The Omnivore’s Reading List: Horror and Ghost Stories
The Guardian published Kate Mosse’s top 10 ghost stories today in preparation for the publication of her latest novel “The Winter Ghosts” in paperback this week. She clearly revels in – as Edith Wharton put it – the “fun of the shudder”. As most of her choices were written in the 19th and 20th century, the Omnivore decided to do a round-up of the best in recently published horror and ghost stories:
1. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
“Waters’s persistent picking apart of class is fascinating… In the end, though, however fresh the prose, confident the plotting and astute the social analysis, The Little Stranger has a slightly secondhand feel to it. Waters is clearly at the top of her game, with few to match her ability to bring the past to life in a fully imagined world. I look forward to the book in which she leaves behind past templates, with their limitations, and breaks away to make her own literary history.” Tracy Chevalier in the Observer
Omniscore: 
2. Under the Dome by Stephen King
“King is a great storyteller but some may baulk at the violence. Is this how it’d be? It’s hard not to be convinced. It’s also hard to avoid a hernia carrying this 882-page book. A measure of its excellence is that you are still sorry when you come to the end.” The Daily Express
Omniscore:
3. The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse
“I rumbled the big mystery almost immediately, and I expect you will as well. It doesn’t really matter – even if you’ve guessed what’s going on, this is a great read… Mosse writes movingly about loss and atmospherically about France, although I could have done without italics for boulanger and so on.” The Daily Mail
Omniscore: 
4. The Small Hand by Susan Hill
“But even though the ghost of Jennet Humfrye remains her most malign creation to date, Susan Hill is amongst the finest exponents of the traditional ghost story, and I look forward to her next one.” The Literary Review
Omniscore:
5. The Passage by Justin Cronin
“…you know the drill, you’ve seen it before, but Cronin does do it really rather pacily and well. This is a very self-conscious blockbuster written by a literary gentleman who has applied his considerable intelligence to understanding the underlying structures of Stephen King novels and does you a very neat line in pastiche… glorious tosh…” The Independent
Omniscore:
