The Haunting Of Hill House (always a horror classic) had a recent revival with the Mike Flanagan adaptation, offering new insights into the character of Eleanor Vance. readers and viewers alike come back to this classic ghost story, but what if it’s time to read another haunted house book with the same chilling atmosphere? Books like The Haunting Of Hill House aren’t hard to come by, but which ones combine that classic eerie sensation of fear with an unreliable narrator and psychological dread? These books!
The Spider by Hanna Delaney
Set in 1890s Liverpool, The Spider is a supernatural horror murder mystery, where a family’s new home is plagued by a malevolent presence that leads to a complex web of dark secrets and crimes. The story follows both the haunted family and a paranormal investigator as they unravel the truth. This book combines the classic slow-burn ghost story with a gripping historical crime thriller.
It is a book told much like The Haunting Of Hill House as the characters experience the paranormal activity differently, some even doubting the phenomena exists.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Mareno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic is a 1950s-set gothic horror novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia that follows Noemí Taboada, a glamorous socialite who travels to a remote mansion called High Place to rescue her newlywed cousin, Catalina. The story is set in an old Victorian mansion plagued with rot and family secrets.
Like The Haunting Of Hill House, this book shares a moody, claustrophobic atmosphere but it does focus more on explicit body horror rather than the paranormal.
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
A 19th century classic featuring a governess who is convinced that something malevolent is corrupting the children in her care. This is a combination of classic Gothic horror and psychological horror similar to The Haunting Of Hill House as it leaves the reader questioning whether the ghosts are really there or not. This book was also recently adapted for a Netflix series called The Haunting Of Bly Manor, also written and directed by Mike Flanagan.
This story carries the same unsettling, slow burn of The Haunting Of Hill House.
The House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Unlike The Haunting Of Hill House, this book is written as a work of epistolary fiction and metafiction focusing on a fictional documentary film titled The Navidson Record, presented as a story within a story. This is discussed in a handwritten monograph recovered by the primary narrator, Johnny Truant. The narrative makes heavy use of multiperspectivity as Truant’s footnotes chronicle his efforts to transcribe the manuscript, which itself reveals The Navidson Record‘s supposed narrative through transcriptions and analysis depicting a story of a family who discovers a larger-on-the-inside labyrinth in their house.
This book remains a cult classic for its genre-defying narrative style and features. It’s still discussed as being one of the scariest paranormal horror stories ever written.
Hallway by Andy Futuro
This book reminded me so much of The Haunting Of Hill House as Tim is an unreliable narrator who has conversations with his cat Harvey. The paraboia and the decay of the building that Tim and his girlfriend Jess rent an apartment in is very evocative of The Haunting Of Hill House. Tim is plagued with paranoia and as the novel progresses, we begin to doubt his accuracy when he describes the strange noises and activity in the building, because his girlfriend doesn’t see any of it.
Hallway is ideal for those of us looking for a claustrophobic, unsettling read.
Each of these books have similarities with The Haunting Of Hill House in different ways; whether you are looking for psychological dread, oppressive decaying houses or unreliable narrators, this selection has everything you need.
29 new science fiction and horror stories to read. The Midnight Vault might become one of the best sci fi books you’ve ever read.
Venture into The Midnight Vault, an anthology featuring 29 compelling tales of science fiction and horror. Written by an extraordinary cast of breakthrough talent, this collection explores eerie and speculative realms, challenging the boundaries of the known.
From otherworldly horrors to dystopian visions, each story delves into the depths of fear and fascination, promising to captivate and thrill. Uncover dark corners of the universe and embrace the supernatural as you turn each page.
This new collection offers some of the best sci fi stories you’ll read this year.
The Switchboard by Hanna Delaney, a science fiction story.
Here’s an excerpt of the short story that was published in The Midnight Vault anthology.
James looked down at the form in front of him. Pamela had two degrees and fifteen years’ experience. He looked at the form underneath. Bill had five years experience and no degrees. James placed them down quietly and looked at Pamela.
“You are the cornerstone of the department, Pamela,” Ted said. “Team three would be lost without you.”
“I understand,” she said coldly. “Thank you for your time.” Pamela shook their hands and left the room. They heard her heavy-heeled footsteps marching away.
“She’s very experienced,” James remarked, looking at the form again.
“She is,” Ted sighed, “but come on? Bill’s just got married and has a family.”
“So does she?”
