Which books scare a scary writer?
I am very lucky. In every issue of creative writing magazine WHAT THE DICKENS I invite a guest writer to recommend eight books that they have read, re-read and would willingly read again. I call it DESERT ISLAND READS, after the long-running Radio Four radio programme.
In this issue New York Times bestseller ELIZABETH HAYNES shares her eight books. They range from The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury to Arthur and George by Julian Barnes by way of several crime novels and Dark Matter by Michelle Paver.
‘a ghost story that I found so deliciously terrifying that I had to go and watch Bridget Jones in the middle of the night the first time I read it, just to calm myself back down again.’
You can read all her recommendations in the current issue of WHAT THE DICKENS. I chose Elizabeth as my guest because she thoroughly scared me in her first novel, Into the Darkest Corner. It was Amazon’s Best Book of the Year 2011 and has been translated into 30 languages. The premise is simple: what if you have a violent boyfriend and no one believes you? Worse, what if you have a violent boyfriend who was once a policeman and knows how to break in without leaving a trace…
The result is terrifying.
Any writer wanting to inject suspense into their writing should have a well-thumbed copy on their bookshelf.
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