10 Great Gothic Thrillers That Will Keep You Up at Night

[Celerity]

The author of “If We Were Villains” recommends novels that will make you shiver with delight one moment and recoil in horror the next.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/books/review/gothic-thriller-books.html

https://archive.ph/FPC57





Horror is having a moment. Once confined largely to Halloween, or at least to October, “spooky season” has evolved into a monthslong phenomenon — and our hunger for the frightful doesn’t stop there. At a time when real life can feel like a nightmare, a collective turn toward the ghoulish and the ghastly might seem counterintuitive, but the Gothic genre has always offered a space to examine the darkest corners of the human psyche. The supernatural happenings that scare us out of our skin are — like the portrait of Dorian Gray — reflections of our own evil as much as anything else. These novels, both old and new, will make you shiver with delight one moment and recoil in hair-raising horror the next.



Rebecca

By Daphne du Maurier

In this master class of psychological horror, the naïve second wife of Maxim de Winter grapples with the legacy of his first spouse, Rebecca. Du Maurier makes good use of many of the usual tropes of the Gothic genre, especially uncanny doubling: Relentlessly and unfavorably compared to the Manderley estate’s bewitching former mistress, the nameless narrator is pushed to the brink of sanity by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Secrets bob to the surface like drowning victims from the deep until nobody — not even the reader — can easily separate the terrible truth from even more terrible fictions.



The Historian

By Elizabeth Kostova

In her fresh take on the vampire novel, Kostova reworks the Dracula legend with a historian’s meticulous attention to detail. Following in the tradition of imperiled Gothic heroines, a young woman in 1970s Amsterdam finds herself in the clutches of malevolent forces as she tries to unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, which seems to be tied to the 15th-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a sinister, supernatural legacy that stretches into her present. The sweeping scope of this aptly titled novel makes it perfect for a long dark evening, and for readers who like a side of folklore with their thrills and chills.



Earthlings

By Sayaka Murata; translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

One of the strangest novels you will ever read, Murata’s “Earthlings” is impossible to categorize and just as difficult to describe. That’s exactly what makes the book so delicious — and so disturbing. Murata’s hairpin narrative style keeps readers so persistently off-balance that you’ll feel like a Gothic heroine yourself, lost in a maze of blind corners, dead ends and mind-boggling moments. But the darkness lurking at the core of this modern fable about a girl who believes she is an alien is all too real and so eerily familiar that, when the shocking ending arrives, you might not know what to believe.

Read our review.



Fledgling

By Octavia E. Butler

Like many of the best-known Gothic thrillers of centuries past, “Fledgling” blends genres and bends morality with grisly determination. One part horror, one part science fiction and one part fantasy, this is a refreshingly freaky entry in the overworn category of vampire fiction. As sinister as they are seductive, Butler’s bloodsuckers prey on human frailty as much as human flesh. The novel’s protagonist, Shori, challenges — often violently — assumptions about race and power, sexuality and desire, and every ethical truth you thought you knew. Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, “Fledgling” is a slim but sharp-toothed novel unjustly overlooked in Butler’s oeuvre.

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[bronxiteforever]

1. Thank you Celerity for posting!

I am bookmarking these and could use a break from my nonfiction reading.

[Celerity]

3. yw

[Diamond_Dog]

2. I am bookmarking,too. TY Celerity!

I read “Rebecca” in high school and always remember how it filled me with terror.

[Celerity]

4. yw