“James…” he began, “her kids are practically raised by the babysitters. It’s not right for a woman to be so career-driven when she has a family, you know? I don’t want to encourage unhappy families in my workplace. It’s not only demoralising for the blokes but it’s bad for business. I know you agree. We were only talking about it yesterday.” Ted studied James’ face for a minute, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Do you need me to get you something?”
‘Hi Hanna! Sean McDonnell and I have been kicking around an idea and thought you might be interested…’
I didn’t need to read any more than that. I did read more, but I was interested straight away. They were gathering a group of writers to publish a Twilight Zone themed story that could go live in time for The Twilight Zone’s 66th anniversary.
The stories were due in on 22nd November 2024 and wow, did I have a hard time pinning one down.
The Twilight Zone… yeah—vaguely familiar? I think?
Only joking: Who hasn’t at least seen a clip of Nightmare At 20,000 Feet?
However, saying that—The Twilight Zone is hardly ever available to watch here. I scoured the internet to find some old episodes and vaguely remembered one or two, but I needed to be sure I was on the right track with the story and its content. Sean Thomas McDonnell had kindly offered his support after so I sent him a couple of things. I needed to know if it was ‘Twilight Zone’ enough.
Toxic nostalgia in science fiction.
Overall, this story left me worrying that I was using rose-tinted glasses but we can argue that not every aspect of modern life is good or necessarily better. Seeing some eight-year-old’s come out of school with smartphones yesterday was one of those things that got me thinking about this. I’m always thinking about the better or worse aspects of modern life.
Emma, his wife, bought herself everything that she wanted. She didn’t need him. He felt like a glorified sperm donor, except it was worse than that because she wasn’t even sure if she wanted kids. “I can’t afford the pay cut,” she’d say. It stung, because the elephant in the room was how James only earned a third of what his wife did. He couldn’t step in when the finances ran low.— The Switchboard, Hanna Delaney
Women! Get back in the kitchen! Feminism is too hard.
Joking. Although, there’s a lot to unpick from this story. I was thinking about the crap I see on social media every day. There’s always a bit of misogyny, trad-wife living, a bit of far-right rage baiting, rose-tinted glasses, the gender pay gap (which is not the same as equal pay, Mr gammon927465454), issues about the UK economy, birth rates dropping in G7 countries (and it’s all supposedly the fault of educated women, btw) etc. There’s so much going on!
My Masters dissertation focused on the work of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Betty Friedan. These three women have always stayed with me. At the end of that thesis I was convinced that I too, was depressed and in need of the tranquillisers.
Jokes aside, their experience as women and then as mothers who had careers of their own made me see the world in a very different way.
Betty was writing about girls who would work hard in school, go to university and drop out as soon as a suitable husband came available, because why the hell would a woman want to pursue education for her own benefit? She should be at home, helping her husband thrive.
Sylvia Plath, after giving birth to two children, resented Ted’s unbroken writing ritual. Nothing, not even fatherhood, got in the way of Ted’s work. Sylvia however—experienced a complete overhaul.
Anne—I’m convinced—started out off her rocker, but her poetry was so spot on with the lived experience of the woman and her unfulfilled dreams. Then, when I read Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You I was gripped by the tragic character of Marilyn Lee— a classic example of a bright girl who never got the chance to realise her potential.
This ghost won’t rest.
“You are the cornerstone of the department, Pamela,” Ted said. “Team three would be lost without you.”
“I understand,” she said coldly. “Thank you for your time.” Pamela shook their hands and left the room. They heard her heavy-heeled footsteps marching away.
“She’s very experienced,” James remarked, looking at the form again.
“She is,” Ted sighed, “but come on? Bill’s just got married and has a family.”
“So does she?”—The Switchboard, Hanna Delaney.
Ouch.
Sure, these writers were thinking about these issues almost half century before I was born, but, isn’t it scary how prevalent some of these arguments still are today? What does a woman do? Does she pursue her career for herself, or does she give everything up for others? There is absolutely a middle ground, where it all works, but that is still struggling for its right to exist, even in a world where we can send billionaires (who think having loads of kids is great despite never actually being home) to Mars.
The story just naturally fell into this realm, and these issues are still alive and kicking. Just ask anyone what the solution is to childcare being so expensive and you’ll get camp A who think a woman’s job is to ‘raise her own children—who’s going to pay for it??’ and camp B who think ‘childcare should be free as working, tax paying parents are valuable to the economy.’
