Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Scared Me

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a Halloween Freebie, so I decided to choose some suitably scary books:

Night Fall by Joan Aiken (1969). As long as she can remember, Meg has been haunted by a terrifying dream. She wakes up gripped by horror and over time she starts to remember fragments – a frightening face, falling off a cliff. Finally, her aunt mentions that she was once involved in an accident on a cliff in Cornwall. Why not visit and get the dream out of her system? No one thinks about whether that could be very dangerous! My review.  This is the first book I remember putting on hold (at the Newton Centre branch library).

A Candle in Her Room by Ruth M. Arthur (1966). Set in Wales, this is a haunting story about three generations of women who are affected by a slim wooden doll with the word 'DIDO' carved down her back. There will be no peace for this family until the evil doll Dido is destroyed! This is her most memorable book, although not my favorite.

The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham (2014). Fiona is a detective in Wales with a medical history that adds to her eccentricity. She gets bored easily and is annoyed to be stuck with a case involving fraud at a furniture store. Then she finds something odd, and soon she has been asked to go undercover to find evidence of a criminal gang. The isolation may destroy her before she can find the evidence she needs and the longer she stays the more likely she is to be discovered. This is so terrifying it was hard to go on reading! Fiona gets into some very dangerous situations but always triumphs. I am sorry that Bingham hasn’t finished the seventh book in this addictive series.

The Mountain of Truth by Dale Carlson (1972). A compelling but deeply disturbing book about brothers from New York who go to summer camp in Tibet, and begin mystical training that is supposed to enable them to serve humanity. Somehow it starts to go wrong and I remember a regeneration issue that stopped working. Eventually, desperate parents try to retrieve their children, and the campers have to decide whether to return to their real lives or stay committed to this cause. This book scared me so much at age 12 I tried to avert my eyes from its spine during subsequent trips to the library.

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie (1969). Teenage Joyce boasts that she once saw a murder and, infuriated that no one believes her, goes stomping off in anger. Later, she is found drowned in a tub of apples at a Hallowe'en party. Okay, this is not really scary but I did want a season appropriate story!

Broken Harbor by Tana French (2012). The fourth Murder Squad book is set at a half-abandoned "luxury" development outside Dublin. The owners cannot afford to finish it and those unlucky enough to have moved in are trapped in substandard homes and cannot afford to move. There is also some horrible animal living in the walls that terrorizes the Spain family, and that is before they are murdered, with just one member hanging onto life by a thread. As well as being frightening, there were no likable characters in this book.  I liked her first four books but I haven't really enjoyed any since.

The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz (2017). After Jane Hawk’s beloved husband commits suicide, she is devastated – and in denial. When she starts researching, she learns people have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane tries to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important—so terrifying—that they will exterminate anyone in their way. I always thought Koontz just wrote horror, which I do not read, but this was just a scary and suspenseful series launch and FBI agent Jane an impressive heroine. I devoured the whole series.

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (2010). Eliza has tried to rebuild her life after the trauma of being kidnapped and held as a hostage for six weeks in 1985, but she still has survivor’s guilt. Now her kidnapper is on death row and wants to see her – should she agree? No, no, no!  This book is seriously creepy.

The Bad Seed by William March (1954). Many years ago, my father brought my sister and me to Lexington where he was playing tennis with a friend. Clare and I hung out with the friend’s daughter and she insisted on lending us the most terrifying book I ever read! For those who don’t know, it’s about a child sociopath. We found it so disturbing that we had to use a Kleenex to pick it up and put it in the garbage. That girl never got her book back!  

When She Was Good by Michael Robotham (2020). Evie Cormack was found as a child at the scene of a brutal murder, and refuses to tell anything of her past or what happened to her, because she fears that anyone who does know will get killed and get her killed. Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven has a very inappropriate relationship with Evie that always makes me think he should lose his license but at least he genuinely wants to help her. However, when Cyrus begins to investigating her past, he unknowingly alerts the man who once held Evie captive and who now targets them both.

Have you ever been afraid of a book?

As you can tell from the above, there were several books that scared me so much as a child that I didn't even want to touch or be reminded of them!  I also remember seeing The Phantom Tollbooth in my school library when I was in the fourth grade and the word “phantom” scared me and made me think it was some kind of horror novel. 

But eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I took it down from the shelf and realized it was a delightful book about words and language! The tollbooth is called a "phantom" not because it is scary but because it appears out of nowhere like a figment of the imagination, then disappears just as mysteriously at the end of the book.