The 9 Best Darcy Coates Books to Read After You Devour The Hollow Dead

Recently released, The Hollow Dead is the fourth book in Coates’ Gravekeeper series, allowing us to return to the world of Keira–and the dead. All Keira remembers upon waking up alone in a strange forest is that she can talk to the dead, and she’s being hunted by mysterious mask-wearing men. 

She eventually discovers that these men work for Artec, an organization that harbors the spectral energy from hundreds of chained, tortured souls for profit. Keira and her friends are the only people who can stop them, and they must do so fast, before Artec recruits more of the unwilling, agonizing dead to their cause. But with the fickleness of Keira’s memory, things she’s forgotten about her own past may come back to haunt her. 

A paranormal horror meets serial killer thriller, The Carrow Haunt is one of Coates’ best-known books. It features Remy, a tour guide for Carrow House, a notoriously haunted property. She’s excited to be hosting seven guests for a week-long stay, as she’s been dying to experience some of the paranormal activity that the house is known for. 

At first, it’s everything they’ve been hoping for. But then it gets worse…and worse. A storm moving in and cutting off their connection to the outside world is just the beginning of the horror. But then doors start to open on their own. Seances end in disaster. Mysterious red liquid seeps out from beneath the wallpaper. Their spirit medium even begins to act strange, wandering through the house at night as though in a trance. 

But strangest of all, a guest perishes under peculiar circumstances, and Remy dares to wonder if the house’s original owner, a sadistic serial killer, is on the hunt once more…but if that’s the case, it’s already too late to escape. 

The Whispering Dead is the first book in the Gravekeeper series. In an attempt to take refuge from a bitter storm and an undead hunter on her tail, homeless Keira shacks up in an abandoned groundskeeper’s cottage. Surrounded by gravestones on all sides, she can hear all the suffering, neglected dead whispering in the dark. 

Despite the cemetery’s purpose, it’s alive with the spectral shapes of the undead, led by a woman who died long ago–the woman who’s been hunting Keira. Since Keira is the only one who can see her, it’s up to her to help the ghost find her final resting place; but as she learns more about this woman’s past, she discovers her life was ridden with deception, ill-fated love, and worst of all, murder.

But the past is never as simple as it seems, and Keira has to find a way to free the spirit before time runs out…even if that means sacrificing her own life to do it. 

Showing off her versatility, Hunted, another well-loved novel, is more of an adult mystery thriller–though it still contains horrifying events. Five days after 22-year-old Eileen goes missing during a hike in the Ashlough Forest, her camera turns up downriver, and the post-disappearance photos are nothing short of strange. 

Chris believes that Eileen is still alive; so when the police give up their search, he organizes his own search party. Chris and four of his friends explore the mountain range in a desperate search, eventually going off-trail to see what they can find. 

ut the more they search, the more unsettling things they discover–and by the time they realize that Eileen’s disappearance wasn’t an accident, and they’re the ones being hunted, not the ones doing the hunting…it’s too late.

A horror novel with gothic, romantic, and historical origins, House of Shadows begins with Sophie’s family suffering an unexpected disaster that bankrupts their family. Still upset by the devastating news, Mr. Argenton, a wealthy stranger, gives her an equally unexpected solution: marry him.

To restore her family’s fortunes and save them from scandal, she agrees—even though it sentences her to a life at Northwood, a large but depressingly dark mansion in the middle of nowhere. 

Sophie attempts to adjust to her new life as mistress of Northwood, to no avail. Her husband is keeping secrets, his family is cold, and even the house is unsympathetic to her cause: doors slam on their own, blood drips from the ceilings, strange figures creep through the forest, and her husband’s young cousin Elise draws horrifying pictures. 

Sophie eventually discovers that the house is haunted by the family’s long-dead ancestors–and they don’t like her. Though she becomes desperate to escape, she can’t help but be enamored with her husband. But the secrets he’s keeping about the house are so dangerous that they may just be unforgivable. 

The sequel to House of Shadows, House of Secrets details Sophie and Joseph’s experience in a new long-abandoned mansion, after escaping from Northwood. Stuck inside the dangerous Kensington mansion and forced to face the horrors within, they will do whatever it takes to help save Elise from a horrible fate.

Clare remembers everything about the car accident except the actual accident: the cold, the abandoned cars, the children’s toys strewn all over the road, the dark shapes in the snow, and the terror in her heart. And then…nothing. 

Then she awakes aching and afraid in a stranger’s eerie home, and he claims that he saved her from the accident. But something tells her not to believe everything he says. She wants to leave, but a snowstorm has snowed them in, forcing her to wait. Luckily, the stranger seems kind; but even though he’s promised that they’re here alone, she can’t ignore the sights and sounds that suggest otherwise. And she can’t shake the feeling that the moment she steps out of the house, whatever has been slinking around the surrounding woods will take her. 

Increasingly on edge, Clare is sure of one thing: her car crash wasn't an accident. And whatever caused it is out there, waiting for her, with a desperately hungry vengeance. 

The backstory of Craven Manor gives you the creeps in a Five Nights at Freddy’s sort of way. Daniel, desperate for a job, is in fact so desperate that when someone slides a note under his door offering him the groundskeeper’s position at an old estate, he is absolutely elated. 

But the feeling doesn’t last long. When he pulls up to find the front door hanging on by a hinge and leaves and cobwebs in the marble foyer, it’s clear that the place has been abandoned for some time. But in the doorway sits an envelope full of money, and it promises more, so Daniel shakes off the “heebie-jeebie” feeling and continues on his way. 

Daniel is desperate enough to move into the groundskeeper’s cottage behind the crypt, against his better judgment, and ignore the peculiar happenings that continue to occur the harder he concentrates on ignoring them.

But when a candle flickers to life in the abandoned tower window, Daniel realizes that his desperation has caught him up in the middle of the house’s terrible secret; and even though the front door is hanging on by a thread, he may not be able to escape. 

There’s always one house in the neighborhood that everybody knows about because it’s just that creepy. In this case, it’s Ashburn House; people whisper about how the last owner went insane, that it’s relentlessly haunted, and something savage and menacing lives within its walls. But Adrienne is willing to disregard the rumors when she inherits the crumbling old mansion, as she desperately needs a place to stay. 

But then night falls. Strange messages are etched into the walls, and furniture moves when she leaves the room. Even more peculiar, a hidden grave in the forest behind the house hints to a sinister, unforgivable secret. It’s not long before Adrienne realizes she can’t ignore the twisted, deeply unnatural being that dwells within her house.

Piecing together a decades-old mystery, she quickly finds out that she’s become the evil’s new prey–and she has no idea how to survive, let alone escape.