15 Best Horror Novellas (you can read in a day!)

• Ashley shares her favorite horror novellas that you can read in a day.
• A new read-a-thon called the 24-hour Horrorthon is coming up soon.
• Each novella recommended can be read individually within a day.
• The list ranges from the least enjoyed to the best in Ashley's opinion.
• Trigger warnings are advised for some stories due to dark themes.
• Viewers are encouraged to share their own horror novella recommendations.

everyone welcome back to my channel my name is ashley and today i'm going to be talking about my favorite horror novellas that you can read in a day. you know me, you know i love horror novellas. i even recently just kicked off a new read-a-thon called the 24-hour horrorthon, which is dedicated to spending 24 hours reading with an emphasis on reading a short tour, and our first edition of that is coming up very very soon this week. this friday, august 26th from 8 p.m est to saturday at 8 p.m est, i have a whole video with all the details about the read-a-thon and the discord and the instagram and the buddy read and the book discussions and the live show. so i will send you to that video if you want to hear all about the readathon.

but with that coming up, i thought it would be a great time to recommend some short horror novellas. they're all really short; you can read all of these in a day. well, you can't read all of them together in a day unless you're really ambitious, but each of these individually could easily be read within a day. so if you're looking for some short horror novels to add to your TBR for the read-a-thon or just for your general reading, hopefully you'll be able to find something in these recommendations.

i'm going to be going in order from the ones that i personally enjoyed the least to the best, but i would recommend all of these for different audiences. but just know that my personal favorites will be coming at the end.

first up we have a short psychological horror novella that comes in around 150 pages and that is The Bell Chime by Mona Kabani. in this one, you're following a woman who has been suffering from really bad night terrors. one day she goes out into the hallway of her apartment building and she sees a missing person's poster, but the face on the poster is very familiar and frightening because it is herself. the whole time she's questioning and you're questioning what is real and what is a nightmare, and it is just a twisty, tiny psychological fun-fast for novella.

next up we have a social novella and that is And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin. this one is around 160 pages. it came out earlier this year, and this one was a little bit confusing for me to figure out as I was reading it, but the more I read, the more it started to come together for me. essentially what's going on in this horror novella is there is this pandemic that has hit the world. instead of the disease turning people into monsters, the disease affects your mind and makes you think you're seeing monsters. so then, people start killing people because they think they're monsters, but all along the disease is just in their minds. it's a lot about the psychological effects of our media and just a big social commentary on a lot of things that go on today. it's really fascinating, really unique, and it often gets recommended alongside works from other big authors like Stephen Graham Jones and Mira Grant.

next up, coming in just under 100 pages, we have We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric Larocca. this is a very bizarre dark fantasy style horror novella. it's very weird; it has some of the weirdest imagery that I've read in horror. it's a really interesting blend of fantasy with horror. what you're following in this one is this girl who is living with her mother. her mother is pregnant, her father has recently died, and her mother decides to invite someone new into their house, and the girl is not happy about it. that's really all I can say with this one; it'll take you on a wild ride. you really just have to read it to know what happens.

next up, coming in around 170 pages, we have Gone to See the Riverman by Christopher Triana. this one is far more dark and disturbing than the other ones I've recommended so far, so definitely look at trigger warnings if that's important to you before you go into this one because it is dark. what you're following in this story is this woman who has fallen in love with a serial killer who is behind bars. they exchange letters to one another, and he asks her to complete a task and go on this quest for him to go to see the Riverman. so she takes her sister with her, and they go out to the woods and through the river to go try to find the Riverman and complete the strange request for the serial killer. this one ends up taking weird turns. it definitely leans into cosmic horror in the second half of the book. there's a lot of flashbacks that include incredibly disturbing material, so again, go in with caution with this one, but it was an interesting read.

