2016 Shirley Jackson Award Winners

Over the weekend, my favorite awards were announced-- the Shirley Jackson Award winners.

For those new to the game here is all the info on this amazing cross-genre award:

Boston, MA (July 2017) — In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. has been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. 

The Shirley Jackson Awards are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards are given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. 

The 2016 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on Sunday, July 16th at Readercon 28, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Naomi Novik hosted the ceremony.
The winners for the 

2016 Shirley Jackson Awards are: 

NOVEL
Winner: The Girls, Emma Cline (Random House) 

Finalists
Foxlowe, Eleanor Wasserberg (Fourth Estate-UK/Penguin Books-US)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid (Gallery/Scout)
Lily, Michael Thomas Ford (Lethe)
Mongrels, Stephen Graham Jones (William Morrow)
The Wonder, Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown) 

NOVELLA
Winner: The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com) 

Finalists:
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, Kij Johnson (Tor.com)
“Maggots,” Nina Allan (Five Stories High)
Muscadines, S.P. Miskowski (Dunhams Manor)
The Sadist’s Bible, Nicole Cushing (01 Publishing)
The Warren, Brian Evenson (Tor.com) 

NOVELETTE
Winner: “Waxy,” Camilla Grudova (Granta)) 

Finalists:
“Andy Kaufman Creeping Through the Trees,” Laird Barron (Autumn Cthulhu)
“Angel, Monster, Man,” Sam J. Miller (Nightmare Magazine)
“Breaking Water,” Indrapramit Das (Tor.com)
“The Night Cyclist,” Stephen Graham Jones (Tor.com)
“Presence,” Helen Oyeyemi (What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours) 

SHORT FICTION
Winner: “Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark) 

Finalists:
“Animal Parts,” Irenosen Okojie (Speak, Gigantular)
“The Apartments,” Karen Heuler (Other Places)
“Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark)
“Red,” Katie Knoll (Masters Review)
“Things With Beards,” Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld) 

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION
Winner: A Natural History of Hell, Jeffrey Ford (Small Beer Press) 

Finalists:
Almost Insentient, Almost Divine, D.P. Watt (Undertow)
Furnace, Livia Llewellyn (Word Horde)
Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt (Shock Totem)
We Show What We Have Learned, Clare Beams (Lookout) 

EDITED ANTHOLOGY
Winner: The Starlit Wood, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga Press) 

Finalists:
Autumn Cthulhu, edited by Mike Davis (Lovecraft eZine Press)
The Madness of Dr. Caligari, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Fedogan and Bremer )
Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories, edited by Kelsi Morris and Kaitlin Tremblay (Exile Editions)
An Unreliable Guide to London, edited by Kit Caless and Gary Budden (Influx Press)
 
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AWARD to Ruth Franklin in recognition of the biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.
 
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.” Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work.Congratulations to all the winners.

Please make sure you take a look at the long list here [and above] as all of the nominated titles are fantastic and many would not be noticed anywhere else because they do not easily fit into a single genre.

WiHM: Shirley Jackson's Legacy and Award

Women writing horror today have much to owe to Shirley Jackson.  When "The Lottery" was written in 1948, she jolted America into the reality of the sinister actions lurking just under the surface of bucolic, small town America.  She was not the first person to set a scary tale in a small town, but she was doing it as a woman, which in and of itself was shocking.

In order to honor Jackson's legacy and importance, her estate has set up an award:

In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. 

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.” Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson “one of this century’s most luminous and strange American writers,” and multiple generations of authors would agree.

One of the nice side effects of this award is that while it is not officially only bestowed upon female writers, it is conscious of the contribution of women in a way no other major dark fiction award is.

As a result, the lists of past nominees and winners includes a ton of female writers of dark fiction!  This is an excellent resource to use to identify Women in Horror, specially those on the edges of pure horror, which tends to be very male dominated both in readers and critically acclaimed writers.

But as we all know, there are plenty of women who love horror.

So, while WiHM may be winding down this week, you can identify excellent women who are writing terrifying tomes all year long with a quick click here.

And as a special help to us librarians, these are going to be among the most mainstream options.  These are titles you probably already have in your collections.  Now you have no excuse not to suggest some great scary titles.

What are you waiting for?

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: A Shirley Jackson Award Nominee and Two Bonus Books

Today I have three books from Lethe Press for one winner including a title that is nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award which are all being handed out next weekend.  Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American 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 for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Michelle from Hawaii

Today I have a prize pack courtesy of 3 finished books from Lethe Books which I got from them while attending StokerCon. You can add all of these to your collections immediately.

First up is a novella which, as I said above, is up for a Shirley Jackson Award in the novella category. My colleague Stephanie Klose gave it a star last year in Booklist:

STAR

A Scout Is Brave.

By Will Ludwigsen. July 2024. 150p. Lethe, paper, $15 (9781590216606).

First published June 1, 2024 (Booklist). 

