13 creepy Canadian books to read on Friday the 13th
CBC Books | | Posted: August 13, 2019 3:22 PM | Last Updated: September 13, 2019
Winding mysteries, psychological thrillers, big plot twists you didn't see coming — these 13 books will send chills up your spine.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
In Moon of the Crusted Snow, a northern Anishinaabe community loses power just as winter arrives and no one knows why. Panic rises as the food supply slowly runs out. Newcomers begin to arrive on the reserve and tension builds as disease begins taking lives. As chaos takes hold, a small group turns to the land and Anishinaabe tradition to start rebuilding and restoring harmony.
Rice is also the host of the CBC Radio show Up North.
Someone We Know by Shari Lapena
In Someone We Know, a quiet well-to-do community in upstate New York is rocked by a series of break-ins. Somebody in their neighbourhood has not just been breaking into their homes, but also their computers, and sharing the scandalous secrets they've uncovered. As tension mounts, a woman is found dead.
Shari Lapena is the author of bestselling thrillers including The Couple Next Door and A Stranger in the House.
Wrist by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler
Wrist is an Indigenous horror story. It follows dinosaur hunters embroiled in a battle after fossils are discovered in Northern Ontario, while the excavation crews are driven mad by inexplicable illness.
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler is a writer and artist and a member of Lac Des Mille Lacs First Nation. Wrist is Adler's first book.
Hideaway by Nicole Lundrigan
In the thriller Hideaway, Rowan runs away from home in the wake of his father's abandonment. He's terrified to be the main target of his mother Gloria's dark side. He bonds with a homeless man named Carl and they make themselves at home in an isolated cottage. Gloria uses everything at her disposal to track Rowan down, playing up her reputation as a loving suburban mom while also viciously manipulating her daughter Maisy.
Nicole Lundrigan, based in Toronto, is also the author of the psychological thriller The Substitute.
Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall by Suzette Mayr
In Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall, an anxious English professor is dealing with the publication of her dissertation, backstabbing colleagues and a missing friend. Oh, and she finds that her office building may be haunted.
Suzette Mayr is the author of five novels and teaches creative writing at the University of Calgary.
Wherever She Goes by K.L. Armstrong
Wherever She Goes is a thriller about a woman, Aubrey Finch, who sees a child being abducted. But when no one reports a kidnapping, no one believes Aubrey. Aubrey, a single mother surrounded by whispers about her past and the state of her mental well-being, decides to take matters into her own hands and solve the crime herself.
K.L. Armstrong is a pseudonym for popular fantasy and thriller writer Kelley Armstrong.
Your Life Is Mine by Nathan Ripley
Your Life Is Mine is a page-turning thriller about Blanche, the daughter of a notorious murderer and cult leader. Her father killed himself after a shooting spree more than 20 years ago, but when Blanche learns her mother was murdered, she must return home and learns there's more to her family's story than she could have ever imagined — and that the cult her father founded might be making a comeback.
Your Life Is Mine is the second thriller from Nathan Ripley, who is also the author of Find You in the Dark.
Vantage Point by Scott Thornley
Detective Superintendent MacNeice returns in mystery novel Vantage Point. It's about what happens when a gruesome murder scene is discovered in the master bedroom of a Dundurn mansion. Across town, a body is discovered underneath the Devil's Punch Bowl waterfall. In both cases, the bodies are purposely arranged with different props — a female mannequin, a doll with red cotton insides and a papier mâché donkey's head. The scenes trigger an old memory in the detective.
Scott Thornley is based in Hamilton, Ont. Vantage Point is the fourth book in his MacNeice series.
Bunny by Mona Awad
In Bunny, scholarship student Samantha Heather Mackey feels like an outsider at her elite university, especially when it comes to her fiction writing class. That's where she first encounters the Bunnies, a comically tight-knit group of annoying rich girls who invite Samantha to their exclusive "Smut Salon." Against her better judgment, Samantha is drawn into the Bunnies' orbit.
Mona Award's previous novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll
A young woman determinedly makes her way to the Countess's castle, where many have gone but never returned. When I Arrived at the Castle is a gothic horror comic from Stratford, Ont.-based artist Emily Carroll, whose first two books Through the Woods, a collection of horror comics, and Speak, an adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel, were published to critical acclaim.
We All Fall Down by Daniel Kalla
Daniel Kalla is an emergency room doctor based in Vancouver and the international bestselling author of 10 books. His latest, We All Fall Down, is a thriller about the black death. Set both in the past and present, Kalla explores the plague caused in the medieval period, and how its effects would be felt if it were to break out today.
The Homecoming by Andrew Pyper
When the Quinlan family gathers at a vast rainforest property for the reading of their patriarch's will, they discover that in order to receive their inheritance, they must isolate themselves at the estate for 30 days. In the month that follows, chilling family secrets emerge about their father's true intentions.
Andrew Pyper is a bestselling horror writer, whose books include The Only Child, The Demonologist and The Killing Circle.
It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal
In this thriller by Sheena Kamal, protagonist Nora Watts decides to face her grief and investigate the circumstances of her father's mysterious death by suicide. Sam Watts was one of thousands of Indigenous children to be forcibly separated from his family by the government, a policy that started in the 1950s. As Nora digs into her father's early life in Detroit, she discovers troubling truths surrounding his upbringing and death.
Kamal is also the author of The Lost Ones.