As the nights grow longer and towering 12-foot skeletons cast eerie shadows on front lawns, we can feel the unmistakable atmosphere of Halloween creeping toward us. This time of year inspires many to turn on their favorite scary movie, tell ghost stories over the glow of a flashlight, and generally terrify themselves on purpose.

Then there are the self-proclaimed scaredy-cats among us. (No judgment, many of us librarians identify as such!) For those of us who cover our eyes through 95% of all horror movies, we may wonder…why do people read horror novels? And do they really read them before bed?!

The horror genre revolves around a fundamental truth: our world can feel like it’s teeming with things that scare us. Engaging in fear or dread through the lens of a horror novel – where you can put the book down, snuggle with the cat, and even skip to the end where the hero beats the odds – can make all of the real-world stuff seem more manageable. In his work Poetics, Aristotle describes “catharsis” as the emotional effect or purging that an audience experiences while watching a tragedy. In a similar sense, when a person reads horror, they’re safely experiencing the emotional intensity of the characters, leaving room to release their own pent-up fear, pity, or trauma.

Poetics aside, we can’t deny that some of us just love to be scared: feeling your heart racing, goosebumps prickling, seeing the shadow in the corner of the room that – no, did it just move!? Of course, what constitutes “scary” really depends on the reader. The things we’re afraid of are very personal, and in this way, the horror genre itself is personal.

Luckily for us, this means that there is a wide array of horror to choose from, and despite the common misconception, not all horror is filled with blood and gore. In fact, a lot of modern horror novels being published today take a subtler (yet no less effective) route to scare the heck out of you. Whether you enjoy the visceral, gory details or prefer a slow-burn full of suspense, I guarantee we can find a horror novel for you.

The list below contains a little bit of everything: classic Gothics, zany creature-features, creaking haunted houses, you name it. We hope you find one to take a chance on this Halloween season. We totally won’t judge you if you want to sleep with a nightlight on afterwards.