#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: A Special Edition of Their Monstrous Hearts

Today I have an ARC of one of the hottest books of Spring (a book so hot I lost out on the chance to review it) and a finished book by a lesser known voice making this a 2 book prize-pack week. 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 Jennifer from Ohio. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

Turkish author, Yiğit Turhan, is getting a lot of buzz for his debut Horror novel, Their Monstrous Hearts, drawing attention and advanced praise from authors as diverse as Clay McLeod Chapman, Cynthia, Pelayo, Douglas Coupland, and Andrew Sean Greer, Pop star Dua Lipa is even a fan. 

Catching the hint of the buzz early, I reviewed the novel in the January 2025 issue of LJ:

Three Words That Describe This Book: 2 narratives, family secrets, slow burn leading to existential terror

Draft Review: Time has run out for Riccardo, a 20 year old orphan, living off the advance of a book he is unable to even start, let alone deliver to his publisher. Until a stranger knocks on his door, alerting him that the Turkish immigrant grandmother he adored as a child, died rather suddenly and left her Italian villa and cherished butterfly collection to him. Once in Milan, Riccardo finds more questions than answers about her death, her life, and her obsession with butterflies. When he stumbles upon a manuscript written in her script with the label “To Riccardo,” readers and Riccardo begin to unravel the mystery. But why did no one give him this text when he arrived? And why does he still feel unsafe? Told in both points of view, what begins as a slow burn Gothic Fable ventures out of its cocoon and transforms into a compelling, suspenseful and lush Dark Fantasy, completing its metamorphosis with one final twist, emerging as an existentially terrifying tale that will take readers through the emotional wringer and leave them distrustful of butterflies forevermore.

Verdict: A solid debut that can be given eagerly to fans of Horror framed by dark and dangerous family secrets such as Midnight Rooms by Coles, Mexican Gothic by Moreno-Garcia, and Now You're One of Us by Nonami.

"Nobody ever suspects the butterfly" I mean with that cover they might. But no, that is a great premise to shape this book around. That's a quote from the middle-ish of the novel and it is the heart (pun intended) of why this story is so terrifying.

Well it finally comes out next month (April 8th), but I received a finished copy earlier this week, a first edition, with gorgeous red edges with black butterflies (photo of this exact copy above). Since I have already read and enjoyed the book, I want to give it away to one of you. And since it is a finished copy, I am encouraging you to get it on the shelf. But good news, you have some time to read it for yourself before it is released as well.

A solid debut horror novel by a Turkish author...I know you don't have one of those already. What a way to introduce your readers to a new voice. And with the list of people who have blurbed it and my list of readalikes, you can see how wide the appeal is here.

Thanks to the publisher for providing this amazing finished, first edition for me to share with one of you.

Becky's 2024 Horror Book Highlights via The Lineup

I do a column for The Lineup 4x a year with December always scheduled to be a "Horror Book Highlights." I love doing this because both my editor (Lisa Quigley) and I want this NOT to be a traditional best list, rather I use this chance to look back at the trends I have seen in the year that just past. It is a fun exercise and allows me to highlight more titles than a traditional best list (like this one).

Go here to read the full article with graphics and links to more about each book on their site. Below, I have my draft which I turned in. It may have typos, but I want the authors and titles here on the blog for people to be able to search.

From the Haunted Stacks: 2024 Horror Book Highlights

A detailed look at Horror from 2024, from the “library world's horror maven.” 

By Becky Spratford | Published Dec 17, 2024

I know what many of you are thinking: Oh no, not another best list! But don’t worry, that is not what this is.

As I do each year here at The Lineup, I try to give you a more nuanced look at the year that was by walking you through some of the more interesting trends I have noticed accompanied by the example titles that illustrate them best.

But before we even begin, it is important to note one book that stands alone identifying its own trend, Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Film You Are Too Scared to Watch by Emily C. Hughes. Horror is hot right now and everyone wants to jump on the scary bandwagon, but not everyone is ready. This title allows anyone, no matter how big a scaredy-cat, to participate in the larger conversation around Horror, a conversation that  is happening just about everywhere. Hughes’ book has hit a nerve, even making it on the NPR “Books We Love” end of the year list of their favorite books. 

Now on to the trends I saw in 2024.

The Biggest Names Are Not Only Getting Bigger, They Are Getting Better

Over the last 5 years, Horror authors with names other than Stephen King have been making it onto the bestseller lists and/or gaining regular coverage in mainstream media. This year some of those authors had new novels. While that is not a surprise, what I did find noteworthy is that all of these authors churned out excellent works. Not resting on their laurels, these authors, who readers already know and trust, keep raising the bar for the entire genre. From the female vampire rage of So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison to Lovecraftian vengeance in the middle of a hurricane in House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias to Paul Tremblay’s deeply unsettling Horror Movie (which debuted on the NYT Bestseller list) to two novels by Stephen Graham Jones– the final installment in the Jade Daniels trilogy, The Indian of Angle Lake and a new take on the slasher story in I was a Teenaged Slasher. We also saw the return of Nick Cutter with the wild, terrifying and original wasp infested The Queen, Chuck Tingle proving his first mainstream novel was no fluke in Bury Your Gays, and Josh Malerman somehow managing to freak everyone out even more than he has with his previous excellent novels with a child narrator and the “Other Mommy” in her closet in Incidents Around The House.

These are the novels that set a high bar for Horror in 2024, and as these authors excelled they added new readers, many of whom didn’t consider themselves Horror readers.

But now? They may be hooked.

Women Rule The Best Debuts

That list above was very male heavy; a fact that was upsetting to me. That is until I looked at this year’s top debuts, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I always make a list of the best Horror debuts each year because debut authors serve as a map to see where the genre is going. This year, not only was I blown away by a larger number of debut novels (many were among my favorite reads of the year), but also, I was excited to see they were all written by women. Here are four of my favorite Horror debuts from 2024, and what a wide range of writing styles and scares they offer.

The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim

Ji-Won is a first generation Korean-American, a college student who is sick of the fetishization of Asian women and wants to do something about it. She confidently leads readers through this expertly constructed story, earning sympathy even as readers begin to see they should not trust her. As the novel evolves from domestic drama to one filled with oppressive dread, the palpable anxiety evolves into repulsion and Ji-Won dares readers to avert their own eyes.

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

March 2019, four 20 somethings enter the Kentucky woods on a mission to study and scale a never before seen rock formation, except, readers are told immediately, none of them made it out alive.Told from the point of view of each doomed character, and with time frames alternating between the story’s present, and the past, beginning in the 1700s when this land was first discovered, Kiefer masterfully crafts both vivid characters and a visceral place, a land rooted in evil, with a long history of a thirst for human blood.

Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles

Orabella, a half Black orphan, lives under the care of her Uncle in 1840s England where she is hastily married off to the handsome, rich, and mysterious Elias Blakersby. Whisked off to the countryside and separated from everyone and everything she knows, Orabella is sent to a decaying house with shifting hallways, odd family gatherings, and dangerous secrets. Not your grandmother’s Gothic, Coles brilliantly takes recognizable tropes but adds modern sensibilities and original twists.

Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen

Nick returns home to the cruel father he left behind after a hard childhood in Nebraska upon hearing his dad is dying. Nick encourages his estranged brother, Joshua, disowned when he married Emilia, a woman of Chinese descent, to join him. Told from Nick’s point of view in 2 time frames– the present and the year he was 13– Pedersen presents a slow burn, supernatural horror tale, centering family, trauma, and revenge, with unease infused into every detail, which all building to an ending that will leave readers gasping with awe.

Novellas For All Readers

Novellas have been steadily gaining in popularity for a decade now, but previously, the market was dominated by one publisher– Tor.com. While they put out some great stories, the offerings were limited in scope. Now that readers have embraced the novellas as a standalone reading option, more publishers are taking a chance on the format which means there are amazing books for all of us to read. These four books, all under 200 pages, meant to be read in a sitting (or 2 max) showcase the breadth of excellent options available in the format, with not a single title coming from Tor.com

Cranberry Cove by Hailey Piper

Partners Connor and Emberly, the private security partners for a local crime boss,  are called to a “people eating” hotel to try to find out what happened to the boss’ son. The terror seeps through the walls and into the story as Piper employs all five senses to draw readers in and hold them rapt from beginning to end. Think of it as the Law and Order SVU and X-Files crossover episode you never knew you needed in your life.

Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram

Vicken is on the Montreal subway with plans to get off at the last stop and throw himself in the river, ending his life. However, upon exiting the train, he finds himself trapped in a never ending labyrinth of corridors. As Vicken continues to wander, Ajram cleverly transforms what seems like a deceptively simple plot into a complex, moving and immersive contemplation of the very real horror of living with severe depression.A tale that is as brutal as it is beautiful, readers need to prepare to become emotionally invested in this one.

Eynhallow by Tim McGregor

Set on the very real uninhabited Scottish island of Eynhallow, McGregor uses its eerie history as fodder for his atmospheric and compelling retelling of Frankenstein. Told from the point of view of Agnes, in 1797, as her husband hires her out to help the rich, reclusive stranger (Victor Frankenstein) who has come to hide himself away from the world. As Agnes gets to know him better, the tension, unease, and danger build, sightings of a monster lurking in the darkness increase, and Frankenstein’s curse becomes Agnes’ burden.

Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman

Glenn’s son Billy died 40 years ago, at the age of 15, the victim of a brutal murder. The case was never solved and Glenn’s grief has not ebbed at all. Glenn signs up for a writing class at the local library. Hoping to work through his pain and turn it into a book, but will that lead him even further into despair? An unflinching tale of grief, pain and obsession, that will leave readers gasping for air.

Not Your Parent’s Short Stories

This final trend was one I saw emerge in real time as I was working my way through my favorite reads of 2024, as I saw that many of my favorite short story collections and anthologies all took the well worn concept of a single volume full of stories and did something original or surprising with it.

Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

One of my favorite reads in any genre this year, Lima presents a novel in stories that is exactly what it claims to be–  a collection of stories the main character wrote after meeting the Devil in her 20s and hooking up with him. The stories themselves, separated by interludes when the narrator and Devil check in with each other over her life, range from weird and creepy to surrealist and existentially terrifying. Captivating, alluring, and even a little illicit, this book makes for an extraordinary reading experience.

Fragile Anthology edited by Michael Allen Rose

An unsuspecting employee of a moving company is handling a box, when he notices that it moves on its own. What could be in there? Wonderland Award winning author Rose decided to let the 20-sided die decide, as he solicited 20 all new stories by authors well known (Brian Keene and Cynthia Pelayo) and up and coming and asked them each to answer the question. Readers are treated to tales from Horror to Bizarro to Science Fiction and more with each role of the die. What could have been a gimmick instead showcases how an original idea can make for one of the best and honestly, most enjoyable, anthologies of the year.

No One is Safe! By Philip Fracassi

Fracassi’s small press collection of 14 speculative stories, all underpinned with unease, feature fascinating characters in original situations working in tandem to present fascinating stories that explore topics such as filial love, AI, alien life, Hollywood, a bestselling book, a haunted house as the narrator of its own killing spree, and more. Thought provoking, imaginative, and stunning, Fracassi's stories stand out not only because of his range, but also because it is the rare collection without a miss– every story, start to finish- is not to miss.

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca

The fact that LaRocca is on another year end best list for his short fiction, is not a surprise in any way; however, the fact that he continues to find new ways to invoke a mixture of disgust and wonder as he presents stories filled with the pain, trauma, and violence at the center of our most intimate relationships, is remarkable. Too often Horror authors exploit depravity for cheap thrills, and yet LaRocca instead is able to use extreme horror to reveal the most universal truths. On a side note,the last scene of the last story may be the best ending to a collection I have ever experienced.

Click here to read the full article over on their site, with links to every title. Feel free to search any of these on Goodreads as well to find my reviews.

Come back tomorrow, when I will be posting about 2025's upcoming Horror books!

31 Days of Horror: Day 27-- Why I Love Horror by KC Grifant

The last couple of days I have featured two of the debut I reviewed in the October 2023 issue of Library Journal. Today I have the author of a debut I began 2023 by reviewing it in the January 2023 issue of Library Journal, Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger by K.C. Grifant

You can click here to read my full review of this imaginative, fast paced, weird western series opener featuring strong world building and great characters.

But the book alone is not why I asked Grifant to share why she loves horror with you. Grifant is also a part of the StokerCon 2024 San Diego team. And for that reason, she is someone everyone needs to get to know better

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Horror is an Arachnid

by KC Grifant

At first, I thought it was a misplaced Halloween decoration, one of those fuzzy black spiders from Target. 

But then I had the horrific moment of realizing the tarantula—larger than my hand and standing in my backyard—was quite alive.

When I first moved from San Diego from the northeast ten years ago, I was enchanted by the desert vibe, the succulents, and the lack of humidity. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was coming face to face with a massive tarantula in the wild.

Staring at the unexpected wildlife, my latent fear of spiders (that I’ve since mostly outgrown) evoked a deep, shuddering dread. Every terrifying scene from Arachnophobia immediately came to mind—if the spider perceived me to be a threat, would it charge and jump onto my face? Alas, I did not have fire power like Jeff Daniels nor full body protective gear like John Goodman.

