> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://readerswithwrinkles.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Something Wicked This Page Comes: A Halloween Reading Series - URL: https://readerswithwrinkles.com/something-wicked-this-page-comes-a-halloween-reading-series/ - Published: 2026-10-16T06:57:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T06:56:59.000Z - Description: Book Lists - Author: Readers with Wrinkles - Tags: Book Talk, Book Lists, Book Reviews, Genre: Mystery, Genre: Fiction You know that little negotiation you make with yourself at bedtime? One more chapter. Then I’ll put the book down. A perfectly reasonable arrangement—until someone disappears, the forest starts behaving strangely, or a character makes a decision so spectacularly ill-advised that you have to keep reading just to supervise. Suddenly, it’s well past midnight. Your tea is cold. The house makes a noise it has probably made every night for twenty years. Tonight, however, you have questions. Welcome to Readers With Wrinkles’ new Halloween reading series: ten recent novels with award recognition, dark secrets, and absolutely no respect for your bedtime. I've brought together all five novels on the Bram Stoker Award’s Novel shortlist honored in 2026 and five selections from the 2026 Edgar Award’s Best Novel shortlist. That includes the winners in both categories: Stephen Graham Jones’s ***The Buffalo Hunter Hunter*** and Robert Crais’s ***The Big Empty***. Consider this your invitation to a Halloween reading season with a little more substance than a plastic skeleton on the porch. There will be witchcraft. There will be dangerous bargains. Prepare for isolated places where calling for help is unlikely to improve matters. And finally, there will be people whose motives make a supernatural monster seem refreshingly straightforward. Because sometimes the scariest thing in a book isn’t what’s hiding in the woods. It’s what someone you trusted has decided to do. ### These Books Have Earned Their Place at the Creepy Table Let’s clear up one important detail before we start checking the locks. These are books recognized in the 2026 awards season, not a collection of novels first released in 2026\. Literary awards generally need time to read, deliberate, and select their finalists. The Stoker honors presented in June 2026 recognize the 2025 eligibility year; the 2026 Edgar Awards also celebrate the previous year’s work. And no, every book here isn’t a horror novel. The Stoker selections bring the supernatural and the deeply unsettling. The Edgar selections widen the circle to crime, suspense, historical reinvention, and legal peril. Fagin the Thief, for instance, offers a dark reimagining of a familiar literary character rather than a parade of things jumping out of cupboards. That variety is intentional. Some readers want a monster. Others would rather follow a trail of secrets and realize, slowly, that the people involved are worse than they first appeared. I’ve saved seats for both. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/bram-stoker-award-and-finalists.jpg) The Bram Stoker Award and 2026 Winner and Finalists ### What the Bram Stoker Awards Actually Recognize Named for the author of Dracula, the Bram Stoker Awards are presented by the Horror Writers Association to recognize superior achievement in horror writing. They cover much more than novels, including other forms such as short fiction, poetry, and screenplays. This series focuses on the category officially called Superior Achievement in a Novel. The selection process combines member recommendations and jury consideration. Works advance to a preliminary ballot, eligible voting members narrow that field to a final ballot, and a further vote determines the winners. Here’s the distinction that matters: appearing on the preliminary ballot does not make a book an official nominee. That designation belongs to works on the final ballot. In other words, these five novels didn’t simply wander into our Halloween basket because their covers looked ominous. They made the final cut. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/edgar-awards-and-books.jpg) The Edgar Allan Poe Award and 2026 Winner and Finalists ### And What About the Edgar Awards? The Edgar Allan Poe Awards—usually called the Edgars—are presented by Mystery Writers of America. They honor work in mystery, crime, suspense, and intrigue, with categories spanning fiction, nonfiction, and television. Professional writers serve on volunteer judging committees that determine the nominees and winners. Eligibility is more specific than “someone commits a crime somewhere in the story.” Books must meet the applicable publication-year and U.S. publication requirements, come from an MWA-approved publisher, and satisfy the organization’s payment requirements. Authors don’t have to be MWA members. Under the published category rules, Best Novel is for hardcover books; first novels by U.S. citizens belong in the separate Best First Novel category. Self-published works aren’t eligible under the current rules. Submission alone isn’t a nomination, either. The judging committees decide which eligible books become finalists. For readers, both awards offer a useful starting point: books that have survived serious consideration by people who know their genres. An award can’t guarantee your next favorite novel. But it can introduce you to a writer you might otherwise walk past. And that’s where a reading adventure gets interesting. ### Five Stoker Honorees to Make You Reconsider “Just One More Chapter” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buffalo.jpg) #### ***The Buffalo Hunter Hunter*** by Stephen Graham Jones **Genre:** Fiction, Horro Our first stop is the winner of Superior Achievement in a Novel at the Stoker ceremony held in June 2026\. ***The Buffalo Hunter Hunter*** brings together a modern academic, a frontier minister’s writings, and the confessions of a Blackfeet man with a terrifying secret. It’s historical horror with vengeance, violence, and emotional weight. This is the selection for readers who want their horror to leave more behind than a racing pulse. Come for the dark mystery. Stay for the uncomfortable questions about whose stories get preserved—and what happens when the past refuses to remain safely past. A caution before you settle in: this one is notably violent. I won’t pretend every reader needs the same dose of darkness. Read the full review [**here.