Scary Stories: Perfect Reads for Halloween Recommended by Locals
Written by Diane Helentjaris | Photos by Kaitlin Hill
As the days shorten and the air crisps, and with Halloween just around the corner, the thrill of scary stories beckons. To celebrate the spooky season, a fearless group of Hunt Country bibliophiles and dedicated readers have shared their recommendations for chilling, thrilling, and ghostly tales, from fantasy lands to just next door.
Children’s Stories: Anna Waterland, of the Middleburg Library, suggests “Zen Ghosts” by Jon J. Muth “as a book that will appeal to all elementary-aged children… The beautiful illustrations will be sure to captivate everyone’s interest. This is an ancient Chinese koan (proverb) used to teach the duality of body and soul but applied in a modern-day context. Three siblings are told a ghost story by an imaginary giant panda monk who shows them that they can be more than one person depending on the situation, and also, they can be anything they want to be.”
Mysteries: The staff at Warrenton’s The Open Book recommend “Arsenic and Adobo” by Mia P. Manansala, “Murder on Charity Lane” by Jo Nichols, and the cozy animal mystery “Shady Hollow” by Juneau Black.
Favorites from Read Between the Crimes: This Warrenton book club nominated “Love, Mom” by Iliana Xander as their favorite thriller.
Favorites from the Middleburg Books team: Shayne Johnson is a fan of “Mazywood” by Tananarive Due. “Wow! This thrilling novel is fantastic and well worth the length. Due brings two worlds to life so well, I did not care what timeline I was in. In the first timeline, we follow the career of Mazy from childhood through adulthood as she struggles to gain work as a Black child actress in Hollywood… In the current timeline, her grandson, a successful filmmaker in Hollywood, is trying to keep his family together… This novel is so much more than a horror book — it’s a well-researched historical fiction and a family drama as well. I could not put this down,” she says.
Haley Morgan Wright says “Agnes Lives!” by Hallie Elizabeth Newton is “a truly fascinating satirical horror debut. ‘Gossip Girl’ meets ‘Catcher in the Rye’ in this bonkers tale of a woman on a mission to find someone to take her life. A day-in-the-life story that gains speed like a train that is barreling toward a cataclysmic derailment.”
Favorites from The Open Book: “Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology” and its follow-up, “Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II,” edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., are anthologies of Indigenous tales. Reviews describe it as “scary and unsettling and sometimes outright horrifying.”
The Open Book staff add that “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson is a “classic thriller.” Though first published in 1959, this gothic story about a haunted house continues to rank in Amazon’s top 100 horror books.
History: Laura Christiansen, director of Leesburg’s Thomas Balch Library, promises that “Ghostland” by Colin Dickey is a “must-read for anyone who enjoys ghosts or historic sites, or who has ever pondered why many ghost stories seem unanchored to actual history.” In it, the author “travels across America’s most storied haunted sites to uncover the historical anxieties, forgotten crimes, and repressed memories behind ghost stories, revealing how the living use tales of the supernatural to navigate the nation’s unresolved past.”
For something closer to home, Christiansen’s staff recommend “Virginia Ghosts” by Marguerite du Pont Lee. The library has a 1930 first edition of the book in its catalogue. And, “Hauntings and Happenings of Loudoun” by former Leesburg mayor Frank Raflo (1919–2009) entertains with local lore like a cat’s body with a man’s head, the face in the tower, and more.
Horror: Leah Fallon, owner of Leesburg’s Birchtree Books, recommends Richard Chizmar’s “Boogeyman” series. Set in Maryland, this mix of horror fiction and true crime features interviews and photographs. It begins with “Becoming the Boogeyman,” moves on to “Chasing the Boogeyman,” and in October, will conclude with “Killing the Boogeyman.” Fallon says that Chizmar “actually wrote with Stephen King” and “has a psycho thriller aspect. [He] gets deep into character and place.”
Local Authors: Fallon also suggests work by Marshall author Carla Vergot. Her “Lily Barlow” series, centered around a baker’s daughter also from Marshall, is “fun.” Vergot is “really good at plotting” her cozy mysteries. “She really brings personality into her work,” Fallon adds.
To learn more about The Open Book or the Read Between the Crimes book club, visit openbookwarrenton.com. For more spooky stories, visit Middleburg Books, the Middleburg Library, or the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg. ML
Published in the October 2026 issue of Middleburg Life.