Best Book Ever: Scary Stories
Halloween candy is out in stores and at least one house in my neighborhood is TOTALLY super ready for Halloween. So this week, I asked our contributors to talk about their favorite Scary Stories. Here are a whole host of some spooky books to fill up your reading lists!
This topic is a bit easier to pick from because I haven't read too many scary /creepy books. Now there is an author that I consider the Queen of Creepy, that's Gretchen McNeil. I have read Possess and Ten by Gretchen and man oh man, they are super SCARY and even creepier. Gretchen's books are not the kind you read with all the lights off. Another book I give honorable mention to is Still Waters by Emma Carlson Berne, creepy and mysterious. I need to read more scary books! Yara @ Once Upon a Twilight
I'm breaking the rules a little bit, because this is a short story and not a book, but my favorite spooky tale is THE LANDLADY, by Roald Dahl. I read it to my class a decade ago, (I was a teacher in another life), and it left us all with chills. There's nothing gritty or gruesome within the pages--no blood or gore--but at the end of the story, you know it's coming. Since I don't like graphic violence, my favorite kind of horror is when the killings take place off the page...in my own imagination. I'm shivering just thinking about it! Melissa Landers, debut author of Alienated (2014, Disney Hyperion)
I have a special, dark & twisty corner of my heart tucked away for scary stories. I decided to go old school this week and choose a book of short stories by the master, H.P. Lovecraft, titled The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. You want some short stories that make you want to hide under your covers and begin to question your own sanity. This is the book. One of my favorite short stories ever is in this book. It's called "The Rats in the Walls" and it is the best example of watching a main character go insane in first person that I've ever seen. It's fascinating, terrifying, and I love it. J.R. Johansson, debut author of Insomnia (2013, Flux)
Even though Halloween is my favorite holiday and I love doing things like ghost tours, I am a big chicken so my Scary Story may be a little tame for any horror fans. I recently read The Devil's Metal by Karina Halle, which started out a lot like the movie Almost Famous and ended up like Hellraiser. The story follows Dawn as she tours with 70's metal band Hybrid, so the first half of the book is a lot of music and rock star antic, so it's absolutely fine. But as you move into the second half of the book, it is clear that something is not right with the band although it is unclear whether it is the Satan worshipping drummer or a curse or hex of some type. Things get creepier and scarier as you find out more about what haunts Hybrid and, while I couldn't put the book down, I didn't love the way it has me jumping at shadows the night I finished it.Jessica @ Simply Infatuated
Whether it's a book or film, I don't scare easily. But one of the best scary stories I've read in a long time is Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist. If you like TV shows like The X-Files and Supernatural, you'll enjoy his series of period mystery/horror/thriller books concerning Dr. Warthrop, a man who studies monsters, and his young but able assistant, Will Henry. In the first of these, The Monstrumologist, they are on the track of a vicious and deadly race of legendary creatures called the Anthropophagi--people eaters. Or perhaps the Anthropophagi are tracking them. Creepy, right? An unsettling but compelling read, this book might remind you of your favorite Lovecraft stories, or your worst nightmares.E.C. Myers, author of Quantum Coin (2012, Prometheus Books)
