100 books like Northanger Abbey

When I was younger, I stayed overnight in a haunted house, or at least a house that felt haunted. I was in a big, creepy room by myself, and sleep was impossible. Instead, I sat up through the night, feeling very alone. During that long wait for dawn, this book was there for me.

It’s a satire that’s now more famous than many of the grim rural novels that inspired it; more important to me then, it’s the very funny story of Flora Poste, a modern young woman who goes to stay at a remote country farm with her relatives, the dramatic Starkadders, ruled over by Aunt Ada Doom, who once saw something nasty in the woodshed. Flora’s story is a glorious triumph of common sense over an ominous atmosphere.

Oscar Wilde gave us a genuinely chilling gothic tale in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but in this short story, the supernatural is a source of fun.

The Otis family, pleasant, sensible, and up-to-date Americans, move into a haunted English manor and immediately antagonize Sir Simon de Canterville, the house’s resident spectre. Sir Simon has a theatrical flair for haunting, pulling out all the stops to terrify his victims into gibbering wrecks, but it’s all wasted on the Otis family, who are hilariously unbothered by the spookiness.

If you’re staying in a haunted house, I highly recommend channeling your inner Otis.

This book is the equivalent of eating a batch of fresh chocolate chip cookies inside a drafty and most definitely haunted lighthouse on the Oregon coast as the waves crash against the shore and you pull your blanket a little tighter around you.

No one does atmosphere like Shea Earnshaw (No one, I said it) and this story of drowned girls off the Oregon coast will send a chill up your spine even as you’re reaching for your next cup of tea.

Anna writes cozy romantic fantasies that feel like getting a hug from your best friend.

A Cinderella retelling (we love a retelling!) in which our main character, Selah, has to travel the world to find a husband to save her family’s legacy, this book will have you giggling and gasping all the way to the end. And don’t worry – there is a sequel, The Boundless, and it’s just as good.

The other recommendations on my list are titles that will help you if you want to calm yourself down, maybe even get some sleep, whilst staying in a haunted house. But maybe you want to lean into the atmosphere. If that’s the case, you need M. R. James. 

His ghosts are rarely glimpsed clearly, you get troubling hints of their appearance, or you just see the horrible things they have done to their victims, and that makes them all the more terrifying. In these stories, anything could turn on you: a doll’s house, your Latin homework, the advert you see on your daily commute. Proceed with caution.

Witchy goodness, the coziest town in the world, and an amazing romance – what more can you ask for?

Gwyn Jones is a witch who is perfectly content to keep working at her witchy shop in Graves Glen, and does not need to deal with Wells Penhallow, whose ancestral links to the town are the reason he’s opening a competing shop across the street from Gwyn.

Banter, snappy retorts, and a simmering tension underneath it all, especially when it turns out they have to work together to fight against forces bigger than the both of them??? What more do you need???

I love that Royal Holiday features older characters—the main character in this book is the mother of the main character in another of the same series. Because yes, whirlwind love stories shouldn't be restricted just to the 20- or 30-somethings.

The maturity and self-knowledge of the main characters was so refreshing, and of course the setting is a part of why I love every single book on this list.

When you’re jumping at shadows, Sherlock Holmes makes the perfect companion.

Real life, in the Holmes stories, has so many deliciously strange and romantic possibilities that there is no need to go chasing after the supernatural; even the oddest occurrence has a logical explanation. Maybe that spooky noise you just heard was just the house settling, after all. (Or maybe it was a swamp adder crawling into bed with you.) Either way, you can find comfort in echoing Holmes’s words: “The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”

This modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility charms with its tea shop setting, complicated sisterly relationships, and seamless prose.

But the real appeal to this book is the obvious love and expertise with which Lodge describes food, tea, and all their accoutrements. The delicious recipes at the end of each chapter certainly don’t hurt either.

Need some baking inspiration? Just flip through and choose from recipes like Cranberry Vanilla Scones, Pear and Earl Gray Hand Pies, and Raspberry Cream Cheese Kolaches.

I never saw any of these puzzles before I read Mullan’s book. By solving them, he goes deep into Austen’s novels, examining her miniature world as if with a microscope, offering the reader insights into the subtleties of her art: how people inadvertently reveal through their words what they would prefer to keep hidden or how Captain Benwick, a major minor character in Persuasion, comes across as a solid human being without the reader’s hearing him utter a word. The aspiring novelist can learn much from her tricks.