Books like “The Silent Companions”

What to read after “The Silent Companions” by Laura Purcell: 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 Little Stranger
Sarah Waters · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
In post-war England, a country doctor is drawn into the fading life of a once-grand family living in a decaying mansion. Strange events unsettle the house and its residents, and suspicion falls in every direction. An unnerving story about class, decline and things that may not be ghosts.
2
Mexican Gothic
Silvia Moreno-Garcia · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
In 1950s Mexico, socialite Noemi Taboada travels to the mountain mansion of High Place to check on her newly married cousin, who writes of ghosts and sickness. The English family that owns it is cold and strange, and the house itself seems to be listening and slowly changing her.
3
The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield · 2006
From the same world: “Gothic”
A bookseller's daughter is summoned by a reclusive author who has never told the truth about her life. As the old woman finally recounts her childhood at a crumbling country house, the listener realises the story hides one more secret. A gothic tale about stories, sisters and the gaps between them.
4
The Hacienda
Isabel Cañas · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After her father is killed in Mexico's war of independence, Beatriz marries a widower and moves to his country estate. The housekeeper burns copal and chalks signs on the doorways, and Beatriz begins to fear that her husband's first wife never left.
5
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.
6
Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier · 1938
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A shy young woman marries the widowed Maxim de Winter and arrives at Manderley, his grand estate by the sea. There she is measured against his first wife, the beautiful Rebecca, whose presence lingers in every room, in the servants' loyalty and in a secret nobody will speak.
7
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James · 1898
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A young governess takes charge of two children at a remote country house and soon notices figures watching from the grounds and the tower. She becomes convinced the children are being influenced by something from beyond the grave, though no one else confirms what she sees.
8
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
M. R. James · 1904
Similar atmosphere: “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.
9
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton · 1973
Similar atmosphere: “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.
10
Slade House
David Mitchell · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Behind a hidden door in a narrow London alley waits a house that appears only every nine years. Guests are drawn inside and never come out the same. Linked over decades, their stories reveal what feeds the house. A haunting dark-fantasy tale about appetite and illusion.
11
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “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.
12
The Reformatory
Tananarive Due · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- 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.