When you ask a best-selling horror author for reading recommendations, be prepared to be terrified! Ania Ahlborn, author of the forthcoming supernatural thriller WITHIN THESE WALLS, was kind enough to share her favorite books and we’ve collected them below.
10 Frightening Recommendations from a Best-selling Horror Author
For Joanna, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true—and it is. Behind the town’s idyllic facade lies a terrible secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same. At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs. If you've ever wondered about the term "stepford wife," you'll meet the originals on these pages.
For Joanna, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true—and it is. Behind the town’s idyllic facade lies a terrible secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same. At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs. If you've ever wondered about the term "stepford wife," you'll meet the originals on these pages.
It is autumn 1981 when the body of a teenager is found in a Swedish suburb, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is hoping that revenge has come for the bullying he endures at school. But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. Instead, he’s infatuated with the new girl next door who only comes out at night . . .
It is autumn 1981 when the body of a teenager is found in a Swedish suburb, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is hoping that revenge has come for the bullying he endures at school. But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. Instead, he’s infatuated with the new girl next door who only comes out at night . . .
Joe Hill’s beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel delivers good old-fashioned skin-crawling terror when a jaded rock star is haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet. (Stephen King fans take note: Joe Hill is one of his sons.)
Joe Hill’s beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel delivers good old-fashioned skin-crawling terror when a jaded rock star is haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet. (Stephen King fans take note: Joe Hill is one of his sons.)
When Gary L. Stewart decided to search for his biological father at the age of thirty-nine, he never imagined he’d find conclusive evidence that identifies his father as the Zodiac Killer. This is true crime at its finest as well as a sensational and powerful memoir.
When Gary L. Stewart decided to search for his biological father at the age of thirty-nine, he never imagined he’d find conclusive evidence that identifies his father as the Zodiac Killer. This is true crime at its finest as well as a sensational and powerful memoir.
Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but in the face of unbearable humiliation, her gift of telepathy is turned into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates will never forget. The terror of Stephen King’s legendary debut novel makes for a timeless thriller.
Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but in the face of unbearable humiliation, her gift of telepathy is turned into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget. The terror of Stephen King's legendary debut novel makes for a timeless thriller.
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Patrick Bateman, young, handsome, and well educated, earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights expressing his true self through torture and murder. In this modern day portrait, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
Patrick Bateman is your typical Wall Street jerk: he spends his days in mergers and acquisitions and his nights in murders and executions. AMERICAN PSYCHO is Bret Easton Ellis at his most unhinged and brutally honest—and this story is so jaw dropping because it lacks control. While this very violent novel is hard to read as a feminist, it is bizarre, uncompromising, darkly humorous, and truly, truly crazy.
Crazy like: Dexter without a conscience.
Best crazy moment: Bateman being stalked by a talking park bench.
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A desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a powerful supernatural entity of sheerest malevolence and evil. An extraordinary classic work of faith and of dark paranormal suspense that is widely considered the most terrifying novel ever written.
A desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a powerful supernatural entity of sheerest malevolence and evil. An extraordinary classic work of faith and of dark paranormal suspense that is widely considered the most terrifying novel ever written, Blatty's masterpiece of unrelenting chills was the basis for the acclaimed Academy Award-nominated motion picture directed by William Friedkin and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller and Max Von Sydow.
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses.
In search of supple young flesh and thirsting for blood, three beautiful vampires—Molochai, Twig, and Zillah—follow fellow vampires Nothing and Ann on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans.
In search of supple young flesh and thirsting for blood, three beautiful vampires—Molochai, Twig, and Zillah—follow fellow vampires Nothing and Ann on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans.
During a business visit to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count’s transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck.
During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count's transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula's grim fortress, but a friend's strange malady — involving sleepwalking, inexplicable blood loss, and mysterious throat wounds — initiates a frantic vampire hunt.