20 Zombie Books to Satisfy Your Hunger for Horror

The Lubbock Municipal Coliseum is holding the ultimate showdown: a baking competition promising a feature on the beloved Recipe Days show. But things turn into even more of a brawl when a group of rowdy professional wrestlers crash the event.

Add in a batch of infected donuts turning the attendees into rabid zombies, and you’ve got your next off-beat horror read.

In this fun read, author Max Brooks offers something a little more educational than his better known zombie novel. Complete with illustrations, this comprehensive text teaches readers everything they need to know about zombies.

From undead physiology to defensive tactics to apocalyptic shelters, this is your best chance at getting through the ordeal alive.

Newlyweds Jude and Lyle face an unimaginable change in their relationship after an attack leaves Lyle infected with a brutal disease. As he slowly shifts into a mindless, vicious creature, the young husbands fight to cherish the time they have left.

This devastating novel contrasts the wild joys of young love with the traumatic challenges of terminal illness.

Clayton Riddell thinks his life is about to change for the better when he makes a massive comic book deal. And then The Pulse happens, a devastating phenomenon transmitted through cell phones that turns humanity into a horde of carnal, chaotic creatures.

Clayton and a small band of survivors team up for a desperate fight, but as the problem begins to evolve, will they ever find peace again?

When the zombie outbreak hits, Allison Hewitt is trapped inside the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore with five of her coworkers. Desperate for help, she hooks her laptop up to the military’s emergency wireless network and reaches out via her blog.

At first she’s just hoping to make contact with her mother, but as the situation grows more dire, she uses it to record the daily dangers and disasters she and her colleagues are facing. And as dangerous as the zombies are, sometimes humans prove to be worse.

It seems like any other typical morning, with Katie driving to work, and Jenni preparing to spend the day taking care of her toddler son. Then horrific events start to unfold: Katie almost gets bitten by a dead man who tries to join her on her drive, and Jenni opens her bedroom door to find that her toddler has become her husband’s breakfast.

Thrown together in the worst possible circumstances, Katie and Jenni form an inseparable bond as they fight to survive in a zombie-infested nightmare. As the two try to find Jenni’s oldest son, they face unimaginable chaos and bloodshed.

This thrilling post-apocalyptic novel is filled with romance, action, and lots and lots of zombie guts.

David Wellington, author of vampire novels like 99 Coffins and 23 Hours, stands out with this zombie trilogy. Akin to World War Z in scope and I Am Legend in its dramatic arc, The Monster Island Trilogy tells of humanity’s struggle against an ever-growing horde of flesh-eating zombies. 

In Monster Island, a former UN weapons inspector searches zombie-infested New York City for the one thing that might save his family. In its prequel, Monster Nation, Wellington revisits the nightmare plague that gave rise to the zombie apocalypse in Monster Island.

Nation follows a Colorado National Guardsman captivated by an exceptional zombie with the powers to reason, and possibly, the powers to save humanity. In the final book in the trilogy, Monster Planet, the world has reached its breaking point—an army of hungry zombies sweeps across the globe.

A brave young woman, a wicked sorcerer, and a child commander of the zombies must all face off to determine whether humanity will persist or perish.  

A recipient of two Bram Stoker Awards, McKinney is an expert in horror. Dead City, the first of McKinney’s Dead World zombie books, was described as "a merciless, fast-paced and genuinely scary read" by fellow Bram Stoker Award winner Brian Keene.

McKinney builds on the excitement of his previous novels in his fourth Dead World book, Mutated. The action-packed novel follows Bob Richardson and his friends, who are facing down frightening odds.

For starters, the living are splintering into factions. To make matters worse, it seems the zombies are adapting—and working together to rip humans apart.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, William W. Johnstone has written hundreds of books, ranging from thrillers to folk horror narratives. Johnstone’s Darkly the Thunder tells the story of dark trouble looming over a small town in the Rockies.

Al Watts, the former head of police, knows that the town’s impending disaster has been a long time in the making. Meanwhile, Howie Ingram, a young outcast, attempts to warn anyone who will listen about the sinister forces taking hold, about the townspeople transforming into zombies, and the eerie sounds coming in over the airwaves.

John Russo, the screenwriter for the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, will have you terrified all over again in Epidemic of the Living Dead. Described by Variety as "an unrelieved orgy of sadism," this book spares no twisted plot twist. 

After a zombie infestation begins to spread, the townspeople try to kill the undead by any means necessary. Having rooted out the worst of it, they find that the few zombies left are sheltered in a local maternity ward, infecting the mothers-to-be.

And while the newborn babies seem normal at first, the trouble they get into as adolescents causes nightmares, not headaches.

In The Savage Dead, McKinney’s tactical training and riveting writing converge. Having worked as a patrol officer, a homicide detective, and a disaster mitigation specialist, Joe McKinney brings a unique background to this narrative set aboard a cruise ship.

