'Salem's Lot

This one is Stephen King's second novel, and it starts small. A writer called Ben Mears comes back to the Maine town he lived in as a boy, meaning to settle in and get some work done. Jerusalem's Lot is the sort of place where everybody knows everybody, which is usually cosy and occasionally the whole problem.

Because something has moved into town alongside him, and it is patient. Doors stay shut in the daytime. People who used to wave from their porches stop answering at all. It is vampire fiction in the old, unhurried sense, where dread builds house by house rather than jumping out at you, and the small-town setting makes every closed curtain feel personal.

It wants a proper block of reading time, not a quick chapter before bed, because once the town starts turning you will not want to put it down halfway through. Best kept for a night when the heating's on and you've nowhere to be in the morning.