Note: This article was originally written recently for a local book club. I was given the brief of suggesting books for a general readership who don’t usually read Horror fiction and books that are fairly easy to get hold of. I thought that it might be worth repeating here! Mark.
Hello!
A few ground rules to start with.
I’ve limited my choice to five – I realise that I could have chosen many, many more! I’ve also tried to include classics, but hopefully less well-known classics, as well as books that are recently published or even brand new. My own tastes tend to prefer the psychological horror rather than the all-out gore of some books and this list reflects that. I’ve also gone for books that should be fairly easy to get hold of, whether in paper or e-book form.
Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James
This is my usual first ‘go-to’ for ‘ghost stories’. Montague Rhodes James was a provost at King’s College Cambridge and Eton, as well as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1913 – 15. For a number of years, he would write a story to be read to Eton and Cambridge choristers after the Christmas services. (In fact, you may know some of these stories dramatized in the 1970’s BBC series “A Ghost Story for Christmas”. They are regularly repeated.) Although this could easily be kept for Christmas, I do like reading it at this time of year as the nights get longer, darker and colder! The stories are usually based on chills rather than anything explicit, set in an early-20th century world of religion, libraries, research and academia. Personally I find they work best reading one story at a time, but I have known people read the book in almost one go. One to make you check the curtains and behind the chair!
2. ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Next, I thought I’d go for a book perhaps better known. This is perhaps my favourite Stephen King, and has just been made into a film, due on streaming channel Max in the States and in cinemas here in October. (You may also remember a TV series in 1979 starring David Soul and James Mason.) It encapsulates what I think of as quintessential Stephen King – smalltown America with creepy things happening beneath the seemingly-peaceful world of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine. Written in 1975, in a world pre-mobile phones, it is admittedly dated, yet I think still retains a certain charm – and still memorably scary!
And as it’s Autumn, how’s this for a quote? “But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” If you liked Stranger Things, you’ll like this one, I think. Of course, if you like this one, there’s about another 50-odd Stephen King books to choose from!
3. The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden
From two ‘old’ books, to one that has just been published, in September 2024! As you might therefore expect, it is pleasingly current! (There are mobile phones in this one.)
The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is one of many half-empty towns in Italy, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi decide to move there, seeing it not only as a chance to live near Tommy’s grandparents but also as an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they both feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother who lives there is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought, which one neighbour refers to as The House of Last Resort. Soon, they learn that the home was owned for generations by the Church, harbouring secrets… while down in the catacombs beneath Becchina… something stirs.
Anyone who knows the joy (and the stress!) of moving to a new home, never mind migrating to a new country and meeting new people, can relate to this one. It’s like one of those television makeover programmes, but with added chills! I really liked the unusual international setting with a smattering of history, truly giving the impression of strange things going on in a strange land. A real page turner, but with the one or two gruesome moments – you have been warned!
Note: If you want a horror book set at Halloween, Christopher had a book published last year called All Hallows. It’s a great, if gory read – but I liked this one better.
4. The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman
I’ve added this one as a Halloween read as I think it is a ghost story for those who don’t normally like them. The supernatural elements are there, but so subtle that readers normally put off by such things can read the series as ‘a dark crime novel’ without too much unease.
Merrily Watkins is a single mother who, after the death of her husband, becomes ordained as a Vicar (or as they prefer these days, ‘a Priest-in-Charge’). After working in the drug dens and crime zones of Liverpool, she is given the picturesque country parish of Ledwardine, Herefordshire, and a big rambling vicarage to take care of. Strange things happen which involve Merrily whilst she deals with her new position, settling into rural life and being a single mum. Rickman does well to juggle all these commonplace elements into an engaging story that is very readable and rather creepy. And if you like this one, there’s another fourteen books to go onto.
5. 
Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
Last one. Wakenhyrst is a slow burner of a novel that starts unhurriedly in rural Suffolk but relentlessly builds to a chillingly effective conclusion that is quietly unsettling. Not all of the characters are pleasant, but they are complex, logically developed and reflect the patriarchal society of Edwardian England depressingly well. Michelle manages to juggle classic elements of the Gothic theme with nature, folk horror, witchcraft and mental instability to create a modern Gothic novel that deserves to become a classic.
And there’s still others. How about Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party? The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson? For those who do like ‘the gory stuff’, how about James Herbert’s The Rats, about to be republished in October in a 50-year (yes, 50 years!) anniversary edition?
I did say I’d limit my choice to five! However, I’m sure that there will be others that I will think of later, or ones that you could recommend. Please feel free to mention them!
Whatever you read, I wish you an enjoyable Halloween, hopefully filled with chills, thrills and good reading. (Hot beverage and good company optional.)
