Tag Archive for: horror fiction

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

For as long as she can remember, Alex Stern has been able to see ghosts. For most of her life it has been an inconvenience at best, but now it has gotten her a fresh start in life and a free ride to one of the most prestigious colleges in the world.

Last summer Alex woke up in a hospital bed after surviving a horrific attack at her home. There she is visited by Dean Elliot Sandow; he knows about her ability to see ghosts and he wants to offer her a position in one of the nine houses, secret societies on Yale’s campus.

Eight of the houses are essentially fraternities, run by the children of the rich and powerful – who were themselves members of these houses. Within these groups, members perform magical rituals: some predict the future, others change themselves into animals. In one Alex witnesses a famous musician undergoing a ritual to sing more beautifully.

The ninth house, Lethe, serves as a watchdog for these other houses. Lethe makes sure their rituals do not get out of hand and that the societies do not reveal themselves to the general public. Alex’s abilities will make her a valuable asset in this group.

All of the members have their own part to play within Lethe. Alex is an apprentice member, working under the direction of Darlington – Daniel Arlington – an upperclassman known and respected around campus. Darlington went missing earlier in the year when Alex saw him pulled into a portal to hell. Alex is driven to bring him back, despite everyone telling her that he is dead.

Lethe also has an Oculus, someone dedicated to recording and gathering information, and the Centurion, a member of the local police who can alert them if a crime scene seems magical or cover up something that the houses will deal with on their own.

Initially, Alex feels isolated in this group. Darlington is jealous of her innate ability to see ghosts. Pamela Dawes, the Oculus, seems offended by Alex’s presence. And the Centurion, Detective Turner, suspects that Alex may have been involved in the grisly murder she escaped in California.

Alex herself is difficult to get along with. She actively opposes the polite facade that has kept the balance between the houses and she is disgusted by the rich kids who play with magic without understanding the dangers. Back in California she was a high school dropout with an abusive drug dealer boyfriend. She knows this is an entirely different world, but she refuses to bow to its conventions.

Midway through her first semester, Alex is sent to the scene of a possible homicide. A young woman from New Haven has been found murdered. Detective Turner is eager to turn Alex away, the woman and her boyfriend are known criminals and he is already in custody, but Alex cannot shake the feeling that something is off.

As she follows up on her suspicions, Alex uncovers a string of similar murders going back decades. And if these are some kind of secret ritual gone wrong, Alex is going to get to put a stop to it.

Bardugo is an expert at crafting a satisfying antihero, Alex is a protagonist that the reader cannot entirely trust. She is complicated, secretive, and more likely to punch someone in the gut than walk away. Alex has had a hard life, but she will do anything to protect her friends – whatever the cost.

Leigh Bardugo’s NINTH HOUSE is a bit of a puzzle box. The novel jumps around through time; flashing back to scenes from Alex’s training with Darlington and keeping certain details hidden from the reader until just the right moment. There are layers of mysteries that build over the course of the story. Most of those mysteries are concluded by the end of the book; others are resolved in Hell Bent, the sequel that came out earlier this year.

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Book review by Alyssa Berry, Technical Services Librarian

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

As the title implies, MEXICAN GOTHIC by SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA is an homage to the gothic fiction novels of the 20th century, but one set deep in the mountains of Mexico rather than the English countryside.

Noemí Taboada is the strong-willed, somewhat-spoiled daughter of a wealthy family. She spends her free time reveling in the glamor and decadence of 1950’s Mexico City – dating men her father doesn’t approve of, and enjoying life.

As the book opens, Noemí has been summoned home from a costume party by her father. Expecting to be reprimanded for her choice of date, Noemí is surprised that her father instead wants to talk about her cousin Catalina.

Catalina was recently married following a whirlwind romance. She kept her relationship with Virgil Doyle a secret from everyone, and the two went back to Virgil’s ancestral home as soon as they were wed.

Noemí’s father has received a frantic, confused letter from Catalina claiming that the Doyles are poisoning her and mentioning ghosts. Fearing that either Catalina is in real danger, or that she may need some psychological help that her new husband refuses to provide, Mr. Taboada asks Noemí to visit her cousin and report back about the situation.

