13 Abandoned Places Horror Book Recommendations
There’s something inherently spooky, sad even, about abandoned places.
Once upon a time, these were thriving spaces, filled with people and noise and fun and hope for the future. Then, when deemed no longer useful, they became run-down and silent as people looked the other way, empty shells that have lost their souls, leaving just empty pits of despair in their place.
Which makes them perfect settings for horror stories.
Step inside and wander the halls of these 13 abandoned places horror books.
But, while you’re there, watch out for the rotting floorboards, the broken windows, the peeling wallpaper, the moldy basements, the decaying carcasses, and the spirits of those who just can’t let these magnificent places go.
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Table of Contents
The Harvest – Alex Hunter
Abandoned orphanage horror
Something is coming for the children.
Tim Waverly, a young teacher, escapes London’s spiralling housing costs by becoming a live-in caretaker at an abandoned orphanage. But his arrival triggers a series of frightening events.
An ancient evil has awakened. A new Harvest has begun.
As Tim and those around him become engulfed in a dark nightmare, he is forced to confront his deepest fears in order to save countless innocent lives.
“The orphanage was like a bruise as you turned onto the street.”
Twelve Nights at Rotter House – J.W. Ocker
Abandoned house horror
Felix Allsey is a travel writer with a keen eye for the paranormal, and he’s carved out a unique, if only slightly lucrative, niche for himself in nonfiction; he writes travelogues of the country’s most haunted places, after haunting them himself.
When he convinces the owner of the infamous Rotterdam Mansion to let him stay on the premises for two weeks, he believes he’s finally found the location that will bring him a bestseller. As with his other gigs, he sets rules for himself: no leaving the house for any reason, refrain from outside contact, and sleep during the day.
When Thomas Ruth, Felix’s oldest friend and fellow horror film obsessive, joins him on the project, the two dance around a recent and unspeakably painful rough-patch in their friendship, but eventually fall into their old rhythms of dark humor and movie trivia. That’s when things start going wrong: screams from upstairs, figures in the thresholds, and more than what should be in any basement.
Felix realizes the book he’s writing, and his very state of mind, is tilting from nonfiction into all out horror, and the shocking climax answers a question that’s been staring these men in the face all along: In Rotter House, who’s haunting who?
“It was towering and dark, asymmetrical and multistoried.”
Abandon – Blake Crouch
Abandoned town horror
On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman, and child in a remote mining town disappeared, belongings forsaken, meals left to freeze in vacant cabins, and not a single bone found.
Now, journalist Abigail Foster and her historian father have set out to explore the long-abandoned town and learn what happened. With them are two backcountry guides, along with a psychic and a paranormal photographer who are there to investigate rumors that the town is haunted.
But Abigail and her companions are about to learn that the town’s ghosts are the least of their worries. Twenty miles from civilization, with a blizzard bearing down, they realize they are not alone.
The ordeal that follows will test this small team past the breaking point as they battle the elements and human foes alike—and discover that the town’s secrets still have the power to kill.
“Now Abandon looms listless before him in the gloom of late afternoon…”
A Cold Night for Alligators – Viggy Parr Hampton
Abandoned amusement park horror
When a strange and deadly outbreak in Savannah, Georgia, baffles his colleagues at the CDC, epidemiologist Dr. Archibald Gruber sees their failure as his chance to solve the mystery and earn the promotion he craves.
His rogue investigation leads him to Gullywasher’s of Georgia, a long-abandoned amusement park, where he crosses paths with YouTube urban explorers Sid and Zeb Barkov. Unbeknownst to Gruber and the brothers, Gullywasher’s has become the haven for the increasingly dangerous outcast Leona Franks.
Gruber’s quest for heroism quickly becomes a fight for survival as Leona awakens the malevolent, hungry forces that call the park home.
“Even after years as a security guard at the park, he’d never felt comfortable there after the sun went down.”
The Eaton – John K. Addis
Abandoned hotel horror
Sam Spicer purchases the dilapidated Michigan Central Railroad Depot in Eaton Rapids with the dream of opening a hot new martini bar.
But when he and his friends unearth an abandoned underground hotel directly beneath the property, they must discover what happened to the original guests, before their own time runs out.
“The ancient door creaked, lightly trembled as it cleared the molding, and opened.”
Fulcrum – Jason Alan Patterson
Abandoned mall horror
There’s something funny about the little strip mall out on Route 4. Something isn’t right. It’s been vacant and forgotten for over a year. No one has set foot onto the neglected property since the doors were bolted shut. Sometimes at night, though, passersby would swear there were lights on in there. That’s impossible because the power was cut off when the last flailing business, brave enough to take up occupancy inside of It, eventually moved out like all the rest that had come before it.
It’s just another empty building that has been left behind to wither in another outcrop of woods swallowing another abandoned parking lot. Only, The Dannerman Strip Mall has many secrets. This wouldn’t come as a surprise to some. It’s one of those places that children know to stay away from. Children know about things that grown-ups have forgotten how to believe. There are quite a few stories about a lot of funny things that have happened inside of the strip mall’s partitioned confines. They are the kind of stories that seem fun while you’re telling them, but they are also the ones that can be mean and sinister once you find yourself alone, again.
