It’s Halloween – which means masked children mugging us for sweets, horror films at the cinema, chilly nights, and a good excuse to stay in by the fire with an equally chilly book.

I think the first scary book I can remember encountering was Where the Wild Things Are. Scary not so much because of the wild things themselves – code though they were for the nightmares that lurk in all our bedroom walls, coming out when we’re alone and the lights are dimming – but more because of Max, the boy wolf, the beast with a human face, the animal within us all.

That message echoes in all the books I find chilling, from Maurice Sendak's first brilliant line, heard when I was perhaps 3, “The night Max wore his wolf suit, his mother called him Wild Thing”, to Angela Carter’s sly warning in The Company of Wolves – that the worst beasts are “hairy on the inside”, read when I was in my teens.

Last year I read The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and recognised again that shivery warning; don’t fear the ghost in the walls or the bogeyman outside in the dark, instead beware what’s inside.

But I can’t be the only person hiding beneath the bedclothes, so to celebrate Halloween I have a copy of our new edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker to give away (complete with new guide to the undead - just in case you should encounter any). For your chance to win, just post a comment telling us the book that scared you rigid, and why.

To get you in the mood, I asked a select number of Random House luminaries (ok, alright, actually anyone I could collar on their way to the photocopier) to share the books that gave them nightmares - and below for your shivery delight, is the list. Beware - you’ll never eat eggs again.

Rachel Cugnoni – Vintage Publisher
As a child I used to have hamsters, and read lots of stuff about them which eventually led me to The Rats by James Herbert. It’s about 30 years ago but I remember that it features mutant rats the size of small dogs with teeth long enough and sharp enough to gnaw through a wooden door. These rats develop a taste for human flesh and in one memorable scene eat a baby alive. It’s pure hammer horror but it really scared me at the time and later when my guinea pig inexplicably grew extra long fangs my dad had to take him to the vet to have him put down. (For medical reasons, I should add). 
 
Chloe Johnson-Hill – Publicity Director
When I first read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson as a teenager it made me see evil in everyone, from my Latin teacher (who probably was a little bit evil) to my mother (which may have had something to do with the ‘teen’ part of my age). 

It is a truly chilling novel. It’s also very short, so leave the ghosts and ghouls to their own devices this Halloween and spend a few hours scaring yourself by reading this.


Dan Franklin – Jonathan Cape Publisher
Two titles: Cross Country Murder Song by Philip Wilding. A black as black slice of American noir written by a Welshman: a man drives across American leaving a trail of corpses and something alive locked in a box in his cellar.
 
And X’d Out by Charles Burns - the new masterpiece from the king of the creepy graphic novel: a man wakes up in a room he doesn’t know to see his cat that he thought had died slipping through a hole in the wall.

He follows, which is probably a mistake, and finds … fetal pigs, razor blades, open wounds, giant larvae, a Chinese dwarf and eggs, lots of eggs.


Bethan Jones – Publicity Manager
When I’m in need of a good scare, I always turn to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. The book is a brooding, tense, gothic mystery, and perfect for Halloween reading. And a bit of trivia – Rebecca was used as a code source by the Germans during WW2, with the master copy kept at Rommel’s headquarters – a frightening thought indeed.

Tom Drake-Lee – Sales Director
The scariest book I have ever read is Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. I read it in the warm summer sunshine in my parents' garden when I was twenty. I was mesmerised by it in the most appalling way. Harris is an unbelievably clever writer. I couldn't get it out of my head and I eventually had to stop myself from reading it after 5pm because it was so deeply psychologically disturbing I was waking in the middle of the night by terrifyingly profound and graphically violent nightmares.

During a consultative interview with the eminent Dr Lecter about the profile of a serial killer who tied up his victims with rare knots, Will Graham notices on the shelf behind Lecter's head a very rare book called 'Wound Man' which depicts torture methods used by the nazis, including very specific knots He realises that this is the link to the profile and that Hannibal is the serial killer and that he is in grave danger.

As his gaze comes back down to Lecter Graham realises that the doctor knows that Graham has made the connection. Lecter calmy carries on the consultation as Graham fights to control his fears and get out of the room. It's a blood curdling moment and one which has brought me out in goosebumps as I write this.

It's a book I never want to read again, but I'd recommend it to anyone.

Becky Hardie – Chatto & Windus Editorial Director
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, the most claustrophobic and intense book ever.

Judith Greenberg – Press Officer
The closing sentences of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters reframe everything that has come before. As the reader finally discovers the identity of the Little Stranger their unspoken suspicions are realised. The haunting episodes are revealed to be even more chilling than one could have imagined...

Hannah Ross – Publicity Manager
Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. I can’t even think about this book without feeling slightly sick. Although I actually remember this book as being called Paperhouse, so it must have been the film tie-in version I read in junior school. I’m not quite sure what the teacher thought she was doing encouraging us to read such traumatising literature. I couldn’t even tell you if I finished this but the sheer terror it aroused in me has still not left me it seems: I just took a peek at the cover and it’s given me the heebie-jeebies. What could be more terrifying than being trapped in a nightmare of your own making? I don’t think I’d recommend this to anyone.

Ellie Steel - Harvill Secker Assistant Editor
My choice would have to be Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman

Christmas Eve 2009. The RH offices were eerily quiet as I checked the proofs for a final time. I knew what was coming, of course, but Nesbø’s grisly tale still had me squirming in my seat. As Harry reached for the door handle in the closing chapter a clunk from the office central heating system proved too much: startled, my cup of tea went everywhere and the proofs went back to production with a slightly sepia tinge.

Indira Birnie – Publicity Assistant
A number of years ago when I was a young and impressionable teenager, I read a book called The Treatment by Mo Hayder. For some reason I got it free when purchasing some other books and soon after, I decided to give it a try. I won’t go into detail but the plot was so terrifying that I couldn’t forget about it for weeks afterward and kept scaring myself just by thinking about it. While I haven’t completely disowned modern crime novels (I‘ve got a copy of Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason just waiting to be read), suffice to say I’ve had a realisation that Poirot and Sherlock are far more suited to my delicate sensibilities.

Laura Mell –Senior Press Officer
Roald Dahl’s The Witches. This is utterly terrifying, not just in the fact that monsters are masquerading as people, but that the parents of the children in dire peril can’t see it and dismiss their children’s fears: surely every small child’s worst nightmare. The scene where the boy is trapped behind the screen in the conference room waiting to be discovered (due to his scent of fresh dogs’ droppings) is truly spine-tingling.

So there you are.

You wouldn’t have thought that a group of people used to battling it out at Frankfurt, fighting for canapés in Daunts, and negotiating e-rights would be so easily scared, would you? It seems at heart we’re a wussy lot at Random Towers.

How about you? Reveal your secret fears with a comment below before lunchtime on Tuesday 2^nd Nov for a chance to win a copy of our brand new edition of Dracula…