A curated list of Southern Gothic Books

7th October 2025

Southern Gothic books set in the American South, recommended by author Leigh M Hall

The Chambermaids is a Southern Gothic horror novel set in East Texas in the late 1800s. The standalone novel releases on November 11th, 2025, and is currently available for pre-order everywhere books are sold.

If you have never actually visited Texas, when you think about the state, I am sure the first thing that pops into your mind isn’t Southern Gothic horror. Unless you’re thinking of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No, the first thing you might picture is tumbleweeds and cowboys. Maybe the rodeo and football. But the “Driver Friendly” state that is full of southern hospitality doesn’t really give off a horror vibe most of the time.

You’d be surprised how many creepy, gothic, horrifically beautiful stories have bloomed out of the Lone Star State. Take it back in time, throw in a rural setting with desperate characters. It doesn’t get better than that. These tales go all the way back, and many writers still find a way to put a spin on fresh stories. The Chambermaids is no different. Given that it can also be considered a historical and a suspenseful psychological thriller, there is something between these pages for everyone.

As someone who grew up in Texas and has lived here for almost my entire life (I will not say how many years that is), you might think I know all about the state. The truth is, I haven’t seen the entire state. It is huge! Has anyone ever seen the entire state of Texas? Its vastness makes it the perfect place to set a spooky story. There are so many unpopulated, uncharted areas that deviants and devilish characters can hide in.

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I have set a lot of my books in the South, most of them in Texas, and almost all of them stem from actual places. With The Chambermaids, I had to use a little more of my imagination. No actual town is mentioned as far as where the ancestral home is, but a general area and surroundings will lead you to believe it is located somewhere in East Texas. Well-known cities are mentioned throughout the book. I didn’t want to give the town/area a name, considering the book takes place over a hundred years ago. Plus, not knowing the precise location gives the story just a pinch more mystery.

Given the size of Texas, you could basically create any type of creepy scenario. Want to have a Bay Area butcher, serial killer offing people at a cabin in the woods, looking more for a ‘Hills Have Eyes’ vibe? Texas has all of that. A body could wash up on Galveston Beach, freeze to death during a February storm in Dallas, or skeletal remains could be found in the dry lands surrounding El Paso. The possibilities are endless.

With The Chambermaids, I decided to go with isolated farmlands. The remote location and small cast of characters give this tale just the right amount of spook factor. Wilber and Eloise Saxton inherit a mansion that has been in Eloise’s family for centuries. However, Eloise has not visited the land since she was a child and has grown unfamiliar. There are these two people tossed into a house in desperate need of repairs, and with literally no way to communicate with anyone anywhere. Suddenly, these peculiar young women show up offering to help. That is when everything gets weird.

In true Southern Gothic horror fashion, The Chambermaids will have you on the edge of your seat and biting your nails. This book is a standalone, so the story stops on the last page, but don’t worry, I have more coming your way soon. I recently spent a couple of weeks in New Orleans, researching the French Quarter and learning a slew of interesting things that happened in some of those old houses. It looks like the next time you hear from me, we are going to take a trip to Louisiana.

Here are some already published books that I have enjoyed. They are not all set in Texas, but will give you the same vibe as my newest book.

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

Synopsis: During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.
But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.

Quote: Our relationship was founded on one thing and one thing only: my world was a dark, windowless room, and he was a door.

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

Synopsis: Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.

Quote: You know, because sometimes God is your copilot, but it’s the Devil who takes you home.

The Spite House by Johnny Compton

Synopsis: Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. When he comes across an ad for a caretaker for the Masson House, Eric hopes they have finally caught a lucky break. The owner of the “most haunted place in Texas” is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there—provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them.

The job calls to Eric, not just because of the huge payout, but because he needs access to the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it will help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, too afraid to stop running…

Quote: Of the many things wealth was good for, one of the most underappreciated, in her opinion, was that it allowed you to purchase self-absolution.

And, my all-time favorite book…

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Synopsis: Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, an intricate tale of evil unfolds.

Quote: I resolved to move just a little bit more slowly through the world, to look around myself with greater care, and to try to remain conscious of all that was going on around me at all times.

About the author…

Leigh M. Hall is an award-winning writer of several dark and gripping novels. Her debut, Girl Bully, is a bestseller. Book one in The St. James Saga: Within These Walls was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Reader’s Choice Award in 2023. The Broken Sister, a standalone novel, was also up for a Reader’s Choice Award in 2024. Her next release, The Chambermaids, won a Claymore award for Best Southern Gothic and is currently available for pre-order. Right about now, she is probably floating in a pool, soaking up the Texas sun, and arguing with fictional characters. Make sure you visit her website at Leighmhall.com and sign up for her newsletter so you can get the scoop on all future releases.

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