I loved Saltburn. The algorithms™ have obviously sensed this and have been absolutely battering me with ‘books with Saltburn vibes’ posts, videos and lists. These are invariably a mixture of obvious choices (hello, Brideshead Revisited) and extremely tenuous ones (look, not everything with vaguely ‘dark’ subject matter is comparable to the film, especially as it’s actually most enjoyable as silly, campy entertainment!)
So, obviously, I had to make my own list. I’ve divided these books up according to four themes (although some could definitely fit into a few categories), aiming to capture what I liked about the film:
An outsider in a privileged world. This is one of my favourite tropes, and thankfully one that’s never in short supply in the world of fiction (debuts with a vague resemblance to The Secret History are practically a genre of their own at this point).
Social climbers, scammers and schemers. Some pretty obvious overlap with the above, but here I’ve focused on characters who have naked ambition or a hidden agenda from the very start of their stories. Unreliable narrators abound.
Obsessive, toxic, psychosexual friendships. Friends who like/hate each other a bit too much; relationships gone bad; backstabbing galore; and last but definitely not least, another of my favourite tropes, delusional obsession.
Things go wrong at a big posh house. I feel like this is self-explanatory.
Perhaps you enjoy some (or all) of these themes in fiction, but didn’t enjoy the way Saltburn approached them – in which case, hopefully you’ll find something to pique your interest on this list anyway.
An outsider in a privileged world
The Party by Elizabeth Day
At boarding school, two very different students – outrageously rich golden boy Ben and awkward, obsessive outcast Martin – become unlikely friends. For 25 years, a secret binds them together. Then, at Ben’s star-studded 40th birthday party, it all begins to fall apart. This was the first book I thought of when I started writing this list and it’s my #1 ‘this feels like Saltburn’ recommendation; it really does have so many of the same vibes! Even if you didn’t like the film, I’d recommend this book: it’s gripping and really well-written and has great characterisation and it’s narrated by a bitchy narcissist. You can’t go wrong here, really.
The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood
A lonely outsider (here a young man who works as a care home assistant) gets involved with an elite group of friends (here students at Cambridge), idolising one of them and falling in love with another. It’s the stuff of a thousand The Secret History rip-offs, but here the intriguing hook is that one of the students sincerely believes he can heal the sick. Could his ‘powers’ be real? The Bellwether Revivals keeps you guessing, and when a terminally ill psychologist enters the picture, the stakes are raised even higher.
The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse
Studying at Oxford, introverted Jo starts a relationship with Lucas – equally introverted, just mega-rich – and falls in with his highly privileged circle. Lucas inherits a stately home (as you do), they all hang out there together, and everything seems idyllic. But the fairytale can’t last forever; before long, Jo is set on a collision course with Lucas’s oldest friend, who’s always been suspicious and resentful of her presence in the group (à la Farleigh in Saltburn).
For more, try:
Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton A broke girl enters a glamorous social whirlwind by way of a charismatic new friend, then falls for the friend’s ex. How far will she go to keep both the man and the lifestyle?
Alys, Always by Harriet Lane An ambitious journalist enters the orbit of a famous writer’s family and is seduced by their prosperous way of life. As her determination and ambition grow, so too does the depth of her deception
Voyeur by Francesca Reece A young woman is adrift in Paris until she’s hired to edit the diaries of a bestselling author. An invite to his second home in the South of France follows, and secrets come spilling out over the course of a feverish summer
Social climbers, scammers and schemers
A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
What happens when you aspire to be a writer, but have no good ideas for a story? If you’re Maurice Swift, the beautiful but soulless protagonist of A Ladder to the Sky, you set out to find your inspiration elsewhere – no matter who you have to steal from, seduce or, indeed, subdue. More of a broad satire than a psychological thriller, this is nevertheless a riveting tale and makes a great beach read.
A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates
After his parents die in what looks like a tragic accident, manipulative but charming teen Matthew comes to live with his uncle Gil’s family. A battle of wills ensues as Gil grows ever-more convinced that Matthew is a psychopath. But when Gil crosses the line from suspecting Matthew to outright stalking him, the question becomes: which of them is the real threat?
The Last Weekend by Blake Morrison
‘Golden couple’ Ollie and Daisy invite their less fortunate friends, Ian and Em, to a remote country lodge for a weekend break. There, the men resurrect a seemingly innocuous bet from years earlier, causing old rivalries to resurface. The devious Ian is about as unreliable as narrators get, and as the plot progresses, his character crosses the line from brilliantly twisted into genuinely terrifying.
