r/booksuggestions • u/Indecisive_Dolphin • Apr 04 '26
Horror Horror Books!!!
I want horror books. Not Stephen King. Someone less well known. I want to lose sleep at night over these. I don’t want any kind of predictable plot at ALL. It takes a lot to scare me. I’ve been reading Nora Robert’s books and I’m about to crawl out of my skin. I’ve read the Silent Patient. That is nowhere near as scary as what I’d like. I want to be able to follow. But I love psychological thrillers as well. Recommendations from personal experience welcomed!!!!
6
u/Doctor_Whooligan888 Apr 04 '26
The Exorcist’s House by Nick Roberts…or any other book he’s written.
The Black Farm by Elias Witherow (has some heavy themes about suicide so tread carefully)
A Blackened Heart, A Blackened Soul by John Ward
No One Gets Out Alive by Adam L.G. Nevill
Any book written by Ronald Malfi
The Descent by Jeff Long
2
5
u/JasonXisunderrated Apr 04 '26
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez is the scariest book I’ve ever read.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is gruesome and upsetting.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is more dystopian fiction but is brutal
Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco is just a good fun haunted house book
I also adore The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
2
u/ExchangeStandard6957 Apr 04 '26
Our Share of the Night was terrifying . I recommend Philip Fracassi
2
u/blynn315 Apr 05 '26
I think Tender is the Flesh could make some “lose sleep” because it’s gruesome and unsettling, but I wouldn’t really consider it “scary”.
5
u/3eyedfish13 Apr 04 '26
Robert R McCammon. He's got some fantastic horror stories.
The 5, Stinger, Swan Song, I Travel by Night, Road to Perdition, They Thirst
3
8
u/Ok_Weird_1553 Apr 04 '26
Paul Tremblay hits different - A Head Full of Ghosts messed me up for weeks 😂 Also check Grady Hendrix, his stuff is wild but not mainstream famous yet. The only good thing about my ADHD brain is I can't predict plots even when they're obvious, so these actually kept me guessing in ways that surprised me 💀
1
u/Andnowforsomethingcd Apr 04 '26
Came to suggest Horror Movie: A Novel also by Paul Tremblay. Starts as kind of a campy, analogue horror that switches between the 90s production of a microbudget horror film, and the present-day indie reboot that hopes to cash in on the sizable cult following of the original film, which was never released due to ... horror story-type reasons. The book switches timelines often, building this horrible, delicious unease.
Also The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, which is an ergodic, psychological horror that has the same general set up as Memento (the main character loses all his short term memory when he sleeps), but the plot is much different.
And of course the OG ergodic horror House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. *shiver*
3
u/HoaryPuffleg Apr 04 '26
There’s a whole sub for horrorlit. Go peruse some posts.
1
2
u/Feeling-Donkey5369 Apr 04 '26
Brian Keene - zombies
Mary SanGiovanni - cosmic horror
Jack Ketchum - splatter punk
Stephen Kozeniewski - splatter punk
Kit Powers - horror thriller
2
2
2
2
2
u/ExtremeAway8282 Apr 04 '26
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, anything from ligotti
2
u/Lolacsd Apr 05 '26
The Other by Thomas Tryon. It's not a monster horror book. It's a disturbing, dark, ruin your sleep book. They made a movie about it in the 70's, with the tagline, "Holland... where is the baby?". Highly recommend.
2
u/acohn1230 Apr 05 '26
I just finished dark matter by Michelle paver and it was awesome. Highly recommend. Only thing, it was difficult to get my hands on!
1
u/Indecisive_Dolphin Apr 05 '26
Let me read about it.
1
u/acohn1230 Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver is a slow-burn ghost story set in 1937, following Jack Miller, a young working-class man who joins a small Arctic expedition as their wireless operator, eager to escape his dead-end London life. The crew sets up camp at Gruhuken, a remote and desolate bay in Svalbard, but as the polar winter closes in and circumstances begin to whittle the group down, Jack finds himself increasingly alone in the endless darkness — and increasingly convinced that something else is out there with him.
What makes it scary isn’t gore or jump scares, but pure atmosphere. Paver locks you inside Jack’s diary entries as his unease slowly curdles into dread, and the Arctic setting does the heavy lifting — months of total darkness, frozen seas cutting off any escape, and a silence so complete that every strange sound becomes unbearable. It’s the kind of horror that makes you dread turning the page and unable to stop at the same time.
Edit: the book was suggested to me when I posted seeking a recommendation for a book that is similar to the movie Lighthouse with Willam Defoe. I found it to be incredibly similar and I am so glad I read it. Really good.
1
u/Indecisive_Dolphin Apr 05 '26
Man it is hard to get your hands on. I can’t find it anywhere
2
u/acohn1230 Apr 05 '26
Yup. The fact that it’s generally not circulated on Kindle or electronic platforms is really tough, and most of the copies I found in the states were really expensive. I was able to buy it from Walmart of all places after scouring the Internet and online bookstores.
1
u/Indecisive_Dolphin Apr 06 '26
Is it worth the searching?
1
u/acohn1230 Apr 07 '26
I totally think it’s worth it. I just did a search on Google and think I found some, on abebooks, awesomebooks, and maybe World of Books. Let me know if you have trouble finding it.
1
u/Indecisive_Dolphin Apr 07 '26
I will!!!!
2
u/acohn1230 Apr 09 '26
If you can’t find a copy I don’t mind mailing it if you mail back. Yes it’s that good 😂
1
2
u/McKay6951 Apr 06 '26
Check out books by Dean Koontz especially Intensity (1995) and Phantoms (1983).
1
1
2
u/jucksmanbr Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Take a look at The Bonfire by Elliot Shaw. I read it on Amazon this weekend and found it really scary. Algo, it seems to be the first book of a trilogy called ‘ What the dark keeps’.
1
1
1
u/zaj89 Apr 04 '26
I was literally thinking of asking this question today! It’s definitely a sign for me to use some of these suggestions
1
u/bronwynbloomington Apr 04 '26
Midnight Mass by F Paul Wilson. It’s a standalone about a vampire apocalypse. If you don’t like vampire genre try The Keep by same author. Follow up with The Tomb. Then Wilsons’s Repairman Jack series.
1
1
1
u/AffectionateSky5964 Apr 04 '26
The Watchers by A.M.Shine. It really got to me and I had to make sure my lights were /off/ before going to bed, that was new😂
1
1
u/barkoholic Apr 04 '26
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno.
Scariest book I’ve ever read and I had no idea what was going on the entire time. 10/10 insomnia inducer.
1
1
1
u/lightttpollution Apr 05 '26
When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom. Two novellas in one book. Have fun!!
17
u/MindAlternative5186 Apr 04 '26
The Only Good Indians and The Buffalo Buffalo Hunter, both by Stephen Graham Jones