I grew up reading horror. Okay, as a kid “horror” was pretty much Scooby-Doo and some children’s ghost stories, but I still devoured everything I could find, and as soon as I got my adult library card at thirteen, I headed straight for the horror section.
My favorite trope is the haunted house. It doesn’t matter how many renditions of it I read, I’ll always grab a new one, because I know that author will put their own spin on it.
My first horror novel, Hemlock Island, was not a haunted house story. I felt as if I needed to save that for book two. When I sat down to write I’ll Be Waiting, I pulled on all those stories I loved, and I later realized the ones that most influenced it were the haunted-house stories by women, which made sense for my tale of a young widow’s search for her husband’s ghost.
Below are seven haunted house novels by women, some of which influenced me, and some of which I read later.
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
Is any list of haunted-house horror complete without this one? For me, it’s been the gold standard since I read it in high school. A researcher of psychic phenomenon invites people who’ve had supernatural experiences to join him in a supposedly haunted house, conducting experiments. This is an absolute master class in creating terror while never actually showing anything terrifying.
Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A 1950s Mexico City socialite is summoned by her desperate recently-married cousin. She goes to help and discovers a house full of secrets and lies. I devoured this one, with twists and turns that left me guessing to the end.
Dead Silence – S.A. Barnes
Does a haunted spaceship count? Imagine if the Titanic had been lost in space instead of the ocean. That’s the premise here, where the characters accidentally come across a massive luxury ship that was lost decades ago on her maiden voyage.
Starling House – Alix E. Harrow
A young woman is desperate to pay for the private school that’ll break her gifted little brother out of their family’s cycle of poverty. She takes a cleaning job at the local “creepy old house that seems abandoned” and is actually home to a reclusive young man. Do you think you know where this is going? You almost certainly don’t, and that’s the joy of this one.
Silence for the Dead – Simone St. James
St. James almost exclusively writes ghost stories, and that might seem limiting, but every book is a fresh take on the genre. This one is set in 1919, at an English hospital that houses mental casualties of the Great War. What happens when you put soldiers in fragile mental states in a house with a mysterious dark past? Nothing good.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Can I call this a haunted-house story? Sure, I can. There might not be any ghosts, but it is indeed about a very haunted house and the very haunted people who live in it. The unnamed narrator marries a wealthy widower, only to discover that his wife might be dead, but her memory does not rest in peace.
The Hacienda – Isabel Cañas
This one was marketed as Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca, which meant I had to pick it up. Set after the Mexican War of Independence, a young woman in desperate need of stability agrees to marry a widower . . . whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. Yep, you can see where the Rebecca comparison comes in, but this is a very different take on concept, and this time, we get actual supernatural content.
Bonus Title:
The Spite House – Johnny Compton
This is supposed to be a list of haunted house stories by women, but I’m going to sneak in this one extra recommendation. A man with two daughters agrees to move into a “spite house”—an extremely narrow house built to irritate neighbors. This particular one has a dark history, but he needs the money and he believes the house might contain answers to his own past.
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