 is a halloween book list complete without milling? this is a weird little book the phantom is like kind of the actual worst i scream okay guys it's your ghost host and i'm here today to talk about some hauntings so i've got 10 books to talk about today and all of them have either a ghost or a haunting or both i'm a little kind of maybe sort of cheating on this because of the maybe it's a ghost maybe it's a haunting and you'll see when we get to like the ones that i'm like that's a little bit stretching it but regardless all the books i'm going to talk about today are books that i generally recommend so even if you feel like it's a bit of a stretch to put them on a list of ghosts and hauntings it's still a good book so it's still worthy of attention and invention these are in no particular order they are not from most spooky to least spooky or from least fitting the prompt to most fitting the prompt they're just the order honestly of size like so that my stack wouldn't topple so that is the rhyme and reason for the order so without further ado let us get to the books first on on my list is the woman in black by susan hill this little book packs quite a punch and on a related note if you ever have the opportunity to see the stage play that is based on the book highly recommend i mean i can't guarantee that the production that you'll see is good you know because all depends on the particular director in the cast and etc but i saw it on stage a few years ago now and it was so scary i screamed in the theater and this is not a cinema this is like a a fancy paying many monies for your ticket type theater and i screamed but anyway the woman in black is a very short little gothic spooky ghost story that is all told from the perspective of the person who experienced this he's telling it like on christmas eve telling this thing that happened to him this ghost story and so he is like his kind of similar premise to dracula right because he's a lawyer and he's gone now to this place this really remote place to sort out the papers of this of the deceased because you know the estate papers etc so he goes to this remote house which is being haunted by the woman in black so this house is isolated not just because it's in the countryside the place it's like the locale and it's already very remote but also the house itself is even more isolated because it can only be accessed by this causeway that gets flooded when the tide comes in at night so during the day you can get to and from where this house is but at night you cannot get across so you're just stuck there at night so he's thereby himself going through these old papers from this from the deceased and of course the house is haunted and oh my gosh it is so spooky an atmosphere i mean the book is too it's it's genuinely chilling and i feel like it really does a good job setting the scene and and putting you in this situation where you feel the kind of dread and isolation that he would feel and the stage play at least the staging of it i saw there's like a whole part of the play where they turn out all the lights like the only lights visible in the house are like the exit signs but it is pitch dark not just on the stage not just in the house the whole all of it pitch dark and the only light that is used is him lighting matches oh my god this is so scary anyway um i recommend the book i do not recommend the film the film is terrible but the book and the play very very good very creepy next up is already the book that is the most um stretching it but whatever rebecca by daphne jamor yet this book i would argue is a haunting if you don't know the story of rebecca the titular eponymous rebecca herself is deceased and the book is named after her so there you go already this is a ghost story because the lady on the the title she's dead so our main character who is an unnamed narrator she's this young ingenue and she meets this very wealthy man who is considerably older uh while she's in montecarlo and he falls in love with her and marries her and takes her back to his house mandorle and this house is a grand old estate he is very wealthy this is a famous old house she's just this young girl who's not very rich at all doesn't really know how to manage a house and she is his second wife his first wife was rebecca and rebecca is all over the house she's left her mark everyone remembers rebecca the only person who's never met rebecca has no idea what rebecca was like is the narrator so she already feels like she's sort of you know wrong-footed because she sort of has to step into the shoes of this deceased woman she has no idea what her now husband's relationship was like with his wife was it good was it bad was it neutral um she's rebecca was clearly left her mark whether people liked her or hated her she seems to have been a formidable person people had opinions about her monogrammed r's on everything in the house everyone all the servants are accustomed to how rebecca used to do things so it's just the specter of rebecca that is haunting mandorle and is haunting her narrator in not quite a literal sense but in every other sense so which is kind of the point of the story is i mean that's that's why her name's on the cover because even though she is dead even though the main character is somebody else the main character is rebecca so i would certainly say that this counts as a haunting next up i have a phantom of the opera this is unpopular opinion because it's the book not the musical the musical is well loved and it's like the longest running show on broadway etc etc and i love the musical don't get me wrong i do but few people have read the book and even fewer of those people like the book i've read the book like three or four times i read it a lot when i was in high school i really really liked it this is a classic it was written in originally in french this is translated from french and it is much more of a dark sinister story than the musical the musical is kind of unapologetically romanticizing a pretty toxic and horrifying situation the phantom of the opera is a crazy serial killer who is disfigured and a squatter in the opera house it's i mean