Books like The Hollows — picked by fans

I recommend this book because of its evident understanding of the psychology of fear. 

From the very first, there is an ominous atmosphere—evil characters, and above all, misunderstanding. Everything in this novel is pointed toward a ambience of fright. The characters are, aside from Rebecca, who is quite innocent, mysterious and dark.

Everything in the novel, the house, the furnishings therein, the weather, everything is portrayed as sinister. This is a tour de force of maintaining a consistent and frightening atmosphere.

Whenever people think of Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House springs to mind, and, for many years, I stopped right there. I was wrong.

In my opinion, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is actually a much better book – better in terms of plot and characterization. In telling the story of the decidedly disturbed and disturbing Blackwood family and their sinister home, Shirley Jackson explores small-town prejudice as well as the creeping impression that, while something awful has already happened, there is much worse to follow.

Merricat is a character I identified with. She is strong, determined, and a fighter. With the odds stacked so firmly against her, she needs to be. Jackson’s last novel is, for me at least, her greatest.

Hunter Shea has provided me with many hours of creepy, scary enjoyment, but Creature, for me, is his best work to date.

The story rang true and authentic to me. The wife with a range of autoimmune illnesses, who needs a place to rest, and get mentally and physically well again. The close relationship she has with her husband and the gallows humour that helps to bond them and see them through the many daily crises of their lives together – all of this happening while, outside, in the woods, something frightening is lurking, biding its time.

Just out of sight. I love the tension and fear you can feel and almost taste. This one scared, thrilled, and captivated me. It also did something no other horror novel has ever done. It made me cry.

I am a total Ramsey Campbell fan.

For me, he is the master of the horror genre in general and of the art of instilling creeping dread. It all starts quite innocently, with a driving lesson, but then...something not quite right happens. I love the way this author does this.

He weaves his stories like a tapestry, and in The Incubations, I felt myself transported into a Campbellesque world where nothing is quite right. Here we have a town which was twinned with one in Germany after World War 2 – and something has been festering ever since

This story enthralled and perplexed me. I loved the way the author blended the awful reality of the Nazi obsession with the supernatural and cult of the master race with Lovecraftian homages. For me, another masterpiece I wish I had written.

This book is a glorious exhortation to live, even when—especially when!—death is lurking. It takes place in the plague of 1666. I used to have a bizarre fear of the bubonic plague (like I imagined it was in my closet and, if I opened the door, it would escape out into the world), so it’s strange how much I love this book.

I think it’s because Anna, the main character, is such a force. She repeatedly reminds me to connect with the natural world and myself and then to stretch and reach beyond what I thought I was and who I thought I could be. It's magic.

Released in 2021, God of Mercy satisfied my need for history and fantasy with an authentic portrayal of Igbo traditions, language, and spirituality. This dark tale follows Ijeoma, a girl blessed with the ability to fly, and delves into the complexities of faith, community, and the clash between traditional religions, ancient customs, colonial encroachment, and modern ideas.

Nwoka's beautiful prose and intricate storytelling immersed me in a world where the supernatural smoothly integrates with everyday life. The novel’s depiction of a small village struggling to preserve its cultural heritage in the face of external pressures struck a chord with me as I grew up at a time when traditional religions were still contending with colonial religions in my country’s native villages.

This novel offered me a profoundly enriching reading experience that honored the past while stimulating the imagination. Trigger warning: child abuse and torture.

A brilliant book (who would dare publish this today?) by the author of the equally brilliant Ben’s Trumpet. In a South African township, some children expect their migrant-labourer fathers to arrive home after 10 months away. They wait, in a celebratory mood at first, but with increasing tiredness and uncertainty as the day and the night go by. They tell stories to stay awake. But the youngest falls asleep. A truck pulls up. It’s not their dads. Then the day dawns. And, with it, the fathers arrive.

There’s hardly any characterisation of the dads. They come to life through the children’s excitement and persistence. So does the deep emotion of an absent father returning. My boys have often chosen this book at bedtime. And they know it well enough to look up curiously when the dads arrive - to check if there are tears of happiness in my eyes.… show more.

I’m ending with this unorthodox double feature (think Godzilla v. Kong) because girls who kill put a twist on the theme of this list. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice. But maybe they’re a little less nice when boys are boys.

A feminist reimagining of March’s classic 1950s novel has Claude Daigle perhaps deserving of his fate at Rhoda Penmark’s hands. What if he tormented and taunted her, and she took revenge? While the daughter in Stage’s contemporary novel walks a very narrow line that kept me unsure the whole time… the guessing was delicious. Is Hanna evil? Or misunderstood? Is her mom, Suzette, going to get her due? Or is she going insane? 

Known for his Lincoln Lawyer and Harry Bosch crime/mystery series, this novel is the first one about Connelly’s investigative reporter Jack McAvoy.

I really enjoyed the immersion of the protagonist into the journalism newsroom world as he tries to link his brother’s unexpected murder to a series of nationwide murders.

With all odds against him, I liked the way Jack kept fighting the upstream battle to arrive at an astonishing conclusion to the case.

I finished reading this book and immediately gave it to my spouse and said, “Read this.” And after she finished reading it, we agreed to give it to another person with the insistence, “Read this.” Helen Brandt is a private detective in 1941 Chicago, and she has supernatural talents.

Her talents, her insecurities, her history unfold on the pages in a riveting read. As she hunts for a serial killer known as the White City Vampire, I felt myself pulling for Helen at every turn, and her voice leaps off the page.