I stood a good eight feet away, watching. I was simultaneously rooted to the spot while a primal urge to flee screamed at me to run. I stayed frozen, waiting. Eventually, the tarantula crawled slowly toward some succulents, feeling things out with its feet as it went. This was a spider larger than my hand and I couldn’t help but imagine how fast it could run, how high it could spring, if it decided to attack.

But while I watched its gentle, careful movements as it continued its sojourn across my yard, I gradually saw the beauty in its docile nature. It wasn’t trying to hurt anyone; it was just trying to find a safe hiding place and maybe eat some garden pests. My fear subsided and eventually the tarantula disappeared under an especially overgrown succulent.

When I told people about the sighting, responses were one of two extremes, consisting of essentially: “I’m jealous, that is the coolest thing ever!” or “Burn it all down!”

This experience—and the reactions—is like the genre of horror. Horror can be frightening and beautiful. It means different things to different people. Horror can be pulpy and fun, brutal, goofy, serious. It can consist of the real-world horror of serial killers and pedophiles, dragging us into the darkest corners of the human mind. It can fling us out into the furthest regions of space or keep us trapped in a 6-foot coffin. It disturbs, it makes you think, it nudges you out of your comfort zone and forces you to examine your beliefs, your expectations, your assumptions.

For me, horror is an arachnid: I am terrified but fascinated by it; drawn but also repelled. We all have complex boundaries that dictate if a type of horror story will exhilarate and delight versus upset us in a way that isn’t cathartic. I believe the horror genre can be enjoyable for everyone, once you find that line of what makes you feel deliciously disturbed versus unhappily distressed.

My preferred horror veers toward the fantastical. Serial killers and realistic horrors stress me out way too much, but I will take a creature feature any day. Spiders relate to the subgenres that I love: monsters and sci-fi horror. (It’s no coincidence a lot of alien depictions are insect-like.) Give me all the creative monsters: the experiments gone wrong, the alien invasions, the demon-vampire-zombie mashups, the parasitic entities. Living creatures are so strange and unusual, they are ripe for scary storytelling (see: tardigrades, diving ants, Ophiocordyceps fungus, amblypygi, the flashlight fish, the bobtail squid, Vampirococcus bacteria, etc.).

I especially love the creative remixing of monster horror that underscores a healthy fear of nature and its capabilities: the mega shark attacks in underwater horror; the mind altering- fungi in zombie horror. Monsters show us what can go wrong and are a somber reminder to respect the unknown, tread carefully, and do what you need to to survive.

Naturally, many of my stories star monsters that hunt the unfortunate protagonists. From a shape-shifting Big Foot in disguise, to zombies that seem more human than humans themselves, I adore a good twist on a monster trope.

My fear of arachnids and love of monsters inspired a key antagonist in my debut book, MELINDA WEST: MONSTER GUNSLINGER (Brigids Gate Press, 2023). The first of a series, this supernatural western introduces creatures galore as two monster exterminating gunslingers in the Old West set off on an impossible mission. I had a lot of fun imagining the most bizarre animals possible in this iconic setting while staying in the vein of the type of horror I love—high-stakes, outlandish adventure stories like Buffy, Evil Dead, or The Witcher. In these tales, the evils are (for the most part) contained to discrete and destroyable creatures. But alongside fierce battles, the characters must contend with their own fears and insecurities.

In the book, I strove to push the limits of tropes, both for the genre and for typical monsters. Readers will find enormous flying scorpions, snow kraken, soul-snatching shadows, mega-leeches—and, not surprisingly, plenty of demonic spiders.

31 Days of Horror: Day 19-- Why I Love Horror Featuring Becky LeJeune Client, Alexander James (Giveaway)

From October 15-23, I am bringing you 8 authors, and their agent as part of Why I Love Horror along with 6 giveaways all to be pulled on 10/20 after 5pm Eastern.

Now, longtime readers of this series know that each year I have spotlighted a small press during 31 Days. Well, this year I decided to try something different. I reached out to Becky LeJeune from Bond Literary Agency to see how we can work together to promote Horror authors. 

But why Becky LeJeune? That one is easy to answer. LeJeune has not only come to StokerCon the last few years, but also, she has made a point to come to Librarians' Day. I have gotten to know her over the last few years. I both trust her as a human and trust her to not represent a-holes.  

Look, I was honest with LeJeune and I will be honest with you, I have had pretty good luck with the small presses I have invited over the years (only one turned out to be shady), but with the number of bad actors out there and having exhausted the publishers I feel confident about, I am trying something new.

So for 9 days, we will meet a variety of authors from genre legends to up and comers and even a nonfiction writer. You will be exposed to a wide variety of horror practitioners, all of whom are great for your public library collections.

I know there are some aspiring writers who read this blog as well, so I also asked LeJeune to share what she is looking for in clients, and she said:

I am looking for authors who are passionate about their work but are also open to edits and discussions about how we can potentially improve the work for submission to editors.

I'll reopen to queries January 2024

Over the course of this series I will note which posts come with a chance to win a book. Please see the most recent giveaway for rules. Those rules apply here as well.

I will pull 6 separate winners over the weekend of 10/21. The winner of each book will be pulled in the order in which the titles are presented here on the blog. Also, note that the mailing of the titles will be orchestrated by LeJeune, so no RA for all pen and sticker for these 6 winners. But honestly, I would not have been able to give away this many books with my October schedule, so I think it is a fair tradeoff. More books, less RA of All swag. 

Today I welcome Alexander James, author of The Woodkin, which is our 4th of 6 giveaway being offered this week, this one courtesy of publisher CamCat. This is James' debut novel and it is getting a lot of buzz, including an entire episode of the Talking Scared Podcast with James.

Here is the publisher description via Goodreads:

On the trail, anything can happen.

After secrets and betrayal shatter his marriage, Josh Mallory seeks solace on the Pacific Crest Trail, in the mountains of Washington. On the trail, he’s just another hiker. On the trail, he can outrun the memories. But this backpacking trip swiftly turns grisly when he comes across the body of another hiker who seems to have fallen to his death.

Josh is forced to detour through a small mountain town, where missing hiker posters flutter in the windows, and residents show no interest in hearing about the dead hiker. Unease that something is not quite right chases him back to the trail. But night falls too quickly and in his haste to get away, he becomes trapped on a mountain ridge beneath the light of a full moon. Feeling more and more uneasy, Josh soon realizes that he may not be alone on the mountain, and begins to fear that, like the missing hikers, he won’t make it out alive.

Join the buzz surrounding James and order a copy of The Woodkin for your library today, but first, let's learn why James, also a chef, loves Horror. Spoiler: it involves spices.

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Why I Love Horror
by Alexander James

‘Hey Becky, whatcha doing on Friday night?’

‘Nothing, Sadie, why? You want to do something?’

