Read This If–You Dig Haunted Houses

It’s October and I love Halloween. It was only natural that I’d pick a couple of horror reads for this month, but the first two books I thought of were both about haunted house novels. Ding ding ding! No more calls. We have a winner. Haunted house horror it is.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix–Louise reluctantly leaves her daughter with her ex and travels across the country to help bury her parents, both dead in a tragic car accident. As if losing her parents wasn’t bad enough, she’s faced with the task of cleaning out her childhood home with her younger brother Mark, who is something of a failure in life -at least to Louise- and her biggest antagonist. The biggest hitch, though, is that the house doesn’t want to be sold.

This book caught me off guard. We’re going along like what you might expect from a haunted house tale and then…hard left into holy shit. It is a ride. But like many haunted house stories, it’s the family secrets that are more haunting than anything.

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt–Once upon a time, Alice, Hannah, and Ila went to a haunted house…and only Alice and Ila came out. Alice’s life has been less than great since that night. Haunted by the events, she goes to parties she doesn’t want to be at, drinks herself to sleep, and sells pics of herself online to support herself. Worse, she and Ila are so far estranged that they’re enemies. But when Ila asks her to go back to the house, Alice knows she has to go.

This is a brutal read because it’s not just the house that’s haunted, but the people, too. Alice is trans and after the events in the house, Ila has gone full TERF. Neither of them are living their best lives. The narrative doesn’t pull its punches. And once they go back into the house…hoo boy. Buckle up. This is house is haunted haunted.

I actually ended up reading these two back-to-back. While they might both be haunted house novels, the hauntings are very different, but both are terrifying in their own ways.

Read if you dare.