For more, try:
The Furnished Room by Laura Del-Rivo A cult classic from 1961, following a sociopathic office clerk plagued by destructive and perverted thoughts. Asked to murder an acquaintance’s well-off relative, he seizes the chance to act out his violent desires
Skin Deep by Liz Nugent A woman spends 25 years on the French Riviera pretending to be someone she’s not. Will her past catch up with her? As the book opens with her hiding a body, it certainly seems like it
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester The story of a self-styled gourmand’s supposedly brilliant career, as told through his own – biased and highly improbable – perspective
Obsessive, toxic, psychosexual relationships
Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib
At the beach with his son, single dad Todd encounters a familiar but unwelcome face: Jack, who bullied him mercilessly when they were at school together. Jack insists on staying the night at Todd’s house – and then refuses to leave. It’s a skin-crawling scenario, and it’s impossible not to feel for Todd. The situation, however, may not be all it appears...
Stargazer by Laurie Petrou & Necessary People by Anna Pitoniak
Two delicious novels about rivalry between so-called ‘best friends’. In Necessary People, one is poor and ambitious, the other wealthy and cunning, and they’re scrambling for supremacy in the cut-throat world of TV news. In Stargazer, they’re both rich, and it’s personality that creates the divide between the driven Diana and the soft-hearted Aurelle.
Looker by Laura Sims
A recently divorced woman develops a fascination with her neighbour, a famous actress, and the fixation quickly consumes her. Marketed somewhat unfairly as a thriller, this is really an intricate and very dark character study. You’ll find yourself trying to pick apart the narrator’s fantasies from her reality, searching for what she’s leaving out of her twisted, biased account.
For more, try:
The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones While being questioned about a murder, a translator living in Japan reflects on her relationships with her frenemy Lily and her lover Teiji – as well as their weird love triangle
The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora After they drunkenly ‘reconnect’ at a school reunion, a delusional woman follows her now-famous ex-friend to LA. This is a surreal and complicated obsession narrative, full of philosophy and dream-logic
Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic Another knotty, hard-to-categorise novel about an obsessive woman: the odd, inscrutable Alice, who claims to have engineered a relationship with her favourite writer via social media stalking
Things go wrong in a big posh house
A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine
During the heatwave summer of 1976, a rich young man invites a random group of people – his best friend, a hippyish couple, a strange girl – to stay at the family mansion. Ten years later a body is found... but whose? This is a classic of its type and has influenced many others (including several of the books on this list). It’s full of awful characters, but Vine writes them so persuasively, you want them to get away with it anyway.
The Fall Guy by James Lasdun
Unemployed Matthew spends the summer at his banker cousin Charlie’s second home. There’s already tension between the cousins, so when Matthew starts to suspect Charlie’s wife is being unfaithful, the stage is set for an uncomfortable showdown. With a relentless focus on the shifty Matthew’s point of view, The Fall Guy pulls its protagonist (and the reader) into an ever-worsening spiral of poor choices and lies.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
All his life, country doctor Faraday idolises Hundreds Hall, the crumbling seat of the once-wealthy Ayres family. As the family’s fortunes decline further, Faraday finds a way in and becomes a fixture at the Hall – yet his presence seems to precipitate a spate of deaths and a possible haunting. At its core, this is a love story between a man and a house (a description you might also apply to Saltburn). It also has my favourite ending of anything ever, so there’s that.
For more, try:
Hare House by Sally Hinchcliffe An enigmatic, evasive woman abandons her life to lodge on the edges of a country estate, where she ingratiates herself with the master of the house and his volatile teen sister. But why is she really there? And what will she do to stay?
The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly A naive student gets entangled with two well-off, bohemian siblings. As they hang out and party together in a grand yet crumbling London house, everything seems perfect... until someone ends up dead
Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling A mismatched group of friends spend the summer exploring an abandoned manor house, hunting for a priceless necklace that’s reputedly hidden there. It’s supposed to be a last bit of fun before uni, but will end up affecting their lives forever
Wildcards
And finally, a few more books I felt deserved to be here – even if they don’t exactly fit into any of the categories above.
Sweetpea by CJ Skuse
A seemingly ordinary young woman secretly has a never-ending ‘kill list’ and an insatiable appetite for murder. Rhiannon is written with such an eye for down-to-earth humour (she’s obsessed with Sylvanian Families, for example), it’s all the more disarming and shocking when she gets horny mid-stabbing, or turns out to have someone locked up in a torture chamber. It’s a riot – and if you agree, there are three sequels to get stuck into as well.
The Wishing Game by Patrick Redmond
In my opinion, Saltburn doesn’t qualify as ‘dark academia’, and I don’t think it’s a horror film either... but it has the vibes of both, just like this boarding-school chiller. It depicts the tensions between both pupils and teachers at the unforgiving Kirkston Abbey – a powder keg ready to be set alight by one particularly Machiavellian student. Much of the book is a slow-burn drama, but it has a truly blood-curdling ending that pushes it into horror territory.
The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop, translated by Don Bapst
If you liked the ‘transgressive’ aspects of Saltburn best, here’s one for you. The title sort of speaks for itself, I think. This is a slim novella that offsets intensely disturbing subject matter with a memorable narrative voice.