on paper the phantom is like like kind of the actual worst so the the fact that you come away from the musical kind of emotionally invested in the phantom is a testament to android woodweber's musical writing music writing skills but the phantom of the opera the original story that that musical is based on which android woodweber doesn't actually like the book he kind of hates the book which is i don't know that's this whole other thing like why'd you write a musical based on a book you hated sir the the original story is a lot more of a of a gothic monster mystery not well not really mystery because you do know what's going on but um yeah it's much of a more of a gothic tale um so i mean the the plot does largely the musical if we've seen it the it isn't diverged too much in terms of the broad strokes it does follow the book pretty much exactly is more in the details and more in the nuance of the various situations the nuance of the character dynamics that is different and it is very different for one the phantom even though the cover of this book has gone with the musical version of the mask the phantom in the book his whole head is like a death's head like he looks like like jack skellington only ugly there's no little half mask is gonna do the trick like his his whole head is stuff of nightmares they mention they pay lip service to this in the musical they do but they don't really elaborate on that other than to use it as a plot convenience to sort of explain away anything he's able to do but he is a genius a sort of engineering technological genius because before he ever came to the opera house he was um he did work for a shaw or a prince or something constructing elaborate uh amusements i guess so the fact that he's able to haunt the opera house is a testament to his technical skill that he is able to construct elaborate things that make it seem like it's a haunting or enable him to move about to the opera house undetected because he's figured out a sequence of trap doors and behind the scenes whatever so there's a lot more to his it's basically he's a torture genius that he looks like the stuff of monsters or the stuff of nightmares but he is like a prodigy and so when you combine this incredible intelligence with being treated like a monster well then he's gonna use the gifts that he has i.e his mind against the world which has treated him like a monster you treat me like a monster fine then i'll be the monster that you treated me as he is obsessed with christine dae that's the same as the musical he is also um you know into music it's not just building stuff you know that that's all a thing so like again he does give her lessons he's obsessed with her she is a ballerina singer in the opera house her father was a swedish violinist which again they briefly mentioned in the musical but it's kind of a bigger part of the book like her childhood with her father the violinist how she knew ral when they were children and what it's like being sort of kidnapped by the phantom it's a just a lot more sinister and a lot more sort of grappling with the phantom and why he is the way that he is and and what he's actually doing it's not glossed over in an elaborate musical number where i guess there's some trapdoors and some gizmos it really kind of goes into like everything he's able to do and how genius it is but also kind of like horrific because he is able to basically elaborately torture people by bewildering them in like the phantasm of his creations so like it takes a genius to do this but also like that's kind of sick that you're putting people through this so i love the book and i would definitely say the phantom is haunting the opera house next up i have the unsuitable by molly polig this i read for the first time last year and i blanked is a lot more than i expected to i mean i expected to like it that's why i bought it but this is a weird little book i don't know if i can like universally recommend it it is it is a strange book it's kind of like if you took like oscar wild or like the importance of being earnest and that sort of that tone of sort of social commentary and social comedy and comedy of manners and um mixed it with like i don't know what's really horrifying because it is it's kind of really scary or not scary but like the the haunting aspects of it are kind of gnarly big big trigger warnings for self-harm because there is a great deal of self-harm in this book like a lot it's kind of the entire plot it is not a it's not a bug it is a feature it is literally the plot so if you have if you don't want to engage with the book that deals with self-harm do not read this but so in essence this story follows a young woman who when she was born her collar bone is broken as she was being born and this i forget if that's the thing that killed her mother or it was sort of all part and parcel but basically her mother died giving birth to her and she has this huge scar from when her collar bone was broken as a baby and our main character this either is happening or she believes that this is happening that her dead mother's ghost spirit soul is in this in like the scar tissue of this huge unsightly scar that she has like all of the because like it's not just like a mark like this is all kind of like crunched and smushed and there's like lumps of like scar tissue flesh that healed weirdly so like she always wears really high collars this is taking place like Victorian era-ish so she wears like really high-necked dresses to hide that but there's like all of this like nists from when she was born and she broke her collar bone so she hears her mother's voice and her mother has some very interesting ideas and she won't leave her daughter alone her daughter really has no interest in getting married and who would want to get married to somebody who's crazy so she kind of doesn't mind hiding that she's crazy because she doesn't want to get married to any of the guys that her dad wants her to get married to her dad is not a swell fellow but when she does want her mom to leave her alone she physically attacks her own scar because that again either really does shut up her mom's ghost or