13 Witch Horror Book Recommendations
Every country in the world has folktales of witches.
What better way to explain a misfortune than to come up with a scapegoat; an often vulnerable, defenceless outcast who can be blamed for things we can’t explain?
Witches might seek revenge for their persecution, or they might just be plain evil, or even a bit of both. Their black magic powers are beyond any natural laws of science that we understand, but they feel so plausible that they draw us into a story and keep us hooked until the end.
Fall under the spell of these 13 witch horror books, filled with evil, unnatural appetites for innocence and sacrifice, secrets and rituals, and dark forces of emerging nightmares.
Don’t let the evil eye look your way.
“Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.”
― Katherine Arden, The Girl in the Tower
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Table of Contents
Maggie’s Grave – David Sodergren
Supernatural witch horror
The small Scottish town of Auchenmullan is dead, and has been for years. It sits in the shadow of a mountain, forgotten and atrophying in the perpetual gloom.
Forty-seven residents are all that remain.
There’s nothing to do there, nothing to see, except for a solitary grave near the top of the mountain.
MAGGIE WALL BURIED HERE AS A WITCH reads the faded inscription.
But sometimes the dead don’t stay buried. Especially when they have unfinished business.
“Maggie was no more a witch than the sun was a potato, but fear of her ‘powers’ was her only chance of survival.”
Hex – Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Psychological witch horror
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut.
Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s bed for nights on end.
Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.
The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading.
Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting.
But, in so doing, they send the town spiraling into dark, medieval practices of the distant past.
“Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay ’til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.”
Hobbomock – Ryan C. Thomas
Supernatural witch horror
In the late 1800s, deep in the woods of a small New England town, something was called forth for the purposes of revenge and death. Something evil, something bloodthirsty, something unstoppable.
Now, what has lain dormant for over a century has been released on four unsuspecting teens trying to enjoy a quiet weekend alone. All they want to do is watch some movies and play some games. But their fun is cut short, and what starts as a series of strange and unsuspecting events soon turns into a bloodbath in which no one is safe.
Hunter, Josh, Gemma and Kailyn have only hours to figure out how to survive, because the Hobbomock is getting closer, and if it feeds, the world will never be the same.
“Then he saw it. In the distance. Back near the pit. A face leaned out from behind one of the many bare trees.”
Strange Ways – Bryan Smith
Witch horror
Meet Delphine, Simone and Zarina. Together they are Sisters of the Endless Night.
For Centuries the coven has traveled the width and breadth of the country, unable to call any one place home for very long. The black magic that has sustained their youth and beauty over the centuries requires frequent ritual human sacrifices. Thus, they must move often to avoid detection by those who would oppose them.
Now the coven has come to idyllic Wagner Avenue, the very heart of American suburbia. It is here where the alluring witches will face their gravest challenges yet.
Dark forces are in motion, the cauldron is boiling, the pentagram is bleeding, and trouble is brewing.
The witching hour is here.
“…the sense that the woman could see her through the window blind was powerful and undeniable.”
The Midwives – Duncan Ralston
Supernatural witch horror
On tour with his latest book, true crime writer Martin Savage discovers one of his most-dangerous subjects has escaped.
The so-called “Witch Hunter,” a delusional murderer of women and their unborn children, holds a deadly grudge. He’ll stop at nothing to get his revenge, and destroy everything Martin cares about.
With nowhere to run, Martin and forensic psychologist Sheila Tanner flee to the town he left when he was a boy, after his mother was locked away in a psychiatric facility. A town hidden deep in his past, where no one would think to look for them.
But things are not what they seem in Barrows Bay. The idyllic island holds terrible secrets. An ancient evil lived here long before the first Irish settlers crashed upon its shores in a coffin ship. An evil wearing the innocent faces of elderly midwives who’ve delivered every child in the Bay for over two hundred and fifty years.
Martin and Sheila think they’re safe in his childhood home. But Martin’s mother has plans for them. Plans that require sacrifice. And sacrifice requires blood.
“A killer on the loose. A writer on the run. A town plagued by an ancient evil.”
The Black Palace – Josh Woods
Action adventure witch horror
The Black Palace – some have called it a hidden fortress, others a labyrinth of myth, a trackless mystery. Even the witches, who built it and keep it shut, fear that through the ages it has come alive.
But tonight, a field agent in the Witchfinders Union leads her supernatural SWAT team on a raid inside to find one of their own.
Yet once across that uncanny threshold, they must confront another world of grand secrets, where strange destinies are woven with theirs, where other desires are at work.
They soon learn that you don’t get into the Black Palace unless it wants you in, and the same goes for getting out.
“Something wasn’t right. A single witch wouldn’t require this many field agents…”
The Daylight Gate – Jeanette Winterson
Historical witch horror
On Good Friday, 1612, deep in the woods of Pendle Hill, a gathering of thirteen is interrupted by the local magistrate.
