100 books like The Grief Hole

After a “massacre” of a herd of elk on a protected reservation forest—a scene which spoke more of frenzied bloodlust than hunting for sustenance—four Blackfoot men become the prey of a creature bent on revenge.

Jones’s narrative satisfied my thirst for wholly original horror while exploring the clash of Native American traditional and contemporary culture. The story touches on the characters’ drive to assimilate, guilt and sense of identity, and the need to move beyond resentments to create a life worth living.

I loved the originality of the beast, the slice of reservation life, and the endearing, flawed characters, all rendered with gorgeous precision.

I found out about this book when a friend urged me not to buy this book because it messed her up. Needless to say, I bought and read it right away, and even though it took me a long time with frequent pauses to get through this behemoth of a book, I understand why my friend said what she said.

Even beyond the striking visuals and the slowly escalating typographic madness (just google it and you’ll know what I mean) a feeling of dread suffuses this novel that stayed with me long after I put it down.

Clive Barker is one of my favorite authors and greatly influenced me. This is his first novel but also, in my opinion, one of his best. I love books that blend crime and horror, particularly supernatural horror. I enjoyed the interplay here between the protagonist, recently released from prison, and the wealthy Londoner he starts to work for as a bodyguard.

I was hooked by the slow ramping up of danger throughout the book as the characters get more deeply entangled in the supernatural elements. I love Barker’s lyrical style and amazing use of language, and this remains one of the best horror novels I’ve ever read.

I read Kiernan’s book only recently and found it entrancing. It’s a novel that defies any easy description. In a way, it’s about a grieving writer who takes up residence in an isolated house to try to recover from the death of her partner and to try to start writing again. Nothing more happens except her occasional drives to the local village and walks to the nearby red tree. But the book bursts with richness–with complex storytelling and, we slowly realize, with an increasingly unreliable narrator. As the narrator finds, reads, and transcribes a manuscript of local folklore she found in the house, the novel increasingly blurs the boundaries between past and present, reality and delusion. At times, I found myself unsure of where I was or whose words I was reading. All the stories converge, though, on the red tree, which exerts some force over those that come within… show more.

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.

Alright, so a theme seems to be developing here, but in this case, ‘Don’t mess with nature’ gets a Canadian island treatment (those poor Boy Scouts). And, of course, a storm is coming. And, of course, the communications go out. I was gripped and frankly grossed out by this Stephen King-esque tale. 

There are also shades of Frankenstein and Lord of the Flies, and I love a horror novel that asks the question of which monsters are worse—the ones we create or the ones that lurk inside. 

I’m often not a huge fan of vampire fiction as it’s been done so much, but occasionally something really different comes along. I love fiction that deals with family, especially when it explores working class people and addresses issues of existential angst and social isolation.

This kind of thing is one of the horrors I enjoy the most, and I loved the way those themes were woven into this novel set in a working-class suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. I found this novel truly disturbing and particularly enjoyed the varied and unpleasant cast of characters.

This is one of the few novels that genuinely scared me. I was so tense during the first half of the book when the friends were hiking in a remote Swedish wilderness and being hunted by… something. Nevill does an amazing job of keeping the tension through this part of the book pulled so taut that I was mesmerized.

Then I was completely caught out by the turn the novel takes around the middle and it started to appeal to everything I love about folk horror and the supernatural, and it appealed to my love of heavy music. One of my all-time favourite books, I didn’t want it to end.

What I love about the ghost story genre is how it can lend itself to comedy as well as spookiness. Here the plight of poor James, moving to a new house only to find himself seized on as Apprentice to ghostly 17th century apothecary Thomas Kempe, is irresistibly funny. No one will believe it’s not him scrawling advertisements for ‘Sorcerie, Astrologie, Geomancie, Alchemie, Recoverie of Goodes Loste and Physicke’ on notice boards outside his house and all over the village. Lively’s accurate use of 17th century English heightens both the humour and historical realism in this beautifully written book. 

I love it when a story taps into my dream life when the author imagines a landscape that tickles my subconscious. Since the experience is so deeply personal, it obviously cannot be planned or market-tested, which makes it all the more thrilling when it happens.

That was my experience reading this book. As a boy, I often dreamed about my small town turning into a neighborhood full of ghosts overnight (Don’t ask me why. I was a strange child). This happens to be the exact premise of Velkwood. In Kiste’s narrative, a living woman must enter this literal ghost town at her own peril to uncover the secret behind a family tragedy, and the results are both philosophical and beautiful.