A governess is sent to an isolated country manor to care for a pair of young orphans, and she begins to believe that the children are being visited by spirits with malevolent intent. This is a classic ghost story whose ambiguity has provided more than a century’s worth of analysis and adaptation, most recently in the form of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor in 2020.

You may know Shirley Jackson from your 11th grade reading assignment of her short story The Lottery, but this novel set the bar for modern gothic horror. It’s a classic haunted house story that has influenced writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman.

A group of aging men gathers once a week to tell ghost stories – but one ghost from their shared past seems to be coming back for revenge. Straub hooks you in from the first scene and builds masterfully in one of the best-written horror stories you’ll ever read.

Some point to The Shining and The Stand as King’s best works, but I have always been a fan of his shorter fiction, such as the terrifying novella The Mist. Everything’s Eventual is a strong contender for my favorite of his short story collections. Its best tales are about a boy who meets the devil, a painting that keeps changing in disturbing ways, and a skeptic’s night in a supposedly haunted hotel room.

The core story of House of Leaves involves a family who moves into their new house and discovers it’s bigger than they think. Their story is told in a documentary video, which is described and analyzed in an unfinished academic manuscript by another person, which itself is transcribed and footnoted by yet another person. It’s a structurally weird book that’s just as disorienting as the house itself.

It’s no coincidence that the horror genre – that safe box of fiction where you can explore fear without real-life consequences – exploded in the wake of the very real global pandemic, and the last few years have borne plenty of new and terrible places to explore. This story revolves around a recently-divorced woman who discovers a hidden door in her uncle’s museum of curiosities. The door leads to an alternate reality that is not quite right. It’s thoroughly creepy in a Lovecraftian way, and the quirky characters inject some humor into this otherwise unsettling read.

Four Blackfeet men break a promise during elk hunting season, and now that promise is coming back to haunt them in a very real way, picking them off one by one. It’s pretty gory, but not gratuitously so, and the supernatural elements, the nuanced treatment of Native culture, and the quality of writing were compelling enough for me to overlook the more graphic parts. It’s also one of those stories that surprises you by ending with love and unexpected tears. (Yes – it’s okay to cry at horror.)

Andrew is haunted by the revenant of his best friend Eddie, who suddenly died right before Andrew was about to join him in Nashville. Andrew takes Eddie’s place in his house, his graduate program, and his circle of fast-living friends as he tries to uncover the truth of what happened. There’s a Southern gothic setting, romantic tension so thick you could slice it up and eat it, and a host of queer characters who are not punished for their queerness, but whose acceptance of themselves leads them to happiness. This slow burn is more moody than scary, and it’s a refreshing and thoroughly enjoyable read.

In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all. The parent in me found some parts difficult to read, but I needed to keep going and find out what was going on – and the ending completely turned it upside-down.

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. Remember how I said it’s okay to cry at horror? Get your tissues ready, because this is also a heartbreaking story about love and grief.