Right now, I'm reading
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons and I love his writing. There's horror authors that can spin a really good tale and/or they are masters of pacing. Like Richard Laymon for example.
Then there are horror writers that are really terrific writers (not that they can't also be excellent at tale telling/pacing). These authors are much more rare. I'm thinking of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, Clive Barker. People like that.
Dan Simmons definitely fits in with the second group of writers. Summer of Night is a book I keep looking for time to fit in a little more, even though nothing much had happened yet.
The book is very much in the vein of It, yet it doesn't feel like a swipe. It is still on sale for $2.99 and I would heartily recommend picking it up, if you don't already own it.
There are sort of two sequels to the book:
A Winter Haunting (which is acknowledged as a direct sequel and is on sale for $3.99) and a sort of offshoot sequel,
Children of the Night (not on sale).