Spooky book for my 93yr old granny

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

Hi, I'm looking for recommendations on a spooky book for my granny. She's 93 and reads a lot so it's difficult to find something decent that she hasn't read! She usually just gets a box of books from her library van - I think mainly romance novels but she definitely likes a spooky one!

Sarah Waters The little Stranger?

Susan Hill writes good spooky novels - The Woman in Black and The Mist in the Mirror are particularly effective. Still in the M.R. Jamesian area occupied by Hill, have a look at Jonathan Aycliffe. He's much underrated and really good. I thoroughly enjoyed The Matrix and Shadows on the Wall. The only one I wouldn't recommend is Naomi's Room. There's a nastiness in it that you need to be ready for, whether you're 93 or not. I wasn't and it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

Adam Macqueen has just brought out a book of 20 horror stories. He has been writing one a year for friends and family and they are now published in a book. It’s called Haunted Tales. He’s a very good writer.

M.R. James would be perfect. Or how about a Sherlock Holmes?

Second this one!

Some Stephen King?

Ok Gona look all these up!
@Tortielady I enjoyed The woman in black! My dad got that for me and it was just what I was in the mood for. I have a feeling I may have got that for her in the past
I'm so intrigued about the nastiness in Naomi's room though!

@Rocknrollstar that sounds good!

Have you/has she read The Mist in the Mirror? It scared the ever-living whatnot out of me, but in a good way, because it's beautifully written and full of atmosphere.

If you read Naomi's Room first, you might gain an impression of Aycliffe's work that isn't quite accurate. He's not generally nasty as such, he's more a writer of old-fashioned ghost stories featuring intangible evil, the sins of the past and that sort of thing.

I enjoyed Sadie Jones's The Uninvited Guests, which is set in an Edwardian grand house and has decent ghosts, but is quite gentle, not very spooky.

If you want scary ghosts, Michelle Paver's Dark Matter is good and horrid with lots of menace, set in the Arctic. The ultimate scary ghost story for me is The Turn of the Screw, but I imagine she has read this.

Willie Collins - The Woman in White. Romance AND spookiness!

But it's a classic, so she may have read it already.

There was a scary books thread just before Halloween on this topic which might give you some ideas.

I really love the idea of a horror-loving grandma. I’m picturing a someone who looks (and speaks) like Queen Elizabeth sitting down to a good old slasher/horror book.

In A Glass Darkly by Justin Sheridan LeFanu. It was a set text for my English Lit degree. Really good C19th short stories.

Does she like full length novels, novellas or short stories ?
my personal recommendations for some more unusual choices:

any of EF Bensons Spook Stories but try to include The Room in the Tower, a horrid story. And Caterpillars {shudder}

Weird Fiction of H P Lovecraft

Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu

short stories by Tony Walker

The Small Hand by Susan Hill

The Apple Tree (short stories) by Daphne du Maurier which includes Don't Look Now and The Birds, the novella version of which is considerably more disturbing than the film.