What book scared the pants off you? Am hankering after a scary read...

[MillyMoop]

Any suggestions?

The Woman in black

M.R. James ghost stories?

agree about the Woman in Black too.

Agree with Woman In Black. I made the mistake of seeing the play then reading the book when I was pregnant.

The Little Stranger - I don't normally like ghost stories but it gripped me.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

It. And Pet Cemetery. Stephen King.

I'm still traumatised.

Mind you I read them both on a camping trip when I was about 12....

Pet cemetary for me too - makes me shiver just thinking about it - think I was about 18 when I read it and had to stay up (literally) all night to finish it as was too scared to go to bed - brilliant story too!

Try a collection of Daphne DuMaurier stories. Especially the ones that include Don't Look Now and The Apple Tree.

Parts of The Historian scared me but it's not a 'scary' book as such.

The Shining

The Turn of the Screw - Henry James.

Atmospheric. Played on my mind for a long time

The Historian had scary moments for me and I remember Don't Look Now really terrifying me as a 15year old!

I think i have told this story on here before but i totally wound myself up reading Misery.

However, on the last but one page she is chasing him and he looks up and thinks 'goddess' then dies (except he doesn't really iyswim).

Only i read it as, He looked up at her, thought "Goodness!" and died - his underwhelmed terror totally ruined it for me....

Another vote for the little stranger. So, so good.

American psycho was so scary I had to skip parts! But beware is also very very gory

House Of Souls

I couldn't read it at night, and I've read every Stephen King book and LOTS of horror.

This one though

The Road - a real sense of menace all the way through (plus it's a brilliant novel).

I heard a short story by Shirley Jackson on R4 that chilled me to the bone. Set in an idyllic little village where all the folk gathered together for what seemed at first like a cheery rustic meeting, but turned out to be a sacrifice. I was by the end of it. But also hooked - can't wait to read her novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'.

Oh, and she also wrote 'The Haunting of Hill House' which I believe is miiiiiiighty scary.....

the original Dracula is so scary that I had to sleep with the lights on for two nights.

Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels are quite spooky. She's a 'conflicted' CofE exorcist in Herefordshire, and is always coming across troubled spirits and areas of unexplained darkness.

Another thumbs up for Phil Rickmans novels, really spooky stuff.

I thought Pet Cemetery scared the life out of me, the very concept is gross and i was about 15 when i read it. It really affected me for a long time, no chance i'd read it again!!!

The scariest books I have ever read have been by (bizarrely) Muriel Gray. The Trickster was so scary I couldn't sleep on a plane!! Furnace is also pretty good