Entertainment
6 Coastal Horror Books To Read While Waiting for ‘Widows Bay’ Season 2
Widow’s Bay, a breakout streaming hit for Apple TV this summer, has been renewed for a second season, to no one’s surprise. The delightful horror comedy series stars Matthew Rhys as Tom Loftis, an endearing mayor trying his darnedest to boost tourism on a New England island full of supernatural eccentricities. Namely, a haunted hotel, a back-from-the-dead bogeyman, a sea hag, and a curse tracing back to 17th-century founder Richard Warren all trouble the mayor’s aspirations to make this quirky little island into the next Martha’s Vineyard.
With its witty script, sharp plot twists, and genuine, never-overused jump scares, Widow’s Bay plays with horror conventions and tropes magnificently to create a series that feels both nostalgic and wholly original. Just as Widow’s Bay continually pays homage to a slew of classic horror films, such as The Fog and Jaws, these six books channel that same love of small-town coastal horror that makes the series so much fun. So, while you hunker down and wait for Widow’s Bay to make its return, here are six books that will satisfy your craving for strange, and likely outright cursed, seaside towns.
6
‘Scuttler’s Cove’ (2025)
By David Barnett
Scuttler’s Cove by David Barnett is perhaps the closest Widow’s Bay book match for those looking for that perfect combination of seaside charm and, to quote Dale (Jeff Hiller), “this place is a death trap, run!” Set in a working village on the Cornish coast, the novel follows Merrin Moon, who returns to Scuttler’s Cove after her mother’s death and finds her humble hometown in the midst of a contemporary crisis. Wealthy second-home owners and rental companies have taken over and transformed the village, leaving locals struggling to remain in the place they’ve called home for generations.
Aside from financial woes, the townies have an even older problem brewing beneath its picturesque surface. The village locals have spent generations keeping the town’s supernatural secrets buried, but now those secrets are beginning to claw their way back into frame in this folk horror read. To sort out the trouble, it seems a sacrifice may be in order. Scuttler’s Cove is a brisk and bold story of old rites and new foes against the coastal idyll.
5
‘The Price Guide to the Occult’ (2018)
By Leslye Walton
In The Price Guide to the Occult, the cursed island trope gets a wonderfully witchy makeover. The novel unfolds on Anathema Island, a remote Pacific Northwest community founded by eight settlers who made the terrible decision to burn Rona Blackburn, a witch, out of her home. Rona the witch naturally responds by cursing the island and its descendants. More than a century later, her lineage is still dealing with the consequences. Particularly, we meet descendant Nor Blackburn, the novel’s teenage protagonist with supernatural powers.
Leslye Walton’s magical realism fits into the YA classification, so if you want something a little more fun and spellbinding à la Patricia’s Sunset Cocktails, this is the book for you. Befittingly, Nor’s coming of age is tied to the appearance of a mysterious book that promises to cast any spell for the right price. Sounds simple enough, but readers will have their qualms. Things are bound to get stormy on this lush island with a dangerous, magical throughline.
4
‘Eynhallow’ (2024)
By Tim McGregor
Set in the Orkney Islands in 1797, Eynhallow is the only period piece of the bunch. Eynhallow follows Agnes Tulloch, a mother of four who has found her new island home to be not very paradisal. Her already difficult life takes an even stranger turn when an aristocratic stranger arrives on Eynhallow Isle and rents an abandoned cottage, and she gets hired out as a cook and washerwoman there. The mysterious newcomer is a scientist who has come to the remote island to fulfill a monstrous obligation. Said scientist is none other than Victor Frankenstein. Yes, this powerful novella is a Frankenstein rework, imagining what might have happened when Victor traveled to the Orkneys to create a companion for his creature.
Through Agnes’ perspective, author Tim McGregor transforms the isolated island into a gothic terrain where the arrival of a Byronic outsider threatens to upend a fragile community and, more intimately, Agnes’ internal world. If your favorite aspect of Widow’s Bay is the show’s ability to make the island itself feel like a realized character, Eynhallow delivers that same sense of place, but across the pond in the richly folkloric archipelago off mainland Scotland.
3
‘The Lighthouse Witches’ (2021)
By C.J. Cooke
The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke has all the coastal horror essentials: a remote Scottish island, an ominous lighthouse, missing children, witchcraft, and supernatural creatures lurking in the landscape. The story kicks off when single mother Liv travels to a remote island to paint a mural inside a 100-year-old lighthouse. She sees the job as an opportunity for a fresh start with her three daughters, but her plan goes spectacularly wrong when two of her children disappear. Only one returns.
Lune, the surviving daughter, circles back to the island 22 years later, still in search of her missing family members, when she receives a call that seems to offer an impossible breakthrough. The subsequent mystery narrative stretches across multiple timelines, gradually revealing the island’s dark history and the sinister folklore surrounding the lighthouse. Beneath the lighthouse is a cave that once imprisoned women accused of witchcraft, while local legends speak of supernatural “wildlings” capable of mimicking human children. It’s an especially good choice for Widow’s Bay viewers who were thrilled by the show’s still-blossoming supernatural mythology, tied distinctly to tunneling underground locations.
2
‘Duma Key’ (2008)
By Stephen King
There’s always a niche Stephen King title ready and waiting for any horror book list! This time, it’s Duma Key. A bit of a hefty read, clocking in at over 600 pages for the paperback edition, this book is more of a slow-burn supernatural horror story. Less comedic than Widow’s Bay, King makes excellent use of a distinctly tropical, remote setting off the coast of Florida. Sure, King is widely known for his Maine-based scares, but it turns out the Gulf Coast is just as eerie and effective a backdrop as New England.
The plot of Duma Key follows Edgar Freemantle, who lost his right arm in a construction accident. Reeling from the life-changing injury and a recent divorce, he decides to move from Minnesota to a Florida beach house. This psychologist-endorsed relocation, however, doesn’t turn out to be as peaceful as he hoped. Although Edgar rekindles his passion for art and receives recognition for his talent as a painter, his paintings seem to possess a power of their own. Indeed, Edgar’s newfound artistic calling has otherworldly undercurrents, connecting him to the island’s disturbing history and the troubled past of an elderly woman he befriends, named Elizabeth Eastlake.
1
‘The Lamplighters’ (2021)
By Emma Stonex
The Lamplighters is framed around a lighthouse mystery comparable to the missing fisherman incident that kicks off Widow’s Bay Season 1. Inspired by the real-life mystery of the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers, Emma Stonex’s novel begins in 1972, when three men stationed on a remote tower off the Cornish coast disappear under bizarre circumstances. The lighthouse door is locked from the inside, and the table had been set for a meal that was never eaten. Stranger still, all the clocks had stopped at exactly 8:45, and although their weather log describes a violent storm, the skies were clear.
20 years later, a writer approaches the three women who the missing men left behind, hoping to solve the mystery. As their stories unfold, the final weeks the keepers spent in the lighthouse are sketched. Secrets begin surfacing, and the looming question of whether anything supernatural happened becomes increasingly difficult to answer. For Widow’s Bay fans who particularly enjoy the show’s overcast maritime atmosphere and mysteries, this read offers a more subdued but equally compelling dose of coastal dread.
- Release Date
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April 28, 2026
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Katie Dippold
- Directors
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Sam Donovan, Andrew DeYoung, Hiro Murai, Ti West
- Writers
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Alberto Roldán, Neil Casey, Kelly Galuska, Colton Dunn, Dave Harris, Katie Dippold, Mackenzie Dohr
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