Looking for the most scary horror stories ever!

[Oakley02]

Hi, I love to be scared, can anyone recommend their most frightening reads ever?

[Grifone]

I don't know if it is the most scary ever but Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury had my heart thumping.

[Oakley02]

Thanks, Grifone, will try it. Hopefully will make me do this . Anyone have other suggestions, I am an avid reader and always looking for the next most exciting book.

[cdtaylornats]

Pig Island by Mo Hayder

[theforceisbroken]

I read Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe a couple of weeks ago and it scared me silly; first time I've ever had to stop reading something at night because it was freaking me out so much.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. Haven't read it since college but the only other book I can remember really giving me the heebie jeebies. I thought The Little Hand, by the same author, was unsettling too, although not as outright terrifying.

All of these books involve nasty things happening to children though which is perhaps why they are so affecting :(

This article should give you some more ideas:

flavorwire.com/419194/the-50-scariest-books-of-all-time/view-all/

[AllThePrettySeahorses]

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. Beautiful, terrifying book.

[justwondering72]

Came on to recommend Dark Matter and the Woman in Black!

I've been reading old Steven King that I missed first time round... Salems Lot had me sleeping with the light on:-0

[Oakley02]

I loved Salem's Lot, also remember a film or tv show many years ago, really scary. I am about a third way through Naomi's Room, not scaring me yet but getting good.

[boldlygoingsomewhere]

Also suggesting Dark Matter. Really unsettled me!

[Thebookswereherfriends]

John Connolly' s book of short stories, I think it's called nocturnes. Pretty scary/creepy.

[Indantherene]

The Treatment by Monday Hayder.

[Coffeethrowtrampbitch]

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. Not strictly speaking a horror novel but full of such disturbing occurrences you will be lucky to sleep after reading it.

[redannie118]

Another recommendation for Nocturne, also Haunted by James Herbert. I read it when I was 19 and it scared me so much I have not picked it up since (43 now !)creeping, beautiful and really sad in places, a really good old haunted house story ! If you fancied something a bit more up to date you could try Heart shaped Box by Joe Hill( Stephen Kings son and imho a much better writer) about a aging , jaded washed up rock star who collects occult objects and buys a "ghost" on the internet. So creepy it made every single hair on my body stand up, on a crowded bus at 8 in the morning !!

[SqueegyBeckinheim]

Anything by Adam Nevill, but especially End of Days and No Gets Out of Here Alive. The former actually had me sleeping with the lights on.

[Oakley02]

Have just ordered Heart Shaped Box on my
DH's Amazon account - 's okay as he enjoys a bit of a scare too. Hmmm - now need to find the time to read more!

[ThomasHardyPerennial]

The Dark Behind the Curtain by Gillian Cross has haunted me for years! Properly shit me up as a teen .

[Hygge]

Squeegy I felt the same about Last Days, there were some moments in that book that had me twitching at every creeky floorboard in the house. One night I was thinking about the book so much I had to put it in a drawer.

I wasn't as keen on House of Small Shadows, and really didn't like Apartment 16, but I loved The Ritual. There's just something about being lost in a forest.

OP Heart Shaped Box is good, I really liked it. I thought Horns was a bit Dean Koontz, but Dean Koontz when he was decent and not weird, and NOS4R2 was very good, I liked it very much.

Have you read any of the John Ajvide Lindqvist books? Handling the Dead, Let The Right One In, Harbour, and Little Star? They all all very different and all have their creepy moments.

And have you tried FG Cottam? He writes books that have a kind of old fashioned horror feel to them. If you've read Stephen King's 1408 story, they have that kind of feel, a touch of 1920's, 30's, 40's glamour but with something wrong. Although they aren't set in those time periods, but they have that feel.

House of Lost Souls is good, Dark Echo is one of my favourites, it's about a boat that is said to be cursed and brings bad luck to the owners, The Waiting Room is about a haunted abandoned train station where the land owners keep hearing ghostly voices singing WW2 era songs but feel an evil presence. I could go on but all the books of his that I have read have been really good and have some very creepy bits. The Colony has a particularly horrible bit with teeth.

