Thrilling Horror and Suspense Novels for Summerween
By Erin Roll
It seems a little odd to be thinking about scary stories when it’s still summer–or is it?
It’s true, though: the stores are already setting out Halloween candy and fall decorations, and pumpkin spice season will be on us in a scared (pun definitely intended, gentle readers) second.
But why wait until Halloween to enjoy a good scary story? Hair-raising page-turners are not specific to just one time of year. (After all, in Charles Dickens’s time, Christmas was the traditional time for telling ghost stories, hence A Christmas Carol.)
The summer months are a veritable gold mine for scary stories. Think about it. How many scary stories involve monsters (either supernatural or human) at summer camp? Or beach trips gone horribly wrong? (Come visit beautiful Amity Beach: site of the original Shark Week.) Or a beautiful sunny island getaway that goes from idyllic to horrific when the visitors realize there’s a murderer among them, and there’s no way off?
Break out the sunscream—er, that is, sunscreen—and scare up some of these chilling reads on a hot day.
Secrets abound in El Valle, a tiny town near the Salton Sea, and many girls and young women have gone missing. Twenty years ago, Malamar Veracruz’s sister Elena disappeared, and no one knows what happened to her. Mal is trying to move on with life, raising and supporting a family. But old wounds are reopened when another girl vanishes the same way Elena did. And Mal keeps seeing visions of a mysterious horse-headed woman. Is this spirit somehow connected to the girls’ disappearances, or are other forces at play?
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 22, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
For Bimbo and his four friends in Puerto Rico, death–both by causes natural and unnatural–has always been a fact of life. But things change when Bimbo’s mother Maria is shot and killed, and Bimbo takes it on himself to find out what happened and to avenge his mother. The boys will have to face enemies both human and from nature; Maria’s murder was at the behest of a powerful drug kingpin, and at that very moment, a dangerous hurricane is forming off the coast.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 6, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
What do a difficult ex-boyfriend and a punk battle of the bands have to do with the future of the entire universe? Quite a bit, actually, especially when said ex-boyfriend happens to be the Antichrist. The Shivers were a punk band that were on the up and up in the late 90s and the 2000s, until one day, Lily Lawless went to a police station and confessed to a murder. The band has stayed mum since, but now, Lily is prepared to speak out about what happened–and the tale she and the band tell could literally be one hell of a story.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 1, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
When twenty-year-old Jesse Calloway was two-years-old, he was found next to a river–and the dead body of his mother, Connie. Eighteen years later, someone called “Cat” has been reaching out to Jesse claiming to know the truth about what happened. Cat promises to tell Jesse everything, but only if Jesse comes back to Blacknot, North Carolina: the town where he grew up and later fled from. And it soon becomes clear that a lot of people in town are none too thrilled about Jesse trying to dig up the past.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 22, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
There is a certain mushroom known as The King’s Breakfast. One bite will supposedly grant you the knowledge of the entire universe and the ability to communicate with the divine and the supernatural. But it grows only in a dark and mysterious forest where countless people have disappeared. Sarah is a trans woman who makes a living as a mushroom grower, and her business is now in dire straits. So when a client promises to pay her big money to find The King’s Breakfast, she accepts. She ventures into the forest with her disapproving (and annoying) friend Andy. Soon, they discover that they are not alone, and that a mysterious cult that worships the divine feminine lives deep within the forest.
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around September 2, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Erin Roll is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. Her favorite genres to read are mystery, science fiction, and fantasy, and her TBR pile is likely to be visible on Google Maps. Before becoming an editor, Erin worked as a journalist and photographer, and she has won far too many awards from the New Jersey Press Association.Erin lives at the top floor of a haunted house in Montclair, NJ. She enjoys reading (of course), writing, hiking, kayaking, music, and video games.
