This week's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway features one of my favorite Horror authors, V. Castro. Her 2021 novella Goddess of Filth, made my personal and Library Journal's 2021 best lists, and it is a book I still think about even a year after I first read it. This month, Castro has her first story collection coming out from Flame Tree Press and they have given me a copy to give away to you. Details below, but first, here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:
- You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
- If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
- Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
- If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.
Click here to see giveaway #67. Our winner was Jo from NYPL. Now on to today's giveaway.
Castro returns after a very busy 2021 with her first collection of violent, erotic, and visceral tales driven by vengagance and featuring familiar Horror themes, reinvigorated by an application of the Chicana perspective. The opening story, “Night of the Living Dead Chola,” sets the tone perfectly, as a murdered woman rises from the dry Rio Grande River bed, to seek revenge on the living. Castro continues to unveil horrors both real and supernatural, written in language that is simultaneously brutal and beautiful, engaging all five senses into sentences that make the characters fly off the page and into the reader’s brain, where they lodge, forcing all to think about the larger, real world implications at the core of every monstrous encounter. Because Castro’s prose shines brighter the longer she monopolizes the reader’s attention, the decision to close the book with the two longest and strongest stories, “Truck Stop” and “The Final Porn Star,” makes for a satisfying conclusion.
Verdict: This collection provides an excellent introduction to Castro’s style of unflinchingly raw, unapologetically sexy, and unsettlingly realistic supernatural Horror. While not every reader will love every story equally, taken together this is a solid volume of terrifying, thought provoking, and fun tales. Readers seeking more should seek out the work of Gabino Iglesias and Cynthia Pelayo.
Everything Castro writes should be on library shelves. Thankfully, her last two books are with Flame Tree Press who have distribution through S&S, so they are easy to acquire through your normal channels.
Castro also is committed to giving back to the Horror community and has served on the HWA's Diversity Grant Selection Committee for its first 2 years. She will be appearing at StokerCon Librarians' Day to talk about the experience and co-moderate a panel with the current grantees.
Order this collection today and enter the giveaway for this ARC which I read to write the above review. Thank to Flame Tree Press, one of my preferred Horror Independent Presses, for their commitment to working with libraries.
Good luck!
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