Love Burnt Offerings? Readers share 100 books like Burnt Offerings...

It is impossible to talk about haunted house books and not mention the foremother of them all, The House of the Haunted Hill. I love everything about it from its brilliant use of setting as a character to its tone of creeping unease to the way the readers are slowly drawn into its madness.

This book is a UR-text in the genre and quite revolutionary for its time in many ways: being authored by a female writer, featuring a queer icon of Theodora, etc. But most of all, it’s just a really great read and a true classic. Granted, the characters in it are not exactly on vacation, but all the same, in the end they probably wish they had spent their summer in a different house.

And speaking of hotels, there is, of course, the infamous Overlook Hotel, staying in which does terrible things to the Torrance family. I loved the idea of the place jeopardizing people’s sanity as it reveals its nightmarish secrets to them. Plus, a haunted hotel concept really works for me–why limit yourself to a single-family history of horrors when you can have a variety?

This book is a more in-your-face approach to the haunted house theme and, in my opinion, incredibly effective as such. Also, this one traps its characters, and the readers along with them, inside a winter storm to double down on that stuck-can't-leave feeling. Brr.

Although this book is only a few years old, it should be considered a classic in the genre of evil houses. A young woman inherits her mother’s childhood home and decides to convert it into a hotel. Only the place comes with some surprises: ghosts, demons, and an ancient evil that has been locked away in the dark basement. Now that evil is loose again, and the bloodshed and death are just beginning. Author Chantal Noordeloos doesn’t hold back with the frights or the blood, as person after person suffers a horrible death while poor Freya discovers her true destiny is not what she planned, and that the place they call Lucifer Falls might never let her go. 

As the name might suggest, this novel is very much a spiritual descendant of Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, with a very similar setup: ghost hunters visit a haunted house that’s been abandoned for decades. That, however, is where the similarities end. In Matheson’s work, the haunting is more physical, with bodily threats to the ghost hunters at every turn, and the psychological and spiritual terror it inflicts does far more damage to them at each step, turning them against each other in violent and sometimes deadly ways.

Most vacations take place in the summer, and this next book is a perfect example of how wrong they can go. I love how unique this take on the genre is: it actually takes place over three houses on Beldame, a small island on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

I really appreciated the dramatic tensions between the two families, amplified by heat, secrets, and worse. This gem of Southern Gothic fiction does a stellar job of walking the line between real and supernatural. Like a tidal island, the reader may find themselves slowly submerging into horror. The way each character’s nightmares are slowly revealed and realized has stayed with me for a long time.

Most of the books on this list are older. This was one of my favorite recent haunted house reads. This time, the vacation takes place in Italy, in a beautiful villa with an ugly secret. The book comes with a cleverly tongue-in-cheek “Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.” It couldn't be more on the money.

The book drew me in immediately and refused to let go. I loved the way it slowly infused the sense of dread into the fraught dynamics of a family that really shouldn’t vacation together. Or stay in haunted villas for that matter. A diabolically good book.

“Something was wrong. Bad wrong.” The book begins with a prologue that sets up the plight of two small girls, abandoned by their mother, and it immediately tugged at my heartstrings. I’m not always a dual timeline fan, but I love the way Davis weaves two stories together into this novel, that of present-day Lily, who has just inherited a beach house on Hideaway Key from her recently deceased father, and the tragic history of her aunt Lily Mae, told through a series of journal entries. I love (of course!) the mystery element in this book.

Due to a rift between her mother and her aunt, Lily knows absolutely nothing about her aunt Lily May. When she finds Lily May’s journal in the beach house she begins to uncover the long-kept secrets between her aunt, her mother, and her father—a tale of star-crossed lovers, sibling rivalry, and the… show more.

Reading this book is like sheer escapism to the Highlands of Scotland. Beautifully illustrated, the author has an engaging style that carries you along as she tells the story of Highland lodges and how Scotland became the place to go to find rest and escapism as well as great sport. You come away seeing Scotland in a new light and wanting to spend August amongst the heather and hills. 

Tove Jansson was one of my favourite authors as a child, thanks to her magical Moomin series.

Her fiction for adults, too (The Summer Book, Art in Nature) is wonderful. However, I have gone for one of her lesser-known books, Notes from an Island, which is simply a short journal with brief and starkly beautiful diary entries concerning the times she spent with her partner, Tuulikki Pietilä, on a barren and otherwise uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland.

The book is a collaboration - Pietilä supplied stark, minimalist illustrations - and it also includes sections of a journal contributed by Brunström, the gruff mariner who helped the couple with their trips to and from the island.

Jansson’s writing style is as sparse as the island itself, reflecting the tough conditions, which nevertheless, did not preclude a life of artistic fulfillment for both her and Pietilä. This… show more.

This book absolutely horrified me in all the best ways. A “benevolent” being “rescues” 11 of his human friends from the complete apocalyptic annihilation of the planet, and the journey that ensues is dark.

This comic is full of gut-wrenching, visceral storytelling, genius foreshadowing, stunning artwork, and enough cosmic & existential dread to leave me staring out my window for at least a day or two afterward, but in a good way. (CW: adult themes, nudity, gore, violence)