20 Best 「haunted house」 Books of 2024| Books Explorer

In this article, we will rank the recommended books for haunted house. The list is compiled and ranked by our own score based on reviews and reputation on the Internet.
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Table of Contents
  1. They Lurk
  2. Black River Orchard
  3. Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
  4. Black Sheep
  5. Boys in the Valley
  6. Nestlings
  7. The Paleontologist: A Novel
  8. The Reformatory: A Novel
  9. Where the Dead Wait: A Novel
  10. Graveyard of Lost Children
Other 10 books
No.1
100

They Lurk

Malfi, Ronald
Titan Books

From the bestselling author of Come with Me, five collected novellas from the master of terror, featuring possession, parasites and something monstrous lurking outside... COME CLOSER... Five terrifying collected horror novellas newly reissued from the "modern-day Algernon Blackwood".  Skullbelly After three teenagers disappear in a forest, a private detective is hired and uncovers a terrible local secret. The Separation Marcus arrives in Germany to find his friend up-and-coming prizefighter Charlie in a deep depression. But soon Charlie's behavior grows increasingly bizarre. Is he suffering from a nervous breakdown, or are otherworldly forces at work?  The Stranger Set a rural Florida parking lot, David returns to his car to find a stranger sat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and there's a gun on the dashboard. And that was when then the insanity started...  After the Fade A girl walked into a small Annapolis tavern, collapsed and died. Something had latched itself to the base of her skull. And it didn't arrive alone. Now, the patrons of The Fulcrum are trapped, held prisoner within the tavern's walls by monstrous things, trying to find their way in. And one more novella to be revealed!

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No.2
88

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.“This masterful outing should continue to earn Wendig comparisons to Stephen King.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEARIt’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

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No.3
83

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.“Every piece is strong and memorable, making this not only likely to be the best anthology of the year, but one for the ages.”—The GuardianWINNER OF THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Chicago Public Library, CrimeReadsA cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.

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No.4
81

A New York Times Best Horror Book of the YearA cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

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No.5
80

Boys in the Valley

Fracassi, Philip
Tor Nightfire

The Exorcist meets Lord of the Flies, by way of Midnight Mass, in Boys in the Valley, a brilliant coming-of-age tale from award-winning author Philip Fracassi. St. Vincent's Orphanage for Boys. Turn of the century, in a remote valley in Pennsylvania. Here, under the watchful eyes of several priests, thirty boys work, learn, and worship. Peter Barlow, orphaned as a child by a gruesome murder, has made a new life here. As he approaches adulthood, he has friends, a future...a family. Then, late one stormy night, a group of men arrive at their door, one of whom is badly wounded, occult symbols carved into his flesh. His death releases an ancient evil that spreads like sickness, infecting St. Vincent's and the children within. Soon, boys begin acting differently, forming groups. Taking sides. Others turn up dead. Now Peter and those dear to him must choose sides of their own, each of them knowing their lives -- and perhaps their eternal souls -- are at risk.

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No.6
79

Nestlings

Cassidy, Nat
Tor Nightfire
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No.7
79

A Haunted Paleontologist Returns To The Museum Where His Sister Was Abducted Years Earlier And Is Faced With A Terrifying And Murderous Spirit In This Chilling Novel From The Author Of A History Of Fear-perfect For Fans Of Simone St. James And Katy Hays. Curator Of Paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy Never Expected To Return To His Pennsylvania Hometown, Let Alone The Hawthorne Museum Of Natural History. He Was Just A Boy When His Six-year-old Sister, Morgan, Was Abducted From The Museum Under His Watch, And The Guilt Has Haunted Simon Ever Since. After A Recent Break-up And The Death Of The Aunt Who Raised Him, Simon Feels Drawn Back To The Place Where Morgan Vanished, In Search Of The Bones They Never Found. But From The Moment He Arrives, Things Aren't What He Expected. The Hawthorne Is A Crumbling Ruin, Still Closed Amid The Ongoing Pandemic, And Plummeting Toward Financial Catastrophe. Worse, Simon Begins Seeing And Hearing Things He Can't Explain. Strange Animal Sounds. Bloody Footprints That No Living Creature Could Have Left. A Prehistoric Killer Looming In The Shadows Of The Museum. Terrified He's Losing His Grasp On Reality, Simon Turns To The Handwritten Research Diaries Of His Predecessor And Uncovers A Blood-soaked Mystery 150 Million Years In The Making That Could Be The Answer To Everything. Are These The Ravings Of A Madman? Or Is There Something Supernatural At Play? And What Does This Have To Do With Morgan's Disappearance? Another Atmospheric Mystery From Luke Dumas, The Paleontologist Is A Ghost Story Unlike Any Other That Will Haunt You Long After You Turn The Final Page-- Provided By Publisher.

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No.8
78

The Reformatory: A Novel

Due, Tananarive
S&S/Saga Press

A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead. Gracetown, Florida June 1950 Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie's journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it's too late. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

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No.9
78

Where the Dead Wait: A Novel

Wilkes, Ally
Atria/Emily Bestler Books

An eerie, atmospheric Polar Gothic following a Victorian explorer in search of his lost shipmate and his own redemption--from the author of the "vivid, immersive" (The Guardian) horror novel All the White Spaces. William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day's chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens­­--the man who's haunted his whole life--back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he's done. Abandonment. Betrayal. Cannibalism. Aboard ship, Day must also contend with unwanted passengers: a reporter obsessively digging up the truth about the first expedition, as well as Stevens's wife, a spirit-medium whose séances both fascinate and frighten. Following a trail of cryptic messages, gaunt bodies, and old bones, their search becomes more and more unnerving, as it becomes clear that the restless dead are never far behind. Something is coming through.

