Best Horror in the Last 5 Years

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00][music] [music] >> All right, this is about to be the last in like a weird brief series that I've been promptly doing this month of reacting to the Goodreads editors top five top 12 books in per genre the last five years. I made a sci-fi version primarily because their sci-fi lists on Goodreads always don't resonate with genre readers like myself. They just don't. Versus like their other lists, I can see where they're coming from. I can understand it. That didn't stop me from making my own fantasy version, which went live earlier this week, and I tried to see I I was curious like have I read enough new horror in the last five years to make a top 12 and follow my rules of only like one book and author and things like that.

[00:00:53]And you know what?

[00:00:55]I did. So, from 2021 to 2025, I have read like 40 horror books, maybe 30. I can't remember. Like an amount.

[00:01:05]And I could pick 12 from that, and it wasn't just only Stephen Graham Jones and Isabel Cañas. So, I decided I'd make a list.

[00:01:12]Now, I think this will be the least surprising of all the lists if you have watched my like favorite horror cuz I don't think I've actually read that much backlist horror as well. Like every genre, I tend to be a lot more front-listed. That's just who I've always been. I'm just very curious about what people find being good now. I'm just like that with a lot of media.

[00:01:35]Like that with musicals, too. I'm I'm that's just who I am. You know. I like to respect the roots of a genre, but I love reading the modern stuff. So, in no particular order, we will go through it.

[00:01:46]And I think, you know, other lists 2021 was that girl.

[00:01:49]I think this one it's a lot more evenly distributed. I have like three from 2021, three from 2022, three from 2023, and two from 2024. So, this is like pretty even split.

[00:02:01]Um let's start with a Tananarive Due, The Reformatory.

[00:02:06]I mean, people have been yelling about this one for a very long time. This is historical horror based off the reformatories that we did have in the United States. I think we might still have them. I'm unsure. Let's just err on the side of the United States is not a great place a lot of the time.

[00:02:22]But this takes place in, I believe, the '50s. So, even if it is in the past, it's not that far in the past. It's not That's three generations, two generations.

[00:02:31]That's like nothing. That's truly nothing.

[00:02:34]And we have two perspectives, a brother and a sister, and the brother is sent to the reformatory for kicking a guy who was sexually assaulting his sister.

[00:02:45]I'm sure we're all shocked. And the supernatural component of it is that spirits kind of congregate in this area.

[00:02:54]In particular, there's a lot that congregate around this reformatory.

[00:03:00]And that plays into what our main character can do. He has a really good sense for it. So, that means what does the administrator want them to do with this?

[00:03:09]Um and then the sister is trying to figure out how to get her brother out, how to enlist the help of their father, cuz their mother has passed, how to use their community. And so, like a lot of the actual horror, like yes, there are ghosts.

[00:03:21]Yes, there are spiritual moments and tensions.

[00:03:24]The horror is and the thriller is these real-life historical moments. Um these people trying to find justice, being scared at the reformatory school because something bad might happen to you, etc. Uh it's very good. It's not my favorite Tananarive Due, but it's my favorite that came out in the last 5 years. So, here it is.

[00:03:44]Um I put a short story collection on this. I know I don't normally, but I wanted to put Mariana Enriquez on the list, and I couldn't decide if her translation would count. And this originally was published in 2024 in Spanish and then very quickly translated to English. And that is A Sunny Place for Shady People.

[00:04:00]I just really love Mariana Enriquez. I think she's great. I think she's got a very weird mind for horror in a way that I really connect to. It's always about the people and the places and the liminal spaces and the relationship people have to just their environment. The stories in here that take place in LA, stories that take place in Argentina.

[00:04:20]I just really enjoy her stuff. I think this is great to attempt cuz I think it's actually really hard to recommend Our Share of Night. But this is amazing and it's really easy to just pick up a few of her stories, see what you like about her style, see what maybe you don't, and then go from there if you want to read the behemoth Our Share of Night. Which you still should cuz it's really good.

[00:04:39]Um this is a more popular horror coming up next, We Used to Live Here.

[00:04:44]This was very big the year it came out, like very big. Um it's liminal of it's So the premise is like frustrating because like without the premise the story doesn't happen and then everyone would be safe and fine and you wouldn't be stressed. But the whole point of reading a horror book is to be stressed.

[00:05:03]So we have this pleaser individual who hates confrontation, who lets these people into her home who are like, "We used to live here. Can we look around?"

[00:05:11]And then things get out of hand and you're like, "Well, if only."

[00:05:17]And it's very like adult Goosebumps.

[00:05:20]It's It's pretty creepy. Like I could not read this when I was home alone. I didn't really want to read this at night.

