Here are 100 books that The Ghost of Fossil Glen fans have personally recommended if you like
The Ghost of Fossil Glen.
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As a twelve-year-old, I read nothing but ghost books—not monsters, horror, or mystery, but ghosts. Though I debuted as an author in teen fantasy, a middle grade editor discovered my talent for spooky atmospheres, and I was once again drawn into the world of lost souls. In fact, when I was working on my first spooky novel, The Haunting, my editor requested the book to remind him of the works of Mary Downing Hahn—one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d found my calling. It just happened to be from beyond the grave…
Imagine finding a beautiful dollhouse where its occupants reenact the night of a murder from decades ago…creepy, right? Betty Ren Wright’s The Dollhouse Murders is a unique ghost story where the ghosts communicate their tragic tale through miniature doll versions of themselves.
Its mystery and old family secrets make this book one of my all-time favorites.
Dolls can't move by themselves. . . . Or can they?
This special anniversary edition of the hair-raising mystery that's kept readers up at night for thirty-five years features a foreword by Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine.
Amy is terrified. She hears scratching and scurrying noises coming from the dollhouse in the attic, and the dolls she was playing with are not where she left them. Dolls can't move by themselves, she tells herself. But every night when Amy goes up to check on the dollhouse, it's filled with an eerie light and the dolls have moved again! Are the dolls…
4.5 billion years ago, Earth was forming - but nothing could have survived there…
From Cells to Ourselves is the incredible story of how life on earth started and how it gradually evolved from the first simple cells to the abundance of life around us today. Walk with dinosaurs, analyse…
I like to say cats raised me, and I grew up among ghosts, but in all truth, my greatest influence was my mother, who took me to the library. Books have always been a part of me, and so have haunted houses. Old places have always felt charged to me. Because of this, I love great ghost stories. The books on my list all feature haunted dwellings of one sort or another, with spirits that range from inspiring and uplifting to fun and magical, spooky to downright terrifying. Enjoy!
This is the 1986 middle grades book that got me hooked on haunted house stories. I loved it because it was about a family recently moving to a house near a spooky pond and a lonely girl who finds something in the woods.
I, too, had just moved to a new house, on a pond, in the woods, when I read it. I, too, felt energies in the wild places I explored, especially when I discovered historical remains of a time past, which I often did. I read this book again recently, and it was still a page-turner that gave me the creeps.
Twelve-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother, Michael, have never liked their seven-year-old stepsister, Heather. Ever since their parents got married, she's made Molly and Michael's life miserable. Now their parents have moved them all to the country to live in a house that used to be a church, with a cemetery in the backyard. If that's not bad enough, Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen and warning Molly and Michael that Helen is coming for them. Molly feels certain Heather is in some kind of danger, but every time she tries to help, Heather twists things around to…
As a twelve-year-old, I read nothing but ghost books—not monsters, horror, or mystery, but ghosts. Though I debuted as an author in teen fantasy, a middle grade editor discovered my talent for spooky atmospheres, and I was once again drawn into the world of lost souls. In fact, when I was working on my first spooky novel, The Haunting, my editor requested the book to remind him of the works of Mary Downing Hahn—one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d found my calling. It just happened to be from beyond the grave…
India Hill Brown is masterful in weaving together history and ghosts into this book.
When two friends stumble across a crumbling gravestone, they soon bring about the attention of its occupant, Avery, who happens to be a black girl who died at the time when even cemeteries were segregated.
If you want a lesson in history and diversity, as well as a spooky ghost story that will scare the pants off you—don’t forget The Forgotten Girl.
