Home is supposed to be our refuge: the one place we can retreat when the outside world becomes overwhelming.
But what happens when our home is no longer a safe place? Where can we go when the very walls we sleep inside twist against us?
These eight books explore just that: from external threats beating at your door to the very building itself becoming corrupted, there’s no place of safety inside these stories.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Merry recounts her childhood where, infamously, her sister became the subject of a documentary on a possible possession.
When teenage Marjorie claims to hear voices and conventional medical treatment fails to help, her parents accept an offer from a film crew to create a documentary about their family. Through the book a question is teased: Is the possession real? Is it made up? Or is it a mental illness, tragically made worse by the excessive attention?
No matter the answer, the film crew’s constant presence and the pressure to produce content for their documentary only increase the unyielding stress in this small family home.
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
Immanuelle just wants to be accepted by her town, Bethl. Her birth was scandalous; her mother rumored to consort with witches. Bethl, highly puritanical, cast her mother out. Now Immanuelle and her family live in poverty and disgrace at the town’s outskirts as they try to abide by the rules of the Prophet. For Immanuelle, it’s the only home she’s ever known. She wants to fit in. She wants to live an unremarkable but safe life. Fate has other plans for her.
While the novel revolves around witches, much of the true horror comes from the town itself, and how closely it teeters towards tyrannical madness.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Indescribable monsters invade the world. Anyone who looks at them will lose their sanity and try to kill themselves.
Mallory, heavily pregnant, manages to get inside a home with a small band of survivors. They cover the windows so that they can’t accidentally glimpse the creatures. And then they wait.
It’s a unique kind of isolation. Mallory can step into the yard to collect water from the well, but only if she keeps her eyes closed. Other survivors can go outside to try and find a grocery store, but only if they are blindfolded and trace their path by memory. Home is the only place Mallory is allowed sight… but, as years pass, she realizes that it has become her prison, and she will need to escape if she has any hope of a future for herself and her children.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
When Mouse’s grandmother passes away, it falls to Mouse to clean out her house… which, it turns out, is a hoarder’s paradise.
When Mouse’s dog catches a scent, she’s forced to confront something deeply unnatural in the woods around her, and to learn about one of the home’s former occupants, who may have been trying to hide from things that live in the hills.
This folk horror novel is a whirlwind of enjoyable characters and nightmarish scenarios, all set in an old family home turned to ruin.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
This is a story about past wrongs and how they can catch up to us, even decades later.
Two homes are featured: Lewis’ comfortable suburban house, where we first catch glimpses of the dear-head woman and begin to understand why she’s hunting down four old friends, and the reservation Lewis grew up on, where the story reaches its inevitable, high-powered, gut-wrenching conclusion. Both feel vividly real, and, before the book is over, both are painted in blood.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The queen of Gothic horror, Shirley Jackson’s style shines in this unsettling novella. Merricat lives with her older sister, Constance, in their old family home. Their family used to be much larger, before poison in a sugar bowl killed all but three of them.
People from the nearby town are equally wary and curious about the two strange sisters, who might be hiding more in their home than just secrets.
Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims
Banyan Court splits into two sections. On one side are the ultra-wealthy, occupying brand-new luxury suites; on the other are the residents of the city-mandated public housing, living in cramped, aging rooms.
Sims’ thrilling anthology novel gives us glimpses into lives on both sides of the building, and how the high-rise is slowly but steadily consuming them all. The deeper into the book you go, the more you discover the stories are all interconnected… and all have something to do with the building’s reclusive billionaire owner, who is sending out invitations for a dinner in his penthouse suite.
It Will Just Be Us by Jo Kaplan
This deeply unnerving slow-burn horror is set in an old ancestral home that backs onto a dense swamp.
People from the nearby town both fear and avoid the Wakefield property and its occupants, but to Sam, it’s simply her home. She grew up there, and the house’s quirks—its antique furniture, its sprawling, confusing rooms, and its habit of replaying moments from the past in vivid detail—have simply become part of her daily life. We’re left with the sense that this strange house deserves Sam as much as Sam deserves the house.
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