Perhaps you are not aware that you need a folk horror fiction summer. I’m here to convince you.
The vibes you have been craving are golden hours that somehow feel a little off, for dense woods that whisper and move even when the wind is still, and for discovering things in the wild that were never meant to be found.
This summer, you will see strange symbols carved into trees, experience rituals no one talks about but everyone seems to know, and visit small towns with big secrets.
The townspeople seem to invite you in with warm, welcoming smiles but behind closed doors, in their after-midnight meetings, they’re conspiring against you.
To set the proper expectations, it’s important to note that Folk horror isn’t just foggy English moors and wicker men or remote villages and seasonal festivals (though we love those, too). This is a sub-genre of horror with a network of old roots that run deep and wide. Native American oral traditions, Filipino ghost stories, Japanese yokai legends, Appalachian ballads, and the stories tied to place. It’s about rural isolation, strange beliefs, and the chilling realization that we’re not as in control as we like to think.
Here are the core themes and tropes you’re going to want in your summer TBR:
Bespoke religion and old gods: Custom-made religion or beliefs centered on a very specific area. Nature worship, seasonal rites, and the unsettling sense that something ancient is waking up or even…summoned.
Cultural and ancestral folklore: Traditional beliefs passed down through generations. Tales, superstitions, festivals, ceremonial rites, and practices.
Rural isolation: The kind of insular communities where outsiders immediately feel out of place or something is off.
The land itself as a character: Forests, rivers, mountains, farmland…sacred places that feel like sacred kingdoms.
Tradition vs. progress: Outsiders or visitors who bring modern ideas into places that are threatened by change.
Sacrifice: Someone must pay the price–either physically, symbolically, or some worse third thing that only horror authors can imagine.
Inevitable dread: The slow, bone-deep realization that something is wrong.
So let's get to it! Here's your definitive folk horror summer reading guide.
Short Story collections and Anthologies
This is the perfect way to immerse yourself in the vibes, tropes, and themes of folk horror from diverse voices
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
26 wildly varied tales from Indigenous North American authors dealing with a wide range of horror tropes and sociological themes.
Colonization, gender roles, harmful stereotypes, and evolving generational perspectives are woven into modern stories of legend and lore, supernatural or paranormal activity, and plenty of creature features.
Seek Ye Whore and Other Stories
Stories that express the Filipino experience through dark and disturbing, sometimes humorous tales of folklore, ghosts, and supernatural twists.
The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror
A YA anthology of folklore, queer representation, and tales of supernatural and speculative, stories.
Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora
A collection of stories from the Asian diaspora.
Barrowbeck
Several stories that take place in a small rural town with a hidden darkness running through it called, Barrowbeck.
The Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror
A trilogy of anthologies with “themes of rural isolation and insularity, paranoia, mindless and monstrous ritual, as well as arcane ceremonies clashing against modern preoccupations run through these stories.”
Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror
Anthology of classic folk horror tales that inspired iconic folk horror movies like The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan’s Claw and linocut illustrations.
Tales Accursed: A Folk Horror Anthology
More classic folk horror tales and linocut illustrations.
Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories
“Taaqtumi” is an Inuktitut word that means “in the dark”. These stories from Northern authors is full of dark and Indigenous folklore.
Frightful Folklore of North America: Illustrated Folk Horror from Greenland to the Panama Canal
Stories of folklore and mythology from a variety of regional Indigenous voices.
The Bone Mother
This book is a must have for lovers of horror-especially if you enjoy creepy, dark folklore.
Graphic Novels
Double Walker (comiXology Originals)
A couple takes a trip to the Scottish Highlands and their exploration of an isolated trail has lasting consequences.
The Autumnal: The Complete Series
A woman and her daughter return to her rural childhood hometown of Comfort Notch, New Hampshire and discover its secrets.
Wytches Vol. 1
Another graphic novel set in a fictional rural town in New Hampshire, this story takes witch lore to a darker timeline.
Through the Woods
Short, eerie folktales wonderfully illustrated with shocking scenes of whimsical gore.
Into the Forest
Jackal
A woman goes back to her hometown to attend a wedding and discovers the dangerous, eerie forest of her childhood is still disappearing young, Black girls.
Small Angels: A Novel
A Suffolk village near the Mockbeggar Woods is full of dark magic and twisted traditions.
The Twisted Ones
A woman must take care of her recently deceased family member’s estate and soon realizes there is something going on in the nearby woods.
The Ritual
A group of friends head out into the woods after the death of a mutual friend and while tensions between them mount, they almost miss the fact that they are not alone in the woods.
The Lamb: A Novel
A mother and daughter live alone in the woods living off stray people who wander into the woods and find themselves by their house.
