creepy to cozy: autumn books you need in 2025
Contents
What Autumnal Books are you reading?
My Favourite Fall Books
my Autumn TBR
What Autumnal Books are you reading?
October is my favourite month ever! Everything just seems a little extra… beautiful. The oranges in the trees are a great visual contrast to the bleakness that is to come and the greenness that has just been. I’m finally not too hot, Halloween is just around the corner, and I can curl up on the couch guilt free and lose myself in books and movies, under the comforting smell of gingerbread wafting from my dehumidifier! Everything in Fall is simply the best: warm soups, indoor date nights, cuddles on the sofa. I’m an indoor girl through and through!
With Fall fast approaching and the leaves turning brown, it feels like the perfect season to build a fall reading list. Whether you’re searching for cozy autumn books, spooky Halloween novels, or mystery thrillers that capture the autumn mood, this guide will help you find the perfect page-turner. Personally, I love reading in high contrast: sometimes I dive into eerie, unsettling stories full of atmosphere, and other times I reach for cozy mysteries, heartwarming autumn novels, or twisty thrillers that keep me up late into the night. From creepy to cozy, this autumn book guide will help you find your next 5-star read!
My Favourite Fall Books
Interview With a Vampire by Anne Rice.
This book is deeply captivating and a perfect atmospheric book for Fall. I cannot do my love for this book justice, and I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.
This Autumn Book is mostly set in the late 18th century. It follows Louis de Pointe du Lac, who is narrating the dark story of his life to a modern reporter through an interview. This book is uncomfortable, beautiful and existential.
Anne Rice’s vampires are tributes to the complexity of human nature: they are human in essence, yet heightened into philosophical beings wrestling with the nature of existence and the question of whether evil is inherent. Through Louis’ existential despair, the reader finds themselves considering their own condition, and purpose on this Earth.
In many ways, Rice’s vampires reflect the human condition itself. Louis, along with the vampire Lestat, and 5 year old Claudia, present a picture of troubled domesticity. ‘These are Vampires that want God but cannot find any such thing’ (Audrey Niffenegger, July 2008)
“I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks.” (p.289)
Extra Notes: I am aware this novel has been adapted into a drama. I haven’t yet seen this, is it good?
Coraline by Neil Gaiman.
Technically a children’s book, but one I nonetheless love! I cannot get enough of this story.
To me, it is one of those rare incidents when movie and book are on equal footing (I usually only like one or the other). This story I have consumed every autumn for a number of years- that is probably borderlining on excessive.
Although I’ve read it multiple times, I now prefer to listen to it on audiobook as I mull about the house. It has become such a comfort book to me. Following Coraline, who feels misunderstood and neglected in her ordinary life, we fall through a magical portal where her world is exactly as she knows it… except cats can talk, mice are actually spies and her mother has buttons for eyes. Caught in the crossfire between her ordinary life she cannot seem to return to, and her ‘other’ mother who wants to keep her all to herself.
We follow Coraline as she attempts to return to the life she once thought dull and lonely, with a new found appreciation. This is the perfect short Autumn Book– darkly enchanting, atmospheric, and easily finished in a single autumn afternoon. A must-read for both new and seasoned readers.
Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil And Gillian McCain.
Okay, this book breaks the mold of this list a little, yet I still think it fits right at home on any autumn TBR. Please Kill Me is a brilliant compilation of interviews from Punk Music legends- I’m talking The Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, Andy Warhol, to name but a few. Deeply raw, and as chaotic as would expect, this book is a roller coaster.
It’s messy, outrageous, beautifully queer, and impossible to put down. McNeil and McCain capture the scene in all its self-destructive, eccentric glory, giving us a wild portrait of artists who reshaped music.
Penny Arcade said it best: “It was a really wild scene because they weren’t hippies, they were a criminal, homosexual, drug-taking, spiritual-seeking, artistic crowd of men.” (p.107)
If you’re looking for something a little different this autumn- something rebellious, loud, and deeply human- this is the perfect read.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
One day I will stop recommending this book, but for now it is as perfect as an autumn book as it gets. It is haunted, eerie and creepy. A must read ghost story, as perfect a haunted house story as there ever has been. Everything about this novel is set up for success.
This novel is really about consumption. The protagonist’s grapple for autonomy under the watchful house that is slowly consuming her spirit and mind. To add an extra layer of wtf, the house is personified so deeply to a mother-like state. And as daughters know, a girl’s relationship with her mother is a sort of cold war… and it’s best to stay out of it. The mother… I mean house… controls and condemns Eleanor, causing her to reach a level of insanity as she is absorbed by it.
Really I would recommend anything by Jackson, she is clever, masterful, and a pioneer of gothic fiction. Her other great autumnal reads include her collection of short stories in ‘Dark Tales’ and her novel, ‘We have always lived in the Castle’.
Blood and Guts in Highschool by Kathy Acker. Trigger Warning for this book, do your own research first.
Acker’s novel follows Janey, a neglected and abused girl navigating adolescence through a haze of lust, pain, rebellion, and self-destruction. It’s anarchic, unapologetically experimental, and unlike anything else I’ve ever read. For readers willing to tread carefully, it’s a haunting, unforgettable book that forces you to face the darkest corners of human experience.
Autumn Books on my TBR:
Zofloya, or The Moor by Charlotte Dacre
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (I know- I can’t believe I’ve not read this yet either!)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
From gothic classics to cosy comfort reads, this list blends everything I love about autumn books: the creepy, the cozy, and the deeply atmospheric. Whether you want a spooky Halloween book, a gothic novel full of atmosphere, or a quirky comfort read, I hope you’ve found something here to add to your Autumn books TBR.
This Post was all about Autumn Books
So tell me what Autumnal books are you reading this October?
