8 twisty and maybe even slightly scary thrillers

Just in time for Halloween.

As I’m sure you well know, it’s October, which means Samhain/Halloween is just around the corner.

Did you know that Halloween (All Hallows Eve) stems from an ancient Celtic tradition? Samhain (pronounced ‘sow-win’) is a pagan festival that celebrates the harvest, and ushers in the darkness.

It’s also believed that during this time (31 October-1 November) the barriers between the physical world and the spirit word break down. So, essentially the entire world temporarily becomes Sunnydale.

Irish immigrants brought their traditions to America and the ‘holiday’ evolved, to become what it is today.

It seems strange to celebrate Halloween in Australia, especially having just passed through the spring solstice. Although it’s really only in the last ten years or so that Halloween has taken off here, in terms of ‘trick or treating’ and people transforming their front yards to look like temporary cemeteries.

Yet, I’ve always loved thrills, chills and things that go bump in the night, and so, have adored Halloween from afar. If I couldn’t go trick or treating as a child and teen (and now I guess, adult), I’d choose the next best things – watching silly horror films throughout October and reading some horrific novels.

So on that note, this week I’m sending through a list of some of my favourite thrillers – some of which do indeed have rather ghoulish elements to them.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sagar

Riley Sagar pens ‘psychological horrors’ and Home Before Dark is essentially a haunted house story, so all the better.

30-year-old Maggie Holt has inherited a mansion, Baneberry Hall, from her father Ewan. Home ownership maybe be the dream of most millennials, but Maggie doesn’t have the best association with the place. 25 years ago, Ewan wrote a non-fiction account of her family’s time in the house, called House of Horrors. He claims they were routinely haunted for 20 days, before they fled for their lives. A bestseller, the book flew off the shelves at the time, and has haunted Maggie throughout her life. So, against her late father’s wishes, she decides to return to Baneberry Hall, to set the record straight once and for all.

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Boy Parts is one of the most deranged books I’ve ever read, a compliment of the highest order. Fetish photographer Irina takes explicit photos of unconventionally attractive men she finds on the streets of Newcastle, UK. Stood down from her deadend bar job, she’s offered a role at a local gallery. Around the same time, she begins to obsess over the extremely shy ‘Eddie from Tesco’. And things start to get really weird.

It’s a dark and violent book, upending ‘traditional’ gender and power dynamics with a razor-sharp wit. You don’t quite know if what you’re reading is real in the world of Irina, but that’s half the fun.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Murier

Rebecca is by no means a new book, but it’s a classic for a reason. We follow the nameless Mrs de Winter; having met and married wealthy widow Maxim de Winter during a trip abroad to Monte Carlo, she is then brought back to his mansion, Manderley. It’s here she encounters Mrs Danvers, the frightening head of the household. Shy and young, she is haunted by the memory of Max’s first wife, the legendary Rebecca (she of the perfect handwriting!) and taunted by the slightly lovesick Mrs Danvers, Rebecca’s number one fan.

Rebecca, always Rebecca. I should never be rid of Rebecca.