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Original poster

Scariest book you have ever read!

117 replies

BookshowthatIcandrawupsidedown · 24/02/2024 15:04

I have just discovered discovered two new authors. Cj cooke and Michelle Paver..ghostly thrillers. Like their books but I would like to read something really scary. I read a couple of james herbert many years ago. The fog and possibly one about a magic cottage. Don't remember them being really scary.

Any recommendations?

OP posts:
Flavabobble · 25/02/2024 20:19

The Silent Companions - laura Purcell. I found it really creepy.
It's a couple of years since I read it and I still feel a bit uncomfortable thinking about it 😲

Original poster
BookshowthatIcandrawupsidedown · 25/02/2024 14:04

Thanks all..lots to be read. Excited to try some of these!

OP posts:
HarrietSchulenberg · 25/02/2024 13:49

The Amityville Horror when I was about 13 - it terrified me for weeks. I was a grown up before I found out it wasn't actually a true story.
Reading Dracula alone and at night is scary too.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 25/02/2024 13:38

I'm not one for the horror/sci fi genre generally, books or films, but I read a terrifying book when on holiday in the US years ago. It was called The Hab Theory and the plot was that one day the earth will just roll over due to an imbalance in the weight of the ice at the polar ice caps. It terrified the living daylights out of me (you can tell that from the fact I can still recall it years later) and even now I still occasionally think 'what if something happened RIGHT NOW to throw the earth off its axis?'

LadyPlasters · 24/02/2024 16:40

Anything by Mo Hayder... terrifying but unable to put down

eandz13 · 24/02/2024 16:39

Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Cockapoopoopoo · 24/02/2024 16:30

Birdbox really stuck with me for years and I could not put it down

TabithaTwitchel · 24/02/2024 16:10

Naomi's room

Just don't

Eyesopenwideawake · 24/02/2024 16:09

The Last Days of Jack Sparks. Just checked and it looks like the film is (finally!) going ahead. Funny and terrifying in equal part.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28765598-the-last-days-of-jack-sparks

anythinginapinch · 24/02/2024 16:04

The Road.

rainbowbee · 24/02/2024 15:55

Pet Sematary. Horrific but you can't put it down.

shellyleppard · 24/02/2024 15:51

Definitely Salem's lot by Stephen king.....it gives me the shivers every time I read it

Hatty65 · 24/02/2024 15:48

Endless Night by Richard Laymon. Utterly terrifying - I still occasionally have nightmares about it. It is currently 79p on abebooks.co.uk. (But I wouldn't recommend it)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147590.EndlessNight

Endless Night

Jody is pretty tough for a sixteen-year-old girl. That'…

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147590.Endless_Night

Original poster
BookshowthatIcandrawupsidedown · 24/02/2024 15:32

The only stephen king book I have read is 11.22.63. One of my favourite books ever...not sure why I haven't read anymore tbh. Will look to get some!

OP posts:
K0OLA1D · 24/02/2024 15:29

I am a Stephen King fan and I found IT, The Shining, Pet Sematary and Salems lot the scariest. The Stand isn't scary, but it is one of my faves

Original poster
BookshowthatIcandrawupsidedown · 24/02/2024 15:26

Ohh you reminded me...I read on the beach by nevil Shute.. I found that very scary.

Little stranger I haven't read but it looks good so I have ordered it!

OP posts:
SilverSimca · 24/02/2024 15:16

Without a doubt, Children of the Dust which I read aged 12. It isn't horror as such, it's about a nuclear war, but it terrified me for years and years because it wasn't about monsters and ghosts, it could actually happen. I could never read it again.

I went through a Stephen King stage in my teens and remember being particularly frightened by Pet Semetary and Salem's Lot.

The only thing I have really read as an adult that I found scary was The Little Stranger and that might be because I was reading it alone in an empty house at night.

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