When Bud Castillo and his parents move from Queens to tiny oceanfront Innsmouth, Massachusetts, he’s startled to find that the town contains only one other kid: naive, earnest Aubrey Marsh. Missing his Boy Scout troop, Bud suggests that he and Aubrey start their own, leading to adventures that include breaking into a derelict hospital and sneaking onto the offshore drilling rig where Bud’s father works in an effort to learn more about “the Unpleasantness” that led to Innsmouth being abandoned 30 years earlier and its connection to the mysterious Reverend Pritchett’s current plans for the town. Bud’s first-person narrative voice is wry and engaging, telling his fish-out-of-water story with both the wonder of the child he was and the canny perspective of the adult he’s become. With teen protagonists and equal attention paid to the narrator’s coming-of-age and the eldritch horrors (possibly) lurking under the water, this perfectly polished gem of a novel is ideal for readers who loved YA horror, such as White Smoke (2021), by Tiffany D. Jackson, or The Dead and the Dark (2021), by Courtney Gould, as well as for adult fans of cosmic horror, such as John Langan’s The Fisherman (2016) or Nick Cutter’s The Deep (2014). — Stephanie Klose

Next up is  H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book: Weirdly Illustrated:

Artist Michael Bukowski takes the entries in H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book and creates a memorable addition to any bookshelf devoted to the weird. Featuring a mix of full-color spreads and cleverly monstrous spot art surrounding Lovecraft's imaginative notions, it is the perfect gift for any fan of the Cthulhu Mythos. Only 1d6 SAN lost with each reading.

Paperback, 84 pages with a selection of full-color artwork on many pages!

And finally Monstrous Alterations by Christopher Barzak:

In this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award winning author
Christopher Barzak, discover stories where fairy tales, gothic narratives, and classic monster stories are transformed into new wonders. A princess who yearns only for freedom dances her nights away at clubs in defiance of tradition. A young man plots revenge on his murderer from the underworld. Two friends discover a goblin market where they are offered the fruit of forbidden love. On the streets of London, a man destroys the life of a little girl in an instant. The caretaker for a woman confined to her room frees her from the circumstances that have bound her. A maid at an inn discovers the powerlessness and power of invisibility. A teenager, locked into Kensington Gardens after closing time, is brought face to face with the reality of a childhood icon. A man is born, grows up, and dies, all within the span of a day. A bank clerk determines to save himself and his friend from the destinies their overbearing fathers have made for them. From the Brothers Grimm to Kafka, Barzak imaginatively traverses the history of the dark and the fantastic, and returns with new tales for an ever-changing world. 

"In Monstrous Alterations, Christopher Barzak fashions old tales into modern marvels, trimming, embellishing, and turning them inside out. A spellbound tailor, he is both witty with his scissors and entranced by his source material, enmeshed in Poe, Kafka, Christina Rossetti, and the vast fairy tale tradition. These stories display not only the power of craft but the helplessness of desire: that intoxicating stuff we call inspiration." -Sofia Samatar, World Fantasy Award winning author of A Stranger in Olondria.

All three finished copies for 1 winner!

Enter now and you are entered going forward. Good luck! 

31 Days of Horror: Day 4- Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool, Horror Edition

Today I wanted to remind everyone that as I say on the regular blog, Awards Lists are my favorite RA Tool. I have a series of posts about this on RA for All and today I posted on there about my favorite of all of the awards in the whole entire book world, The Shirley Jackson Awards.

You can read the specific Shirley Jackson Award post here. Rather than repeat myself on both blogs today [as I already did yesterday], I thought I would use my time with you to remind you that I have an entire page about the major Horror and Horror adjacent awards, awards you can use as a great RA Tool. 

You can access the Horror Awards Page in the right gutter of every page of this blog or see below. 

Use these links to access the various awards given for Horror and Horror-esque books. Also please see this post on the general blog about How to Use Awards Lists as a RA Tool.

• The Bram Stoker Award is the biggest prize in horror writing. It is given out by The Horror Writers Association every year. Click here to access a list of all past winners and nominees.
• The Locus Awards: Covers all the speculative genres in most categories [including horror] and horror has its own novel category.
• The Shirley Jackson Award has been given annually since 2007 for "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." Click here for current and past winners and nominees.
• This is Horror Awards: Categories besides the regular book ones are podcast and magazines. 
• SplatterPunk Awards: Celebrates the best of extreme horror. Five categories.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 139: Lethe Press 2-fer

Today I am featuring 2 books by another small press I highly recommend. 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 #138.  Our winner was Lois from Son-Isle [WA] Libraries. Now on to today's giveaway.

As we lead up to October and my plethora of giveaways which will be way more than 1 a week, I wanted to highlight a few smaller presses that I trust and eagerly recommend. Today it is the press that I gave a week long feature to last week, Lethe Press. You can use this link to read all of the posts in the spotlight, but I would begin with this one, from founder Steve Berman.

Today though, I have 2 of their more recent titles. Finished copies that you can add to your collections immediately, courtesy of Berman. 

First up, Monstrous Alterations, a story collection by Shirley Jackson award winner Christopher Barzak that came out on September 8th.

 

In this new collection from Shirley Jackson Award winning author Christopher Barzak, discover stories where fairy tales, gothic narratives, and classic monster stories are transformed into new wonders. A princess who yearns only for freedom dances her nights away at clubs in defiance of tradition. A young man plots revenge on his murderer from the underworld. Two friends discover a goblin market where they are offered the fruit of forbidden love. On the streets of London, a man destroys the life of a little girl in an instant. The caretaker for a woman confined to her room frees her from the circumstances that have bound her. A maid at an inn discovers the powerlessness and power of invisibility. A teenager, locked into Kensington Gardens after closing time, is brought face to face with the reality of a childhood icon. A man is born, grows up, and dies, all within the span of a day. A bank clerk determines to save himself and his friend from the destinies their overbearing fathers have made for them. From the Brothers Grimm to Kafka, Barzak imaginatively traverses the history of the dark and the fantastic, and returns with new tales for an ever-changing world.

Next we have Weather and Beasts and Growing Things out October 1st by Charlotte Suttee. 

