New Bern to Black Mountain: 7 North Carolina horror novels that deliver Tar Heel chills
North Carolina has long been home to mysterious happenings and haunted locals, from the Devil's Tramping Ground in Bear Creek to the Brown Mountain Lights and, closer to home, Cedar Grove Cemetery in New Bern.
Inspired by the state's history and gothic landscape, local and national authors have used North Carolina's backwoods, mountains and coastal islands as settings for tales of vengeful spirits, murder and mayhem.
Here are seven books set in North Carolina that offer some deliciously horrifying, and uniquely Tar Heel, tales.
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Ghost on Black Mountain - Ann Hite
Award-winning author Ann Hite weaves a Gothic tale set in Depression-era North Carolina. The lives of five women spanning several generations linked by murder and mountain ghosts play out amidst a backdrop of Southern folklore, spells, spirits and the strange beauty of the Appalachian landscape. The novel is part of a series of books by Hite that explore the lives and myths of Asheville’s Black Mountain region.
Serena - Ron Rash
Though the main villain in North Carolina author Ron Rash’s best-selling novel is decidedly human, her cold-eyed greed, deadly calculation and control of a rattlesnake-hunting hawk are truly monstrous. And the picture Rash paints of a 1930s mountain logging camp, complete with violent deaths, murder and ancient superstitions, is the stuff of nightmares.
The Woods Are Always Watching - Stephanie Perkins
In this Young Adult horror novel, things go very wrong for two high school friends, recent Asheville high school graduates Neena Chandrasekhar and Josie Gordon, when they go backpacking in the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Simmering tensions between the two lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare — an encounter with a serial killer that will test them in horrifying ways.
Greg Iles - Dark Matter
Set in the heart of North Carolina’s Research Triangle, this story of technology run amok features a supercomputer constructed in a secret government lab whose ultimate goal is the merger of the human mind and the machine. When a series of nightmares begin to plague the project’s head scientist, he struggles to piece together the truth behind Project Trinity, and the destructive power it could unleash upon the world.
Ronald Malfi - Cradle Lake
After inheriting a house in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, Alan Hammerstun and his wife hope to make a fresh start. But when Alan discovers a dirt path through the forest lined with stone markers carved with strange symbols, he begins dreaming of a lake he believes can heal his wife’s debilitating depression. When the townspeople warn Alan of the lake’s powers, he discovers that for every benefit its waters bestow, it demands an exacting price.
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Glen Hirshberg - Motherless Child
In a novel that puts a stake in the heart of Twilight-style romantic vampires, Hirshberg tells the story of two single mothers living in a trailer park in North Carolina who discover that meeting your idol might not always be a good idea. After an encounter with the mysterious musician, known only as "the Whistler,” the young women must wage a cross-country battle to retain their souls.
Blackwood - Gwenda Bond
In her debut novel, Bond delves into one of North Carolina’s most enduring mysteries, the legend of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, where 114 colonists vanished without a trace more than four hundred years ago. When the modern-day island faces another mass disappearance, a young misfit named Miranda and her friends work to uncover the mystery in this dark coming-of-age story.
Reporter Todd Wetherington can be reached by email at wwetherington@gannett.com. Please consider supporting local journalism by signing up for a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: North Carolina horror: Authors bring to life gruesome Tar Heel tales
