AAR

[Audrey]

I read The Exorcist in the dark of night, in a foreign country, in a really old farmhouse in which you had to go up to our room in the attic on a ladder, when I was fifteen.

[Eggletina]

Another I just remembered that had some bone-chilling moments was Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree.

[Linda in sw va]

[tuga]

I also don't read much horror but I've read some Stephen King novels and to this day his tale about an airport (don't remember the title) where a single person is there alone and all that suspense and psychological suggestion was too much. It's not scary in a way that makes you scream, but it is frightening because you can easily imagine if it were you there completely alone with something.
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[Vol Fan]

Absolutely was "The Exorcist". The book scared me, the movie traumatized me for a very, very long time. Can't even watch previews of it anymore when they advertise it on tv. Bad karma. LOL

I remember reading "The Haunting of Hill House" when I was in high school. That book terrified me. Not sure if it would hold up now, but then, YIKES!

I also read Joe Hill's book "The Heart Shaped Box" & it too was really creepy.

Crazily enough, Stephen King doesn't really scare me. I don't particularly like him anyway and think he is incredibly, highly overrated. I have read a lot of his, but I like Dean Koontz much, much better. The last book I forced myself to finish of King's was "Under the Dome" and was terribly disappointed in it. Normally, I don't finish a book that doesn't do it for me, but since that one was gigantic and I had invested so much into it already (thinking it would improve since I liked the premise) I forced myself to finish it. Never again though.

[xina]

[D Rogers]

For me, the scariest was Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I didn't think a book could scare me until I read that one. I was wrong.

But the BEST written scary books I've read have been Edith Wharton's Ghost Stories (scary good) and Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. The scare in both of these creeps up on you. Wonderful to read on a rainy night or gloomy winter afternoon...

Denise

[Susan/DC]

I found Henry James' The Turn of the Screw scary because you never know the truth -- are there ghosts or was the governess insane? It's even scarier because the overall tone is so low key and rational and, as a result, everything seems more realistic -- there may be evil spirits or, just as likely, a madwoman may be in our midst. In either case, death and destruction result.

[kris]

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson(along with the 1963 movie) scared the heck out of me. The part of the book where Eleanor thinks she is holding Theodora's hand and it turns out that it's not Theo's hand still gives me a major case of the creeps. It's the sense of vagueness about it. Is Eleanor going crazy or is it more. Things that go bump in the night really , really scare me.
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Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.

[ChrisReader]

I am a huge Barbara Michaels fan- I think she does intelligent supernatural combined with subtle romance better than anyone. Like any author some of her books are better than others. Some of her best "scarier" books are:

Ammie Come Home

House Of Many Shadows

Be Buried In The Rain

Stitches In Time

Wait For What Will Come

The Crying Child

[Katie (kat)]

I read both Red Dragon and a book about the real life Boston Strangler at the same time years ago (way before the movie) and it was a big mistake. It freaked me out!

While I can still read an occassional Red Dragon type of story where good triumphs over evil, I'm just too creeped out about real life murderers to ever have their stories rolling around inside my head. Books affect me way more than movies or TV. I can watch a documentary about a Ted Bundy but I'll never read a book about him.

The one exception to this is John Douglas books about profiling. Those I find fascinating. And, I'm a big horror movie buff. LOL!
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The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position. ~Christine Stevens

[Amanda DeWees]

[ladynaava]

When I was child I had a horrid fear of ghosts.

Ghosts Belong to Me
Ghosts I have Been

Really scared me. I remember Ghosts I had been had the ghost of a girl/woman who drowned and they kept her head in a jar so someone might identify the body. Ghosts belong to me had a girl who drowned in a well, and her little dog died too. It frightened and upset me very much especially the little dog. It was so sad.

At any rate, those books, frightened me as a child.

While I don't believe in ghosts anymore, I still remember how afraid and upset I was by those books. Funny thing is my sister had no issue reading them, but I was way too sensative. =-)

[maryskl]

[maryskl]