Books like Night Terrors — picked by fans

I shared a love of ghost stories with my mother and we often recommended them to each other.

But Mum had a thing for ghost stories set in the Arctic winter, with its killing cold and six months of darkness. She reckoned that, as a setting for ghostly goings-on, it couldn’t be beaten.

I wish I could still give her a copy of Dark Matter. She would have read it in a sitting. A wonderful evocation of the disturbing power of darkness, cold, and isolation.

I once made the mistake of reading several of James’ ghost stories, one after another, while alone in the house.

I was making a cup of coffee when something started scratching stealthily at the inside of a cupboard door. I had to lower myself from the ceiling before I discovered that some scrunched carrier bags hung inside the cupboard had unscrunched, causing the ghostly scratching. But that’s why I love James’ ghost stories.

Warning: Never read more than one a day.

We all think we know "A Christmas Carol" but after the Muppet version, I find myself thinking of it as simply comical.

Until I re-read it, I forget just how chilling the ghosts who visit Scrooge are. And I love "Captain Murderer," Dickens’ account of how his nursemaid terrified him with scary tales, because it takes me back to my own childhood love of terrors.

Then there are stories like "The Signalman," which is not at all funny, darkened with the signalman’s dreadful loneliness and apprehension.

Dickens was a Master. Even his humorous ghost stories have an edge of fear.

Who needs Bram Stoker and boring old Dracula, when Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu had a better name, and penned the original vampire tale, Carmilla, a whole quarter-century earlier?

Personally, I dislike obvious attempts to scare or horrify me. So I appreciate that Le Fanu is always subtle, concentrating on creating an atmosphere of threat and fear, as in Schalken the Painter. He is never obvious, but always eerie.

Although this is part of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, it is the ghost story involving the entity known as Goblin that fascinates me the most in this novel and challenges me to write ghost stories as well.

This was the first story I read where a spirit is miraculously tethered to a specific living being, Quinn Blackwood, from the beginning of his existence and throughout his lifetime, influencing every decision that he makes; a blueprint for Griffin Meade’s journey with the ghost of Angelus Bartholomew III in my novel.

The final plot twist as to why Goblin haunts Quinn blew me away and I dare anyone to try and guess it!

More of a supernatural mystery than a ghost story perhaps, but since the sinister magic that besets 13-year-old Aveline arises from a witch long buried in the cold, dark side of the churchyard, this fast-paced, imaginative tale qualifies as both. Particularly striking is that you can read it as a simple, scary ghost story – or as an unnerving portrait of someone with a narcissistic personality, alternating charm, menaces, and pathos to unsettle Aveline and bring her under her spell. Brrrr. 

First of all, the title. Intriguing, original, enigmatic. That is what first drew me to this book. I had to find out more about it.

This book is much more in the style of traditional ghost stories, which I love. A spooky, desolate setting in an old house with a long history. I love the build-up of suspense, the remote location adding to the sense of isolation and helplessness, everything cold, chilly. 

The ghostly happenings, whilst perhaps not original, are very well done, which is just fine with me. Traditional ghost stories are meant to have certain elements that are standard, just as fantasy stories must have certain magical aspects. As far as ghost stories are concerned, as long as they make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, I’m happy. This book does that extremely well, I thought. Absolutely dripping with spooky atmosphere.

Ask any scholar of horror fiction to name the greatest ghost story writer of all time, and chances are good they'll come up with M. R. James (1862-1936). James, who is also highly regarded for his scholarly works and translations, was a provost at King's College, Cambridge who entertained students during the Christmas season with his ghost tales (honoring the old English tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas). His classics include such justifiably famous stories as "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "Casting the Runes" (which was adapted into the classic 1957 movie Curse of the Demon). This edition also includes a superb introduction by David Morrell.

So good! A ghost story rich in texture, set in Britain during the seventies. Twins Tim and Abi live in an insular world, obsessed with the paranormal. After they prank a school friend with a fake ghost photograph events start to spiral out of control. Nostalgic without being syrupy, this book felt like stepping back into my own ghost-obsessed childhood. It’s that familiarity, as well as the slow burn of the strange and unnerving events, that kept me absolutely hooked.

Mr. Cat is a ride-or-die. Mr. Cat walks the line that all cats do in the real world, in that he doesn’t actually have magic powers and he can’t actually talk, he is at the end of the day a little animal that lives in Jenny’s house, but also he would bite a ghost without hesitation. It’s Peter S. Beagle’s complete mastery of voice and tone that enable Jenny and Mr. Cat to walk that line so effortlessly. Because the fantastical is grounded so deeply in the real world, the stakes feel so high that I first read this book in one breathless sitting, afraid to look away.