Horror Books by Black Authors

Jasmyn and King Williams move their family to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California hoping to find a community of like-minded people, where their growing family can thrive. But Jasmyn struggles to find her place. She expected to find liberals and social justice activists striving for racial equality, but Liberty residents seem more focused on booking spa treatments and ignoring the world’s troubles. Then Jasmyn discovers a terrible secret about Liberty and its founders. Thrilling with insightful social commentary, One of Our Kind explores how freedom is complicated by the presumptions we make about ourselves and each other.

Sarah Toomey, a successful young Black lawyer in New York, is haunted by the death of her mother and plagued by violent memory lapses. As a dangerous romance unfolds, Sarah discovers how her past is deeply intertwined with America’s troubled history. Yvonne Howard, a former prison guard turned soul food chef, is pulled back into a world of violence when an ex-inmate’s quest for justice leads to her death. Now, Yvonne must investigate the dark history that links her fate with Sarah’s, and a bloody past that refuses to stay buried.

Seventeen-year-old Noelle Layne knows horror — every trope, every tactic. She’s throwing the ultimate Halloween party, with top influencers and a killer clown for fun. But when the clown goes rogue, Noelle must prove she’s the Final Girl in a deadly game of survival, where her horror knowledge might be her only chance.

 Blue skies, empty land — and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling. Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past — or redeem it.

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she’s not the first — and she may not be the last . . . It’s watching. Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward, passive-aggressive reunions. But on the night of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the newlyweds’ daughter, Caroline, disappears — and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood. With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline or be entirely consumed by the darkness.

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut. In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement. But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who once sought sanctuary in the darkness of the woods . . .

Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, bleach, and more bleach), and the best way to move a body (wrap it in sheets like a mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.  

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can’t decide what’s worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student — the handsome Allister. For the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about the dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him.

Hylee Williams didn’t ask to disappear, but when she vanishes, she’s thrust into a twisted version of the night her brother went missing. Back in our world, she meets Eilam, a boy who feels strangely familiar. Together, they unravel time, space, and dark secrets in this haunting YA horror that combines the swoony romance and emotional resonance of John Green with the surrealist horror imagery and razor-sharp wit of Jordan Peele.

The late Octavia Butler’s book Fledgling is the story of Shori Matthews: a being who appears to be a 10 year-old black girl, but is in fact a 53 year-old vampire. Shori awakens in a cave with little idea of who, or where, she is. Shori’s awakening attracts the attention of mysterious assassins, forcing her to try to unravel the mystery of her identity while on the run.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile, Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.