In 2079, Stevven Pane (they/them) operates an unsanctioned GreenRoof, an urban garden atop a condemned apartment on the coast of South Carolina. The city seeks to evict Stevven, along with nine-year-old Eli, “Earther” Gino, gossip magazine journalist Barbara, and BluBerry, a sentient plant. When this motley crew is forced to navigate a neoliberal cyberpunk urban landscape, miles of abandoned highways riddled with oil cults and cannibals, and swamps of uncanny critters in the hopes of reaching a new home, the last place Stevven ever trusted is the University grounds nestled in the foothills of Tennessee.

Both of these are absolutely perfect for a general public library collection. They are also well constructed paperbacks with great covers. If you do not win, think about heading over to the Lethe Press website and buying these titles and others as well. I love their tagline: "We're queer and weird, and you better be okay with that!" I have enjoyed every book of theirs I have read, and I have reviewed more than a few for Booklist and Library Journal in the past.

If you haven't noticed, the goal of these posts is to highlight trusted small presses. It is great if you win, but hopefully, you can use these posts as a "review" to justify your purchase of titles that are worthy of being added to your collections.

Good Luck. For the next 2 weeks,  I will be continuing this month long focus on prize packs from small presses and then October the giveaway will EXPLODE. So enter now because when you enter once, you are entered going forward. 

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations by Carina Bissett

Today I have a a finished copy of a new collection by an up and coming author, a woman who helped us with StokerCon when it was in Denver, a book I am happy to report is perfect for all library collections. More details below but first, the rules on how to 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 the previous giveaway. Our winner was Sonya from Ela Area [IL] Public Library. Now on to today's giveaway.

Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devasations by Carina Bissett is a great author to introduce to your patrons because this debut collection covers a wide swath of dark speculative fiction. From Goodreads:

“Ravishing flights of fantasy.”—Priya Sharma, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of All the Fabulous Beasts and Ormeshadow"

Carina Bissett’s collection is a thing of wonder and beauty. It is a true representation of Carina whimsical, visceral, lovely, and fierce. You can hear women’s voices screaming while roses fall from their lips. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations is a triumph.”—Mercedes M. Yardley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Little Dead Red

In this powerful debut, Carina Bissett explores the liminal spaces between the magical and the mundane, horror and humor, fairy tales and fabulism. A young woman discovers apotheosis at the intersection of her cross-cultural heritage. A simulacrum rebels against her coding to create a new universe of her own making. A poison assassin tears the world apart in the relentless pursuit of her true love—the one person alive who can destroy her. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations erases expectations, forging new trails on the map of contemporary fiction. Includes an introduction by Julie C. Day, author of Uncommon Miracles and The Rampant.

“Carina Bissett is one of my favorite speculative authors writing today—magic and myth, horror and revenge, wonder and hope. Her stories are original, lyrical, and haunting—Shirley Jackson mixed with Ursula LeGuin and a dash of Neil Gaiman. An amazing collection of stories.” —Richard Thomas, author of Spontaneous Human Combustion, a Bram Stoker Award finalist

This is a finished copy courtesy of the author. 

Enter now and you are entered going forward.

Good luck.

31 Days of Horror: Day 24-- Reviews by Me

Yesterday's and today's posts could have both been titled, "stop what you are doing and read/order for your collections what Becky is telling you to.” Seriously,  listen to me, I literally wrote the book on this-- how to help you help horror readers.

Today I have 4 more suggestions- plus all of the readlaikes I provide too; that makes 10 recent books for you to buy and suggest to your readers in two days!

The first book is a reminder that Joe Hill’s newest release, Strange Weather, comes out today. I cannot overstate how great this collection of 4 short novels is. Seriously, I expect a lot from him already, and when I read this back in June it blew me away. Here is my starred review from Booklist. with more details from me. This is a collection that should not only be given to horror readers; it is something many readers will enjoy especially fans of King, Gaiman, Mieville, and even Murakami. Yes, Murakami, especially “Aloft.” My experience helping readers is that just about everybody likes one of those authors.

Now on to my three reviews from the first ever print issue of IndiePicks Magazine. You can click here to read today’s post on the general blog about IndiePicks and even get a free copy of our first digital issue, but here on the horror blog, I have just the horror reviews. And like my Booklist reviews, I will add bonus content here on the blog.

And, you can always see my IndiePicks reviews by using the IndiePicks tag here on the horror blog. That tag will be a good quick way to pull up indie press horror that are good for general library collections, but it is not every good horror book. My Horror Review Index is the best place to find good "Horror For Libraries” options.

Full site

Short, Thought-Provoking Scares

In his remarkable, character driven, debut collection of nine horror stories, BEHOLD THE VOID [JournalStone, $18.95, 9781945373497], Philip Fracassi demonstrates that horror can still be thoughtful and lyrical even while it probes our deepest, darkest, most brutal fears. The stories within contain cosmic horror and weird fiction elements and feature an intensity of atmosphere juxtaposed by a restraint in advancing the action, a masterful storytelling skill rarely seen in the genre. Tension and unease build in these stories until they literally burst open. This makes the stories compelling but it is the intimate, familial relationships and the people entangled in them at the heart of these stories that makes them stand out. Take the previously published and already cult hit, “Altar” for example, a story about a brother, sister, and mother on a summer trip to the local pool, a common memory shared by most readers, but Fracassi slowly adds in layers of strangeness and terror, as this ordinary day builds to a horrific conclusion. Or the new and more subtle story, “Fail-Safe” which shows a loving family facing a very difficult decision in this original take on the well-tread monster trope. These are engrossing and detailed stories about flawed people put into extraordinary situations. Do expect to enjoy the ride, but don’t expect any neatly tied up happy endings along the way. As Laird Barron, in the introduction to this collection, sums it up, “Nobody is safe and nothing is sacred.” This is a perfect title to pair with 2016’s critically acclaimed A NATURAL HISTORY OF HELL: STORIES by Jeffrey Ford.

