Hi hello ghouls and goblins and welcome to Blogtober day 12! Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite spooky book covers. Personally, I feel like spooky can mean a number of things when it comes to the vibes and the Halloween season, don’t you? Spooky can be an umbrella term for something that’s generally scary, sure, but what about spooky cute? Just like my banner that I created for this year's Blogtober posts (and the adorable pastel Halloween decor that Michaels releases), I feel like spooky cute is definitely a thing! But these are just some book covers that I think fit the Halloween season aesthetic. Let’s get spooky!
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Starting off with a book cover that’s definitely on the creepy side, we have You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca. There are two different versions of this cover, but I feel like this one just gives off a much creepier and uncomfortable vibe. This is a fantastic book that I read for Summerween this year and I really enjoyed it! But as for the cover, I think this one is more simple but more straightforward with its creepiness. Sometimes you don’t need to be super in your face with horror and this cover proves that.
Next up, we have The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. With the previous cover, I mentioned how you don’t always have to be so blunt with horror and how simple can sometimes be more beneficial than direct. In the case of this cover (which is absolutely stunning), I think it does a good job of blending the direct and simple approaches. This cover 100% gives off a creepy vibe with the hand, the ominous glow, and the way that the title is almost hidden in the shadows. It shows you what you can expect from the book without doing something super over the top. Subtle but effective!
You want spooky cute? You’ve got spooky cute! This Blood That Binds Us by S.L. Cokeley is a stunning example of how to blend something that could be considered spooky (a human heart) with something cute (pastel frickin pink, y’all)! I’ve been following the author on TikTok for a while now and watching this book come to life has been such a treat. And when the cover was revealed to be this gorgeous pastel peachy pink, (which is not what anyone usually expects of a vampire book, right?) I could not believe what a beauty it turned out to be! It’s a great mix of the expected and unique and pulls off spooky cute so well!
Let’s take a sharp left away from cute and turn into downright creepy, shall we? Into the Sublime by Kate A. Boorman has probably one of my favorite covers I’ve ever seen because it reminds me so much of not only The Luminous Dead, but also one of my all-time favorite horror films called The Descent. Immediately upon looking at this cover, you’ll feel a chill running down your spine when you realize there’s a girl on the cover just…staring at you. Then you notice the water and what appears to be a cave setting? The font choice and how it graduates from small to large and the bright, almost blood red, color of the book title just lends to the creepy factor. All of the elements involved come together to make an unsettling and incredibly memorable book cover, and definitely one for this list!
I may be in the minority here, but this next one is spooky, sure, but also beautifully horrific. Plastic Monsters by Daniel J. Volpe caught my eye with the cover first and then the synopsis had me flying to add this to my TBR! If you’ve ever played the original Bioshock video game, you’ll (hopefully) remember the demented and tortured artist Sander Cohen. Sure, he’s a little out of his mind but hey, we all go a little mad sometimes. This book instantly reminded me of one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite video games so of course I’m going to talk about it! It’s a simple cover that gets more and more almost painful the longer you look at it. But in its horror, it leads you to want to learn more about why it has this cover design, which is the beauty of the terrifying image you see. Yet another case of a cover being simple but very effective and successful!
It took me multiple times of looking at this cover to notice that something just isn’t quite right. Look at it. Then look again. Yeah, that’s a hand coming out of the water to grab her. And also she has a pillowcase on her head which I thought was maybe a rag or towel to block out the light. Nope, pillowcase. Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy seems to be a big hit with a lot of horror fans, and I think it’s for a good reason. Unfortunately for me, I put it down and haven’t picked it back up yet, but I’ve seen rave reviews for this and one thing that a lot of people have mentioned is this cover. I love it when horror isn’t super in your face and it takes you a bit to really notice something could be off, just like this cover. It’s subtle but also not at all, if that makes any sense? It makes you wonder if the cover is this creepy, how horrific are the pages beneath? From what I read and have seen in reviews, it’s pretty darn horrific. The cover does a wonderful job at preparing you for the story, although I don’t think you’ll be prepared by how bloody it is!
I think we can all collectively agree that Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo has a spooky cover, yes? Make no mistake, it is stunning, but something about the white and grey tones with the creepy rabbit just gives me the, well, mega creeps. Of course, I mean that with all the love in the world because the excitement I have for this book is insane, but I won’t deny that this cover is infinitely more unsettling than Ninth House was. I think that’s what makes it so effective as a cover, though. This isn’t even a horror book but it has a horrifying cover that will make people want to pick it up because what the heck is up with it?! I can only hope that my future book will have a cover as cool as Hell Bent.
And last, but certainly not least, I want to discuss something that seems to be the new “book snake” trend which is people covered in flowers. Horrid by Katrina Leno is the first book with a cover like this that came to mind when I was thinking about this trend and yeah, it’s pretty spooky. There are so many books that follow this trend and I think it’s a really effective one, especially when it’s done the way that Horrid is done. Surely, your first thought when seeing this cover was “Why are there flowers coming out of her eyes?” And maybe you even wondered why they were black roses (it’s part of the plot and it’s creepy) because those can’t be normal, right? Having a book cover that’s covered in flowers always gives me ominous vibes for some reason, even if the book isn’t supposed to be scary at all. I love when things that are supposed to be inherently beautiful are twisted and made into something horrific, which is probably why I love the flower trend so much. But Horrid did it in a very effective way, I feel, and it still remains one of my favorite covers for a horror book!
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And that does it for some of my favorite spooky book covers! Honestly, this post was more of a self-indulgent one because I absolutely love looking at and talking about book covers, especially ones I think are spooky in some fashion. So, thank you for sticking around and reading my rambles! I would love to know what some of your favorite spooky book covers are so let me know in the comments below. Tomorrow is day 13 and I’ll be doing the Friday the 13th Book Tag, so be sure to come back tomorrow for some Camp Crystal Lake fun. Just make sure to leave your camp counselor shirts behind because I’ve heard rumors of people wearing them and going missing. I’m sure it’s nothing. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll scare ya later!
