Each year, our social media feeds are filled with news of the latest books in horror, true crime, and paranormal.
So many chilling new books come out each year—and our TBRs are often stacked with delectable spooky books by the latest emerging authors. We truly are in a golden age of horror fiction.
But sometimes we're in the mood for something older—books that have stood the test of time.
These are the classics that are the most disturbing. They’re strange and unnerving in uncanny ways—often calling us back to something old and ancient and unsettling.
Every month, we’re bringing you a selection of free ebooks to read that are perfect for lovers of all things spooky, mysterious, gruesome, strange, and macabre.
The Terrible Old Man
This short story, published in 1921, introduces readers to a strange elderly man who lives alone in an ancient house in the fictional New England town of Kingsport.
An anomaly to everyone in town, rumors that the Old Man possesses a treasure leads a group of three naive robbers to try and outsmart the mysterious old man. When the three robbers are found down on the beach, horrifically mutilated, the town is irrevocably scarred.
The Double
Edgar Wallace delivers a gripping thriller that follows a London police detective as he faces his most puzzling case yet.
Richard Staines, the newly promoted DI, finds himself trapped on a balcony during a thunderstorm, forcing him to break into an acquaintance's house for shelter. As he moves through the dark home, he finds a tied up man whose pockets are being rifled through by the kind, young nurse Staines had met only hours prior. Then everything goes black…
The Festival
H.P. Lovecraft’s 1923 short story centers on an unnamed narrator who travels to the eerie town of Kingsport for a mysterious family ritual during Yuletide, only to discover his lineage belongs to a cult that worships primal, cosmic horrors.
The encounter culminates in a terrifying descent into a subterranean realm filled with grotesque beings and alien gods, leading the narrator to flee in horror. When he wakes, he can’t decipher dream from reality…
The House of the Dead
This influential novel from Fyodor Dostoyevsky profoundly chronicles a man condemned to ten years of servitude for murdering his wife.
Based on Dostoyevsky’s experience as a laborer in a Siberian prison camp, The House of the Dead masterfully imagines a complex character whose suffering speaks to the depths of the human soul and serves as a testament to the power of believing in goodness.