**](https://readerswithwrinkles.com/the-buffalo-hunter-hunter-book-review/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/bewitching.jpg) #### **The B**ew*itching* by Sylvia Moreno-Garciad **Genre:** Fiction, Horror Witchcraft, disappearances, and three interconnected timelines: ***The Bewitching*** moves between Mexico and a Massachusetts college setting, drawing on Mexican folklore and New England’s witch-haunted history. It’s one of the four other finalists in the Stoker Novel category. If your ideal Halloween read involves an old story that becomes much less comforting the more closely someone examines it, put this novel near the top of your list. There’s something deliciously unnerving about research turning dangerous. Usually, the worst thing an archive can do is make you sneeze. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/girl.jpg) #### ***Girl in the Creek*** by Wendy N. Wagner **Genre:** Fiction, Horror In ***Girl in the Creek***, a writer searching for her missing brother reaches a Pacific Northwest town where his disappearance is only part of a larger mystery. Beyond the town lies a forest with disturbing ecological secrets. This Stoker finalist combines a missing-person investigation with fungal weirdness and body horror. Remember when a walk in the woods sounded restorative? This book would like to complicate that. For readers drawn to creeping dread, unsettling landscapes, and the possibility that nature has plans of its own, this is my invitation to venture off the path. Metaphorically. Let’s not get carried away. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/witchcraft.jpg) #### *Witchcraft for Wayward Girls* by Grady Hendirx **Genre:** Fiction, Horror Set in 1970s Florida, this Stoker finalist follows young women in a home for unwed mothers, where control over their lives rests largely in other people’s hands. A book of witchcraft offers the possibility of taking some power back. That premise already gives us a lot to discuss before the first spell appears. Who gets to decide what happens to a young woman’s body? What choices remain when respectable institutions close every door? And when power finally becomes available, how do you recognize its cost? If you want a Halloween selection with emotional stakes as well as occult trouble, keep an eye out for this post. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/king.jpg) #### *King Sorrow* by Joe Hill **Genre:** Fiction, Horror A group of college friends summons a supernatural creature—and discovers that getting what you want can create a much bigger problem than the one you started with. ***King Sorrow***, another Stoker finalist, mixes horror and fantasy with blackmail, betrayal, murder, and a bargain requiring recurring sacrifice. And yes, there’s a dragon. No, we’re not discussing the charming purple kind you’d put on a child’s lunchbox. This is also a substantial reading commitment: a sprawling novel of more than 900 pages. For readers who like to move into a dark fictional world rather than make a quick visit, you've found your autumn project. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/fagin.jpg) #### **F*agin the Thief* by Allison Epstein Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery An Edgar Best Novel finalist, ***Fagin the Thief*** revisits the character from Dickens’s ***Oliver Twist***, telling his story through his own perspective and tracing his life within London’s Jewish community. Poverty, loss, crime, and the struggle to survive shape this reimagining. It's not really all that scary, so on this one, I'm pitching you a curveball. Not every dark reading experience needs a haunted house. Occasionally a familiar story becomes unsettling when someone turns it around and asks us to reexamine the person we’ve been taught to condemn. If you enjoy historical fiction that argues with the classics—in the best possible way—don’t skip this one because it isn’t conventional Halloween horror. This is a remarkable book. I loved it! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/wild.jpg) #### **W*ild Dark Shore* by Charlotte McConaghy **Genre:** Fiction, Mystery An isolated island in the Southern Ocean. A research station being abandoned as climate change makes its future untenable. One family remaining behind. ***Wild Dark Shore***, an Edgar Best Novel finalist, combines an eco-thriller’s danger with richly described landscapes and isolation. Some settings make you want to book a holiday. Others make you grateful for reliable transportation and a neighbor within shouting distance. This selection is for readers who love atmosphere: the kind that makes the physical world feel inseparable from the suspense. Read my full review [**her**](https://readerswithwrinkles.com/wild-dark-shore-book-review/)[**e**](https://readerswithwrinkles.com/wild-dark-shore-book-review/). