado’s investigation is her own teenage daughter, who’s secretly flirting with a dangerous online predator. Meanwhile, an ambitious freelance journalist races to nab the exclusive on the growing body count, while a homeless man strives to protect his loved ones from the vicious monster prowling the streets of the Motor City. Recommended by Stephen King as “scary as hell and hypnotic,” Broken Monsters is sure to rattle your nerves.
I Remember You
By Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Remote villages make the perfect setting for supernatural thrillers. Case in point: Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s I Remember You. The novel is set in the Icelandic Westfjords, where three friends encounter unexplained entities while renovating a dilapidated house. Meanwhile, a doctor in a nearby town investigates the tragic demise of a woman and soon discovers that she was obsessed with his son, who disappeared without a trace. You’ll be transfixed by this haunting narrative, and likely unable to shake its icy grip after you reach its shocking conclusion.
The Outsider
By Stephen King
The Outsider is one of Stephen King’s strongest novels, rivaling the frightening heights of classics like Salem’s Lot and The Shining. The thriller focuses on the murder of a young boy, whose body is found in a local park. The prime suspect is Terry Maitland, a local teacher and Little League coach who has an alibi yet is still placed at the scene of the crime by eyewitness testimony and DNA evidence. Detective Ralph Anderson thinks the case is clear-cut. Soon, however, his investigation takes a turn for the nightmarish, revealing otherworldly truths about the faces we wear and the nature of evil.
The Burning Girls
By C.J. Tudor
On the hunt for more authors like Stephen King? Look no further than C.J. Tudor, the award-winning and bestselling writer of novels like The Chalk Man and The Hiding Place. In The Burning Girls, Tudor summons an exceptional supernatural thriller set in an isolated village that’s haunted by a violent past. When Reverend Jack Brooks arrives in Chapel Croft with his teenage daughter Flo, he’s presented with an exorcism kit and a warning. It isn’t long before he and his daughter uncover the ancient secrets, feuds, and curses that plague this troubled community, including the burning of Protestant martyrs from 500 years ago and the fiery spectral figures that Flo sees today.
Providence
By Caroline Kepnes
Caroline Kepnes is the author of You — an acclaimed psychological thriller that you may have read and most certainly know from Netflix’s hit adaptation. In Providence, Kepnes crafts yet another engaging thriller enriched by vibrant characters, a pulse-quickening plot, and plenty of creepy suspense. Jon and Chloe live in a quaint New Hampshire town. They’re best friends and soulmates, destined for a dream life together — until the day Jon is kidnapped. Four years later, Jon returns with no memory of his time away and possesses strange and dangerous powers. Meanwhile, otherwise healthy people in Providence, Rhode Island, are dying off at a shocking rate. Detective Charles DeBenedictus suspects a serial killer, but there may be supernatural forces at play.
The Girl Who Died
By Ragnar Jónasson
Ragnar Jónasson is an award-winning crime writer known for chilling Nordic Noir novels like Snowblind and The Mist. The Girl Who Died, championed by Booklist as “a mist-shrouded blend of horror and psychological thriller,” is one of the author’s strongest stand-alone works. The novel centers on Una, a teacher from Reykjavik who decamps to a small fishing village on the north coast of Iceland that’s home to just 10 people. Upon arriving in Skálar, she begins teaching two young students but barely connects with the adults in the community, save for a mysterious man named Thór. As winter descends, Una’s loneliness compounds, and she begins experiencing ghostly nightmares in the old attic bedroom she calls home. Then a shocking death upends the village — one that’s eerily similar to a tragic episode from Skálar’s past.
The Sun Down Motel
By Simone St. James
We’re big fans of The Sun Down Motel, Simone St. James’s New York Times bestseller that expertly blends multiple timelines into one unputdownable creepy thriller. In 1982, Viv Delaney accepts a job as a night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Upstate New York. Viv dreams of moving to New York City but mysteriously vanishes before she has the chance. In 2017, Carly Kirk, the niece of Viv Delaney, sets out for the motel in search of answers about the aunt she never knew. Not long after her arrival, however, Carly finds herself face-to-face with the same malevolent forces — both earthly and otherworldly — that consumed her aunt.
The Lighthouse Witches
By C.J. Cooke
The Lighthouse Witches is the latest book from author C.J. Cooke, who’s best known for novels like The Nesting and Broken Memory. An atmospheric thriller, The Lighthouse Witches plays with both time and science, offering an intricately layered narrative and a bevy of paranormal twists. Horrible things have happened on the Scottish island of Lòn Haven, including a witch hunt and a rash of unexplained disappearances. Liv Stay and her three daughters arrive on the island with no belief in the supernatural, yet it isn’t long before multiple family members vanish into the mist. Twenty-two years later, Luna Stay, the sole member of the family to escape Lòn Haven, returns to the island after receiving word that her youngest sister has finally been found — only to discover that little Clover is still the same age she was when she vanished decades ago.
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