What lives under the stairs? What lurks in the basement? Who keeps breathing down my neck?
I thought I was alone.
From films to TV shows to books, our fascination with the irrational, the paranormal and the macabre seems to only have grown in popularity.
You Should Have Left, The Haunting of Hill House, I Remember You: A Ghost Story, Rooms and The Visitors each explores the theme of the haunted house, where a house can create a life of its own, become a habitat for others or vessel of secrets.
On our still cold evenings, snuggle in and enjoy while you take a chilling visit into these haunted houses.
You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann is a horror story novella that warns readers that if an Airbnb seems to be good to be true, it probably is. Under pressure to finish a screenplay, the unnamed narrator takes his wife and four-year-old daughter to an isolated Airbnb in the German mountains to work. Narrated though the screenwriter’s journal, the entries describe financial and marital pressures that become increasingly distressing as the narrator begins to see and hear things that no one else does. When his wife leaves after a fight, the narrator is left with his young daughter in a web of horrors he worries he may never escape.
When a letter arrives inviting Eleanor to the Hill House to observe the various “unsavoury stories of the house,” she is excited at the prospect of an adventure, her first ever in her 32 years.
Joined at the house by the vivacious young Theodora, Luke, the nephew of the owner of Hill House, and Doctor Montague, she quickly begins to experience strange phenomena. Written by the master of the terrifying tale, Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House tells the classic haunting story of a house desperate to ensure that its guests never leave.
On an isolated island in Iceland, three friends set to renovate a derelict cottage. Shortly after beginning work, a disconcerting message appears written in shells — they spell “goodbye.” It soon becomes clear that someone or something does not want them there. Meanwhile, in a town across the fjord, Dr. Freyr is assisting in investigating a local suicide and string of acts of vandalism that seem unnervingly related to the strange disappearance of his young son years earlier. Set against a bleak Icelandic winter, I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir combines these two stories in a terrifying way.
Alice and Sandra are destined to spend the rest of time intertwined into the very structure of the house where they once lived. Speaking through the creeks and groans of the house, they reminisce about the lives they once led and what brought them to this dismal fate. When the Walker family arrives, a new ghost also appears and the house is quickly becoming crowded.
Rooms by Lauren Olivier takes a new twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring how everyone can be haunted by their memories, addictions and relationships, living or dead.
The Visitors by Catherine Burns tells the story of Marion Zetland, who has lived in her childhood home with her officious older brother since she was young. Once an immaculate seaside mansion, it is now in disrepair, overrun with dirt and clutter. Nervous and self-depreciating, Marion spends her days watching TV, eating and trying to ignore the family secret of what lives in the basement. Looking at escaping the confinements of her current situation, Marion is forced to face reality, a reality in which Marion is perhaps not as innocent as she perceives herself to be.
Visit your local library to find these and more scary tales.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published on Wednesdays. Heather Hadley works at Port Moody Public Library.
