Someone asked: “Scary books for autumn and Halloween.”
Spooky books for autumn.
Haunted houses, gothic mansions and things that knock at night. Some are genuinely frightening, some just deliciously creepy. Read them with the lights on, or don't.
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The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Four people move into a house that does not want them there. The best haunted-house novel ever written, and the most unsettling.
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia · 2020
A glamorous young woman, a decaying mansion in the Mexican hills and a family with a rotten secret. Gothic horror with style.
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James · 1898
A governess, two strange children and ghosts that only she can see. Or can she? Short, ambiguous and still chilling.
Dracula
Bram Stoker · 1897
Told in letters and diaries, it builds dread one page at a time. Far more gripping than its reputation.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley · 1818
Not the monster from the films. A strange, sad book about ambition and loneliness, written by a teenager for a bet.
The Shining
Stephen King · 1977
A family, an empty hotel and a long winter. King at his most frightening, and his most human.
The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters · 2009
A crumbling country house after the war and a doctor who keeps coming back. Slow, elegant and quietly terrifying.
Coraline
Neil Gaiman · 2001
A girl finds a door to another home with a better mother. Written for children, it scares adults more.
Not quite it?
Tell the bookseller what you've already read and what you're in the mood for. We'll narrow it down.