Folk Horror Books to Read This Fall

Before the Puritans, powerful spirits roamed the land. Abitha never intended on waking one. But when her husband dies shortly after their betrothal under mysterious circumstances, her life in the Puritan colony is suddenly at risk. 

All she wants is to hold onto what little freedom she has. When she stumbles on Slewfoot, an ancient spirit trying to find his place in the world after being woken up, his life and Abitha’s are tied together. 

As strange occurrences begin happening in the village and people start dying, fingers are pointed and one word is whispered: witch. Now, Slewfoot and Abitha have to decide who they are and how far they’re willing to go to survive in a world hellbent on hanging anyone who dares rebel against their pious conformity.

Dutchman’s Creek flows from the Ashokan Reservoir. It’s tucked in the woods near Woodstock, in upstate New York. It’s steep banks and fast waters tantalize fisherman with the promise of good fish. 

But that’s not all that draws them to its shore. Legend as old and deep as the Reservoir says that something more lives in the water. Something too fantastical to be true. 

Abe and Dan have found solace in their shared joy of fishing. And when they hear to rumors of what they might find in the Dutchman’s Creek, the men are drawn in. Because if the legends of the Fisherman are true, they might regain everything they lost. 

If they’re willing to pay the price.

For as long as the family can remember, the Haddesley’s have tended their cranberry bog, and it has sustained them in return. Every generation, they must renew the covenant. They sacrifice their patriarch and in exchange, the bog produces a “bog-wife”. 

Brought to life from the vegetation, she will carry on their family line until the next generation. But when the bog fails to produce a bog-wife, the Haddesley children don’t know what to do. 

Wenna wants to abandon the ritual and their home with it. Percy is determined to summon his own bog-wife. Eda will do anything to salvage their bond, even if that means desecrating it. Nora will do anything to keep her family together. 

And then there’s Charlie, the fledgling patriarch. He will stumble on a secret that will change everything the siblings have ever believed about their family.

When Tom bought a fixer-upper at auction, he thought it was a fresh start for him and his wife. Deep in rural South West England with a garden and ancient woods surrounding it, it could be an ideal place to settle in. 

Except for the fact that it’s a money pit. And the previous owner committed suicide. And his wife never wanted to live there. And their neighbors. 

From the moment they moved in, the elderly couple next door has done nothing but engage in an escalating war of petty damage and disruption. As the feud escalates, Tom finds himself increasingly isolated and stressed. 

Do his seemingly harmless neighbors have access to a malicious magic? And can Tom hope to escape with his life, his wife, and his mind intact if they do?

In 1908, Sara Harrison Shea was found dead behind her house in West Hall, Vermont. The tragedy happened months after her own daughter died. Both deaths only added to the history of strange disappearances and haunting legends. 

Now, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara’s old farmhouse with her younger sister and mother. 

When she wakes up to find her mother gone, Ruthie is frantic to find her. In her search for clues, she finds Sara’s old diary and is quickly swept into what she realizes is a mystery. 

Ruthie isn’t the only one searching for someone she’s lost. And she might be able to end the cycle for good.

On a crisp fall night in 1979, Etain Larkin finds a corpse on an isolated rural road deep in the Irish countryside. She takes it to a remote farmhouse where she endures a night of terror that she barely survives and refuses to talk about. 

Now, two decades later, her daughter Ashling is thriving at college in Dublin and in love with a woman named Betty. Everything is perfect and will stay that way, as long as she keeps her perfect girlfriend away from her alcoholic mother. 

As Betty slowly learns Ashling’s family history, Ashling reveals her secret obsession. There’s a children’s show everyone watched when they were young. It’s innocent. It’s fun. 

So why everyone remember it slightly different. Like the small, black goat puppet who lives in a box and only comes out when you misbehave. Some say he’s never come out. Ashling says he has. 

But once you open the door to the unknown, you can never close it. So be careful when it knocks.

John Pentecost returns to his family’s Lancashire farm every autumn to help herd the sheep from the moors. Despite the area feeling almost stuck in time, so much is difference this year. His grandfather is dead and John is bringing his new wife, Katherine, for the first time. What seems like a straightforward task is anything but. Gathering the sheep is one thing. Redrawing the boundary of the village to keep the sheep safe from the Devil is another.

The tradition is maintained through folk tales, family stories, and communal rituals. But this year, some want to defend the lines by strengthening them. And John and Katherine have to decide who they’re going to side with and what they’re willing to sacrifice to stay part of the village he’s always seen as his home.

Starve Acre was once a thriving house on the moors. That was before Richard and Juliette’s son, Ewan, died. Now, it’s haunted. Juliette clings to the idea that Ewan is still present, seeking out the Beacons, a group of occultists, to help her connect with her son. 

Richard can’t bear the thought of losing his son again, and stays away from the house as much as he can, digging in a barren field hoping to find a legendary oak tree. 

As both Richard and Juliette dig into their grief in their own way, what they find isn’t closure. And it isn’t more pain. It’s so much worse.

On a Halloween night, in the middle of a forest, a woman stumbles onto the road. Lauren’s father, Niall, drives her to their home in a small village. By the morning, the woman is gone. Things like this are normal here. 

Men drink and rage, women rebel and disappear. Like Lauren’s mother did ten years ago. When a teenager goes missing, Lauren is no longer content to wait for answers.

Turning to her tarot cards, Lauren tries to sort out who she can trust and who she can’t. But living in isolation with a turbulent father doesn’t bode well for finding out what really happened. 

Because the truth is where she lives feels like the end of the world. And for Lauren and women like her, it just might be.