Not every scary book needs to be six hundred pages long. Each of the ten books below runs about 250 pages or fewer, which makes them right for October evenings, a long flight, or anyone who wants to try horror without committing to a doorstop. There are classics, retellings, puzzles and a few that are brand new. Page counts refer to the editions discussed here.
Short classics
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (about 160 pages)
A quarter century before Dracula, there was Carmilla. Laura lives with her father in a remote house in a central European forest and longs for company, until a carriage accident leaves a mysterious young woman in their care. Carmilla is charming, secretive and strange, and Laura begins to fall ill. Le Fanu's 1872 novella shaped the vampire story as we know it. Our edition is edited by Carmen Maria Machado. See the book.
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (about 250 pages)
Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse land an apartment in the Bramford, a grand old Manhattan building with a dark history, and their elderly neighbors could not be kinder. Then Rosemary gets pregnant, and everyone takes a great interest in the baby. Levin's 1967 novel is lean and sharp, and still one of the most frightening books about being told you are imagining things. This edition has an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk. See the book.
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker (about 180 pages)
The novella behind the film Hellraiser. Frank Cotton goes looking for the ultimate pleasure and finds Lemarchand's box, and the beings who answer when it is opened. Later, his brother's wife Julia finds a way to bring Frank back, and the price is paid in blood. Barker at his most intense, and not for the squeamish. See the book.
Old stories, new teeth
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (about 180 pages)
A retelling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Retired soldier Alex Easton hurries to the Usher family home after hearing that their childhood friend Madeline is dying, and finds a house ringed with fungus, a dark lake, and wildlife that moves wrong. It's creepy and funny in equal measure, and short enough to finish in an evening. If you like it, Easton returns in What Stalks the Deep, set in an abandoned West Virginia coal mine. See the book.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark (about 190 pages)
In 1922 Georgia, some members of the Klan are not men at all. They are monsters wearing men's faces, and Maryse Boudreaux can see them for what they are. She hunts them with a sword, a sharpshooter friend and a veteran of the Harlem Hellfighters. Clark's novella won the Nebula and Locus Awards, and it's as thrilling as it is angry. See the book.
Quiet, creeping dread
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa (about 190 pages)
Eleven short stories from the author of The Memory Police, linked like beads on a thread: a person or object from one story turns up in the next. A grieving mother buys a birthday cake for her dead son. A writer learns something terrible about her landlady. A museum of torture instruments waits patiently for visitors. The prose is calm and precise, which is exactly what makes it so unsettling. Translated by Stephen Snyder, with a new introduction by Carmen Maria Machado. See the book.
Root Rot by Saskia Nislow (about 140 pages)
Nine children visit their grandfather's lake house, where eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms bleed, and the land itself seems to be closing in. Told in the eerie "we" of the children, it's a strange and unnerving novella about family, bodies and the choice between going along and pushing back. The kind of book you finish and then sit quietly with for a while. See the book.
Puzzles and confessions
Strange Pictures by Uketsu (about 240 pages)
From the author of Strange Houses. A pregnant woman's sketches on her blog, a child's drawing, and other ordinary-looking pictures each hide something. The stories seem unconnected until they aren't. It's part horror and part puzzle, with the pictures printed so you can try to solve it yourself. Translated by Jim Rion. See the book.
The Nudge by Joseph Fink (144 pages)
Late one night, a wounded man checks into a remote roadside hotel and tells the owner how his life fell apart: his wife changing in small ways, sudden violence, and a presence that never forces anything. It only suggests. From the co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale, with illustrations by Jessica Hayworth, and published this September. See the book.
And one that's wickedly funny
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (about 210 pages)
Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House to be the perfect governess to the Pounds family. She is polite, careful and doing her best to keep some very violent urges under control. Christmas is coming, and she has plans. It's gory, gleefully dark and often very funny. See the book.
Want more? Browse our Halloween Reads shelf or the full Horror shelf, and see our 13 haunted house books and gothic books for October. Carmilla also sits on our Horror Classics from the 1800s shelf, and if Victorian Psycho made you laugh, try Horror That Makes You Laugh. Short books are easy to stack. See our shipping policy for current options and charges.