When it comes to being scared on purpose, I am 100% all for scary books, but I don’t enjoy scary movies, or haunted amusement rides, or anything else that might frighten me. I think it’s because it’s easy to be in control when the frights are confined to the page, and you only have your imagination to guide you, not images on a screen. I like to be in charge of frightening myself silly.

So scary books are the way to go. I love a good frightening novel, and not just in the Fall. I think they’re fun all year round. This year we had another terrific crop of frightening releases, and I managed to read a great many of them. From the apocalypse to haunted houses to serial killers, here are some of the best horror books of 2019, so you can also scare yourself silly. It’s fun, I promise.

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Ebooks.com Ghoster Kate Collins was excited to be moving in with her new boyfriend, Scott, but all she finds when she shows up at their new apartment is his cell phone. With no answers about where he could be, she looks at his messages. And that's when her nightmare begins.

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Hudson Booksellers Theme Music When Daisy was a baby, her whole family was murdered. Daisy grew up knowing nothing about them or the tragedy. So when the murder house goes on the market, she decides to buy it and move in. And now she's really going to get to know her family after all. But she might not survive it.

Liberty Hardy is a Book Riot senior contributing editor, co-host of All the Books, a Book of the Month judge, and above all else, a ravenous reader. She resides in Maine with her cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon. You can see pictures of her cats and book hauls on Twitter @MissLiberty and Instagram @franzencomesalive.