We a good story
Quick delivery in the UK

Horror

In this section you will find over 3.861 exciting and thrilling books about Horror. At Tales we have all types of good Horror books for each individual to enjoy, whether you want some of the classics, new or children’s horror books. We all need a little scare in our lives, to learn how to deal with the real world and acknowledge the fact that it is indeed okay to be scared. Scary stories also teach kids that Monsters are terrifying, but at the same time they’ll have an understanding of scary situations, and learn how to cope with them. Take a chance and let the mystery begin here.
Show more
Filter
Filter
Sort bySort Popular
  • Save 10%
    by Susan Martineau
    £8.99

  • by Kevin Moran
    £8.99

    Jack and Conan's friendship is officially dead. Stuck in detention with Yash and Jerry after an all-out brawl, it's a terrible start to sixth class. And that's before they witness a monstrous beast step out of a portal outside their school. When it wanders into the crumbling mansion across the road, the boys follow. They have to investigate, right?

  • by R.L. Stine
    £7.99

    What happens when a talking fish, a runaway dog, and a herd of hog-likecreatures descend on the woods behind Cody Brachman's house?An absolute nightmare!

  •  
    £11.49

    A supernatural historical adventure for readers 10 + set amongst the mysterious ancient ruins of a Minoan Palace.Book One of the Lily Ash Series of psychic archaeological adventuresEngland - 1930 Abandoned by her mother, bullied at boarding school, haunted by a poltergeist ...Lily Ash is only 12, but she already thinks her life can't get any worse. Then her uncle forces her to join his next archaeological excavation on the Greek island of Crete. As she explores the ancient site of Knossos with local boy Micky, Lily discovers that its powerful spirits have been waiting a very long time for someone with her psychic abilities ...

  • by Annie Graves
    £6.99

    Welcome to the Nightmare Club, the sleepover that is definitely not for wimps. Annie Graves is your host, and she only invites guests who can tell really creepy stories. Jessie was nuts about her cute little Wolfling toy. But her brother had heard rumours about Wolflings: they could move without being switched on. They could turn nasty. He even heard that they could bite. Read it, if you dare - and hang onto your nose!

  • by Annie Graves
    £6.99

    Did you ever hear that telling a nightmare makes it fade away? It doesn't. Not here anyway. Welcome to the Nightmare Club's Halloween Sleepover. You might not last till morning. This is the story Jack told. His older brother Stephen was a great friend ... until he started to change. His smell. His face. His friends. His diet.

  • Save 13%
    by Rhode Montijo
    £12.99

  • Save 11%
    by Lora Senf
    £7.99

  • Save 22%
    by Andrea Hannah
    £13.99

  • Save 19%
    by Mary Averling
    £12.99

    Twelve-year-old ghost Maudie teams up with the living girl she has been haunting in order to defeat a monster from her nightmares and save her little brother.

  • Save 11%
    by Andrew Wolfe
    £7.99

    An eerie ghost is believed to haunt Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England. She is called the Brown Lady because she wears an old, brown dress and has a glowing face with empty eye sockets! For decades, tales of her sightings gripped all of England. But in 1936, a photograph claiming to have captured her standing on a staircase captivated the world. Who was the mysterious Brown Lady in life? And why is her tortured spirit doomed to roam Raynham Hall? Young readers will find out in this easy-to-read ghostly graphic novel that will send shivers down their spines!

  • Save 11%
    by Jarred Lujan
    £7.99

    In 1897, Zona Shue was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Heart failure was listed as her cause of death, but Zona's soul could not rest. Soon her ghost visited her mother to deliver a ghoulish message: She had been murdered! Could the words of Zona's restless spirit be trusted? And would they lead the authorities to a cold-blooded killer? Young readers will find out in this easy-to-read ghostly graphic novel that will send shivers down their spines!

  • Save 15%
  • by Gabriel Dylan
    £7.99

    Welcome to Shiver Point, home of spooks, screams and small-town horror! It's hard not to be in a town like Shiver Point, with its urban legends about Blue Bessie: the ghost of Shadow Hill Cemetery who likes to play deadly games with anyone foolish enough to chant her name.

  • Save 11%
    by Natasha Preston
    £7.99

    Get ready for another heart-racing, twist-filled thriller from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author NATASHA PRESTON. CAN THE PAST HAUNT THE PRESENT?Penny's trying to forget about her ex, Nash.

  • Save 11%
    by Natasha Preston
    £7.99

    Get ready for another heart-racing, twist-filled thriller from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author NATASHA PRESTON. HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT TO GO VIRAL?Jagged Island: a private amusement park for the very rich - or the very influential.

  • by Terence A McSweeney
    £36.49 - 56.99

  • by I.M. Dehd
    £6.99

    Three friends cheat on a math test and get away with it -- until a strange substitute teacher starts asking questions.

  • by I.M. Dehd
    £6.99

    Three friends cheat on a math test and get away with it -- until a strange substitute teacher starts asking questions.

  • Save 18%
    by Taylor Robin
    £11.49 - 14.99

  • Save 20%
     
    £11.99

    The InSpectres, a secret society devoted to the investigation of the occult originally formed by Charles Dickens, and brings together Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Bram Stoker and ten-year-old Agatha Christie to try and save London from a deadly, paranormal event.

  • by Bram Stoker
    £6.99 - 14.99

    A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancee and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England's shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately?

  • by Lucy Strange
    £7.99

    Folk say the fog plays tricks - that it shapes itself into little hands and frightened faces that press at people's doors and windows, desperate to come inside. But Hugo is convinced the ghost he has seen at the window is no trick of the fog. The boy's hollow eyes are haunting him. What would happen if Hugo were to open the door, and let him in? Brace yourselves for a chilling, wintery ghost story ...