Arriving at the crumbling mansion known as High Place, Noemí is immediately at odds with the Doyle family. Virgil is brusque, dismissive, and unhelpful. Virgil’s aunt, Florence, keeps Noemí from visiting Catalina, who she claims has tuberculosis. And the Doyle patriarch, Howard, talks almost exclusively about eugenics.

Now a sickly, bedridden old man, Howard also tells Noemí about his deceased wives. They were a pair of sisters, both wards of Howard when he came to Mexico. He married the elder sister initially, but she died within the year, leaving Howard to marry the younger sister.

From one of the local people in town, Noemí learns about the fate of Howard’s children. Years ago, Howard’s daughter Ruth had fallen in love with a local young man. When the young man went missing following her father’s disapproval of the match, Ruth took a shotgun into the house and shot every member of her family, including herself.

Howard survived his gunshot wound, Florence and young Virgil were not in the house at the time; the three of them were the only remaining members of the Doyle family.

Noemí’s only ally at High Place is Florence’s son, Francis. It is through him that she learns much of the history of the mansion and the Doyle family.  He tells Noemí about his family’s mining business that built their fortune, which has since dried up, and the English cemetery that Howard had constructed – with dirt brought over from Europe – where the deceased Doyles have been laid to rest.

When Noemí is finally allowed to see her cousin, Catalina seems relatively normal. She does seem weak and tired, but more coherent than she was in her letter. Until Catalina tells Noemí that the Doyles can hear her through the walls.

Concerned for her cousin, but unable to convince Virgil to get help for her, Noemí resolves to leave High Place and get help. Up to this point, the Doyles have been creepy and off-putting, but as Noemí attempts to leave the mansion, things begin to get a lot more supernatural.

Moreno-Garcia borrows elements from the classics of gothic fiction, from Flowers in the Attic to Dracula. MEXICAN GOTHIC is a creepy, atmospheric novel. The reader feels a growing dread as the history of the Doyle family is revealed, and as they – along with Noemí – come to understand just how much danger the Taboada cousins are in.

Noemí herself is not a traditional amateur detective. She is focused, driven, and stubborn. But while she has the fashion sense and charisma of a teenage sleuth like Nancy Drew, she has no real interest in solving the case. Her whole focus is on helping her cousin, not piecing together any mysteries.

It is an unusual book, and there is more going on below the surface than I can convey. Once you finish the novel, I recommend seeking out interviews with the author – she has a lot to say about this book, and about the real mining town in central Mexico that inspired the novel.

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The Last American Vampire by Seth Grahame-Smith

THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE by SETH GRAHAME-SMITH is an alternate history of America, from the colonies to the present, told by a person who experienced it all: Henry Sturges, the last American vampire.

Henry Sturges has been a major player in many key moments of American history. He came to America as a newly-married twenty-five-year-old Englishman, human and ready to start a new life. He and his wife were members of the Roanoke Colony, who built a fortified settlement in what is now North Carolina. Roanoke is infamously referred to as the Lost Colony – because its more than one hundred inhabitants disappeared without a trace.

The Roanoke Colony, including Henry’s wife, was completely wiped out by a vampire who had come to the New World in order to control it.  He is impressed by Henry’s spirit and decides to save him by turning him into a vampire.

The life of Henry Sturges follows the flow of American history very closely. He watches from a distance, trying not to attract attention, living independently from it until his friendship with Abraham Lincoln convinces him to take part.

THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE is the sequel to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which details Henry’s involvement in Lincoln’s life – from the time when he was a young man to his assassination. The first book focuses on the events surrounding Civil War, with both sides backed by vampires.

Henry is one of the Union vampires, but the Union does end with the war. Vampires like Henry continue to fight to protect mankind at large. They still call themselves the Union far into the 20th century, though their numbers have dwindled considerably.

The novel jumps around through Henry’s history. The conceit of the book is that Grahame-Smith (whose fictional counterpart narrates the book) is pulling from diaries that Henry has kept through the years; he is picking out the most interesting parts and building a narrative of the power struggle behind the scenes of American politics – the strings of which are being pulled by vampires.

Henry spends time in both America and Europe meeting many notable figures throughout his life. Authors like Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe make appearances, along with John D. Rockefeller and Nikola Tesla. Henry and his allies fight against the villains of history, including Jack the Ripper and Rasputin – who are both vampires themselves.

As a result of his involvement as an advisor to Abraham Lincoln, Henry is coerced into working for multiple presidents and repeatedly conscripted into armies. The American government knows exactly what Henry is, and they rarely hesitate to use him. America wouldn’t be the same without Henry Sturges.

