If The Chalk Man and The Burning Girls had you sleeping with the lights on while turning pages compulsively, these 13 authors like C.J. Tudor write the kind of horror-thrillers where nothing is safe — especially the past.
C.J. Tudor published The Chalk Man in 2018, and the comparisons to Stephen King started immediately. A group of childhood friends, a body, chalk stick figures that seem to have a life of their own — the novel alternates between 1986 and the present, using the dual timeline to build dread in both directions. The Taking of Annie Thorne followed, then The Other People, The Burning Girls, and A Sliver of Darkness. Tudor publishes roughly a book a year, and each one finds new ways to combine horror, mystery, and the poisonous secrets that small communities hide.
What makes Tudor stand out in the horror-thriller space is her ability to balance genuine scares with genuine plotting. Her books aren’t just creepy — they’re mysteries with solutions, twists, and reveals that pay off. The supernatural elements are always ambiguous enough that you’re never quite sure if the horror is real or psychological. She writes about childhood, memory, and the past with a nostalgia that’s always tinged with menace.
For more recommendations, explore our guides to best horror authors, authors like Stephen King, and best thriller authors.
Authors Like C.J. Tudor
1. Stephen King
Any list of authors like C.J. Tudor has to start with Stephen King. Tudor has cited King as her primary influence, and It in particular — with its dual-timeline structure, childhood friendships, and small-town horror — is the obvious ancestor of The Chalk Man. King has published over 60 novels and is the best-selling horror author of all time.
King and Tudor share more than surface similarities. Both write about the specific horror of childhood — the way fear felt different when you were twelve, more immediate and physical. Both use small towns as pressure cookers where secrets build until something explodes. King’s Needful Things, Salem’s Lot, and The Body (which became the film Stand By Me) are the closest matches for Tudor’s work.
“We all float down here.”
Stephen King, It
2. Paul Tremblay
Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts is about a family that agrees to let a reality TV crew film an exorcism of their teenage daughter, and whether the possession is real or a performance becomes the novel’s central, unresolvable mystery. Tremblay writes horror that refuses to confirm or deny its supernatural elements.
Tremblay shares Tudor’s love of ambiguity. Is it ghosts or psychology? His work forces you to sit with the discomfort of not knowing. The Cabin at the End of the World (adapted as the M. Night Shyamalan film Knock at the Cabin) and Survivor Song continue this approach. Both Tremblay and Tudor understand that the scariest stories are the ones where you can’t be sure what’s real.
“Horror isn’t about what happens. It’s about what might be happening that you can’t quite see.”
Paul Tremblay
3. Catriona Ward
Catriona Ward’s The Last House on Needless Street was one of the most praised horror novels of 2021 — a story narrated by a man, a teenage girl, and a cat, all living in the same house, and the truth about who they are is the book’s devastating twist. Ward writes horror that works as literary fiction, with prose quality that elevates the genre.
Ward shares Tudor’s structural ingenuity. Both writers use narrative tricks — dual timelines, unreliable narrators, perspective shifts — to create horror that operates on multiple levels simultaneously. Sundial and Looking Glass Sound continue Ward’s streak. She’s one of the most exciting horror writers working today. If you’re writing horror fiction yourself, Grammarly can help ensure your pacing and sentence structure build dread effectively.
“Some things need to stay hidden. That’s what walls are for.”
Catriona Ward, The Last House on Needless Street
4. Riley Sager
Riley Sager’s Final Girls follows a woman who survived a slasher-style massacre at a lakeside retreat, and now two other “final girls” are reaching out — or threatening her. Sager writes horror-infused thrillers with the pacing of a runaway train, and his reveals are consistently satisfying.
Sager shares Tudor’s ability to blend horror conventions with thriller plotting. His novels — The Last Time I Lied, Lock Every Door, Home Before Dark, Survive the Night — all feature protagonists who can’t trust their own perceptions or memories. Both writers use the aesthetics of horror (isolated settings, unreliable memories, things that go bump in the night) to power stories that also work as mysteries.
“Final Girls don’t die. That’s the whole point.”
Riley Sager, Final Girls
5. Simone St. James
Simone St. James writes ghost stories with the atmosphere of classic Gothic fiction and the plotting of modern thrillers. The Sun Down Motel alternates between 1982 and the present, following two women — decades apart — investigating the same haunted roadside motel. The dual timeline structure mirrors Tudor’s approach in The Chalk Man.
St. James shares Tudor’s comfort with the genuinely supernatural. While both writers maintain some ambiguity, neither is afraid to commit to ghosts being real when the story demands it. The Haunting of Maddy Clare and The Broken Girls are equally atmospheric. Her settings — abandoned schools, crumbling motels, remote institutions — are characters in their own right.
“The dead don’t always rest. Sometimes they have things to say.”
Simone St. James, The Sun Down Motel
6. Stacy Willingham
Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark follows a psychologist whose father was convicted of killing several teenage girls when she was twelve, and now girls are disappearing again. The novel plays with the idea that childhood trauma shapes everything that comes after — a theme Tudor returns to in every book.
