13 scarily good Canadian books to read this summer

Looking for scary stories to share around a campfire this summer? Here are 13 Canadian books to read this season if you love thrillers and horror!

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Set in the film scene of the 90s in Mexico City, Silver Nitrate is the latest Gothic horror novel from Moreno-Garcia. Montserrat, a sound editor, has forever been in love with and ignored by her childhood best friend, Tristn. Abel Urueta is a legendary horror director who believes he is cursed after failing to finish his last film. Enlisting the help of Tristn and Montserrat, the three become entangled in a mysterious challenge to finish the film and find the occultist who cursed Urueta. Silver Nitrate explores a haunting and magical story behind the film industry.

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a Canadian author, who was born and raised in Mexico. She has written several speculative fiction novels including Gods of Jade and Shadow, Velvet Was the Night and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. Her novel Mexican Gothic was championed by Tiktok creator Tasnim Geedi on Canada Reads 2023.

LISTEN | Silvia Moreno-Garcia on Mexican Gothic:

The Next Chapter18:03Silvia Moreno-Garcia on Mexican Gothic

Silvia Moreno- Garcia talks to Shelagh Rogers about her novel, Mexican Gothic.

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

In The Whispers, the truths behind a picture perfect neighbourhood is revealed following an incident at a neighbourhood barbeque when the seemingly flawless hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. When the son falls from his bedside window one night, and the mother stops talking to everyone as she accompanies him at the hospital where he is fighting for his life, the women in the neighbourhood begin to contend with what led to this horrible incident.

• Read an excerpt from the Canadian thriller The Push by Ashley Audrain

Ashley Audrain is the former publicity director of Penguin Canada. Her debut novel The Push was a New York Times bestseller and won the Best Crime First Novel at the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Awards. She currently lives in Toronto.

The Long Way Back by Nicole Baart

In The Long Way Back, the lives of the internet-famous mother-daughter duo Charlie and Eva who post about their life on the road are suddenly changed when the daughter Eva goes missing close to her graduation. To clear her name of foul play, Charlie must confront her own role in Eva's disappearance revealing truths behind a seemingly picture perfect mother-daughter relationship that's played out on screen.

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Nicole Baart has published several novels, including The Long Way Back and Everything We Didn't Say. Baart lived in Surrey and Abbotsford, B.C. for many years before moving to Iowa where she is now based.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

The winning short story of the 2020 Writers' Trust Journey Prize, Bad Cree went on to become the debut horror-infused novel from Johns. The novel centres around a young woman named Mackenzie who is haunted by terrifying nightmares and wracked with guilt about her sister's untimely death. Bad Cree is about an Indigenous character's attempt to reconnect with their land and culture.

• Jessica Johns's novel Bad Cree is a story about grief, guilt and healing

Jessica Johns is a Vancouver-based writer, visual artist and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory in northern Alberta. Her debut novel, Bad Cree was a finalist for the 2023 Amazon First Novel Award.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Dimaline explores grief and haunting in her newest young adult novel, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls. Winifred has lived in an apartment above the Winterson Cemetery office with her father all her life. On the verge of its closure, rumours start spreading that the cemetery is haunted and Winifred begins to question everything she knows about life, love and death.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is for ages 14 and up.

• 'Stories are survival:' Cherie Dimaline writes about the power of Indigenous storytelling

Cherie Dimaline is a bestselling Mtis author best known for her YA novel The Marrow Thieves. The Marrow Thieves, was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA novels of all time and was championed by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018. Her other books include VenCo, Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit and Empire of Wild.

LISTEN | Cherie Dimaline shares how working in the world of magic made her a better writer:

Q14:02Cherie Dimaline on how working in the world of magic made her a better writer

Cherie Dimaline on her new young adult novel Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, and how she sneaks social commentary into children's books.

Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury

The YA novel Delicious Monsters is set in Toronto and involves a girl named Daisy who can see ghosts. When her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario, Daisy discovers supernatural secrets that might be beyond her control. Flash forward a decade later and a teen named Brittney gets wrapped up in a mystery about what befell Daisy years prior.

Delicious Monsters is for ages 12 and up.

• Liselle Sambury's YA novel Blood Like Magic is a fantasy/sci-fi mashup about Black Canadian witches in Toronto

Liselle Sambury is a Trinidadian Canadian YA writer and blogger. Her debut novel, Blood Like Magic, was on the shortlist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary award for young people's literature text.

