Book List: 2025 Year-End Favorites

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Another year, another favorites list, another fantastic year of horror! Below are my top 20 reads for the second half of the year (July–December). Can’t wait to see what new favorites I discover in 2026!

Curious about prior favorites? Find them here:

• 2025 Mid-Year Favorites
• 2024 Year-End Favorites
• 2024 Mid-Year Favorites
• 2023 Year-End Favorites
• 2023 Mid-Year Favorites

2025 Year-End Favorites:

• Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford (review here)
• The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier (review here)
• Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (review coming soon)
• Horns by Joe Hill (review here)
• Gone to Seed by Justin Lutz (review here)

• Hospital of Haunts edited by Heather Daughrity (review here)
• Watching Evil Dead: Unearthing the Radiant Artist Within by Josh Malerman (review coming soon)
• The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (review here)
• On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield (review here)
• You Did Nothing Wrong by C.G. Drews (review here)

• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (review here)
• America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes (review here)
• The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi (review here)
• Feral and Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction by Women by Sadie Hartmann (review here)
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (review here)

• What Hunger by Catherine Dang
• Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester (review here)
• Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley (review here)
• Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
• I'm Sorry If I Scared You by Mae Murray (review coming soon)

What were some of your favorites for the second half of the year?

🖤Amanda

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