The book is filled with photographs, which add to its sense of historical weight. It contains letters, telegraph transpositions, newspaper clippings, and email. Excerpts directly from Henry’s diary are also used liberally, to get a sense of what Henry was feeling at the time.

The pseudo-realism of the book is very engaging, and although the book looks like nonfiction – right down to its footnotes – it reads like a novel.

The line between real and imaginary is thinnest at this time of year, and I think there are few better ways to embrace that than by reading supernatural fiction. This book is action-packed and fun, while also being somewhat gruesome (as most vampire fiction tends to be). So, if you’re looking for something to quench your thirst for the supernatural, give THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE a try.

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Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Teenage sleuths are all well and good, but what becomes of them when they grow up?  In Edgar Cantero’s “Meddling Kids” we meet the Blyton Summer Detective Club – a group of grown-ups who spent the summers of their formative years solving mysteries in Blyton Hills, Oregon.

Thirteen years ago, they solved their final mystery: the case of the Sleepy Lake monster. Two boys, two girls, and one dog put a man in jail for impersonating a monster and attempting to steal the fortune said to be hidden in a local abandoned mansion. On that fateful night, they solved their case, but the deeper mysteries of the mansion have haunted them ever since.

Now in their mid-twenties, the four members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club have gone their separate ways; they lead broken, unstable lives in various parts of the country:

  • Peter Manner, the leader, moved to Hollywood and became a famous actor, but he was fighting his own demons and killed himself before the action of this book.
  • Nate Rogers, the resident supernatural expert, has spent the intervening years checking himself in and out of mental institutions. He is currently at an institution in Massachusetts, where he is hoping to rid himself of a hallucination of Peter’s ghost.
  • Kerri Hollis, the brains of the group, moved to New York where she works at a bar, plagued by nightmares and unmotivated to finish college.
  • Andrea (Andy) Rodriguez – the muscle – is a vagrant with active warrants out for her in multiple states, and an as-yet-unrequited, decade-old crush on Kerri.
  • Rounding out the group is Kerri’s Weimaraner, Tim, the great-grandson of the original mystery-solving dog.

Andy is convinced that something has cursed them, and that solving the mystery of the abandoned mansion is the only way for them to move on with their lives. She convinces Kerri and Nate to join her, and the three humans, one dog, and one ghost/hallucination make their way to the house in Blyton Hills where everything began.

“Meddling Kids” is a high-energy romp, complete with wacky hijinks and suspicious townspeople. It has mysterious messages, intricate traps, and secret passages. But it is also a horror story with actual monsters for our grown-ups to battle – and an evil force waiting to be set free. It’s Scooby-Doo in the world of Cthulhu.

The story moves forward at break-neck speed; the mystery getting more complicated at every turn. Cantero’s love of pop culture beats at the heart of this book, though some references are more subtle than other – I’m looking at you, Zoinx River.

Cantero bounces back and forth between traditional dialog and movie-script-style dialog (complete with stage directions) in a way that I found compelling. He plays with language throughout the book, making it clear that he had as much fun writing it as the reader does reading it.  I look forward to seeking out more of Edgar Cantero’s work, and I hope that you give “Meddling Kids” at try.

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Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

Reading slumps aren’t uncommon. Lately, I’ve been starting books, only to return them unfinished. In times like these, I often turn to short stories to help me get back into the groove. Short stories take the pressure off of reading. I don’t have to track characters and plots for hundreds of pages. And this is where author Brian Evenson really shines. In his latest release, he builds worlds and characters in only a few pages.

SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD is a fairly short collection of stories at just over 200 pages. However, the collection contains 22 stories. I don’t have the space to review each story, but I’ve picked three that I think best represent this collection as a whole.

In the titular story, a daughter goes missing. Her father, Drago, searches the house but can’t find the little girl. Drago refuses to call the police for reasons the reader doesn’t immediately understand. But, as his search expands to include the surrounding neighborhood, the truth about Drago and his daughter is revealed. He will not call the police because he is living under a false identity. Why? Well, that would spoil the story.

“Room Tone” — Filip wants nothing more than to finish shooting his film. The only problem? The house he’s been using for filming has been sold and the new owner won’t let Filip in to complete the project. Filip isn’t happy with the sound of the film; the background noise is all wrong. He just needs in the house long enough to record a few minutes of silence. How far will he go to finish his film?

