6 Of The Best New Horror Books Coming This Fall 2025

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“You can’t erase your past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.”

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If you’re on the hunt for the best new horror books 2025, fall is shaping up to be an especially chilling season for readers. From terrifying debuts to eagerly anticipated releases by bestselling authors, the new horror books coming this fall 2025 promise to deliver spine-tingling stories perfect for the darker months. Whether you’re after slow-burning gothic tales, fast-paced supernatural thrillers, or unsettling psychological horror, these upcoming horror books of 2025 will have something to keep you turning pages long after midnight. With fall 2025 horror books launching just in time for Halloween, it’s the perfect season to update your TBR pile with the most buzzworthy titles. Below, you’ll find the scariest and most anticipated horror novels of 2025, each guaranteed to add an eerie touch to your autumn reading list. Get ready for a hauntingly good lineup you won’t want to miss. 

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Play Nice – Rachel Harrison

First up on our list of new horror books for 2025 is Rachel Harrison’s Play Nice. Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, yet beneath this glossy veneer, she harbours a not-so-glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After her parents’ messy divorce, Clio’s mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters to a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember. Nor what the courts judged when they stripped Alex of custody, and she flew off the deep end. But Alex was insistent, even writing a book to chronicle her experiences in the house. 

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio senses an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover gets underway, Clio begins to discover that there might be some truth behind her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation. 

Release date: 9 September 2025

We Love You, Bunny – Mona Awad

In the cult classic novel Bunny, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracised and then seduced by a clique of creepy-sweet rich girls who call themselves “Bunny”. An invitation to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon leads Samantha down a dark rabbit hole into the violently surreal world of their off-campus workshops, where monstrous creations are conjured with deadly and wondrous consequences. 

When We Love You, Bunny opens Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But, during a stop in New England during her book tour, Sam is kidnapped by her one-time frenemies, furious at how they’ve been portrayed. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, recounting the real origins of their unholy alliance and the discovery of their unusual powers in a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia. One of the most anticipated new horror novels of 2025, We Love You, Bunny, is both a sequel and a prequel from the queen of the fever dream, Mona Awad. 

Release date: 23 September 2025

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Check Out The Most Anticipated New Books From Fall 2025

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The Possession of Alba Díaz – Isabel Cañas

In 1765, plague swept through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. 

Elias, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is, of course, why he can’t help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension rising between them. And why does he notice her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood grows stronger? When a demonic possession awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust in this stylish new historical horror book coming out this fall 2025. 

Release date: 19 August 2025

How Bad Things Can Get – Darcy Coates

It was supposed to be the party of the century: miles of idyllic white sand beaches, lush jungle foliage, and a dark legend nobody dreamed might be all too true. When an online influencer and several hundred of his most loyal fans land on Prosperity Island, the plan is simple: five days of elaborate games, drinking, and suntanned fun. 

A week in paradise should have been a welcome respite. The only survivor of an infamous cult, Ruth wants nothing more than to keep her head down and not draw attention. She’s spent decades outrunning her blood-soaked childhood. But then the true history of the island is revealed, along with the sinister connection to Ruth’s past. As guests start going missing and the games turn deadly, Ruth and the rest of the attendees are forced to question whether they’ve really been invited to paradise, or whether something far darker is waiting for them just beyond the bonfire’s light. 

Release date: 26 August 2025

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Check Out The Best New Books From This Week

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The House Saphir – Marissa Meyer

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is an ability to see ghosts, which is hardly useful. She and her sister have maintained the family business, selling fraudulent spells and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders occurred. Mallory has become an expert on Count Bastien Saphir – otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu – who killed three of his wives more than a century ago. Yet she never expected to meet Bastien’s great-grandson, the heir to the estate. 

Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine sisters are as talented as they claim. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu’s ghost, she can hardly resist. But when murder comes again to House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the epicentre of the investigation. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all whilst upholding her illusion of witchcraft. 

Release date: 4 November 2025

Bad Things Happened In This Room – Marie Still

In this haunting psychological horror, Willow’s life has become a fever dream, her days lost in a twisted loop where time no longer flows as it should. Her only connection to the world beyond her walls is a young girl named Sarah, whose unexpected visits to Willow’s garden provide a glimmer of hope. Yet, as cracks form in her carefully controlled existence, horrifying truths seep through, twisting the familiar into something sinister. 

When Sarah suddenly disappears, Willow is forced to confront the dark shadows of her past and the horrors lurking within her fractured psyche. The question remains: is Willow a prisoner of her home, or of her own mind? Marie Still’s new fall 2025 horror book, Bad Things Happened in This Room, is a surreal psychological descent brimming with vivid imagery and slow-burning dread. 

Release date: 16 September 2025