Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pursuit | 2022 | James Kaine | Buy |
| 2 | Black Friday | 2024 | James Kaine | Buy |
| 3 | Mischief Night | 2025 | James Kaine | Buy |
James Kaine’s standalone novels use familiar settings and events as horror springboards. Pursuit (2022) builds tension around being hunted. Black Friday (2024) weaponizes the shopping holiday. Mischief Night (2025) draws on the traditions and mischief of the night before Halloween. Each book takes something ordinary and finds the horror hiding inside it.
Pursuit was Kaine’s debut, released in 2022, and it set the template for his approach. Two years passed before Black Friday arrived, this time with a specific calendar event as the backdrop. Mischief Night followed the next year, completing a loose trilogy of holiday-adjacent horror. The books are not connected by plot, but they share a recognizable method.
Kaine writes horror that stays close to everyday experience. There are no ancient curses or supernatural entities in the traditional sense. The scares come from situations readers could imagine happening to them. That grounded quality makes the books effective for readers who prefer their horror rooted in recognizable reality.