The most recommended books about haunted places

Before other authors (including me) published books on Virginia’s ghosts and legends, it was L. B. Taylor who’d written many spooky tales that haunted the Old Dominion in a long span of books, including this one. Not just Virginians, but as someone who moved here in 1985, I learned about the state’s many ghosts, monsters, and legends that taught me a new view of the state. No one needs to live in Virginia to enjoy reading this book.

Aira is one of the most interesting novelists alive today, a writer whose wit, energy, and unfailingly restless imagination ensure that his books never follow a straightforward path, and thus always surprise you. Ghosts, my favorite of those books, presents the story of a half-constructed luxury apartment complex, the ghosts who wander its beams and its floors, and the adolescent girl to whom they call. Recommended if you like your ghosts circumambulating and avant-garde.

Pitkin writes in a very accessible style. What drew me into this book, in particular, is that he starts the book off with a personal experience. He writes of the incident that turned him from a skeptic into a believer in the paranormal. Intriguing stuff, to be sure ... but this revelation also changed his attitude towards teaching, making him more tolerant of other cultures, and more open to sharing different worldviews with his students. Whereas prior to this experience, he had been dismissive of what he saw as "primitive" beliefs (regarding African belief in witchcraft and the afterlife), he was now more willing to explore alternative belief systems with his students.

My mum read this book to me when I was little, so I think it will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason. 

But even re-reading it as an adult I can say that it is a marvellous story. The imagery is spectacular, Harvey’s night as a vampire especially stays with me due to the vivid imagery. As well as the ‘creatures in the pond’ (trying to not spoil anything too badly here). Overall, it’s a well written, imaginative story that sucks you in and holds you tightly right up to the end.

A haunted capital building, spooky cemeteries, the infamous Legend of Seven Gables Road, true crime, and more are all featured in this excellent book on ghosts and haunted places around our state capital and surrounding cities and towns. Carpenter has a very entertaining style of writing that makes this book hard to put down.   

Crouch is near the top of my list of favorite authors. His recent science-fiction books are spectacular. Abandon was written before his sci-fi and is a different genre (thriller, horror, western mashup), so I went into it with some trepidation.

Totally unwarranted, though. This is a page-turner of a book with a cast of characters doing unspeakable things—lots of blood and killing that will shock the reader and keep you reading.

I read this book on a solo 360-mile backpacking trip, and my nightly read I always looked forward to. It kept my mind off of bears in my campsite. The reason why the entire population of a small mining town disappeared in the late 1800s is horrifically shocking.

I love so many things about this book, starting with the title (double-entendre!) and the setting (bookstore!).

I love the snippets of real life (e.g., it’s the author’s bookstore). And then there’s the ghost, Flora. Erdrich does such a good job with Flora. This is not the movie Ghostbusters and it’s not the TV show Ghosts. Flora is just an unseen character, a former customer who keeps hanging out in the bookstore in the time of Covid. Erdrich weaves both Covid and the ghost into the story so smoothly—the book is not about either one of them, but they are both in the background and color everything going on, leaving me with the impression that the ghost is just one more part of the fever dream that was 2020.

I’m an avid Koontz reader and long time fan, but I particularly liked this book because of the elements of paranormal mixed with time travel, two of my favorite genres.

The characters were just what you’d expect they might be like in a disturbing, confusing, and terrifying situation, which was extremely relatable. I felt as if this were really happening, I might do the same exact thing as one of the residents of the tower, a component I really enjoy in books.

Barbara Erskine is the queen of time slip romance novels. Almost all the books she writes feature this literary device, and cover periods of history from ancient Egypt to World War 1. Midnight is a Lonely Place was the first of her novels that I read, many years ago, and was hooked on this genre from then on. I had never come across this type of story before, blending history with the present and giving it a supernatural twist, not just ghosts haunting the protagonists, but the two interacting and incorporating romance too. This book takes us back to Roman Essex and a love triangle between Marcus Severus Secundus, his wife, Claudia, and Nion, a Druid prince. When a Roman grave is disturbed, Kate, a modern-day writer, is pulled into the cycle of jealousy and vengeance they have played out over two thousand years. 

All of Erskine’s books are well… show more.

This novel was not what I was expecting. It was dark and provides an interesting commentary on human behavior. The town of Black Spring and its locals are cursed. If someone is born there, or moves into the town, they’re doomed to stay until they die. If they try to leave and never come back, they’ll die. The town is also home to the Black Rock Witch, whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. She’s been there since the town was cursed in the seventeenth century. The town was cursed because people did terrible things. The novel takes place during the final days of the town because some people did more terrible things to the Black Rock Witch.