For those who love the thrill of being scared, the best horror audiobooks can provide an heart thumping experience. Whether you enjoy the adrenaline rush, macabre curiosities, or psychological thrills that horror offers, a well-performed story read aloud can heighten the fear and suspense. Narrators bring characters to life through nuanced vocal performance and pacing, pulling listeners into the frightening world of the story. Horror fiction tales tap into our most basic fears and fascinations about the dark side of human nature. There is something captivating about stories that take us to the edge of what we can bear, without going over. This article will explore the top horror audiobooks that utilize the audio format most effectively to entertain and terrify listeners through the magic of storytelling and the human voice. *All the background images are made with NightCafe Creator AI.
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Intercepts: A Horror Novel
Book Summary:
Joe doesn’t take his work home with him, but it follows him. Or, I should say, they, follow him. The only problem is Joe’s work is at a secret facility where they do human experimentation. Oh, and the work was supposed to be shut down after all test subjects lost their minds, going insane. But, they didn’t exactly shut it down, and the subjects are out for a little payback. Prepare to lose some sleep on this one, folks!
The Sleep Experiment
Author: Jeremy Bates
Narrator: George Ellington
Audio Duration: 7 hours, 33 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
4 Soviet prisoners were subjected to extreme sleep deprivation (14 days), during experiments at the beginning of the Cold War. The results were disastrous and deadly. So, 64 years later, a doctor at UC Berkeley decides to recreate the experiment with the help of his assistants and some Australian subjects. Dr. Roy Wallis read the results of the original study and it’s results, but decides to try it again. Sounds like a perfect plan, doc.
Dead Silence
Book Summary:
A space beacon repair crew, led by Claire Kovalik, picks up a distress call, in deep space. She and her crew decide to investigate, since the job they are on is probably their last. They come across an old luxury space liner that went missing 20 years ago. There is the lure of a salvage job and the money it will bring them, but that is balanced out with the creepy voices and scrawled words in blood they find inside. Will they be able to salvage the liner, or meet the same fate?
The Whisper Man
Author: Alex North
Narrator: Christopher Eccleston
Audio Duration: 9 hours, 38 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
The small quiet town of Featherbank, seems to be a great place to settle for Tom and his son Jake, after the sudden death of Tom’s wife. Unfortunately, the town has a terrifying past, one where a serial killer abducts young boys from their homes, luring them out by whispering at their windows. Now, 20 years later, there is another young boy missing, even though the killer was caught and in jail. The police must revisit the case, and the killer. Tom must get involved because his son Jake is starting to hear whispers at his window.
The Exorcist
Author: William Peter Blatty
Narrator: William Peter Blatty, Eliana Shaskan
Audio Duration: 12 hours, 51 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
This is the 40th Anniversary release of the classic horror story we all saw in the movie that made it famous. For the anniversary, the author has re-done some of the dialogue and polished it up a bit as he said.
Dead of Winter
Book Summary:
Christa joins a group heading out to the Rocky Mountains for a winter retreat, hoping to leave her past behind. They are hit by a dangerous blizzard, forcing them to take shelter in an old hunting lodge. They believe they will be alright in the cabin until the worst of the storm passes. They were right, right up until the tour guide goes missing. Luckily, he is found…not really ! His severed head is found on a post outside the cabin. Now, the ultimate test of survival begins, who will kill them first, the storm or the killer ?
The Only One Left
Author: Riley Sager
Narrator: Dawn Harvey, Christine Lakin
Audio Duration: 12 hours, 32 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Home health care aide, Kit McDeere, takes a job at a crumbling cliff side mansion called Hope’s End to care for the elderly woman who lives there. Lenora Hope has been rendered speechless from a stroke, and is able to communicate only through a typewriter. Lenora was accused of killing her sister, father and mother many years ago, but through the typewriter, Lenora wants to tell the truth to Kit. Something she has never spoken of. Can Kit help her, or is there much more to the story.
Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One
Book Summary:
Look, we all know weird stuff happens at gas stations at night. Unfortunately, Jack isn’t just watching it, he becomes a part of it, too. Told in a humorous, sarcastic tone, it tells the tell of a young man that just wants to survive his shift at the gas station from all the weirdness, including garden gnomes !
Boys in the Valley
Author: Philip Fracassi
Narrator: David Aaron Baker
Audio Duration: 10 hours, 55 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Boy’s Orphanage, remote Pennsylvania, turn of the century and a group of strange men. Everything you need for a good horror story, and this one has them all. An occult death forces the boys to choose sides in order to survive.
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre
Author: Max Brooks
Narrator: Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Terry Gross, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Kai Ryssdal, Steven Weber
Audio Duration: 9 hours, 50 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Max Brooks conducted his own extensive research into the legend of Bigfoot, and pairs it with Kate Holland’s journals. The book details the events surrounding the Greenloop Massacre that was largely ignored due to the Mount Ranier eruption. But Kate’s writings detail, in high fidelity the existence of a legend, a legend that is brutal and deadly.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Narrator: Cara Gee
Audio Duration: 13 hours, 3 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Jade Daniels is an outcast, loner, half-Native young girl with an encyclopedic knowledge of horror films (slasher in particular). When a slasher comes to her town and starts killing, her arcane knowledge is the only tool to stop, and maybe understand, the killer.
