The Best Horror Books of 2025 (So Far)

Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic vampire novella, is sapphic, but Kat Dunn’s novel makes the story more deliciously queer than ever before. Lenore has been in a loveless marriage to steel magnate Henry for ten years. When the couple leaves their home in London to host a hunting trip at Nethershaw manor, they literally run into a young woman named Carmilla. Carmilla seems too sick to travel, so they welcome her to stay with them until she is well again. But something is strange about her. At night, Carmilla seems to come back to life. And people in the nearby village are growing sick. Soon Lenore herself is succumbing to sickness. But what is the cause? And will she ever discover the mysteries of Carmilla?

Historical horror is really having a moment this year. This one is set in Victorian England (which you might have guessed from the title). Governess Winifred Notty has come to the dreary Ensor House to be a tutor to two completely unremarkable children. Nevertheless, despite her charges’ stupidity, Winifred (or “Fred” as she is often called) is sure that this time she will be the perfect governess. She will no longer listen to the violent urges tha call to her. But the more time she spends at Ensor House, the more her true self threatens to make her rage known to the world.

This Indigenous horror story literally gave me a nightmare, but it might not be why you think. Yes, it has vampires, but the true monsters in it are those who slaughtered around 200 Blackfeet in the early 1900s. The story of the Blackfeet gets told to a Lutheran pastor in 1912 through a series of confessions by a man named Good Stab, who seems to have had a supernaturally long life. He also has a curious appetite and strange reflexes…and revenge on his mind. – Erica Ezeifedi

Baker explores the traumas of the early COVID-19 pandemic in this horror novel that combines Chinese mythology with themes of grief and racism. After the murder of her sister, Delilah, Cora becomes a crime scene cleaner. Recent murders of Asian women with mutilated bats at the scene make Cora think there’s a serial killer targeting Asian women. Cora knows she has to do something as Delilah haunts her everywhere she goes. Battling grief, mental health struggles, and past traumas, Cora’s attempts to save Delilah from being a hungry ghost forever are messy and have direconsequences.Bat Eateris layered, funny, dark, and visceral. – Courtney Rodgers

This collection of stories about queer Black women is going to live in my head for a long time. If you love Carmen Maria Machado’s work, you need to pick upSympathy for Wild Girls. They both excel at writing feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. These stories explore intense, undefined relationships between women; the horror at having a body (especially a racialized, sexualized body); and the strange paths grief can lead you down. Visceral, evocative, and thought-provoking, these are stories that benefit from discussion and deep reading. This collection deserves to be recognized as a new classic. – Danika Ellis