If you’re in need of some creepy company as you curl up in bed, why not settle in with a scary book? These books are perfectly good reading any time of the day, but there’s just something about chills and thrills that feel perfectly suited for reading just before the witching hour.
With that in mind, here are 9 of the best scary books – both old and new – that will get your heart racing and have you sleeping with the light on.
1. KL Noir series
The KL Noir series is a collection of short stories written by mostly Malaysians and are divided into four colours: Red, White, Blue and Yellow. The books tell the dark and disturbing stories happening in the city of Kuala Lumpur. Expect stories about crime, murders, drug dealings, kidnapping, sexual depravity, black magic and tragedies befalling the citizens.
2. Kacau by Ariff Adly
While the westerners have their Ouija board, the Asians have the Spirit of the Coin game and it did not end well for the youths in the book. In Kacau, a group of friends smartly played the game in an abandoned house. The gang started dying one by one in gruesome ways after a game of Spirit of the Coin went awry.
3. Telaga by Khairi Mohd
Written in easy-to-read Kelantan dialect, Telaga is about a young boy named Ayie who has the ability to see supernatural beings. The troubles start when he pulled out a nail from a banana tree that was floating in the river. Since then, the supernatural beings start haunting everyone he knows. Readers have expressed their love for the characters and the plot twist too.
4. The Malaysian Book of the Undead by Danny Lim
This book is a compendium of Malaysia’s multicultural ghosts, spirits and emanations. Written as a chatty and ironic guide, readers will discover the origins beings such as the Hantu Kopek, Toyol, Pontianak, Datuk Gong and Mohini Pisasu. Hopefully, it’ll prove helpful each time you hear something go bump or even kak-kak-kak-kak-kak in the night.
5. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)
Most of us have seen and enjoyed the television series but the book is far scarier. Hailed as the best literary ghost story ever written, the story follows four strangers convening at the steps of the notorious Hill House. What takes place next is a series of unnerving events enough to make you feel glad you don’t live in a haunted house. Or do you?
6. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)
The show The Haunting of Bly Manor is based on this terrifying book by Henry James. It starts of slow but the anticipation increases. The story follows the story of a governess who tries her best to protect the two young children in her care. However, she slowly finds that she’s either way in over her head or is losing her own mind.
7. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (1820)
The enduring legend of Sleepy Hollow fascinates and terrifies many over the years. The story starts with a schoolteacher named Ichabod Crane who moved to Tarry Town in Sleepy Hollow. While he’s terrified of the ghost stories told by locals, he has brushed them aside as merely stories. Until on one inauspicious night, he encounters a menacing figure on a horse known as the Headless Horseman.
8. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (1967)
Those who were scared off by the film can revisit the horror in the book. A young married woman named Rosemary Woodhouse just moved into the Bramford with her husband, Guy. Neighbours warned them that the house has a disturbing history involving witchcraft and murder. The claustrophobic terror spiral starts when a pregnant Rosemary is helpless against a malevolent force swallowing up her life.
9. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971)
The granddaddy of the modern horror genre, this book terrified readers and an entire generation of movie audiences when it was eventually adapted into a blockbuster film a few years later. Balancing a macabre tale of demonic possession with painful human drama, this tale of a young girl who is taken over by a demon and the frantic efforts to save her will shock and terrify you even today.
10. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
For those who have short attention spans, this collection of spellbinding stories will be more in your lane. The stories are a mix of eerie, erotic and absurd blending science fiction, fantasy, horror and humour. Reviewers also likened the stories as a fan fiction of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
11. I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Described as a psychological thriller and horror fiction, readers attest that the story gets more sinister with every page and heightens your paranoia. The story starts slow with an unnamed young woman who was dragged along to visit her boyfriend’s family. What should be a normal visit turns unpleasant and scary, and the poor young woman has no means of escape.
This article can be found in theSun BUZZ iPaper HERE
