If there’s just one thing I love more than sinking into the couch and watching horror flicks, it’s reading horror books. And like every year, I’ve set aside a few reads to get me through the Horrortober season. I admit, I haven’t been reading much horror lately, so this will be a nice month-long foray into my favorite genre. Hope you’re ready, because this year’s list is, ah, eclectic.

I have Jason Brant to thank for this one. How can I resist that title?

Johnny awakes. A puppet looms over his bed.

He recognizes the furry monster: Grandpa was its puppeteer on the children’s television show R-City Street. But Grandpa went missing a year ago. He disappeared from this very apartment building, which was converted from the old R-City Street studio.

Desperate to see Grandpa again, Johnny follows the puppet inside the building’s walls, ever deeper into a puppet-infested labyrinth…

Inept cryptozooloist Hunter Shaya returns for another round of monster mayhem with Armand Rosamilia’s St. Johns River Monster. I feel like I know that character…

In the darkest depths of the St. Johns River, a legend awakens from the shadows of the past. For half a century, the elusive river monster known as Pinkie has remained hidden, its monstrous presence a chilling mystery.

Now, just as a politician stands on the banks of the St. Johns River, the beast resurfaces with a vengeance, igniting a cataclysmic rampage that plunges the unsuspecting citizens of Jacksonville, Florida into a nightmarish battle for survival!

We’re heading to Roswell in the flat-out amazing new series by Preston-Child. I can’t wait!

Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal—to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly, to her great annoyance, is tasked with the job. 

Nora’s excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid to erase their identities. Special Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to the case. As Nora’s excavation proceeds, uncovering things both bizarre and seemingly inexplicable, Corrie’s homicide investigation throws open a Pandora’s box of espionage and violence, uncovering bloody traces of a powerful force that will stop at nothing to protect its secrets—and that threatens to engulf them all in an unimaginable fate.

Got a signed copy at a cryptid con this June and have been waiting until now to crack that spine.

In the woods of the Luke Miller State Park, north of Eastham, NJ, an urban legend lives in peace with nature. You don’t bother it and it will leave you alone. A simple rule to live by and one the park rangers enforce.

Unfortunately, Rick and Max don’t know this natural law, and when they come face to face with an immense monster, they react, and in a moment of panic, inadvertently shoot it.

Their actions set off a series of events that leaves Rich, his wife, Kara, Max, and the others fighting for their lives against a force that cannot be stopped. As things spiral out of control, Rich wonders if there’s any way to escape the thing in the woods.

Here’s the big question. What’s on your Horrortober reading list? Share it with hellions far and wide and you might just get a free ebook!