5 Horror Novels Where No One Survives

 

Credit to 10 Classic Horror Books That Are Just As Disturbing Today

I want to start sharing lists of books that every horror fan would love to read. I do write book reviews from time to time, but I don’t really focus on lists of horror novels for fans to check out!

I’m considering starting a YouTube channel, that only goes over horror novels. I think it would be a good idea to convince horror fans to check out some of these books, so I shall see when that will happen lol. 

Here are five horror books that any horror fan would love:

5. The Ruins by Scott Smith

This novel is pretty horrific when it comes to the slow burn of watching a whole group meet their end at the hands of plant monsters. Yes, I’m not playing, there are plant monsters in this book. 

A group of tourists decide to embark on a journey of checking out a place covered in plants, not knowing that these things eat human flesh. The group is forced by the village to be consumed by this flesh-eating creature, so that they can appease their “God.”

It’s a tragic tale that will depress anyone while reading the novel. 

4. The Terror by Dan Simmons 

This is one of the best novels I have read in 2025. I had already seen the TV show, and I thought both versions were phenomenal storytelling. The story follows a crew of men who go on an expedition at sea to search for the Northwest Passage. 

The adventure goes wrong when the men find themselves stuck in the middle of the ocean when the temperatures drop so bad, that it leads to the ocean literally freezing, keeping the men trapped on their ships at sea. 

They then learn that something evil is hunting them, determined to kill every single one of these men for trespassing on its land. 

The novel will stay with you, it’s so tough to read the final moments of well - written characters that fans will love. 

3. The Deep by Nick Cutter

Nick Cutter is one of the best horror writers of our time. His main focus is body horror, and he always delivers the most terrifying horror stories that will make you feel sorry for his characters. 

The Deep is about a group of people who are determined to end a disease known as the Gets, that are making people forget everything…to the point where they will eventually die. The novel focuses on two brothers who reunite during this operation of trying to find a cure. They must search for a cure deep in the ocean, to save the world. 

They get more than they bargained for when they realize that something evil is waiting for them deep in the ocean, that is warping their bodies into something out of a nightmare. 

The ending might not be for everyone, but the buildup is freaking awesome. The body horror is incredible, and you will feel horrible for the way that everyone meets their end in the book. 

2. The Ritual by Adam Nevill

This is probably one of the scariest stories I have read in a long time. The movie was pretty damn good when I watched it back in 2017, so I was obviously curious to see how the book was like. 

The book and the film do follow the same formula of a small group of men who go hiking in the woods, only to run into a monster that leads a cult. The group of men are slowly killed off as the novel progresses, and they are killed to worship the creature that lives in the woods. 

I did prefer the movie in some aspects, when it came to the third act of the story. The monster design was next level awesome, and we got to see the remaining survivor battle a cult. The book honestly got pretty annoying the third part of the novel, and I can see why some horror fans were not a fan of the final act. 

The deaths were at least pretty cool lol. 

1. Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

This is one of the best vampire books ever written. The story focuses on a small town that is hunted by vampires, that slowly turn everyone who resides there. It was pretty shocking with who was killed throughout the novel, because I wasn’t expecting that many people to bite the dust. 

I assumed that a lot of them would have plot armor, but in the world of Stephen King, I should have known better. Dude hardly ever gives his characters free passes when it comes to his horror stories!

Any horror fan would love this dreadful tale of humans struggling to survive against a group of vampires that show no mercy to anyone!

What other horror novels feature a lot of death?