Here are 100 books that The Walls Around Us fans have personally recommended if you like
The Walls Around Us.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
The uncanny slips into the gaps between the objective world and the
world of human experience with all its dreams, apprehensions, and
intuitions. This intermediate space is the habitat of ghosts and also
the zone where my mind does its wanderings. It's where my books come, and
explorations of that space in other peoples' books draw me in, deeply
and inescapably.
I honestly think this is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read.
In writing about haunting, I always confront the question of what pins ghosts to the living world. I loved the poignancy of Saunders’s ghosts and the desperate denial of their own deaths that they cling to.
I have a special love of books written in a multiplicity of voices; the way Saunders writes his ghostly chorus is so virtuosic it took my breath away.
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
A STORY OF LOVE AFTER DEATH
'A masterpiece' Zadie Smith
'Extraordinary' Daily Mail
'Breathtaking' Observer
'A tour de force' The Sunday Times
The extraordinary first novel by the bestselling, Folio Prize-winning, National Book Award-shortlisted George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven year old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War
The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns…
I’ve been a fanatic of horror, especially Gothic horror since I was about eight years old when I read all of Poe’s short stories. It’s the genre I read most often and the one I’m dedicated to writing about. For me, the most effective horror novels have a setting that is as rich and fully developed as any of the characters. You can battle vampires, zombies, and all of the other delightful monsters out there, but how do you battle what’s trapped in the walls around you? How do you fight a home that hates you? Or one that loves you too much to let you go? It’s endlessly fascinating.
This book is a unique take on the haunted house trope that is just so striking. It has genuinely frightening scenes that don’t depend on anything but tension and careful pacing.
Sarah Waters’ writing is always a gut-punch of beauty but this novel, in particular, has roamed around my head for years. It’s so masterfully written. I feel like I’ve seen the house, lived in it, loved it just like the protagonist.
After her award-winning trilogy of Victorian novels, Sarah Waters turned to the 1940s and wrote THE NIGHT WATCH, a tender and tragic novel set against the backdrop of wartime Britain. Shortlisted for both the Orange and the Man Booker, it went straight to number one in the bestseller chart. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable…
The uncanny slips into the gaps between the objective world and the
world of human experience with all its dreams, apprehensions, and
intuitions. This intermediate space is the habitat of ghosts and also
the zone where my mind does its wanderings. It's where my books come, and
explorations of that space in other peoples' books draw me in, deeply
and inescapably.
This book sent me wandering through the kind of haunted labyrinth I love most. I adore a book that constantly challenges expectations and twists me into a mystery unlike any I’ve read before.
The layers of this very strange and daring story—about a hapless young English teacher gone missing in Vietnam and the ghosts behind her disappearance—came together in ways I never saw coming.
Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this ingenious novel spins half a century of Vietnamese history and folklore into “a thrilling read, acrobatic and filled with verve” (The New York Times Editors’ Choice).
FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION’S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews
“Fiction as daring and accomplished as Violet Kupersmith’s first novel reignites my love of the form and its kaleidoscopic possibilities.”—David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
I was in fifth grade when I brought home my first paranormal thriller from the library. It was love at first read. Since then, I’ve broadened my reading horizons to many fiction genres, but fast-paced stories grounded in our world with a dash of magic continue to be my favorite. The same can be said of my viewing habits—give me shows like Severance or Black Mirror, and I’ll be glued to the screen all day long. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that it is my favorite entertainment genre and writing genre. Many of the books on this list have served as inspiration—I hope you love them too!
Jack the Ripper? Check. Girl who sees dead people? Check. Boarding school? Check, check, check. I feel like Bill Hadar’s SNL character Stefon when I say that this book has everything, but I can’t help it.
As someone who loves books with ghosts, murder, and page-turning thrills, this book does indeed have everything.
Thrilling ghost-hunting teen mystery as modern-day London is plagued by a sudden outbreak of brutal murders that mimic the horrific crimes of Jack the Ripper.
"A gorgeously written, chilling, atmospheric thriller. The streets of London have never been so sinister or so romantic." Cassandra Clare, author of THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS
Sixteen-year-old American girl Rory has just arrived at boarding school in London when a Jack the Ripper copycat-killer begins terrorising the city. All the hallmarks of his infamous murders are frighteningly present, but there are few clues to the killer's identity.
"Rippermania" grabs hold of modern-day London, and the police…
I was in fifth grade when I brought home my first paranormal thriller from the library. It was love at first read. Since then, I’ve broadened my reading horizons to many fiction genres, but fast-paced stories grounded in our world with a dash of magic continue to be my favorite. The same can be said of my viewing habits—give me shows like Severance or Black Mirror, and I’ll be glued to the screen all day long. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that it is my favorite entertainment genre and writing genre. Many of the books on this list have served as inspiration—I hope you love them too!
This book had everything I love in a paranormal thriller—magic, secrets, twists, turns—but with an amazing setting that reads almost like a character itself.
Sain does such a good job of describing La Cachette, Louisiana, that I could feel the swamp heat humming from the pages. The fictional town also boasts the title of self-proclaimed psychic capital of the world, which makes secret-keeping nearly impossible—a perfect tension-builder for a fast-paced plot riddled with secrets, psychics, and unreliable characters.
