Whispering Walls and Haunted Halls: 8 Gothic Novels

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The houses are grand and decaying. Ghost surely haunt their halls. The settings are atmospheric, the vibes uneasy. Emotions run high, omens abound. There’s a damsel in distress, there might be some mystery and romance, and everything’s shrouded in a bit of doom and gloom. If all of that sounds like a good time to you, come have a seat in the crumbling chair next to me.

Whether you’re new to gothic novels or inhale them on the regular, you’ve probably heard of the gothic classics: Rebecca, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wuthering Heights (which is not the greatest love story ever told), the works of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe, or Southern Gothic classics like Beloved by Toni Morrison and Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. You don’t have to look too hard to find fantastic gothic lit, but maybe you’re looking for more recent works of gothic fiction.

Below you’ll find nine new and recent gothic novels in a whole span of subgenres, from Gilded Age romance and Victorian suspense to a modern gothic thriller and an award-winning Southern Gothic novel. If you’re participating in this year’s Read Harder Challenge, all of these titles will satisfy task #6: Read a gothic novel published in the last ten years. Now, let’s get gothic.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is the book that really blew up Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s career, though real ones know she was doing the thing long before. In 1950s Mexico, Noemi gets a letter from her newlywed cousin Catalina begging for her help. She makes her way to High Place, the mansion Catalina shares with her husband in the countryside, where she immediately senses that something is very, very wrong. I was uneasy for most of this book and made a lot of faces towards the end, and I’m just so glad this work of gothic horror brought more people to the SMG fan club.

The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller

I never miss an opportunity to recommend my favorite romance novel. This gothic romance with a touch of paranormal mystery features a brilliant and capable woman redefining life on her terms and a male MC who loves that woman down. It explores heavier subjects like domestic violence with tenderness and care while also being hot as hell; it is perfect proof that explicit consent isn’t just kinda sexy, but scorchingly so. If you’re looking for a Gilded Age romance with a “talk ya through it” vibe (plus a ghost, maybe?), look no further.

You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom by Vincent Tirado

This book just came out last week and I’ve been talking it up every chance I get. Papi Ramon is the recently deceased patriarch of a wealthy family, and he’s sown some light chaos in his final will and testament: therein he reveals that someone in the family is a demon he made a bargain with long ago, and the rest of the family needs to suss that demon out and get rid of it or else be damned. No one takes it seriously, save for his undisputed favorite grandaughter, Xiomara. But when the rest of the family sends the lawyer away to retrieve the original will, a wild storm hits and strands the family together. Over a harrowing 12-hour time period, truths surface, scandals break, and all hell generally breaks loose, and it’s up to Xiomara to find the demon and take them out—if she can survive the night.

The Poison Thread by Laura Purcell

This gothic psychological mystery set in Victorian England follows two women: Dorothea Truelove, a young, privileged society woman with a keen interest in phrenology, and Ruth Butterham, a poor 16-year-old orphan and seamstress imprisoned at Oakgate Prison. They meet when Dorothea’s “charity work” brings her to Oakgate, where Ruth awaits trial for the shocking murder she claims she committed with only her needle and thread. Dorothea is fascinated by Ruth and the sinister story she tells of her crimes. Can Ruth be trusted? Does a supernatural evil truly reside in her stitches? The line between fiction and reality is blurred in this story, and it kept me guessing till the end.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Jojo is thirteen and lives with his grandparents in Southern Mississippi. But when his mom arrives and tells him that they are going to go pick up his dad who’s just getting out of prison, he finds himself in the car headed north. When he arrives, he realizes that the prison isn’t just a place that holds the living. The dead can be found there too. In what many call Ward’s best novel, she tells such a magnificent story full of Southern Gothic atmosphere. No wonder it won the National Book Award the year it was released. —Kendra Winchester

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

In 1902, Flo and Clara, students at Brookhants School for Girls, are obsessed with each other. Along with fellow writer Mary, they establish their only club called the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in a nearby orchard, which becomes the site of their disturbing deaths. Fast forward about 100 years into the future, Merritt Emmons publishes a book about Brookhants and its queer feminist history, which is set to become a film. Two young stars are cast as Flo and Clara to retell their macabre story, and this story within a story starts to blur the lines between curse and reality. —Lyndsie Manusos

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

The Mexican War of Independence was not kind to Beatriz: her father was executed and their family home destroyed, leaving Beatriz and her mother destitute and relying on family to survive. Beatriz agrees to marry Don Rodolfo Solórzano for security and upward mobility, ignoring the suspicious circumstances around his late wife’s death. But soon she’s plagued by visions and voices at Hacienda San Isidro, and realizes Don Rodolfo is not who he seems. She seeks the aid of a young priest with connections to witchcraft, but even he may not stand a chance against the evil that lurks inside the hacienda’s walls. This is the first in Isabel Cañas’ quickly growing catalog of horror steeped in Mexican history, and it’s one hell of a debut.

The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean (May 5)

I plucked this last title from our Most Anticipated Books of 2026 list, where Liberty Hardy recommends this “historical dark fantasy set in Hong Kong about a woman named Mercy Chan. Mercy arrived in Kowloon years earlier with no memory of who she is and has since made a life as a ghost talker for the triad. But then a murderous spirit starts drowning people, and catches Mercy’s attention. The spirit claims to know her and her unremembered past. And if Mercy can’t remember where she came from and how she ended up in Kowloon, it may drag her down into the depths for good.” A historical gothic tale in Sunyi Dean’s hands? You know it’s gonna be good.

Need a crash course in gothic lit? Check out this primer on gothic fiction, complete with 14 examples of classic and contemporary gothic reads. Then check out these 50 must-read gothic novels and stories, and these new and recent works of gothic romance.