Halloween is officially upon us! Less than a week to go until the creepy event, so this weeks Top 5 Wednesday is our top 5 spooky settings in novels. This can be anything from a place a little strange to weird or eerie. We absolutely adore creepy settings in novels and something that will truly put us on edge. Here are our top 5 spooky settings that we love.
The Superstore in The Mist by Stephen King
On the creepiest books I’ve ever read was The Mist by Stephen King. Anyone that read my review will know that I didn’t overly love the book, but the atmosphere was spot on. I really enjoyed the on edge feeling I got when something attacked the place the characters were trapped. The idea of the novel was that a mist descended on a town, and it so happened that our main characters were stuck in a supermarket, unable to leave or else they would be killed. I seem to enjoy novels where a character is trapped somewhere, as to why, I don’t know.
Miss Peregrines Home from Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
This is probably quite an obvious answer for anyone that has read the Miss Peregrine series, but it’s still one of the creepiest places I’ve read about. The whole novel itself is a bit creepy with the injections of old photographs, but learning about the derelict house in the beginning was quite terrifying. Even when the home is described as the wonderful, elegant house it was, I still find settings like that a little unsettling.
The Labyrinth in Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
I recently reread this series and I forgot how spooky the setting of the Labyrinth is! Maybe I am slightly bias as someone who doesn’t like the thought of being underground, but the claustrophobic setting really made me feel on edge. The characters get lost easily, can’t find a way out and run into horrible traps. The fear various characters feel is very obvious through the writing and every time they enter the Labyrinth, you feel a sense of dread at what may happen.
The World in The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Yes, I am going to use the whole world as a setting for this one (though more specifically, the novel is set in America) because this post apocalyptic world is terrifying. I dont think I have ever read a book which has filled me with more dread and fear than The Road. The world is grey, derelict and empty. Nothing grows and there is next to no life left. The setting reflects the lack of hope in the story and just the image of an empty, hopeless world is a very eerie thought.
The Facility in The Scorch Trials by James Dasher
I’m not entirely sure what the name of the place is, but at the very beginning of this book, Thomas and the Gladers wake in this facility which is pretty creepy from the start. Even though the infected people are outside, banging on windows to get in, the facility is more terrifying. It is not safe indoors, it doesn’t feel like protection, it just feels like a trap! Add that to the dead bodies they find in there and you find yourself in a pretty horrifically spooky setting.
The Little Contemporary Corner 