Can anyone help me find a very very scary book?

[Bishalisha]

Hey! I’m struggling to find what I’m after. I am very fussy though

• Id like to to be ‘can’t open my eyes in the night in case there’s a ghost/demon standing next to me’ kind of scary
• set in current time period +\- 20 years
• not sci fi, post apocalyptic or dystopian
• easy to read
• doesn’t involve violence or torture against children (I liked the sound of Naomi’s House until I read an Amazon review that said it was a bit much)

Thank you

Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Proper horror. I wouldn't read it if I was in the house alone, or after dark - in fact if my flatmate was in her room I'd go and get in her bed to read it so I wasn't even in my bedroom alone!

She took the piss out of me - until she read it and did the exact same thing!

I was going to suggest Pet Sematary, by Stephen King. But it does have a dead child, so that might not work for you. I was also terrified by Cujo, though it's not supernatural or anything.

The book that scared me the most is actually a children's book, Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, and I read it when I was twelve or thirteen. It's about a young girl who is hospitalised with a serious illness, and whose drawings start infitrating her dreams, until the line between dream life and real life is blurred. It's not meant to be a scary book, I don't think, but I found it terrifying. It's filled with a horrible, nagging dread and sense of impending doom. Honestly, I still feel funny when I think about some parts of it - the one-eyed boulders! Shudder.

Oooh thanks both

I’ve put both suggestions on the list. Going to call the bookshop around the corner from my office to see if they have either in stock to pick up on my way home

I could handle dead child but not a child being physically hurt

It's filled with a horrible, nagging dread and sense of impending doom.

That’s what I want to feel!

@medb22 When I was eight or nine, I was a given Marianne's Dream as a present and it scared the living daylights out of me! The aunt who gave it to me knew I was a bookworm and thought it would be something I really enjoyed. When she asked me if I'd liked it, I almost burst into tears I was so scared of the book itself that I'd hide it somewhere obscure, but then I'd inevitably stumble upon it later on and have to find it a new hiding place, and so on and so on.

OP sorry to derail your thread but this has brought back a lot of childhood trauma memories for me!

Dean R Koontz (Winter Moon, Night Chills, Whispers, the Strangers),
Stephen King (The Stand - even though it is post apocalyptic, Desperation - a scary book that is so good you can't put it down, yet so good you ALSO want to string out the reading of the last chapters...)
James Herbert (Moon, Lair, The Dark)

• my go to authors for scary...

Not a book but are you on reddit? There is a great subreddit there called r/nosleep and it's full of scary / creepy stories. Some are quite silly but others have really creeped me out! Might be worth a look?
Otherwise, I second Stephen King - The Shining? If you read it there's also a more modern sequel (Doctor Sleep). That's pretty scary. Or Salem's Lot.

Amityville Horror

Limpshade, I hear you. I threw away my copy of the book when I moved out for college, though I actually regret it now. Maybe I'll buy it again and re-read it, it might exorcise the demons a bit. Though honestly, even looking at it on Amazon now is making me come over a bit funny.

I couldn't sleep for ages after reading Rosemary's Baby 😣

The Girl next door by Jack Ketchum was gripping and horrifying, he also wrote Off Season which is gory, scary and horrible.

Blimey OP, you have set the bar high.

No idea if these will keep you awake at night., but if you like haunted house / room stories then you might want to check out the short stories:

Stephen King - 1408
Algernon Blackwood - The Empty House

and the novel:
Michael McDowell - The Elementals

The Fog by James Herbert. So scary that I rang in sick rather than go out to work in the early morning fog.

Or The Rats by James Herbert,

Pig Island mo Hayder
Ash James herbert

Thank you all! Very excited to read something scary after endless crime

@JAPAB I know but if it’s too difficult to read for any reason I just can’t get stuck into it!

Stephen King is featuring a lot- I’ve just finished Finders Keepers as it was the only Stephen King book the library had and I found it a bit crap (but didn’t expect it to be scary when I read the synopsis)

You need Adam Nevill in your life ;) Start with Apartment 16 or The Ritual. I’m a massive horror lover and they left me very unsettled. In fact, all of his do. They are very good reads though

Definitely Pet Sematary, still haunts me many years later.

Also Flesh and Blood by Graham Masterson. Ugh. Awful but great.

Stephen King's short story collection, Skeleton Crew, has several absolutely chilling stories in it. Even thinking about them now makes me shiver.

Scariest book ever for me was Empty World (John Christopher). Still makes my flesh crawl when I think about it over 30 years since I read it.

@multivac The Jaunt still gives me shivers!

I'm not keen on Stephen King books. I find them quite wordy with not much action. James Herbert are so much better and usually scary right from the start. His older stuff is better than the more recent ones.

Also (and I don’t know why) Alias Grace was horrific. On the face of it, it didn’t really have any horror, but I found it left America with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach all the way through it.

Not Pet Sem if you don't want anything about children - love it but don't read it now I have kids.

I would say Geralds Game (Stephen King) best read in bed! Or The Shining.

Finders Keepers isn't really a good representation of a scary Stephen King book.

Graham Masterton is worth a look. Some of his earlier horror stories have stayed with me for a long time now. Walkers and Prey come to mind.

Michelle Paver Dark Matter scared me; I had to draw the curtains without looking out of the window just in case there was something there. On the face of it, it is about a polar expedition and is a great story...
www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Matter-Michelle-Paver/dp/1409121186/ref=sr_1_3?s=gateway&crid=3C8LU435FU73D&keywords=michelle+paver+books&sprefix=Michelle+p%2Caps%2C157&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1566573291&sr=8-3

Have you read Susan Hill The Woman in Black? I read it once and haven't dared read it again, left me terrified that I might see something in any room with the door open.

(or maybe I'm just a scaredy cat who is scared of anything being either inside or outside my house!)

And a couple of short stories:
"N" by Stephen King, about a psychiatrist treating someone for a particular obsession. (note to authors, if you give your stories a name that is just a letter it makes it difficult to google!) I think it's from his collection Just After Sunset.

"What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night" by Michael Marshall Smith
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007TZFSTM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Another Stephen King "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" - unsettling story involving deja vu. From Everything's Eventual