Scary books for the up coming festivities!

So it's October and I LOVE scary books. So I thought that I would start a thread where people can post scary book titles so we can get in the Halloween spirit. :D

Thanks!

As a child the scariest book to me was Wait Till Helen Comes. Kept me shivering under the covers at night. :)

As an adult, I don't read a lot of truly scary things (or maybe it just takes so much more to scare me now?) but I have read some YA books lately that were fairly creepy and/or dark.

Most recently The Monstrumologist, which is quite gruesome and would probably terrify youngsters.

John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things, which isn't so much frightening as disturbing in an abstract way. Made me very uncomfortable.

I can't say enough good things about the May Bird trilogy. Again, it's not exactly hide-under-the-covers frightening since it's filled with humor, but it is set in the afterlife, with some very scary bad guys and some rather creepy run-ins with ghosts and ghoulies.

And, for a trip through the gutwrenching, and just plain bizarre, you could take on Miyuki Miyabe's Brave Story. This is one of my favorite books ever. I admit I was both scared and heartbroken in turns, but ultimately it's a beautiful coming-of-age with a magical ending.

Let us know what scary books you've read!

White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick is creepy scary.

I second both The Monstrumologist and The Book of Lost Things.

#2 I remember reading Wait Til Helen Comes when I was young! It was scary!!

It's probably more "children's" than "YA" but in any event I really enjoyed Katy Towell's recent Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow (2011). And yeah, that's the correct spelling.

It's set in a mysteriously isolated town, and the "skary childrin" are three schoolgirls who are constantly in detention because the cruel headmistress looks down on their peculiarities. One's a werewolf, another has super-strength, and the third can communicate with ghosts but can't spell very well (and hence the title of the book). The plot's a fairly familiar one, but the story's very well supplemented by eery b&w line drawings that should contribute to an overall "skary" feeling for "childrin"!

ETA: Because of the value of the b&w line drawings, don't get this one as an eBook.

Another excellent older children's scary book is Stonewords by Pam Conrad. Intended for the middle school reader or the junior high group, probably. I love it and have read it several times.

Last year I read Mister B. Gone by, Clive barker I highly recommend it!

I am also re-reading Dracula by, Bram Stoker forgot just how good it is!

My son read Wait 'til Helen Comes in school and afterwards told me that he enjoyed it but didn't believe the ending because "ghosts aren't real."

One of my favorite Diana Wynne Jones is The Time of the Ghost. It's a little creepier than some of her books with a real emotional undertow that just socks you.

I just received my own copy of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. I had read one of the stories before and waited for the price to go down to buy it. Looks to be pretty creepy and scary. It's not for children, but most of them are fairy tales reimagined with a gothic, macabre, and/or grotesque slant.

I don't read many scary books, but a creepy one I read recently was The Name of the Star, Maureen Johnson's latest. Ghosts and Jack the Ripper. . . .

And one that I forgot, that should be included for the artwork (weird photographs): Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.