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/inheritance-1.jpg) #### ***The Inheritance*** by Trisha Sakhlecha **Genre:** Fiction, Mystery A wealthy family from Delhi gathers on an isolated Scottish island to celebrate a wedding anniversary and the family patriarch’s retirement. ***The Inheritance*** turns that gathering into an Edgar-nominated mystery. A family occasion. An island. Money. What could possibly go wrong? For anyone whose favorite suspense involves competing loyalties and the uncomfortable space between affection and self-interest, this is a promising invitation. You may find yourself looking at the phrase “quality family time” with renewed caution. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/presumed.jpg) #### *Presumed Guilty* by Scott Turow **Genre:** Fiction, Mystery Rusty Sabich returns in this Edgar Best Novel finalist, drawn into a murder case involving the son of the woman he plans to marry. The novel explores both his personal life and the machinery of criminal procedure. What happens when someone you love needs your help—and loving them doesn’t tell you whether to believe them? This book is the selection for readers who want to wrestle with evidence, loyalty, and the distance between what the law can establish and what a person desperately needs to know. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/big-empty.jpg) #### ***A The Big Empty*** by Robert Crais **Genre:** Fiction, Mystery The 2026 Edgar winner for Best Novel follows Los Angeles private investigator Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike into a case involving an influencer’s search for her father, who has been missing for years. There’s a particular pull to a disappearance that everyone else has had time to accept. What if the person left behind can’t accept it? What if they’re right not to? For readers who prefer investigative momentum to supernatural menace, this is a strong place to begin our crime-and-suspense side of the series. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/buy-bookshop-button-2-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/amazon-button-2-1.png) --- ### What’s Coming in the Series I've already reviewed two of these books (***The Buffalo Hunter Hunter*** and ***Wild Dark Shore***), and you can refer to the designated link to read more about them. The rest will appear in upcoming posts, giving each book room to breathe—or loom ominously at your doorway. With these reviews, I'll take a look at the premise without spoiling the payoff, examine the kind of tension each story creates, and provide insight into the readers most likely to connect with each book. I’ll make space for the uncomfortable material, too. “Scary” isn’t a single setting on a dial, and an intense reading experience can come from graphic horror, emotional cruelty, confinement, or a threat that feels painfully plausible. ### Pull Up a Chair. Preferably Near a Lamp. This Halloween, Readers With Wrinkles is making room for both kinds of darkness: the impossible thing that should not exist and the entirely believable thing you wish people wouldn’t do. You don’t have to read all ten books. You don’t have to prove anything by choosing the most violent one. Start with the premise that catches your attention—the witchcraft, the missing person, the island, the courtroom, the familiar villain with an unfamiliar story. Then follow mes through the series. I’ll help you find the book that makes you forget to check your phone, suspect everyone, and break your perfectly sensible bedtime agreement. Mwa-ha-ha! Enter the 2026 Readers With Wrinkles inner sanctum, where thrills and chills await. Let's do this thing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2025/07/SIGNATURE-1.jpg) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/something-wicked-list-banner-1.jpg) ****Paid Subscriber Perk!** Love the book we just reviewed? Paid subscribers can now download an exclusive printable list of books with a similar vibe—perfect for planning your next read or curating your book club’s picks. It’s a handpicked, beautifully designed list guide you won’t find anywhere else. Unlock your next favorite reads—become a paid subscriber today to get instant access to these printable book lists! [PAID SUBSCRIBER PRINTABLE LIST ](https://readerswithwrinkles.com/something-wicked-this-page-comes-book-series-printable-list/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/94/9a/949a9f7d-7bf4-49c9-8093-9a1af92098bf/content/images/2026/10/RWW-BM-AD-WEBSITE.png) #### A Little Something Extra for Paid Subscribers Every great book deserves a place to be remembered—and now, paid Readers With Wrinkles subscribers can collect a little piece of every review they love. With your paid subscription, you’ll receive exclusive access to free printable bookmark pages created for each book reviewed on Readers With Wrinkles. Simply download, print, and tuck one inside the book you’re reading—or save a few for your next book-club pick, gift, or reread. Each bookmark is a small, bookish keepsake designed to help you celebrate the stories that stay with you. Whether you use them to mark your place, share them with fellow readers, or build a collection of your favorite reads, they’re a thoughtful extra made especially for our subscriber community. Paid subscribers already enjoy exclusive bookish printable lists resources and special savings on Book Club Kits. Now you can make every reviewed book even more memorable—one beautiful bookmark at a time. Subscribe today and start collecting your printable bookmarks with every new Readers With Wrinkles review. [Get printable bookmarks](https://readerswithwrinkles.com/printable-bookmark-pages/)