‘I was wondering if you wanted to join me in having heart palpitations, sweaty palms, adrenaline surges and some light nausea.’

‘Oh, yeah! Sounds like a blast!’

No one says this. Because by all accounts, the physical symptoms of being a horror fan are mostly things that should be avoided. If you isolate them from the experience, they’re all capital-b Bad—most of them, actually, line up quite nicely with being poisoned. And yet millions of people, myself included, rush to the shelves to buy books packed with gut-wrenching scenes of blood, gore, ghosts and ghouls.

Why? If you’ll permit a hypothesis, I have one to offer.

I don’t like spicy food. Ironic, for a chef of twenty-ish years, but there it is; I find most spicy food deeply unpleasant to eat—it burns my mouth for no good reason, and I’m convinced the people who bleat that it ‘adds more flavor’ are self-medicating or lacking certain crucial parts of their brain. But there are people in the world who love spicy food. I’ll watch them in awe as they plow through wings slathered in something called ‘nuclear hellfire death pepper’ sauce, or take bites out of whole peppers with spiciness rating measured in the absurd. They make faces, start sweating, some start crying, dancing around, swearing—and they love it. They’ll go back for a second bite, just for the experience.

Perhaps horror is the spicy food of the literary world. We love something unpleasant for the experience of being turned inside-out, of feeling like we’re dying sometimes. And it can feel like that, believe me; we’ve all woken up in the middle of the night with a nightmare that felt so fresh and sharp that we were convinced we were dying. But the thrill of it keeps us coming back. The acrid bite of a heart-pounding chapter, or the moment in a movie when that low music starts building as someone starts creeping down a dark hallway.

And, of course, there's another factor. I think fear can isolate something beautiful in us.

Every October, my wife and I watch thirty-one days of spooky movies. We’ll huddle ourselves in blankets, turn every light in the apartment on, and spend the next two hours flinching, crying out, and watching the tv through the gaps in our outstretched fingers. And I love it. Because when you’re good and properly scared, there isn’t room for anything else. You’re not thinking about your day at work, or about what time your alarm is going to go off in the morning. You’re in the moment. Sure, your heart is in your throat and you feel like your skin is going to float right off your arms, but you’re there.

Fear simplifies things.

If you’re walking in the woods fifteen miles from the nearest other human, and a heavy stick snaps ten feet into the brush, the first thought in your head isn’t going to be whether or not you can make rent. There are countless examples of people pursuing this simplification; physical exercise, meditation, video games...humans are perpetually looking for a way to make the world still. To stop turning for one tiny, fractious second. A way to focus on one thing and let the rest slide.

Horror is how me and my people do it. It’s the ‘dunk your head in an ice bucket’ way of focusing your world to a single point: survival.

But let’s take it a step behind survival. Let’s put you back in the scenario I drew for you earlier; you’re walking in the woods, miles removed from anyone who can hear you scream—let alone help you—and you hear something snap in the brush. What’s the first thought you have, beyond ‘how do I stay alive through this? When facing something that threatens your existence, what’s the one sticking point that matters? Could be a regret, or a cherished memory, or a triumph that you didn’t know you savored until the chips are down. Horror crystallizes what matters to us.

Horror is also about drawing the reader in. It’s about the tension, added incrementally. Stretching a scene until the reader can see the shadows and the pockets of sparking flame in the burning house, until they can smell the woods closing in around them at night, until they can hear the screaming. Horror slows everything down and lets us appreciate each ticking second shivering past us.

So, for me and my people; why horror? Why not meditation, or hiking, or a big bag of weed?

This, I cannot tell you. I’ve spent several contemplative moments staying awake at night because the movie my wife and I watched for Spooktober is still fresh in my head and I know if I fall asleep right away I’ll have nightmares. By every metric, horror should be unpleasant to behold. None of it is fluffy, ‘make you feel good’, heartwarming stuff. Horror is the genre of bloody head lice, carnivorous ghosts, and abusive parents. Not exactly rom-com material.

Now, you might still be clinging to the notion that somehow, somehow, I’ve built up a tolerance for fear and horror and all things lurking in the night.

I am a horror writer. My debut novel, The Woodkin, is about a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail who falls into the clutches of monsters in the mountains while he’s attempting to flee from his real-life problems by disappearing into the woods. I spend most of my time concocting plots that range from fiendish to genuinely hair-raising, and one might look at that and think ‘this person has a fairly high threshold for fear.’

Wrong. Dead wrong, actually. Neener-neener.

I am potentially the biggest weenie you’ve ever seen. Those Spooktober movies I keep mentioning? I can’t make it through a single one of them without needing a break. I almost cried watching Midsommar, Ari Aster’s masterpiece about a group of young adults who find themselves trapped in rural Sweden for a midsummer celebration.

And yet, I am eyeballs-deep in horror. I write it, I read it, I watch it...almost everything I do these days is related to horror. Does it build a tolerance? For some people, probably. I can see that. For me? Not at all. Which honestly, I see as a blessing more than a curse. I like that I’m easily scared. I don’t need the ‘nuclear hellfire death pepper’ wing to feel the spice; I can get there with regular old hot sauce.

It’s a blessing because I have a good gauge for how scary something is. As a writer, I know the technical ways to make something scarier—slow the pace down, focus on the sensory details, make the sentences shorter...there are tricks that we have to make the reader to creep closer and closer to the words, so that when they jump out and scream, it has the right effect. But I can also get a feel for how scary something is because I don’t need much.

Horror is also about drawing the reader in. It’s about the tension, added incrementally. Stretching a scene until the reader can see the shadows and the pockets of sparking flame in the burning house, until they can smell the woods closing in around them at night, until they can hear the screaming. Horror slows everything down and lets us appreciate each ticking second shivering past us.

Once people get accustomed to the spiciest wing on the planet, they start needing nuclear hellfire death pepper sauce to taste spice at all.

I feel like this is a good place to mention; I don’t have anything against people who like spicy food. That’s not the point I meant to make, writing this.

(But also, come on do you really need to put eight tablespoons of cayenne in that gumbo? Like???)

Okay, enough rambling. Focus up, Alex.

Horror is the spice that sustains us. It strips away the vibrating, distracting, chaotic noise that is everyday life and lets us exist in a single moment with our heart in our throat. There is beauty in the stillness that exists in being scared.

31 Days of Horror: Day 8-- Wy I Love Horror by Sam Rebelein

Similar to yesterday's post, I read Edenville, a debut novel by Sam Rebelein (which came out 10/3/23 from William Morrow), for the October 2023 issue of Library Journal, and after finishing it, I had to invite Sam to the Why I Love Horror family. If you read this bonkers, in all the right ways, novel you would want to talk to Sam more too. 

