To ask for your best unsettling/creepy author or book recommendations?

[bumblenbean]

Posting here for traffic (sorry!)

I need some new reading material as a distraction from the current shitty situation. Don’t have much time to trawl through amazon as juggling work and two toddlers, so was hoping the AIBU hive mind could assist!

I like a good creepy psychological thriller / crime fiction etc and am running out of authors to try.

I love Mo Hayder but she hasn’t written anything for a while. Also a fan of Sarah Hilary, Susan Hill, Tana French, Ruth Rendell, Tim Weaver...

There’s a lot out there billed as ‘creepy’ ‘disturbing’ ‘chilling’ etc but unfortunately a lot of it is so badly written / implausible / poorly plotted, so am looking for a new author to get my teeth into.

There was a great series by an author called Gillian White written years ago, though she doesn’t seem to have written anything for years and is a bit obscure; but if anyone knows her work and can recommend anything similar that would be great.

Any ideas welcome! 😁 TIA

Michelle paver thin ice, read another by her that was also very creepy but can't for the life of me remember the name

This series is close enough to believe it could happen and that's why I've found it unsettling. Very good at weaving stories too
www.deankoontz.com/book-series/jane-hawk

A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is pretty disturbing stuff. I loved it.

Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell writing under a different name but less detective more creepy.
Stephen King's The Stand.

A couple I recall that I've found creepy: Nightwork. Thomas Glavinic and Superstition by David Ambrose.

These are books that are apparently unsettling and have been recommended to me but haven't gotten round to reading yet-
The silent patient by Alex Michael Idea
The Puttermesser Papers - Cynthia Ozick
The road through the wall - Shirley Jackson.

I’ve just downloaded a new Michelle Paver from the library, but I bought her book Dark Matter after recommendations on here of how creepy it was and found it rather obvious.

The Ice Twins, S K Tremayne
Jeez, it gave me the fear!

I've got two titles that I read a few years ago:

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell - set in 1920s New York, a young woman begins work in police station

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes - set in Chicago, starts the in Depression and it's about a time travelling serial killer

Both of them are very well written and stayed on my mind long after reading

Adam Neville - The Ritual, The Reddening. He does a good job of combining folk horror with a modern setting.

The Elementals by Michael McDowell - creepy, unsettling and weird. Just my cup of tea

The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp - I thought this was pretty clever as well as creepy and intriguing

Yoko Ogawa - her stories are set in Japan, but you can definitely relate to the books without knowing much about the country. Try 'Revenge' as an easy start.

3 books that scared the SHIT out of me (and I'm a diehard horror fan);

Pet Sematary SK
The Shining SK
Lucy's Child Shaun Hutson

‘The Troop’ by Nick Cutter. A real body horror tale.

‘The Exorcist’ by William Peter Blatty.

Currently reading ‘Hunger’ by Alma Katsu about an ill-fated wagon train, headed West and based on a true story.

Not really a horror, but certainly horrifying; ‘Gillespie and I’ by Jane Harris. It kind of creeps up on you slowly as the truth about the narrator begins to dawns on you.

From the recommendations on this thread I downloaded The Corset by Laura Purcell I liked The Silent Companions

Slightly unnerving a few pages in and atmospheric. I really like her writing it’s detailed but not overly

Check out Irish writer Liz Nugent. She writes superbly creepy stories about dysfunctional families

The only book which has ever given me nightmare was Stephen king's The Stand....maybe not the best thing to read at the moment though!

Sharon Bolton is excellent. Some of her older books were published under SJ Bolton. Sacrifice was particularly unsettling, - wouldn't recommend reading while pregnant!

Carol joyce oates is a good author for disturbing, chilling. Esp one called daddy love