10 Spooky Season Must-Read Books for Fall 2024

We’ve officially reached yet another September and that means Football Season, Spooky Season, and Crisp Autumn Days in the Midwest are rapidly approaching.

Our social media feeds and Target visits have been flooded with pumpkins, flannels, adorable ghosts and immaculate scents reminiscent of a cozy grandma’s kitchen for a bit. Calendars are filling up with plans for hayrack rides, apple picking, pumpkin carving, apple cider donuts (my personal favorite) and for the bravest of the bunch, immersive haunted house experiences. Insert a haunting piano number here.

This blog post is for those of us who are ready to embrace the spooky or mystery/thriller side of Autumn. We’ll be highlighting 10 books we have sky high expectations for as the perfect spooky season reads for 2024!

How one Mystery/Thriller book changed the game and made me fall in love with the world of reading

Like many, early 2021 left me searching for home-based hobbies as the pandemic brought about various stages of lockdowns and encouragement to stay home. After one particular day of rotting in my bed watching an endless playlist of YouTube videos, I began stumbling across creators gushing about the books they couldn’t put down.

Over the years, I quickly became a frequent viewer of top tier BookTubers like Sara Carrolli, Destiny Sidwell, Haley Pham and JustAli. Their passion was contagious and I began paying attention to fiction books for the first time in years.

The only problem: I couldn’t stay focused while reading to save my life. As a person with high distractibility and an overactive thought life, I thought there was no way I would be able to become a reader. If an average book took me months on end to get through, would I even enjoy it?

Despite my apprehension, I decided to give it a go and picked up a highly recommended YA Mystery Book : One of Us is Lying.

As soon as I started getting to know these Bayview High characters, I was hooked. What the heck happened to Simon? Who could I trust? What did the characters secrets have to do with what happened? And what an ending!

One of Us is Lying changed my perspective when it came to reading. When I began to explore books that were truly interesting, captivating, heartwarming, heart-breaking, and chills-inducing, I feel back in love with reading in a new way. My yearly goals moved from 5 books per year to 40 and growing. I started reaching these goals earlier and earlier in the year. And best yet, I started connecting with others who have a love of reading too.

If you’ve been in a reading slump lately, fall is the perfect time to jump back in and test the waters. Who knows, maybe one of these 10 Spooky Season Must-Reads for Fall 2024 will re-spark your love of reading too!