Happy spooky season, pals! It’s Day 1 of my #31DaysOfFemaleHorror, and I’ll be sharing a dark/spooky/creepy book by a woman every day in October. To kick things off please say hello to my feminist horror collection, Things We Say in the Dark, paperback out TODAY!

Day 2 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @hello_leila’s Darkly from @RepeaterBooks: a book of essays/memoir/cultural critique of America’s dark gothic heart from a Black, female perspective. One of my books of the year

Day 3 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @silviamg’s Mexican Gothic: a lush, immersive, creeping nightmare where the true horror is... patriarchy

Day 4 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @magpiekilljoy’s The Barrow Will Send What It May, a perfect one-sitting-read about a queer, anarchist Buffy gang committing minor crimes, hanging out in libraries, and battling a necromancer

Day 5 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @MichellePaver’s Dark Matter - an Arctic ghost story that’s beautifully written, perfectly structured and genuinely scary (and, of course, a big influence on the Arctic ghost story I’m writing for @audible_com)

Day 6 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is a classic: Beloved, perhaps the best haunted house novel ever, as well as a vital exploration of trauma and its echoing ghosts. Every time I read Toni Morrison I think: honestly why are the rest of us bothering

Day 7 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @RebTamas’s WITCH, a luminous, lewd poetry collection that I want to tattoo on my witchy black heart

Day 8 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is HAG, out today! These stories are bold, strange, unsettling and magical, and I’m so proud to be published alongside so many amazing women writers. Thank you @ViragoBooks for publishing & @audibleuk for dreaming up the original audio project

Day 9 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @millacream with You Let Me In, a glorious, pitch-black fairy tale of a book. As soon as I finished it, I went straight back to the start and read it again

Day 10 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @el_kat’s Harrow Lake, a super-fun, super-creepy mix of Scream and The Babadook, in what is perhaps the best-designed proof I’ve ever seen (it’s a book, not a real VHS)

Day 11 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is a doubler: @mary_roach & @PastMortems with two thoughtful, fascinating non-fiction books that show death and dying not as a source of horror, but of wonder and tenderness, exploring the many things the living can learn from the dead

Day 12 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @itsrorypower’s Wilder Girls, a brutal, strange, gorgeous queer YA novel. It’s beautifully written but what I love most about it is that the teenage girl characters are allowed to be gross, actually monstrous, and I want more of that in books

Day 13 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @LauraNMauro’s Ningen - perfect if you want something brief but terrifying. I love deep-sea horror with its mix of claustrophobia and vertigo, and this is one of my favourites. Get it, read it tonight, have delightful nightmares

Day 14 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @frippet’s From the Wreck, shortlisted for @TheKitschies: an inky-dark, gloriously strange book that’s not quite like anything I’ve ever read. Less outright horror, more unsettling and thought-provoking

Day 15 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @carmenmmachado, Dani & @TBonvillain with graphic novel The Low Low Woods, recommended by one of my faves, @CategoryIsBooks. It’s a slice of brutal feminist fantasy and I it

Day 16 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is Frances Leviston with The Voice in My Ear - which I know isn’t marketed as horror, but honestly, ‘Muster’s Puppets Presents...’ is one of the most delightfully disturbing stories I’ve ever read

Day 17 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @TlotloTsamaase with The Silence of the Wilting Skin - trust me, you need this beautifully-written Black queer ghost novella in your life

Day 18 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @julie_cohen with Spirited - if you’re in a spooky mood but prefer your horror with a love story (or two) and a happy ending, look no further

Day 19 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @dianarowland with My Life as a White Trash Zombie - this series is so fun and so smart, and it’s got me through some low days recently. And that cover

Day 20 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @carahoffman with So Much Pretty - one of the most disturbing and memorable books I’ve ever read, and one which manages to both tell a crime story and investigate the nature of crime stories

Day 21 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is Lisa Tuttle’s Objects in Dreams, a collection of stories exploring the horrors of domesticity, particularly rural english horrors - not a crumbling mansion cliche to be seen, just new takes on spooky houses

Day 22 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @ReneDenfeld with The Enchanted, an exploration of the US prison system that’s somehow magical and dream-like while also incredibly brutal. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read, and it’s stayed with me for years

Day 23 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @TanyaHuff with Smoke and Mirrors. I love ‘horror film crew discover real horrors’ stories, and this is such a fun and engaging one! Also: queer

Day 24 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @simone_stjames with The Sun Down Motel, a twisty crime/horror missing person investigation set in a decrepit and haunted motel. Also, no spoilers, but I love to see a vengeful ghost-woman get revenge

Day 25 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @JuliaArmfield with Salt Slow, which I have spent a blissful morning in bed reading: strange bodies, insomniac cities, and teenage girls who are hungry, hungry, hungry

Day 26 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is Poor Souls’ Light. All the stories are full of just the sort of lingering, unexplained creepiness I love - but I want to highlight @jennashworth’s story ‘Dinner For One’, which I’ve read three times and am delightfully unnerved by every time

Day 27 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is JB Stamper with Tales For the Midnight Hour - I’ve had this book since I was about 8, and have read it dozens of times (and will read it dozens more). Each story is only a few pages and is a lesson in making tiny, fun horrors

Day 28 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is @AANiffenegger with Ghostly. I adore all these stories but want to shout out @amyegia’s ‘Tiny Ghosts’ and @haszombiesinit’s ‘The Specialist’s Hat’ because they’re basically perfect and I wish I’d written them

Day 29 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is Sarah Monette with The Bone Key, a gorgeously strange series of ten linked stories about a museum archivist/necromancer - including an entire story that consists only of gay sexy times with a demon

Day 30 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is Rachel Donohue’s The Temple House Vanishing, an intense gothic mystery set at a crumbling girls’ boarding school, with Picnic at Hanging Rock vibes

Happy Halloween, spooky pals! Day 31 of #31DaysOfFemaleHorror is the final ep of this ghostly show - if you download it, you’ll also find me reading you a whole story from Things We Say in the Dark https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ntz1