Books like “Ghost Story”

What to read after “Ghost Story” by Peter Straub: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Only Good Indians
Stephen Graham Jones · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Years ago four Blackfeet men shot an elk on land they had no right to hunt. Now something is stalking them across the reservation, taking them one by one, in a story about grief, guilt and the debts that follow a person home.
2
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton · 1973
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
A collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, written across her career and gathered in one volume. Old houses, railway carriages and country estates hold grudges, apparitions return with unfinished business, and the supernatural creeps into the lives of people who insist they do not believe in it.
3
The Woman in Black
Susan Hill · 1983
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A young London lawyer is sent to a remote house to sort the papers of a dead client. In the town nearby he meets an unfriendly silence, a sea mist that cuts him off, and a woman dressed in black whose appearances are followed by the deaths of children.
4
The Reformatory
Tananarive Due · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Florida, 1950. Twelve-year-old Robert is sent to a brutal reform school after a scuffle with a white teenager. He can see ghosts, including the boys who died there, and the warden wants to use that ability. Outside, his sister works with a lawyer to bring him home.
5
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
M. R. James · 1904
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
Eight ghost stories in which scholars and clergymen uncover things better left alone. An old manuscript, a whistled tune and a locked country house each hold a presence that follows the people who found it back into ordinary life.
6
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Aging rock star Judas Coyne collects macabre curiosities. When he buys a haunted suit online, the dead man tied to it begins to stalk him and the women in his life. To survive, Jude must confront the violence in his own past. A supernatural horror about guilt and revenge.
7
Hell House
Richard Matheson · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
A dying millionaire funds an expedition to the notorious Belasco House, a mansion in Maine where every previous attempt to study its hauntings ended badly. The group includes a physicist, a medium and two survivors, and the house begins to work on their most private fears.
8
Ghost Eaters
Clay McLeod Chapman · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
Erin is still grieving her ex-boyfriend Silas when a friend offers her Ghost, a drug that lets users see the dead. She takes it hoping for one more conversation with him, and finds the boundary between the living and the dead starting to give way around her.
9
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
An investigator of psychic phenomena invites several people to stay at Hill House, a building with a long history of death and madness. Among them is the fragile Eleanor, and as the house begins to single her out, the group's stay becomes a struggle to keep hold of sanity.
10
The House Next Door
Anne Rivers Siddons · 1978
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Small Town Secrets
A new house is built beside the Kennedys in their quiet Atlanta neighbourhood. Over two years the families who move in are destroyed by scandal and violence, and even visitors are touched. Colquitt begins to believe the house itself is malevolent, and decides to warn the world.
11
The Shining
Stephen King · 1977
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, bringing his wife and young son to its empty corridors. As snow seals them in, the hotel's violent past works on Jack's temper and drinking, while Danny's gift shows him things the family should never have seen.
12
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson · 1962
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Small Town Secrets
Eighteen-year-old Merricat lives with her sister and uncle in a large house outside a village that despises them, after the rest of the family died years earlier from poison. When a cousin arrives hoping to claim the estate, the careful order of Merricat's world is broken.