#Spooktober Scariest Book Covers that Hell No I Won’t Ever Read- #Top5 Saturday via @LiteracyBatman

Another cracking Top 5 from that there Susan over at Novel Lives, this time, her focus is on books with covers so scary that she doesn’t want to read them.

Hell there is even a demonised Harry Potter cover that has to be seen to be believed-seriously, check out her original post below and tell me where that fits into the Potterverse?

For the life of me I cannot figure it out…

Anyhow, as you can see I am little behind on the old #Spooktober reads so this is an ersatz filler whilst I race the very devil to read read READ!!

Here are just 5 of my favourite gory covers which have not in any way put me off reading them(although I confess to leaving them upside down on the bedside table, just in case it scares the hubby)

But first, I thin we need something nice to offset the nasty…

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Still with me?

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Let’s go!

There absolutely had to be this terrifying book in this Top 5-‘The Fog’ by James Herbert is a pulp horror classic from back in the day and this is the version I read. Pages fell out as I pored over it, hiding in my nana’s parlour where she kept the bookcase containing my uncle and aunt’s pulp horror collection. I don’t really remember the main gist of the plot, it is more specific scenes of gore which linger…schoolboy revenge on the sadistic games teacher, anyone? Shudder…

There was a huge amount of infestation horror back in the eighties where medicine and research were bad ideas (look what happened to this chap!) So at number 2 we have the delightful ‘Slime’ by John Halkin. This was all about the type of jellyfish that would more than peeing on to get rid of the sting, these were merciless predators determined to take over the world –

‘A boy accidentally fallen overboard…a child in a paddling pool…an old man taking a daily swim…These are their first prey.’

YIKES!!! Another slimy, oozy terror working its way inland to our water tanks, toilet tanks-was nowhere safe?!

This is the best cover of ‘Slugs’ by Shaun Hutson that I have ever seen! What the actual f*** is going on ? I am no expert but I am pretty sure that this couldn’t happen in real life. Well 80%? Anyway, this terrified me as a kid, it really did. I hated the slime that slugs left everywhere and how they would squeeze in your back door(not a euphemism)and be found eating the dog’s meat from his bowl whilst he just sat there going ‘WTF?’ , letting them! Carnivorous slugs. GROSS and scary as hell, this launched Shaun’s career,AND he is still going strong, decades later!

No, not that Richard Curtis, this one wrote about killer worms. No joke. This is the novelisation of the movie ‘Squirm’ which is kind of like ‘‘Willard’‘ but with worms. An freak electrical storm(isn’t it always the way?) gives these worms teeth and they turn carniverous. Suddenly the weird kid with the worm fetish is the only thing between this town becoming, quite literally, worm food!

Finally, and in my humble opinion, the scariest is this one. What the hell is going on here? I haven’t read this book in maybe 30 years but it all came flooding back reading the review by Mysteries Ahoy! it all came flooding back and I felt the need to have a little lie down. Ruth Rendell was a master at exposing the sheer sordid nastiness of human kind and this is a masterpiece in psychological thriller writing. Plus, that cover.

After all that nastiness, let’s have something nice!

If you like scary or horribly naff book covers, may I suggest reading ‘Paperbacks From Hell’ by Grady Hendrix as well as signing up to his newsletter, he wrotes brilliant and hilarious reviews of pulp horror fiction, currently he is having a Christopher Pike moment. Highly recommended!
So, now it is your turn.

Has a book cover ever put you off reading it?

Drop me a line and let me know!

Links-https://novellives.com/2019/10/05/halloween-scariest-book-covers/

https://earthianhivemind.net/2015/01/31/horror-classics-the-fog-by-james-herbert/

http://trashmenace.blogspot.com/2016/12/slime-by-john-halkin.html

https://www.shaunhutson.com/

http://www.steve-calvert.co.uk/book-review-squirm-richard-curtis/

https://mysteriesahoy.com/2018/11/21/a-demon-in-my-view-by-ruth-rendell/