at least in the mind of this young woman that shuts up the voice of her mom which is in her mind now there are things that mom's voice tells her that it seems difficult to explain how the young woman would know these things independently in order to if like if this voice was only in her head if she's imagining if she's schizophrenic like the mom's voice tells her things that is like new information that she would have no other way of knowing so anyway it ends in a i didn't know how this was going to go where it was going to go and i didn't expect the ending when i when it came to that but along the way you know because she's trying to be paired off her father's trying to pair her off with dudes that she doesn't have any interest in marrying so there's sort of this like comedy of manners that feels very like oscar wildish except for the like dead mom's ghost that's in her scar is also a factor so it's just like a very strange little book and it was just so unlike anything i've ever read and it was you know genuinely kind of horrifying at times because of you know because of the self-harm and because of just generally things going on in its household and what her father is like having to just like live like that it was kind of horrifying but it was also very funny at times because of the banter that was this comedy of manners so i guarantee you if you read it you've never written something like it and i i really enjoyed it i really did and it's not terribly long so give it a go maybe next up i have the graveyard book my neil gayman is a halloween book list complete without neil gayman so if you don't know anything about the graveyard book this is a middle grade book this is also it's either my second favorite or it's tied for first of all neil gayman's books that being my first or equal being ocean at the end of the lane graveyard book again is the middle grade book and it is neil gayman's retelling of the jungle book by reddard kippling but instead of a jungle we are in a graveyard instead of jungle animals we have ghosts and ghouls and goblins and this sort of thing actually no goblins ghosts and ghouls and things like that of that nature that are raising a young boy who lives in the graveyard the way that mogul lives in a jungle so it's a lot more sinister but it is sweet and funny as well because it is a middle grade book but it is a middle grade book by neil gayman who does not like to pull his punches even when it is for children our main character his parents are brutally murdered that's where we open and as he is escaping the his parents murderer he winds up in the graveyard and there the ghosts and other things of the night that inhabit the graveyard they they protect the boy and hide him from this killer and then the boy has nowhere else to go so they take on the responsibility of freezing him so he grows up being parented and tutored and taught life lessons life skills the birds and the bees by by ghosts by ghosts and um his his main caretaker mentor who is decidedly not a ghost but is also a dead thing it is a charming book i did not expect to feel such feelings reading it it's neil gayman so i expected to love it and it was praised pretty much the moment it was published as being like well gayman did it again this is great but i didn't expect to cry at the end of the graveyard book and i absolutely did um so i highly recommend it it is an absolutely charming story the nods to the the original jungle book are interesting if you sort of try to figure out who might be the kind of parallels to the individual animals from the jungle book and this is again much more chilling and honestly like the the antagonist the sheer con type character i suppose is really kind of terrified like the way i talk about core line like graveyard book overall is less scary than core line because it's really only that part of it that is but that part of it is like kind of low-key scary even as an adult so uh you know it's gayman so you know what you're getting um and it is an absolutely fantastic look i highly recommend next up i have the handsle wood by melissa albert now it's been a minute since i read this so it's a little bit fuzzy i would like to read it again because i did like it and i haven't read the sequel yet because of that that i read this too long ago and i would need to reread it before reading the sequel in essence the main character of this book her grandmother yes wrote a book called the hazelwood and it is like a completely out of print and is missing cannot be found but has like a cult following for those that were able to read it and this girl starts being followed and haunted and pursued by things that were from the grandmother's book did i say it was called the hazelwood because it was not called the hazelwood it was called tales from the hinterland but the hazelwood is the home where her grandmother lived lives in any event yeah this girl is being haunted by imaginary things and people from this missing cult following book written by her grandmother and of course she goes to the hazelwood this house and very haunting spooky things occur at the house that's both all i can say and largely what i can remember about what happens in the hazelwood i mean i do remember more specifics but they're spoilery specifics but yeah uh again as far as why it belongs on this list i think that is clear i did really like it and i gave it the highest praise really that i can give a book and that is that i found it to be incredibly gay menesque i would recommend next up i have on the lighter side my plain jane by synthia hand brody ashton and jody meadows this is the only one in the series that i've read they wrote three books about various jeans and now they've moved on and they're applying their skills to various marries i own all of them all of the jane books and all of the and the first of the marry books this is the only one i've read so it's on the on the basis of liking this and i've got all the other ones but so my plain jane is taking the story of jane air but sort of telling it with charlotte bronte in it where they're like friends jane air and charlotte bronte and it's basically