Becky’s Bonus Blog Content

Further Appeal: These stories are strange, but in a good way. Strange because they are beautifully written, yet the dread builds to almost unbearable limits. It is a very cool reading experience for readers who like that sort of thing-- like me! But seriously, all of your domestic suspense readers who don’t mind a speculative element and want the dread kicked up a notch-- these stories are for them.  

I cannot stress enough how these stories are so familiar at their start but then turn terrifying very quickly. It’s like Shirley Jackson times 50. Fracassi is able to tell a story with the style and skill normally seen in “literary” writers, but these are 100% genre tales. He is yet another example of why those who disparage “genre” writers are ignorant buffoons.  

Three Words That Describe This Book: thought-provoking, lyrical, atmospheric 

Readalikes: Award winning speculative fiction author Jeffrey Ford is a great readalike author here. And the link in the review goes to my Booklist review of his most recent and now award winning collection. Laird Barron, who wrote the introduction is also a good readalike. Use this link to read more about Barron from me.

I would also suggest this collection to people who have enjoyed Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado which i just gave a star review in Booklist and is a finalist for the National Book Award. Fracassi’s book does not have the feminist and LGBTQ frame of Machado’s, nor is it as experimental in style, but the feel of the stories, how they build, how they are beautifully written, and how they incorporate a menacing speculative element that overtakes you, are very similar. That review also has more readlike options. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if this collection was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award [another resource you could use to find readalike options].

The Horrors of Reality TV

SplatterPunk meets satire in the bloody, frightening battle of ancient evil versus reality TV in Daniel I Russell’s ENTERTAINING DEMONS [ApexBook Company, $15.95, 9781937009564]. Molly is not your typical English teenager. She lives alone with her grandfather, her mother is institutionalized, and her father, well he’s been missing most of her life. But that’s just the beginning of her problems.  Molly is also newest star of the popular reality TV show, “PI: Paranormal Investigations, ” but unlike some of the fake paranormal experiences followed by the show, Molly is living a 100% real nightmare on view for the world to see. What begins with strange noises and things that go bump in the night quickly escalates as Molly is being targeted by a very real and dangerous ancient evil, one that has survived millenia by any means necessary. With an alternating point of view between our protagonists and the demons who are descending upon Molly’s small British town, this is a non-stop, edge of your set, bloody thriller. But it is also a darkly humorous and sharp witted send up of modern media, reality TV, and humanity’s wrongly placed attentions. The demons have been observing, interfering with, and even altering human history for far too long to be fooled by this new obsession. Molly, her family, and friends are heroes you can believe in and root for, but the demons have centuries of experience and absolutely no morals. ENTERTAINING DEMONS has all of the violence, gore, and satire of Brian Keene’s classic, CASTAWAYS mixed with a similar frame and storytelling style of Benjamin Percy’s recent, THE DARK NET; both titles that are popular with a public library audience.

Becky’s Bonus Blog Content

Further Appeal:  I need to stress how this book is in equal turns a hilarious and biting satire AND an extreme horror thrill ride. There are graphic scenes of sex and violence, but they are part of the subgenre tropes within which this story is written. So, if you don’t like SplatterPunk, this book is not for you. But it is also not so over the top that libraries should’t carry it. This is a perfect extreme horror title for libraries because it will satisfy fans of the subgenre while also enticing new readers.

Back to the humor-- the satire of modern human existence and specifically the skewering of reality TV is very funny-- again funny with the disclaimer that amidst the humor there is carnage. The demons are VERY evil but they also have a unique take on humanity having been around for millennia.

This is a great title to try if you want to see what all the extreme horror fuss is about. 

Three Words That Describe This Book: Extreme Horror, Satire, Dark Humor

Readalikes: If you use the links to the two readalikes in the review, you will go to my reviews which both have even more readalikes.  

Also, SplatterPunk is making a comeback in general, a trend you should be aware of.  One of the best current practitioners of this subgenre is Wrath James White. Speaking of, White, along with the aforementioned Brian Keene,  just founded the SplatterPunk Awards for the Best in Extreme Horror. Click here for details. Once they have a long list,  you can start using that for readalikes too. 

The Devil Inside

When William Peter Blatty published THE EXORCIST in 1971 he started a brand new subgenre of horror literature that, while waxing and waning in popularity over the years, has never completely disappeared. However, very few have lived up to the evil and terror of the original, until now. Jonathan Janz is a horror star on the rise and in EXORCIST FALLS [Sinister Grin, $18.99, 9781944044510], which includes the previously published novella prequel, “Exorcist Road,” Janz puts a 21st Century spin on the demonic possession story and puts his talent for entertaining and frightening through his prose on full display. Chicago is being held hostage by the Sweet Sixteen Killer, who targets, violates, and then brutally murders young women of all races and classes, just as they turn sixteen. Jason Crowder is a young priest in Chicago who is called to the home of a wealthy parishioner after their son begins acting weirdly. He is clearly possessed, but he also knows way too much about the serial murders. In the struggle for his soul, the demon enters Crowder, but that is just where our story begins.What follows is a bloody and graphic tale part demonic possession story, part mystery, and part family drama. An intense first person narration allows for the reader to see Crowder’s struggle with the demon inside him as he tries to maintain moral control of his body while also, at times, allowing the evil to surface if it will help him to catch the human killer. Janz keeps readers turning the pages as they root for Crowder while still being utterly appalled by him. This is the perfect read for people who loved HORNS by Joe Hill, another tale where readers root for a protagonist who is controlled by the devil. And with the popular TV series, “The Exorcist” back for a second season, there will be an increased demand for the demonic possession tale.