But first, here is my draft review and some further notes via Goodreads:

Three Words That Describe This Book: Cosmic Horror, Sardonic Tone, Folk Horror

Notes:

• This book is a horror and humor mash up.
• It is a scathing critique of academia, especially MFA programs.
• It is also BONKERS but in all the right ways. It will both appeal to a wider range of readers AND turn some readers off. I think that is a good thing. You have to enter reading it with the understanding that it is over the top on purpose.
• The ending was quite empowering in a way that would make Stephanie from the Books in the Freezer podcast happy. 

Draft Review: Cam is a struggling NYC writer whose debut novel flowed out of him in the aftermath of a terrifying nightmare but it flopppled soon after publication. Quinn, Cam’s girlfriend, is a bartender originally from Upstate NY who believes in the ghost stories from back home. When an eccentric woman from the prestigious Creative Writing Program at Edenville College, near Quinn’s hometown, comes to invite Cam to be a writer in residence, both Quinn and the reader know it is a bad idea, yet Cam accepts. What follows is an entertainingly bonkers tale infused with so much unease and danger that it is literally dripping from Cam’s eyes. It is a story that explores the Cosmic and Folk Horror tropes to their furthest reaches while also providing a scathing critique of academia, especially MFA programs, all wrapped up in one wild ride of a read.

Verdict: Rebelein’s debut confidently leans in on its sardonic tone, mixing humor with over the top Cosmic Horror, a combination that will appeal greatly to fans of We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix, but don’t sleep on the dark academia aspects as also seen in Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas.

And now it is Sam's turn to share why he loves Horror, in an essay which asks who screamed first-- us  into the void or the void at us.

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Why Do I Love Horror? Because It Helps Me Scream

Sam Rebelein

When I was eight, I firmly believed all villains should be melted or eaten or both. I think the art of a brutally satisfying third-act villain death is somewhat lost in film these days, but perhaps that’s because I grew up with stories like Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones, in which villains were melted and eaten all the time. I couldn’t tell you a thing about the film Agent Cody Banks (I haven’t seen it since, like, 2004), but I do remember that, in the third act, a villainous Ian McShane is eaten from the inside out by nanobots. In a kid’s movie.

I think I find this trope invigorating because it insinuates that the antagonistic forces in our own lives will someday find their comeuppance at the hands of something far worse than they are. I find it comforting, knowing there are hungers out there that eat indiscriminately. Powers who don’t care if you’re a CEO or a high-ranking member of the Third Reich. In the end, all flesh tastes the same.

When you’re little, it’s easy to see the world through a cosmic horror lens like this. Almost everything is a power far greater than you, and you could just as easily melt as the next guy.

Like many horror writers I know, I was ironically a huge scaredy-cat as a kid. I wanted to be brave, but I just couldn’t do it. Multiple times, I demanded my parents take me to a haunted house, only to have them inevitably usher me through the entire thing with my eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down my face.

I’ve always loved aquariums and zoos, so big creatures have never stirred in me a feeling of worthlessness, emptiness, or cosmic dread. The specific imagery of the Cthulhu mythos has never been particularly frightening to me. But when I was little, I had constant spirals of anxiety that I would often entertain for months on end. For instance, when I was five, I knew that if I touched the walls of our home, electricity from the wires within would jump out and electrocute me. I was sure this was true, just as I was sure that every stomachache was a mortal illness, and every night I went to sleep, I may never wake up again. Once, for no reason at all, I became suddenly so certain I wasn’t going to see the dawn that I wrote a note to be read at my funeral. The next morning, I was perfectly fine. But I still have the note just in case.

As an adult with significantly more agency than I had when I was eight, I’ve outgrown some of these quaint fears, but others have grown worse. Climate change, insurance companies, deeply-ingrained systemic hate—these are my Elder Gods now. Thousand-eyed beasts with many claws, sleeping just below the surface of our world. Whenever I need to visit the doctor and my provider isn’t in my network, that’s cosmic horror. Any time I hear about Catholic priests continuing to molest leagues of young men, I always feel like there’s very little I can do, personally, to fight that colossal tentacled beast called the Catholic church.

When I was four, I nearly lost my left arm. I smashed my hand through a glass door, tore open the bundle of nerves we apparently all keep in our armpits, and fell back onto the floor. I remember staring up at my mother, on the phone with her sister, suddenly horrified as she discovered what must have been a lot of blood spreading across the floor around me. She was able to call the ambulance quickly, because the phone was already in her hand, and the ambulance happened to be just down the street. The doctors assured her that if either of these things had not been true, I may not have survived.

She’s told me this many times over the years, which, ya know, is nice, but isn’t super helpful for my anxiety. She means to say that grand forces of good are at work in the universe, and have been taking care of me since I was very little. It’s a pleasant enough idea, except angels have always terrified me. If they have the power to summon an ambulance, they also have the power to send it further away.

My greatest fear as a kid was Heaven itself. An endless landscape of un-time, hidden in the fluffy clouds beyond the sky? What the fuck does that mean?? To this day, eternity makes my brain hurt. I imagine Heaven like the crushingly long afternoons I used to spend laying on my bedroom floor, doing nothing. As an only child, I often had to entertain myself, which is how I started writing funny little comics about dinosaurs. But I often just…lay there, too. Imagining stories. Imagining my death. Imagining the cosmic horror of Heaven.

I don’t know when it occurred to me that I could write about my fears the same way I wrote Jurassic Park fan-fic. It wasn’t until college that I started writing horror instead of short funny stories and comedy sketches. I didn’t really read horror before college, either. The closest I came to it as a kid was R.L. Stine, K. A. Applegate, Bruce Coville. Animorphs always freaked me out. The idea that anyone you love could be a meat-suit piloted by a brain slug—that’s cosmic horror for sure. I was a huge fan of Series of Unfortunate Events as well, which is certainly cosmic horror, in a way. How far and how deep do Count Olaf’s tentacles reach? How inept are the adults who are supposed to be our heroes?

When I was fifteen, I fell in love with the Saw franchise. I adored that gritty, rusted world. Everyone was having affairs, each bathroom was shittier than the last (literally). And Jigsaw presided over all. He was the mad god of this land, with an ever-crueler imagination that I found endless fascinating. He was my first horror hero, with his barbed wire and red LED clocks. Maybe it was because his orthodoxy made more sense to me than the stuff I was forced to swallow every Sunday morning. He was honest about the fact that our bodies are not our own. And in Jigsaw’s world, eternity did not exist. You never had more than 90 seconds.

This is why I love horror. It gives us the vocabulary, however twisted, to rebel against ideas that terrify us, even the most well-intentioned, saccharine ones. Horror doesn’t necessarily make us afraid, it allows us to scream into the void about the fears we already have. I was already afraid of most things from the jump. Getting buried alive, spiders, the dark, dying alone, my second-grade math teacher… Being able to read, watch, and write about these topics allows my mind to scream about them in a way that my body does all the time anyway.

