32 Haunted House Books To Read If You Want To Be Super Spooked

Jack and Stephanie Singleton are on the verge of a divorce and find themselves lost on a deserted road in Alabama on their way to a counseling session.  They follow a long dirt road from the advice of a highway patrolman when their tires are flattened by spikes in the road.

Conveniently, they aren’t far from an old Victorian house in the backwoods being run as an inn by a strange family of three.  They check-in and meet another couple, Randy and Leslie, that ended up there under the same strange circumstances.  Things go downhill quickly when White, a serial killer, locks them in the house after the lights go out and tosses a can down the chimney with a message one it: unless they kill one of their own by dawn, he will kill them all.

I think I liked this one and I actually just realized it’s a movie, too! I need to watch it.

Felix Allsey is a travel writer with a unique and not so lucrative niche of haunted places.  After a lot of hard work, he convinced the owner of the Rotterdam Mansion to let him stay for a haunting 13 nights after he convinced himself that this would be his big break.

Soon, his oldest best friend Thomas joins him and the two avoid talking about a recent rough patch in their friendship before falling into their old dark humor rhythms.  Soon things start going wrong when they hear screams and see figures around the house.  Felix realizes his book, and his mind is tilting from nonfiction to true horror.

I really liked this one but my copy has a printing issue so I need to reread it without that haha.

Cas Lowood kills the dead.  So did his father before he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he was out to kill.  Now Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and spirit-sniffing cat, following legends and lore to destroy the murderous dead.

The next hunt is a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood and he expects the usual: track, hunt, kill, but instead, he finds a girl entangled in curses and rage.  She is wearing the dress she was murdered in and kills any and every person that steps foot in the Victorian she used to call home, except Cas.

I liked this one but I thought it would be a little creepier than it was and I didn’t care for the romance at all in this.

James and Julie are starting fresh in a small town outside of the city where they met. The house they settled in has other plans and strange things start happening.

Their journey to find the source of torment in the house takes them through the history of their strange neighbors and mysterious previous residents.

I definitely want to read this one!

Angela’s son committed suicide and, working to rebuild her law practice, she goes to the family home where it happened to find answers. Instead she finds an evil force driving locals to violence.

Tom and Jenny Decker lose their cheap Manhattan apartment but stumble on a surprisingly affordable house in the suburbs.

Tom isn’t ready for the responsibility of bills, a mortgage, and and unexpected pregnancy, but he feels like a winner after what he finds in the basement.

His new job has him bringing home the big bucks so Jenny can follow her dreams, but his obsession with the basement grows. To save her family, Jenny has to expose everything before it destroys them.

I think I would like to give this one a shot, too.

For just a check and a handshake, Chuck Dutton scores a massive family estate to sell through Music City Salvage, his family operation.

His daughter Dahlia is in charge of the project and they set off for Chattanooga, Tennessee to the waiting Withrow House.

The old cemetery was left out of the paperwork, but so were a lot of things about this strange property.

I really want to read this one. It’s definitely on my wishlist!

Florence and her younger brother, Giles, are orphans, neglected by their guardian uncle, living in a deteriorating New England mansion.

Their first governess had a sudden and violent death. When her replacement arrives, strange things begin to happen. Florence believes Miss Taylor is a malevolent spirit trying to harm Giles. Now she has to use all her intelligence and ingenuity to protect her brother.

Lucas Graham is a washed up crime writer desperate for a comeback so when he is promised access to Jeffrey Halcomb, a cult leader and death row inmate, he can’t say no.

Soon he’s on his way to the beach of Washington to the farmhouse where Halcomb’s followers flocked. He wants to tell the real story of the followers but is forced to put the story together himself after Halcomb goes back on his promise of exclusive information.

But he’s not alone. Halcomb’s devout followers were promised eternal life and remain alive in the walls of the house.

Andrea thinks all her younger brother, Jim, needs to recover from the trauma of a serious car accident is hard work and turning an old mansion into a country inn is the perfect project.

Jim is haunted by voices and visions from the moment he steps in the house. He becomes obsessed with the neglected graveyard, concerning Andrea. They must confront this evil or face lethal consequences.

Jack knows he is lucky, surviving a tragedy that claimed many lives, though he was forced into semi-retirement from life changing injuries. Now he investigates reports of paranormal activity.

This has led to him having his own strange experiences though he has already had some after his accident. He has odd bouts of astral projection that have presented their own questions.

A young woman shows up at his door saying her home is infested with spirits and this evil force will change Jack’s perception forever.

This young married couple has a dark secret as they move into a new apartment next to a graveyard. Strange things start happening and people move out one by one until the new family is left alone with something lurking in the basement.

