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September is a wonderful time to be a horror book lover – we’re getting a whopping 11 exciting new September horror book releases to look forward to!
As we’re leaving summer and entering the coziest and spookiest time of the year, now is the perfect time to get your haunted books in order and decide what you want to read this coming fall season.
With lots of varying and exciting new horror books coming our way this month, it’s always so much fun to browse new releases and see which ones you want to add to your To Be Read list for this spooky season! With new debut authors and familiar faces, we have plenty of anticipated horror books to fill our season with!
September 2026 Horror new book releases
Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison
Release date: September 1 2026
Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.
It’s the picture-perfect wedding weekend: The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends’ finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl Willa is not.
Blacktail by Scott Hawkins
Release date: September 1 2026
The long-awaited second novel from the author of the cult hit The Library at Mount Char, a one-of-a-kind dark fantasy in which a wolf sets out on an epic journey of revenge.
The wolf Blacktail is faithful to his Forest God, but in these times, faith is not enough. His world is besieged by men. Soon his territory will be overrun, and then there will be nowhere left to go. When his mate, a house dog, is killed, Blacktail rebels. He invades the house of her owners, seeking vengeance.
As the Snow Gathers by Mere Joyce
Release date: September 1 2026
The forest doesn’t just take what it’s owed―it takes whatever it wants.
Dominic was born in Aplin Shade, a remote Canadian town built on the bones of another that vanished without a trace. Bookish and quiet, he never asked to lead his family, but after a carriage crash kills his father and leaves his sister forever changed, he has no choice.
The only person who truly sees him is Lex, a logger in the camp near town and the love Dominic must keep secret. Together they dream of escaping Aplin Shade, a place where isolation breeds judgment and every kindness hides a cost.
Pictures of You by Josh Malerman
Release date: September 8 2026
A woman becomes the unknowing subject of an artist’s dangerous work in this intense Hitchcockian thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Incidents Around the House.
After a magical night out on the town with her boyfriend Jack, Emily wakes alone in a huge bed in a beautiful, well-lit room. But the pink ceiling, the mauve walls, and the deep, dark corners are nothing like the hotel she and Jack rented.
More worrisome yet: Emily has no memory of this place from the night before.
Where is she?
A woman’s voice directs her to remain in bed.
The Wellness Retreat by Dawn Kurtagich
Release date: September 8 2026
Perfection comes at a cost.
Jaimie Vane used to measure her life in concert halls and standing ovations. Now she measures it in symptoms. The chronic illness that ended her career as a cellist doesn’t have a name or a cure—just a long list of things her body can’t do anymore.
When her wild child younger sister Sybil reinvents herself as a live-in staffer at an ultra-exclusive wellness retreat, Jaimie assumes it’s another phase.
I Am the Monster Under the Bed by Emily Zinnikas
Release date: September 15 2026
TIME ONLY MAKES THE NIGHTMARE MORE REAL.
Something lives under Willa’s bed. As an adult, her fondest childhood memories are of the invisible entity under her bed who taught her how to read. Now thirty-two, Willa is a reclusive but successful painter until a bombshell news report exposes her identity as the controversial survivor of the unsolved Rapture Mystery Slayings, a small-town tragedy that splashed across headlines during her senior year of high school. Six teenagers died in the woods while Willa walked free, and everyone thinks she killed them.
In the Woods They Wait by Carrie Lee South
Release date: September 22 2026
A park ranger becomes obsessed with the case of a missing child―a case that mirrors the disappearance of her own brother, whom she lost in the woods years ago―and the possibility that both were taken by something vicious and unnatural that lives deep in the Ozarks.
Fifteen years ago, Audrey Figg’s little brother, Benny, vanished on a family vacation to Devil’s Den state park, a day that split her life in two. Now, Audrey is a park ranger in the very same woods with expertise in wilderness search and rescue. Audrey has found a rhythm to her days: training new rangers, tending to injured hikers, protecting the backcountry, and still, searching.
Incarnate by Alma Katsu
Release date: September 22 2026
Beauty doesn’t fade. It feeds.
Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark as an influencer, she takes a job working for a brilliant coder whose company is focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation.
Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm
Release date: September 22 2026
There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart.
And, in return, the house did the same for her.
The Sisters of Crimson House by Melissa Anderson Sweazy
Release date: September 29 2026
Every house has its secrets.
Charley Bryde is miserable in a house filled with magic. The only woman in a long line of famous psychics to not inherit the family gift, she spends her days inside Crimson House, the coveted family mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, living in the shadows of her talented older sister, Miranda. But when a shocking tragedy scatters the Brydes across the globe, Charley is forced to grow up on her own, and fast. As the money runs dry and Charley’s ownership of Crimson House is put at risk, she’s left with no other option; turn the manor into a haunted attraction and start representing the family brand with lies, cons, and expertly read tarot cards.
Nightjars by Michael Wehunt
Release date: September 29 2026
Memento meets Dracula in this heart-thudding, unpredictable, and beautifully crafted novel of a man exposed for crimes he doesn’t remember committing, and the monsters that dwell at the heart of us all, from celebrated and critically acclaimed author Michael Wehunt.
On a rainy night, Luke Oshel gets stood up halfway through dinner. But before his date walks off to the bathroom and never returns, she leaves an old photograph under her napkin―Luke as a child, a dead body in the shadows of his bedroom, and a terrifying masked man. He has no recollection of this event.
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