The haunted house is the oldest trick in horror, and it still works because it goes after the one place you are supposed to feel safe. The best of these books are not really about ghosts. They are about families, grief, money, and the things people bury in the walls. Here are thirteen for October, from the book that set the rules to a few that break them.
The classics
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Start here. Published in 1959, it follows four people who come to stay at Hill House to find proof of a haunting: Dr. Montague, the scholar running the experiment; Theodora, his assistant; Luke, the heir to the house; and Eleanor, a lonely young woman who has never had anywhere to belong. The house notices her first. Most of the fear lives in what Jackson leaves unsaid, which is why it still unsettles readers more than sixty years later, and why Netflix built a series around it. We carry the Penguin Classics paperback with an introduction by Laura Miller. See the book.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Jackson's last novel is a house story told from the inside. Merricat Blackwood lives with her sister and her uncle on a family estate the village hates, years after the rest of the family died at the dinner table. Then a cousin arrives, and the fragile peace starts to crack. It's short, strange, and darkly funny. See the book.
Houses that are wrong on the inside
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A family discovers that their house measures a fraction of an inch larger on the inside than on the outside. Then a door appears where there wasn't one, and the hallway behind it keeps going. The story reaches you through a lost manuscript, a trail of footnotes, and pages you will turn sideways and upside down. It's a reading experience as much as a novel. See the book.
Strange Houses by Uketsu
A writer is asked to look at the floor plan of a bright, spacious house for sale in Tokyo, and the longer he looks, the less sense it makes. There's a room with no windows, and a layout that doesn't add up. Told through conversations and floor plans you can study yourself, it's a puzzle box that turns into something much darker. See the book.
Going home again
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
When Maggie Holt was a child, her family fled Baneberry Hall, a Victorian house in the Vermont woods, in the middle of the night. Her father turned it into a bestselling memoir called House of Horrors. Maggie remembers none of it and believes none of it. Twenty-five years later she inherits the house and moves back in to prove him wrong. The novel alternates between her present and his book, and they do not agree. See the book.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
After her parents die, Louise goes home to Charleston to deal with the house, her difficult brother, and her late mother's enormous collection of puppets and dolls. Getting the place ready for sale turns out to be the hard part. Hendrix is funny until he is suddenly not, and underneath the scares this is a book about how families haunt each other. See the book.
A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James
Estranged siblings return to the house they fled eighteen years ago, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and a two-word message: come home. It's set in Fell, New York, the same town as St. James's The Sun Down Motel, and it's a good pick for readers who like their ghost stories with a mystery at the center. See the book.
Southern gothic houses
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Sam comes home to her mother's house in North Carolina for a long visit and finds the walls painted white and her mother jumpy and strange. Whatever is wrong with the house goes back generations. It's creepy and warm in equal measure, with the best narrator voice on this list. See the book.
These Walls Remember by del Sandeen
Two estranged sisters inherit a relative's house in Savannah, Georgia, planning to sell it and go their separate ways. A note tells them not to go into the attic. They go into the attic. The house has a long memory, and it isn't finished with the family. See the book.
Newer hauntings
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Charlie and Eve, a couple who flip houses, get an unbelievable deal on an old place. One day a man knocks on the door with his family, says they used to live there, and asks if his kids can look around. Against her better judgment, Eve lets them in. It's the last normal decision anyone makes. A tense debut with a Netflix adaptation on the way. See the book.
Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
Eight-year-old Bela has a friend nobody else can see. She calls it Other Mommy, and Other Mommy has started asking to come in. Told in Bela's own voice by the author of Bird Box, it's short, relentless, and one of the most frightening books here. It's being adapted as the film Other Mommy. See the book.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
It's 1950s Mexico, and socialite Noemí Taboada gets a frantic letter from her newly married cousin, who is convinced her husband's family is poisoning her. Noemí travels to their crumbling mansion in the mountains and finds a house with rules, a family with secrets, and dreams that are not entirely her own. Winner of the Locus Award. See the book.
And one that isn't a house
Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
Something is wrecking the ORSK furniture superstore in Cleveland every night, so a few employees agree to work an overnight shift and catch whoever is doing it. The book itself is laid out like a flat-pack furniture catalog, and the showroom is far worse after closing time. Pure fun, and a perfect gift for anyone who has ever gotten lost in a big-box store. See the book.
Want more? Browse our Halloween Reads shelf or the full Horror shelf, and see our gothic books for October. If Strange Houses was your favorite, our Horror in Translation shelf has more translated horror. See our shipping policy for current options and charges.