Hometown Horrors: 10 of the Most Chilling Small Town Horror Books

In The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad, detective-turned-private investigator Frank Rath is enlisted to solve a string of disappearances in his hometown of Canaan, Vermont. Young women are vanishing without a trace, and Rath’s investigation forces him to confront the horrific abominations of human nature hiding within his remote community. 

Rath must face the wicked manifestations of true evil lurking in the rural frontier of Canaan, and dig into the history of the quiet town, no matter what gruesome secrets are found.

40 years ago, Dale Stewart lost one of his friends in a terrible farm accident. Now, struggling with his mental health after a failed marriage, Dale returns to the house where his friend was killed, hoping for some peace of mind.

But the house is anything but peaceful. Dale cannot help but feel he may not be the only figure from the past within its walls.

The only question is if Dale is really in danger, or if these demons are of his own design. With a blizzard closing in, Dale’s search for isolation may prove to be a deadly mistake.

Everyone in the dilapidated town of Swine Hill is haunted, including Jane and her family.

Jane is followed by a ghost that feeds on fear and whispers the secret thoughts of others in Jane’s ear. Henry, Jane’s brother, is preyed on by the spirit of a genius creating odd and deadly machines, and their mother is controlled by a ghost that burns anyone she touches.

The town’s haunted inhabitants do not respond kindly to outsiders, and the arrival of new employees at Swine Hill’s last functioning factory riles up both the living and the dead. Jane must escape the fear that’s possessed generations of Swine Hill residents in order to save herself and her family.

When Claire and her brother, Sam, sneak out to explore an abandoned textile mill outside of their quiet town of Farmington, they don’t expect it to be the last thing Sam ever does. That is, until his ghost starts visiting Claire 15 years later.

Sam's ghost confirms what Claire has always suspected: something has been hiding in the factory all these years. When real estate developers come to Farmington to renovate the building, they may not like what they find in the walls—or what finds them. 

After a devastating car accident, Michael Spencer wakes up in a hospital in a small town in Montana. Here he learns that his girlfriend died in the crash, and that his own injuries will prevent him from returning home for some time.

The tight-knit community welcomes him, and he begins to care for a local girl as he recovers. But some townspeople are more welcoming than others.

When people begin to disappear without a trace—and without much fuss from the community—Michael’s suspicions rise. He starts to wonder if he ever really woke from his coma, but the truth is much more sinister.

The town of Edison, Missouri has secrets. When Marlee, a teen psychic, moves in and starts school, it’s obvious to her that these secrets may be dangerous.

Nothing instills as much fear in Marlee as the locker assigned to her, previously used by a missing student who seems to be begging for Marlee’s help every time she passes by.

Her new classmates urge Marlee to ignore the wails only she can hear emanating from her locker, and Marlee’s instincts warn her not to get involved. But the cries of the dead can be difficult to tune out.

Andrew Larimer has finally escaped the tiny town of Kingsport, where the memories of a horrible night 20 years ago haunt the lives of Andrew and his friends.

Andrew has moved on. That is, until a late-night phone call summons him back to Kingsport, forcing him to abandon his pregnant wife and his thriving career in the city so he might confront the secret that has loomed over his friend group for decades.

But Kingsport has secrets, too. The truth may cost more than Andrew and his friends have bargained for, but their lies are just as dangerous.

There’s nowhere quite so isolated as the desert, and the town of Wink, New Mexico is practically off the map.

When ex-cop Mona Bright returns to the picturesque town to clean up the house of her recently-deceased mother, it occurs to her that there might be a reason Wink’s residents keep their distance from the rest of the world. The deeper Mona digs into her mother’s past, the more oddities she uncovers in the history of Wink.

And the more she begins to suspect there is something sinister amidst the current residents.

The English village of Dunstonholme has a long history of mysterious tragedies dating back to the 1300s, when a bloody massacre occurred at the hands of a sect of Christian heretics.

After centuries of terrible accidents afflicting the town, a recent string of deaths has people on edge. Dr. Tom Allen and adventurer J. Moldon Mott suspect an ancient evil lurks under the surface of the village, and it’s only a matter of time before it emerges and floods Dunstonholme with a fresh wave of tragedies.

Bethany’s Sin may not seem like the name of a pleasant town, but when Vietnam veteran Evan Reid and his family arrive, they know they’ve finally found peace. There could be nowhere better to start fresh, and Evan’s family plans to do just that.

But the quaint little town isn’t all that it seems, and Evan is ill at ease. His instincts tell him there is something the mayor, Kathryn Drago, is hiding.

An Amazonian cult looking for human sacrifices is the last thing Evan would guess, but it’s hard to deny when Evan himself is their next target.