Welcome to Dread Central’s Monthly Book Club. For our November picks, we’re spotlighting new horror additions for your TBR.
Welcome to the Dread Central Monthly Book Club. Every month, we’ll be updating this list with the freshest, most terrifying reads you need to check out in the world of horror literature. For our second month, we’re looking at the latest horror books to add to your TBR. From haunted libraries to frightening genetic disorders, your TBR has some remarkable additions in store.
Don’t forget to check out our inaugural picks at the link below, too, featuring three supremely scary horror books you keep hearing about but maybe haven’t read.
Innamorata by Ava Reid
Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy.
A conqueror’s blade brought them low, burning their libraries, killing their lords, and extinguishing their eldritch magic.
But defiant against the new order stands the House of Teeth and its last living members: beautiful Marozia, the heiress to the House, and her cousin, the uncanny Lady Agnes.
Though she has not spoken a word in seven years, Agnes is the true carrier of the House’s legacy. And she has her orders. She must recapture the secrets of death magic and avenge her family’s fallen honor. She must arrange the betrothal of her beloved cousin Marozia to Liuprand, heir to the conqueror’s throne, for access to the forbidden library in his grotesquely grand castle.
Revenge burns in Agnes’s heart but so do stranger passions—and it is Liuprand, the golden prince, who speaks to her soul. This passion is as treasonous as it is powerful, poisoning the kingdom’s roots and threatening to tear the already shattered realm in two.
For Agnes’s final order is the gravest: She must not fall in love.
The Need is a rare genetic disorder. Those who have it must consume human flesh or die. For some, The Need is power. For others, it is a curse.
Talia has been on the run with her two teenagers since the kids were babies, changing names and identities every time someone gets close to discovering her familyʼs tragic secret. Sam is her son, tormented by The Need, unable to stop giving in to his darkest desires, much to his mother’s chagrin. Rosie, his twin sister, whoʼs escaped her mom’s and brotherʼs genetic curse, is desperate for a life of normalcy—like a TikTok account, Homecoming, or a kiss with her mysterious new friend Naomi. But her brother keeps eating people and, frankly, itʼs ruining her life.
Vera, a former supermodel and member of New York City’s elite Armstrong family, lives a life of luxury, haute couture, and eating people. Yes, unlike Talia, the Armstrongs secretly pride themselves on their genetic abnormality. But beneath Veraʼs opulent lifestyle is a woman whoʼs ruthlessly haunted by a mistake from her past. It has corrupted her standing with the Armstrongs, ruined her relationship with her kids, and is slowly unraveling her sanity. Vera will do whatever it takes to correct it.
On the surface, these two families have nothing in common. But Talia is harboring a secret from the twins—one that will bring them crashing into the Armstrongs. And when the truth comes out, no one will ever be the same.
After a magical night out on the town with her boyfriend Jack, Emily wakes alone in a huge bed in a beautiful, well-lit room. But the pink ceiling, the mauve walls, and the deep, dark corners are nothing like the hotel she and Jack rented.
More worrisome yet: Emily has no memory of this place from the night before.
Where is she?
A woman’s voice directs her to remain in bed.
Just so . . .
And beyond the end of the bed, a picture frame upon an easel—a frame with no canvas, no painting, no art.
Only . . . there is the silhouette of a person Emily does not recognize. A person emanating demand, danger, evil. And the way the woman talks . . . and the things she says . . . She’s acting as if Emily herself is the painting. The still life. The art.
Emily is as scared as she is confused. But it’s immediately clear Jack’s life is on the line with her own. And if she attempts to escape the bed and the wood frame of this nightmare masterwork, neither will survive the experience.
Emily is fierce, independent, brilliant, but to get out of this, she’ll have to think like an artist herself.
Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy of cruelty, domination, and exploitation . . . and something even darker.
Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiends—half-human, half-demon, and possessed of a dark magic born from buying human souls—and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families.
But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that Mourning return to the fold, he has to decide whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world.
Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their natures . . . but together, they might find a path out of the shadows.
Harriet Laurel notices the odor the moment she steps inside Mercy House, brought to the retirement home against her will by her son and his wife. In the early stages of dementia, Harriet has grown to resent her daughter-in-law for not providing grandchildren. Yet as she crosses the threshold, she notices her mind begins to sharpen. Then her hate begins to grow. . . .
Arnold Piper, an eighty-five-year-old ex-Marine, has always prided himself on self-reliance. But betrayed by his own body, he’s learning that surviving war-torn Korea was easier than facing the daily indignities of old age. And his worst trials are still to come.
Sarah Campbell, an idealistic nurse, is already stretched thin at the chronically understaffed Mercy House. Now her duties are about to take a terrifying turn. Can she survive the night. . . and her patients?
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner by Premee Mohamed, Jonathan Sims and Rusty Quill
Fear comes before the fall.
In the winding, perilous corridors of Jurgen Leitner’s private library, you never know what you’ll find. A starving cookbook. An ancient scroll that casts cool, predatory breezes. A cloth-bound hardback that compels you to DIG, DIG, DIG, DIG.
Free, these books are more than simply unnerving—they’re deadly. But the library keeps their dangers in check and their would-be readers safe. . . .
Or so Leitner claims.
For two of his employees, the risks are worth it. Hugh Franklin, research assistant, has finally found a place he belongs, where his skill in translation is valued, even if his employer is a bit odd. Sebastian Everett, acquisition specialist, can indulge his arcane ambitions, even if it means pretending to care about Leitner’s mission.
Though their tenures at the library were years apart, Hugh and Sebastian’s stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles, caught in a web spun long before either ever heard the name “Jurgen Leitner.”
