Top Ten Tuesday; Spooky Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read

It's Tuesday, which means it's perhaps time for another Top Ten Tuesday post courtesy of That Artsy Reader Girl and today's topic is (spooky) books I HAD to have immediately, but still haven't read.

Here's my ten unread picks. If anyone has read any of them, feel free to let me know if they're worth the read or not.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Description from Goodreads

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie

Description from Goodreads

From an acclaimed horror writer, a chilling tale of blood-hungry children who rise from the dead in this innovative spin on apocalyptic vampire fiction.

Suffer the Children presents a terrifying tale of apocalyptic fiction, as readers are introduced to Herod's Syndrome, a devastating illness that suddenly and swiftly kills all young children across the globe. Soon, they return from the grave…and ask for blood. And with blood, they stop being dead. They continue to remain the children they once were...but only for a short time, as they need more blood to live. The average human body holds ten pints of blood, so the inevitable question for parents everywhere becomes: How far would you go to bring your child back?

Hekla's Children by James Brogden

Description from Goodreads

A decade ago, teacher Nathan Brookes saw four of his students walk up a hill and vanish. Only one returned: Olivia, starved, terrified, and with no memory of where she'd been. Questioned by the police but released for lack of evidence, Nathan spent the years trying to forget.

When a body is found in the same ancient woodland where they disappeared, it is first believed to be one of the missing children, but is soon identified as a Bronze Age warrior, nothing more than an archaeological curiosity. Yet Nathan starts to have horrific visions of the students, alive but trapped. Then Olivia reappears, desperate that the warrior's body be returned to the earth. For he is the only thing keeping a terrible evil at bay.

The Laughing Policeman by Elizabeth J. Brown

Description from Goodreads

A blood debt gone wrong. A demon unleashed.

Thirty-four years ago, a supernatural horror was summoned into the world, leaving nothing but mutilated corpses in its wake...Until the day the trail went cold.

Now it’s back, and the fate of a young Traveller girl and her mother hang in the balance.

heir only hope of survival rests in the hands of cynical ex-detective Charlie Haynes. But what chance does a pensioner have against a demon? And if he can’t save them from the clutches of this ancient evil, what will become of mankind?

The Laughing Policeman is the first book in the Brimstone Chorus supernatural horror series. If you like gritty, fast-paced suspense, dry humour and dark forces, then you won’t be able to put down Elizabeth J. Brown’s addictive and ultraviolent debut.

A warning: The Laughing Policeman contains scenes of violence and strong language, that some readers may find distressing.

Iomante by Shawn Brooks

Description from Goodreads

It moves in the frozen forests. The taker of children. Its jaws are ever open. Ever hungry.Deep in the snowbound wilderness of Hokkaido, an ancient evil stalks the forests.

Anastasia "Ashiya" Ivanovna has come to Japan to hunt deer, but she carries a secret burden—one that keeps her from ever pulling the trigger. A tragic mistake in her past has left her haunted, unable to kill. But when a brutal blizzard approaches and the mutilated corpses of deer begin appearing in the trees, something far more terrifying than guilt takes hold.

When a local child vanishes, suspicion falls on Ashiya, the lone foreigner in a town gripped by fear. Yet as she joins the search party, it becomes clear the true predator is no man—it’s a beast beyond reason, a massive, impossible creature that leaves no tracks in the snow.

As the truth unravels, Ashiya must confront not only the horror lurking in the frozen woods but the ghosts of her own past. Because if she cannot, the darkness of the north will consume her, body and soul.

A chilling blend of folklore and survival horror, this gripping thriller will keep you breathless until the final page. Perfect for fans of eerie, atmospheric horror with a psychological edge.

Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond

Description from Goodreads

What if a mystifying revolt precluded the Civil War and changed history as we know it? The vampire origin story is brilliantly reimagined in this terrifying novel of ancient lore, startling revenge, and immortal emancipation in eighteenth-century America.

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

Description from Goodreads

From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself. 

Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom

Description from Goodreads

Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murderer, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood. You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming for your head. . . . I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide . . .

—from Krampus

The author and artist of The Child Thief returns with a modern fabulist tale of Krampus, the Lord of Yule and the dark enemy of Santa Claus

One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward, taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets back to earth, a magical sack that thrusts the down-on-his-luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus. But the lines between good and evil become blurred as Jesse's new master reveals many dark secrets about the cherry-cheeked Santa Claus, including how half a millennium ago the jolly old saint imprisoned Krampus and usurped his magic.

Now Santa's time is running short, for the Yule Lord is determined to have his retribution and reclaim Yuletide. If Jesse can survive this ancient feud, he might have the chance to redeem himself in his family's eyes, to save his own broken dreams, . . . and to help bring the magic of Yule to the impoverished folk of Boone County.

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

Description from Goodreads

Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.

A spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger – only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past.

Enter Slewfoot, a powerful spirit of antiquity newly woken ... and trying to find his own role in the world. Healer or destroyer? Protector or predator? But as the shadows walk and villagers start dying, a new rumor is whispered: Witch.

Both Abitha and Slewfoot must swiftly decide who they are, and what they must do to survive in a world intent on hanging any who meddle in the dark arts.

Complete with 8 pages of Brom’s mesmerizing full-color artwork and chapter illustrations throughout, his latest book is sure to delight.

Dracula's Child by J. S. Barnes

Description from Goodreads

Dracula returns...

It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives. But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition - and, the older their son Quincy gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers' marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincy himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown. And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers' marriage are about to be exposed...

There is darkness both within the marriage and without - for, while Jonathan and Mina wrestle with the right way to raise a child while still recovering from the trauma of their past lives, new evil is arising on the Continent. A naturalist is bringing a new species of bat back to London; two English gentlemen, on their separate tours of the continent, find a strange quixotic love for each other, and stumble into a calamity far worse than either has imagined; and the vestiges of something thought long-ago forgotten is, finally, beginning to stir...