94 books like The Hitman's Daughter

Horror has had a place in my life since my parents let me watch horror movies at far too young an age. But horror comes in many forms, and I’ve found that my love for atmosphere supersedes that of cheap thrills. In Gothic literature, atmosphere is everything. Done right, it paints an unsettling picture that builds tension for readers hoping to get lost in a disquieting world. A lover of classics, I was drawn to Gothic texts, from Dracula to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and my Gothic novel The Alchemy of Moonlight is a love letter to the pioneers who shaped these shadowy worlds for generation of readers.

I am an award-winning author of The Hat Diaries fantasy adventure series and the Freeda the Frog children’s book series. The Hat Diaries The Secret Life of Ryan Rigbee is the first book in The Hat Diaries trilogy. The Hat Diaries collection is written for teens and adults, expanding readers’ imaginations as they enter Ryan’s secret world. The Freeda the Frog™ books focus on acceptance for every type of family and comfort children as they experience real-life situations. I frequently do author events, radio & TV interviews, and podcasts. I am also a practicing attorney, certified yoga instructor, and the proud mother of a blended family of five children. 

Maybe because I grew up in San Diego, a city that boasts what ghost hunter Hans Holzer called the most haunted house in America, I’ve always loved ghost stories. I never encountered a ghost when I visited the Whaley House Museum, as Regis Philbin did when he spent the night, but I once took a photograph there that had an unexplained light streak on it. Although I conceived a passion for the printed word with my first Dick and Jane reader and wrote my first story at the age of six, it took me a few decades to fulfill my long-held desire to write a ghost story of my own.

Gothic fiction is the Wednesday’s child of literature, rife with melancholic darkness and woe. More a mood than a subgenre, it enhances paranormals, suspense, mystery, and romance novels alike. I love the creepiness of it all, how the words make me long to burrow under a warm blankie with a cup of tea and wallow in their morbidity. And no one did horror-stricken grief better than the ladies (although Poe gave them a run for their money.) Ann Radcliffe, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Daphne du Maurier…these were the early Queens of Goth. Here are five for the modern age. Read ‘em and weep.

I'm a near-lifelong fan of horror in all its forms. I read the works of Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shirley Jackson as a child, and for most of my writing career, I’ve been trying to recreate the feelings those early works gave me the first time I read them. My short fiction has appeared in several publications, and my debut horror novel Tidepool came out in 2021. Even though one of the best-known horror novels of all time, Frankenstein, was written by Mary Shelley, the horror world still sometimes treats female authors like afterthoughts. I hope my list will help readers discover more imaginative books written by women. 

I grew up reading short stories in the annual Reader’s Digest books my parents collected, so I’ve always liked the short form. Perhaps that is why I pursued it in college, wanting to know what made them work. So I took a lot of classes in college to do just that, to dissect stories to see what made them resonate with readers. And although I’ve been trying to push myself to write longer fiction, I’ll never be able to fully abandon the short fiction. I love a story you can read in a day and think about all night.

Since I was a child, stories steeped in secrets have fascinated me. I spent many hours devouring books about detectives and spies, shadows and deceit. As an adult, it is a rare treat to discover one that is so engaging I must know how it unfolds as soon as possible, and is told in a way that leaves me surprised by how it ends. Each of these books is deliciously tricky, inspiring me to read quickly, before the ghosts between the pages could escape to haunt me. 

My interest in ghosts is partly due to growing up in York, which is one of the most haunted cities in the UK. In that city, I think that pretty much every pub has its own ghost, and if you’re unlucky (or lucky) enough, you stand a good chance of spotting long-dead Roman soldiers, plague victims, or ghostly dogs as you walk the streets. This atmosphere has seeped into my fiction; I have written two novels of the supernatural and am currently working on a third. I’ve also made a study of the grim and gothic in fiction; my Ph.D. thesis was largely about vampires (especially Dracula) but also strayed into other monsters and uncanny stories over the past two centuries. 

I believe with all of my heart that each one of us was created with two achingly powerful inner drives: 1) the longing for new worlds and 2) the desperate urge to do something meaningful. I simply could never believe that human beings are all simply cosmic accidents produced by some sort of cosmic casino. I believe God created people and gave us each an instinct to seek our true home. The books I write—all 22 of them—are tales of flawed individuals, thrown into unexpected, life-changing events, and given the chance to journey through many astoundingly lush worlds, all in an effort to do the seemingly impossible.

I've been a passionate lover of all things horror. I strive to take my readers on an unforgettable journey, one that often places them well out of their comfort zone. I believe that horror should make readers uncomfortable, whether through a mounting sense of unease or full-blown exposure to gore and depravity. I do my best to pull readers into my stories so that they can almost personally experience the horrors. If I don’t make them cringe and wince, then I have failed. As outrageous as my books may be, they're not full of violence and gore for the sake of mere shock value. I do my best to create well-developed characters with thought-provoking and immersive storylines.