My Favorite Ghost Stories!

Looking for a book that sends shivers tingling across your skin and keeps you awake at night? Here’s a list of my favorite ghost stories and creepy novels. These haunted page-turners are perfect for this time of year. They will provide great fodder for October book club discussion too. Mwahahahaha!

Help for the Haunted by John Searles, twists and turns throughout this dark tale.

Sylvie Mason’s parents are a bit unusual. They drive demonic possessions from innocent people for a living, which doesn’t make Sylvie or her sister very popular at school. When her parents are murdered in a church, Sylvie must face the past and the truth about that fateful night, even if she risks her life to reveal her family’s secrets.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult may surprise you.

When Jenna Metcalf makes enough babysitting money, she hires a washed up private investigator and a psychic to help search for her mother, who disappeared on the night of a tragic accident. The three of them pour over her mother’s journals to find her.

This isn’t a scary book but one that may change your mind about the supernatural. I’ll never look at elephants the same way again. They are better at mourning than humans.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill.

This one is classic creepy!

When musician and collector of strange objects, Judas Coyne purchases a so-called haunted, heart-shaped box online, he opens it up and discovers an old musty suit. Little does he know that a ghost is released into his world. In order for Judas to end the haunting and stop the killing, he must discover the ghost’s evil past while facing his own.

Joe Hill is a chip off his dad, Stephen King’s, chilling block of ice-cold terror.

I read the last few chapters in my kitchen…with the lights on…during the day…

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott weaves history with fiction in a brilliant way.

The story starts with the death of a Cambridge historian who had been researching Sir Isaac Newton and his experiments in alchemy. When Lydia Brooke offers to finish the historian’s book, she discovers a cover-up regarding Newton’s college admission. It may have gotten the historian murdered. As she comes closer to solving a conspiracy, she becomes a target while haunted by Newton and ghosts from Cambridge’s past.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold haunts on several levels.

The story opens with Susie Salmon narrating as a ghost. She takes us on a journey of how she was brutally murdered, what happens to her family after her death, and finally reveals the fate of her killer.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

A Gothic haunting perfect for October reads. Dr. Faraday is called upon to help a war veteran at the Ayres’s crumbling estate after he has a horrific premonition. Even when the premonition comes true and there is a traumatic event during a dinner party, Dr. Faraday still doesn’t believe in ghosts or premonitions. As Faraday becomes entwined in the Ayres family, he will have to face his past while the Ayres’s struggle to face a growing threat both supernatural and human.

You can skip the book and watch the movie. It’s super creepy too!

I hope you enjoy these October haunted reads. If you would prefer to watch some classic psychological thriller movies, here’s a list of 21 to make your heart pound…

What is your favorite ghost story? I’m always looking for good books to read. Do you have a haunted collection?

Click for more of the Wild Ride which includes my outdoor adventures and life’s misadventures!