Maybe that’s why there seems to be a resurgence of love for works like Goosebumps. My generation grew up reading those stories to alleviate the fears we had back then. Now that we’re adults, blossoming unto an earth that’s drowning and burning simultaneously, we want to remember those old, quaint fears about our neighbors being ghosts, our dad being an unemployed plant-monster, the posters in our bedroom coming to life… These terrors feel so much nicer, now that we’re afraid of so much more.

Which is my way of saying that if you grew up with Goosebumps and Series of Unfortunate Events as well, you should check out my debut novel, Edenville. Here, you’ll find Lovecraftian beings, horrifically narcissistic egos, deeply codependent relationships, and the unstoppable power of elite, liberal arts higher education. All fine examples of cosmic horror.

Edenville is an adventure into a haunted-house land, driven by characters who recognize that they’re in a horror story but decide to roll with it instead of running away, out of the same sick fascination that kept me watching the Saw movies as a high schooler. I wanted their reactions to this world to feel genuine. I wanted to know: How would you really react if you found myself in a Goosebump? Wouldn’t you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes? It’s horror, yes, but it’s also an escape. Because which is scarier: Losing yourself in a rabbit hole filled with monsters, or staying in a reality in which you can get shot while simply dancing?

So come scream with me in Edenville. Scream into the void of being a small breathing thing stuck inside a universal machine. Come feel the forces of evil tear into your flesh, and see the forces of good bring the ambulance to your door in under a minute.

I love writing horror because it helps me articulate my own screams into the void. Which is only fair. I feel like the void screamed at us first.

31 Days of Horror: Day 7-- Why I Love Horror by Emily Ruth Verona

I reviewed Emily Ruth Verona's debut novel, Nightmare on Beacon Street, in the October issue of Library Journal. After finishing the book, I immediately asked her to join the Why I Love Horror family. 

Before I get to Emily' own words, here are my notes and draft review of this excellent novel, out 1/30/24 from Harper Perennial, via Goodreads:

Three Words That Describe This Book: Cinematic, Shifting Time Frame, Anxiety  

Notes: 

• 1993 setting (perfectly done) with VHS and Classic Horror film references from 70s and 80s.Specifically Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.
• It is an ode to Horror films and filmmaking.
• Best read in 1-2 sittings and the pacing and suspense style of storytelling beg you to just get lost in the fear.
• The chapter are clearly labelled in their relation to MIDNIGHT where the story begins and from whose perspective.
• Excellent kids here. Very realistic. POV only Amy and Ben. 
• Final Girl babysitters for the win!

Draft Review: It’s 1993 and a normally sleepy New Jersey town is experiencing a rash of breakins. Amy, an anxious kid who loves the Horror movies from the 70s and 80s, is the local babysitter, and tonight, she is headed to single mom Eleanor’s house to watch Mira, 12, and Ben, 6. But readers know from the first page that this will not be an easy night as the story opens at Midnight, with Ben covered in blood. Told in short chapters that move back and forth in time, and headed with timestamps as the action relates to that fateful Midnight, this intensely unnerving novel moves swiftly, while the well placed flashbacks, provide the necessary background details to flesh out the main characters and anchor the story in its perfectly rendered setting. Both Amy and Ben are authentic narrators, whose different perspectives enhance the full gamut of emotions that this book will elicit. Reader beware, you are going to need to clear your schedule to gulp this one down all at once.

Verdict: Verona’s debut is not only a riveting thriller, but it is also a thoughtful love letter to Horror films like The Shoemaker's Magician by Cynthia Pelayo. However, it will find its most enthusiastic audience with fans of the babysitter final girl trope from any medium such as Halloween (film) and The Babysitter Lives by Stephen Graham Jones.

Now it's Emily's turn, and as she explains below, Horror, specifically its movies, are her real world lifeline. And this guest post has a bonus link to another essay Emily wrote as well. 

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“Why I Love Horror” by Emily Ruth Verona

I live in fear of my own mistakes. Doing the wrong thing. Saying the wrong thing. Turning right when turning left would have resulted in a better outcome. This does not stop me from making mistakes—far from it—but the fear, combined with the hyper-fixations that come with having anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, means I dwell. A lot. I crawl into memories and force myself to relive them, pointing out each humiliating error along the way. I’ve been anxious my whole life—afraid of my own existence. But you know the great thing about horror? You’re allowed to be anxious. You’re allowed to be afraid. Horror is designed to scare you—put you on edge—and through that you can channel your anxieties. That is the beauty of a controlled environment. A horror book or movie isn’t real. It’s fiction. Beginning. Middle. End. It’s a self-contained scare. Similar to a roller coaster, but for people like me who can’t handle rollercoasters.

It is with this notion that I first began to shape the protagonist of my novel Midnight on Beacon Street. Amy is a teenaged babysitter with an anxiety disorder. Living her life scares the hell out of her. But she loves horror movies. They soothe her fears—making her anxiety feel validated while at the same time placating it for an hour or two. She loves horror for the same reasons I love horror. It’s thrilling—exciting—but it’s also safe.

Safe probably isn’t the word everyone associates with the horror genre, but for a lot of people in the horror community it can feel like a safe space. And isn’t that one of the primary functions of fiction? It takes us somewhere, puts us through all kinds of challenges, then sets us back down at the end on our own two feet.

As a fiction writer, I should probably say that my love of horror started with books. It didn’t. I was a voracious reader going up, but my interest at that time was mostly historical fiction. My first introduction to horror came through television and film. From the first time I saw that campfire, I was enthralled with Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? As I got older, I started to walk the horror section at the local video store. I rented Scream. Final Destination. Whatever I could get my hands on. My brother, over a decade older than me, loves horror too and encouraged only encouraged this behavior. Once, I asked for scary movie recommendations and he tried to get me to bring House of a Thousand Corpses to a high school sleepover. I ended up bringing Saw instead.

My mom doesn’t share in this passion for horror, but she does love thrillers and mysteries. I think that’s why I sometimes view horror in a similar vein: as a good mystery. Trying to guess what will happen next and to who and why and how/if someone will make it through to the end. My writing can sometimes walk that line between thriller and horror. Midnight on Beacon Street certainly does. It has become the lens through which I examine the human experience. The fire that forges my anxious soul into strong, sound steel.

