The Haunting Season by Various

The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights with contributions from Bridget Collins, Natasha Pulley, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Andrew Michael Hurley, Jess Kidd, Elizabeth Macneal and Laura Purcell

Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories.

From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Suicide
  • Post-partum depression
  • Drug abuse
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
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The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates

The Haunting of Gillespie House by Darcy Coates

Elle is thrilled to spend a month minding the beautiful Gillespie property. More than an hour’s drive from the nearest town and surrounded by forests, the aging mansion is ideal for someone seeking solitude. But things start to go very wrong, very quickly.

Elle discovers a crumbling graveyard nestled in the woods. It contains a generation of the house’s residents, all with an identical year of death. Scratching in the walls. Slamming doors. Whispers in the night. A locked room… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Body horror
  • Physical injuries
  • Dead body
  • Death of a child, off-page
  • Disappearance of a child mentioned
  • Cults
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Three Hours In Paris by Cara Black 

Three Hours In Paris by Cara Black

Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Führer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot centre of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a partner
  • Torture
  • Gun violence
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Don’t Look for Me by Wendy Walker

Don’t Look for Me by Wendy Walker

One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together. It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. She doesn’t want to be found. Or at least, that’s the story. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?

The night Molly disappeared began with a storm, running out of gas, and a man in a truck offering her a ride to town. With him is a little girl… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Vehicular manslaughter of a daughter recounted
  • Kidnapping & captivity
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If I Only Had a Duke by Lenora Bell 

If I Only Had a Duke by Lenora Bell

After three failed seasons and a disastrous jilting, Lady Dorothea Beaumont has had more than enough of her family’s scheming. She won’t domesticate a duke, entangle an earl, or vie for a viscount. She will quietly exit to her aunt’s Irish estate for a life of blissful freedom. Until an arrogant, sinfully handsome duke singles her out for a waltz, making Thea the most popular belle of the season. The duke ruined her plans and he’ll just have to fix them… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Murder of a baby brother
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The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill 

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill

Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighbourliness. The people put their faith in the Mayor, a dazzling fellow who promises he alone can help. After all, he is a famous dragon slayer. (At least, no one has seen a dragon in his presence.) Only the clever children of the Orphan House and the kindly Ogress at the edge of town can see how dire the town’s problems are… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Disappearance of a child
  • Fire
  • Animal attack (birds)
  • Animal abuse & injury*

*Explanation : A dog is blinded by his previous abusive owner.

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The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill 

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. 

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Abandonment
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandmother
  • Infanticide
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Animal injury
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Goblin King by Kara Barbieri 

Janneke has survived the Hunt for the Stag but all good things come with a cost. Lydian might be dead, but he took the Stag with him. Janneke now holds the mantle, while Soren, now her equal in every way, has become the new Erlking. Janneke’s powers as the new Stag has brought along haunting visions of a world thrown into chaos and the ghost of Lydian taunts her with the riddles he spoke of when he was alive. When Janneke discovers the truth of Lydian and his madness, she’s forced to see her tormentor in a different light for the first time. The world they know is dying and Lydian may have been the only person with the key to saving it.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Abandonment
  • Disordered eating recounted
  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Nightmares
  • Suicidal ideation & suicide (on-page)
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Graphic physical injuries, including on-page eyeball trauma & loss of vision
  • Death of a newborn son from exposure to the cold mentioned
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Torture (on-page & recounted)
  • Knife, arrow & axe violence
  • Drowning (on-page)
  • Kidnapping & captivity recounted
  • Animal attack (on-page)

The Many Sins of Lord Cameron by Jennifer Ashley 

The Many Sins of Lord Cameron by Jennifer Ashley

Cameron Mackenzie is a man who loves only horses and women—in that order—or so his mistresses say. Ainsley Douglas is a woman with a strong sense of justice and the desire to help others—even if that means sneaking around a rakish man’s bedchamber.

Which is exactly where Cam finds her—six years after he caught her the first time. Only then, she convinced Cam she was seeking a liaison, but couldn’t go through with it because of her husband. Now a widow, she’s on a mission to retrieve letters that could prove embarrassing to the queen. Cam has no interest in Ainsley’s subterfuge… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Sexual assault
  • Domestic abuse
  • Suicide
  • Death of a child

The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom

The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom

Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in.

“Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says.

“I am the Lord,” the man whispers.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Classism
  • Suicide
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a child
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