Danielle SullivanContents
- 1 The Death of Jane Lawrence and Last To Leave The Room by Caitlin Starling
- 2 Buy on Amazon
- 3 Buy on Bookshop
- 4 Matchbox Girls by Chrysoula F. Tzavelas
- 5 Buy on Amazon
- 6
- 7 Cosplay Killer by Dahlia Donovan
- 8 Buy on Amazon
- 9 Buy on Bookshop
- 10 From A Shadow Grave by Andi C. Buchanan
- 11 Buy on Amazon
- 12 Buy on Bookshop
Know of a great addition to this list of spooky books by autistic women? Leave a comment so we can all benefit!
ghazIt’s almost Halloween! Like any book-lover worth their salt, I’m getting into the spirit by reading some supernatural thrillers and murder mysteries…with a neurodivergent twist! I’ve gathered together a shortlist of underrated books by autistic women to help us all get our spook on.
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🎃🎃🎃New as of October 2025, reader Kenn suggests, “Scary books by Caitlin Starling… basically everything she’s written but especially The Death of Jane Lawrence and Last To Leave The Room.” Thanks, Kenn!
The Death of Jane Lawrence and Last To Leave The Room by Caitlin Starling
Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town.
Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man―one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.
The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.
As Tamsin becomes obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before – and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.
With her employer growing increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…
Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp
“A shocking thriller about a group of friends who go to a cabin to play a murder mystery game…only to have the game turned against them, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends.”
Five friends take a trip to a cabin. It’s supposed to be one last getaway before going their separate ways—a chance to say goodbye to each other, and to the game they’ve been playing for the past three years. But they’re all dealing with their own demons, and they’re all hiding secrets.
And as they start to play the murder mystery game that brought them together in the first place, the lines between the game and reality blend, with deadly consequences. Someone knows their secrets. Someone wants to make them pay. Soon, it’s a race against time before it’s game over—forever.
Are you ready to play?
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Bookshop
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Matchbox Girls by Chrysoula F. Tzavelas
“Marley Claviger is just trying to get her life together. Stumbling into an ancient conflict between celestial forces is going to make that a whole lot harder… When Marley wakes up to a phone call from a pair of terrified children, she doesn’t expect to be pulled into a secret war. She rescues them from an empty house and promises to find their missing uncle. She even manages to feed them dinner. But she barely feels competent to manage her own life, let alone care for small children with strange, ominous powers… And when a mysterious angelic figure shows up and tries to claim the girls, it all falls apart… Plagued by visions of disaster, Marley has no idea what she’s gotten herself into, but she knows one thing: magical or not, the kids need her.”
Buy on Amazon
Not currently available on Bookshop
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Cosplay Killer by Dahlia Donovan
“Osian Garey and Dannel Ortea live together in a colourful flat in Covent Garden. They run a podcast and throw themselves wholeheartedly into Cosplay, video games, and musical theatre. This year, they’re all fired up to attend their annual convention with a group of first responders.
When Osian finds a paramedic friend murdered in the middle of the crowded venue, the police immediately turn their attention to him.
They have one question on their mind.
Is he the first witness on the scene or the killer?”
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Bookshop
– ~ –
From A Shadow Grave by Andi C. Buchanan
“This is no ordinary ghost story.
Wellington, 1931. Seventeen-year-old Phyllis Symons’ body is discovered in the Mt Victoria tunnel construction site.
Eighty years later, Aroha Brooke is determined to save her life.”
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Bookshop
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