While living in Boston, Massachusetts during grad school, a friend returned from a day trip to nearby Salem and told me, “Whatever you do, DO NOT go to Salem in October!” So naturally, I had to find out for myself what Salem was like during October. I not only fell in love with Salem the October I visited, but also with visiting spooky-season book-inspired destinations. So if you’re a fan of ghost stories, witchcraft, the occult, gothic novels, and all hallows eve vibes, check out these books that may just have you packing your suitcase for some spooky destinations.
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Salem, Massachusetts
Salem, Massachusetts is well known due to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693 and surprisingly, the whole town has since leaned into all things witchy. If you visit Salem, you’ll find it has a strange way of memorializing its violent history and has over compensated for the historic horrors by becoming a place where modern witches walk the streets year-round and shop for all their occult needs.
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, although not set during the Salem Witch Trials, is a gothic novel that takes us to a house in Salem thought to be haunted due to events related to the trials. Today you can tour The House of the Seven Gables in Salem that Hawthorne based the book on, which interestingly was renovated by its last owner, not to look as it did when Hawthorne lived there, but to match his description of it in the book.
– Read more about visiting The House of the Seven Gables –
Purchase The House of the Seven Gables from Bookshop | Amazon | The House of the Seven Gables gift shop
The House of the Seven Gables novel deals heavily with the guilt felt by future generations of a family for the part their ancestor played in the witch trials and the fact that the house may still be cursed by one of the supposed witches sent to their death. A visit to Salem provides the opportunity to better understand the history this novel is based on by experiencing several small museums that tell the history of the Salem Witch Trials in a gimmicky but unforgettable format. You, the audience, move along a path as one after another 3D scenes with mannequins are lit up before you and a recorded narration plays from speakers somewhere in the dark above you. The Salem Witch Museum, the Witch Dungeon Museum, and Witch History Museum are all worth a visit. These museums will leave you contemplating how fear of differences and the unexplainable can lead to mass hysteria as you head to the Witch Trials Memorial where you can gather your thoughts.
Once you’ve done your due diligence in spending time with the historical horrors of Salem, you can then enjoy how the downtown shops cater to the modern-day witch. A walk through town will have you feeling like you stepped right into The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness, which takes place in and around Salem and Ipswitch, MA. This is the 5th book in the All Souls series, so you may want to read the other novels first, but to catch you up, Diana is a modern-day witch married to a vampire and they have two young children coming into their vampiric and witchy powers. Diana, having pushed magic away for the majority of her life, is now suddenly learning about a branch of her family she knew nothing about as well as the dark magic buried deep within her. This branch of her family descends from John Proctor and Bridget Bishop, two historically real individuals executed during the Salem Witch Trials. So the book takes the reader to Salem where the family gathers at the Proctor’s Ledge Memorial. The rest of the book has Diana spending a summer learning to control her powers and how to read oracle cards from a fellow witch (per the author, an oracle deck to match the one in the book is in the works!).
Purchase The Black Bird Oracle from Bookshop | Amazon
Since the time of the witch trials hysteria, Salem has countered by becoming a mecca for occultists. The bookshops sell books about witchcraft, Wicca, reading tarot and oracle cards, using crystals, growing herbs for potions and natural remedies, fairies, and basically anything a reader open to fantasy and the occult could be looking for. Other shops sell all manner of ritualistic trinkets including tarot and oracle cards, crystals, and cauldrons. And clothing shops sell witch hats and other Halloween type costume accoutrements. So it’s not unusual at any time of year, but particularly more during spooky season, to see individuals dressed like witches walking along the downtown sidewalks of Salem.
Sleepy Hollow, New York
Although I haven’t yet been myself, I hear that Sleepy Hollow, NY is another town worth visiting as Autumn heads into the spooky time of year. This is, of course, due to its immortal fame as the home of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
According to my research, the most visited place in Sleepy Hollow is the statue of the Headless Horseman. You can also visit the home of Washington Irving, now a museum. And during the Fall, you can find annual events that lean into the town’s fictional legend as visitors flock to town for the spooky season.