When a cartel-created, flesh-eating, zombie-forming virus begins to spread throughout a cruise ship, Delta Force operative Juan Perez and his SEAL team must act quickly to contain the outbreak and save the people onboard—before they can no longer be considered people. 

From the author of the highly influential Patient Zero and Rot & Ruin series, Jonathan Maberry’s Zombie CSU offers a one-of-a-kind guide for zombie crime scene investigations. Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, Zombie CSU gathers together all the evidence collecting, psychological profiling, and forensic analyzing tips necessary to survive a hypothetical—or a real—zombie takeover.

With interviews from detectives, forensic scientists, authors, and filmmakers, Maberry’s Zombie CSU includes many different perspectives in its intriguing and witty exploration of all things zombie.

Adam Gallardo’s YA horror novel Zombified, which follows Zomburbia, describes a world in which zombies have become an accepted part of everyday life.

Courtney lives what in many ways still resembles an average life for a suburban teenager. She navigates all the ups and downs of her relationships and future plans, while simultaneously navigating the blood, gore, and violence of her zombie-ridden world.

In its review, Kirkus hailed Zombified has having "more brains than your average zombie novel... More entrails as well."

The internationally bestselling author of Let the Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist has been called "a master philosopher of the horror genre" (Washington Post Book World). Lindqvist is known for writing vampire horror books that pack a bite.

Here, he turns his attention to writing all-consuming zombie horror. In Handling the Undead, a city morgue finds its bodies coming back to life during an unbearable summer heatwave.

For the families of the deceased, the chance to see their loved ones again is surreal. But the opportunity is also unnerving, confusing, and potentially dangerous. 

Kirkus called Lindqvist’s moving novel "a unique and humanistic take on the undead that has a place alongside thoughtful horror novels like World War Z." 

Brian Keene is a major force in the horror genre. His writing has won a World Horror Grandmaster Award and multiple Bram Stoker Awards.

He's also written for media properties like Alien and The X-Files. His novel The Rising is among the all-time best-selling zombie novels.

In the gripping tale, Jim Thurmond travels across the country to find his young son, confronting along the way the evils of zombies and humans alike.

Mira Grant is the pseudonym of Seanan McGuire, who has received many prestigious awards, including a John W. Campbell Award, Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and Locus Award. Grant’s ability to craft original and enthralling stories shines in Feed, the first in her political thriller zombie series, Newsflesh.

In the process of curing cancer and the common cold, humanity created an infection that directs its host to feed—and only to feed. After 20 years and incalculable loss, Georgia and Shaun Mason are investigating the infection and the shady conspiracy behind it, both of which could kill them before they unearth the truth.

"Whether charged with bleak sadness or bone-dry humor, sentences worth savoring pile up faster than the body count," The Los Angeles Times writes of Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Author of the National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Underground Railroad and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Nickel Boys, Whitehead's Zone One tells of how the living have begun to rebuild after the worst of a zombie takeover has passed.

Armed forces sweep through Manhattan, clearing out the borough of its living-dead. The armed guards then leave it up to civilian volunteers to clear out the last stragglers.

Mark Spitz is among these civilians. As he goes about his work, grappling with the past and the world’s new reality, things in Manhattan begin to go very wrong.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a riveting story, described by Joss Whedon as "so thoughtfully crafted, so heartfelt, remorseless and painfully human." Written by M.R. Carey, who has also written for DC and Marvel, the novel not only became a USA Today bestseller, but also served as the basis for a 2016 British film of the same name.

Gifts tells the story of Melanie, a special girl who leaves her cell each day under the careful watch and trained gun of Sergeant. After being strapped into her wheelchair, she's pushed on to class, and though she jokes that she doesn’t bite, Sergeant and his fellow guards hardly find it funny.

A New York Times bestseller and the first in her trilogy, The Forest of Hands and Teeth provides its readers with "a bleak but gripping story...Poignant and powerful" (Publishers Weekly).

Carrie Ryan creates a memorable world, in which protagonist Mary lives by her faith in the Sisterhood and the Guardians. She also lives by her fear of the Unconsecrated and the dangers of the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But when the Sisterhood and the Guardians fail to live up to the ideals they put forward and the fence holding back the dangers of the Forest of Hands and Teeth is breached, Mary’s entire world begins to fall apart. She must confront questions—about her life, her future, and what exists beyond the death that surrounds her—all while struggling against the unrelenting waves of the Unconsecrated.

Daryl Gregory, the award-winning author of Pandemonium and The Devil’s Alphabet, delivers a zombie novel that is both sincere and frightening. 

In 1968, in the wake of a zombie outbreak and in the midst of an Iowa snowstorm, Wanda Mayhall finds a baby bundled in a dead mother’s arms. Though the baby doesn’t breathe or have a pulse, he looks up toward Wanda.

With the help of her three daughters, Wanda hides the little monster from the authorities. Named Stony, the creature lives a solitary, sheltered existence.

Then one horrible night, he's forced into the outside world, and discovers that he's not alone.