11 Harrowing New Horror Books to Read in March 2023

This is a debut with bite! (Vampire joke, sorry not sorry.) It’s about an immortal woman whose cravings for blood are growing stronger as danger appears on her doorstep. Collette LeSange is hiding away in upstate New York as the head of a school for gifted children, but a visit from an evil figure in her past is going to throw her life into upheaval.

In this imaginative debut, one mother is going to discover the limits to maternal love — but not before lots of terrible stuff happens. Sure, that little fella on the cover is kind of a cute bat thing. But Monstrilio in the book is a creature grown from a diseased part of a dead boy’s lung. Raising a piece of a corpse to love as your own child sounds like a good idea, right? Spoiler: No, no it does not.

Carmen Sanchez brings her two young daughters to a job site in Mexico in the hopes of getting in a little bonding time between work. But instead, something is awakened in the abbey she is renovating, and it follows them home. Now she must fight to save her family, and possibly humanity, from a dark possession.

And this one is set in a state famous for being the setting of horror novels: Maine! A cave in Whistler Beach has been home to a memory eater for generations. The monster literally eats the bad memories of the town’s citizens. But when it escapes, it will be up to a 17-year-old girl, who discovers there were things she wanted to forget, to save her town before they forget everything.

This is the second book in Pelayo’s exciting Chicago series! The first was a dark Pied Piper tale. This one involves a grand historic theater, a mutilated corpse, and a possibly-evil host of old horror movies. A mother will have to battle a great evil if she wants to save her son.

Junji Ito is the master of Japanese horror manga, with classics such as Uzumaki, Shiver, and Gyo. His stuff is seriously messed up! This is his illustrated collection of demented tales set in Tomb Town, a town filled with, well, tombstones. And lots and lots of terror.

Sam’s grandmother was a racist, belligerent nightmare, so no one was sad when she died. But when Sam goes to visit her mother at her deceased grandmother’s house, she notices her mom is acting really weird. Why is her mother acting like her dead grandmother sometimes? What’s with all the redecorating? And why is the yard filled with vultures?

And from the author of Devil in Silver and The Changeling comes a historical horror story. It’s set in 1915 and follows a young woman named Adelaide, who is forced to lug a locked steamer trunk with her everywhere she goes. She moves to a parcel of land in California for a fresh start after terrible events, but she can’t escape the secret of her trunk…

This debut is more of a psychological horror story. It’s about a young woman who pushes herself to her limits to be the best swimmer she can be. But the stories she was told as a child about scary creatures that swim in the deep start to seep into her psyche, and she feels herself longing to become one of them.

We started the list with vampires, and we’re going to end it with vampires! This is a Lost Boys–like YA novel about the town of Nightfall. When Theo and her brother, Marco, get in trouble with their parents, they’re sent to live with their grandmother in Nightfall for the summer. Their grandmother tells them it is very important they never leave the house after dark, but you know how rebellious kids can get. Plus, there’s a group of cool kids they want to impress. Unfortunately for them, trying to be cool just might cost them their lives.