There’s something undeniably eerie about hotels and motels in thrillers. The isolated halls, hidden secrets, and transient nature of these places create the perfect atmosphere for suspense. If you love a chilling setting as much as I do, then you’re in for a treat! Below, I’ve gathered these spine-tingling thrillers set in hotels or motels that will have you checking the locks on your doors and questioning every creak of the floorboards.
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Whether you’re in the mood for a supernatural mystery, a high-stakes psychological thriller, or a classic horror novel, these books are sure to give you goosebumps. Hotels and motels have never felt more dangerous. Read on for our picks.
The Sun Down Motel
by Simone St. James

The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn’t right at the Sun Down, and before long she’s determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…
The Vacancy In Room 10
by Seraphina Nova Glass
When Anna Hartley’s husband, Henry, calls her with a terrible, guilty confession, she can’t believe what she hears. It has to be a bad joke—the mild, predictable artist she married would never hurt a fly, let alone commit murder. But her confusion turns to horror when police find his body washed up on the banks of the Rio Grande.
Desperate for answers to the millions of questions his untimely death has raised, Anna checks in to The Sycamores, the run-down motel turned apartment Henry rented as an art studio. As she absorbs every bit of gossip the eclectic mix of residents are willing to share about her husband and each other, she begins to piece together a picture of a very different man than the one she married, and the life he led behind her back. The more she learns, and the less sense things seem to make, she finds herself wondering: Did she ever really know Henry at all?
But Henry’s secrets aren’t the only ones; as Anna’s search for clues expands, Cass, the mysterious, jaded motel manager, seems more and more determined to keep Anna in the dark. And when threatening letters start appearing at her door, Anna has to decide what’s more important—the truth, or her own safety.

Do Not Disturb
by Freida McFadden

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.
To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.
But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.
Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick’s ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.
In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She’ll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.
But first, she must survive the night.
The Club
by Ellery Lloyd
Everyone’s Dying to Join . . .
The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members’ clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media.
The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultra luxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade.
But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group’s CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide—and that’s before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island.
As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list.
Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out.

The Shinning
by Stephen King

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
The Last To Vanish
by Megan Miranda
Ten years ago, Abigail Lovett fell into a job she loves, managing The Passage Inn, a cozy, upscale resort nestled in the North Carolina mountain town of Cutter’s Pass. Cutter’s Pass is best known for its outdoor offerings—rafting and hiking, with access to the Appalachian trail by way of a gorgeous waterfall—and its mysterious history. As the book begins, the string of unsolved disappearances that has haunted the town is once again thrust into the spotlight when journalist Landon West, who was staying at the inn to investigate the story of the vanishing trail, then disappears himself.
Abby has sometimes felt like an outsider within the community, but she’s come to view Cutter’s Pass as her home. When Landon’s brother Trey shows up looking for answers, Abby can’t help but feel the town closing ranks. And she’s still on the outside. When she finds incriminating evidence that may bring them closer to the truth, Abby soon discovers how little she knows about her coworkers, neighbors, and even those closest to her.

The Hitchcock Hotel
by Stephanie Wrobel

A Hitchcock fanatic with an agenda invites old friends for a weekend stay at his secluded themed hotel in this fiendishly clever, suspenseful new novel.
Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.
To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.
But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.
After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.
The Night Sister
by Jennifer McMahon
Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper’s kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day that their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel’s past, something that ruined their friendship forever.
Now adult, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused. Suddenly, Margot and Piper are forced to relive the time that they found the suitcase that once belonged to Silvie Slater, the aunt that Amy claimed had run away to Hollywood to live out her dream of becoming Hitchcock’s next blonde bombshell leading lady. As Margot and Piper investigate, a cleverly woven plot unfolds—revealing the story of Sylvie and Rose, two other sisters who lived at the motel during its 1950s heyday. Each believed the other to be something truly monstrous, but only one carries the secret that would haunt the generations to come.

The Last Room On The Left
by Leah Konen

The caretaker at an isolated mountain hotel finds herself fighting for her life—and sanity—in this twisty, addictive thriller.
Kerry’s life is in shambles: Her husband has left her, her drinking habit has officially become a problem, and though the deadline for her big book deal—the one that was supposed to change everything—is looming, she can’t write a word. When she sees an ad for a caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills, she jumps at the chance. It’s the perfect getaway to finish her book and start fresh.
But as she hunkers down in a blizzard, she spots something through the window: a pale arm peeking out from a heap of snow. Trapped in the mountains and alone with a dead, frozen body, Kerry must keep her head and make it out before the killer comes for her too. But is the deadly game of cat-and-mouse all in her mind? The body count begs to differ . . .
The 11th Hour Motel
by Beau Savage
A blizzard’s coming—and it’s not the deadliest thing on the road.
Missy watches the blizzard approach her roadside motel with a mix of emotions — dread for the dangerous conditions it brings, and an intense longing for the warmth her late husband used to provide on cold nights like this. But for better or worse, Missy won’t be alone much longer.
Five unexpected guests are headed her way, desperately seeking shelter from the a mortally wounded young man transporting stolen money, two hired guns hot on his trail with orders to bring the money back, and a young woman and her grandmother on a road trip to put the past behind them, totally unprepared for the perilous detour they’re about to take.
The icy roads are treacherous. The neon-red sign is a beacon of safety. But no amount of snow can extinguish this fuse once it’s lit — or bury the secrets unearthed in the blast.

Asylum Hotel
by Juliet Blackwell

When a mysterious figure shows up in the photograph an architect takes of the derelict Seabrink Hotel, ghostly encounters and murder are unleashed.
Aubrey Spencer loves photographing classic old buildings and abandoned places that hold old secrets. The Hotel Seabrink, perched overlooking the sea, is one such place. Currently abandoned but scheduled for a major renovation, it has a torrid history. Back in the 1920s it hosted A-list celebrity clientele, and now the locals insist it is haunted by the ghosts of two young women who died there. When Aubrey goes to photograph the site before the renovation begins, she bumps into a man named Dimitri Petroff, a minor online celebrity who shares her fascination with old buildings, the Hotel Seabrink in particular.
When he is found dead the next day at the base of a cliff, the police are quick to close the investigation. But Aubrey feels unsettled by locals who claim he was murdered and that it’s not the first time someone interested in the hotel was killed. As she digs deeper into the property’s dark history (and its origins as an asylum) as well as Dimitri’s professional rivalries, she becomes mired in an unsolved murder case from several decades earlier, one with eerie parallels to the contemporary case. But someone is determined to keep her from discovering the truth—at any cost.
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One response to “Thrilling Books Set in Creepy Hotels & Motels You Won’t Want to Miss”
I am so interested in stories with this setting as I think they would be perfect to read at this time of year. I enjoy books by Stephen King but have yet to read The Shining!