Small-town settings are popular in many literary genres, from cozy murder mysteries to spicy romances. In the hands of horror authors, these towns often feel cheerful and charming to begin with, but they always end up showing their true dark colors. Think Mark Frost and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which is home to the welcoming and pie-filled Double R Diner, but also to the terrifying extradimensional Black Lodge. Or take Stephen King’s fictional Maine towns—Derry, Castle Rock, and Jerusalem’s Lot—all of which seem like ideal places to live if you ignore the shape-shifting monster, sinister shop owners, and vampires.
In that vein, here are five horror novels that are set in small towns which may seem idyllic from the outside, but which harbor unimaginable darkness within.
Hex (2016) by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (translated by Nancy Forest-Flier)
In the English translation of Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s Hex, the story is shifted from the real Dutch village of Beek to the fictional town of Black Spring in the Hudson Valley. This picturesque town has a secret that it goes to great lengths to hide: a witch, whose eyes and mouth were stitched up in 1664 and who has endlessly roamed the streets ever since. Known as the Black Rock Witch, the town has mostly gotten used to her creepy presence. The townspeople monitor her location to ensure that infrequent outsiders don’t catch a glimpse of her, as knowledge of a supernatural being would prompt scientific investigation, and her mouth must not be cut open under any circumstance.
But a group of restless teenagers decide to break the town’s rules and record the witch, with the aim of going viral online. This sets in motion a disastrous chain of events, with the story starting out eerie and unsettling, and building to an all-out gore fest.
The Devouring Gray (2019) by Christine Lynn Herman
Part one of a duology, The Devouring Gray is set in Four Paths, a fictional upstate New York town surrounded by woodlands. Teenager Violet moves to the rural town, where her mother grew up, and once there she discovers that the descendants of the town’s four founding families—of which she is one—have some magical abilities. Sadly this magic isn’t just for fun and games—it’s needed to defend Four Paths from the mysterious beast that lurks in the Gray, an otherworldly dimension that exists in the woods (think the Upside Down from Stranger Things). The descriptions of the Gray are hauntingly atmospheric and the victims the beast leaves behind definitely aren’t pretty, but as this book is YA the horror never gets too extreme.
Black River Orchard (2023) by Chuck Wendig
Dan Paxson is a struggling farmer and single father, but his luck changes when he grows a small orchard of rare trees that produce addictively delicious apples. Soon his little hometown of Harrow, Pennsylvania is obsessed with this perfectly sweet and sour apple, the vivid descriptions of which made me desperately crave a slice of apple pie—at least at first! But this isn’t a Hallmark movie (as much as that initial plot description sounds like it might be) and the darkness that lies at the core of the apple soon consumes the town.
The story jumps between a few different perspectives in order to uncover the secrets of this sinister apple and of the tight-knit community that it infects. As well as the POVs of Dan and his daughter Calla, we follow John Compass, a gnarled apple hunter; Emily, a woman who has just moved to town with her wife; and Joanie, Dan’s high school sweetheart. Along the way, things get horrifically weird and while that weirdness may not be to everyone’s taste, it certainly was to mine.
Cold Moon Over Babylon (1980) by Michael McDowell
Cold Moon Over Babylon is a ghostly southern Gothic tale driven by revenge. Fourteen-year-old Margaret Larkin lives on a blueberry farm with her brother and grandmother in the sleepy town of Babylon, near the Florida-Alabama state line. One day while cycling home, Margaret is attacked by a masked figure and thrown into the Styx River to drown. Her killer manages to evade earthly justice, but Margaret’s spirit won’t rest until punishment has been served.
While the story is a slow burn, the spooky Southern atmosphere is incredibly immersive and it’s punctuated by moments of viscerally-described horror, from Margaret’s brutal murder to her vengeful, water-logged hauntings. Through all the twists and turns enhanced by Michael McDowell’s terrifying descriptions, I was gleefully rooting for Margaret’s ghost.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021) by Stephen Graham Jones
My Heart Is a Chainsaw is another slow burn, but you’ll find that it’s worth it, particularly because of the incredibly gory payoff at the end. The story is about a half-Indian high school senior called Jade Daniels, who lives with her abusive father in the rural lake town of Proofrock, Idaho. Jade is an outcast from the small community and so she immerses herself in horrors movies, specifically slashers. Filtering the world through this bloody perspective, Jade begins to think that a killer is actually on the loose. As well as being a love letter to the slasher genre (with Jade’s “Slasher 101” papers being a particular highlight in this regard), My Heart Is a Chainsaw is also a deep dive into the mind of a teenager who is bearing the physical and mental scars of being failed time and time again.
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None of these towns are places I’d want to visit in real life (at least not while witches and monsters are prowling the streets!), but I loved the time I was able to spend in them as a reader. Have you got any recommendations for horror books or stories with a small-town setting? Drop them in the comments below!
Lorna Wallace has a PhD in English Literature and is a lover of all things science fiction and horror. She lives in Scotland with her rescue greyhound, Misty.