I can’t wait to read this one!

Lucy’s mother died when she was three but lives with her cold father in a Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods. She grew up exploring the dark halls with her cousin Margaret.

Her Aunt Penelope disappears one day while walking around the woods and Lucy finds herself lost without the only mother she’s ever known.

Margaret becomes obsessed with the attic saying she can hear her dead mother’s voice coming from the walls. Her sanity slowly unravels and all Lucy can do is watch. Until she starts hearing voices, too.

I would like to read this one a lot, too!

Edith refuses to let anyone in Ashburn House. After her death, Adrienne, her only living relative, inherits the house and it’s a lifeline she can’t afford to refuse.

She doesn’t believe in ghosts, but it’s hard to ignore the strange happenings at the house.

She starts to believe there is more truth in thee whispered rumors about the house as she uncovers more of it’s secrets.

The only thing she truly knows is that Ashburn’s dead are not at rest.

Scarlett is questioning her rash deecision of moving into the Lilith House, an abandoned mansion and former reform school for troubled girls, when she finds out about it’s violent past.

The surrounding woods are haunted by the ghost of an indigenous man and drumbeats can be heard coming from them. Screams echo in the walls of the house and Scarlett is afraid. A friend of hers attended the school and was thought to have run away but the truth could be more sinister than anyone thought.

Scarlett and her daughter will come face to face with the evil of Lilith House that has lasted over a century.

Dr. Grace Sullivan inherits an empty house, a nosy neighbor, and a restless spirits of a century old murder after the death of her parents.

She refuses to believe in ghosts even after what she’s witnessed and when they spirits become dangerous, a team of ghost hunters come in to investigate.

She continues to deny the paranormal goings on and refuses to believe the investigators. She struggles with grief and developing feelings as the mystery of the house deepens.

Lily’s absence is deeply mourned by her family in a mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover.

The house is also unwell, grumbling and confusing visitors with it’s maze-like rooms. The walls are inhabited by generations of women and Miranda is far more attuned to this than her brother and father.

One night she vanishes and thee survivors are left to tell her story.

In 1878, the Bliss House was built as a country retreat in the rich farmland of Old Gate, Virginia. It’s an impressive, historic, and most of all, mysterious house with decades of strange occurrences, disappearances, and deaths but remains very much alive. Rainey needs a new start and moves to the home her family lived in for over a century. The Bliss House.

The house begins to reveal itself again the night of the housewarming party through haunting visions and even a death.

The Chinese of colonial Malaya may be ruled by the British, but they stick with their ancient customs and in the town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions are still around.

Li Lan is the daughter of a bankrupt family and has few prospects but fate intervenes with a strange proposal from the powerful Lim family. They want her to be the ghost bride for their only son who recently died under mysterious circumstances. This rarely used tradition is done to help placate restless spirits. While is would give her a home for the rest of her life, it comes at a terrible price.

A visit to the Lim mansion leaves her haunted by her would-be suitor and her desire for Tian Bai, the new Lim heir. Every night she is drawn into the parallel world of the Chinese afterlife’s ghost cities, paper funerals, and the mysterious Er Lang, a charming guardian spirit. She must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets and the truth of her own family before she is stuck in the ghostly world forever.

Part psychological thriller, part supernatural horror, A Head Full of Ghosts is the story of the Barrett family.  This normal New England family is torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie starts showing signs of acute schizophrenia.

Her doctors can’t stop her descent into madness and soon their stable home is a house of horrors.  Soon they turn to Father Wandeerly, the local priest, who suggests an exorcism.  He also contacts a production company that is eager to film the family’s plight.  The family agrees with a pile of medical bills after Marjorie’s father has been out of work for over a year.

The Possession becomes a hit reality show that ends in tragedy and becomes the stuff of urban legends.  15 years later, Marjorie’s sister Merry is being interviewed about the events by a bestselling author when we find out what really happened.

I got this in a book exchange and I enjoyed it!

Jenny has no interest in her surroundings when she moves to the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather. Until she meets Tamsin. Since Tamsin died over 300 years ago, she has restlessly haunted the estate, trapped by a trauma she can’t remember.

To help her, Jenny has to delve deeper into the dark world than any human has in hundreds of years, facing danger that will change her forever.

Paige is forced to move into a new house with her mom and brother in small-town Idaho after leaving LA.  They’re renting an old mansion and weird things start happening: one can of ravioli becomes 12, unreadable words are appearing on walls, and Paige’s brother is roaming the house at night.