Now, I know I’ve just gone on and on about how wonderful it is that horror fiction isn’t real—but I’m now going to contradict myself before there is a real-life component there, too. Horror not only helps people to channel their anxieties, it helps us to look fear in the eye. In early 2021, I published an essay called “A Horror Fan’s Guide to Surviving Womanhood” that explored the ways in which horror movies prepare women for life in a patriarchal society. One example I give in this essay is how my grandfather used to tell my teenaged mom to check the backseat of her car—just in case someone was hiding back there waiting to attack. (He was a worrier. It runs in the family). When my mom gave me this same caution years later, I told her I already knew to check the backseat. Horror movies had taught me.

This is a genre that has been very close to my heart for much of my life. I do not know a version of myself that is not fascinated with the macabre—the terrifying—the boogeyman that can’t really get you because he lives inside the pages of a book. Or on a screen you can shut off whenever you want. Horror does so much for me. It braces me for the real boogeymen of the world. It takes me on a roller coaster ride without ever leaving home. It soothes my anxious brain when nothing else will. It is home for me. Whether I’m reading horror, watching it, or writing it: I know I am home.

Now, dear reader, because I can’t close this out without quoting at least one horror flick, met me drop into my best Ghost Face voice and ask: what’s your favorite scary movie?

31 Days of Horror: Day 4-- Becky's October 2023 Library Journal Column

Yesterday and today, I have been posting access to my draft reviews in the October issues of Library Journal and Booklist. In all I have 12 reviews that are going live this week. Sorry not sorry about exploding your TBR. Today it is my October Library Journal column with 8 titles.

Also, while we are doing this 31 Days thing, don't forget that you can access all of my reviews at any time on the permanent page here.

My Horror Review Column in the October 2023 issue of Library Journal is live. Here, in this post I have gathered the titles with my three words and links to my full draft reviews on Goodreads. Click through for more readalikes and more appeal information.

Since this is post is also part 31 Days of Horror as well, I will also note below which authors will have (or have already had) Why I Love Horror essays, who will has an interview in this issue, and upcoming giveaways. 

Speaking of giveaways, the first of the month is coming tomorrow, and it is actually 2 books, both which have been reviewed by me, and one is a finished copy. 

In the meantime, you have now been alerted to 12 tittles over the las 2 days that you need to get ordered for your collections. 

Now the 8 October 2023 reviews:

First this month's STARS:

• This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer [Survival Horror, unrelenting tension, rock climbing frame]
• I will post my interview with Kiefer and offer a giveaway of this exception debt on 10/26.
• A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper [thought provoking, Weird, small town horror]
• I will be having a giveaway of my ARC tomorrow
• Here is Hailey Piper's Why I Love Horror essay from 2021

And the other 6 excellent titles:

• Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase [strong world building, compressed time frame, psychological horror]
• Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes [Historical Horror, oppressive dread, strong sense of place]
• Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine ["horrifyingly banal," multiple layers of discomfort, engaging narration]
• Why I Love Horror essay coming from Moraine on 10/25
• Midnight On Beacon Street by Emily Ruth Verona [Cinematic, Shifting Time Frame, Anxiety]
• Why I Love Horror essay coming from Verona on 10/7
• Edenville by Sam Rebelein [Cosmic Horror, Sardonic Tone, Folk Horror]
• Why I Love Horror essay coming from Rebelein on 10/8
• The House of Last Resort by Christopher Golden [Haunted House, family secrets, immersive world building]

31 Days of Horror: Day 3-- Becky's Booklist Horror Reviews in the October 1, 2023 Issue

Over the next two days, I will be posting access to my draft reviews in the October issues of Library Journal and Booklist. In all I have 12 reviews that are going live this week. Sorry not sorry about exploding your TBR. I begin today with Booklist and my draft reviews with bonus appeal information.

Also, while we are doing this 31 Days thing, don't forget that you can access all of my reviews at any time on the permanent page here.

I will begin with the two stars. 

STAR 

Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror

Edited by Ellen DatlowOct. 2023. 448p. illus. Titan, $27.99 (9781803363264). REVIEW. First published October 1, 2023 (Booklist).

Datlow, the most award winning editor in speculative fiction, comes through once again, with an anthology of 18, original stories by some of the biggest names in Horror today. The contributors were asked to add their voice to the human tradition of telling ghost stories during the darkest days of the year. The resulting range of scares is as wide as the topics considered. From a gory tale of Austrian folklore to open the book by Christopher Golden, to Cassandra Khaw’s defiant stand against the world, to the existential dread and wood demons of Josh Malerman’s Finnish solstice rituals, and even a few hot and bright, Australian set nightmares, there is something here for every reader. However, it is the gut punch of Tananarive Due and Stepen Graham Jones’ stories which tower above the rest and cannot be missed. The inclusion of a note by each author at the end of each story and the creepy illustrations at the start of each tale, both enhance the reading experience. Pair it with Hark! The Herald Angels Scream, edited by Golden to spice up your Winter Holiday themed displays for years to come.

Further appeal: This is a holiday anthology that completely embraces the spirit of the season without being Christmas focused. Most of the series's are set around Dec 20- early January. I really did love the multiple southern hemisphere set stories as a northerner. So cool to have hot holiday stories. 

The TOC is diverse in every way from identity of writers to how they write to what themes are explored. Every story was solicited by Datlow and they are ALL original to this anthology. It features some of the best and most popular Horror authors right now and will be in high demand by fans of hose authors and those looking for a different type of holiday season read.

I cannot get Due or Graham Jones' stories out of my head. Due's story in particular is set in the world of the story she wrote for Other Terrors and in her story notes, she hints that these characters need a novel (!!!). Graham Jones' story is perfect for fans of The Babysitter Lives. 

I am very tough on Datlow edited anthologies and do not give them all a star, but this one is worth all the stars. It will be a library holiday season and Halloween staple for years to come. 

Three Words That Describe This Book: Holidays, All Original Stories, Range of Scares

Readalikes: Every person in the TOC, you can suggest their books. Golden's Road of Bones specifically, is an excellent winter set story. The link above goes to my review of the other holiday anthology.

Also, see this post by me about the tradition of reading Horror during the Winter Solstice.

STAR

Under Her Eye: A Women In Horror Poetry Collection Volume 2

Edited by Lindy Ryan and Lee MurrayNov. 2023. 200p. Black Spot, paper, $14.95 (9781645481379); e-book (9781645481386). REVIEW. First published October 1, 2023 (Booklist).

Horror poetry is having a moment. Readers are discovering the format as their go-to place to elicit the dark emotions of the genre that they crave. With its brevity and free form style, poetry twists words in ways that viscerally amplify the terror. Award winning editors, Ryan and Murray, have taken the unease up another notch by inviting 112 poets, all women and nonbinary femmes, to contribute a poem focused on domestic violence, Horror in what should be the safest spaces. The individual poems are brutally honest and poignant. Ranging in length, style and topic, each gives readers more than they expect, over and over again. Three standouts are by Ali Jiang, EF Schrader, and Emily Ruth Verona, whose “Prime Real Estate Opportunity,” uses footnotes to chilling perfection. The volume benefits the Pixel Project, a global non-profit whose mission is to raise awareness for the cause to end violence against women. They have provided a list of resources in the back of the book which raises its stakes from merely providing a good read to offering a lifeline and hope to those suffering in silence. Consider shelving a copy in the 300s and one in your Horror collections. 