Willingham shares Tudor’s fascination with how the past poisons the present. Both writers create protagonists who thought they’d escaped their childhood nightmares only to discover the nightmare followed them. All the Dangerous Things and Only If You’re Lucky continue this pattern. Willingham’s debut was one of the biggest thriller launches of 2022.
“The worst monsters are the ones you grew up with.”
Stacy Willingham, A Flicker in the Dark
7. Grady Hendrix
Grady Hendrix writes horror that’s both genuinely scary and laugh-out-loud funny. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a demon possession story set in 1988 South Carolina, framed as a friendship story between two teenage girls. Hendrix’s pop culture-soaked horror is lighter in tone than Tudor’s, but the emotional core — friendship tested by dark forces — is shared.
Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and How to Sell a Haunted House continue his combination of humor and horror. He shares Tudor’s nostalgic sensibility — both writers set stories in specific decades and use period details to build atmosphere. Hendrix’s nonfiction book Paperbacks from Hell is also essential reading for horror fans.
“The power of friendship is stronger than any demon. Mostly.”
Grady Hendrix, My Best Friend’s Exorcism
8. T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher’s The Twisted Ones is a Southern Gothic horror novel about a woman cleaning out her dead grandmother’s house who discovers journals that describe something terrible in the woods. Kingfisher writes folk horror with dry wit and genuine menace, drawing on Arthur Machen’s “The White People” while making the story entirely her own.
Kingfisher shares Tudor’s ability to make rural settings feel threatening. Both writers understand that the countryside isn’t peaceful — it’s full of things that predate human settlement and don’t appreciate the intrusion. The Hollow Places and What Moves the Dead (a retelling of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”) are equally unsettling.
“There was something in the woods. There had always been something in the woods.”
T. Kingfisher, The Twisted Ones
9. Alex North
Alex North’s The Whisper Man is about a father and son who move to a new town where a serial killer — the Whisper Man — once abducted and murdered children. The killer was caught, but someone is whispering outside the boy’s bedroom window at night. North writes atmospheric horror-thrillers with emotional depth.
North shares Tudor’s interest in parent-child relationships under supernatural threat. Both writers use the vulnerability of children as a source of horror, and both create settings where the past literally haunts the present. The Shadows continues North’s combination of procedural investigation and creeping dread.
“If you leave a door half open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken.”
Alex North, The Whisper Man
10. Sarah Pinborough
Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes is a psychological thriller that takes a hard left into horror territory with one of the most shocking twists in recent fiction. Pinborough has been writing horror, thriller, and dark fiction for over two decades, and she’s never afraid to go where other writers won’t.
Pinborough shares Tudor’s willingness to cross genre boundaries without warning. Her readers never quite know if they’re reading a thriller, a horror novel, or both. Dead to Her and Cross Her Heart are also worth reading. The Netflix adaptation of Behind Her Eyes introduced her work to millions of new readers.
“Trust no one. Not even yourself.”
Sarah Pinborough, Behind Her Eyes
11. Ruth Ware
Ruth Ware’s The Turn of the Key is a modern riff on The Turn of the Screw, featuring a nanny in a Scottish smart home where the technology may or may not be haunted. Ware writes psychological suspense with Gothic undertones, and her isolated settings create the same claustrophobic tension Tudor achieves in her small towns.
Ware shares Tudor’s ability to blur the line between psychological thriller and ghost story. The Death of Mrs. Westaway, One by One, and The Woman in Cabin 10 all feature settings that feel slightly haunted, even when the explanation is rational. Both writers understand that the atmosphere of horror is as important as the scares themselves.
“The thing about old houses is they hold their secrets close.”
Ruth Ware, The Turn of the Key
12. Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison’s The Return is a body horror novel about a woman who goes missing for two years and comes back changed — physically, visibly wrong. Her best friend is the only one who notices, or the only one willing to say something. Harrison writes visceral, feminist horror with dark humor.
Harrison shares Tudor’s interest in friendship under extreme pressure. Both writers use horror as a lens to examine how well we really know the people closest to us. Cackle (about a woman who befriends a witch) and Black Sheep (a family reunion from hell) continue Harrison’s streak of original, unsettling fiction.
“She came back. But something else came back with her.”
Rachel Harrison, The Return
13. Jennifer McMahon
Jennifer McMahon’s The Winter People is set in a Vermont town where a woman disappears and her daughter finds a hidden diary from 1908 that describes a method for raising the dead. McMahon has been writing literary horror since 2004, and her novels consistently combine small-town settings, dual timelines, and supernatural elements.
McMahon shares Tudor’s specific formula — rural communities, secrets that span generations, and dual timelines that converge on a terrible truth. The Night Sister, The Drowning Kind, and The Invited all follow this pattern. Both writers understand that the scariest thing about a small town is that everyone knows what happened, and nobody talks about it.
“The dead have their own stories. We just have to be brave enough to listen.”
Jennifer McMahon, The Winter People