I read that The Twilight Zone has explored issues like this, and often the tales are social commentaries, so I wrote The Switchboard.
Why The Switchboard?
I wanted a bit of nostalgia, and I think it was appropriate here. Is life a switchboard, where we are connected across lines and calls all over our world? Can we pick up the wrong call, or hang up before we’ve finished talking?
I also caught myself really missing the classic telephone, and it occurred to me that I haven’t heard a dial tone in years. Bittersweet.
The Twilight Zone Structure
The brief for these Twilight Zone stories was quite straightforward, but I wasn’t familiar with writing a four act structure and being so involved as a narrator. I don’t like getting involved! I normally write in third person, but seriously—I’m just telling the story. I’m helping the characters get from A to B. Getting involved directly was weird.
Even so, this was a really enjoyable challenge. A challenge and a deadline! What’s not to love?
Perspective
I wanted to tell this story from James’ perspective because I do feel that sometimes, there is a question hanging over modern family dynamics. In heterosexual relationships, is it a big deal if the woman is the main breadwinner? Some say yes, others say no. Some will ask, ‘where do men fit?’ and that’s a perfectly valid question. My answer would be another question: should our self-esteem be so heavily tied up in what our partner earns, or should we celebrate that we can work as a team and keep everything afloat? My husband would be delighted if my earnings meant he could spend less time at work and more time at the gym or painting Warhammer models, for example…
All in all, this was an interesting one to write. Were times always better, as some would have us believe? James could have realised his true potential and discovered what a fun time being a stay-at-home Dad could be, but it’s an opportunity that so many men have never had, and in some cases, never will.
Inspiration for this story
Love and marriage, to be honest. Modern life is so demanding, and expensive! More and more people are pushed out of being able to own anything (even a cat), or have a family if they want one. It’s a wacky world we’re living in, and what better than a sci-fi story to help navigate that?
Life on Mars and Ashes To Ashes were also huge influences. There’s a lot of shoulda-woulda-coulda and reflection, but sometimes it’s too late to act, and you end up haunting yourself.
Psychological Gothic Horror is a blend of classic Gothic Horror and Psychological Horror. Here are some books that blend the two.
Combining the atmospheric, decaying settings of Gothic horror with the internal, maddening dread of psychological horror creates some of the most unsettling literature. Here are books that masterfully bridge these two genres for an intense read:
The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This is a modern Gothic classic and also an unsettling ghost story. Jackson blends the classic image of a Gothic, sentient mansion that is inseparable from the crumbling sanity of its protagonist, Eleanor.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This classic psychological horror tale is told by a woman who has been confined in the ‘nursery’ of a rented old mansion house for the summer. Her physician husband has insisted that she doesn’t work or write and instead rests in the room. She fixates on the yellow peeling wallpaper as she unravels herself.
The Spider by Hanna Delaney. Frances Bryant has moved into an old Georgian house with her family in Liverpool. She senses something isn’t right, and that she is being stalked by a malevolent presence within her own home. Others around her dismiss her condition as nerves, hysteria or anxiety about the new setting. She is only allowed to speak to the reader via letters and journal entries, leading the reader to guess whether or not the ghost is real.
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James. is considered a masterpiece of psychological horror, driven by ambiguity rather than overt scares. The novella centres on a governess’s terrifying, possibly delusional, conviction that malicious ghosts are corrupting two children, leaving readers to question if the evil is supernatural or a product of her own fractured psyche.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A modern Gothic classic tale set in a decaying 1950s Mexican mansion, blending social commentary with slow-burn dread and psychological torment.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. A classic Gothic mystery about a newly-married unnamed heroine who is haunted by the memory of her husband’s first wife. Set in an isolated gloomy mansion off the coast of Cornwall, Rebecca is a classic example of the unreliable narrator in Gothic literature.
Inner demons or outer demons? The classic traits of psychological Gothic horror:
Every book that combines Gothic with psychological horror feature one or more of these things:
An unreliable narrator. This can either be through a single point of view throughout the novel or with a mix of narratives. Examples of this are included in Wilkie Collins novels and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. In The Spider, Frances Bryant is not a narrator but we do see diary entries and letters written by her.
Parallels between decaying buildings (ie mansions) and the protagonist’s state of mind. This is demonstrated in The Yellow Wallpaper especially.
The protagonist’s doubt blurring with the possibility of a paranormal culprit. Both in The Spider and The Haunting Of Hill House, it is unclear as to whether the protagonist is seeing paranormal activity or not. They are unreliable because they demonstrate that they are psychologically altered to other characters.