like jane air meets the ghost busters and it's meant to be lighthearted it's not meant to be taken seriously which is why it could get away with doing a lot of stupid things that are very sort of campy and it leans into being campy it absolutely knows what it is it's not trying to be a very serious jane air retelling and it's not trying to act like there are intense stakes and this is the story of high drama it's meant to be a fun romp with ghosts with lots and lots of winks and nods to the original jane air as well as to the life of charlotte bronte and just the bronte books in general as well as nods to the ghost busters and just being a fun little story in its own right with lots of ghosts because basically like this this universe is a version of the ghost busters is kind of a society and they're recruiting i forget now if it's jane or charlotte but one of the two of them is like real good at seeing ghosts you know sixth sense style and they're they really need this skill on the payroll so to speak so um they're trying to recruit her that's why she goes to thornfield hall it's a part of her mission anyway yeah so if you like a fun story if you like something that's inspired by classic well sort of reverently poking fun at it and having a good time then i recommend this book i think it's quite fun and clever for what it is next up i have house of salt and sorrows by erin a craig i feel like i've been talking about this book a lot recently where i just like didn't talk about it at all and all of a sudden now just a whole bunch but anyway house of salt and sorrows is a retelling of the 12 dancing princesses which i have not seen anyone else retail at all so it's just refreshing to have something retold that isn't cinderella or beauty and the beast when it came out the cover was certainly intriguing but i neither expected to like it as much as i did nor did i expect it to be as spooky eerie and atmospheric as it was so in general i thought it was an excellent debut i just thought it was a good book that i had a good time with and was miles away better than a lot of other new releases i was reading at the time or that i've run sense but moreover i was surprised by how chilling an atmospheric it was at times there were multiple times when i was felt it was genuinely eerie because it's very much the sort of like seaside ghosts kind of atmosphere and the the 12 dancing princesses storyline kind of becomes quite sinister and i have to say i didn't love the ending it does have sort of a shoehorned in romance that kind of almost i mean i have no idea if this is true but it sort of feels to me like the author might have been pressured into putting it in there because it doesn't really feel like a belongs with the rest but the rest i thought was most excellent very engaging again quite chilling and atmospheric and it is very ghosty haunting seaside things so absolutely deserves to be on this list next up i have jackaby by william ridder this is the first book in a series i am currently in the middle of that series closing close to the end and i do so far at least the first book has been my favorite and the most charming and the most it that it is the thing that jackaby is the first book is the most so what it is is jackaby himself the character he is basically like if you threw together in a blender doctor who surelock from the new adaptation like the from surelock not from surelock homes but i actually know a bit of surelock homes as well if we're honest just okay just any iteration of surelock homes with doctor who but made it ghosts so he's not an alien what he's able to engage with the supernatural and he behaves a great deal like an amalgam of the doctor and surelock homes because he's a sort of a centric detective was a little who says things that you don't necessarily know what he's talking about but he knows what he's talking about which i mean the doctor does as does surelock homes but he's sort of got a more youthful quirky energy which the doctor tends to have and all of the sort of weird unnatural unexplainable phenomena is more in line with like what the doctor tends to be dealing with rather than what surelock homes tends to be dealing with and it's just a great time i absolutely devoured it it's just fun the characters are fun and very memorable the plot is engaging and it's uh it's a great spooky haunting read because i mean if i didn't say largely the supernatural that he's dealing with is some ghosts and things so yeah jacobie last but not least i have ninth house by lee bardugo this is again one where do you check out content warnings and if basically anything is going to bother you then don't read this because it has just about every trick or i could think of it's not for the faint of heart um but so basically this is based on actually lee bardugo's own year spent in yale which is where she got her degree yale does really have secret societies but so lee bardugo has written a yale where the secret societies are really just very uh various forms of necromancy ability isn't it is it necromancy i think it's necromancy and our main character in ninth house is you guessed it in the ninth house and so she uh she sees a lot of dead people that's kind of her thing this is not spoilers this is not a revelation on page one our main character sees dead people so yeah i don't think i need to explain why it belongs on a list of ghosts and hauntings um this is basically dark academia but with that sort of like magical haunting ghostly twist and it has again just about every trigger that i can possibly think of in it so it's not a light read but it is certainly a haunting one yeah so that does it for my list let me know in the comments down below if you have read any of the books on my list if you now plan to read any of the books on my list if you will never ever read any of the books on my list if you have already read all of them and you think they're all terrible so this is a terrible list whatever you want to let me know i post videos on saturdays other types as well but definitely saturdays so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and i'll see you when i see you bye