Two of their coven have already been imprisoned for witchcraft and are awaiting trial, but those who remain are vouched for by the wealthy and respected Alice Nutter.
Shrouded in mystery and gifted with eternally youthful beauty, Alice is established in Lancashire society and insulated by her fortune.
As those accused of witchcraft retreat into darkness, Alice stands alone as a realm-crosser, a conjurer of powers that will either destroy her or set her free.
“It is not safe to be buried on the north side of the church and the North Door is the way of the Dead.”
Sour – Tony Evans
Supernatural witch horror
Deep in the mountains of Appalachia, a legend is told about something evil that lurks within the dense woods of Gunrack Hollow. A witch is said to live there, one whose appetite for innocent souls dates back hundreds of years.
Sam Fletcher had heard the story his whole life, but he never really believed it. After all, as his father always said, it’s just an old folktale, only a story.
But two years ago, something happened that made him believe. Something that ties back to an ancient evil and a little black book with a strange symbol on its cover. The promise – to end all of his worries.
The price – one that Sam would realize far too late – the loss of his only son, Danny’s, soul.
“Something evil rose from within, an ancient being, one older than time itself…”
Infaust – T.D. Cloud
Dark fantasy witch horror
A witch with a dead familiar is an outlier and an ill-omen to every village they pass through. Rehan Nadir is one such witch. The only jobs available to him are terrible ones, and vagrancy is his only recourse.
At least, it was until he heard tell of the town of Hamelin’s plight. Stories of a malicious entity, a chaos god, have tormented the village for hundreds of years, and like clockwork tragedy has struck once more: while the adults gathered elsewhere, the children were spirited away. No trace of them has been seen since. The town is desperate to bring them back. Very desperate.
Finding and returning the lost children would be just the thing to give Rehan a new chance at the life he lost after the death of his familiar, and if all it takes is killing a god of chaos, then he’s more than ready to take the plunge and open that door.
Unfortunately, he just didn’t anticipate opening a few more in the midst of dealing the finishing blow.
Trapped in a world where even the very dirt wants them dead, the witch and the god must depend on one another to escape, and along the way realize that perhaps the definition of a happily ever after really is a subjective one.
“The difference between the top of a hill and the top of the world, Rehan thought, was merely a matter of perspective.”
The Year of the Witching – Alexis Henderson
Dark fantasy witch horror
In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.
But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.
Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.
“She was born breech, in the deep of the night.”
Witch – Iain Rob Wright
Witch horror
Summer is here and school’s out, but boredom quickly sets in for the penniless kids of the Redsow housing estate.
In an effort to escape the local bullies, best friends, Ashley and Jude, decide to brave Devil’s Ditch, a place deep in the woods that everyone says is haunted.
At first, everything seems fine, but then they discover an old farmhouse covered in weeds.
Inside is a naked woman in chains. Her name is Rose, and there’s something not quite right about her.
“Based on the overgrown NO TRESPASSING sign, they might have been the first people here in years.”
Under the Wicked Moon – Abe Moss
Supernatural witch horror
When Maria Jenkins awakens late one night in her family’s motel room and witnesses her younger brother, Michael, sleepwalking out into the desert moonlight, her family trip is plunged into a gruesome nightmare.
She discovers the sprawling wasteland outside their door isn’t nearly as lifeless as it seems. Deep in the desert hills of Nevada, a forgotten evil emerges with a lust for sacrifice.
Beneath their black-hooded robes, they travel under the veil of night in search of new blood – new blood for old rituals – until they happen upon the perfect, unsuspecting morsel.
How do you survive a nightmare that won’t let go?
“From beneath their dark hoods they shared agreeable smiles. The perfect specimen, so close and unsuspecting. Soon.”
You’re Mine – Somer Canon
Psychological witch horror
Insecure misfit Ioni Davis never thinks she’ll find love in her sleepy West Virginia hometown. Then the tall, fascinating stranger Raber Belliveau transfers to her school.
Their attraction is instant and red-hot. And a shared fascination with witchcraft bonds the young lovers even closer.
But while Ioni is responsibly studying her newfound religion of Wicca, Raber has chosen an altogether different path.
Soon, Raber’s behavior becomes manipulative. Even abusive. And their love story for the ages is turning into a macabre farce. All Ioni wants to do is get out.
But Raber has discovered a dreadful way to control their relationship. A ritual which hasn’t been attempted in over a century. A spell to unleash a bloodthirsty terror which can never be satisfied.
Ioni finds herself trapped in a struggle for her life and even her free will against a once-trusted lover who has assured her: YOU’RE MINE.
“They weren’t much different from their peers, but their aesthetic set them on the outskirts as the strange ones.”
Published: 19 July 2024
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