There’s something deeply unsettling about folk horror—the eerie isolation, the ancient rituals, the creeping sense that something older than time itself is lurking just beneath the surface. Whether it’s a remote village guarding dark traditions, a cursed forest whispering forgotten myths, a pagan cult performing chilling ceremonies or an unshakable feeling that nature is watching, folk horror taps into our most primal fears.
In this list, we’ve gathered the best folk horror books that will pull you into dark folklore tales, rural horror nightmares, and supernatural legends passed down through generations. From haunting small-town mysteries to twisted mythology retellings, these books blend psychological terror with the inescapable power of the unknown.
So, if you love twisted mythology, eerie small towns, and stories that make you question reality, you’re in for a hauntingly atmospheric ride.
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
It was almost as if time had not touched the village of Cornwall Coombe. The quiet, peaceful place was straight out of a bygone era, with well-cared-for Colonial houses, a white-steepled church fronting a broad Common. Ned and Beth Constantine chanced upon the hamlet and immediately fell in love with it. This was exactly the haven they dream of. Or so they thought.
For Ned and his family, Cornwall Coombe was to become a place of ultimate horror.
How Long Does It Take to Read Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 22 minutes to finish Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon.
Lost in the Garden by Adam S. Leslie
“Like an old wives’ tale, like a piece of wisdom passed down through generations which no one questioned or even thought about too hard. Like folklore. It was just something everyone knew, a rule to be followed:
Don’t go to Almanby.”
Heather, Rachel and Antonia are going to Almanby. Heather needs to find her boyfriend who, like so many, went and never came back. Rachel has a mysterious package to deliver, and her life depends on it. And Antonia—poor, lovestruck Antonia just wants the chance to spend the day with Heather.
So off they set through the idyllic yet perilous English countryside, in which nature thrives in abundance and summer lasts forever. And as they travel through ever-shifting geography and encounter strange voices in the fizz of shortwave radio, the harder it becomes to tell friend from foe.
Creepy, dreamlike, unsettling and unforgettable—you are about to join the privileged few who come to understand exactly why we don’t go to Almanby.
How Long Does It Take to Read Lost in the Garden by Adam S. Leslie
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 14 hours and 52 minutes to finish Lost in the Garden by Adam S. Leslie.
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
In this atmospheric Appalachian gothic, the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia must unearth long-buried secrets to carve out a future when the supernatural bargain entwining their fate with their ancestral land is suddenly ruptured
Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.
Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself.
Brimming with aching loss and the universal struggle between honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one’s own, The Bog Wife is a haunting invocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bound us.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 12 minutes to finish The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister.
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby’s son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place. Convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, Juliette seeks the help of the Beacons, a seemingly benevolent group of occultists. Richard, to try and keep the boy out of his mind, has turned his attention to the field opposite the house, where he patiently digs the barren dirt in search of a legendary oak tree. But as they delve further into their grief, both uncover more than they set out to.
Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.
How Long Does It Take to Read Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 8 hours and 32 minutes to finish Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley.
Cunning Folk by Adam L.G. Nevill
Money’s tight and their new home is a fixer-upper. Deep in rural South West England, with an ancient wood at the foot of the garden, Tom and his family are miles from anywhere and anyone familiar. His wife, Fiona, was never convinced that buying the money-pit at auction was a good idea. Not least because the previous owner committed suicide. Though no one can explain why.
Within days of crossing the threshold, when hostilities break out with the elderly couple next door, Tom’s dreams of future contentment are threatened by an escalating tit-for-tat campaign of petty damage and disruption.
Increasingly isolated and tormented, Tom risks losing his home, everyone dear to him and his mind. Because, surely, only the mad would suspect that the oddballs across the hedgerow command unearthly powers. A malicious magic even older than the eerie wood and the strange barrow therein. A hallowed realm from where, he suspects, his neighbours draw a hideous power.
How Long Does It Take to Read Cunning Folk by Adam L.G. Nevill
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 12 minutes to finish Cunning Folk by Adam L.G. Nevill.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother’s home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods.
When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?
Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.
Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 50 minutes to finish The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 10 minutes to finish The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay ’til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters your homes at will. She stands next to your bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened.The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in so doing send the town spiraling into the dark, medieval practices of the past.”A powerfully spooky piece of writing” – The Financial Times”CREEPY” – Heat Magazine”HEX is reminiscent of vintage Stephen King, and I can think of no higher praise. Chilling, moving and, in its odd way, not a little profound” – John Connolly”A truly terrifying parable about mankind’s depravity … the story is not merely unsettling, it is horrifying … read it if you dare!” – Kirkus Reviews”Olde Heuvelt’s HEX sets ancient magic against contemporary technology to create a kind of dark fairy tale that seems ultimately believable in today’s world. A terrific debut novel” – Jeffrey Ford”Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s HEX is the BEST horror debut since John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In” – Rue Morgue
How Long Does It Take to Read HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 48 minutes to finish HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt.
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom
Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.
A spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger – only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past.
Enter Slewfoot, a powerful spirit of antiquity newly woken … and trying to find his own role in the world. Healer or destroyer? Protector or predator? But as the shadows walk and villagers start dying, a new rumor is whispered: Witch.
Both Abitha and Slewfoot must swiftly decide who they are, and what they must do to survive in a world intent on hanging any who meddle in the dark arts.
How Long Does It Take to Read Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 10 minutes to finish Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom.
The Lost Village by Camilla Sten
Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.
But there will be no turning back.
Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:
They are not alone.
They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?
How Long Does It Take to Read The Lost Village by Camilla Sten
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 20 minutes to finish The Lost Village by Camilla Sten.
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
“If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney – that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.
It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.
I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn’t stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget….”
How Long Does It Take to Read The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 16 minutes to finish The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.
The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill
Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common, and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired, they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.
Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. This place of dark ritual is home to a bestial predator that is still alive in the ancient forest. And now they’re the prey.
As the four friends struggle for salvation, they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees…
How Long Does It Take to Read The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 56 minutes to finish The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill.
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.
For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.
The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?
A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.
How Long Does It Take to Read Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 5 hours and 4 minutes to finish Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss.
The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill
One million years of evolution didn’t change our nature. Nor did it bury the horrors predating civilisation. Ancient rites, old deities and savage ways can reappear in the places you least expect.
Lifestyle journalist Katrine escaped past traumas by moving to a coast renowned for seaside holidays and natural beauty. But when a vast hoard of human remains and prehistoric artefacts is discovered in nearby Brickburgh, a hideous shadow engulfs her life.
Helene, a disillusioned lone parent, lost her brother, Lincoln, six years ago. Disturbing subterranean noises he recorded prior to vanishing, draw her to Brickburgh’s caves. A site where early humans butchered each other across sixty thousand years. Upon the walls, images of their nameless gods remain.
Amidst rumours of drug plantations and new sightings of the mythical red folk, it also appears that the inquisitive have been disappearing from this remote part of the world for years. A rural idyll where outsiders are unwelcome and where an infernal power is believed to linger beneath the earth. A timeless supernormal influence that only the desperate would dream of confronting. But to save themselves and those they love, and to thwart a crimson tide of pitiless barbarity, Kat and Helene are given no choice. They were involved and condemned before they knew it.
‘The Reddening’ is an epic story of folk and prehistoric horrors written by Adam Nevill, the author of ‘The Ritual’, ‘Last Days’, ‘No One Gets Out Alive’ and the three times winner of The August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 50 minutes to finish The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again.
Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?
How Long Does It Take to Read Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 5 hours and 52 minutes to finish Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand.
The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
In this emotionally raw and propulsive folk horror-mystery, a journalist goes to a small town and unravels a dark secret that the women have been keeping for generations.
Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.
When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.
As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?
Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 40 minutes to finish The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson.
Conclusion
And that’s our list of folk horror books—perfect for when you want a story that lingers long after you turn the last page. There’s something about these stories that feels ancient, like they’re unearthing forgotten folklore or warning us about things we were never meant to understand.
Have you read any of these? Or do you have a favorite folk horror novel we should check out? Let us know—we’re always looking for another eerie, unsettling read!