"This ghost story gave me chill after chill. It will haunt you." -- R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps
"Do you know what it feels like to be forgotten?"On a cold winter night, Iris and her best friend, Daniel, sneak into a clearing in the woods to play in the freshly fallen snow. There, Iris carefully makes a perfect snow angel -- only to find the crumbling gravestone of a young girl, Avery Moore, right beneath her.Immediately, strange things start to happen to Iris: She begins having vivid nightmares. She wakes up to find her bedroom window wide open, letting in…
Floretta- the story of an old woman who discovers life beautifully anew thru the helping hands of a child. The chakra colors of dawn and twilight are woven through the pages as the cycle of life is magically composed. The subject of “heaven,” has the potential to open discussions with…
As a twelve-year-old, I read nothing but ghost books—not monsters, horror, or mystery, but ghosts. Though I debuted as an author in teen fantasy, a middle grade editor discovered my talent for spooky atmospheres, and I was once again drawn into the world of lost souls. In fact, when I was working on my first spooky novel, The Haunting, my editor requested the book to remind him of the works of Mary Downing Hahn—one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d found my calling. It just happened to be from beyond the grave…
One of the classic rules about ghosts is don’t try to summon them. In Haunt Me by KR Alexander, Maria breaks that very rule in an innocent sleepover game by trying to talk to her sister’s ghost. She’s never been able to get over Isabella’s death, and her guilt has stayed with her, but what comes back can’t be her sister…can it?
Don’t miss this dreadful, haunting story about regrets and the love between siblings—it will definitely make you think twice before communing with the dead.
It was supposed to be a normal winter sleepover. Hot chocolate and pillow forts and scary movies. But Maria's friends had other things in mind. They bring out a board game that is supposed to help you talk to the dead, and Maria wants nothing more than to communicate with her recently deceased sister, Isabella.
She gets her wish.
Isabella responds. And in the days that follow, it becomes clear that Isabella isn't the sweet girl she was in life.
Soon, Maria is trapped in her own house by this vengeful poltergeist, and she must confront both her sister and…
I have loved gothic and ghostly tales ever since my grandmother showed me a haunted house and told me stories about fairies and changelings. You can often find me browsing in vintage markets and bookshops searching for the perfect find. I have published two gothic middle-grade novels. Welcome To Dead Town is about 12-year-old Raven McKay, who is put into foster care in the town of Grave’s Pass when her parents disappear. But Grave’s Pass isn’t an ordinary town. It’s a town where the living and the dead live side by side. Read below to find out about the next book in the series.
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.
The classic ghost story from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction for adults and children alike.
James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage - with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing - and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. And he's getting blamed for it. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost - honestly.…
I've always been a fan of ghost stories. As a kid, I loved horror movies and the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and H. P. Lovecraft; later on, I discovered movies like The Innocents (based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw) and The Haunting (adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House). As a ghost historian and editor, I've discovered dozens of brilliant tales from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; these are stories that remain relevant, entertaining, and frightening.
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.
Traumatised by ghost stories in her youth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862 -1937) channelled her fear and obsession into creating a series of spine-tingling tales filled with spirits beyond the grave and other supernatural phenomena. While claiming not to believe in ghosts, paradoxically she did confess that she was frightened of them. Wharton imbues this potent irrational and imaginative fear into her ghostly fiction to great effect.
In this unique collection of finely wrought tales Wharton demonstrates her mastery of the ghost story genre. Amongst the many supernatural treats…
It’s Anny’s first day of middle school and, after years of being homeschooled, her first day of public school ever. In art, Larissa asks what kind of ESP is her favorite: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, or telekinesis? Tracy asks how she identifies: gay, straight, bi, asexual, pan, trans, or confused?
I grew up listening to my family’s "true" ghost stories, each creepy tale ending with a declaration that "there are no such things as ghosts." As a teenager, I devoured books of folklore, with all their tales of ghosts, witches, and long-legetty beasties: and also many books about paranormal research. As an adult, I’m a complete unbeliever but still very fond of both reading and writing ghost stories!
I like a writer of ghost stories to personally believe in ghosts, as Benson did.
I also appreciate that he brings to even his scariest and most horrible tales the same sharp social observation and wit that he brought to his Mapp and Lucia stories.