next up, coming in at 74 pages, we have A Blankie by Culin Patrick Burke. in this story, there is this married couple who has recently separated after the passing of their daughter. you're mainly following the husband who is obviously grieving the loss of his infant daughter and things become very nightmarish for him when he ends up finding the blanket that they buried their daughter with in his house. this one's a good mix of supernatural horror with grief horror; very real-life emotions, which I always tend to gravitate to. this is the only thing I've read from this author so far, but I know he has a lot of other horror novellas out there as well, so definitely an author worth checking out.

next up, coming in around 225 pages, we have The Patient by Jasper Dewitt. in the story, you're from a psychiatrist who is going to work at this mental hospital. there is a notorious patient there who is very dangerous; no one's ever been able to help him. they say he can manipulate your mind; there's a lot of lore around him at the facility, and he is determined that he can come in and figure out what's going on with this patient. this one was pretty interesting, fast-paced, and pretty dark. if you're looking for a book to read with the lights off to creep you out, this is definitely one that I would recommend.

next up, coming in just under 150 pages, we have The Lunchling by J. Alexander. this is a story about these parents who are having trouble getting their child to eat, and so they find this puppet in the woods. they bring it into their home and they use it as an intimidating factor to get their child to eat, saying, "if you don't eat your food, the Lunchling's going to get you," which seems, you know, like a harmless little white lie to tell your child to get them to do what you need them to do. but then the puppet may or may not sort of start coming to life and potentially be evil. I mean, look at the cover; you know the vibes you're going into with this one. it’s a ton of fun, very fast-paced, and the author even said he's considering doing a series of these books, so there may be more coming out in the future.

next up, coming in just over 200 pages, we have Tinder is the Flesh by Augustina Basterica. this is a very highly talked about horror novella. I feel like many people have read this one, but if you somehow haven't gotten around to it yet, I definitely think it's worth picking up. this is another horror novella that has a really interesting social commentary behind it. in this world, there has been this virus that affected all of the animals on the earth, and so humans can't eat animals anymore. so instead of, you know, becoming vegetarian or finding some other alternative path, they decide to turn to processing, slaughtering and eating human meat. in the story, the guy you're following is a man named Marcos; he works at a processing plant for human meat. one day he’s given a gift of a human to take care of—similar to the way that you might give someone a goat in today's world. in a society, you're forbidden from connecting with these humans who are being farmed for their meat, but he ends up having a hard time with that. definitely a gross one because they are eating human meat, so trigger warning big time for that in the story, but it is very interesting and it will get you thinking.

next up, coming in just over 200 pages, we have You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric Larocca. like all of Eric Larocca's books, this one is a weird one, and it's kind of confusing as well. the main story of what you're following in this book is this woman who has this opportunity to go work for this person. she's going to his house to design horror video games; she's bringing her younger brother along with her, and you're seeing the journey that goes on as she dives into the world of the dark video game. that whole story is a story within a story; you're reading the story that in the frame narrative a character wrote, and in that frame narrative there are these two men who were in a relationship. when the story begins, you know that they have both disappeared and gone missing, and so you're piecing together the excerpts of what one of them has written in different short story poem things, and mainly this narrative of the sister and her brother going off to work on this dark video game. I will say the story within the story was my favorite part about the frame narrative. I didn't care about quite as much; you'll probably find yourself leaning one way or the other when you read this, but Eric Larocca's writing is just so fascinating, so grotesque, and I just get absorbed in his books every time, so definitely recommend this one.

next up, coming in around 125 pages, we have Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Kaw. this is a haunted house story that has a lot of Japanese folklore infused in it. you're following this group of friends who's going to stay at this creepy house together after a pair of them just got married. they're celebrating the wedding, but then things turn dark. the blurb on the back of this one says it is a sharp and devastating exploration of grief, the parasitic nature of relationships, and the consequences of our actions. I will say from the people I've seen read this book, a lot of people tend to not like this one, but I had a lot of fun with it. I love a good short, fast haunted house story. I love parasitic relationships between friends, so I thought it was a good time and it had some creepy imagery in it. but it may be worth hearing a couple other opinions to decide if it's gonna be one that maybe you will enjoy; either way, it's really short, so it won't be that big of a waste of time if you end up not loving it like I did.

