10 books like The Woman in Black

Jane Eyre is a book I read and teach at least once a year. Its early section about childhood is, for me, the archetype of all impossible childhoods. Jane is orphaned, misunderstood, oppressed by the awful relatives who take her in, and abused by officials of Lowood School, the institution they palm her off on. Deprivation and hunger are the daily facts of her life. Humiliation, physical “punishment,” and the threat of hell are used to control her fellow wards. She is not so easily controlled. She watches while some of her fellow children, including her beloved friend Helen Burns, die because of infections caused by unhygienic conditions and malnutrition.

Despite it all, she retains an authenticity, a sense of herself that she refuses to violate to curry favor or reduce the harshness of her treatment. She remains a truth-teller, a natural detector of the pompous and hypocritical. She questions… show more.

Rebecca is suspenseful, creepy, and downright eerie. I loved it. The unnamed protagonist was a stroke of genius and added to the gothic feel. But it’s the story that is the most gripping. Daphne du Maurier did a masterful job of laying out the mystery of what happened to Rebecca. Was it a tragic accident or something more?

The title says it all. Unsettling and at times just plain weird, this book features another mansion, not so much haunted as alive in the worst possible way. Decay is everywhere, from the wallpaper on the mansion’s wall to the flesh, humanity, and sanity of its occupants. Wholly original and beautifully written (I learned two new-to-me words I now use regularly*), it’s a dark, immersive, and surprisingly gory read. I’ve never read anything like it.

* Susurrus and miasma, for the curious

This isn't a happy book, but it's intensely atmospheric and intriguing. I loved the depiction of a family trying to keep up appearances while their once-beautiful house crumbles. Small details of clothing and things like riveted teacups (which I had to look up) show an inevitable decline that goes from gradual to catastrophic. The reader sees everything over the shoulder of the narrator, a doctor who has his own history with the family and the house. When strange and terrible things happen, he steps in to help, but it's not clear if he's telling the truth. Is the evil supernatural or human?

They say never judge a book by its cover, but I was drawn by the elk illustrated cover and the blurb. You are taken on a very authentic cultural journey by Jones as he invites the reader into the Native American world and shows how tradition and contemporary life come together. While it is a true literary gem it is also a bona fide horror dripping with non-gratuitous gore and menace as a group of young men are hunted by something otherworldly, haunted by an event from their youth. I was very taken by the Native American spirituality when I became interested in it as a teenager, this book was both frightening and enlightening.

I am fond of gothic literature, so I have no idea why I only read this about five years ago, it's an absolute cracker of a ghost story! Told as a story around a fireplace, the narrator relates a story about a governess who goes to work at Bly Manor, a beautiful mansion in Essex (my home county!), taking care of two small children. Not long after her arrival she sees the ghosts of two people and soon realizes the children can see and possibly communicate with them too. Again a story that relies on fear and the build up of tension rather than horror. This was adapted for Netflix as The Haunting of Bly Manor which elaborated on the original story without taking away from the novel.

Nothing ultimately redemptive or reconnective happens in the bucolic English country house where the wayward members of Windhollow Faire, a drug-addled early ‘70s folk-rock ensemble very much in the Fairport Convention mold, meet to write and record a new album. These people are spinning away from each other and out of control at different speeds and toward their own ends—not all of them tragic—and nothing that happens in this sun-dappled but crumbling and very possibly haunted shambles is going to slow or reverse that. But, what they do share—what they create, or stumble into, seemingly just by being near each other—is that accidental alchemy through which great bands produce something exponentially more transcendent than any of their members will ever manage individually. This is a ghost story, in the end, and some of it is truly scary—best and most terrifying use of birds since The Birds—but it’s also… show more.

I hadn’t read any new fiction in a while when I got this book, and it managed to creep me out so much I had weird dreams. It has a retro horror movie vibe like The Exorcist or Poltergeist but manages to be even more frightening. Its power is that you are always unsure of what is fact and what is fantasy as the main character recounts a family trauma from her childhood and the lines between mental illness and demonic possession are blurred. The examination of family and how it affects people and their relationships is a strong base for some pretty terrifying moments!

I read this when I was young and it made such an impression on me. I could see the wind-swept moors, feel the intensity of the love between Cathy and Heathcliff, and his subsequent descent into madness and revenge. The characters go through so many incarnations that it almost feels like you are reading several novels instead of one. I really became completely immersed in how the story would unfold, loving Heathcliff one minute and hating him the next. He was my first introduction to the anti-hero, and I still remember my confusion as to how I was supposed to feel about him. Bronte’s novel has stood the test of time, and completely absorbs the reader until the very last page as they hope for that happy ending Cathy’s descendants deserve. 

I confess I saw the 1963 movie with Julie Harris when I was a teenager before I read the book, but the book is as usual better than any film version that has been made. The appeal for me definitely comes down to the standard haunted house trope – my favourite basis for any scary story. Shirley Jackson uses a buildup of fear rather than horror to get a response from the reader which I think is far more effective. The story centres around a group of people staying at Hill House to investigate possible paranormal activity, and the creepy late-night goings on are excellently placed to make the reader feel very on edge. I particularly liked the use of characters with very different personalities to illustrate how different people react to fear.