Ed Berrington isn’t a child, anymore. He hasn’t heard all of the secrets and the stories that have been told about the Dannerman Strip Mall. He doesn’t see anything wrong with paying it a late-night visit for a bite to eat. You can’t really blame him because Ed isn’t familiar with this side of town. He has no idea that something isn’t right about the quaint little pizza parlor that once served the neighborhood proudly – or that the man he has just ordered his dinner from has been dead for a year. And he’s about to learn a hard lesson in generosity.
“A rectangle of strip mall sat askew with the road, half-tucked in a shaggy growth of woods.”
Those Across the River – Christopher Buehlman
Abandoned plantation horror
Haunted by memories of the Great War, failed academic Frank Nichols and his wife have arrived in the sleepy Georgia town of Whitbrow, where Frank hopes to write a history of his family’s old estate – the Savoyard Plantation – and the horrors that occurred there.
At first their new life seems to be everything they wanted. But under the facade of summer socials and small-town charm, there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice.
It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of the Savoyard Plantation still stand. Where a long-smoldering debt of blood has never been forgotten.
Where it has been waiting for Frank Nichols….
“I kept my memory. Especially the parts I didn’t want.”
I Bought a Haunted School – Sam Whittaker
Abandoned school horror
Ava’s family has just moved into an abandoned school.
The empty hallways are as lonely as Ava feared. When she finds a raggedy stuffed rabbit, she feels like she’s finally made a friend.
But there are others within the eerie classrooms. They also want to be Ava’s friends. They’ve been in this old school a long time, and they have their own wicked ideas for Ava and her family…
“Ava trembled as she hid in the bushes across the street.”
Asylum – Ambrose Ibsen
Abandoned asylum horror
College professor Stephen Barlow needs cash. Badly.
When a student asks him to head a new campus organization that centers around paranormal research, he puts his skepticism aside and signs on in the hopes of scoring a fat bonus.
Enter Chaythe Asylum, a long-shuttered and controversial institution where patients were allegedly subjected to unethical experiments. Closed in 1989 after a series of grisly murders, Stephen deems the old building as good a place as any to explore the possibility of the supernatural and arranges to take a tour with his students.
But the asylum is not as abandoned as it seems. There is something sinister in the building. It has watched and waited for nearly three decades, and when Stephen and his students enter, they find themselves at the center of a nightmare 28 years in the making.
“This is going to be the easiest thousand bucks I’ve ever made!”
Urban Gothic – Brian Keene
Abandoned house horror
When their car broke down in a dangerous inner-city neighborhood, Kerri and her friends thought they would find shelter inside an old, dark row home. They thought it was abandoned. They thought they would be safe there until help arrived. They were wrong.
The residents who live down in the cellar and the tunnels beneath the city are far more dangerous than the streets outside, and they have a very special way of dealing with trespassers. Trapped in a world of darkness, populated by obscene abominations, they will have to fight back if they ever want to see the sun again.
Every city has its secrets and urban legends. But nothing can prepare them for when they find out the truth about this horrible house.
“They peered inside, but the interior was hidden within a deep, oppressive darkness.”
Port Luck – Timothy King
Abandoned town horror
Nearly eighty years ago, the town of Port Luck was a thriving community in the wilds of Alaska. That was until a series of unexplained deaths and disappearances forced the townspeople to abandon their home.
The town has since been re-inhabited, drawing in new residents and businesses. By all accounts, the town is thriving. Until a body is found on the outskirts of town, shattering the illusion of safety and security.
Sheriff Johnny Myers is tasked with investigating the grisly scene. What at first appears to be a random animal attack soon reveals itself to be something much more sinister. As the bodies pile up, Johnny digs into the town’s tragic past, searching for a way to stop the cycle of violence.
In the wake of the ever-growing death toll, Johnny is forced to face the truth. The stories were real. And it’s happening again…
“The hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stood at attention and his blood ran cold.”
From Below – Darcy Coates
Abandoned shipwreck horror
Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course… a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean’s surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life.
Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia’s rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished.
But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them.
Because once they’re trapped beneath the ocean’s waves, there’s no going back.
“Outside, the ocean swelled, heavy with dark promises.”
Soon – Lois Murphy
Abandoned town horror
An almost deserted town in the middle of nowhere, Nebulah’s days of mining and farming prosperity – if they ever truly existed – are long gone. These days even the name on the road sign into town has been removed. Yet for Pete, an ex-policeman, Milly, Li and a small band of others, it’s the only place they have ever felt at home.
One winter solstice, a strange residual and mysterious mist arrives, that makes even birds disappear. It is a real and potent force, yet also strangely emblematic of the complacency and unease that afflicts so many of our small towns, and the country that Murphy knows so well.
Partly inspired by the true story of Wittenoom, the ill-fated West Australia asbestos town, Soon is the story of the death of a haunted town, and the plight of the people who either won’t, or simply can’t, abandon all they have ever had.
“The hardest thing, I sometimes think, is keeping track of time.”
Published: 2 July 2025
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