Hello!

It has been a little while since I have spoken through this forum. A combination of starting a new job and actively trying to mix up reading all the new great horror stories with those that have been on my list for years has meant that I just have not been reviewing so much as of late.

I have certainly been reading though.

62 books read up until the day I am writing this, the apt date of Friday 13^th, and 62 books is by far the most reading I have ever done in a year, and what a great year of horror it has been.

Before moving into my list I would be amiss to not mention some honourable mentions that absolutely deserve your time and appreciation: Memorials by Richard Chizmar; Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy; So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison; Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle; The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones; A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock, Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes.

10: This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

Four ambitious climbers hike into the Kentucky wilderness. Seven months later, three mangled bodies are discovered. Were their deaths simple accidents or the result of something more sinister?

Adventure horror is one of my favourite niches of the genre and This Wretched Valley carries all the hallmarks of a modern-day adventure horror classic. Honestly this is a very easy one to sell: Rock climbers go missing in the wilderness, leaving 3 mangled bodies and 1 missing; what more is there to say? As far as impressive debuts go this one is certainly up there. This is your classic horror where things slooowly start to go wrong, until all of a sudden everything is wrong. Yet Kiefer earns the madness that she yields like a bloody knife by the end of the novel, lacing every page with dread that plagues your thoughts and has you racing to the story’s bloody end. Just don’t look down.

9: Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen

Punctuated by scenes from Nick’s adolescent years, when memories of a queer awakening and a shadowy presence stalking the farm altered the trajectory of his life forever, Sacrificial Animals explores the violent legacy of inherited trauma and the total collapse of a family in its wake.

Speaking of impressive debuts, Sacrificial Animals is just that. A delicious slow burn of a novel that first seeps under your skin, and then into your heart, Pedersen’s writing is equally as gorgeous as the content of the story is dread inducing. Fair warning this is a tough read at parts. A family saga with an abusive patriarch at the head of the table, ruling over his rotting empire and two sons. Kailee Pedersen’s writing dazzles even in the bleakness that she portrays, producing a story laced with dread, decay, and shrouded in subtlety. Pedersen masterfully interweaves timelines from the past and present to curate an honest picture of a fractured family in all its dreadful glory.

8: Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?” 

This is a must read for any fans of the possession sub-genre. Incidents masquerades as a tale of ghosts, hauntings and possessions, and then packs a punch with unexpected brute force. Malerman has perfected the art of the literary ‘jump scare’, and there are plenty of those in this novel, but where the story really shines is its ability to place us in the shoes of an 8-year-old child once again, a child naïve to the darkness that sits in every corner of every room, while we are forced to watch as it creeps ever closer and closer.

7: American Rapture by C.J. Leede

A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns.

If Maeve Fly was an exciting glimpse into C.J Leede’s ability as a writer and storyteller then American Rapture absolutely succeeds in showcasing her depth and ambition as a writer, cementing her as a must-read modern-day horror author. The final pages of Rapture and its trauma will stick with me for a very long time, and C.J Leede earns the heartbreak that she sows through a story that exposes injustices and hypocrisies of our world with a sharp and deft blade. If you read just one more apocalyptic/pandemic driven story then make it be this one.

6: The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier

Hadleigh Keene died on the road leading away from Hollyhock Asylum. The reasons are unknown. Her sister Morgan blames herself. A year later with the case still unsolved, Morgan creates a false identity, that of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner, and goes inside.

One of the most important and most carefully and cleverly crafted novels of the year, The Redemption of Morgan Bright exposes the dreadful reality of our present through unshackling the ghosts of the past. Set at Hollyhock a woman-only asylum, Panatier carefully builds a story that is respectful, articulate but most importantly of all, brutally honest and shocking. In a world where identity and bodily autonomy politics are so frighteningly pertinent Morgan Bright stares these realities face-on, reminding us that even as some archaic mental health treatments and diagnoses are a thing of the past, the past is never as far behind you as you might think

5: Deliver Me by Elle Nash

With a child on the way, at long last Dee-Dee can bask in her mother’s and boyfriend’s newfound parturient attention. She will matter. She will be loved. She will be complete. When her charismatic friend Sloane reappears after a twenty-year absence, feeding her insecurities and awakening suppressed desires, Dee-Dee fears she will go back to living in the shadows.

