#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway #127: What Kind Of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman

This week I have a copy of one of the most anticipated Horror titles of the Fall, by an author whose  mainstream popularity is about to explode. Details below, but first, here is how you enter:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 #126. Our winner was Hannah from Mid-Continent Public Library [KS]. Now on to today's giveaway.

I read What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman for the June issue of Library Journal

Three Words That Describe this Book: body horror, psychological horror, viscerally terrifying

At StokerCon Emily Hughes called it "Old Bay Gothic" and I am going to agree.

Reader beware, you may not want to eat crabs for a while after this book, even if like you are a HUGE fan of them. I had a lot of fun writing this review, but you need to know that this the book is more serious than it will appear at first. The emotional toll it will take on anyone who is a parent is strong as well.

Here is my draft review:

Draft Review: Madi is a palm reader in Brandywine, VA, deeply rooted in the Chesapeake Bay region. Having fled as a pregnant teenager, Madi returns so her 16 year-old daughter can connect with her birth father. While working at the local farmer’s market, Madi sees her high school boyfriend, Henry, a man who carries a heavy burden of grief. He has spent the last 5 years searching for his kidnaped infant while mourning the suicide of his wife. When Henry, still a person of interest in these cases, gives his palm to Madi, she experiences disturbing images of the water and the boy, visions that have physical manifestations. Chapman immediately introduces suspense, hooking readers with Madi’s engaging but increasingly unstable narration, confidently and deliberately steering the tone from uneasy to weird to absolute terror with a twist no one will see coming. A disorienting, immersive, and thought provoking contemplation of hope, grief, and guilt that traps readers in a net of visceral and palpable Horror from which they cannot look away no matter how much detritus bursts forth. But beware, readers may never look at a crab the same way again.

Verdict: With his 4th standout Horror novel, Chapman is becoming a not-to-miss author in the genre. Suggest this one to a varied audience of Horror fans from those who enjoy intense psychological tales like The Pallbearers Club by Tremblay, body horror like Frankenstein in Baghdad by Saadawi, and parental horror like Baby Teeth by Stage, but don’t forget fans of the pulp classic, Clickers series first written by JF Gonzales.

Thanks to Quirk for the ARC. I will be giving this one away to one person tomorrow, but if you are going to ALA Annual, there will be ARCs at the PRH booth. We had 100 at StokerCon and they went VERY fast.