For some reason, people are terrified of dolls. It might be the friendly smiles and yet vacant look in their eyes. Or maybe it’s the idea that something so tiny, plastic, and so not-alive could force a human into insanity or danger given the circumstances.
Haunted circumstances.
The novels listed below are some truly mind-bending horror novels featuring scary, evil dolls that wreak havoc on the main character’s personal life. Imagining yourself in some of these situations… How would you fair?
1) Promised Land Lane by Marcus Brown
100 years after the disappearance of Maisie Whitmore in 1901, Sandra Miller, a prominent reporter, is assigned to investigate a twelve-year-old boy’s murder at the same house Maisie Whitmore lived in: 6 Promised Land Lane. Even worse, Sandra’s own sister disappeared from this same house 20 years ago. Now neck deep in her investigation, Sandra crosses paths with David, a man she finds mysterious and… familiar. She can’t help but feel suspicious of him and question: How is he involved with this investigation and what does he know?
2) Night of the Living Dummy (Goosebumps #7) R.L. Stine
This list’s popular classic from the Goosebumps series that many children know and love and that many adults grew up reading!
Twin sisters Kris and Lindy Powell have a pretty strained and competitive relationship. Always bickering over even the tiniest of things, the sisters can’t seem to get along. And when Lindy finds a ventriloquist in the dumpster one day and names him Slappy, the girls’ bickering becomes even more frequent. Lindy seems to excel at ventriloquism and can make Slappy say many things. Kris, jealous of her sister’s new puppet, decides to beg for her own, resulting in her own puppet which she names Mr. Wood. However, things don’t go so well after the girls find that the dummies may be physically active and up to no good.
3) The Collector by K.R. Alexander
Josie and her sister, Annie, are forced to move, along with their mother, to the countryside to live at their grandmother’s house after their mother loses her job. Before then, Josie loved it there. Now, she’d much rather be somewhere else. First of all, Grandma Jeannie doesn’t want dolls in the house, which is strange. She also forbids Josie from going anywhere near the house in the woods. Josie gets her wish when she makes a new friend named Vanessa, the popular girl who asks Josie over to her house one day. Excited, Josie accepts — she follows even when Vanessa turns toward the old house Grandma Jeannie told her never to go to. Through it all, Annie, Josie’s sister, tags along.
4) Toys in the Attic (Cafferty and Quinn, #3.5) by Heather Graham
This short novel is more mystery and suspense than horror, but with the creepy possessed doll raving mad and killing people, I figured it fit the bill.
Michael Quinn and his girlfriend and paranormal investigative partner, Danni Cafferty, have been called in by Michael’s long-time friend, Colby Kennedy, to get to the bottom of a rather strange case. Colby’s sister, hit by a car one odd night, is saying that she ran screaming into the street, terrified… by a zombie nun doll. To Colby, this makes absolutely no sense. But to Cafferty and Quinn, the case has been filed. Now, the two must draw out the evil haunting the Florida Keys before it claims another victim.
5) Don’t Let the Doll In (Frightville #1) by Mike Ford
A children’s horror novel with a truly interesting synopsis and great expectations for its release in April 2020.
Mara finds the perfect doll at a new store called Frightville where everything on the shelves is strange and unfamiliar. But Charlotte, a cute doll, is beautiful and perfect for Mara’s dollhouse back at home. Upon taking Charlotte home and placing her into the dollhouse, however, Mara realizes that things start happening. Strange things. Objects going missing in her room, weird noises sounding in the middle of the night. Mara has to question: Is this all happening because of Charlotte?
With all the haunting madness in this list, it’s hard to choose only one book to grab, isn’t it?
That was the intention. Grab them all and get to reading!
