The nights drawing in means more than just TK Maxx filling their shelves with an unsightly amount of orange: this is the season where publishers embrace their inner goth and offer up a plethora of horror novels.

The horror genre has an uncanny capability to hold a mirror up to our society, and this is abundantly clear in our selection of this season’s best works: from the insidious rise of transphobia in Alison Rumfitt’s second novel Brainwyrms to the structural racism depicted in Jordan Peele’s anthology Out There Screaming. 2023’s most exciting horror titles aren’t afraid to pull back the curtain, forcing readers to stare straight into the abyss of the darkest societal truths. Below are seven new titles worth looking out for this autumn.

LAMB BY MATT HILL

After the death of Boyd’s father, who died seeking revenge on the company that replaced him with a machine, Boyd and his mother Maureen move north for a fresh start. But spongy mould spores are taking over their new home and when Maureen starts acting strangely, Boyd begins to uncover some long-hidden secrets about his family. As Boyd discovers more about himself and his family’s odd past, he is forced to reckon with a dark history.

Tapping into class politics and shared memories of generational trauma, Lamb is a novel about Britain’s neglected citizens: those that fall off the radar and are left struggling to survive, because of governments and companies that seek to exploit people.

BRAINWYRMS BY ALISON RUMFITT

If you can’t stop looking at the leech guy on TikTok or find yourself equally disturbed and enthralled by the tapeworm bear footage, this is the nasty novel for you. Continuing in the vein of extreme horror we’ve come to expect from Rumfitt, Brainwyrms is full of stomach-churning imagery that easily surpasses her first book.

When Frankie meets Vanya at a sex club, there’s an instant attraction. However, as the pair never properly communicate their respective sexual boundaries, lines are quickly crossed. While Alison Rumfitt’s debut novel Tell Me I’m Worthless was a powerful rebuttal of TERF arguments that are rampant online, Brainwyrms chooses to mock the parasitic, fascist movement that is being allowed to spread across Britain’s media landscape. For those with a sensitive gag reflex this is not one for you, but if you love body horror and have a stomach for visceral abjection, you’ll love Brainwyrms.

JUST LIKE MOTHER BY ANNE HELTZEL

If M3GAN is one of your favourite horror films of the year then Just Like Mother is the book for you. Much like the camp toy movie, this novel features an AI doll with an uncanny resemblance to a human child (without the memeable dance scene though). 

Anne Heltzel’s novel concerns a pair of cousins, Maeve and Andrea, who are raised within a cult of mothers. Maeve flees but years later in adulthood Maeve and Andrea are brought together again, although their reunion brings more questions than answers. What happened in their childhood that Andrea refuses to discuss? And have the cousins truly moved on from their cultish beginnings?

Heltzel wrote the novel before the overturning of Roe v Wade but its relevance holds: Just Like Mother examines the internalised misogyny that influences women to force expectations of motherhood onto each other.

OUT THERE SCREAMING ED. BY JORDAN PEELE

It will come as no surprise to those familiar with Jordan Peele’s unflinching filmography that Out There Screaming has surpassed its high expectations. Beginning with a word from Peele himself where he explains the inspiration for his debut film Get Out, we are subsequently launched into many different worlds of equal power and horror. Stories range from monster hunters that rival that of the Winchesters, to unexplained alien pregnancies, to demons skulking in deep waters.

This anthology offers works of some of the greatest genre writers of our time from N K Jemisin (best known for the Inheritance Trilogy) to P Djeli Clark (author of Ring Shout), alongside lesser-known yet equally unnerving voices for you to discover.

THE POSSESSED BY WITOLD GOMBROWICZ

The Possessed by Polish modernist Witold Gombrowicz was originally published in 1939 but is now being rereleased, 84 years on, having been translated into English for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

The gothic novel follows a young tennis coach as he sets his sights on ambition and acclaim far from his small-town upbringing. He quickly finds himself embroiled in the schemes of the bourgeois families he stays with. In The Possessed, pride, money and status are the main concerns of the upper echelons our protagonist rubs shoulders with, and you’re invited to delight in watching them grapple with the forces of evil.

EVERY DROP IS A MAN’S NIGHTMARE BY MEGAN KAMALEI KAKIMOTO

In Every Drop is A Man’s Nightmare, Megan Kamalei Kakimoto weaves the mythology of her Hawaiian and Japanese ancestry together to create a uniquely chilling collection. By opening the book with a catalogue of superstitions that mothers pass on to their children, the reader is offered some insight into the cautions of these deeply-held beliefs. From then on we know when a character has disrespected a long-held tradition and will soon feel the consequences.

In one meta-narrative, Aiko: The Writer, Kamalei Kakimoto questions her own choice to write about the mythology of her Hawaiian descent as she fears the unsettled ghosts may seek revenge, while in others, like Some Things I Know About Elvis, she questions her relationship to the United States as a citizen of occupied territory. To Westerners, Hawaii may be a tropical paradise but Every Drop Is A Man’s Nightmare takes us beyond the holiday setting to show us the violence, passion and inherited fears that mark a nation.

EVERY VERSION ENDS IN DEATH BY ALIYA CHAUDHRY

When Laana returns to her family home after the death of a loved one, she becomes obsessed with the local ghost story of Cathryn Hayward. Some say Cathryn hung herself, others swear she drowned, but all the stories agree on one thing: the ghost of Cathryn still haunts the manor.

In Aliya Chaudhry’s Every Version Ends in Death, Laana sets out to find the truth of Cathryn Hayward, but in her research she ends up finding out more about herself than she anticipated. As Laana reckons with her own sense of belonging and her outsider status, she struggles to understand why a ghost would choose to stay in a town she desperately wants to leave. Every Version Ends In Death reflects on how women’s stories are told and explores how narrators can imprint their own image, fears, and grievances onto ghosts.