Outside of a Dog: The Spooky Edition

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx.

Halloween is just around the corner, and we’d be remiss without suggesting a few spooky stories to put you in the mood.

Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco
The Rolfes rent a summer home that sounds too good to be true. Soon they discover themselves caught up in a web of unimaginable menace and terror.
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Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton
Published in 1998, this is the 7^th novel in the featuring Anita Blake vampire hunter. Hamilton’s immensely popular series, now numbering 16 books, continues to intrigue and fascinate readers. In this novel, Anita is dealing with leaving one boyfriend, the werewolf pack Alpha Richard, and turning to another, Jean-Claude the Master Vampire of St. Louis; not to mention combating a possible psychic firestarter.
Fic Hamilton
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The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
A vampire book that's not at all like any vampire book you've ever read (we promise!) It's a story within a story within a story, generations of families and friends haunted by the search for Vlad Dracul. The dramatized version on CD is really a fright!
BKD Fic Kostova
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Fic Kostova
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Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
We’ve all seen or not seen the Academy Award nominated movie. You really have to read the book to truly appreciate how truly frightening the printed word can be.
Fic Harris
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Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Regarded as the most frightening and disturbing of King's many horror novels (and that's saying something!), Pet Sematary has lasted the test of time will give you chills. The story of a family who moves from Illinois to Maine, and finds local pets being raised from the dead is a sure scare at Halloween, or any time.
Fic King
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Coma by Robin Cook
This is the book that is credited with introducing the medicine gone awry genre. A young female medical student uncovers a shocking crime at her hospital.
Fic Cook
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Crooked Tree by Robert C. Wilson
An engrossing tale that combines Indian legend and supernatural terror in a Northern Michigan setting. First published in 1980, it was recently reissued in paperback.
Fic Wilson
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Superstitious by R.L. Stine
After zipping through all of Fear Street and Goosebumps when I was 12, I dug up R.L. Stine’s only adult offering to date. Truly chilling for those young and old, Superstitious is about a college girl’s affair with a folklore professor – who might just be scarier than the superstitions he teaches her.
Fic Stine
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For our younger readers looking for a scare, try R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps or Fear Street, Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, or Morgan Burke’s Party Room trilogy.

Readers: What is your favorite scary book?