Tear by Erica McKeen

Inspired by the classic speculative works of Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson, Tear is a coming of age novel about female rage and things that go bump in the night. The anti-social almost graduate, Frances is often forgotten about living in the basement. When she starts mistaking her own memories for her dreams and hearing violent sounds from beyond her bedroom wall, she begins to question her own mind in this eerie Bildungsroman.

• Erica McKeen, Harrison Mooney and K.S. Covert win $10K Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes

Erica McKeen is a writer from London, Ont. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for the Guernica Prize and shortlisted for The Malahat Review Open Season Awards. Tear is her first novel.

The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan

The Marigold explores current eco-anxieties, urban sprawl and social disorder through a futuristic and dystopian lens. In a near-future Toronto, condo developments and ecological collapse reign supreme. And then, the sludge appears. Inside the Marigold, an almost empty condo building, a mysterious, thick substance begins spreading through the walls. Meanwhile, a 13-year-old girl goes underground to save her friend after a creature pulls him down a sinkhole and condo developers stop construction on the Marigold II, a new luxury condo, for what appears to be nefarious reasons.

Andrew F. Sullivan is also the author of The Handyman Method, a forthcoming horror novel co-written with Nick Cutter, the novel Waste and the short story collection All We Want is Everything. He lives in Hamilton, Ont.

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Motherthing takes the horrors of the evil mother-in-law into new depths as Laura comes back to haunt her son Ralph and his wife Abby as a ghost. As Abby attempts to build a new life for her family and move beyond her own complicated childhood, her mother-in-law terrorizes her every step, leaving Abby to question motherhood and the sacrifices she may have to make.

• A mother's love is supposed to be unconditional. What happens when it's not?

Ainslie Hogarth is a Canadian YA and speculative fiction writer. Her other books include The Lonely and The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated). Her mystery novel, Normal Women is set to release later this year.

Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese

Chrysalis is a short story collection that examines the ways in which racialized women are undermined and exploited and the ways in which they reclaim their power. Blending realism with elements of fantasy, Varghese tells stories of a woman dying in her sleep repeatedly until she finds an unexpected refuge or a couple in a broken marriage encountering spiritual direction. Each story looks at family, sexuality, cultural norms and the ties that bind.

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Varghese is a Hamilton, Ont.-based writer and editor. Her stories have been recognized in the Prism International Short Fiction Contest and the Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Chrysalis is her first book.

LISTEN | Anuja Varghese on writing her first book:

The Next Chapter13:48Anuja Varghese's short story collection sizzles with desire and transformation

Hamilton-based writer Anuja Varghese shares the inspiration behind her debut short story collection, Chrysalis.

Queer Little Nightmares edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli

Queer Little Nightmares is a collection of fiction and poetry that reexamines monsters through a queer lens. Monsters associated with horror and marginalization are now cast as creatures worth celebrating and including. Contributors include Amber Dawn, Hiromi Goto, jaye simpson and Kai Cheng Thom.

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David Ly is a poet who lives in Vancouver. He is also the author of the collections Mythical Man and Dream of Me as Water. CBC Books named him a writer to watch in 2020.

Daniel Zomparelli is a writer and editor from Vancouver. He is the editor-in-chief of the magazine Poetry Is Dead, co-edits the poetry project After You. He is also the author of the short story collection Everything Is Awful and You're a Terrible Person.

LISTEN | A new horror anthology has a contributor from the Prairies:

Linghun by Ai Jiang

Linghun is a debut horror novel following three spirits in a town called HOME. Told from the perspectives of Wenqi, Mrs. and Liam, Linghun is a ghostly tale of those who are still holding onto the land of the living and burdened in death by their grief.

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Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian author and poet. She was a finalist for the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Linghun is her debut novel.

Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum

Diving into the surreal and supernatural, Helpmeet is about Louise Wilk and her ill husband in upstate New York in the 1900s. Louise is a nurse and her husband, Dr. Edward Wilk, has a disease that is only getting worse. When the pair discover Edward's illness might be otherworldly, their circumstances grow much more suspicious.

• Naben Ruthnum explores the transcendence of body horror in his new novella Helpmeet

Ruthnum is the author of A Hero of Our Time and Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race. Under the pen name Nathan Ripley, he is the author of two thrillers, Find You In the Dark and Your Life is Mine. He won the Journey Prize in 2013 for his short story Cinema Rex.