Mind on Fire Books

I have always gravitated toward works of horror, even at a young age. At first, I read whatever Horror novels I could find on my friend’s bookshelves. Edgar A. Poe, V.C. Andrews, R.L. Stine, Charles Maturin, Jacquez Cazotte. They lit a fire in me that makes me curious about all the things that might be out there. All the things we cannot prove. Ghosts living among us, creatures in nature, parallel universes, monsters within ourselves, and so on!

As I got older, I began to appreciate a different sort of horror. Horror novels made me interrogate the greater dangers we encounter in our day-to-day lives. The deeper evils that lie within us. What could be more terrifying?

If there is anything to inspire an even deeper dread within me, it’s stories that take already terrible events from real life and make them even more monstrous using the traditional elements of horror. Perhaps it’s because these stories hew so close to reality. They almost seem to confirm the potentiality of dark magic, demonic creatures and other supernatural manifestations.

Horror Novels Based on Real Life That Will Scare You!

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Simmons crafts a brand of horror that darkens a historical event. In his most famous work, The Terror, he unfolds the tale of a ship on a doomed expedition through the Arctic in the mid-1840s to find the Northwest Passage—a narrative already rife with disease, starvation, and death—and introduces the possibility of an unseen force stalking them across the ice. Its popularity led to an adaptation for the small screen.

The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood

The myth of the changeling—a fairy child left in place of a stolen human child—ran rampant throughout medieval Europe. Perhaps it was so popular because it was such a convenient scapegoat for the afflictions that often beset children, diseases, and disabilities that parents and medical professionals did not understand at the time. In some cases, even adults are accused of being changelings. One of the most well-known cases is Bridget Cleary who was killed in 1895 by a group of people that included her suspicious husband. In The Hidden People (a reference to the fairy folk), a man learns his cousin has been burned alive because her husband thought she was a changeling. When he arrives in town to investigate, he comes to wonder if there’s more than just silly superstition at play.

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle has a knack for taking old folk tales and making them new. I adored his take on the changeling myth, in which he tracks trolls on their journey from Europe to America. In explaining how changelings have come to be in America, he digs into the “why” behind their existence. He also suggests a level of complicity in the humans that had previously been assumed to be victims alone.

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Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

More than anything else, this novel is about la frontera, the U.S.-Mexico border. Rather than focusing in on a single historical moment or figure, this book uses six characters to tell the story of a shared Southwestern experience—with a dark twist. Among the six main characters are a child who turns cold-blooded after seeing his father killed. There is also a young woman who progresses from performance art to murder; and a mother who begins to fear that the child in her womb may be something more sinister.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu’s latest book immerses readers in one of the deadliest occurrences in Western history—the catastrophic wagon train journey of the infamous Donner Party—while adding a supernatural twist. Starvation and eventual death drive the body count higher. The party members reach their breaking point, inevitably turning against one another. As people begin to disappear, they start to wonder if something even more malevolent lurks in the shadows.

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Black Fire by Hernan Rodriguez

In this graphic horror novel, Rodriguez places us in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. After an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Russian army, his own military is forced to retreat. One unit is attacked by Cossacks during their journey homeward, but two survivors are able to elude the military warriors by fleeing toward an abandoned Slavic town—a place the Cossacks are unwilling to approach. But why? These men eventually come face to face with the Czernobog, a Slavic demon who proves to be a much more formidable opponent than the bloodthirsty warriors they only just barely escaped.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

This classic horror is one of those books I can’t believe my parents let me read. At that point, having made my way through most of the books on their shelves, they probably resigned themselves to having a weird and morbid child. What difference would a bit of adult content make? As you likely already know, Blatty’s novel revolves around a 12-year-old girl who becomes demonically possessed, and two priests attempt to exorcise her. What you may not know is that the book draws inspiration from the true story of an actual exorcism. Wherever you stand on the legitimacy of demonic possession, by the end of Blatty’s novel, it forces you to believe.

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Once upon a time (the early- to mid-1800s), a Spanish serial killer known as the Wolfman killed several women and children so he could extract their body fat and use it to make soap. Some postulate that Süskind’s novel—about a perfumer’s apprentice who is obsessed with possessing the particular scent that exudes from virginal young girls—is based upon this monstrous true tale. Whatever the origin, Süskind pushes the story further. He imbues the scents his serial killer acquires with outsized powers.

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