Scariest book you have ever read!

[BookshowthatIcandrawupsidedown]

I have just discovered discovered two new authors. Cj cooke and Michelle Paver..ghostly thrillers. Like their books but I would like to read something really scary. I read a couple of james herbert many years ago. The fog and possibly one about a magic cottage. Don't remember them being really scary.

Any recommendations?

Without a doubt, Children of the Dust which I read aged 12. It isn't horror as such, it's about a nuclear war, but it terrified me for years and years because it wasn't about monsters and ghosts, it could actually happen. I could never read it again.

I went through a Stephen King stage in my teens and remember being particularly frightened by Pet Semetary and Salem's Lot.

The only thing I have really read as an adult that I found scary was The Little Stranger and that might be because I was reading it alone in an empty house at night.

Ohh you reminded me...I read on the beach by nevil Shute.. I found that very scary.

Little stranger I haven't read but it looks good so I have ordered it!

I am a Stephen King fan and I found IT, The Shining, Pet Sematary and Salems lot the scariest. The Stand isn't scary, but it is one of my faves

The only stephen king book I have read is 11.22.63. One of my favourite books ever...not sure why I haven't read anymore tbh. Will look to get some!

Endless Night by Richard Laymon. Utterly terrifying - I still occasionally have nightmares about it. It is currently 79p on abebooks.co.uk. (But I wouldn't recommend it)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147590.EndlessNight

Definitely Salem's lot by Stephen king.....it gives me the shivers every time I read it

Pet Sematary. Horrific but you can't put it down.

The Road.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks. Just checked and it looks like the film is (finally!) going ahead. Funny and terrifying in equal part.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28765598-the-last-days-of-jack-sparks

Naomi's room

Just don't

Birdbox really stuck with me for years and I could not put it down

Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Anything by Mo Hayder... terrifying but unable to put down

I'm not one for the horror/sci fi genre generally, books or films, but I read a terrifying book when on holiday in the US years ago. It was called The Hab Theory and the plot was that one day the earth will just roll over due to an imbalance in the weight of the ice at the polar ice caps. It terrified the living daylights out of me (you can tell that from the fact I can still recall it years later) and even now I still occasionally think 'what if something happened RIGHT NOW to throw the earth off its axis?'

The Amityville Horror when I was about 13 - it terrified me for weeks. I was a grown up before I found out it wasn't actually a true story.
Reading Dracula alone and at night is scary too.

Thanks all..lots to be read. Excited to try some of these!

The Silent Companions - laura Purcell. I found it really creepy.
It's a couple of years since I read it and I still feel a bit uncomfortable thinking about it 😲

I think I’ve read nearly everything by Stephen King and would recommend many of them but the one that made me lose sleep was Revival. It’s more bleak than scary mostly. A bit too disturbing tbh!

We Need to Talk about Kevin. By Lionel Shriver. Terrifying but absolutely possible, in no way is it science fiction! The film was crap (I read the book years before) but the book is amazing and the basic premise? Shit scary.

Christine, cujo and misery by Stephen king.

The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher

The Cellar by Minette Walters - creepy on many different levels.

Pet Semetary and The Long Walk are my two favourite Stephen King stories.

Let's go play at the Adams' Psychological horror, which I read as a young teen. Terrifying.

@LadyPlasters I came on to say the same, Ritual, Pig Island, I love her books. Just palin evil rather than spooky.

🙂. I still think of certain scenes in her books which make me shudder!