Fall is my favorite time of year to curl up with a comfy throw blanket and good book next to a roaring fire, so I thought I’d share a few of my seasonal favorites!
While everyone’s tolerance for what is scary varies WILDY, I tried my best to create a mix of books that were merely felt seasonally atmospheric, to those old scary stories your grandpa might tell you around a campfire, to books I would only recommend to the most hardcore fans of spookish stories that don’t scare easily.
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Atmospheric Books For Fall
From murder mysteries, to psychological thrillers and gothic dramas, these are some of my very favorite non-spookish fall reads featuring all the thrills without the chills.
- Hallowe’en Party – Agatha Christie
- And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
- The Death Of Mrs. Westaway – Ruth Ware
- Nine Coaches Waiting – Mary Stewart
- Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
- If you’ve already read Rebecca, I’d suggest trying the book Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim, which many people believe inspired Rebecca. While the storylines have some overlap, Vera is gripping and terrifying in it’s own way, especially for a book written in 1921.
- The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield
- The Woman In White – Wilkie Collins
- My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Murier
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab
Vintage Spooky Stories For Around The Campfire
These are books I’d place in the category of stories that your grandpa might tell you around a campfire. Most of them were written in the 1800s (or read like they were in the case of The Woman in Black, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, and The Birds & Other Stories), so while there are ghosts and things that go bump in the night, most of them feel more like watching an old episode of the twilight zone, spooky yet still cozy if you will.
- M.R. James Collected Ghost Stories – M.R. James
- M.R. James is probably my favorite author to read in the fall. His stories are the epitome of all things dark academia. However it can be tricky to track down a current publication that has his complete collection of short stories. There are 33 in total. The kindle ebook I linked to here has the complete collection. Most of these stories can also be found in the public domain to read for free here. And if you have an audible subscription many of his short stories are available to listen to for free as part of the audible plus library.
- The Turn Of The Screw – Henry James
- The Woman In Black – Susan Hill
- The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
- We Have Always Lived In The Castle – Shirley Jackson
- The Birds & Other Stories – Daphne du Maurier
- While Hitchcock may have based his famous film of the same name on this short story by Daphne du Maurier, the two stories have very little in common. While each story in the collection is excellent, I particularly liked The Apple Tree and The Old Man.
- Ghost Stories – E.F. Benson
- If you’ve already read all of M.R. James and want something similar to try, E.F. Benson’s short stories have a very similar vibe you might also enjoy!
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Other Stories – Washington Irving
And since we’re on the topic of classic horror fiction from the 1800s, if you’re thinking of reading Dracula this fall, may I suggest you look into reading Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu instead? Written in 1872, 26 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I found it infinitely more engaging and entertaining of a read, not to mention a book that was very much ahead of its time. (It’s also about 300 pages shorter than Dracula so there is also that lol)
Modern Thrillers With Some Spooky Chills
These books by modern authors offer a lot of on the edge of your seat thrills with just a handful of chills, some of which I’d say are more intense than others, I’ve gone ahead and tried to sort them in order of least to most chilling.
- The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
- While this book has some dark moments, and it’s fair share of ghosts, it’s pretty light on the spookish scale. If you are an audiobook person, pick up the full case recording. It’s amazing.
- Daisy Darker – Alice Feeney
- If you like Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”, you will probably love this modern tale that uses a similar plot device. The twists and turns in this book were just so so good.
- Lock Every Door – Riley Sager
- This book is like Rosemary’s Baby lite to me. Same old creepy apartment with suspicious neighbors vibes, but definitely leans more thriller and less horror.
- The Last Heir To The Blackwood Library – Hester Fox
- A young woman inherits a sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors with an giant dusty library that may or may not have a mind of its own… ummm yes please? This book was as good as it sounds and that’s saying a lot.
- Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- If you enjoy gothic horror, this book was such a fun take on utilizing the tropes of the genre through the lens of a different culture and using them as a vehicle to address issues like racism, xenophobia, colonization and class disparity. This is so much more than just another haunted house story.
- The Silent Companions – Laura Purcell
- Speaking of gothic horror, this book ticked all the boxes for me. Young woman in a creepy gothic estate in the middle of the english countryside? Check. Servants and villagers whom are all curiously cold and unfriendly? Check. Mysterious locked door in the house that magically opens one day to reveal a life size painted wooden figure of the young woman? Yep. All the spooky vibes and chills for days? Oh yes. Highly recommend.
- Home Before Dark – Riley Sager
- The Turn Of The Key – Ruth Ware
- I love Ruth Ware and this is one of my all time favorite books she has written. Loosely based on Henry James The Turn Of The Screw, I devoured this book in a single sitting. While all her books pack in the thrills, this one leans much spookier than her other stories, so reader beware, creepy children and smart homes with a mind of their own lie ahead.
- The Shining – Stephen King
- I just want to make a note here to say that the book is nothing like the Stanley Kubrick film with Jack Nicholson. The book is more of a slow phycological thriller than anything else. It has very few gorey or overly spookish scenes. So if you didn’t like the movie, you may still love the book.
- The Last House On Needless Street – Catriona Ward
- This is by far the spookiest book in this grouping, however this book is so much more than meets the eye. It is masterfully written and tells a complex story with some major plot twists that I guarantee you won’t see coming. But be warned, it does deal with some pretty disturbing and difficult topics.
For My Spookish Bookish Lovers
Let me just say right off the bat that the below list is extremely subjective because what one person finds scary another person often finds comical. BUT these are all books that I think most horror fans would agree top the list of genre classics and are likely a bit more intense than the average reader may enjoy.
- The Haunting Of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
- The House Next Door – Anne Rivers Siddons
- Don’t let the cover fool you. This is one of the best haunted house stories I’ve ever read.
- The Elementals – Michael McDowell
- Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin
- NOS4A2 – Joe Hill
- Technically this one is centered more around Christmas than Fall thematically, but I loved the story so much and thought it was so well done that I had to include it on my list.
Other Recommendations From My Instagram Community
At the start of fall, I asked my instagram family what their favorite spookish fall reads were, so I wanted to be sure and add any of their responses that didn’t making it into the above list to this post as well!
- Edgar Allan Poe
- The Pit and the Pendulum
- The Fall of the House of Usher
- Cask of Amontillado
- The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
- Ghost Story – Peter Straub
- The Shadows – Alex North
- 20th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill
- Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires – Grady Hendrix
- Billy Summers – Stephen King
- Summer of Night – Dan Simmons
Have you read any of the books on this list? Would you agree with where I placed them on their level of spookiness? Did I miss any of your favorites? Let me know in the comment section below!
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