York, England
Speaking of New York, let’s talk about old York, England, purported to be the most haunted city in Europe. York is so old that it has had several vastly different eras. After the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons conquered the city, who were then conquered by Vikings, who were later conquered by the Medieval period Normans. Considering the number of civilizations that lived, fought, and died in the area, it’s very believable that York is full of ghosts.
Rosie Talbot’s duology, Sixteen Souls & the second book Twelve Bones, are set in modern-day York. The main character, however, can see and interact with all the local ghosts, who come from all the different eras of York’s history. Talbot has thoughtfully included a map of York in the front of the book with all the haunted locations the main character visits. Which makes it easy for you to also visit all the haunted locations in the book, including The Shambles, The Golden Fleece Inn, and York Minster.
– Read more about Sixteen Souls and visiting York locations in the book. –
Purchase Sixteen Souls from Bookshop | Amazon
If you’re not familiar with York, The Shambles is the oldest, most medieval looking street in town. It’s a skinny alleyway with buildings that lean in towards each other and looks very much like it might have been the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. (In fact it’s rumored to be the actual inspiration, although Victoria Street in Edinburgh also likes to claim that it was the real inspiration.) The Shambles is home to The Shop That Must Not Be Named, possibly the largest Harry Potter merchandise store in England. Farther down the street you’ll find The York Ghost Merchants, a shop specializing in selling, well, ghosts! Both of these shops often have long lines to get inside. There’s also The Potions Cauldron and a shop called The Society of Alchemists. So not only does it look Diagon Alley like, the shops along The Shambles are definitely where witches and wizards must shop. And it’s not hard to imagine York’s ghosts mingling with the shoppers here either.
Though not on the map at the front of Sixteen Souls, I highly suggest visiting the Jorvik Viking Center while in York. Not because the first part of the museum is a room with a glass floor through which you can look down at the actual foundations of a historic Viking village uncovered through an archeological dig. Not because it holds the largest collection of Viking artifacts in the UK, including human skeletons. Though both are reason enough to make one unsurprised that Viking ghosts are definitely wandering through York. The real reason to visit is the ride in the basement that takes you through a life-size recreation of the Viking Village, based on the discoveries made during the dig. The recreation even smells like you’d expect a Viking village to smell, and you’ll see animatronic humans created based on the skeletons found on the site. It’s funny, weird, and the perfect outing for Spooky Season. And you’ll gain a better understanding of the history of the Jorvik Viking ghost that shows up in Sixteen Souls.
London, England… or Edinburgh, Scotland?
Although London is supposedly not as haunted as York, it is still home to the gothic horror The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. (Though because Stevenson grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland likes to claim that the dark London streets where the novella takes place were actually based on the streets of Edinburgh!) While I don’t recommend walking London’s streets after dark in search of monsters like Mr. Hyde, you can do a self-guided Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde walking tour using the StoryTourist app.
Purchase The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Bookshop | Amazon
– Watch my vlog about the StoryTourist Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde London tour. –
And if you’re looking for another fun Gothic read that’ll take you to London, I recommend The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss. In this, the first in a trilogy, you’ll meet the daughters of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, and Dr. Rappaccini. These young women, all offspring of classic Victorian gothic novel monsters, are now living together in London and find themselves embroiled in solving a very gothic novel inspired mystery. Although the book takes place in the London of the late 1800s to early 1900s, specifically during the lifetime of Sherlock Holmes who does appear as a character, that doesn’t mean it won’t have you packing your bags to experience the London of Sherlock Holmes.
Purchase The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter from Bookshop | Amazon
– Watch my vlog about the StoryTourist Sherlock Holmes walking tour. –
Paris, France
Finally, I would be remiss to leave out the most well known phantom story of all! The Phantom of the Opera is not only a musical, but also an excellent gothic novel by Gaston Leroux. If you, like The Phantom, find yourself drawn to the Palais Garnier Opera House, I recommend taking the after-hours 5pm Mysteries Tour. The day-time crowds will be gone and you get a chance to step into the famous Phantom’s Box 5. Considering the phantom’s name is on the box door, and the book starts with an introduction by the author who claims that, based on archival documents, he determined the phantom was real, you may begin to wonder what’s real and what’s fiction.
Which is exactly what we wonder on All Hallows Eve, the one night where the line between fact and fiction blurs a little more than usual. So why not spend it in one of these haunting destinations?
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