Becky’s Bonus Blog Content

Further Appeal:  As I mention in the review, The Exorcist television series is very popular right now, so expect this subgenre of horror to make a comeback. You need to be ready with suggestions for fans of the show who want more possession tales, and this title is an excellent place to start.

The intense first person is very cool here. It keeps you riveted and has you fluctuating between rooting for and being disgusted by the protagonist. That alone keeps you on edge the entire time-- and horror fans want to be on edge.

Also, the thriller aspects of how the story is told will appeal to many readers of that genre as long as they don’t mind the supernatural aspects. The cat and mouse game between Crowder and the killer is very well done.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Demonic Possession, Intense 1st Person, Thriller-esque

Readalikes: Besides the books and TV show listed in the review, ARARAT by Christopher Golden which I reviewed here would be another good recent suggestion.

You can also use this link to see other books I have reviewed which use the devil as a frame. Plus I have an entire chapter on the subject in my book. 

Women in Horror Month Begins with Offical Links and a Monday Discussion

To kick off WiHM I moved the first post over to RA for All.  Here is the direct link, but I also cross posted it below.  I wanted to get the maximum number of eyes on this great event.

Check back often this month for new and exciting content about women in horror.

February is Women in Horror Recognition Month and for the first time I am an official participant in the festivities.  It's about time though, since I have been a "Woman in Horror" for a decade now.

Over on RA for All: Horror, I will be running at least 2 posts a week highlighting the work of the best women in horror. I am also partnering with Kirsten over at Monster Librarian who is my fellow woman in horror and libraries.  We are a small group so we need to stick together.  So please check out her blog, Musings of the Monster Librarian for more this month.

While most of the WiHM coverage will be on the horror blog all month, I wanted to start things off with the Monday Discussion here by asking everyone to think of their favorite Women in Horror.

I'll go first:

• I love, love, love the late Shirley Jackson.  I cannot gush enough about her skill at creating creepy, anxious stories and novels that meld psychological suspense and horror.  The Lottery is the best short story EVER! I am so glad that others have recognized her talent and influence and there is now a Shirley Jackson Award.
• More recently, I am extremely proud of the work Lisa Morton has been doing.  I went out on a limb in my book by including her a s a rising star, and thankfully, she has proven me right.  She has won numerous Bram Stoker Awards and just recently launched a new series with Netherworld.  I will be featuring the book in a Halfway to Halloween Horror guest column in Library Journal this April, but in the meantime, Lisa has contributed a guest post for RA for All: Horror this month, and I will have a full review of the new book.
• Did you know one of the best editors of today's horror short story writers is a woman? Jeani Rector runs The Horror Zine, and puts out an annual collection of the best work from the magazine.  I featured a past year's volume on RA for All Horror here.  This year, Jeani is on the long list for the Bram Stoker Awards.  She is also going to be contributing to WiHM with a guest post and I will have a review of the newest collection.

Check out the display I put up in our quick display area at the BPL too.

Now it's your turn.  For today's Monday Discussion, who's your favorite "Woman in Horror?" Let me know.

You can check out the official WiHM site for more on the female contributions to this fairly male dominated genre. And return to RA for All: Horror and The Musings of the Monster Librarian all month for more on WiHM and how it relates to your work in libraries.

And, click here for past Monday Discussions

31 Days of Horror-- Day 1: Librarians Meet the Horror Writers Association

Welcome to 31 Days of Horror 2012.  While last year, I focused on my book, this year I will be mixing guest posts with reviews and giveaways in an attempt to connect horror writers with librarians.

As I say in my bio, I am a proud member of the Horror Writers Association, but this year my pride swelled.  I used my connections as a member and reached out to a wide range of horror writers, from bestsellers to newer authors, and they were all more than generous with their time, writing posts for me to use this month.  Many of them also passed on books for me to giveaway to you.

Stay tuned because those giveaways start later this week.

So I hope you enjoy my month long barrage of horror posts geared toward the librarian and average reader brought to you by those of us in the horror industry-- those of us who are immersed in the genre all the year through.

We begin today with a post by Rocky Wood.  He is the current President of Horror Writers Association and author of the Bram Stoker Award® winning, Stephen King: A Literary Companion (McFarland, 2011) and the graphic novel, Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times (McFarland, 2012).

I asked Rocky to write a post to librarians about how the Horror Writers Association can help them. The HWA is working very hard to court librarians.  They have even committed to an ALA booth at the National Conference in June.  So, here's Rocky....

************************************************************************
Many librarians may not be familiar with the Horror Writers Association. Established in 1985 by writers such as Dean R Koontz and Joe R Lansdale, the HWA today has around 800 members around the globe, although a majority are North American. Icons such as Stephen King and Richard Matheson are long term members, as are such up and coming genre names at Jonathan Maberry, and the vast majority of today’s horror writers. It has a wide ranging website and also a public blog, ‘Dark Whispers’ at www.horror.org/blog.