Further Appeal: This book is hard to read, but that is the point. It is shining a light on domestic abuse to make people pay attention. You also need to have this book In your collections because of the resources provided b y Pixel Project-- worldwide contacting. Having this book on your shelves could literally save someone's life. Get it with other resources for those suffering from domestic abuse. Don't hide it in poetry. And don't tell me you can't change where it is selves, that all poetry goes with poetry, because that is a self imposed rule, one that does a disservice to why someone would read this book, that says you don't care about helping someone save their own life. Yes, I am being overly dramatic, but it is to show you how dumb this argument is. You will not go to library jail if you make a cataloging choice that is not the automatic default. Trust me, I have been doing this for years at the school library and it has had amazing results-- and no one has been fired or sent to library jail, rather he opposite, the kids and teachers are finding books easier.

Three Words That Describe This Book: visceral, poignant, brutally honest

Readalikes: Tomorrow, I will have a review of Emily Ruth Verona's debut novel, so keep an eye out for that. The TOC will direct you to many women Horror writers who have stories and novels as well as poetry. This anthology can be used by you, the library worker, to help readers find more horror poetry as well.

But specifically, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, a collection of true crime poetry about missing women by Cynthia Pelayo is hard to read, but a perfect readlaikes.

Please also check out the work of editors Lindy Ryan and Lee Murray who I wrote about in this article about the best horror anthologists for The Lineup.

I reviewed the first book in this series here.

The Daughters of Block Island

By Christa Carmen

Oct. 2023. 332p. Amazon/Thomas & Mercer, paper, $16.99 (9781662512988); e-book (9781662512971). REVIEW. First published October 1, 2023 (Booklist).

Blake heads to Block Island, 14 miles off Rhode Island, to confront her birth mother. Arriving in a winter rainstorm, she heads to a haunted mansion, now a Bed and Breakfast, where she sets out to untangle the complicated history of her family. Blake feels like the heroine in a Gothic novel, that is, until she is murdered, but not before she got a letter off to the sister she never knew. A few weeks later, Thalia returns to Block Island, the home she left behind ten years ago, to finish what the sister she never met started. However, whoever silenced Blake will stop at nothing to keep the secrets of the island and its generations of sisters quiet. Told in two parts, from Blake’s and Thalia’s perspectives, no one is safe in this compelling and atmospheric thriller that pays homage to classic Gothic novels while still adding something fresh to the beloved genre. An easy sell to fans of the Brontes but also, those who enjoy the creepy, psychological suspense of Simone St. James or Gwendolyn Kiste's LAMBDA award-winning Reluctant Immortals.

Further Appeal: This is a classic Gothic fiction fan's dream of a book. It is consciously a book about books and a book about storytelling itself. Everything Gothic is perfectly rendered. It is Rebecca dialed up to 10. 

Other themes explored, family secrets (so many both secrets and families interconnected in those secrets), addiction issues, lesbian MC. The setting is the biggest character: the island, the weather, the house, its place on a cliff, all the other buildings. Carmen double down on the atmosphere and it shows; it enhances the reading experience. 

The novel also has some modern psychological suspense twists that work very well with the Classic Gothic frame.

This book will have wide appeal to a huge swath of library patrons.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Gothic, Psychological Suspense, Atmospheric

Readalikes: Of course the dozens of books mentioned in the book-- the classic Gothic titles. Jennifer McMahon is another good option here. I would not suggest to every fan of Mexican Gothic or The Hacienda though, because those have supernatural monsters at the center of the story; this does not.

I would like to note, I called out Carmen's story in Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror edited by Mark Matthews as amazing. I said it would be on year end best lists, and I was correct. It was nominate for a Stoker this past year. This is Carmen's first novel, an it is with Amazon so it will have wide distribution. You need to be aware of it.

Speaking of her publisher, she is joining Zoje Stage who I would also list as a readalike, especially Mothered, which I reviewed here.

Root Rot & Other Grim Tales

By Sarah Read Oct. 2023. 300p. Bad Hand, paper, $15.99 (9798988128625). REVIEW. First published October 1, 2023 (Booklist). 

Bram Stoker Award winner Read returns with a collection that more than lives up to its promise of providing “grim tales,” 18 stories that use both fairy tale frames of yore like dark woods and wishes granted and familiar tropes from science fiction and fantasy such as parallel worlds or an uninhabitable NYC. Each story is original, terrifying, and compelling but when Read pits what readers think is coming against the extremely sinister tone at the heart of each tale, it is as if she is stabbing their tender spots* with a knife, twisting it, and leaving it to dangle long after the last page is turned. Two of the best examples are “Root Rot,” which presents the Tooth Fairy in her full body horror glory and “Terror Bay Resort '' set in the 26th Century, in a heated Arctic, at the Franklin Expedition museum. Suggest freely to those who enjoy dark, immersive, and character driven speculative fiction that firmly grabs its readers as written by Cynthia Pelayo, Cassandra Khaw, and Lauren Beukes.

Further Appeal: That asterisk above was a note to my editor which asked her to keep the phrase "tender spots" because the visceral image it invokes is a great reflection of the tone of many of the stories.

I really enjoyed how half the book is nostalgic, fairy tales of yore esque and then the second half is terrors of the world to come, grim tales for the future. But, I wish there was a break in the book to denote that, a way for the reader to know the switch is coming. 

The title story is A LOT in a very good way. "Wish Wash" was one of my favorites in the Shirley Jackson Award winning Anthology, The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors.

Sinister is the key word here. In fact, you could describe this book in 1 word it is sinister. Even the settings are sinister, especially the future ones, such as an uninhabitable NYC overtaken by sky whales, or a melting arctic where the Franklin expedition's lost ship is now visible and a tourist site. The illustrations enhance the sinister tone. And that cover! It will draw readers to the book without you having to say a thing.

Some of the stories here are are among the best I have read this year. Read, a librarian as well as an award winning and talented writer, is someone you need to be aware of. Order this collection from the award winning small press.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Sinister, discomfort, immersive 

Readalikes: The three authors above have lots of options and all capture the tone and imagination of Read's work. The aforementioned anthologies, The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors, edited by Doug Murano is a good readalike here. Actually all anthologies edited by Murano are a good choice here.

Also Read's debut, The Bone Weaver's Orchard, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel is a great read.