Boston.com, October 2025
With the countdown to Halloween ticking down, we asked Boston’s horror experts — from best-selling author Paul Tremblay to Boston Public Library staff — to share the books that truly terrified them. Their picks around the world and explore themes of classism, transphobia, and revolution, but every one of them delivers the kind of horror imagery and unsettling plot points that will make you shiver long after you’ve turned the last page.
Our five horror experts include New York Times best-selling local author Paul Tremblay, known for “A Head Full of Ghosts,” “The Cabin at the End of the World,” and “Horror Movie: A Novel”; and Gary Goshgarian, Northeastern University Professor Emeritus of English who taught horror fiction for 40 years and wrote nine novels under the pen name Gary Braver, including “Elixir,” “Choose Me,” and “Flashback.” We also tapped Ryan Clark, the “Queen of Scream” and horror bookseller at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, New Hampshire, along with Boston Public Library horror enthusiasts Kris Luca, a generalist librarian at the Brighton branch, and Jay Colbert, the library’s special projects cataloger.