“The Hole” — A mission to explore a planet goes horribly wrong for those visiting the new world. Klim and the rest of the crew must search for Rurik, who has gone missing. Kim finds Rurik at the bottom of a large hole. There are only two problems: 1) Klim is also at the bottom of the hole and 2) Rurik is clearly dead, but still moving and talking. Can Klim escape? Even if he does, will he ever be the same?

Don’t go into this collection thinking you’re going to get answers. Much of the effectiveness of Evenson’s writing comes from what isn’t explicitly described in the stories. Evenson focuses in on the world of each story. With short stories, authors don’t have a lot of room for world-building. The challenge then becomes making these brief glimpses into the world fully believable. And this is where Evenson really shines.

Every story in the collection takes place in a distinct setting, each with its own history and set of rules. Even though several stories have similar themes or settings, Evenson made each one distinct. There seem to be nods to classic authors like Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson. (In fact, Everson was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award in 2017.)

Evenson explores several themes throughout the collection. Identity and sense of self are perhaps the two most common themes. Can we change who we are? Is identity more than skin deep? Fair warning for the faint of heart, Evenson explores these ideas in a very literal sense. At times, he even uses a genre known as ‘body horror.’ If you’re not familiar with this genre, think of the movies The Fly and The Thing

Overall, I think this is a solid short story collection. Evenson’s masterful world-building goes a long way in making these stories successful. The stories overlap two of my favorite genres, Sci-Fi and horror, and though there aren’t any happy endings, this collection will make you think about bodies and identity in a whole new way.

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Book review by: Leslie Hayes

I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

I’m a horror fan. Well, a lightweight horror fan. I much prefer horror stories I can explain away so I can sleep at night. If I haven’t watched a haunted videotape, the ghost can’t possibly get to me. Right? Right?! So when I heard John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of the vampire novel Let the Right One In, had published a new horror novel called I Am Behind You, I had to give it a read.

On a peaceful morning in the Swedish countryside, four families wake to discover they’ve been transported from their campground to a grassy plain with no landmarks, trees, animals, or cell phone reception. The group, made up of wildly different people, must figure out how to survive long enough to escape. As they try to find a way out, the group discovers that the peaceful countryside they’ve been transported to is full of danger.

Donald is quick-tempered and obsessed with firearms, while his wife Majvor is even-tempered and kind. Will Donald snap and kill someone? Stefan, Carina, and their son Emil appear to be an average family, but Carina’s past haunts her.. Lennart and Olaf are just two guys on a camping trip. They may seem like normal farmers, but there may be more to them than it seems. Finally, Peter, Isabelle, and their daughter Molly certainly seem like the perfect family, but there is something darker underneath. The secrets carried by each group member threaten to destroy everyone.

With no apparent escape available, the group turns to survival. They pool resources and try to explore their surroundings. They begin to encounter strangers in the strange countryside, but you can probably guess that these strangers are dangerous. As with many horror books, it’s difficult to write about the events of the story without spoiling it. The dangers that begin to surface are nothing, however, compared to the dangers the group members pose to each other.

As is also frequently the case, there are questions that simply aren’t answered. Where is the group actually at? How did they get there? What in tarnation is going on?! There’s plenty of content to analyze in any literature course.

Though some aspects of the story didn’t quite hit home, they seemed to stem from cultural differences. For instance, the songs of Peter Himmelstrand feature prominently in this novel. (In fact, the novel’s original title is Himmelstrand.) For whatever reason, the only songs that play on the campers’ radios are songs written by Himmelstrand, who was a popular Swedish songwriter in the 1960s and 70s. Perhaps if I knew more about Himmelstrand and his place in Swedish pop culture, this plot point in the book would make more sense to me.

I still really enjoyed the book. The characters were very well-written; I hated who I was supposed to hate, which is a huge hallmark of effective characterization for me. Perhaps my favorite character is Benny, a beagle. Several portions of the story are told from Benny’s perspective. Lindqvist doesn’t get overly sentimental when writing from the perspective of Benny, which helps make this viewpoint feel more realistic than other fictional animals I’ve read.

