To ask you for your best scary book

[Floursacktabletop]

I want to read something scary for October. I don't already own anything . Here's my wants
Must be horror genre, not crime thriller or mystery like The Girl on the Train type.
I've read most of the older Stephen King novels, Needful Things/The Green Mile probably faves
Not gory or body horror.
Any great recommendations? Would be much appreciated.

Agree with the EF Benson and MR James suggestions. I also enjoy a bit of HP Lovecraft.

Also, as per a PP, Pet Sematary is bloody awful (in a good way!) if you haven’t yet read it.

Tender is The Flesh
The Reformatory - Tananarive Due
Silent Companions Laura Purcell

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Jamaica Inn Daphnee Du Murier it was so scary i could hardly handle the book kept on reading it so it was finished i was young at the time but dont think i could read it again.

The Turn of the Screw if you’re into classic literature.

Let the Right One I.

The Lamb by Lucy Rose

I also hated Diavola, although the cover is really cool.

I am currently working my way through Robert Aickman’s short stories - they are really well written and intriguing, but none of them have a satisfying ending, or much explanation, so you have to like drawing your own conclusions.

I was going to suggest 'Misery' by Stephen King - easily the most disturbing book I've ever read - but you may well have already read it

I just read Edith Hollar by Edward Carey and it was very creepy!

M.R James's short stories are ones I return to again and again, The woman in black by Susan Hill, Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, E.F Benson's short stories, C.J Tudor is a good author who's books are more mystery/unsettling. I love Laura Purcell books (The Whispering Muse, Bone China), historical and unsettling. Alex North - The Whisper Man, The Shadow Friend. If you want something spooky but easy then the Lockwood & Co books by Jonathan Stroud are really really good.

Anither vote for Dark Matter, and also Naomi's Room by Jonathan Aycliffe - saw that recommended on a similar thread ages ago and found it very creepy!

Yes!! I read that when we were snowed in one year.

Thin Air by Michelle Paver is also excellent if you liked Dark Matter.

The room in the tower has been made into a BBC 'A ghost story for Christmas' this year!

Agree with The Woman in Black and Misery.

Also Ring by Koji Suzuki. Absolutely brilliant. In fact I might dig out my copy and re-terrorisé myself!

An absolute yes ! to Dark matter and also Thin air by Michelle Paver .
The Shining really lingered with me really scary also Pet cemetery Stephen King.
Henry James The turn of the screw is scary but his style of writing may take a bit of getting used too.
Dracula is scary and really well written ,for me there is a sense of foreboding from the start.
James Herbert Haunted and the Secrets of Crickley Hall.
I agree with a pp regarding Jamaica Inn , not horror but it is scary, also Rebecca has a slight eeriness about it in parts .

The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill. The ITV film version (buy it on Amazon) is way better than subsequent versions

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
The Exorcist William Peter Blatty

Adam Neville books like The Ritual are good. There is gore though.

Hell House by Richard Matheson.

I really liked both but they are more or less the same story.

I absolutely loved both ‘Horror movie’ and ‘A head full of ghosts’ by Paul Tremblay…

Dean Koontz and Richard Laymon are both good.

The Upstairs Room by Kate Murray Browne gets my vote

Pet Semetary
The Ruin by Scott Smith
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi,
My Best Friends Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (it’s a hell of a slog to get through but worth it!)
We Used to Live Here by Markus Kliewer

Thanks to this thread I’ve just ordered The Little Stranger!

Ooh, and Ghost Story by Peter Straub!