The spooky season is upon us, with Halloween coming up soon! Below are some appropriate books for the season, ranging from kid-friendly to super creepy to absolutely terrifying, including new releases from Stephen King and Clay McLeod Chapman and a new audiobook installment for Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. There’s also a look back at some classic horror, such as Stephen King’s Salem Lot, The Hellbound Heart, the source material for Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, and more that are getting film adaptations.

This Halloween Reads roundup is broken up into three sections: The first list has new books that were released this Fall; the next list has titles that came out earlier this year; and the final list contains older books that were recently adapted for the screen or soon will be. Each entry includes hyperlinks to the print, ebook, and audiobook editions (were applicable).

Continue on to check out my Halloween Reading List: Spooky Book Recommendations For Fall 2022…

Whisper Down The Lane
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By Clay McLeod Chapman
Publisher: Quirk Books
Release Date: April 6, 2021

Richard is an art teacher at an upscale elementary school in Virginia, where his new wife, Tamara, also teaches, and her son, Elijah, attends. He’s got a great job, is lucky in love, and now his 5-year-old stepson wants Richard to adopt him. Things couldn’t be better for the beloved teacher, until disturbing reminders of his long-buried childhood trauma begin to surface, threatening to destroy his newfound happiness and possibly even his mind.

In Whisper Down The Lane, author Clay McLeod Chapman toggles between Richard’s current life and flashbacks of his life-altering experience as a 5-year-old at the center of the “Satanic Panic,” the 1980s conspiracy theory that children were being abused in satanic rituals which triggered widespread panic and wild accusations all over the United States. We see from Richard’s perspective what he was thinking as a child and how he overcame what happened, earnestly reinventing himself into a mild-mannered educator and father figure. But there’s also interview transcripts from the 1980s of the boy giving coerced and leading testimony to his psychotherapist, the result of which caused the downfall of many around him and the end to life as he knew it.

If that headline isn’t jam-packed with all kinds of awesome, I don’t know what is. It’s been announced that a new stop-motion animated feature titled Wendell and Wild is coming to Netflix.

And if that’s not exciting enough, the movie is going to be directed by stop-motion legend Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, James and the Giant Peach) and star Keegan-Michael Key (The Lion King, The Predator) and recent Oscar winner Jordan Peele (Get Out, Big Mouth), the duo behind Key and Peele and Keanu.