John Wiswell’s short story, “Open House on Haunted Hill,” won the 2020 Nebula Award for the Best Short Story, and it’s a perfect example of cozy horror. Flipping the trope of the haunted house that wants to expel or harm its occupants, 133 Poisonwood is a haunted house that only wants to be loved, to be a good home to a family and keep them safe within its walls.

While a thread of loss runs through the story, grief and the horror of death aren’t the focus. Ana mourns her mother and longs to see her ghost; Ana’s exhausted father is trying to do the best he can to raise his daughter and just keep everything together. 133 Poisonwood recognizes the hurt in its potential occupants, but rather than exploiting that pain to drive them away, it explicitly creates the space they need to heal. Wiswell’s closing lines say it perfectly.

The house doesn’t need him to believe in anything but himself and his daughter. It isn’t here for the gratitude. It can try to support him as well as he supports Ana. If anything is as patient as a parent, it’s a haunting.

In another context, the idea of a patient haunting might be used evoke despair, wearing down its characters with dread. Here, it is used to lift them up, leading to a genuinely sweet and, yes, comforting ending.

Sanctuary by Andi C. Buchanan similarly flips the haunted house trope, centering on a chosen family of queer, neurodivergent people who have made their house a haven for ghosts. They don’t merely share the space with its former occupants, but deliberately seek out lost souls, protecting them from intrusive ghost hunters who are like nosy paparazzi for the dead.

There’s a satisfying mystery for the living occupants of the house to solve as the ghosts are threatened by something unknown, but even with the element of danger, unsettling the reader is not the goal. The heart of the novel is the character dynamics and the relationships between the housemates, both living and dead. Sanctuary is about respect, communication, and meeting people on their own terms. Some living members of the household prefer non-verbal communication, as do some of the ghosts, and there’s never any pressure for anyone to change who they are for anyone else’s sake. The housemates make space for each other, recognizing that they all have different needs. They’ve chosen each other as family and they’re committed to make that family work.

Like “Open House on Haunted Hill,” Sanctuary never strays into the saccharine, or presents a world without problems. It recognizes the messy, imperfect nature of life (and death), and that relationships take work and constant care. Even in a respectful environment, people will still get things wrong. Comfort levels can shift, and what someone needs one day may not be what they need the next. Compassion and consent are ongoing conversations, not a one-and-done thing. While horrific things do happen in the novel, and the characters do face danger, like Wiswell’s story, Buchanan uses elements of horror as the raw materials to build a kinder haunted house to hold the characters while they learn from each other, work together to solve problems, and grow.

Last, but certainly not least, is the cozy horror of Gravity Falls, a near-perfect two season animated series created by Alex Hirsch. The show focuses on pre-teen twins Dipper and Mable Pines, who are spending the summer with their Great Uncle Stan. Grunkle Stan runs the Mystery Shack, a roadside tourist trap, which is partly a kitschy souvenir shop, partly a museum of hoaxes, and partly a repository for the genuinely weird. Like The X-Files, the show combines monster-of-the-week episodes with a deeper mythology feeding into a central mystery for the characters to unravel.

Hirsch expertly blends comedy and horror. Some of the monsters are silly, but some are truly threatening cosmic horrors. Like Wiswell’s story and Buchanan’s novel, the building blocks of horror are used to tell stories about kindness and learning to see the world from someone else’s point of view. Ultimately, Gravity Falls is about family and love.

In addition to the blood family of the Pines, there’s an extended cast of found and chosen family surrounding the Mystery Shack. They care for each other, and repeatedly choose each other over the temptation of power, or the urge to give into despair when all seems lost. The characters don’t always see eye-to-eye, but at the end of the day, they have each other’s backs. In many ways, Gravity Falls seems designed to refute the “fear of the other” brand of horror typified by writers like H.P. Lovecraft. Monstrousness is in the actions and choices people make, not an inherent quality growing out of who and what they are. Gravity Falls chooses love and uses it to turn back the tide of darkness, literally stopping the apocalypse with caring and kindness. Like Mabel Pines herself, the show has a huge heart, making it a very cozy kind of horror indeed.

The next time you’re in the market for comforting horror, but don’t want to run a gauntlet of stress and despair along the way, give these cozy horror titles a try. “Open House on Haunted Hill,” Sanctuary, and Gravity Falls might just be the haunted hug you need.