One of the HWA's missions is to encourage public interest in and foster an appreciation of reading in general, and horror and dark fantasy literature for adults, teens and even children. To that end, our members take part in public readings and lectures whenever possible, we publish a newsletter for booksellers and librarians, and we are now providing libraries with links to recommended and new works by our members (more of which later). Many of these books are by award-winning authors and others by break-through writers you might not yet be aware of. We are particularly involved in promoting authors who are receiving break-through status with readers, as well as local authors for local communities.

Horror and so-called dark fiction, and its many sub-genres such as paranormal fiction, post-apocalyptic tales, urban fantasy, zombies, werewolves and vampires are more popular than ever. This is particularly so in the crucial and rapidly growing ‘young adult’ reading group – and we all know young adults in our libraries are looking for new and scary stories. ‘New’ to them, of course, could be a classic horror tale from Poe or Shirley Jackson, or the latest Nancy Holder book. One of the areas the HWA concentrates on is the graphic novel – and this of course is one of the most compelling ways to attract and engage young readers. Whether it be ‘The Walking Dead’ or Joe Hill’s ‘Locke and Key,' young people are fully immersed in this form.

We know that not all publishers market their wares as horror, and not all readers realize they are reading ‘horror’ or dark fantasy – but there is no doubt that ‘Twilight’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Hunger Games’ and such titles all contain horror tropes. We are not concerned with the definition – we are concerned with generating more readers for writers, libraries and publishers – whether in traditional printed books or the electronic versions.

Horror is the oldest genre in literature – it goes right back to the first tales told around the cave-man’s fire, through the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, through much of Shakespeare (‘Hamlet’, ‘Macbeth’), through the gothic novel and on to the famed ‘greats’ of horror such as Edgar Allen Poe, H P Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson. It is always popular, whatever it is called. There are always new generations of readers to discover such classics as Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, Poe’s ‘The Tell-tale Heart’, Stevenson’s ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ and King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’ or ‘The Shining’. But, while every librarian will know these classics, how do you keep up with the latest developments in the sub-genres and the new, interesting authors and tales that will compel your school-aged or adult readers? There are of course, some great RA services, but no-one knows the horror and dark fantasy genre better than HWA.

I would also make the point that HWA doesn’t just specialize in the obvious – novels and young adult novels. Our members write both short and long fiction, poetry, edit anthologies and write non-fiction. As an example I have written five popular books about Stephen King for those readers who are interested in more than just his stories. One of these books, ‘Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished’ (Fourth Edition, Overlook Connection Press, 2012) concentrates on King’s lesser known works, many of which would be of obvious interest to librarians looking to freshen their ‘same old’ King collections. Another, ‘Stephen King: A Literary Companion’, examines King’s position in literature and provides interesting information about every one of his 300 odd pieces of fiction, for instances the inspiration for ‘The Body’ (made into the movie, ‘Stand By Me’) or characters such as Carrie White.

We find that many libraries are under-represented in the dark fantasy/horror genre. Certainly, the popular series such as ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Twilight’ will be in place but what about the newly popular series such as Jonathan Maberry’s ‘Rot and Ruin’. Or the latest and best in adult short fiction, edited by such experienced genre editors as Ellen Datlow? We also have strong representation in fiction by female writers – including Nancy Holder, Nancy Etchemendy, Lisa Morton, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Kelley Armstrong and many more. HWA supports such initiatives as ‘Women in Horror’ month.

A major initiative is our ‘Halloween Haunts’ – running in parallel with this very blog this scary month of October, it appears at with new entries every day at www.horror.org/blog, and a range of giveaways for the public. We use this to educate readers, promote the latest in the genre, analyze the genre’s history and of course, entertain. And we also run a monthly Horror Writers Roundtable, where experts discuss such topics as the legacy of Ray Bradbury, book promotion and the popularity of cross-genre writing. Those discussions allow public feedback and you may find them of value.

The HWA offers a one-stop shop for librarians interested in expanding their knowledge of horror and dark fiction, and what is hot in that space at www.horror.org. Among the many resources that can be found there are:

• A listing of the latest Bram Stoker Award winners. The iconic Bram Stoker Awards are the peak Award in the genre, and will guide you to the best in recent horror novels, short fiction, fiction collections, non-fiction, anthologies and even poetry!
• The Bram Stoker Award reading list – this is a live compilation of the latest publications under consideration for the Awards – consider it a near real-time study of what’s hot in horror and dark fiction. This is certainly the only such list anywhere on the internet.
• A listing of all the Bram Stoker Award winners and nominees going back through 1987 – a treasure trove of material for the great names in the genre, such as Ramsey Campbell, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Peter Straub, Joyce Carole Oates, Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman. 
• A guide to getting a horror author to visit your Library; and much more. 

The HWA is also some of the few genre writers’ groups that offers membership to Librarians – an ‘Associate’ status for those who really want to engage with the genre. Our members delight in attending readings, signings and discussion groups at Libraries and we are always available to answer questions about the genre.

We have a dedicated Library Committee – chaired by J G Faherty* (author of ‘The Ghosts of Coronado Bay’), always working to improve our services to the Library sector; and have formed an initial relationship with the American Library Association to appear at upcoming ALA events; where we can meet you personally.

So, there’s a wide review of why you as a Librarian might want to engage with the Horror Writers Association – perhaps just sampling our online material; or perhaps involving yourself in direct contact with our advisers or members. We’re not that scary, really!