The Shade In the Sands And Other Stories is out now. Here’s a little bit about this Egyptian Gothic Horror book and the inspiration behind it.
The Shade In The Sands And Other Stories is a Gothic Horror collection of short, dark tales set in the 19th and 20th century.
These five Egyptian Gothic Horror stories are inspired by the greats who have gone before me, and I hope that I have been able to add something new to this sub-genre of Gothic Egyptomania:
The Shabti In the midst of the Blitz of 1941, precious Egyptian artefacts are transported from The World Museum in Liverpool to nearby country houses for safe keeping. The Ecklands receive a Sarcophagus and some smaller treasures in their country home in Frodsham. All seems fine until Mr Eckland takes a mysterious woman as his lover… a woman who he’d do anything for, whatever the cost.
Six Geese a-Laying Young Timothy Wicklow arrives at Harewood Court for a Christmas party in December, 1920. He doesn’t know the host, but as he has no friends or living relatives to spend Christmas with, he accepts. Around a blazing hearth, Mrs Virginia Dawson-Langley will tell him a Christmas story that will change his life forever.
The Shade In the Sands Tom Parker, a young English photographer based in Giza, hasn’t taken a photograph in over six months. When the wife of his missing friend arrives in Giza on the anniversary of her husband’s death, Tom must face the horrors of what happened a year before, and prevent anything from happening to her, too.
The Maiden’s Hand Peter’s cousin Wilfred has brought his university friends to their country home for the weekend. Peter’s uncle, a successful explorer, has many Egyptian artefacts around the house, including one he calls ‘The Maiden’s Hand’. Peter finds himself inexplicably attached to the mummified hand, and when his cousin’s guests awaken something as old as it is sinister, Peter must break the curse before the world as they know it is over.
The Woman With The Emerald Eye Colonel Lindsay and his wife host their friends for Christmas and New Year. At an unwrapping in the colonel’s study, his elderly mother takes a macabre interest in the body of the woman on the table.
Inspiration behind The Shade In The Sands And Other Stories
I recently read The Mummy or Ramses The Damned by Anne Rice and I was utterly hooked. Ramses the Great has awoken in Edwardian London… what could possibly go wrong? While this wasn’t written at the height of Gothic Egyptomania like Bram Stoker’s The Jewel Of Seven Stars was, the themes include:
The quest for immortality.
Eternal love.
Man’s ambition to defeat destiny.
Eternal youth.
I was hooked! Ramses may have been the greatest of the ancient Egyptian Pharoahs but one of the brilliant things about this character is how flawed and human he is:
Do not do this. Yet he reached into his shirt, and reached inside the moneybelt and pulled out the half-full vial and opened the cap with his thumb without even consciously doing it. –Ramses The Damned.
Ramses, no matter how much older he became or how much he’s already witnessed and experimented on: he was still a man. I think Rice’s Byronic hero was spot on for an Egyptian Gothic Horror novel.
The eternal love in this story brought me well out my comfort zone. I’m not much of a romance reader usually, but Rice managed to blend horror with romance effortlessly. I then checked to see what inspired Rice to write such an excellent book. As well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lot no. 249 and The Ring Of Thoth, she also mentioned H.Rider Haggard’s She.
Best horror or suspense books that have a creepy carnival or circus theme:
📚Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury
This is a 1962 dark fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury, and the second book in his Green Town Trilogy. It is about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a travelling carnival that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24. In dealing with the creepy figures of this carnival, the boys learn how to combat fear. The carnival’s leader is the mysterious “Mr. Dark”, who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople’s secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those it enslaves. Mr. Dark’s presence is countered by that of Will’s father, Charles Halloway, the janitor of the town library, who harbors his own secret fear of growing older because he feels he is too old to be Will’s father.
📚The Ring – Hanna Delaney
The Ring is a Gothic Horror novel set in late-Victorian Liverpool. Eager to prove himself detective material, Constable Lacey investigates the disappearance of a local thief. Enquiries soon lead him to the new circus in town, where he meets the mysterious ringmaster Ezra Fontini and his devoted performers. Dazzled by the magical world of the circus, Lacey becomes infatuated with one of Fontini’s charming young aerialists, Ellen French. The show is welcomed by the locals until Fontini’s headline performer is found dead. Overwhelmed with witness accounts that can’t be explained by logic, the police call on Inspector Daniel Muldoon to find out what’s keeping people from leaving their homes after dark.