[00:05:26]Uh it has some creepy imagery, but I also just found like the premise very anxiety-inducing in the way that I want to feel while reading a horror book.

[00:05:35]And it definitely does some stuff at the end where you're just like, "Yeah." And if you're someone who likes the idea of something like House of Leaves, but you don't have the energy for something like House of Leaves, I think this gives you a good enough taste. Cuz I did go down like some Reddit rabbit holes after I finished it to have a good time.

[00:05:53]Um so I only have picked one Stephen Graham Jones. And objectively, I probably should have picked the one that Good Reads chose, which was "Buffalo Hunter Hunter".

[00:06:02]But my heart said I had to choose my heart is a chainsaw, so here we are. Cuz Jade freaking Daniels, everybody, is one of my favorite characters in the last 5 years.

[00:06:13]Period. End of story. She's amazing.

[00:06:15]>> [laughter] >> Uh I don't even know if I really like slasher movies, but I feel like I love how Stephen Graham Jones writes a slasher book. Uh so this whole trilogy is amazing. In the first book, Jade is in high school and she escapes from the traumas of her life by loving her pulpy slasher horror movies. And then she notices that a slasher is taking place in her town.

[00:06:40]She's very voicey. If you don't like having a history lesson on slashers, you might not enjoy this, but I had a blast.

[00:06:49]And it's just easily one of my favorite Stephen Graham Jones, like just easily. Next up I have a more gothic one. This is "The Leech". This is a sci-fi gothic horror with like a parasite sort of situation.

[00:07:02]We have a parasite coming to town to investigate the death of themselves.

[00:07:09]Yeah. And it's unsettling what's happening in this house. And who has betrayed who and the history of this place and it's dark, it's atmospheric, it's gothic, a little wonky in its pacing as a debut work.

[00:07:26]But like it's real good. I If you like a sci-fi gothic horror situation that's like kind of a futuristic low-tech world-ish in a very cold area, like think of "The Thing".

[00:07:40]But if like "The Thing" got to have a perspective and a little less thriller. It's not like a thriller like The Thing, but like it's in a cold abandoned area and it's like Oh, it's it's it's almost like that murder mystery trope of like the Oh, it's like I'm I can't remember what it's called, but basically no one gets to leave this area and you know someone is at fault. So, when are you with the killer? Etc. Who is the killer? What is the killer?

[00:08:07]It's pretty good.

[00:08:08]Um my T. Kingfisher for this list is A House of Good Bones. This is modern Southern American Gothic.

[00:08:16]I just like Samantha a lot. Samantha is a hoot. Um she goes to visit her mother and suddenly her mother has changed their house and changed her demeanor to act like the grandmother who they never liked and who was very much not politically on the same side as they were.

[00:08:33]And it's about how Samantha figures out what's going else.

[00:08:36]And like what is this house haunting doing? And it's just classic T.

[00:08:41]Kingfisher whimsy and creepy and like I had a really fun time. The vultures are very cool.

[00:08:48]Uh so yeah.

[00:08:50]All right. Okay. The next two are like bangers. We have A House Oh, not a house. Lone Woman by Victor LaValle which I adore. Uh Lone Woman it takes it's historical horror takes place during like homesteading era and women can gain independence in a large part because they can apply for land in I think it's Minnesota.

[00:09:14]It's one of the M states and I'm pretty sure it's Minnesota. And she does this, but in the opening chapter it's like her parents are dead. There's a bunch of blood on her and she has a mysterious box and she's going to go claim this land in Minnesota. And like that's just so many questions.

[00:09:32]And it's just a really engaging, really fun. It definitely does this thing that I think I've come to like from a Victor LaValle book where it's like you think you're reading one story and it turns into another story. It toes the line of like dark fairy tale and horror kind of like Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, like not by him, but the movie.

[00:09:50]And I really enjoy it. So, yeah, love Lone Woman.

[00:09:54]And then like I said, I only chose one Isabel Cañas. I don't know if you guys know which one I chose, but it's The Hacienda.

[00:10:01]Um mainly because the things I like about The Hacienda are the horror components. I might like Vampires of El Mar Norte a smidge more, but I like the romance in that more.

[00:10:11]But The Hacienda, we got a haunted ranch. It is so creepy. It is the best haunted ranch in terms of chills down your spine.

[00:10:21]Um we have Beatriz who it's very like it's a Rebecca moment. Even though this is nothing like Rebecca. If you think it's like Rebecca, just don't read this book. Um but she ends up marrying this man very suddenly, doesn't know a lot about him, doesn't know a lot about her his past wife. She goes to this ranch and the ranch is like kind of haunted by the presence of his wife.

