Books like The Coffin Path

A chilling horror in a small fictional English village.

I love The Woman in Black because it’s more than a ghost story; it’s also a story about love and the connection between family. I’ve read it twice and what I love the most about it is the ambience Susan Hill creates with her well-crafted sentence structure.

There’s a lot of focus on Arthur Kipps, the protagonist, and his life before and after the haunting of Eel Marsh, but it’s not only him the story cares about. The Woman in Black herself is a mystery and has a tragic backstory that turns her from a full-on villain to a sympathetic one.

As well as horror and the supernatural, I love historical fiction; partly why this book appealed to me. Karen Maitland obviously knows her history, making the background darkly believable.

The story has a bleak setting: Mid-1300s, England. Sustained severe weather leads to widespread starvation and poverty. A mean-spirited man who owns a horse and cart finds himself travelling with a group of misfits, including a distinctly odd, very creepy, little girl. 

All the characters have intriguing secrets in their pasts. I really enjoyed finding out about them, who they really are, what they are running away from. They are all trying to outrun the Plague, which is never far behind for the whole story, almost like a living entity itself.

I still think about this book from time to time, especially the ending, but no spoilers here.

A family tragedy leads a young family to seek an old home in a peaceful seaside village in the UK. There is a reason the house is vacant… it’s haunted. I was chilled reading this book. James Herbert is a master of suspense and does a great job of tying past events to the present. 

I enjoyed how the spirits of the past interacted with the current homeowners. It was scary and believable!

This is another ghost story told in the traditional vein. However, it is not set within the bounds of some old building but in an entire mountain village, populated by more than one ghost.

I think this is a gentle, rather beautiful read. The cold surroundings are depicted so well, it is easy to envisage them in your own mind. We begin to get to the heart of the story when Freddie crashes his car one snowy night. Circumstances mean he has no choice but to accept the hospitality of an elderly couple and spend the night under their roof. While staying with them, the tragic, ancient history of the place begins to show itself to Freddie, drawing him irrevocably into its story.

Yes, it is somewhat predictable, but I find that almost comforting. There may not be any huge surprises or great reveals, yet the way in which the… show more.

Mr. Cat is a ride-or-die. Mr. Cat walks the line that all cats do in the real world, in that he doesn’t actually have magic powers and he can’t actually talk, he is at the end of the day a little animal that lives in Jenny’s house, but also he would bite a ghost without hesitation. It’s Peter S. Beagle’s complete mastery of voice and tone that enable Jenny and Mr. Cat to walk that line so effortlessly. Because the fantastical is grounded so deeply in the real world, the stakes feel so high that I first read this book in one breathless sitting, afraid to look away. 

These days, “folk horror” is a popular term for movies like Midsommer and The Witch.

In the early twentieth century, M. R. James is said to have invented this genre and revitalized the ghost story as a form. His memorably unsettling work often involves academics, scholars, and researchers confronting an uncanny, bucolic world.

The most renowned stories in this collection include “Casting the Runes” (a reviewer of an occult book learns an earlier critic died mysteriously), “The Mezzotint” (an upsetting engraving changes each time a curator looks at it), and “Oh Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (a professor dubious of the existence of ghosts fatefully finds an ancient whistle on vacation).

More of a supernatural mystery than a ghost story perhaps, but since the sinister magic that besets 13-year-old Aveline arises from a witch long buried in the cold, dark side of the churchyard, this fast-paced, imaginative tale qualifies as both. Particularly striking is that you can read it as a simple, scary ghost story – or as an unnerving portrait of someone with a narcissistic personality, alternating charm, menaces, and pathos to unsettle Aveline and bring her under her spell. Brrrr. 

We all think we know "A Christmas Carol" but after the Muppet version, I find myself thinking of it as simply comical.

Until I re-read it, I forget just how chilling the ghosts who visit Scrooge are. And I love "Captain Murderer," Dickens’ account of how his nursemaid terrified him with scary tales, because it takes me back to my own childhood love of terrors.

Then there are stories like "The Signalman," which is not at all funny, darkened with the signalman’s dreadful loneliness and apprehension.

Dickens was a Master. Even his humorous ghost stories have an edge of fear.

Fans of literary fiction may not even realize that Edith Wharton (1862-1937), author of novels like The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, also loved to write ghost stories, which often revolve around themes of class and gender. This collection includes such gems as the truly unnerving "The Lady Maid's Bell," the eerie yet poignant "Afterward," and "All Souls," one of the most unusual Halloween tales ever penned.

I loved this lyrical, finely-observed story and its many bloodcurdling moments. I felt nothing but sympathy and love for James Harrison as he settled into his new home in the village of Ledsham and was blamed for things he didn’t do.

The ghost of Thomas Kempe a 17th century apothecary truly haunts these pages and gave me a serious case of goosebumps. It’s also a gripping mystery as James tries to put the ghost to rest.