next up, probably the shortest on the list coming in around 65 pages is The Grown-Up by Gillian Flynn. the main character in the story is a really interesting woman who is admittedly scamming people as a sidekick. she has a really good ability to pick up on human behavior, and so she uses that to pretend to be a sidekick reading ores, giving predictions, and whatnot. ultimately, she determines it's just a harmless amount of fraud. but then one day, this woman hires her to come out to her house, this creepy Victorian gothic type of mansion, and once she gets there, the main character is questioning whether the supernatural may be real after all. this story is such a ride for it to only be about 65 pages long. there are twists and turns; it is so much fun. I love Gillian Flynn's snarky sense of writing with this character too; she's one of my favorite main characters because she's just such an interesting person to follow, and it's a super quick one to read. you can read this one in probably just like an hour.

next up, coming in around 135 pages, we have Night of Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones. this is a personal favorite of mine; I talk about it a lot. but while you're following the story, it’s this group of kids who always used to play together with this mannequin that they would just play games with. eventually, they grow out of it; they stop playing with him. but a few summers later, they decide they want to pull him back into one of their classic pranks that they like to pull on their friends. they decide to bring him into a movie theater where one of their friends works, sit him in the seats, and they think it's going to be very funny when the ticket person comes along to collect the ticket and realizes that it is just a mannequin sitting there. but while they are sitting there watching the movie, the mannequin gets up, leaves his seat, and walks out of the theater, and then they realize the mannequin may be harboring a grudge for not being played with for the past couple of summers. I just really love Stephen Graham Jones' short horror stories.

the next book i'm going to recommend is also by him, and that is Mapping the Interior. this one comes in around 130 pages, and in this story, you're following this boy whose father has recently died, and then he believes that he starts to see his father's spirit around their house. as the title suggests, he begins mapping the interior of his house, trying to figure out the layout of it, where his father's spirit, or potentially not his father's spirit, ends up going in the house. and it's just a really beautiful story about grief; it's a coming-of-age story. it follows family bonds, and it was just a really moving story.

next up, my third Eric Larocca book on this list is Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. this is by far my favorite of his that I have read so far. in the story, you're following these two women who meet online. one is trying to sell an apple peeler, and the other is interested in buying it. but from there, they continue having these online interactions through email and instant messaging, and they begin to develop a very unhealthy relationship. from there, this one gets pretty gruesome by the end, but it was so fascinating. I love how this one explored what loneliness can do to people, and it's just one of my all-time favorite horror novellas.

and finally, coming in around 110 pages, we have A Crossroads by Laurel Hightower. this has been one of my favorite books I've read this year, so I talk about this one all the time. but in the story, you're following this woman who has lost her son in a car accident. she frequently visits the site of his death. one day, she accidentally spills blood on his gravesite, and then she begins seeing his spirit. this is a story about grief; it's about sacrifice; it's about what you would do for your loved ones, and it is so beautiful and haunting. I was just absolutely obsessed with it.

after reading that book, I was just so excited to read more from Laurel Hightower, and we're actually going to be reading another story from her called Below as our buddy read for the 24-hour Horrorthon that's happening this week, so I'm really excited to read another book from her to see if I love that one just as much and then continue exploring her backlist.

so that is it for all of the horror novella recommendations I have for today. let me know down in the comments below if you have read any of these and what you think of them, or let me know if you have any other horror novella recommendations that I didn't mention on this list that you think I would enjoy or that anyone else watching this video could potentially enjoy as well.

and if you want to leave an emoji down in the comments below to let me know that you got to the end of today's video, let's do a bat emoji since my 24-hour Horrorthon is bat and vampirey themed. like I said, if you don't know what I'm talking about, and you do want to join that readathon, I will have the announcement video linked down below in the description box so you can go check that out and get all the details for that as well.

but that is it for me. thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you all in my next video. bye! [Music]