Lesser Known Horror Books by Black Authors

I love reading horror/witchy books, but there are a few that hardly ever get any love. So here are a few books that I love, that I think you’ll love too. Please note these contain affiliate links, if you purchase I may receive compensation.

Also, let me apologize in advance if you’re viewing this from your phone. I know the images are huge.

The Ballad of Black Tom

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break? Amazon

The Devil in Silver

Pepper is the surprised inmate of a mental institution in Queens, New York. In the darkness of his room, on his first night, a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die? Amazon

Dead Girls Walking: A Novel

Temple Baker knows that evil runs in her blood. Her father is the North Point Killer, an infamous serial killer known for how he marked each of his victims with a brand. He was convicted for murdering 20 people and was the talk of countless true crime blogs for years. Some say he was possessed by a demon. Some say that they never found all his victims. Some say that even though he’s now behind bars, people are still dying in the woods. Despite everything though, Temple never believed that her dad killed her mom. But when he confesses to that crime while on death row, she has no choice but to return to his old hunting grounds to try see if she can find a body and prove it. Amazon

Jackal: A Novel

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she’s not the first — and she may not be the last . . . It’s watching. Amazon

The Conjure Man Dies

When the body of N’Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, Perry Dart, one of Harlem’s ten Black police detectives, is called in to investigate. Together with Dr Archer, a physician from across the street, Dart is determined to solve the baffling mystery, helped and hindered by Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins, local boys keen to clear themselves of suspicion of murder and undertake their own investigations. Amazon

The Taking of Jake Livingston

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student—the handsome Allister—and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake.

Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he's a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game—one Jake is not sure he can win. Amazon

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight

Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.

But the last weekend of the season, Charity's co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity's role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they'll need figure out what this killer is after. As they unravel the bloody history of the real Mirror Lake, Charity discovers that there may be more to the story than she ever suspected . . . Amazon

Honorable Mention

The following aren’t authors of color, but are still some of my favorite books in this category.

Morsels

Connie can’t deny she’s nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s family. Spending the weekend at their ritzy woodland summer home, Evan’s already given her fair warning: that his parents are cold, snobbish, and especially unpleasant toward those outside their usual social circles.

So when Evan’s mother warmly greets them with open arms, Connie is as confused as he is. Evan’s parents are nothing like he described. They’re so friendly, in fact, Evan himself can hardly believe they’re real.

Then, while helping Evan’s mother with dinner preparations Connie overhears strange noises coming from the basement—what almost sound like voices calling out for help.

Connie doesn't realize that once the door is opened, it can’t be closed. Or that once she descends those rickety steps into the darkness below... she may never see the light of day again. Amazon

A Discovery of Witches

In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Amazon

What do you think of this list? Could more be added? Let me know your picks in the comments!