18 books like Lisey's Story

What to read after Lisey's Story — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

A Fine and Private Place Peter S. Beagle · 1960 · ★ 3.9 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Shares Ghost Stories, Horror with this book.

A Widow for One Year John Irving · 1998 · ★ 3.8 · 576p · ≈ 19h · Moderate “One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking—it was coming from her parents’ bedroom.” This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character—a “difficult” woman. By no means is she conventionally “nice,” but… Shares Widows in fiction, Widows, Grief

The Shining

The Shining Stephen King #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this tour de force from the undisputed King of Horror, a young family confronts an unspeakable evil in the harsh isolation of winter in the Rocky Mountains.“An undisputed master of suspense and terror.” —The Washington PostJack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old… Shares Horror

The Cabin at the End of the World

The Cabin at the End of the World Paul Tremblay Paul Tremblay’s terrifying twist to the home invasion novel—inspiration for the major motion picture from Universal Pictures“Tremblay’s personal best. It’s that good.” — Stephen KingSeven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt… Shares Horror

Nightmare Magazine, Issue 167 (August 2026)

Nightmare Magazine, Issue 167 (August 2026) Wendy N. Wagner Shares Horror with this book.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane

The Tale of Halcyon Crane Wendy Webb · 2010 · ★ 3.9 · 367p · ≈ 12h · Moderate A young woman travels to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling, modern, ghost story. A letter upends Hallie's life. She was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire. Her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie's father have taken her away? What happened to her family thirty years ago? Hallie travels to where her mother… Shares Family secrets

Las estancias de Dzyan

Las estancias de Dzyan H. P. Blavatzky Shares Horror with this book.

Lute

Lute Jennifer Thorne · 2023 Wicker Man meets Final Destination in Jennifer Thorne's atmospheric, unsettling folk horror novel about love, duty, and community.On the idyllic island of Lute, every seventh summer, seven people die. No more, no less.Lute and its inhabitants are blessed, year after year, with good weather, good health, and good fortune. They live a happy, superior life, untouched by the war that rages all around… Shares Horror

Apt Pupil

Apt Pupil Stephen King #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil, published in his 1982 collection Different Seasons, now available as a stand-alone edition!If you don’t believe in the existence of evil, you have a lot to learn. Todd Bowden is an apt pupil. Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher, Mr. Dussander, and to learn all about… Shares Horror

Dead First

Dead First Johnny Compton Shares Horror with this book.

Into the Drowning Deep

Into the Drowning Deep Mira Grant New York Times bestselling author Mira Grant takes us on a terrifying journey into the unknown where human frailty meets the awesome power of nature and myths come to life."A claustrophobic, deep-sea terror tale that will leave readers glad to be safely on dry land." -Kirkus Reviews"Absolutely delivers on beastly terror." -Vulture The ocean is home to many myths ... some are deadly ... … Shares Horror

The Caretaker

The Caretaker Marcus Kliewer · 2026 Instant New York Times Bestseller Follow the Rites... Nothing less than the survival of humanity is at stake. From Marcus Kliewer, a new “titan of the macabre and unsettling” (Erin A. Craig, #1 New York Times bestselling author), comes an eerie supernatural horror about a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist, only to discover the position has consequences far greater—and more… Shares Horror

Throat Sprockets

Throat Sprockets Tim Lucas Shares Horror with this book.

Voices in the Snow

Voices in the Snow Darcy Coates Clare remembers the cold. She remembers abandoned cars and children's toys littered across the road. She remembers dark shapes in the snow and a terror she can't explain. And then... nothing. When she wakes, aching and afraid in a stranger's gothic home, he tells her she was in an accident, a crash in the snow. He claims he saved her. Clare wants to leave, but a vicious snowstorm has blanketed… Shares Horror

We Live Here Now

We Live Here Now Sarah Pinborough Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house—and a marriage—gone terribly wrong.After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move from London to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous, striking—and to Emily, something… Shares Horror

Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary Stephen King Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestseller is a “wild, powerful, disturbing” (The Washington Post Book World) classic about evil that exists far beyond the grave—among his most iconic and frightening novels.When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an… Shares Horror

Red Rain

Red Rain R. L. Stine The New York Times bestselling author of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series delivers a terrifying horror novel for adults centered on a town in the grip of a sinister revolt.After travel writer Lea Sutter barely survives a merciless hurricane on a tiny island off the South Carolina coast, she impulsively brings two orphaned twin boys home with her to Long Island. Samuel and Daniel seem amiable… Shares Horror

Black Sheep

Black Sheep Rachel Harrison A New York Times Best Horror Book of the Year A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle. Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the… Shares Horror

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