In the run-up to Halloween, we are delighted to welcome Sam Pope to the blog to give her run-down on her top five spooky books for adults.  We will be joined by Sam again tomorrow for the lowdown on her top choices for young people. Sam is the brilliant author of The Haunting of Lindy Pennyworth, a brooding psychological horror.

Sam's Top 5 Spooky books 

I love a good, scary read. It’s hard to pick just five of my favourites, but here are some that really get my pulse racing!

1. Dark Matter, by Michelle Paver

Twenty-eight-year-old Jack joins a scientific expedition to Gruhuken, in the Arctic but, after initial high spirits (pardon the pun) things soon start going very wrong. Not only will they soon be plunged into continuous polar night for several months, but Jack’s companions start dropping like flies, leaving our hero entirely on his own. Or is he? I’ve read this multiple times and listened to it as an audiobook and it still utterly chills me to the bone.

2. The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill

A well-known story, this one, having been adapted into a play and a movie, and studied as a secondary-school text – this story frightened me so much that I had to sleep with the light on after I’d finished reading the book. Junior solicitor Arthur Kipps is sent to sort out the papers of recluse Alice Drablow but soon discovers a horrifying world of haunting where bad things happen every time the woman in black is seen.

3. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson has a reputation for creating stories that disturb you into a sense of unease and dread. For me, this is her best book because it absolutely nails the haunted house genre perfectly. The story focuses on Eleanor, who has been invited to spend a summer in a reputedly haunted house as part of a social experiment, along with two other guests, all of whom have also been hand-picked by Dr Montague. While the others become scared of the obvious hauntings occurring around them, Eleanor becomes entranced – perhaps to the point of no return.

4. The Complete Ghost Stories of MR James

No one does ghost stories like MR James does. No one. He is the master, my muse. It is said that he redefined ghost stories by moving away from Gothic cliches and setting his tales of fear in real and modern places, not dark castles. This atmosphere of familiarity is, perhaps, what makes his stories more frightening – you don’t need to be in a crumbly castle for something bad to happen. Often the scariest events are just around the corner.

5. The Silent Companions, by Laura Purcell

Laura Purcell has garnered herself a reputation for being a master (or mistress?) of historical spookiness. Her debut novel, The Silent Companions, remains, for me, one of her scariest stories. Elsie is our heroine, recently widowed and pregnant with her first child. She leaves London to live in her late husband’s country estate but is met with hostility by the servants and the local villagers. Lonely and mainly alone, she finds a locked room that contains a diary and a painted wooden figure – a Silent Companion – that looks like Elsie herself and whose discovery brings with it terror and doubt.