5 Thrillers That Blend True Crime Elements with a Gothic Ambience

I read all types of thrillers, but the ones that tend to lure me in the most usually have a gothic layer. It’s no surprise, then, that my adult debut, Please Enjoy Your Stay, is a gothic thriller that fuses together two of my life-long fascinations: true crime and ghost stories.

For me, this pairing never ceases to intrigue, and I wrote it into my characters’ personal interests as well. In Please Enjoy Your Stay, one of my main characters is Iris DeLaney, a renowned true crime author who writes “historical true crime in allegedly haunted settings.”

For her highly anticipated next book, Iris takes a trip to an infamous haunted castle to research the unsolved murder of a famous heiress. But things don’t go to plan, unfortunately, because Iris’s teenage son is killed on the same property during her visit, repeating the vicious cycle of murder + paranormal sightings over again.

Eventually, Iris’ niece, Mia—the only witness to her beloved cousin’s murder that night—returns to the castle-turned-hotel where it all happened to finally set the story straight. But once again, layered over the cold hard facts of the case are rumors of hauntings, which propel the plot, and the setting, with its centuries-old hotel, into gothic-tinged territory.

For readers who enjoy this blend of “haunted true crime,” here are five more novels that are teeming with the same sort of vibes.

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Riley Sager, Home Before Dark

One of my favorite Riley Sager novels to date, Home Before Dark is delightfully chilling. The story centers on Maggie Holt, who inherits a Victorian estate called Baneberry Hall from her father and plans to renovate it. Interspersed with Maggie’s present-day narrative are excerpts from the bestselling memoir written by Maggie’s father, called House of Horrors.

As Maggie begins to experience strange occurrences within the Victorian house that echo her father’s terrifying account of his time there, the reader slowly uncovers clues to a cold case as the dark history of Baneberry Hall finally comes to light.

Tlotlo Tsamaase, House of Margins

This one was recommended to me by Sadie Hartman (@MotherHorror on Instagram) and I’m so glad I picked it up. House of Margins is one of the most unique genre-bending novels I’ve ever read, combining a true crime podcast that seems real enough to stream on Spotify, and a haunted, colonial mansion in South Africa. I’d place this novel within the horror category, but the true crime element is so well done that I had to recommend it here.

House of Margins—described as “Serial the podcast meets The Other Black Girl“—follows a woman, Ranewa, as she tracks down clues from a true crime podcast about her missing sister, Anaya, who disappeared while on a prestigious writing residency that should have changed Anaya’s life, but instead might have taken it….

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Bewitching

For any readers who prefer historical crime with a gothic flare, try The Bewitching, a multi-timeline novel that follows a grad student, Minerva, who is writing her thesis on a famous author primarily known for her horror novel called The Vanishing. While analyzing The Vanishing—which is supposedly inspired by a true story set at the same university—Minerva learns about the disappearance of another student under mysterious circumstances that echo the tales that Minerva’s own grandmother used to tell her about witches in 1900s Mexico.

And then, Minerva herself begins to feel threatened….

Jennifer Fawcett, Beneath the Stairs

This one delves into an (sub)urban legend-type crime in a truly terrifying setting. The murder is chilling: decades ago, a man allegedly killed his family in the “Octagon House,” now abandoned in the woods….

Award-winning playwright and author Jennifer Fawcett delivers glimpses of the tragic crime through the perspective of Clare, who went inside the Octagon House as a teenager with her friend as a prank, and who must now trespass again as an adult. Clare needs to find out why her friend recently tried to commit suicide within its walls, and what exactly she remembers when they first went into the haunted Octagon house all those years ago.

Simone St. James, The Book of Cold Cases

James’s The Sun Down Motel would likely also fit the bill here, but The Book of Cold Cases brings a true crime junkie to a gothic, ghostly setting. The novel follows Shea Collins, a receptionist-by-day, true crime junkie by night, who is shocked to be given an exclusive opportunity to interview a woman accused of serial murder in the 1970s.

The catch: Shea must meet the infamous Beth Greer inside her rundown, sinister mansion. It soon becomes clear that multiple dangers lurk in the Greer house, and nothing is what it seems….

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I thoroughly enjoyed each of these novels (despite the chills they gave me), so of course it was such a thrill to see Library Journal compare the suspense in Please Enjoy Your Stay to Riley Sager’s Lock Every Door and Simone St. James’s The Book of Cold Cases—both of which are full of thriller-worthy crime and gothic ambiance, as all of these titles are.

Read with the lights on!

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