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No.10
78

Graveyard of Lost Children

Monroe, Katrina
Poisoned Pen Pr

"With nimble pacing, genuine scares, and a riveting central mystery, Graveyard of Lost Children is a bonafide page-tuner." ―Rachel Harrison, author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth\nONCE SHE HAS HER GRIP ON YOU, SHE'LL NEVER LET YOU GO.\nAt four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the "dead women" living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.\nEveryone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia's body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn't her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.\nSoon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia's nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.\nBaby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting horror novel about the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman's sense of self and what it means to be a "good" mother.

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No.11
77

Maeve Fly

Leede, C. J.
Tor Nightfire

"This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight." --Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author A provocative debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, Maeve Fly will thrill fans of My Heart is a Chainsaw and Caroline Kepnes' You series. By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child's favorite ice princess. By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes. But when Gideon Green - her best friend's brother - moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet. Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it's Maeve's turn with the knife. "An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho." --Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House

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No.12
77

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • USA Today Bestseller • Washington Post’s The Twelve Best Thrillers of the Year • TIME’s 100 Must Read Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • USA Today’s Best Reviewed Books of the Year • BookPage's Best Mystery of the Year • Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year • New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Cover of the New York Times Book Review • Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List • The Financial Times’s Best Crime Books of the Year • ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlist • SIBA’s 2024 Southern Book Prize Finalist • Starred Publishers Weekly • Starred Library Journal • Starred BookPage • Starred Booklist“Fresh and exhilarating. . . Cosby keeps his eye on the story and the pedal to the metal.” ―Stephen King, TheNew York Times Book ReviewA Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.The new novel from New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby, "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction.” ―Washington Post.“An atmospheric pressure cooker.” ―PeopleTitus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction” (The Washington Post).

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No.13
77

From beloved internet icon Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus is a searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down. They'll scare you straight to hell. Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold. Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed "most effective" gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.

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No.14
77

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A Best Book of 2023(Vulture) • A Best Horror Book of All Time (Cosmopolitan) • A Best Horror Book of 2023 (Esquire) • An Indie Next Pick • A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick!The author of The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward, delivers a masterful story about friendship and betrayal, dark obsessions, and the impossibility of escaping your own story. "Here's your next obsession." (Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble)In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.“An origami puzzle of a book, the mystery so beautifully crafted you don’t see the folds, with edges sharp as a paper cut.”―Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

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No.15
77

Stories by a visionary master of supernatural fictionIn volume two of the only annotated edition of M. R. James's complete writings currently available, Penguin Classics brings together tales from James's final two works, A Thin Ghost and Others and A Warning to the Curious. In these stories, James continues his fearsome transformation of the ghost story from its nineteenth-century heritage, drawing upon his deep knowledge of medieval history and biblical curiosa. This edition features a number of little-known tales that have rarely been assembled, including “The Fenstation Witch,” presented here for the first time in a corrected text, a new translation of “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories,” and a number of James’s essays.Edited and with an introduction and notes by S. T. Joshi.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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No.16
77

An Esquire Best of Horror 2023 pick\\n"Without question, one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read this year."―The Wall Street Journal\\n"Can a horror story be beautiful? Wild Spaces tells a terrible truth in the most achingly beautiful way."―Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor\\nRobert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets Lovecraftian horror in this foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.\\nAn eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.\\nThe longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing ―physically―into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.

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No.17
77

Five harrowing novellas of horror and speculative fiction from the singular mind of the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories--and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul:  A sister insists to her little brother that "Half the House Is Haunted" by a strange presence. But is it the house that's haunted--or their childhoods?  In "Argyle," a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder. A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in "The Jupiter Drop," but the real journey is into his own dark past.  In "Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer(tm)," a trendy married couple buys the latest home gadget only to find themselves trapped by their possessions, their history . . . and each other. And in "Egorov," a wealthy old cretin murders a young man, not knowing the victim was a triplet. The two surviving brothers stage a savage faux-haunting--playing the ghost of their slain brother--with the aim of driving the old murderer mad.

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No.18
76

A New York Times Book Review Best Horror of 2023 selection.“Packed with profoundly unsettling scenes that’ll slither under your skin and stay there long after you turn the last page.”—Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You HomeAfter striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market.It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth—and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.Combining supernatural horror with domestic suspense into a visceral exploration of parental grief, What Kind of Mother cements Clay McLeod Chapman's reputation as a “star” (Vulture) and “the twenty-first century’s Richard Matheson” (Richard Chizmar, Chasing the Boogeyman.)

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No.19
76

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Wildly entertaining."-The New York Times"Ingenious."-The Washington PostNew York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…Like his novels The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House is classic Hendrix: equal parts heartfelt and terrifying—a gripping new read from “the horror master” (USA Today).

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No.20
76

Tell Me I'm Worthless

Rumfitt, Alison
Tor Nightfire

Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience.“Alison is like the twisted daughter of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson. Tell Me I’m Worthless is an intense read full of shocks and buckets of gore. It’s brilliant.” ―Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling authorA Best Horror Book of the Year (Esquire, Book Riot, ) • A Most Anticipated Book of the Year (CrimeReads, Vulture, Goodreads, Paste)“A triumph of transgressive queer horror.” ―Publishers Weekly, STARRED reviewThree years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep.Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I’m Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.“Easily one of the strongest horror debuts in recent memory.” ―Booklist, STARRED reviewAlso by Alison Rumfitt:Brainwyrms

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