[00:10:40]But it's actually haunted by the presence of his wife and she needs to work with this priest and they have amazing chemistry and he has a fascinating relationship with modern religion and the indigenous religion he was raised on and the magic he can obtain from both and they work together to try and exercise the ranch.

[00:10:59]And I just love a closed forced proximity. We need to save the day and like adrenaline is high, so tensions are high and passions can just come out of nowhere.

[00:11:08]And it's pulpy and it's fun. So, I really like this Isabel Cañas. It's also a historical horror, mid-1800s, I want to say. I believe it's mid It's in around the Mexican Civil War.

[00:11:22]Uh I could be wrong about that.

[00:11:24]All right, so moving on, we have a Sarah Gailey. This is just like Home. I I think I've really grown on this through the years. I don't think the ending satisfied me as much as I wanted to in the moment of reading this, but it's really grown on me. It's another haunted house book. I love haunted house books.

[00:11:40]I just do. I really enjoy a haunted house moment. I don't know why. I think a home just can represent so much and like it's fascinating unpacking what it represents to different people and how that can resonate with you. I just I love a haunted house moment. This one, our main character has to return home to a fairly abusive mother. Like not physically abusive, but emotionally abusive. It goes without saying with horror books, check your content warnings for yourself. Like it's horror books are where they choose to dive into those things for better or worse. So, StoryGraph usually has a bunch of things listed. I will never remember all of them. Just like home, she returns home and I wouldn't read the flap because I think there's a like fun part of discovery figuring out her history that I think the flap of the book kind of just like tells you from the get-go. And it's very clear that there's something in the basement. There's a problem in the basement and it has to do with her past and it has to do with the present and like the haunting or monstrousness of the house.

[00:12:39]And yeah, it was quick. It was engaging.

[00:12:41]I had a good time.

[00:12:43]Now, this next one Mm, one of my favorite books of all time, Build Your House Around My Body.

[00:12:50]This is It takes place in Vietnam. It's all over the place timeline-wise. It's modern, it's in in the ba- past, it's fragmented. It's all over the place.

[00:12:59]I guess the core story is where like where's Winnie? This woman is missing and we don't know what happened to her.

[00:13:07]And so, we have a perspective of someone who knew Winnie and it's like trying to figure out what happened to her. We go in the past and just learn about like the rubber trees and how that got started by the French. Uh, we learn about this family and how they are connected to Winnie and like it's supernatural, so it's not like literary fiction horror. It's like supernatural horror, but it does have a lot of literary prose quality. I found it unputdownable. Like absolutely so engaging and I really love it. And Ryan really loved it. And I just want to read it a lot and I want another Violet Kupersmith so bad. It's 2021.

[00:13:44]It's been 5 years. Where's my next book?

[00:13:47]What are we doing? She probably just has like a real job or something like that cuz authors don't normally like make enough money to just be authors all the time.

[00:13:54]Uh the next one is my dark academia horror and that is Summer Sons, which I feel like people have forgotten about, but this was very good and it's a really good discussion about grief and repressed traumas and not coming to terms with who you loved and it's another also Southern Gothic sort of thing. So this is a Southern dark academia and yeah, I like this Lee Mandelo the most of all the Lee Mandelo I have read so far and I feel like if you're okay with like a slow-paced discussion on grief story, this is a very engaging horror.

[00:14:31]And then my last one cuz I had to pick one River Solomon and I like this one the most and I didn't put on the sci-fi list, so I'm like, "Cool, I can put it on the horror list."

[00:14:40]Sorrowland.

[00:14:42]I love Sorrowland. This is my favorite River Solomon. Uh it's just we have an intersex woman who gives birth to children while running away in the woods from a cult. That's the opening scene.

[00:14:55]It's so engaging from there. There's obviously something very interesting with her body and it doesn't have anything to do with her reproductive organs. There's like just something else that has been forced upon her scientifically. And then on top of that you have this cult and then you have these themes of motherhood and I just adore it. It's really good.

[00:15:15]Highly recommend. I mean, I highly recommend all of these. So, those are my top 12 horrors in the last 12 years.

[00:15:22]You know, I don't think this is a very surprising list, but it is mine and I'm pretty happy with it.

[00:15:28]So, that ends this series. We'll get back to our regularly scheduled spring wrap-up and some TBRs next week. Um if you just want to leave an emoji to let me know you're here, leave a home cuz haunted houses rule this list and let me know what you might recommend to me based off these favorites of mine cuz I'm still very new to the horror genre and I'm still very much enjoying my time when I dive into it here and there. Otherwise, like if you liked it, subscribe if you want to and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.

[00:16:16]>> [music]