Horror stories corner: 8 terrifying books coming out in September 2019
By Mads Lennon
It’s getting close to Halloween season. If you need new horror stories to keep you up at night, we have a few in mind coming out this September.
Summer has come to an end and that means Halloween is creeping around the corner. Many fans of the season like to curl up with a stack of new horror stories to get them in the spooky spirit.
We have some excellent suggestions for you. From Stephen King’s latest novel to fresh YA voices, here are some sure-to-be-terrifying new books coming out in September 2019.
September 3
Chestnut Man, The by Søren Sveistrup
Some of you may have a copy of this book already but it is being published internationally in September and easily purchasable from Amazon at that time. This is one of the must-read psychological thrillers of the year. It is written by the creator of the hit crime series, The Killing. Fans of Jo Nesbo will love this story.
A woman is found murdered with her hand missing. Hanging above her is a doll made of chestnuts containing the fingerprints of a girl who disappeared a year ago. Could this new murder be the key to solving another crime? Who is the Chestnut Man?
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Cold Storage by David Koepp
From the screenwriter who worked on Jurassic Park comes a novel about a deadly mutagen kept stashed away in an underground bunker by a bioterror operative named Roberto Diaz.
But decades later, the virus somehow manages to creep to the surface and wreak havoc. Diaz and two unlikely allies must race against the clock to contain the virus once more, and this time, permanently.
September 10
Institute, The by Stephen King
Stephen King, master of horror stories, returns with another novel, The Institute, in a few short weeks. Luke Ellis awakens after a terrible tragedy inside of a room that looks just like his own, except it has no windows. He learns he is being held in an Institute with children he shares a commonality with.
All of them have the gift of telekinesis or telepathy. Each child is slowly taken to the mystery side known as the Back Half. Luke becomes desperate to escape, but no one ever has before. “You check-in, but you don’t check out.”
Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff
Claire Abrams wants nothing more than to have a child. So much so, that she’s willing to work with two other parents to bring one to life. In an unprecedented move, three people create a child through dangerous experimental genetics. But when one of them winds up in jail and the other two escape with their daughter, a terrible grudge and need for revenge is borne.
September 17
Cosmology of Monsters, A by Shaun Hamill
This debut novel from Shaun Hamill is already generating quite a bit of buzz with Stephen King himself complimenting Hamill’s work. The story is of a family haunted by a monster across generations. Noah Turner sees them.
His father once did. Hence why he built a shrine to them known as The Wandering Dark. The Turner family has operated it for years. But Noah is different from his family. He doesn’t just see monsters. He lets them in.
Little Hatred, A by Joe Abercrombie
A Little Hatred is the first book in Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness series. This blockbuster dark fantasy novel is all about the age of machines dawning, meanwhile, the age of magic still rages onwards.
September 24
Bone Houses, The by Emily Lloyd-Jones
The Bone Houses is a spellbinding new horror novel that reads a little like a fairytale. It should appeal to fans of Holly Black’s books. “Bone houses” refer to reanimated corpses, something teenage Ryn deals with on the regular working as a gravedigger in her parents’ graveyard.
After her parents die, Ryn and her siblings must find a way to maintain the graveyard and deal with the curse that manifests bone houses at regular intervals.
Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
Told in a similar fashion to the Blair Witch Project, Rules for Vanishing is about Sara’s journey to find her sister. Her sister vanished into the woods on a mysterious road that only appears once a year. At the end of it, the ghost of Lucy Gallows awaits. Now Sara must venture down that road or risk her sister being lost to the vengeful ghost of Lucy Gallows forever.
What are your favorite horror stories? Do any of these new books appeal to you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Don’t miss out on the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, set to hit theaters this November.