Though I read horror novels throughout the year, October is when the mood outside matches the mood in those novels the best. If you’re looking for an eerie book to read this season, here is a list of books from American classics to quirky ghost stories. As a bonus, I’ve tossed in three nonfiction books about haunted houses and how their stories interact with our understanding of history.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackon
This classic horror novel is about a friendless and unhappy young woman named Eleanor, who is invited by the occult researcher Dr. Montague to stay at a strange house along with his assistant Luke and another woman named Theodora. In the light of day, Hill House seems like it’s merely a spooky old house. But the longer they stay the more the house’s malevolence grows in their minds. As they days pass, Hill House gathers its strength and it seems to want to make one of them its own.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beloved, by Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison is a modern American classic and one of the foremost titles in Southern Gothic literature. Eighteen years after escaping slavery and settling in Ohio, Sethe is still not free from her old life at Sweet Home, a beautiful farm full of horrors for the enslaved people forced to endure life there. Just as Sethe might have found a bit of happiness, the ghost of her long-dead infant daughter known only by the one word inscribed on her gravestone, Beloved, appears and begins to consume Sethe’s life.
The September House by Carissa Orlando
Margaret and Hal bought a gorgeous Victorian-style house in the woods for a very reasonable price. They haven’t lived there for long before they discover why it was such a bargain: the house is haunted. For most of the year, the hauntings are benign but when September rolls around, blood begins to run down the walls, the ghosts grow malevolent, and Margaret won’t even let herself think about what is in the basement. Margaret refuses to leave, though. It’s her dream home and if they just follow the rules of the place, everything will be fine. But when Hal disappears their daughter starts asking questions, and her arrival may destroy the life Margaret has built for herself.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Mouse is at a low point in her life when her dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house in the North Carolina woods. She agrees, thinking that it can’t be that bad. But when she and her dog arrive, they discover that her grandmother was a hoarder and the house is crammed with stuff. When she comes across her step-grandfather’s journals, Mouse thinks his ramblings sound crazy– until he encounters the same creatures in the forest around the house. It turns out that there really are horrible things that go bump in the night, and some of those things are out to get you, specifically.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Noemí is a glamorous young woman living in Mexico City. She longs for a fashionable life full of intellectual pursuits, but when she receives a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin, she rushes to the remote manor of High Place. Built by an English family to take advantage of the mines there, High Place’s glory days are behind it and it is slowly crumbling along with the family. When Noemí arrives, she discovers that her cousin seems to have completely changed, and her husband is both charismatic and threatening. The more Noemí investigates High Place, the more she realizes that if she doesn’t solve the riddle of the house and its family soon, she might not be able to leave at all.
The Ghost Bride by Yangze Choo
Li Lan is the daughter of a genteel family slowly sliding into poverty. She has a chace to live a life of solitary luxury thanks to an offer from the wealthy Lim family: They want her to become the ghost bride for their recently deceased son meant to appease his restless spirit. After her first visit to the Lim’s beautiful but ominous mansion, Li Lan is unsure about her choice, but is drawn to the Lims’ younger and more charismatic son Tian Bai. When she returns home, Li Lan finds she is being haunted by the elder son. To escape him and find the answer to her questions, Li Lan is drawn to the spirit world, where she finds an unpredictable ally in the mysterious Er Lang, and must discover the secrets of the Lim family before she is trapped in the spirit world forever.
Nonfiction books about haunted houses:
Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Leila Taylor
From the Amityville Horror house to the mansion built by Emily Winchester, the legends surrounding haunted houses have grown far beyond their foundations. Leila Taylor investigates the houses, haunted or not, that inspire stories, legends, and general unease in the American psyche.
Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
Dickey takes the reader on a journey across the United States to visit a variety of haunted or unsettling places. From houses to hotels to cemeteries, American history is full of dark events that, too often, we have not begun to reckon with.
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession by Caitlin Blackwell Baines
Caitlin Blackwell Baines has been obsessed with haunted houses since childhood. In this book, she delves into the history of haunted houses and the stories surrounding them. From Hampton Court Palace to the Winchester Mystery House, Blackwell Baines explores the origins of the ghostly happenings and asks why we love these stories so much, whether they have a basis in actual history or not.