Not to mention the downstairs neighbor who knows more than he’s letting on.  Paige starts investigating and finds out a cult used to conduct ritual experiments in the house.  This is a collection of letters, photographs, and journal entries all left behind in the harrowing aftermath.

I read this one years ago and I liked it the best in this series. I think it’s in a cool format, too, but I would have to check (just packed it up.)

The Finch house sits at the end of a dark prairie road in the middle of nowhere Kansas. It’s been empty and overgrown for years but the door will be opened for the first time in decades soon. Something is lurking in the shadows to greet its new guests.

I really look forward to reading this one.

When Scott and Madline’s Aunt Amity commits suicide, they are called back to Caveat, the decaying mansion in the Hollywood Hills they were raised in. But their reclusive cousins don’t welcome them. Scott wants to leave but can’t pry his sister from the haunted “House of Usher in the Hollywood Hills.”

The house is decorated by old Hollywood hotels and movie set, hiding a dark family secret from the days of the silent film stars. A collection of hypnotic eight-limbed abstract images on paper allows them to briefly flatten and fragment time to transport themselves into the past and future in visions that are puzzling and terrifying. To protect Madeline as she falls more under Caveats spell, Scott must use the spiders himself.

One postwar summer day, Dr. Faraday is called to a patient at the lonely Hundreds Hall, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries.

The Georgian house was once impressive and handsome but on the decline, crumbling, and choked with weeds. The owners are struggling to keep pace with society and conflicts of their own, but are they haunted with more than a dying way of life?

It’s been two decades since tragedy struck Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers, causing one student, Carly Johnson, to disappear.  The main suspect is Kaitlyn, “the girl of nowhere.”  Kaitlyn’s diary is found in the ruins of the school and soon they reveal the dark thoughts of a disturbed mind.

Its charred pages tell a sinister story of what happened that night and Kaitlyn is at the center of it, but Kaitly is Carly Johnson’s alter ego.  Carly gets the day, Kaitlyn gets the night, and it’s at night when the mystery surrounding Dead House unravels.

I liked this one and it’s in a really cool format.

Ben and Marian want to escape their stuffy Brooklyn apartment for the summer and can’t pass up a mansion in upstate New York for just $900 for the whole summer. The only catch is Mrs. Allardyce who lives behind an intricately carved door in a distant wing of the house. They have to prepare her meals all summer.

She never seems to leave her room and it’s clear soon that that something weird is happening in the house. Before they find out what’s really behind the door, they find out the cheap rental came at a terrible cost.

Helen and Nate are ready for change when they leave suburbia and their jobs to take on the ultimate DIY project on forty-four acres of land: building the house of their dreams.

Soon they discover the house has a dark past and Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed with the legend of Hattie Breckenridge who lived and died there a century ago.

As Helen starts collecting supplies for the renovation, she starts to unearth, literally, the tragic lives of Hattie’s descendants who all died suspiciously and are still looking for something in the present.

I would love to read this one!

Abi is a servant in a stately London home, Greave Hall, where she runs away but is soon recaptured and forced to suffer under the rule of the tyrannical rule of Mrs. Cotton, the housekeeper. The house has a dark secret and something ghostly lives there leading Abi to a truth someone tried very hard to bury.

Eliza Caine arrived in Norfolk in 1867 to start a job as a governess at Gaudlin Hall. As she makes her way across the platform, invisible hands push her into the path of a train and is only saved by a vigilant passing doctor.

At Gaudlin Hall, she is greeted by Isabella and Eustace, the two kids in her charge. There are no parents or adults with no explanation. Later that night another terrifying experience reinforces that something is wrong. If she and the kids want to survive the violence of the house, she must first get to the bottom of it’s secrets and confront the demons of it’s past.

Dan Crawford is a sixteen-year-old going to the New Hampshire College Prep program, the chance of a lifetime.  Once he arrives for the summer program, he finds out the usual housing is closed so they’ll be living in Brookline Dorm, a former psychiatric hospital.  Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, start exploring the dorm and uncovering the secrets of what really went on here in the asylum’s dark past.

This is a fun YA series that I enjoyed. The third in the series is my favorite though.

Wraxford Hall is a decaying mansion in the English countryside with a sinister reputation after a family disappeared there. Now, Constance Langston has inherited the mansion and all it’s mysteries, which she is no stranger to after growing up in a house marked by the death of her sister.

In a desperate attempt to coax her mother back to health, Constance holds a seance hoping to find supernatural comfort. Instead, she was left alone in the world, alone with Wrexford Hall.

Now she must find the truth at the heart of everything sinister going on, even if it costs her her life.