📚Circus Of The Dead – Kimberley Loth
Circus of the Dead is book one in Kimberly Loth’s horror series that follows a young teen as she finds herself in a situation that could be the death of her. Her mother sends her to Louisiana to stay with her Uncle Luke for the summer. She was told that he called and needed her help, so her mother sends her. This is a Southern Gothic Horror novel.
📚The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstein
This is a dark fantasy romance novel about Le Cirque des Rêves, a mysterious, magical circus that appears unannounced and operates only at night, serving as the arena for a dangerous magical duel between two young illusionists, Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair, who were trained since childhood by rival mentors to compete until only one survives, but their escalating, love-fuelled rivalry and creations within the circus threaten to destroy it and everyone involved, forcing them to find a way to end the game and save themselves and the circus’s devoted followers
📚Cique du Freak – Darren Shan
This is a horror-fantasy novel about an ordinary boy who becomes a vampire’s assistant. After attending a forbidden, grotesque freak show, Darren steals a deadly spider from a vampire, Mr. Crepsley, leading to a desperate, life-saving pact that plunges him into a dark, supernatural world.
Each of these books features a supernatural or creepy circus/carnival.
Have you read any of these circus-based horror books?
The Ring is an occult detective novel set in late-Victorian Liverpool and features supernatural detective Daniel Muldoon. The Ring is a standout in Delaney’s Muldoon Mysteries series, and it is a 5-star read for fans of Gothic crime hybrids. Whether you’re drawn to its historical depth, supernatural twists, or razor-sharp pacing, this book delivers and leaves you eager for more.
Gothic Egyptomania literature blends the supernatural, forbidden knowledge, and the uncanny allure of ancient Egyptian artefacts, often featuring vengeful mummies or haunted relics. Key works in this subgenre range from Victorian classics like Richard Marsh’s The Beetle and Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars to modern retellings like Anne Rice’s The Mummy, or Ramses The Damned.
Here are six great Gothic Egyptomania books and short stories.
The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker. This is an Edwardian Gothic Horror novel (1903) by Bram Stoker is a Victorian Gothic horror novel about a London archaeologist, Abel Trelawny, attempting to resurrect Tera, an ancient Egyptian sorcerer-queen, using a mysterious jewel. Narrated by a young barrister, the plot involves supernatural possession, curses, and deadly, mysterious occurrences.
The Beetle by Richard Marsh. Released the same year as Dracula, (1897) Marsh’s Gothic mystery novel about a vengeful Egyptian shape-shifter and a British politician originally sold more copies than Dracula. This Gothic story is told in the traditional multi-narrative way of crime and mystery novels of the time.
The Ring Of Thoth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published in the Cornhill Magazine in 1890, this Gothic Egyptomanian tale tells the story of a student who falls asleep in the Louvre, waking up in the middle of the night. What he discovers will confirm everything he ever suspected about eternal life and love.
Lot 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Another creepy horror story about an ancient Egyptian mummy and the strange Egyptology student who has it in his study. Recently this was adapted for television in BBC’s A Ghost Story For Christmas.
The Mummy/Ramses The Damned. A horror tale that blends romance and adventure in Edwardian London. Ramses The Great has awoken in Edwardian London, his heart still longing for his lost love Cleopatra. He is the only one in the world who knows how to make the elixir of life, and there’s no telling what he’ll do with it.
The Shade In The Sands And Other Stories. A collection of new Gothic horror stories inspired by Victorian and Edwardian Egyptomania. Cursed artefacts, or just bad luck? These stories explore ancient curses, dark romance, eternal life, love and destruction.
Read more about Gothic Egyptomania here:
What is Egyptomania and why is it Gothic? by Hanna Delaney
From Rome to Arnold Vosloo’s Imhotep: why are we obsessed?
Fritze goes beyond the examination of Egyptomania in art and architecture to reveal its impact on religion, philosophy, historical study, literature, travel, science and popular culture. All those who remain captivated by the ongoing phenomenon of Egyptomania will revel in the mysteries uncovered in this book.
The Egyptian Gothic consists of novels and short stories about ancient Egyptian mummies returning to life to seek retribution or romance as well as cursed object tales. Now mostly forgotten, from the 1880s through to the 1920s it was more popular than the vampire genre.
This book is the first to examine the genre by using the frequent sensory descriptions within these texts to interrogate attitudes towards