  • by Dan Smith
    £7.99

    In 1977, the Alpine Heights tower block where Kyle Dempsey and his sister Lauren live with their mum and stepdad becomes the site of a horrific infestation. Believing their stepdad, Connor, to have been killed in action in Northern Ireland, Kyle and Lauren are shocked to find him at home in their flat. But Connor is changed. Following a secret military experiment, he has been infected with some kind of alien life form, which is using him as a host to infect the other residents of the tower block with gruesome results.

  • by Louisa Glancy
    £8.99

    In the small countryside village of Ivy Hollow, Gemma expected boredom, not ghosts. But when she spots a spooky postman knocking on doors that never open, her curiosity ignites. Determined to unravel the mystery, Gemma delves into the village's eerie history, uncovering long-forgotten secrets and unfulfilled promises.

  • Save 22%
    by Philip Osbourne
    £13.99

    Diary of a Nerd stars Phil, a twelve-year old boy living in Manhattan, NY. He is a talented, self-professed nerd...an intellectual who enjoys spending his days with his friends, known as "The Geek Team". Phil likes a girl in his class named Loren, but he also knows that he could never compete with Ted, Loren's boyfriend. One night, while Phil is sleeping, Darth Vader appears to him like a vision in his dream, inviting him to use his strength to challenge the bullies and win the love of Loren. DIARY OF A NERD consists of two different diaries written by the same kid, collected in this set at a special price! One is the diary of a young genius, the other is a quest for love. Phil eats, lives, and breathes pop culture...his adventures are humorous and relatable...and have already gained him a cult following around the world!

  • Save 15%
    by Lorien Lawrence
    £10.99

    An action-packed, spine-tingling ghost story about twins with supernatural powers-perfect for fans of Five Nights At Freddy's and the Goosebumps seriesThirteen-year-old twins Gabby and Trent Manning are Connecticut's youngest paranormal investigators. They both inherited "the gift" from their grandparents, the Mannings, whose legendary ghost hunts inspired several books and movies. But after their untimely deaths years ago, the Mannings have nearly been forgotten. Armed with EMF machines, flashlights, and recording equipment, the twins' mom drags them all over New England in an attempt to bring their family back into the limelight. Never mind that Gabby is tired of being known as a Ghost Twin, and Trent finds most of their haunts to be pretty frightening. Their latest destination is just what their mom thinks they need to go viral: the abandoned Majestic Theater, the site of the Mannings' infamous failed exorcism. However, nothing about this investigation goes to plan. After a terrifying séance-gone-wrong on the stage, their mother goes missing in the building, and it's clear that a powerful demon is haunting the theater. Will the twins be able live up to their grandparents' legacy and vanquish the demon-before it's too late? Featuring articles, interviews, and other found media throughout, The Many Hauntings of the Manning Family is packed with scares that will leave readers sleeping with the lights on.

The Horror Genre
Horror is a cultural genre that is meant to scare, shock and repulse its audience. An important thing to remember about this type of genre is that it elicits a dreadful sense in the reader through frightening and terrifying themes, situations and descriptive images. When we read a horror book, everything is important, such as the storyline, characters and the whole atmosphere. It is meant to provoke and shock the reader with its exploration of the unknown. The depreciating value that horror has, will help us understand why something is indeed scary. Look at it this way, once you see the monster come into the light, and you see it for what it truly is, it will help you to be less afraid. This genre also has several sub-genres, some of them consist of; Gothic, Science fiction, Survival, Occult, Dark fantasy, Paranormal, etc. Each has its own distinct characteristics. 

Classic Horror books
If we think about some of the popular classic horror books, the first author that will pop up is most likely the gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe. The gothic novel is a subgenre under horror that specifically has a focus on death, originated in the 18th century and is mastered by him. In the 19th and 20th century the horror writers focused on something completely different, such as tales involving occult ideas, and the popular books Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Dracula by Bram Stoker came into the picture and still kept their relevance today. Frankenstein is a classic story about a scientist who accidentally creates a monster when his experiment goes horribly wrong. And Dracula is a gothic novel about a vampyre who has a desire to spread the undead curse to as many mortal humans as possible. These two popular stories are well known worldwide and they will never lose their relevance, no matter how old they get. That is the magic of being a classic.  

New Horror books
As for the newer horror books, 2019-2021 had been some epic years for horror fiction. It is an ever-evolving genre and so many new voices blossomed. Most of the popular horror stories today involve crime writing, especially serial killers, slashers, and the ghost of the past. Something about newly written gothic stories that take place in the Victorian-era is so thrilling to read about, here we find books like the Stalking Jack the Ripper series by Kerri Maniscalo. The author incorporates themes of equality and social justice which takes the mystery of the infamous murderer to a whole new level. The main character Audrey Rose, eschews polite society for the very scandalous pastime of learning burgeoning science of forensic medicine. While she spends her time being captivated by science, there’s a serial killer on the loose. There’s nothing more thrilling and entertaining than reading about an inspiring heroine who solves mystery crimes. 
Children’s horror books are also important to address. Here we find Nightmares by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller, where the younger audience can explore dark territory but at the same time be comforted. It is a book that’ll reassure you how to overcome the power of fear. The main character Charlie’s and his friends’ adventure in the Netherworld is harrowing, because they’re in constant danger, but together they try to face their fears and conquer their nightmares. 

Join thousands of book lovers

Sign up to our newsletter and receive discounts and inspiration for your next reading experience.