ghost stories

[drinkyourmilk]

I haven't read a good scary book since I was a teen.
Can anyone recommend something that will give me the willies and I won't be able to put down?

The Woman In Black.

I'm a hardened horror fan and that creeped me right out for a week after...

I second that. It gave me a sleepless night, but I am a bit of a wimp :o. DH liked Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. He said it was chillingly good.

I bought The Woman in Black in a charity shop today, not sure I'm brave enough to read it yet! Is it really that scary?

The Tell Tale Heart
The Signalman
The Turn of the Screw (I don't like it much tbh but it is v well regarded)
Bag of Bones by Stephen King / The Shining

I hated The Woman In Black - about as scary as milk.
Dark Matter - the first half (pre ghost) much better than the 2nd half imho

The Children of Green Knowe if you don't mind children's books.
Also, Coraline by Neil Gaiman.
Also Charlotte Sometimes which is my favourite!
And Tom's Midnight Garden
These are not scary though, but they are good.

For scary but not a ghost story, try It by Stephen King.

MR James's stories are fab.

The Woman in Black is frightening, certainly more so than the Daniel Radcliffe film (the original film was very scarey) Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger is creepy rather than scarey but is a very good read and like The Turn of the Screw, the reader isn't sure who to believe!

Also, The haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, which is now regarded as a classic and has been re-printed in a Penquin Classic edition.

Hill House is Stephen King's favourite. I detested it - but I think I am the only one! :)

The only one that has ever genuinely creeped me out is The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.

Just something about the way it's written. As it's my favourite genre I find very, very few actually scary. Good stories, but they don't exactly have me leaving the light on at night.

Naomi's Room is a good supernatural story, and I recently read The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah. Disappointing as the cover compares it to The Woman In Black, quite apart from a lot of it being quite ridiculous (The main character's life is being 'ruined' by a neighbour that plays loud music till about midnight once every three weeks, not the most sociable thing to do but hardly life ruining) there is nothing remotely supernatural until the last couple of chapters. If a book is going to be about the supernatural, you have to at least hint at it throughout the book but it leans heavily towards her being depressed. Fine as a story but it doesn't earn the right to call itself supernatural imo.

Amityville is based on real events iirc.

Yes it is, supposedly, though there's been a lot of debate and it's now thought to be a hoax.

Though they did pass lie detector tests and in interviews while they were still alive they seemed very, very sincere. But who knows? you tell yourself a story for 30 odd years maybe it took on an element of truth in their own minds. But yes, the fact that it apparently could be true is probably what spooked me about it.

"You tell yourself a story for 30 odd years maybe it took on an element of truth in their own minds" Yes, I think there is something in this.

Apartment 16, Adam Nevill. Super book.

Oooh.
Loads of suggestions! Thankyou.
I saw The Woman in Black in the west end. Creeped me right out!
It doesn't have to be ghost stories really, just something chilling. I loved The Shining, and IT, when I was younger.
I'm going to have a nice long bath and trawl through the books suggested for my kindle.

Have you read, 'The Woman In White' by Wilkie Collins? It's a 'mystery' story in the old fashioned sense and well worth a read. Also, you might enjoy, 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' or, 'The Castle of Otranto.'

I really wanted to love Apartment 16. Couldn't finish it.

I couldn't finish Apartment 16 either, but I loved his other two, Ritual and Last Days.

Last Days is more ghostly and there were a couple of bits that managed to scare me with just a few shadows and creaking floors.

Ritual is not a ghost story, but there were a good few forest scenes that scared me anyway, it's a very good 'lost in the woods' book.

FG Cottam is fantastic OP, he writes modern stories that manage to be old fashioned in a very good way.

The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons is quite creepy too.

And I did like Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) and thought that was a good ghost story.

I always liked Graham Masterson's Manitou books as well.

I liked Ritual and Heart Shaped Box, I was confused by the ending of HSB though, I thought it was a big ambiguous and had to read it again to work out exactly what she'd done because it doesn't explicitly say, you're left draw your own conclusion.

The Woman in Black is a great classic ghost story. Another one I read recently which had me gripped was The Past Lies Waiting by David Treanor, very spooky with great characters and an unexpected twist.

I read Amytyville as an older teen. I had to go downstairs and sit with my family to finish it. I was very scared.

Hahah so there you have it! I'm hardcore, nothing like that scares me. I can watch horror flicks on my own without a second thought but that book IS scary.

Get thyselves to Amazom

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian is a brilliant ghost story. You read it not sure whether it's really a ghost story or a psychological tale. V intriguing and disturbing.

The Little Stranger?

I really liked Dark Matter.