If you like your horror to also be a little bit heartbreaking, then pick up Mapping the Interior right now. This story is about 12-year-old Junior, who lives in a trailer with his mom and his younger brother Dino. It’s been the three of them alone for the past eight years, ever since his father mysteriously drowned. Then one night Junior sees the ghost of his father standing in their trailer. Has his father returned to take care of his family the way he never did when he was alive? As Junior begins to hunt his father through the house, the true intentions of his father’s return are revealed.

A short little 106-page horror novel about mermaids? Yes, this is also a must-read. You think you might know how mermaids work in fairy tales. Just like in The Little Mermaid, this mermaid becomes mute to join those who walk on land. But this is a horror story, and this mermaid has teeth. After her daughters devour her kingdom, she teams up with a mysterious plague doctor. Together, they must confront the darkest parts of the world (and themselves) if they ever hope to survive.

What if the ghosts aren’t the ones haunting us? What if we’re haunting them? That’s the premise of Ai Jang’s Linghun, a novel about a world called HOME, where the grief-ridden living are unable to let the dead go. The living interact with the dead as much as possible to keep them present in the living room. If they were ever able to let go, then their beloved dead would pass on to the next world. But is anyone ever really ready to let go?