Five books with supernatural elements for spooky season

We are now entering spooky season, as we get close to Halloween and immerse ourselves in the fall spirit. In honour of spooky season, I’ll be sharing a variety of books that could be considered “spooky” either by having supernatural elements or being in the realm of thriller or horror genres. Enjoy!


Continuing with our theme of spooky books for spooky season, this week I’m sharing books that have some kind of supernatural element. Supernatural can be anything from ghosts, spirits, death personified, special powers, or so much more.

I feel like supernatural stories have been around since the beginning of time, just think of all the myths, legends or even religious texts.

You’ll often see the genre of magical realism will incorporate some kind of supernatural element. It’s a great way to break free of the typical restraints in our physical world to examine topics or themes.

Not all supernatural elements create a scary story, but they always add an interesting aspect by exaggerating or changing an element of reality. I’ve included books with different supernatural elements to provide some different options, as well as share a few books that might not typically be found on a list for the spooky season.

Obviously, this list is just a tiny selection of books with supernatural elements. Hopefully, something is new to you or sparks your interest.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Five books with supernatural elements for spooky season

Here’s a list of five books with supernatural elements for spooky season

  1. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
  2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)
  3. The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith (2014)
  4. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)
  5. Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (2021)

Keep reading to find out more about each one. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.

Beloved (1987)

by Toni Morrison

  • Year Published: 1987
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, classics, historical, literary, magical realism, dark, emotional, sad, slow-paced
  • Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.

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The Book Thief (2005)

by Markus Zusak

  • Year Published: 2005
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, historical, young adult, dark, emotional, sad, medium-paced

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

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The Frangipani Hotel (2014)

by Violet Kupersmith

  • Year Published: 2014
  • Storygraph Categories: fiction, fantasy, horror, short stories, reflective, medium-paced
  • Based on traditional Vietnamese folk tales
  • Violet Kupersmith was born in America, but her mother is from Da Nang Vietnam and fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.

A beautiful young woman appears fully dressed in an overflowing bathtub at the Frangipani Hotel in Hanoi. A jaded teenage girl in Houston befriends an older Vietnamese gentleman she discovers naked behind a dumpster. A trucker in Saigon is asked to drive a dying young man home to his village. A plump Vietnamese-American teenager is sent to her elderly grandmother in Ho Chi Minh City to lose weight, only to be lured out of the house by the wafting aroma of freshly baked bread. In these evocative and always surprising stories, the supernatural coexists with the mundane lives of characters who struggle against the burdens of the past.

Based on traditional Vietnamese folk tales told to Kupersmith by her grandmother, these fantastical, chilling, and thoroughly contemporary stories are a boldly original exploration of Vietnamese culture, addressing both the immigrant experience and the lives of those who remained behind. Lurking in the background of them all is a larger ghost—that of the Vietnam War, whose legacy continues to haunt us.

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Piranesi (2020)

by Susanna Clarke

  • Year Published: 2020
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, fantasy, literary, adventurous, mysterious, reflective, medium-paced
  • Winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Links:

Remote Control (2021)

by Nnedi Okorafor

  • Year Published: 2021
  • Storygraph Categories:
    fiction, science fiction, adventurous, dark, mysterious, fast-paced
  • The author is a Nebula and Hugo Award winner

The new book by Nebula and Hugo Award-winner, Nnedi Okorafor.

“She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.”

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks–alone, except for her fox companion–searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

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Final thoughts

I hope you found something of interest in this list of books.

I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. I’d love to know which books you love or that you would recommend. Let me know in a comment below!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.

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