The best literary horror novels that will get under your skin and stay there

This novel reminded me of just how brilliant the horror genre can be, and how deeply a book can wound, no matter how much we have read or how jaded we think we have become. Jones is a master at evoking not only visceral but achingly genuine emotional reactions in his readers, and there are scenes in The Only Good Indians that I will never be able to forget. Unflinching, sharply written and laced with unexpected black humour, this is super-smart horror fiction that takes no shortcuts and resists the cheap and easy shot. There’s good reason it’s won so many awards, including the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson, and I am absolutely on board for anything and everything that Jones writes in the future. 

You don’t have to know Beowulf to enjoy this modern-day re-imagining – set in a gated community at the foot of a mined-out mountain with subterranean caves and lakes a plenty – but the novel serves up delicious layers for readers familiar with the Old English epic. Headley weaves a story that is horrific and beautiful in equal measure as she explores the gulf between the experiences of two very different mothers – Dana, an ex-soldier barely surviving in the wilderness with her son Gren; and Willa Herot, suburban royalty living a luxurious if socially pressurised existence, protected her wealthy husband’s power. With writing that oscillates between lyrical poetics and prose that is sparse, blunt, and direct, The Mere Wife is a darkly fabulous novel that I look forward to reading over and over again.

As an author, Warren possesses the enviable power to create complex, flawed, and often deeply unlikeable characters – at least when you first meet them on the page – who remain utterly and irresistibly engaging to the reader. Theresa, the protagonist in The Grief Hole, is no exception. Not only can she see ghosts, but she can also tell how a person is going to die, but what she does – and doesn’t do – with these abilities isn’t what you might expect. I’ve been reading Warren’s fiction for decades and this novel is among her finest and most challenging work – which is no small thing, believe me! Dark and disturbing, weird and wry, The Grief Hole is a ghost story that will haunt you for a very, very long time.

Kiernan is, without question, one of the best practitioners of dark weird fiction working today. I’ve been reading their work almost since I started writing myself and will happily – and gratefully – admit to the early influence on my own writing. While their short stories always held a greater attraction for me personally, The Red Tree is a powerful and ambitious novel that brings together everything I love about their work. Sarah Crowe is burned-out writer fleeing from all her life contains, including herself, and the old, isolated farmhouse chosen as a refuge proves to be precisely the opposite. There are stories nested within stories, autobiography threaded through metafiction, dread mingled with wonder, and a satisfying ambiguity that resists a neat resolution. 

This is a debut novel that is ridiculously too good to be a debut novel. Due to the hype when it was first published, my deeply contrary self was initially resistant to House of Leaves until it was foisted upon me by a dear friend. I have since foisted it upon many other dear friends and now, dear reader, I humbly foist it upon you. The book is a weird, brilliant, terrifying, heartbreaking Russian doll of a narrative, a story of haunted houses and haunted humans, documented by at least three different and increasingly unhinged narrators, and typeset to manipulate the reading experience in a direct, physical way. I’ve read House of Leaves several times and each time marvel that there is something new to discover.