I am Legend, by Richard Matheson (1954)
This short book is exactly the kind of scary I like: apocalyptic, but not a lot of gratuitous gore. It's the sort of book that later has you thinking, "Hmm, if _I_ were one of the last few survivors on earth, I'd be able to walk to the grocery store to get canned goods, and I could get a wheelbarrow from Agway, but if I needed something from a major department store I'd be stuck."
The apocalyptic event is an illness that turns people into vampires. One man, Robert Neville, seems immune. He spends his nights holed up in his house as vampires try to break in to get him, and he spends his days reinforcing the defenses around his house. Eventually something's got to change, right? And it does. I recommend the book for a good plot, a good resolution, and not too much grossness.
The Full Cleveland, by Terry Reed (2004)
It's too bad so MANY people have to write books described as "coming of age," but so many of us DO come of age, and it's a dramatic time, and so it makes for rich veins of novel material, and so we're stuck with it. This particular novel is also described as "smart" and "sexy," but I'll only commit to "smart." I liked it and thought it was fun to read.
The Favored Child, by Philippa Gregory (1989)
I suppose this ought to be called historical fiction, and so it is with all its estates and bread riots and squires and horse-drawn carriages. But let's call it historical horror, because it read as scary as any Stephen King novel: my heart pounded, I was sickened and mesmerized, I was actually HORRIFIED--and I try not to use that word much, considering how often it's used by people who write in to small-town newspapers to say how they feel about the new cell phone tower.
Philippa Gregory is, as I believe I've said before and possibly more than once, a masterful storyteller. Truly, she's got the gift. But her stories can be so awful, it's hard for me to know if I should recommend her to you or not. On one hand, if you're looking for a book that will take you right away from the piles of laundry and the horrible day at work and the boyfriend who dumped you, here you have it: there is no way your day is worse than the day Julia Lacey of Wideacre is having.
Just for starters, she's female in a time when women were lower than livestock. She's the joint heir to an estate totally run into the ground by her aunt Beatrice--and you can read about that mess in the first book of this trilogy, Wideacre. She's being raised with her cousin Richard, who has some kind of sick power over her with his kick-you-kiss-you tactics. And then, just as she starts to come into her own--good boyfriend, good attitude, good work on the land, and learning to, um, channel her dead aunt's spirit--she starts giving away what little power she has, left and right, until she is this broken wreck. Then she does something truly regrettable. The end.
Do you really need that kind of adrenaline in your life? Read Stephen King instead: at least there's a satisfying ending. Me, I'm stuck reading the third book in the triology just to find out what happened. Hey, join me if you like: I can't deny these books are gripping.
In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant (2006)
When my eyes were actually on the pages of In the Company of the Courtesan, I enjoyed it. But when I was away from it, I never felt like returning to it.
The story follows Fiammetta, a Roman courtesan, and her dwarf pimp Bucino, as they leave the wreckage of Rome and start a new life in Venice. Fiammetta's famous long hair has been cut off by the invaders, and it will not grow back; she enlists the help of "La Draga," a wise woman in Venice who can produce love potions, herbal remedies, and "late periods," among other things. Bucino and La Draga, both devoted to and loved by Fiammetta, have an immediate and pervasive distrust and dislike of each other. As La Draga coaxes Fiammetta's hair to grow, and Fiammetta gets back to business, Bucino gradually realizes his feelings for La Draga are more complicated than he'd thought.
I made the mistake of thinking of La Draga as an old woman--I suppose because she is blind, crippled, and wise. She is not in fact old. I would have been less confused by the story if I had realized this sooner.
I would not call the ending "happy." It made me think of a Dickens novel (I won't pretend to a literary inclination: I read him in high school just like everybody else, and then never again), in that there was resolution but not a happy sigh.