Hidden Pictures: A Novel
Book Summary:
Mallory is a nanny, just out of prison, working for a family with a 5 year old boy. What seems like a perfect chance at stability, Mallory deals with the scrutiny from the parents. The young boy, Teddy, seems like any other little boy who likes to draw. When his drawings take on a sinister and dark turn, Mallory vows to protect the child from whatever evil is haunting him.
Wonderland
Book Summary:
So, anyone else notice city people get in trouble when they move out to the country to “get away from it all” ? Here, Orla and Shaw Bennet move their family to the Adirondacks. The only problem with living way out in the country, is there is no one there to help. It is up to Orla to figure out the mystery surrounding them before it is too late. Never underestimate a mother’s power.
A Head Full of Ghosts
Book Summary:
The Barrett family has two young daughters. Problems arise when the older daughter is diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Seeking an alternate diagnosis, the family turns to a priest who recommends an exorcism instead because he believes Marjorie is possessed. They are offered a spot on a reality show about exorcisms and they jump at the chance to help pay the bills. Things fo horrible astray, and the story is told my the younger sister, years after the episode.
And Then I Woke Up
Book Summary:
What happens when a plague turns people into monsters and messes with their minds? How do the “cured” know what is real, and what isn’t… Spence was cured, and now lives in an institution to deal with what happened. All is good until he meets a new inmate that forces him to face reality and help her find her friends.
Unspeakable Things
Book Summary:
Horrible things are happening in Cassie’s small Minnesota town. Young boys are disappearing, and when they show up again, they are absolutely not the same. Now, her sister had been taken and comes back changed, and it is up to Cassie to try and save them all.
The Hollow Places
Book Summary:
Sometimes, it really is better to not open the door. Trust us… Kara found a strange door in her uncle’s home, and it leads to all sorts of supernatural, fantastical horror.
How to Sell a Haunted House
Author: Grady Hendrix
Narrator: Jay Aaseng, Mikhaila Aaseng
Audio Duration: 13 hours, 0 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
This one is simple: dolls and puppets. Enough said. Trust me, if you have any ill feelings about either, do NOT listen to this book. We warned you.
Lone Women
Author: Victor LaValle
Narrator: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Audio Duration: 9 hours, 11 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Adelaide Henry is a black woman, homesteading in 1915 Montana. With a monster in a steamer trunk. Not a monster of a steamer trunk, but a real monster IN a steamer trunk. She keeps it locked up because it has a tendency to kill people when let out, but can the monster help her carve out her homestead?
The Marigold
Author: Andrew F. Sullivan
Narrator: Sean Patrick Hopkins
Audio Duration: 10 hours, 40 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
This one is just weird, but good. Set in Toronto, a real estate developer’s new project Marigold II is going no where. He decides to use an old family secret to jump start it, with unpredictable results. From the building spreads a jighly toxic mold that threatens to infect the entire city.
Looking Glass Sound
Author: Catriona Ward
Narrator: Christopher Ragland, Katherine Fenton
Audio Duration: 12 hours, 58 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
Writer Wilder Harlow begins work on his last novel. While in his beach front cottage in Maine, he starts to have horrible flashbacks from his earlier life. He wonders if the secret he has kept is coming back to do him in. Can he finish his novel, or will this be the end of his life?
Sister, Maiden, Monster
Author: Lucy A. Snyder
Narrator: Katherine Littrell, Lindsey Dorcus, Arielle DeLisle
Audio Duration: 8 hours, 54 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
A post-apocalyptic novel set after a virus decimates the world. Three women come together to survive, and possibly have a hand in saving what is left of humanity.
All the White Spaces
Author: Ally Wilkes
Narrator: Scott Turner Schofield
Audio Duration: 14 hours, 13 minutes
Buy audiobook here.
Book Summary:
After WW I, Jonathan Morgan sneaks into the Antarctic expedition of his hero and idol. After being shipwrecked on the ice, the expedition must make its way to safety and winter over. Unfortunately, they are not alone on the ice, and no one is coming to save them but themselves. A supernatural horror has finally got fresh meat in its sights.
Affiliate Disclosure: We may be compensated for qualified purchases from links in this article, at no cost to you. Thank you ! You can read full disclosure, here.
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Viv Ramos del Castillo
My name is Viv, and storytelling comes naturally to me. Whether I'm writing about distant lands or everyday life, I love capturing moments that make the heart swell or the mind ponder. I've always had a vivid imagination, and as a child I'd make up stories to tell my cat while I sipped my afternoon earl grey tea. As I grew older my tales found their way onto the pages of journals and eventually, into the hands of readers. There are no rules when it comes to my writing. I simply follow my curiosities, writing about whatever catches my eye - be it a colorful leaf floating by or an interesting conversation overheard. My stories wander freely without concern for genre or trendiness.