[photo: MGM Television]

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic makes use of many familiar Gothic tropes – an imperiled woman, a remote location, a rich family with secrets, a supernatural threat, and an outsider dropped into the midst of all of it who must uncover the truth. After receiving a concerning letter from her cousin, Noemi travels to the remote family estate belonging to her cousin’s husband. Her cousin’s concerns have been dismissed; like a good Gothic heroine, she is accused of imagining things. As Noemi investigates, she is placed in the role of outsider, resented and distrusted by a household bent on protecting its secrets. The house itself is every bit as isolated, and its atmosphere every bit as oppressive, as a classic Gothic house. Moreno-Garcia uses these tropes to examine literal oppression in the form of racism, colonialism, and exploitation of the land. Added to all that, Moreno-Garcia puts a fresh twist on the supernatural element by introducing cosmic horror, as people are literally and metaphorically consumed as the result of one wealthy family’s legacy of feeding off the land and its inhabitants.

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

The Hacienda similarly takes classic Gothic tropes and transports them to Mexico. Beatriz is her husband’s second wife, and like many Gothic heroines, her marriage is shadowed by the ghost of that former wife who died under mysterious circumstances. Cañas almost immediately flips the traditional Gothic script through by having Beatriz believed when she shares her unease. Rather than being dismissed, leaving her to cope with the supernatural alone, she has a support network, including a local priest, helping her to unravel the truth and uncover the dark secrets of her new home. There’s an excellent, slow-burning romance alongside the Gothic horror, and the infusion of magic as well. Like Moreno-Garcia, Cañas does an excellent job of blending multiple genres, enhancing the Gothic elements as she does.

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Another reimagined Gothic novel that draws on other genres and effectively plays with expectations is The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling. Unlike many classic Gothic heroines who are subject to the whims of their dark, brooding husbands and employers, Jane is eminently practical and takes matters into her own hands. She proposes marriage to Dr. Lawrence as a mutually beneficial business arrangement, talking him into it past his reluctance. A romance develops after the marriage, and Starling does an excellent job of introducing romantic tension into the relationship, despite the characters already being wed. Jane soon finds herself trapped in her husband’s decaying home, once again haunted by the mysterious death of his previous love, and dealing with a seeming curse on the property. Magic becomes key to the story, with Jane wholeheartedly throwing herself into the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Like Moreno-Garcia’s use of cosmic horror to highlight and play with certain Gothic tropes, Starling weaves in fantasy as Jane’s attempts to uncover the secrets of her husband’s house lead her to seeks initiation into a circle of magicians. The introduction of magic and forbidden knowledge also provides the opportunity for Starling to introduce throw Jane’s sanity into question, playing with the classic Gothic themes of “madness” versus gaslighting. 

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

Reluctant Immortals doesn’t only take on classic Gothic tropes, but reimagines the stories of two classic Gothic heroines, Lucy Westerna of Dracula fame, and Bertha Rochester, of Jane Eyre fame. After the events of their original tales, Lucy and Bee are now immortal, not by choice by as a result of the actions of the abusive men in their lives. They live together in a crumbling house in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, with Lucy dedicating herself to guarding Dracula’s scattered remains to ensure he never returns. When Rochester unexpectedly reappears with Jane in tow, Lucy, Bee, and Jane must band together to protect themselves and stop both Rochester and Dracula from wreaking havoc. Kiste uses the Gothic tropes and characters to explore the idea of monstrousness – whether it is an inherent quality or a choice. The character of Michael, a young soldier recently returned from war, allows Kiste to look at the ways violence is employed, or resisted, by the characters and further explore what makes someone monstrous. It’s always fascinating to see authors reimagine classic characters, and Kiste does a wonderful job of bringing Lucy and Bertha to the forefront as fully formed characters in their own right, rather than supporting characters in the background of someone else’s tale.

These are just a few examples of authors using Gothic tropes in fresh new ways. Additional titles for those looking to more recommended reading are:

• Leech by Hiron Ennes
• The Path of Thorns by Angela Slatter
• Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum
• What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

That’s only scratching the surface of the authors and works reclaiming and reinventing the genre.