Barker, Clive
Cabal
The Thief of Always

It is a fable of sorts... kind of like The Sandman meets The Wizard of Oz. Very tragic at times, but full of wonder in others. No one tells a story like Barker. - The Lighthouse Keeper

A horror/fantasy written by Barker for children but highly recommended for everyone. The plot centers around a bored little boy who makes a Faustian bargain with a strange being who is not what he seems. The boy must find his way out of a scary alternate world to return to his home and family. - ed.

Weaveworld

A young Englishman finds his destiny in a mysterious carpet which contains the last of the Seerkind - the fae - in its weave. More fantasy than horror, and lovely. - ed.

Brite, Poppy Z.
(much-debated, love-her-or-hate-her)
The Crow: The Lazarus Heart
Drawing Blood
Exquisite Corpse
Lost Souls
Wormwood

Collins, Nancy
Midnight Blue: The Sonya Blue Trilogy

Sunglasses After Dark
In The Blood
Paint It Black

A Dozen Black Roses

(another Sonya book but not in the trilogy)
-----warning: a World of Darkness tie-in.

Ellison, Harlan
Deathbird Stories

Holland, Tom
Lord of the Dead

This is a wonderfully schlocky story about Lord Byron as a vampire. I admit it is a "light read", but it is such a fun book, and it really got my imagination going. All of our favorite characters are included....Shelley, Mary Shelley, Polidori, etc. - Tinkerhell

Kiernan, Caitlin R.
Silk

One person walks among the clones who is truly different, mostly because of what's in her basement. Will it save her from dying too? If you're afraid of spiders, don't read this book. - Darren McKeeman

The novel bleeds beauty and is wickedly frightening. NOTE: if you don't like spiders, you better not read it - Twilight

This is the most highly recommended book of our second update: probably about a third of all submissions mentioned it. I wasn't impressed with it when I first read it - some of the horror elements get a bit farfetched (IE, too silly to be scary unless you have a spider phobia) in the second half, and Kiernan's style takes getting-used-to, but it has stayed with me more than almost any other book I've read since. Beautiful and strange, and Weaselboy and Twi are NOT kidding about the spider action: the main character is nicknamed Spyder, keeps them as pets, sees them as her totem animal, and - well, you'll see. Basically, it's about life among goths and punks in Birmingham, Alabama, and one girl who has found exceptional ways of transcending her traumatic childhood. Many of the characters, even the teen gothlings (Kiernan calls them "shrikes"), are finely-drawn - 18 months after reading it, I can see Robin, Spyder, Niki, and other characters in my head (though in all honesty I may no longer remember how to spell their names - my face is red!) This book is worth reading and will stick with you for a long time. - ed.

Candles for Elizabeth
The Dreaming

Kiernan's sporadic work on this Sandman spinoff for Vertigo Comics is probably the best since Gaiman gave up writing about Dream & co. She has also made it gratuitously goth, with actual goth characters who listen to actual goth bands, would probably read her books if they could, and are somewhat similar to her Silk characters. You will probably not understand this comic if you are not familiar with Sandman and Kiernan's miniseries for Vertigo, The Girl Who Would Be Death, since they are all related. - yr humble editrix

King, Stephen
Insomnia
It
The Shining
The Stand

Koja, Kathe
Skin

Koontz, Dean R.
Phantoms

Lee, Tanith
The Blood Opera trilogy

Dark Dance
Personal Darkness
Darkness, I

Heart-Beast
The Secret Books of Paradys

Book of the Damned
Book of the Beast
Book of the Dead
Book of the Mad

This is a very strange, surreal series, written partly in Lee's usual fantasy style and partly in a sort of pastiche of Victorian/Edwardian ghost stories. It's based on the lives of people living in an alternate Paris, and the period settings hop around a lot, from Roman times to the mid-1300s straight up into the future. It's available in several editions: paperbacks through normal bookstore channels, and hardcovers through Sci-Fi Book Club. - ed.

LeFanu, J. Sheridan
"Carmilla" (short story)

If you've read Dracula and haven't read this, you're pretty damn stupid. There's something to be said for 19th century lesbian vampires. - Twilight

Ligotti, Thomas
The Nightmare Factory

Lovecraft, H.P.

Mostly known for short stories, with an occasional novella-length work (At the Mountains of Madness, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). Lovecraft created the Cthulhu pantheon of 'elder gods,' the strange supernatural creatures that ruled the universe eons ago, before the time of humankind. Many of the stories don't deal with conventional 'monsters' as we know them, but with the horrible entities released when an amateur dabbles in ancient magick and reawakens some incarnation of the elder gods, whether physically, or within himself. Lovecraft is often considered the originator of modern horror, and many popular writers cite him as an influence. - Jean-Croix

OK, people, I put Lovecraft up here. Now kwitcherbellyakin. I know that there have been several good anthologies of Lovecraft's work published in the past few years; would anyone care to recommend anything in particular? The only other info that I have is someone's recommendation that you only check out the Arkham House editions, as they have "corrected texts".- ed.

McGrath, Patrick
Spider

Gratuitous "goth" book -- wonderful psychological horror; he's my favourite contemporary author.
- XLoreleiX

Rice, Anne
(another much-debated love-her-or-hate-her author)
Anything, or Nothing, depending on who you talk to.
The Vampire Chronicles seem to be the most popular:

Interview With The Vampire
The Vampire Lestat
Queen of the Damned
Tale of the Body Thief
Memnoch the Devil
Pandora
The Vampire Armand

Romkey, Michael
I, Vampire

Simmons, Dan
Carrion Comfort

An excellent book on mind control and the people who get off on it. - Hadriel

Suskind, Patrick
Perfume

Someone else sent in a review, but it is among the reviews I lost.

This novel deserves to be here: it is the most repellent book I've ever read. It's about a man in 18th-century France who is a sort of "scent-vampire" and eventually becomes a serial murderer. It's well-written, and not even particularly gory, but I found it fundamentally icky; read it yourself and you may see why. Not for the squeamish.
- ed.

Vasquez, Jhonen
Johnny The Homicidal Maniac

A cheerfully twisted comic book series revolving around a psychotic misanthrope and his personal demons. Part social satire, part bloodbath, very cathartic. The writing is hilarious, and the artwork is striking and dense. - Chris Cooley

I don't want to hear a peep about these being under "Horror". They didn't fit anywhere else, or else they'd have been up a long time ago. I was confused, you see, and.... - ed.

Squee!
I Feel Sick: A Book About A Girl