The Best Stephen King Books for a Spooky Halloween

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Nothing says ‘fall’ like horror and no one writes horror like Stephen King. He is the author of more than sixty books, all of which have become international bestsellers, including his latest novel Holly, which hit shelves earlier this month and topped charts within days of its release. While Holly is more of a mystery than a classic horror story, reading this book, we were reminded of King’s uncanny ability to keep the reader on the edge of their seat—a skill that has captured the hearts of a millions of readers as well as the attention of a generation of movie producers. Some of the most beloved horror films of all time are adaptations of King’s novels including The Shining, It, and Carrie. With the June release of The Boogeyman, a feature length adaptation of King’s 1973 short story of the same name, King proved, once again, that his terror can stand the test of time.

With Halloween around the corner and a new King book on the shelves, we decided to look back at the most haunting books of the writer’s nearly fifty-year career.

It

A killer clown who lives in the sewers terrorizes a small town in Maine in the 1950s. Thirty years later, a group of friends who confronted the clown as children return home to face the evil again, this time as adults. It is about confronting childhood trauma as a grown-up, and the fear the now-adults feel radiates from the page.

Pet Sematary

Alongside a busy stretch of Maine highway there is a cemetery for the animals the road has claimed; deeper in the adjacent forest lies a Native American burial ground infused with powerful and terrifying magic. A doctor and his young family move into a house nearby, and a father’s attempt to reconcile with death leads to a series of horrifying events. According to King himself, Pet Sematary is his most disturbing novel.

The Shining

Nestled remotely in the Colorado Rockies, the Overlook Hotel is inaccessible from October through April due to impassible roads and extreme weather. Jack Torrence, a recovering alcoholic writer with anger issues, his wife, Wendy, and their son, Danny, a boy with psychic powers, move in to care for the majestic hotel during the off-season. As Jack descends into madness, his wife and son struggle to survive.

Carrie

High school kids can be mean. Carrie takes bullying to the extreme, placing a telekinetic, unstable 16-year-old girl raised by an abusive, religious zealot in the crosshairs of her entire sophomore class until she finally snaps. King’s debut novel is also one of his best. It invites the reader to live the cruelty of bullying and then witness the violent, destructive outburst of a crazed individual in a high school setting.

Salem’s Lot

Castle Rock, Maine, is an ordinary small town, off the beaten path, welcoming to summer tourists looking for a rural attraction. When a mysterious duo arrives and take residence in the town’s abandoned mansion, a child disappears, launching a reign of terror that grasps the town in its icy grip. Salem’s Lot is a tale about small town decay, with vampires.

Misery

The writer of a popular series of romance adventure novels has a car accident. Gravely injured and knocked unconscious, he awakens to find himself the unwilling guest of a crazed fan, who nurses him to health but has no intention of ever letting him leave. Misery is a chilling tale about mental illness, fame, and being trapped inside one’s own body.

Cujo

Two couples, one blue collar, the other white collar, neither happily married, go about their lives in a state of malaise. Enter Cujo, a rabid dog who attacks one of the women and her son, trapping them in her broken-down car, and puncturing the quietude of both family’s lives forever. The dog is scary, but the real horror lies in the melted-down hopes and dreams of the book’s protagonists.

The Dead Zone

Greg Stillson is a sociopathic, self-serving, ambitious man with political ambitions. Johnny Smith is a teacher who has a terrible accident and wakes up with telepathic powers. After a chance encounter, Smith is compelled to put a stop to Stillson’s career before he does too much damage. It details the rise of a nihilistic, corrupt goon who rides the waves of populism to become president of the United States (in other words, it will transport you back to 2016).

The Stand

A deadly virus gets out of a research lab and rapidly spreads across the world, killing all but a small percentage who are naturally immune. Two groups of survivors—one good, one evil—travel from across the United States. The survivors gather in Boulder and Las Vegas and face off against each other to decide which direction post-apocalyptic society will take.

Mr. Mercedes

A psychopath mows down a group of job seekers in line for public assistance with a stolen Mercedes-Benz, and a struggling Midwestern city holds its breath, waiting for a follow-up attack that never comes. A retired Detective Hodges is near suicidal when the vehicular killer he never caught mails him a letter, taunting him to come out of retirement to try to catch him.

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