A strange woman knocks on their door and everything changes…for the worst.
The Wilding
Five kids are camping on the grounds of a wilderness project when they discover they are not alone.
Rural Isolation Where Secrets Are Buried
Harvest Home
A small, idyllic town is the destination of a family running from city life only to find themselves immersed in a community with strange superstitions and dangerous festivals.
Something in the Walls: A Novel
A woman is sent to a rural town to investigate the claims that a witch is among them.
The Plague Stones
A family buys a house where they are expected to protect a plague stone in their backyard.
Withered Hill: A dark and unsettling British folk horror novel
A new voice in rural community folk horror.
Scuttler's Cove: A chilling, unputdownable folk horror thriller
A new voice in rural community folk horror.
Lost in the Garden
A road trip turns into a nightmare when they enter the small town of Almanby.
White Pines
Cosmic-folk-Celtic-cult-horror.
The Lottery and Other Stories
Quintessential, iconic folk horror story about a rural small town with a dark tradition.
Grey Dog
Historical, gothic/folk horror tale about pent-up feminine rage and sapphic yearning.
Mere
An isolated community of nuns are threatened by a newcomer.
ITCH!
A woman find a woman’s body in the woods which sets off a dark chain of events.
Sorrow Spring
Small town, twisted sisterhood, and dark secrets.
Cursed Family & Grief
Starve Acre: A Novel
A couple takes to drastic measures of coping after the loss of their young son.
Ghost Wall: A Novel
A family is taking part in a historical reenactment when things go too far.
Pet Sematary: A Novel
A couple take to drastic measures of coping after the loss of their young son.
Secret Lives of the Dead
A dark folklore tale about a family curse.
The Hollow Kind: A Novel
Also a dark folklore tale about a family curse.
Beauty in the Blood: A Novel
A historical horror and cultural folklore tale.
Your Neighbors are in a Cult
The Reddening: A Gripping Folk Horror Thriller from the Author of The Ritual.
Adam Nevill is the current reigning King of Folk Horror and secret cults.
Cunning Folk
Another must-read folk horror by Adam Nevill.
Gothictown
A small town’s economy is so broken after Covid, they offer newcomers a financial incentive to buy a home and open a business–which turns out to be too good to be true for one poor couple.
Foxash: 'A wonderfully atmospheric and deeply unsettling novel' Sarah Waters
A historical farming initiative turns out to have lasting consequences after a young couple get too close to the people already farming the property.
Residents of Honeysuckle Cottage
A lesbian couple learn their presence in their new community is not wanted, but not for the reasons they assume.
Breaking with Tradition: Ancestral Folklore & Old Customs
Beneath
A journalist is sent to investigate the lifestyles and practices of an Appalachian snake-handling cult.
Revelator: A novel
For generations, women of one family are the only intercessors and communicators between the people and their “god of the mountain."
Sacrificial Animals: A Novel
Sinister and ancient energies are lurking at a family farm in Nebraska.
Last Days
An old death cult is the focus of a new documentary.
Devil's Creek
A small town cult is the focus of this sprawling saga involving generations of people.
The Boatman's Daughter: A Novel
Dark forces are at work against a young woman determined to stay away from the mad preacher and his followers in the bayou where she lives.
The Bog Wife: A Novel
The kids of a couple living in an isolated, generational family bog are forced to comply with strange traditions they don’t want to keep.
Devil's Day
A man wants to move his family back to the family farm so he can take his father’s place as the guardian who wards off the devil to keep the community safe.
The Only Good Indians: A Novel
Four young men are stalked by a vengeful spirit they thought had been buried with their past.
Gorse
Historical examination of old tradition meets new in a rural Cornwall.
Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery
A woman inherits the duties of her husband’s farm after his passing but the townspeople want to take it from her so she befriends the devil.
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The Year of the Witching
A young woman lives in a puritanical, patriarchal society and learns that she has the power to change things.
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Ghost Train
In 1877 Kyoto during the Meiji Restoration Era, Maru Hosokawa, a samurai's daughter, encounters ghosts, mysteries, and a kitsune who offers her help in exchange for confronting a demon, as she navigates the challenges of a changing world.
As the long days only seem to get longer and eerie shadows stretch farther across the fields, Folk Horror Fiction Summer draws to a close, but the memories linger. We long for the ways in which these stories haunt us, and we will return to them next summer.
Folk horror tells us the land has memory, that sacred, long-held belief is a powerful—sometimes dangerous. I hope you end your Folk Horror Fiction Summer with a final bonfire or one last unsettling read, let these stories settle into your bones.
After all, the rural, ancient countryside never forgets… and neither should we.