* Readers of RA for All: Horror will hear from Faherty himself and I will review The Ghosts of Coronado Bay both later this month.

Women in Horror Month X: StokerCon 2019 Has Some Awesome Women Guests of Honor

Going back to Tuesday's post about supporting living women horror authors [plenty of links to find vetted examples], I thought I would highlight 3 specific ones of note today, and they also happen to be among the StokerCon 2019 Guests of Honor. Below is the official info from the StokerCon website with additional information by me added in italics.

But first a quick note-- StokerCon 2019 will be May 9-12 in Grand Rapids, MI. I will be there the entire time. Library workers are welcome at the entire con, but specifically I have planned a wonderful and affordable Librarians' Day on May 10th. It comes with lunch and free books. And GoH Stephanie Wytovich will be appearing on the final panel too. Click here to see the details and to join us. If you are staying overnight, let me know and I will personally bring you around and introduce you to anyone you want.  Friday night's Final Frame Film competition is always a great time and of course, the Stoker Banquet on Saturday night too.

KATHE KOJA is a novelist, playwright, performer, director and independent producer. Her work crosses and combines genres, from horror to historical to YA. Her novels—including The Cipher, Bad Brains, Skin, Strange Angels, Going Under, The Blue Mirror, the Under the Poppy trilogy, and Christopher Wild—have won awards, been multiply translated, and optioned for film and performance. She creates performative fiction events, both solo and with an ensemble of creative artists, including Drunk on Words, Dracula, The Heights, and Night School. She is based in Detroit USA, along with her husband, artist Rick Lieder, and Dash the cat.

Becky's further comments: Ms Koja is a great example of the breadth of creativity we see from women in horror. Also, her performative fiction events are amazing and she can bring them to libraries. 

Shirley-Jackson Award Winner KAARON WARREN published her first short story in 1993 and has had stories in print every year since. She was Guest of Honour at World Fantasy Convention in 2018 and has been shortlisted for the Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Her stories have appeared in Australia, the US, China, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, and have been selected for both Ellen Datlow’s and Paula Guran’s Best of the Year Anthologies. Kaaron has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Fiji. She has published five novels (Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, The Grief Hole andTide of Stone) and seven short story collections, including the multi-award winning Through Splintered Walls. Her most recent short story collection is A Primer to Kaaron Warren from Dark Moon Books. Kaaron was a Fellow at the Museum for Australian Democracy, where she researched prime ministers, artists and serial killers. In 2018 she was Established Artist in Residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard House in Western Australia. She’s taught workshops in haunted asylums, old morgues and second hand clothing shops and she’s mentored several writers through a number of programs. She will be Guest of Honour at Stokercon and New Zealand’s Geysercon in 2019. You can find her at http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/ and she Tweets @KaaronWarren

Becky's further comments: If Ms Warren lived in America I am certain she would be a household horror name. Her work is amazing and universally acclaimed. I have talked about her here on the blog, including this guest post where she explained Why I Love Horror to all of you.

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous anthologies such as Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Shadows Over Main Street: An Anthology of Small-Town Lovecraftian Terror, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, and An Exorcism of Angels. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press. Follow Wytovich at http://stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com and on twitter @SWytovich

Becky's further comments: Ms Wytovich is a powerhouse. Her words are lyrical, terrifying and heartbreaking, no matter the story's format. But she is also a brilliant historian of the genre. I saw her "Final Girl" presentation at StokerCon last year and it was one of the best things I did at the Con. She also teaches classes on horror as it is written today. She is a name you need to know. On her website, linked above, she is also running her own series of interviews with Women in Horror.  

Women in Horror Month X: Roundtable Interview with Women In Horror Including ME!

Lisa Morton, horror author and editor extraordinaire asked me to be a part of her Women in Horror Roundtable Interview for Nightmare Magazine's February Issue. The web version went live yesterday. Side note, for those of you who don't know Nightmare Magazine, I have talked about it before, but quickly, it is run by John Joseph Adams, speculative fiction editor superstar.

I want to thank Lisa for including the library perspective in this article. She has a great mix of awesome people here, and I am very proud of the product we have created together.

From the intro:

To celebrate Women in Horror Month 2019, I asked four excellent female writers and horror experts to join me for a roundtable discussion. Given how the genre seems to be expanding rapidly to include more women at all levels of experience and publishing, I tried to gather a group of women with a range of talents and experience. 

Linda Addison is an accomplished short story writer and editor, but she is probably known primarily as a poet. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and is the only author with fiction in three landmark anthologies that celebrate African-American speculative writers: the award-winning anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction, Dark Dreams I and II, and Dark Thirst. 

Joanna Parypinski made her first professional sale in 2011, and her short fiction has since appeared in the magazines Nightmare, Black Static, and Vastarien, and anthologies including Haunted Nights, The Beauty of Death 2: Death by Water, and The War on Christmas. Forthcoming in 2019 is her novel Dark Carnival, and a middle grade tale in New Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. She also teaches English at Glendale Community College. 

Becky Spratford is the public library world’s most visible horror expert. She is the author of the American Library Association’s Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror (published in a second edition in 2012), and maintains the acclaimed blog RA for All: Horror at raforallhorror.blogspot.com, as well as the original RA for All blog at raforall.blogspot.com. She was a Guest of Honor at StokerCon 2017, and she travels throughout the year talking to librarians about broadening their horror collections. 

