I grew up in a scary house. It wasn’t as fancy as Hill House, but I will believe until the day I die that it was haunted. Why you ask? How much time do you have? It began when I was about seven or so. I had a strange bout of sleepwalking that went on for a while. I saw things, I heard them and sometimes I could even smell them. I was raised in a traditional, Catholic family and things like this were not discussed or acceptable to believe in. Corvus Hall and the entire Irish Phantom Series are experimental and were inspired by personal experiences and a spooky trip to Ireland.
This is easily my favorite haunted house story. I discovered it when I was a teen and have read it religiously once a year ever since. The reason it stuck with me and made me such a super fan was the idea that not only are a group of misfits staying in a haunted house, but the house itself is sentient. It’s the most malevolent and unforgettable character in the story. Literally conjuring up different ways to torment everyone. It’s terrifying in the most delicious way. Shirley Jackson is a master of horror and psychological suspense. If I hadn’t already believed in ghosts before that book, I certainly would have afterward.
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story "Sardonicus," considered by Stephen King to be "perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written," to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories…
I’ve learned that the best ghost stories include a few basic elements. A remote and spooky location, a secret and often tragic event linking the present to the past. This particular story goes a bit deeper on the gothic scale as the mansion is surrounded at night by dark water, becoming an island as the ocean rises. Did I mention a village with freakish accidents involving many of the children? There are some points in this story that you have to set it down and take a deep breath, as the author understands our fears of the dark and also the loss of a loved one.
The classic ghost story from the author of The Mist in the Mirror: a chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town.
Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip…
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is…
This book isn’t normally listed as a ghost story, but to me it certainly is. All of the dark elements I crave were present, plus an unusual setting and the 1950s era kept me guessing. It does go a bit more on the creepy, gore aspect that you don’t get in the first two recommendations, but the final scene in the tunnel and crypt. Oh my gosh! Nooo! It’s an intoxicating blend of gothic suspense, supernatural, and mystery.
The award-winning author of Gods of Jade and Shadow (one of the 100 best fantasy novels of all time, TIME magazine) returns with a mesmerising feminist Gothic fantasy, in which a glamorous young socialite discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico.
He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemi. You have to save me.
When glamorous socialite Noemi Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, it's clear something is desperately amiss. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic, but…
This story is unsettling in a million different ways. You wonder almost immediately, is Jack losing his mind? Is there something dark and nefarious pushing him and creating hallucinations that frustrate and torment him? Are the ghosts truly angry or are they simply playing the creepiest form of hide-and-seek with the humans? So many scenes in this story make you wonder if the things people say in anger could possibly manifest and chase after you the way they actually do in this one. What makes this super scary is it shows what can happen when you allow yourself to listen to the voices in the void.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
This is another story with a group of misfits, in this case it’s a band who are in desperate need of a hit and they hole up in a haunted mansion in the British countryside to record a new album. They are indulging in drinks and other mind-altering things to tap into their creativity. One night one of them disappears and poof. Let the infighting begin. There is a common belief that ghosts and spiritual entities can sense turmoil and feed off of it. I think that’s true. In this story that is certainly the case and how the breakdown happens is realistic enough to make you reconsider who you might take with you on a trip like this.
After the tragic and mysterious death of one of their founding members, the young musicians in a British acid-folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with its own dark secrets. There they record the classic album that will make their reputation but at a terrifying cost, when Julian Blake, their lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again. Now, years later, each of the surviving musicians, their friends and lovers (including a psychic, a photographer, and the band s manager) meets with a young documentary filmmaker to tell his or her own version…
After surviving an inexplicable supernatural event, a young woman from New Jersey is crippled by anxiety and terrible phobias. It isn’t until a few years later when her best friend Ashlinn is to be married at a lavish mansion in Ireland, that the mystery begins to unravel. Will Mary unlock the secrets of Corvus Hall before it’s too late?
Corvus Hall was written in homage to Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca with a modern and surprising twist. If you love authentic haunted houses and creepy, ghost stories, this one's definitely for you!
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter.
Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of the…
