Behind the shadows of an irresistible story hook, there are unknown compels the reader to step forward and suspend disbelief.
The best of supernatural horror tends to quickly establish the stakes alongside the would-be implausibility of a ghastly entity, or a cosmic event.
In Stephen King’s The Mist, the concept of “hell’s” floodgates are effectively introduced alongside a very real and very stress-inducing evacuation narrative. In Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, the concept of the Other Mommy is introduced to readers within the would-be guise of comfort, the home and the nurturing family as pillars of the story.
Yet in both narratives, the supernatural is framed around the grit of our reality. It’s in that form that disbelief becomes abject horror.
Here are some books that balance the gritty with the supernatural to conjure so truly frightening escapades into the descent.
Blood Like Mine
In Blood Like Mine, Stuart Neville takes his consistently addictive crime thriller lens to the unknowns of the open road.
Rebecca Carter and her daughter Moonflower are on the run, driving with definitive speed, Carter’s unyielding mission being to keep her daughter safe.
At the same time, there’s a monstrous serial killer terrorizing the public with horrific murderous acts, the extent of the act itself being evidence of something supernatural.
The bodies are drained of blood, the spinal cord caved in, the body left behind like pedals of a wilted flower. And then there’s FBI agent Marc Donner hot on the killer’s trail and not by coincidence Carter and Moonflower’s trail.
Neville utilizes the grit of a crime thriller and merges it deftly with supernatural horror to create a truly memorable narrative of despair and hope.
Our Winter Monster
Dennis Mahoney’s Our Winter Monster merges two classic horror tropes, the small town and the monster of the week, to lay the groundwork for a tale that is at once somber and frightening.
At its onset, readers are introduced to a Holly and Brian, a couple desperate to repair their relationship.
Things haven’t gone well, and they find themselves at a juncture point in their relationship after the events of a wintry night not too long ago.
Soon their vacation getaway in the wilderness becomes deadly as an impossible monster hunts them both down in an increasingly impossible blizzard, destroying all those around them, while they continue to thwart the monster’s path of carnage.
There’s a real heavy weight of tragedy and loss surrounding the couple’s every footstep, and it soon becomes clear that Mahoney’s narrative spell is far more empathetic and metaphorical.
The solution to its supernatural grit is under the winter snow, deep within the bond of its characters.
Last Days
Like the best that found footage can bring, Adam Nevill’s Last Days is the daring tale of a documentarian named Kyle Freeman who decides to seek out and solve the intricacies of a cult called the Temple of the Last Days.
The cult is infamous for a massacre that made the news in a spectacularly grim fashion, culminating with the demise of its leader, Sister Katherine.
Freeman proceeds to investigate, visiting the same locations that the cult had traversed, only to dredge up the underlying power of the cult—including its secrets and sources that fueled the very same infamy and violence that led to the cult’s demise.
The Only Good Indians
A horror touchstone by the prolific Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians manages to be so many things at once, including a masterful blend of that uncanny pairing of the supernatural and gritty realism.
Readers are introduced to Lewis, who alongside three other men, are haunted by a devastatingly tragic event, an elk hunt gone wrong.
Many years later Lewis is still reeling from the effects. Jones weaves together a tender and oft-cinematic edge to the juxtaposing past and present, taking his time to reveal the source of each secret, the depth of that tragedy.
All the while, Lewis and the other men are now hunted by something supernatural and vengeful, something out to get them.
The Only Good Indians balances a supernatural edge with the psychological grit that comes from someone battling their demons—barely able to keep going as the struggle becomes increasingly desperate.
This Wretched Valley
A great synergy of the unabashed power of found footage with that of the vividness of a great survivalist documentary, Jenny Kiefer’s This Wretched Valley is a ghastly tale of the unknown and a reminder that nature has the upper hand.
The setting and the setup are simple: the majesty of the Kentucky wilderness and four climber friends.
Within the first couple of pages, readers are witness to their aftermath: the four climbers’ dead bodies, the state of each body a tale of its own.
This Wretched Valley opens with such a menacing depiction to increase the stakes of this supernatural survival horror.
All the while, the events already unfolded feel like the reader is watching the raw footage of the friend group as their inceptively ambitious and escapist trip into the wilderness becomes an ominous call of the wild itself, with its hidden menaces.
Falling Angel
The hardboiled world of down-and-out detectives and the hidden horrors of supernatural cults, William Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel is a classic supernatural horror narrative with a clever twist.
Harry Angel is that down-and-out detective, a private eye that has carved his routine with an endless spiral of missing persons cases. One day he is contacted by a mysterious individual claiming to searching for a musician named Johnny Favorite.
After Angel takes the case, the world around him transforms, increasing in its menace with every new lead he finds. Wherever he turns, Angel ends up finding a dead body, and then there’s an inkling that he simply cannot shake, one that seemingly nudges him in the direction of each new discovery.
Falling Angel takes the noir narrative and doesn’t hold back, opting instead for a downward spiral to hell.
The Lamb: A Novel
Lucy Rose’s The Lamb is truly unique in it’s perfect blend of folk tale, horror, and love story all rolled into one.
Margot lives a secluded life in the forest with her mother. It’s all she knows. It is her would-be sanctuary.
Something Margot and her mother like to do is anticipate the next person to show up at their door.
Her mother calls them strays and they proceed to invite them into their home, entertaining and offering them sanctuary before later making them her meals.
Of course, the veneer doesn’t last for long, and soon the balance of solitude and hunger transforms and Margot’s place in her quiet, devastating world is questioned, alongside her own place in the world.
