There’s something uniquely chilling about a haunted house story- the creeping dread, the eerie silence, the feeling that something unseen is watching. Whether it’s a crumbling mansion filled with restless spirits, a cursed estate hiding dark secrets, or an abandoned house that refuses to let its visitors leave, these stories tap into our deepest fears.
In this list, we’ve rounded up the best haunted house horror books that will send shivers down your spine. From classic ghost stories to modern psychological horror, these books are packed with supernatural suspense, eerie atmospheres, and plenty of spine-tingling moments. If you love ghostly encounters, sinister secrets, and houses with minds of their own, you’re in for a terrifyingly good time.
So grab a warm blanket, keep the lights on, and get ready for some truly haunting reads.
Man, F*ck This House by Brian Asman
Sabrina Haskins and her family have just moved into their dream home, a gorgeous Craftsman in the rapidly-growing Southwestern city of Jackson Hill. Sabrina’s a bored and disillusioned home-maker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.
At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren’t what they seem.
Sabrina’s hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbors are odd or absent. And Sabrina’s already-fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.
Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they’re far from its only residents…
How Long Does It Take to Read Man, F*ck This House by Brian Asman
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 5 hours and 16 minutes to finish Man, F*ck This House by Brian Asman.
The September House by Carissa Orlando
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.
Margaret is not most people.
Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
How Long Does It Take to Read The September House by Carissa Orlando
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 44 minutes to finish The September House by Carissa Orlando.
Old Country by Matt Query & Harrison Query
In this terrifyingly twisted thriller, a young couple discovers the horror held within their newly purchased dream house.
It’s the house of their dreams. Former marine Harry and his wife, Sasha, have packed up their life and their golden retriever, Dash, and fled the corporate rat race to live off the land in rural Idaho. Their breathtaking new home sits on more than forty acres of meadow, aspen trees, and pine forest in the Teton Valley. Even if their friends and family think it’s a strange choice for an up-and-coming pair of urban professionals, Harry and Sasha couldn’t be happier about the future they’re building, all by their lonesome.
That is, until their nearest neighbors, Dan and Lucy Steiner, come bearing more than housewarming gifts. Dan and Lucy warn Harry and Sasha of a malevolent spirit that lives in the valley, one that with every season will haunt them in fresh, ever-more-diabolical ways. At first, it seems like an old wives’ tale. But when spring arrives, so does the first evil manifestation, challenging everything Harry and Sasha thought they knew about the world.
As each season passes, the spirit grows stronger, the land more sinister, and each encounter more dangerous. Will Harry and Sasha learn the true meaning of a forever home before it’s too late? Haunting and bone-chilling, Old Country is a spellbinding debut in the horror genre.
How Long Does It Take to Read Old Country by Matt Query & Harrison Query
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 44 minutes to finish Old Country by Matt Query & Harrison Query.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
How Long Does It Take to Read How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 58 minutes to finish How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix.
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between ocean and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture—claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mold spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julia and James.
Written in creepy, potent prose, The Grip of It is an enthralling, psychologically intense novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us, mapping itself onto bodies and the relationships we cherish.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 9 hours and 12 minutes to finish The Grip of It by Jac Jemc.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.
How Long Does It Take to Read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 40 minutes to finish Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
“Mom seems off.”
Her brother’s words echo in Sam Montgomery’s ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone.
She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam’s excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out.
But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above.
To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried.
How Long Does It Take to Read A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 8 hours and 14 minutes to finish A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher.
Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there.
Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back, and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?
There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them, and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.
How Long Does It Take to Read Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 28 minutes to finish Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey.
Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts. Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter’s holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It’s also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen — and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong.
How Long Does It Take to Read Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 14 hours and 26 minutes to finish Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie.
Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. For years it has remained empty, overgrown, abandoned. Soon the door will be opened for the first time in decades. But something is waiting, lurking in the shadows, anxious to meet its new guests…
When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween night in one of the country’s most infamous haunted houses, he reluctantly agrees. At least he won’t be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror. But what begins as a simple publicity stunt will become a fight for survival. The entity they have awakened will follow them, torment them, threatening to make them a part of the bloody legacy of Kill Creek.
How Long Does It Take to Read Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 13 hours and 52 minutes to finish Kill Creek by Scott Thomas.
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.
Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds, disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift. All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and it no longer intends to walk alone . . .
How Long Does It Take to Read A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 10 hours and 52 minutes to finish A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand.
Slade House by David Mitchell
Keep your eyes peeled for a small black iron door.
Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents — an odd brother and sister — extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late…
Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house story—as only David Mitchell could imagine it.
How Long Does It Take to Read Slade House by David Mitchell
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 8 hours and 2 minutes to finish Slade House by David Mitchell.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 17 hours and 4 minutes to finish The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
What was it like? Living in that house.
Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.
Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.
How Long Does It Take to Read Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 12 hours and 58 minutes to finish Home Before Dark by Riley Sager.
The Shining by Stephen King
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Shining by Stephen King
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 16 hours and 34 minutes to finish The Shining by Stephen King.
White Pines by Gemma Amor
A woman, returning to her roots. A town, built on sacred land. A secret, cloaked in tradition and lore.
Welcome to White Pines.
Don’t get too comfortable.
How Long Does It Take to Read White Pines by Gemma Amor
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 14 hours and 44 minutes to finish White Pines by Gemma Amor.
The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house–a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse–objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.
How Long Does It Take to Read The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
If you read at a standard rate, say 30 pages per hour, it will take you 11 hours and 46 minutes to finish The Invited by Jennifer McMahon.
Conclusion
And that’s our list of haunted house horror books—perfect for those nights when you want to spook yourself just a little too much. There’s something so eerie yet irresistible about a house that holds secrets of its own, don’t you think?
Have you read any of these, or do you have a favorite haunted house horror novel that we need to check out? Let us know—We’re always up for another chilling read!