The Elementals


Michael McDowell - 1981
    Two of the houses at Beldame are still used. The third house, filling with sand, is empty...except for the vicious horror which is shaping nightmares from the nothingness that hangs in the dank, fetid air.The McCrays and Savages, two fine Mobile families allied by marriage, have been coming to Beldame for years. This summer, with a terrible funeral behind them and a messy divorce coming up, even Luker McCray and little India down from New York are looking forward to being alone at Beldame.But they won't be alone. For something there, something they don't like to think about, is thinking about them...and about all the ways to make them die.

Don't Look Inside


Spike Black - 2015
    Suddenly the words DON'T LOOK INSIDE scratch furiously into the leather, as if carved by an invisible hand. Lizzie jolts, terrified. She intends to heed the warning. No way in hell is she opening the book now.But her curiosity gets the better of her. She feels compelled to look inside. Her hands move with a will of their own, opening the book. Her heart hammers in her chest as she reads the first line. No. She reels in horror. What have I done? She should have obeyed the warning. She never should have looked inside. But now it's too late, because the book is about to exact a hideous punishment...Spike Black's Don't Look Inside is an unrelenting, fast-paced supernatural horror novel. Written in an arresting and irresistible style, it's a high concept, must-read ghost story that will haunt you long after its uncompromising and spectacular conclusion.

Island of the Forbidden


Hunter Shea - 2015
    Ormsby Island was the site of a brutal massacre two decades ago, and now the mysterious Harper family needs someone to exorcise the ghosts that still call it home. The phantoms of over one hundred children cannot rest.But something far more insidious is living on the island. When the living and the dead guard their true intentions, how can Jessica discover just what sort of evil lurks on Ormsby Island? And why is Jessica the only one who can plumb its dark depths?

The Secret of Crickley Hall


James Herbert - 2006
    Gabe has brought his wife, Eve, and daughters, Loren and Cally, down to Devon, to the peaceful seaside village of Hollow Bay. He can work and Eve and the kids can have some peace and quiet and perhaps they can try, as a family, to come to terms with what's happened to them...Crickley Hall is an unusually large house on the outskirts of the village at the bottom of Devil's Cleave, a massive tree-lined gorge - the stuff of local legend. A river flows past the front garden. It's perfect for them...if it a bit gloomy. And Chester, their dog, seems really spooked at being away from home. And old houses do make sounds. And it's constantly cold. And even though they shut the cellar door every night, it's always open again in morning The Secret of Crickley Hall is James Herbert's finest novel to date. It explores the darker, more obtuse territories of evil and the supernatural. With brooding menace and rising tension, he masterfully and relentlessly draws the reader through to the ultimate revelation one that will stay to chill the mind long after the book has been laid aside.

A Sincere Warning About the Entity in Your Home


Jason Arnopp - 2012
    I did not even post it myself. The postmark on the envelope will not help you, should you ever attempt to locate me.When this letter is complete, I shall entrust a friend in another country with repackaging and sending it on my behalf. This letter also may or may not have been translated from its original language.You do not know me. You must never know me.Neither do I know you, beyond your name, address and appearance. I have seen you in person but you have not seen me.Think back to the day that you moved into your home. I contrived to casually pass by as you stood outside. I saw your face, but you did not so much as glance my way. I did not stop walking. I simply committed your face to memory and moved on before you became aware of my presence.Why did I want to see you?I suppose my conscience drove me to it. Just as it compels me to finally write this letter.I wanted to see exactly who I was passing the entity on to."A NEW CONCEPT IN FEAR...Imagine a supernatural horror story in which the paranormal activity happens within YOUR home. A SINCERE WARNING ABOUT THE ENTITY IN YOUR HOME takes the form of an anonymous letter sent to YOUR address. It details the terrifying events which happened in your home and which continue to this day.You have inherited a curse and are being preyed upon by a bone-chilling apparition. This 10,000-word letter from the previous resident advises you how to cope, while detailing the unthinkable ordeal they suffered before you.A SINCERE WARNING ABOUT THE ENTITY IN YOUR HOME is the ultimate way to scare yourself in your own home, because it's the only ghost story which takes place IN your home. Dare you read it?

The Invited


Jennifer McMahon - 2019
    . . In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house--a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse--objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.

The Amityville Horror


Jay Anson - 1977
    28 Days of Terror in a House Possessed by Evil SpiritsIn December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their dream home, the same home where Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers and sisters just one year earlier.the psychic phenomena that followed created the most terrifying experience the Lutz family had ever encountered, forcing them to flee the house in 28 days, convinced that it was possessed by evil spirits.Their fantastic story, never before disclosed in full detail, makes for an unforgettable book with all the shocks and gripping suspense of The Exorcist, The Omen or Rosemary's Baby, but with one vital difference...the story is true--back cover

The Ghost Notebooks


Ben Dolnick - 2018
    So Hannah accepts a job as live-in director of the Wright Historic House, a museum dedicated to an obscure nineteenth-century philosopher whose life was marred by tragedy.At first, life in this old, creaky house feels cozy. Nick and Hannah explore the deserted museum at night, wandering the twisting halls and sneakily trying out the former owners' original master bed. But as summer turns to fall, Hannah begins to have trouble sleeping; reluctantly, she tells Nick she's hearing whispers in the night. Then one morning, Nick wakes up to find Hannah gone. In his frantic search for her, Nick will discover the hidden legacy of Wright House: a man driven wild with grief, and a spirit aching for home.

