What is the most chilling book you've ever read?

[Beatgrrl]

At this time of year, I really love to snuggle up under a blanket, get all comfy and absolutely terrify myself with a great book and I could really use some recommendations. Which books have been absolutely bone-chillingly terrifying for you? Which have been the books that have left you too afraid to turn the lights out; too afraid to move? Which books have made you feel too scared to turn the page?

The shining. Trying to read Doctor Sleep, but it's slow going.

The yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins gilman is really good. You can read it for free online or kindle.

I think The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the most frightening thing I've read. Falls into post-apoclyptic fiction I guess ... No happy endings. It stayed with me for a long time and I'm not easily spooked.

We Need to Talk about Kevin has never left me.
I was terrified of motherhood and not loving my children and reading this book (well before I had them) did not help!
It’s just awful. I can understand it’s literary ‘value’ perhaps but there was no enjoyment in reading it all. Just horrifying.

Pet semetry freaked me out. Barely read the end I was so scared and books don't usually do that to me

'I was Doctor Mengele's assistant', true story of a Jewish doctor forced to work with Mengele in Auschwitz. It makes you wonder what you would do to ensure that you and your family survived

The Darkest Room by Joseph Theorim if you like ghost stories

Oh god @Snozzlemaid The treatment!!!!

With so many books I think “oh I’ve read that” but often don’t remember much about it. Mo Hayder writes so you’ll remember them for a long long time.

We need to talk about Kevin is my favourite book of all time. I’ve reread it countless (no exaggeration - half my pages have fallen out) It is disturbing, but so incredibly well written. Not sure if it’s just me, but it’s not as disturbing as to stay with me with rest of my life - just unnerving. Regarding animal cruelty, there’s one small incident involving a hamster. However, it hints as to what happens and never actually explains it in any sort of detail.

Still life with crows. Or pretty much anything by Doug Preston and Linc Child. Love me some Pendergast. Think modern Sherlock Holmes with supernatural twist with a southern American accent.

Typos!!
reread it countless times*
stay with me the rest of my life*

I know DowntonCrabby
Gives me shivers now when I think about it. I honestly don't know how anyone can think up a story like that.

The Wasp Factory

I really don't recommend it OP

Grim

Yikes! Naomi’s Room. I read it when I was 15 and then again a couple of years ago.

The Fog by James Herbert

Cujo by Stephen King.

Ooh yes. Forgot about Cujo. Totally freaked me.

I agree about Kevin. I remember thinking every parent and every educator should read it, to try and understand why these things happen.

Often mentioned on these threads are Dark Matter and the Silent Companions. Both left me waiting for the "boo!" but that never actually came.

I find Mo Hayder's books a bit too gratuitously violent and she disturbs me in the way women are written in her books. I think she's calmed down a bit yhough- in her last couple there wasn't the "slash movie" violence that she used to write.

Stephen King & James Herbert books.

I read IT as a young teenager years ago and when I watched the trailer for the new IT film I had to race up the stairs all ninja like and hide under the duvet.

Dracula! Bloody terrifying. I had to ask my mum to put it in the fridge (was about12) also made the mistake of reading roald Dahls tales of the unexpected when I was about 11 😱.

I have to agree with all the posters who have recommended We Need to Talk About Kevin, because it is sublime. I've read it over and over and take something different from it every time.
But, for a proper winter's night treat, you need The Turn of the Screw.

@MrsMaryBOOface that was my thread I’ve been working my way through the suggestions

Dr sleep has a descriptive scene in it that haunts me, and I’m disgusted in a ‘how could he even imagine and write that scene’ way (which I love).

"Dark Matter" - Michelle Paver. I actually felt like crying I was so scared in a few places. She wrote one called "Thin Air" too and that was also very good but Dark Matter had the edge.

The Birds Daphne du Maurier (it is actually a series of short stories)
Edger Allan Poe's short story "Premature Burial" "Red Death" "Pit & the Pendulum"
slow moving sad but quite scary Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" (there is a 2010 Australian film adaption - which although its in several parts is definitely worth watching - one small bit has slight issue with sound) on You tube - If you haven't read it or seen the old film (heathens!!!!) its takes place in Australia after nuclear war in the north & they are waiting for the radioactivity to reach them - brilliantly done I prefer this film version to the older one &the book although dated in style & attitudes (written in the 1950's) is still brilliant.

James Herbert stuff is fairly nasty scary

I've just finished The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. Having casually picked it up on the cheap in Tescos I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was but it gripped me immediately - a real gothic Victorian chiller with some truly stomach lurching moments of horror. I kept realising as I was reading that I'd inadvertently tensed, hairs on the back of my neck kind of thing.

The Collector by John Fowles. It's not scary, but it is chilling. I can't seem to manage to find a way to describe it without spoilers - but having first read it as a teenager, it's stayed with me. And beautifully written in an awful sort of way.