‘Heart-Shaped Box,’ by Joe Hill
“Everyone in the book is wrestling with some kind of murderous ghost. And everyone is seeking either redemption or revenge,” Times critic Janet Maslin wrote of the lauded debut from Stephen King’s son. “Even when it erupts into strange, violent visions — as when, in the midst of a struggle to the death, light pours up from a newly opened door in the floor — this book is so visually intense that its energy never flags.”
‘The Little Stranger,’ by Sarah Waters
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, this novel is set in rural, postwar England in a decrepit mansion on the verge of collapse. “Waters has rendered the old house magnificently in its fading glory, and its inhabitants sparkle like chandeliers in the damp, peeling rooms,” wrote our reviewer, Scarlett Thomas. “What follows is either a ghost story or a thriller depending on how you read it, as the Ayres family begins literally, and rather gothically, to be killed off or removed.”
‘Slade House,’ by David Mitchell
“A pair of immortal twins, Jonah and Norah, occupy — or appear to occupy — a grand old pile in downtown London, accessible only through a small metal door in an alleyway. It opens very rarely, and when it does, it admits a victim,” wrote Times critic Dwight Garner. “Once they’ve found an acceptable soul to suck, the twins share it as if it were a milkshake into which
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/books/before-watching-the-haunting-of-hill-house-read-these-13-haunted-books.html