Note, however, that the great M. R. James thought Benson’s stories "went over the line of legitimate horridness." Well, I love James, but disagree with him here. I dislike gross horror myself, but think a touch of Benson-style horridness now and again is enlivening (if that’s the right term for a ghost story).
'His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert and lifeless. Even as he looked, he heard a limping step go down the passage outside.'
E. F. Benson was a master of the ghost story and now all his rich, imaginative, spine-tingling and beautifully written tales are presented together in this bumper collection. The range and variety of these spooky…
I’m the sort of writer who constantly asks “what kind of story could I set here?” A quiet copse, a busy mall, a shabby wedding venue, all locations have their own stories to tell in addition to those of the characters who inhabit them. Stories work best when the location is the pivot around which everything else happens. This is doubly true for secondary world fantasy because, when you’re creatinga world, you don’t just tease the story out of its locations—you can weave it into the fabric of the place. Which is how I created the world of Queen Of Clouds, down to its very motes.
This wonderful novel begins with the inheritance of an ancestral pile in rural England and slowly, by twists and turns, reveals the story of the once ornate house and gardens down the centuries. Ladies and lords of the manor, gardeners and servants, painters, photographers, and WWII land girls all flit fleetingly through its pages, but the novel’s heart is the mysterious walled garden whose secrets only a very few get to witness.
American owner of a failing gallery, Toni, is unexpectedly called to England when she inherits a manor house in Hertfordshire from a mysterious lost relative.
What she really needs is something valuable to sell, so she can save her business. But, leaving the New Mexico desert behind, all she finds is a crumbling building, overgrown gardens, and a wealth of historical paperwork that needs cataloguing.
Soon she is immersed in the history of the house, and all the people who tended the gardens over the centuries: the gardens that seem to change in the twilight; the ghost of…
Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a ghostbuster. I was the kid with the stack of ghost books and horror film obsession, sparked full of adrenaline and excitement. I knew about ouija boards and poltergeists before I knew my times tables and even now - older, more cynical, less drawn to graveyards - I still feel that same thrill when I am holding a horror novel in my hands. I write about discomfort, about fear. I’m well-acquainted with it. I like the feeling of being unnerved and want to evoke that in the stories I tell and the ones I read, like the books below. Hope you enjoy!
So good! A ghost story rich in texture, set in Britain during the seventies. Twins Tim and Abi live in an insular world, obsessed with the paranormal. After they prank a school friend with a fake ghost photograph events start to spiral out of control. Nostalgic without being syrupy, this book felt like stepping back into my own ghost-obsessed childhood. It’s that familiarity, as well as the slow burn of the strange and unnerving events, that kept me absolutely hooked.
'A delight for both the expert and the uninitiated, this creepy tale is a carapace of cosy nostalgia wrapped round a solid thread of dread ... A page turner that keeps you in dreaded suspense of what you are about to be shown ... A claustrophobic and entertaining read that left me breathless ... Horror for the connoisseur.' ALICE LOWE
'Hallucinatory brilliance ... The Apparition Phase may be the perfect novel for our phantom present.' GUARDIAN ___________________________________ Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers. Precociously bright, they spend their evenings in…
Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.
All the best books have a cat sidekick. Over and over, when people talk to me about my book, they pause in the middle of whatever they were about to say and go, “Oh my gosh, Biscuits,” and then launch into a list of things Biscuits the cat does, and how they are similar to things their cats have done, presumably up to and including throwing hands (paws?) with horrifying monsters that want to eat your heart. Biscuits is the latest in a long and proud tradition of literary feline companions, an essential element of many of my favorite and formative texts growing up.
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.
Arriving in the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny has no interest in her surroundings until she meets Tamsin. Since her death over 300 years ago, Tamsin has haunted the lonely estate without rest, trapped by a hidden trauma she can't remember, and a powerful evil even the spirits of night cannot name. To help her, Jenny must delve deeper into the dark world than any human has in hundreds of years, and face danger that will change her life forever.