You can also download one of his novella books, The Going And The Rise, for free if you go to fgcottam.com. I think it has ties to Dark Echo, but you might not have to read one to read the other. I've just downloaded it now, you can chose to do it to your computer or to your kindle. I feel he's an underrated author who should be much better known than he seems to be.

[Oakley02]

Have just finished Naomi's Room and really enjoyed it but I must be hardened to scary stuff as it didn't make me go . I read a book when I was about 19 which really frightened me - I cannot remember author but I think it was called The Vampire Tapes. It had such an affect on me for ages. It was about audio tapes that had been found telling the history of terrible vampires but although I have tried, have been unsuccessful in finding this book. It sounds a bit like Interview with a Vampire but it's not that. It wasn't an Anne Rice book, that I do remember. Can anyone help? I read it in the late 1980's if that helps.

[Izzy24]

The Vampire Tapes - Arabella Randolphe.

[StealthPolarBear]

I used to really enjoy horror bur have gone off it in the last decade or so. I'm going to give it another try but I can't have horrible things happening to children (even something quite mild ) - can anyone let me know which I ahould/shouldn't be reading?

[Sanchar]

Yy to Adam nevill, gave me proper sweats those did.

Have to say woman in black is utter, utter, UTTER shite. Saw people on here raving about how scary it was and it just wasn't, not even one iota. It was so unscary I even wrote a review on Amazon saying how shitely unscary it was. I've never done a review before but I felt duty bound after reading that drivel.

I had to stop reading heart shaped box. I might go back to it so I can find out how it ends, but I'm scared!👻

[Hygge]

It's been a while since I read it, but have you read A Good And Useful Hurt by Aric Davis?

It's a bit of an odd one, and it was a bit brutal in places, but I did enjoy it. I never once got the feeling that the violence was being used as entertainment.

It's about a man who works in a tattoo studio, and one day a client comes in asking for a deceased relatives ashes to be mixed in with the tattoo ink and used to tattoo his body. They start to get more requests like that, and realise that the people receiving the tattoos can now communicate with the dead person whose ashes were used.

Then they realise that by using this method, they should be able to track down a serial rapist and murderer who has been targeting women in their town.

It's not your normal ghost story, and in fact the scary bits aren't the ghosts but the people, but I do remember that I really wanted to find out what happened and it kept me on edge towards the end.

Sancher I didn't like The Woman in Black either. I haven't found any of Susan Hill's scary books to be scary at all. I don't get her appeal.

[Hygge]

Another odd one I read on Kindle was Mrs McGilvery by Colin Gibson.

It's set in the 60's and is about a group of children who become aware of an entity stalking the streets and picking them off one by one.

The adults can't see it and when the children try to talk about it they either aren't heard or aren't believed.

I know it sounds like Stephen King's IT, and I suppose in some ways it was similar, but it was also quite good on it's own merit.

[Kraggle]

If you like a bit of trashy horror most things by J.A Konrath/Jack Kilborn. Some of them are exceeding creepy/slasher horror but vey very good. Not sure if he is just on Kindle though or if he's got proper books.

[Darrowisred]

Shrike by Joe Donnelly. Read it about 20 years ago and couldn't be in the house alone even in daytime for weeks afterwards. Set in a small Scottish town, it's about a group who use a medium to raise Satan and instead unleash a terrifying demon who is nicknamed Shrike as it steals people and murders them, it is so scary. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly is macabre and very unsettling, about a little boy who finds himself in a dark fairytale land where he has to save his baby brother from the very creepy Crooked Man. Finally another vote for Dark Matter, so unsettling.

[TheoriginalLEM]

OMG - Am nearly finishing Dark Matter thanks to you feckers!!! I walked to work this morning like i was not quite in my own self! I don't think i have ever been so affected by a book since I was a teenager. Totally absorbing, wonderful descriptions, no violence (yet?) just niggling, I just want to go home so that i can finish it. I haven't read "horror" for many years as i don't really like it any more but this is more of a ghost story or a story about how the mind plays tricks on one. Some of the guys anxieties and how he deals with them have knocked me sideways as as an anxiety sufferer myself i have had those very same discussions with myself. Honestly, i feel a bit odd!