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.
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