Share your favourite spooky books for Halloween to win a box set of new edition Harry Potter books

Dean Koontz The funhouse

Oh yes, I forgot the House of Leaves! Properly terrifying with weird goings on and very unreliable narrators. Really unsettling.

I'm glad someone else has said Candle in her Room, it was a real favourite of mine when I was younger. 3 generations under the spell of doll.

Just seen someone mention the Gruffalo being spooky - it was the Gruffalo's Child for my DD, I remember her at 2, lying in her bed after lights out with the wind howling outside going 'His eyes, like pooooools of TERRIBLE FIYAAAAH'

The other spooky book she liked last year was this one - the illustrations are really cool and it's very non-scary in the end. Good for really wee ones!

I remember being spooked out reading 'Whispers in the Graveyard' by Theresa Breslin. Solomon finding the chest and sounding out the word properly stuck in my head for ages afterwards. That was also when I learned what dyslexia was, having heard the word before but never known what it meant!

These days I don't like spooky stories so tend to avoid them but I remember getting the shivers while reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Kind of like 'spooky lite' for people who don't do horror I guess!

I love Pet Cemetery by Stephen King and Needful things, both superb novels, not too scary but gripping enough to keep you absorbed for hours.

I remember reading Being by Kevin Brooks, a YA novel published in 2007 - I'm not sure that it actually intended to be spooky but my god did it have my heart racing. The entire concept of the novel is just brilliant, definitely recommend if you have teens along with other works by Kevin Brooks.

The lovely bones also managed to spook me so it doesn't take much ;)

Probably out of print but "A Candle in Her Room" by Ruth M Arthur is fabulous!

When DSs were 3 they thought the Gruffalo was veeery spooky, at the point where the mouse goes 'there's no such thing as a Gruffal--oooh!'

For me, Stephen King's Carrie. The book, not the movie. The movie is only mildly scary although Sissy Spacek was great!

I've always found Stephen Kings Pet Semetary one of the scariest books I've ever read. I only read it once when I was a teenager & have never had the courage to read it again.

When I was a child I read the Complete works of Hans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories. Some of these were quite scary as a child to find the characters being horrible.

As an adult Stephen King's novels send a shiver down the spine

JubJubBirds, I'm with you. The Michelle Paver Dark Materials was really scary. The Little Stranger also made me feel very uneasy. Both excellent books.

Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake by Bernard Taylor is a fantastic little story contained within Julian Lloyd Webber's compilation, Short Sharp Shocks. It's about a baby left in a pram outside the pub whilst his mum drinks, when she eventually goes back to him, he kills her and gets a nice adopted family. It finishes with the adopted parents standing over his cot saying how he'll never know what happened, and what a bad start he'd had. Then we switch to the baby's thoughts, who basically had done everything on purpose!! Beware new mothers, treat them well.........or else!!

Room 13 by Robert Swindells immediately comes to mind as one from my childhood, I would say aged 9+, it was that good a book that I still have it

Good story with some scare included, the story isn't lost in the attempt at being scary. Its good one to start with at that sort of age because its not too scary

THE WOMAN IN BLACK!

not ghost stories in genre or anything like that but deffinetely mind numingly distrubing and scary at times are karin slaughter books for adults.but hell does she make you fall in love with pysch thrillers.she is amazing.

for kids i always remember goosebumps.

The Exorcist

Grimm's fairy Tales was my favourite book as a child, although the Little Mermaid suffered for her love, & The Little Tin soldier had me in tears. Most of the stories had some frightening parts in them but I read them over & over again. Stephen King has now become my horror author & I do like The shining for being rather frightening.

'Dark Matter' by Michelle Paver. I think its better if you go into it not expecting to have that big terrified moment though. The fear sort of creeps up on you through the atmosphere of the writing. I originally read it because I was a big fan of her 'Chronicles of Ancient Darkness' children's books. 'Dark Matter' is definitely adult's literature though, it's terrifying!

'Little Stranger' by Sarah Waters is another great one. Lots more going on beyond the ghost story, a really fantastic read.

The Haunted Cottage by James Herbert is rather spooky.

The Haunted Cottage by James Herbert was rather spooky.

Misery by Stephen king

The Woman in Black is my own personal spooky favourite - guaranteed to send a shiver down the steeliest of spines!

And for children - older ones might enjoy Which Witch by Eva Ibbotson 9assuming you can still buy this!), a spooky take of a competition to see who can be the darkest witch. Or for smaller readers, perhaps Spider Sandwiches, a favourite of my three year old. Delightfully disgusting!

Footsteps on the stairs by C.S Adler.

Lovely but creepy when you are 11.

Dracula by Bram Stoker.

I have to say that Frankenstein wins every time for me as one of the best horror books, purely for its chilling description and portrayal of the monster.

I remember as a child forcing myself to read my favourite point horror books every Halloween and failing miserably!

Tales of the grotesque and arabesque by Edgar Allen Poe