A View from the Lake


Greg F. Gifune - 2006
    Tourists rented cabins, swam, relaxed, and enjoyed the miles of surrounding forest in a peaceful and safe environment. Katherine lived there for years with her husband James, a poet, and their cat Barney. They ran the small resort during the hectic spring and summer months, then hunkered down and endured the often brutal and desolate winters in relative isolation. Their lives were uncomplicated, happy and quiet - or so Katherine thought - until one summer morning when the dead body of a young boy is found floating in the lake. From the moment the child accidentally drowns, Katherine watches as her husband slowly begins to lose his grip on reality, spiraling down helplessly into insanity. And then he's gone, vanished from their home without a trace. The authorities drag the lake and search parties comb the woods, but to no avail. James is gone. Months later, as a blizzard descends over Blissful Point, Katherine, alone at the resort, faces her final winter on the lake. But things are no longer what they seem. Perhaps they never were. Are there others out there, in the woods, in the snow, in the lake, waiting and watching and luring her toward the same madness that claimed James? Is there a lingering and primordial evil haunting the lake, bringing with it the truth behind its existence, the answer to the mystery surrounding her husband's disappearance, and the life she thought she knew, or is her own grip on reality beginning to loosen? A View from the Lake is a haunting novel of dark literature that will not soon be forgotten.

Twelve Nights at Rotter House


J.W. Ocker - 2019
    As with his other gigs, he sets rules for himself: no leaving the house for any reason, refrain from outside contact, and sleep during the day.When Thomas Ruth, Felix's oldest friend and fellow horror film obsessive, joins him on the project, the two dance around a recent and unspeakably painful rough-patch in their friendship, but eventually fall into their old rhythms of dark humor and movie trivia. That's when things start going wrong: screams from upstairs, figures in the thresholds, and more than what should be in any basement. Felix realizes the book he's writing, and his very state of mind, is tilting from nonfiction into all out horror, and the shocking climax answers a question that's been staring these men in the face all along: In Rotter House, who's haunting who?

Dear Laura


Gemma Amor - 2019
    That stranger claims to know the whereabouts of her missing friend Bobby, but there’s a catch: he’ll only tell her what he knows in exchange for something... personal.So begins Laura’s sordid relationship with her new penpal, built on a foundation of quid pro quo. Her quest for closure will push her to bizarre acts of humiliation and harm, yet no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape her correspondent’s demands. The letters keep coming, and as time passes, they have a profound effect on Laura.From the author of Cruel Works of Nature comes a dark and twisted tale about obsession, guilt, and how far a person will go to put her ghosts to bed.

The Deep


Alma Katsu - 2020
    Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner's illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers - including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher - are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not - could not - have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . .

Don't Tell a Soul


Kirsten Miller - 2021
    . . that might just kill her.People say the house is cursed.It preys on the weakest, and young women are its favorite victims.In Louth, they're called the Dead Girls.All Bram wanted was to disappear—from her old life, her family's past, and from the scandal that continues to haunt her. The only place left to go is Louth, the tiny town on the Hudson River where her uncle, James, has been renovating an old mansion.But James is haunted by his own ghosts. Months earlier, his beloved wife died in a fire that people say was set by her daughter. The tragedy left James a shell of the man Bram knew—and destroyed half the house he'd so lovingly restored.The manor is creepy, and so are the locals. The people of Louth don't want outsiders like Bram in their town, and with each passing day she's discovering that the rumors they spread are just as disturbing as the secrets they hide. Most frightening of all are the legends they tell about the Dead Girls. Girls whose lives were cut short in the very house Bram now calls home.The terrifying reality is that the Dead Girls may have never left the manor. And if Bram looks too hard into the town's haunted past, she might not either.

The Nesting


C.J. Cooke - 2020
    It was their dream house, and he wants to honor her with it.Lexi Ellis takes a job as his nanny and immediately falls in love with his two young daughters, especially Gaia. But something feels off in the isolated house nestled in the forest along the fjord. Lexi sees mysterious muddy footprints inside the home. Aurelia's diary appears in Lexi's room one day. And Gaia keeps telling her about seeing the terrifying Sad Lady…Soon Lexi suspects that Aurelia didn't kill herself and that they are all in danger from something far more sinister lurking around them.

The Vanishing


Wendy Webb - 2014
    So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired…and who the world believes is dead.When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.