The haunted house is a classic horror set piece. What’s supposed to be a place of reprieve is an iron cage; ensnaring you, forcing you to confront a myriad of ghosts, ghouls, and secrets best left buried. Here are eight titles starring houses to contain your worst nightmares—be they demons, a gaggle of ghosts, or unabashed intimacy.
by Kaleb Russell
Masters of Death by Olivie Blake
Viola Marek is both struggling real estate agent and vampire, a facet of identity that both presents a range of different problems and solutions in one’s life. Tragically, it won’t help her un-haunt the house she needs to sell. That’s where Fox D’Mora enters the picture. He’s a medium, so he can help with Viola’s ghost dilemma, but he’s also a complicated sham. He’s not really a medium, but he is the godson of Death (entity). As the quantity of immortal and undying beings tangled with Viola’s ghost house rises, the game begins. It’s a special one. One the immortals play. There is only one rule: Don’t lose.
The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle
by T.L. Huchu
Everyone’s favorite fifteen-year-old ghostalker, Ropa, arrives at the worldwide Society of Skeptical Enquirers’ biennial conference just in time to be tied into a mystery—a locked room mystery, if an entire creepy haunted castle on lockdown counts. One of the magical attendees has stolen a valuable magical scroll. That’s bad news. But here’s the good news: Ropa can access a unique network of information and intrigue: the castle ghosts.
Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
At the behest of her estranged mother, Vera Crowder returns home in spite of the tragic memories it holds; memories of the bodies her beloved father (moonlighting as a serial killer) left buried there. One day, Vera starts finding notes written in her father’s handwriting. If it’s not the leech of an artist her mother has chosen to house leaving them, then who is? To find the truth, Vera must dig deep and uncover secrets she’s been running from all her life.
The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
To save their family’s floundering salvage company, Dahlia Dutton is tasked by her father to oversee the stripping of an esteemed heiress’s family estate. Unbeknownst to Dahlia and her crew, there’s a sinister presence at the aged estate looking to wreak chaos before the job is done. The Family Plot is an atmospheric modern Gothic that will leave you reeling.
Library of the Dead by TL Huchu
The first book in Huchu’s Edinburgh Nights series contains a bevy of haunted houses as a precocious teen explores the haunted underside of modern Edinburgh, speaking to the dead, looking for leads to find the one responsible for snatching children and leaving them empty husks. Huchu’s rendition of Edinburgh is a lush, evocative one that gives the ghosts in this story an air of wonder in lieu of abject fear.
Mapping the Interior
by Stephen Graham Jones
One night, a young Blackfoot boy named Junior wakes up to find the ghost of his recently deceased father wandering the house dressed in full Blackfoot regalia. To prove to himself he’s real, Junior takes to meticulously diagramming the house’s interior, recording when and where his father appears. It quickly becomes apparent his father’s reappearance is something deeply sinister. Like much of Jones’ work, there is an ache to the writing that’s impossible to ignore. Espousing a kind of hurt that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page.
The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
Sole survivor of a race of necromancers, Charm is a prisoner of the Emperor with nothing but her children and her bone trees to bring her solace. One day, as the Emperor lays in his deathbed, he gives Charm one final command: learn which one of his conniving sons is his murderer. She can succeed and be set free, but that entails betraying the ghosts of her fallen people in the process. Will she follow the will of her dead master or forsake the sanctity of the empire to sate her hunger for vengeance? Trade in a haunted house for a haunted bordello and you
Under the Whispering Door
by TJ Klune
Charon House is perhaps the most ideal haunted house one would want to reside in; that is, unless you have a paralyzing fear of intimacy, the kind of warm and kind intimacy Klune’s work is best known for. Charon House is a place where the dead crossover with the help of its good natured owner Hugo and the deliciously sarcastic reaper named Mei, although not before helping themselves to hot tea and the most scrumptious scones. But our protagonist, Wallace Price, isn’t ready to pass on. Due to his dour demeanor and cold-heartedness, he’s missed out on all the goodness life has to offer. So, with the help of Hugo, he attempts to live a lifetime in 7 days. Under The Whispering Door is a heartwarming haunted house book about coming to terms with loss and seeking out new beginnings.
I enjoyed The Family Plot and The Bone Orchard sounds quite intriguing!
My fave haunted house novel of the year is Dweller on the Threshold by Skyla Dawn Cameron. Set during the early days of lockdown, the pandemic forces the narrator to take refuge in the house she inherits from her estranged father. Spookiness ensues.