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Sleep With the Lights On: Spooky Season Reads

16 items

Helen

I'm a lifelong bookworm with a particular soft spot for horror, and spooky season is my favourite time of year. These are the books that have made me sleep with the landing light on, double-check the locks, and glance suspiciously at the wallpaper....

Sections

Slow-burn and creepy

Unsettling and strange

Modern and atmospheric

Short but definitely not sweet

Slow-burn and creepy

Dread that creeps up like a draught under the door. Perfect for readers who enjoy a slow shiver and a long, uneasy stare at the landing.

Ever wanted to spend a weekend in a house that actively dislikes you? Shirley Jackson's masterpiece delivers elegant, creeping dread and a heroine you can't stop worrying about. It's the haunted house story all others are measured against. Read it wi...

The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson

Never underestimate a dead woman's ability to ruin your marriage. A shy new bride arrives at Manderley and discovers the first Mrs de Winter is still very much running the place. Gloriously gothic, with the world's most terrifying housekeeper. Last n...

Rebecca: Daphne Du Maurier

A crumbling country manor, a doctor with a soft spot for it, and something not quite right in the corridors. Sarah Waters keeps you guessing between ghost and something far more human. It's a slow burn that rewards patience with a very satisfying chi...

The Little Stranger: Sarah Waters

Meet Merricat: a delightfully odd narrator with a very questionable approach to neighbourly relations. This slim, sly little book is deeply unsettling and oddly charming at once. You'll finish it in a sitting, then spend the evening side-eyeing your ...

We Have Always Lived in the Castle: Shirley Jackson

Unsettling and strange

Houses with too many rooms, creepy wooden figures, clowns 🤡 and a feeling that reality is slightly off. Wonderfully weird, for anyone who likes things a bit wrong.

Stephen King's IT proves that a sewer grate is never just a sewer grate. Seven misfit kids, one shape-shifting clown, and a small town with a very bad secret make for a gloriously creepy doorstopper. It's scary, surprisingly heartfelt, and best read ...

IT: Stephen King

Warning: this book may rearrange your brain. A family discovers their house is bigger on the inside, and the text itself starts twisting, flipping and sprawling across the page. It's bonkers, brilliant and impossible to put down. Reading it feels les...

House of Leaves: Mark Z. Danielewski

Glamorous socialite Noemí heads to a rotting mountain mansion to check on her cousin, and swiftly discovers the in-laws are a nightmare, literally. Fabulous gothic atmosphere, mould-flecked wallpaper and a slow, sickly sense of wrongness. It's stylis...

Mexican Gothic: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A Victorian widow, a remote manor, and a collection of painted wooden figures that really shouldn't be moving. Laura Purcell serves up spooky with a side of dark secrets and a twisty structure. Perfect for fans of creepy dolls and corset-clad dread. ...

The Silent Companions: Laura Purcell

OK, so this one doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, meet the 'terrifying' criteria, and if I'm honest, I thought I was going to hate it at first! But stick with it and you'll find yourself in a wonderfully, quietly strange world. Piranesi li...

Piranesi: Susanna Clarke

Modern and atmospheric

Cursed creeks, silent witches and suspiciously friendly neighbours. Fresh scares and plenty of atmosphere, so keep a blanket handy and the curtains firmly closed.

Two families, three beach houses, and one that's slowly being swallowed by sand. Michael McDowell serves up Southern gothic with steamy summer atmosphere and a genuinely bizarre, brilliant haunting. It's sweaty, strange and unputdownable. A reminder ...

The Elementals: Michael McDowell

Welcome to Black Spring, where a 17th-century witch wanders the streets and the whole town has agreed to keep it quiet. Cue teenagers, smartphones and very bad ideas. It's darkly funny, then truly nasty. A brilliant modern twist on small-town secrets...

Hex: Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Two grieving friends go fishing and stumble on a creek with a dark, ancient story. John Langan weaves a tale within a tale, mixing heartbreak, folklore and cosmic dread. It's moving, eerie and properly chilling. Perfect for anyone who thinks a quiet ...

The Fisherman: John Langan

Everyone is just so helpful. The neighbours are lovely. The tea is a bit odd, though. Ira Levin's classic proves paranoia can be wickedly entertaining, with dread creeping in on tiny, polite feet. It's short, sharp and deliciously nasty. Warning: you...

Rosemary's Baby: Ira Levin

Short but definitely not sweet

Short on pages, long on chills. Ideal for a single spooky evening, or for when you want a fright before bedtime and still hope to sleep.

A governess, two angelic children and some very pushy ghosts. Are they real? Is she losing it? Henry James refuses to say, and you'll argue about it for days. It's short, elegant and endlessly debatable. The ultimate ghost story for people who love a...

The Turn of the Screw : Henry James

A young solicitor, a foggy causeway, and a house you really shouldn't visit. Susan Hill's old-school ghost story is short, atmospheric and absolutely chilling. It's the ideal one-evening read for a dark night, ideally with a rocking chair creaking so...

The Woman in Black: Susan Hill

Watch a mysterious videotape, get a phone call, and you've got seven days to live. Koji Suzuki's original is cleverly plotted, properly tense and wonderfully creepy, and a bit different from the films. Great for fans of urban legends and ticking cloc...

Ring: Kogi Suzuki