My adult mystery debut The Treasure Hunters Club is set in a tiny coastal village in Nova Scotia that’s best known as the purported site of a hidden pirate treasure. But it isn’t just Captain Barnabas Dagger’s missing loot that casts a shadow over Maple Bay; Bellwoods, the dramatic, stately Victorian mansion planted across the bay on its seaside perch, has an equally tight hold on local imaginations. The ancestral home of a locally prominent family, Bellwoods is home to many of the novel’s most dramatic and exciting scenes, both in the past – as seen through the recently uncovered journal of a long dead resident – and in the present, when elderly Mirabel Bellwood sends a letter to her long estranged grandson Peter, imploring him to return to Maple Bay and the house his family has called home for generations, an overture with wide reaching ramifications.
My home province is full of beautiful, often colourful, Victorian houses. Some of them have been well maintained, others have been abandoned to time and the elements, and many – like Bellwoods – have a front row seat to the ever-changing spectacle of the fickle North Atlantic. These houses have always fascinated me, and so when I set out to write a mystery set in small town Nova Scotia, it was inevitable that I feature one in the story.
Bellwoods is just the latest in a long tradition of creepy houses in suspense novels, houses that tend to become characters in and of themselves. The dark, eerie, and often isolated nature of these homes provides a perfect backdrop for secrets, suspense, and sinister occurrences. If you’re a fan of spine-chilling stories where the setting adds to the mystery, here are some fantastic novels featuring creepy houses that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” It’s one of the more memorable and iconic opening lines in all of literature, and it points directly at the scene of the… crime? In Rebecca, an unnamed protagonist marries the wealthy Maxim de Winter and moves to his estate, Manderley, where she soon finds herself living in the shadow of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, whose presence still haunts the halls of the mansion – kept alive, chillingly, by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Du Maurier uses the sprawling estate to full effect, turning Manderley into a living entity, brimming with secrets, deception, and lingering memories of the past. Hidden rooms, overgrown gardens, and windows framing a taunting, beckoning ocean help heighten the novel’s tension as the mystery of Rebecca’s life—and death—unfolds.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The titular mansion in The Haunting of Hill House might be the most prominent house in Jackson’s ouevre, but for me, it’s the ill-fated Blackwood family mansion in We Have Always Lived in the Castle that looms largest in my imagination. The narrator, 18-year-old Merricat Blackwood, lives with her sister Constance and their ailing Uncle Julian in their large, ancestral home, which has become both a sanctuary and a prison for the family after a mysterious tragedy. Years earlier, most of their relatives were poisoned during dinner, and while Constance was acquitted of the crime, the townspeople still view the family with suspicion. The arrival of an unexpected visitor threatens their secluded existence and things quickly spiral out of control, building to the unsettling final scenes as Merricat and Constance commit to a new existence in the now transformed house.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Fingersmith is one of my all time favourite novels, featuring a twist so delicious and elegantly orchestrated that I gasped out loud when it was sprung upon me. Set in Victorian-era England, Fingersmith is a crime novel centering on two young women, Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly, whose lives become entangled in a complex web of betrayal and deception. Sue, raised in a den of thieves, is recruited to help swindle Maud, a wealthy orphan, out of her inheritance by posing as her maid. As Sue integrates into Maud’s household, she discovers unexpected feelings for her, which complicates the plan. However, nothing is as it seems, and the novel is filled with twists and reversals, exploring themes of class, identity, and betrayal.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic is a gothic mystery set in 1950s Mexico. When Noemí is sent to investigate reports of her cousin Catalina’s strange and erratic behavior, she moves into Catalina’s new husband’s family home, High Place, a mansion deep in the Mexican countryside. Upon arriving, Noemí discovers the house is an eerie and decaying structure, filled with strange and evasive inhabitants, and hiding dark family secrets. High Place exudes an unsettling atmosphere with its crumbling walls, strange noises, and hauntingly claustrophobic feel, making it a perfect setting for the disturbing events that unfold. As she uncovers dark secrets about the family’s history and the house itself, Noemí becomes entangled in a sinister plot and has to rely on her wits to survive.
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark follows Maggie Holt, who returns to Baneberry Hall, the Victorian mansion her family fled when she was a child. Her father went on to write a bestselling book about their time in the house, claiming it was haunted, but Maggie has always been skeptical of his account. When she moves back to renovate the estate, she begins to experience strange occurrences that mirror the events in her father’s book, leading her to question whether the house is truly haunted or if something else is going on. As Maggie delves deeper into the truth about what’s going on in Baneberry Hall, Sager expertly balances psychological suspense with supernatural elements, creating a narrative that constantly keeps the reader guessing. The atmosphere in Baneberry Hall is thick with mystery, making it one of the most unsettling modern creepy houses in fiction.
The Third Wife of Faraday House by B.R. Myers
The most recent novel on this list, Faraday House follows Myers’ previous gothic thriller, the Edgar Award winning A Dreadful Splendour. Like The Treasure Hunters Club, this novel also takes place in Nova Scotia, in 1816, and follows Emeline Fitzpatrick, a young woman with limited opportunities, who finds herself shuttled off to the titular Faraday House, an island mansion where she’s expected to marry the twice widowed Captain Graves. But when she discovers that the second wife is still alive, and gravely ill, Emeline realizes that her grand but isolated new home is more of a prison, full of secrets and battered from all directions by the sea. Helped along by some unexpected allies, Emeline is determined to find out the truth about Faraday House before it’s too late.
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