'AN INTENSE AND BROODING THRILLER ' - THE OBSERVER
A intensely romantic and atmospheric thriller for young adults, full of twists and turns with a simmering supernatural undercurrent. Perfect for fans of Holly Jackson, Karen McManus and Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing
When seventeen-year-old Grey makes her annual visit to La Cachette, Louisiana - the tiny bayou town that proclaims to be the "Psychic Capital of the World" - she knows it will be different from past years: her childhood best friend Elora went missing several months earlier and no one is telling…
The uncanny slips into the gaps between the objective world and the
world of human experience with all its dreams, apprehensions, and
intuitions. This intermediate space is the habitat of ghosts and also
the zone where my mind does its wanderings. It's where my books come, and
explorations of that space in other peoples' books draw me in, deeply
and inescapably.
The title isn’t kidding. This story—of a psychic thronged by the ghosts of the loathsome men who abused her in childhood—is one of the darkest books I’ve ever read.
I also found it incredibly funny, though the humor is black as ink. I love how, in its perverse way, is also becomes a story about recovering hope after profound trauma: one of the major themes in my own books.
I was in fifth grade when I brought home my first paranormal thriller from the library. It was love at first read. Since then, I’ve broadened my reading horizons to many fiction genres, but fast-paced stories grounded in our world with a dash of magic continue to be my favorite. The same can be said of my viewing habits—give me shows like Severance or Black Mirror, and I’ll be glued to the screen all day long. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that it is my favorite entertainment genre and writing genre. Many of the books on this list have served as inspiration—I hope you love them too!
I love witches and serial killers as much as the next paranormal thriller fan, so I was truly delighted to learn that a book featured both.
Not only that, but the way the witches in this book get their power is truly unique and—sorry, not sorry for the pun—spellbinding. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was that it ended.
From the author of New York Times bestseller House of Hollow comes a darkly seductive witchy thriller where, though both men and demons lurk in shadows, girls refuse to go quietly into the night.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Three girls, one supernatural killer on the loose . . .
Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider-that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the…
I was in fifth grade when I brought home my first paranormal thriller from the library. It was love at first read. Since then, I’ve broadened my reading horizons to many fiction genres, but fast-paced stories grounded in our world with a dash of magic continue to be my favorite. The same can be said of my viewing habits—give me shows like Severance or Black Mirror, and I’ll be glued to the screen all day long. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that it is my favorite entertainment genre and writing genre. Many of the books on this list have served as inspiration—I hope you love them too!
This book has one of my favorite paranormal tropes—a girl with an ability she doesn’t want but must use to find the bad guy. But the execution felt truly unique, and despite all my best efforts to figure out who the killer was, the twist at the end caught me completely off guard. Brava.
1
author picked
When
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
12,
13,
14, and
15.
What is this book about?
Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior cursed with an eerie intuitive ability that's out of her control—one that entangles her in a homicide investigation For as long as she can remember, Maddie has seen a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father's premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually deathdates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one. Forced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie…
I've always been a fan of ghost stories. As a kid, I loved horror movies and the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and H. P. Lovecraft; later on, I discovered movies like The Innocents (based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw) and The Haunting (adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House). As a ghost historian and editor, I've discovered dozens of brilliant tales from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; these are stories that remain relevant, entertaining, and frightening.
Fans of literary fiction may not even realize that Edith Wharton (1862-1937), author of novels like The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, also loved to write ghost stories, which often revolve around themes of class and gender. This collection includes such gems as the truly unnerving "The Lady Maid's Bell," the eerie yet poignant "Afterward," and "All Souls," one of the most unusual Halloween tales ever penned.
Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862 -1937) channelled her fear and obsession into creating a series of spine-tingling tales filled with spirits beyond the grave and other supernatural phenomena. While claiming not to believe in ghosts, paradoxically she did confess that she was frightened of them. Wharton imbues this potent irrational and imaginative fear into her ghostly fiction to great effect.
In this unique collection of finely wrought tales Wharton demonstrates her mastery of the ghost story genre. Amongst the many supernatural treats within these…
As long as I can remember I have found the world a terrifying yet magical place. My first memories are of reading ghost stories, the best mirrors for my emotional experiences. As a teenager supernatural tales continued to inspire me and still do. Sometimes a starkly realistic approach can prove too dull or intrusive; far better to process or confront issues by presenting them as fantastical. When I return to these books, or discover similar stories, I listen hard to what they are trying to tell me. I won’t learn overnight for, as the villain in The Doll Maker states: “the life so short, the craft so long to learn.”
“Perhaps if I ask myself questions, my memory will come back?” The story opens with a now grown-up girl returning to her childhood home, only to realise on route that she is a ghost. But why did she die so young? Her mission must be to go back in time and warn her younger self of impending danger, however when she reaches her destination she can’t remember which of four sisters she is, as they all seem annoying. And what exactly is the disaster she is trying to avert? Could it be related to the pagan rituals the sisters are conducting to Monigan, the creepy doll they keep in the garden shed? What do you think? A thoughtful timeslip tale about trying to make sense of your childhood self.
Can a ghost from the future save a life in the past? A chilling tale of dark forces and revenge...
The ghost turns up one summer day, alone in a world she once knew, among people who were once her family. She knows she is one of four sisters, but which one? She can be sure of only one thing - that there's been an accident. As she struggles to find her identity, she becomes aware of a malevolent force stirring around her. Something terrible is about to happen. One of the sisters will die - unless the ghost can…
Interested in
the supernatural,
ghost story,
and
ghosts?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
the supernatural,
ghost story,
and
ghosts.