Kaaron Warren is an Australian author whose work extends through four novels (Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, and The Grief Hole) and six short story collections, including the multi-award winning Through Splintered Walls. Her novella “Sky” from that collection won the Shirley Jackson Award and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. It went on to win all three of the Australian genre awards, while The Grief Hole did the same thing in 2017. She has also taught writing workshops and mentored newer writers.

Click here to read the entire piece. We do not pull any punches here.

It makes for an excellent ending to a wonderful month.

Shirley Jackson Award Finalists

As I have mentioned before here, the Shirley Jackson Awards are among my favorite in the world of dark fiction.  The 2010 nominees were just released, and I was happy to see some of my favorites.  Click here for the list and analysis from Rose Fox at PW's Genreville:


Novel:

• Dark Matter, Michelle Paver (Orion)
• A Dark Matter, Peter Straub (Doubleday)
• Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Mr. Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Reapers Are the Angels, Alden Bell (Holt)
• The Silent Land, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

Novella:

• The Broken Man, Michael Byers (PS Publishing)
• Chasing the Dragon, Nicholas Kaufmann (Chizine Publications)
• “Mysterium Tremendum”, Laird Barron (Occultation, Night Shade)
• One Bloody Thing After Another, Joey Comeau (ECW Press)
• Subtle Bodies, Peter Dubé (Lethe Press)
• The Thief of Broken Toys, Tim Lebbon (Chizine Publications)

Novelette:

• “–30–,” Laird Barron (Occultation, Night Shade)
• “The Broadsword,” Laird Barron, (Black Wings, PS Publishing)
• “Holderhaven,” Richard Butner, (Crimewave 11: Ghosts)
• “The Redfield Girls,” Laird Barron (Haunted Legends, Tor)
• “Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains,” Neil Gaiman (Stories: All New Tales, William Morrow)

Short story:

• “As Red as Red,” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Haunted Legends, Tor)
• “Booth’s Ghost,” Karen Joy Fowler (What I Didn’t See, Small Beer Press)
• “The Foxes,” Lily Hoang (Haunted Legends, Tor)
• “six six six,” Laird Barron (Occultation, Night Shade)
• “The Things,” Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, Issue 40)

Single-author collection:

• Occultation, Laird Barron (Night Shade)
• The Ones That Got Away, Stephen Graham Jones (Prime Books)
• The Third Bear, Jeff Vandermeer (Tachyon)
• What I Didn’t See, Karen Joy Fowler (Small Beer Press)
• What Will Come After, Scott Edelman (PS Publishing)

Edited anthology:

• Black Wings: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, edited by S. T. Joshi (PS Publications)
• Haunted Legends, edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas (Tor)
• My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales, edited by Kate Bernheimer (Penguin)
• Stories: All New Tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (William Morrow)
• Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders (Harper Voyager)

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 93: Little Eve by Catriona Ward

This week I have a book that already has already proved itself but is now going to be widely available in America. A High-Demand author. I posted my STAR review on the main blog today as well.

More details below, but first a reminder on how to 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 92. Our winners were Iggi from Springfield-Greene County [MO] Library District and Tessa from Graves County [KY] Public Library.

I have the next book by Catriona Ward to giveaway. Details on the book itself from RA for All:

STAR REVIEW

Little Eve
Catriona Ward
Oct. 2022. 288p. Tor Nightfire, $27.99 (9781250812650); e-book, $14.99 (9781250812667). 
First published August 2022 (Booklist).

Ward is back but this time she presents a proven winner, the American release for her 2018 Shirley Jackson Award winning novel. Readers are whisked away to 1921, to an island, just off the coast of Scotland, with high cliffs and a reclusive family, as Dinah recounts the winter morning when the local butcher found her entire family laid out in ritualistic style, all but her dead. Immediately, Dinah’s sister, Evelyn is identified as the killer, but she has gone missing. Atmospheric from those opening lines, this disquieting story is unveiled through intertwined threads with Dinah narrating the story’s present and Evelyn from 1917. For the first 70 pages, the reader will squirm as the discomfort, characters, and plot slowly emerge, but as the details begin to come into horrifying focus and the time frames begin to converge, it is impossible to look away. And when that inevitable twist comes it is an disturbing gut punch, not because of the shock, but from the deeply unsettling ramifications that ripple out from its center. While its ties to Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle are strong, this psychological horror gem will also appeal to fans of creepy, character driven cult stories like Mr Splitfoot by Hunt and other new, original takes on the traditional Gothic such as Mexican Gothic by Moreanu-Garcia.

Further appeal. Here is a note I took immediately after finishing this book: "An excellent, twisty, Gothic but Ward excels at how she unfolds the "truth for the reader." The "past" of the story [1917 and forward] and the "present" [1921 and forward]  slowly converge with two perspectives: Dinah and Evelyn. And of course there is a twist, this is a Ward novel. But it is not the twist that is the gut punch, it is the emotional, gut wrenching ramification that ripple out from the center of the twist that makes this a STAR review." 

This book was deeply unsettling. It took a little to get into it, to get the background details and the voices of the two narratives and to get settled into the place, but once I did, I could not stop reading.

Again, the "twist" is there, but that alone wasn't why it is good. What the twist as meant over the decades tat followed the main action, that is where the story has its emotional center. 

Three Words That Describe This Book: dual time frames, Gothic, atmospheric.

Readalikes: The three above in the review plus, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed, The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling, A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay and really any Shirley Jackson nominee or winner. It is one of my favorite awards to use as a readalike resource. 

My ARC is going to one lucky winner, courtesy of Tor Nightfire.

Remember, you enter once and you are entered going forward. I have big tittles coming every week!