Can anyone recommend a truly scary book?

[shimmy0]

I used to love a good horror, but lately I haven't been impressed with what horrors I pick up in the book shops. I want something that's really terrifying!

I read Bentley Little's 'His Father's son' recently. I've read some of his other books and they are usually slightly sub Stephen King type plots, but this one was seriously fecked up. It has everything from serial killing, dead dogs to scarey clowns, I'm still having nightmares...

Michelle paver, dark matter. Scared the bejesus out of me. Also 'the snowman'- haven't been down the garden to the trees in the dark since!

Not necessarily truly scary but very well written short horror story from a new author on the Kindle: The House on Mill Street

I don't have a kindle yet :-( i will just have to make do buying second hand from amazon for now:-(

Thanks for the suggestions I will check them out :-)

Erebus by Shaun Hutson got me. Not sure why as it's fairly typical SH fare, but it got so I even had to keep it face down as the cover scared me
There's one of John Connolly's Charlie Parker series that involves lots and lots of spiders that scared me half to death too, I hate spiders, not sure why I kept reading it tbh, but I wanted to keep up with the series, and I do still sometimes frighten myself just remembering it. He is very chilling anyway, it's all supernatural and psychological stuff, intertwined with a more "ordinary" story and they work on several levels to "get to" the reader. The whole series are pretty scary, and very good reads.

Pom, I think that one's called The White Road. With Pudd as the spider wrangler. The Black Angel is pretty bloody scary, with my favourite baddie ever. A sequel to it is out at the end of August.

Oops, I was wrong, it's actually The Killing Kind

Another recommendation for John Connolly's Charlie Parker series - 'Every Dead Thing' is the first one. They are brilliant.
Have you read 'Heart Shaped Box' by Joe Hill (who is Stephen King's son)? That is one that makes you sleep with the light on for a while!

I hated Heart Shaped Box, I just couldn't get into it at all - not sure why, it had all the "ingredients" to be a great read, but it just irritated me somehow yet loads of people love it. Very strange.
Don't worry Nic I get all the books in just about every series I read mixed up - it's one of my pet hates on Amazon that they don't always put the full blurb on their page so I'm never quite sure if I've read a book before or not. It's not so bad in a shop cos I can have a leaf through and make sure I know which is which. The Sherrilyn Kenyon ones are the worst, all the titles are really alike, and all the covers are practically the same too - it takes me about half an hour to work out which one I want.

Turn of the screw, Henry James I think. Gave me nightmares.

Agree with yourefired - Turn of the Screw is truly frightening. It's a real slow burner though; you've got to let it get into your head.

Oh I love The Turn of the Screw. The Woman In Black is scary, although probably not truly terrifying to a hardened horror nut. I am a complete wimp with horror so don't have any more suggestions...

If you haven't yet seen the film, The Woman in Black had me whimpering. Even DH thought it was scary.

The Diary by Chuck Palahniuk really scared me. It's the creeping dread you get as the story develops that makes it a great read.

I clicked on this thread to say what Tomjoules said - Dark Matter was so terrifying I couldn't bear it.

Just been reading through all the suggestions and downloading samples onto my kindle

I do like a nice scary book. If you like something end of the worldy - Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon is a good 'un.

I'm a BIG fan of Stephen King, so look forward to seeing what his son can do in the writing department!

Love Stephen King but I often think you can disassociate yourself from 'proper ' horror stories. The most scary and horrifying book I've ever read ( and I've read James Herbert, King, John Saul and Shaun Hudson ), was The Road by Cormac McArthy. Bloody vile book and still haunts me months later, not sure if that's a good thing or not!

+1 for Turn of the Screw.

-1 for Woman in Black; I thought it was formulaic and couldn't forget it was a just a book.

Thanks re Dark Matter, will check that out.

It's not scary, more disturbing, but The Collector by John Fowles.

-1 for Dark Matter. Didn't find it scary at all; felt it read like a pitch for a movie. It even has 3 acts.

this I found scary.

Likewise this.

Just don't know where there's anything like this longer than short story length.

It's not supernatural but Thomas Harris' Red Dragon is genius and makes your hair stand on end.

I seldom get creeped out by horror, but Hater by David Moody really disturbed me for quite a while - I wasn't sleeping well at the time which may or may not have had something to do with it.

House of Leaves.

Sarah waters' 'the little stranger' properly scared me. A real creeper that one.

I didn't like Heart Shaped Box either. He isn't a patch on his dad.

Dark Matter I found rather silly and boring and not at all scary, though I liked reading about getting ready for the trip but that's because I'm a bit of a polar exploration geek!

The Snowman was terrible.

The Woman In Black also not scary and a total anti-climax imho.

The Collector is the creepiest thing I've ever read - shudder.

Chuck Palahniuk - I really liked Lullaby but I can't remember if it scared me or not.

Yes to The Red Room. The Telltale Heart is creepy too.