A little bit of research revealed that there are two other books that are part of this universe Lindqvist has created. Maybe, if those are translated into English, I’ll get some resolution to the bigger questions I have about what happens throughout the pages of I Am Behind You.

Overall, this was a really good read. I only needed two nights to get through it, which is pretty quick for a book that runs just over 400 pages. If you’re looking for a tense, scary read, I Am Behind You is probably right for you. I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for the translations of the two follow-up books in Lindqvist’s series.

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Book review by: Leslie Hayes

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

Stories about haunted houses have been told for thousands of years. According to my research, one of the first written haunted house stories comes from Pliny the Younger, sometime between 61 and 115 AD. Stories about hauntings have stuck with us for thousands of years, turning the comfort of our homes into entities with minds of their own. This is what Scott Thomas sets out to do in KILL CREEK.

Sam McGarver is a horror writer without a story to tell. He spends his days lecturing students on the craft of writing, but hasn’t published a novel in years. His marriage is falling apart, and he’s constantly haunted by his mysterious but gruesome past. But then, McGarver is approached by a man who calls himself Wainwright.

Wainwright, host of an online show about horror, invites McGarver and three other authors to spend the night in the haunted Finch House and do an interview about their craft. The other authors are Daniel Slaughter, a devout Christian who writes soul-saving horror for teens; Sebastian Cole, elder statesman and the most prolific author; and T. C. Moore, the lone woman of the group.

Drawn together by forces they don’t quite understand, the four authors meet in the supposedly haunted Finch House for the Halloween-night interview. Wainwright’s interview delves into the deeply personal, becoming more of an attack on the authors than a proper interview. As each author retires for the evening, they confront personalized evils, courtesy of the house.

After leaving the house, they find themselves haunted. Slaughter’s daughter dies in an accident, for which he blames himself. Moore is tortured by her abusive past. Cole dreams of a lost lover. And McGarver’s past returns again and again. Each author can only find solace when they write. And, unbeknownst to one another, they’re all writing the same plot. Drawn back to the house by the horrors in their own stories, the authors must face the evil they’ve awoken.

Each of the author-characters in the book depicts a specific genre of horror fiction and are based on big names of horror writing. Touches of R. L. Stine, Clive Barker, H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Billy Martin (published as Poppy Z. Brite), and others shine through in the personalities of the four characters. Because of this, the characters, though perhaps bordering on stereotypes.

During a lecture about horror, McGarver outlines four aspects of a successful horror story: 1) Emanation from a single location, 2) Sense of forbidden history, 3) Atmosphere of decay and ruin, and 4) Corruption of the innocent. These are precisely the four elements Thomas puts his characters through in Kill Creek. However, Thomas seems to depend on readers believing that these elements are in place, never quite making them jump off the page.

What gives horror stories power is repetition. Stories must be repeated and feared in order to have power. Thomas relies on this fear-repetition cycle to keep readers engaged in the story. I wanted to know what fears the characters have, how the house will exploit them, and, ultimately, what forces lurk in Finch House.

But I wasn’t scared for the characters. I didn’t have trouble falling asleep after reading this book, which is one of my top markers of a successful scary story. In my opinion, the best haunted house stories feature the house as one of the main characters. But, for me, this is one area in which Thomas falls flat. The house simply didn’t scare me.

The first half of the book was hard to get through. The writing feels more amateur than the second half. For example, Thomas references Moore’s “black mane of hair” every time she appears on the page. She is repeatedly described in terms of her sex appeal. Naturally, the male characters are never discussed in such a way. Also, the various personality traits and tics of each person are overemphasized. McGarver grabs his scarred and tattooed arm at least a dozen times.

The climactic battle between the authors and the house didn’t feel dangerous and tense. My willingness to suspend disbelief stopped about halfway through. Yes, it’s a horror story with supernatural entities, but I still need it to be believable. Without spoiling too much, hatchets do the sort of damage that can’t just be walked off.

So, if Kill Creek isn’t spectacularly written, what kept me reading? The same thing that forces the authors in the story to show up to the interview in the first place: I wanted to know what was haunting Finch House.

My critique doesn’t fall in line with other reviews out there. In fact, Kill Creek won the award for the American Library Association’s Horror Book of 2017. But this just goes to show that I’m one reviewer with one opinion. Plenty of people out there really enjoyed this book. If haunted house stories are for you, then you should give Kill Creek a try.

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Book review by: Leslie Hayes