Wow. Probably the most viscerally shocking novel on my list, Deliver Me is not one for the faint hearted. This is a story that lavishes in its transgressions. Nash is unflinching in her writing, emboldened to cross boundaries that even the most seasoned of horror writers often veer away from. This of course does not come without trigger warnings. Sections involving pregnancy and miscarriage are known and to be expected, but what comes more as a shock are the instances of animal cruelty within the story that truly are difficult to get through. Simply put, Deliver Me is mean and ruthless to both character and reader. Elle Nash rolls together themes of co-dependency, obsession, social conformity and religious trauma into a tight and compact little ball, and then delights in the murky chaos as it explodes in our faces.

4: Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive. The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

The most fun story on my list, Jennifer Thorne’s latest novel is a family drama set in a haunted villa. A story filled with juicy and satisfying family drama, Diavola quickly evolves into an exploration of family bonds, the monotony of urban life, and what it truly means to be free. There is a lot going on and Jennifer Thorne tackles each thread head on. Diavola proves that ghosts come in all different shapes and sizes. Anna is entrapped and haunted by her bloodline, their expectations of her, and her less than inspiring job that exists only to pay her rent and keep her alive. Diavola is about a haunted villa, but it is also about feeling trapped by familial expectations, the endless monotony of everyday life, and the fight to escape what imprisons you.

3: Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson

For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.

First of all, a very big thankyou to our very own Anna for making me aware of and sending me this gem to read!

I will always have a soft spot for a quality coming of age story and Lost Man’s Lane is precisely that. Carson beautifully illustrates how growing up is a transformation and an evolution of the self, but leaving your old self behind is also a sacrifice that is often wrapped up in change, regret and mourning. Lost Man’s Lane shows that although growth and pain go hand in hand, heart will always be the greatest antidote. In a story wrought with so much uncertainty and anxiety, its defining characteristic is the connections that bind us. Scott Carson’s novel takes a stand for love, understanding and acceptance when faced with the great unknown, a message that, regardless of our age, we all need to hear sometimes.

2: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film” that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.

If I’m completely honest, Tremblay novels have been a bit hit and miss for me… until this year. Firstly through reading A Headful of Ghosts and now Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay is now absolutely a must buy author for me. Horror Movie has the impossible task of creating satisfying endings for three separate yet diverging stories and yet they all merge together into a truly devastating conclusion. Horror Movie is Tremblay’s jewel in the crown, the novel that propels him from being one of the most successful contemporary horror authors and into the stratosphere of the all-time greats. Horror Movie brushes against decades of horror with a deft touch, culminating in a timeless classic.

1: I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.

It feels almost as if we are cheating as fans of horror by following the works of Stephen Graham Jones. Indeed, the blood had scarcely just dried, and our wounds barely healed after reading the heart-wrenching conclusion of Jade Daniels’ story in ‘The Angel of Indian Lake’, before we were summoned once again to draw our weapons, sharpen our blades, and prepare for more bloodshed with Jones’ latest slasher novel ‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’. SGJ has spoken about the relationship between these two novels himself and so I will simply add that it is a testament to his creativity and master of craft that both novels are individually brilliant in their own right. It is only the slasher genre that loosely ties them together, and in fact the rules that genre stories are typically confined within has never been a hinderance for SGJ. In the works of SGJ the slasher sub-genre has always seemed like a playground of infinite bloody possibilities, and ‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’ offers in my opinion, not just another example of how genre can be subverted and bent to the creator’s will to create something fresh from tired and worn parts, but the greatest example of such in SGJ’s burgeoning catalogue of stories.

What sets the story apart from the rest is its relationships. The autobiographical nature of the story offers us a level of honesty and intimacy with Tolly that simply cannot be replicated in any other way. Take away the killings and you just have Tolly and Amber, two teenage best friends with their lives ahead of them, and the world right up against them. I am an absolute sucker for a story masquerading as something else, while in reality being a love story, and I think that this tragic love story will always represent the landmark year of 2024 for me and all the reading it encompasses.

See you next year!

Synopsis:

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn–-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

Review:

The biggest of thank yous to NetGalley and Quirk Books for my E-arc of this novel!

Clay McLeod’s latest and most ambitious novel to date walks the tightrope. Reading this exceptionally unique and memorable story feels like a merging between the madness and absurdity of a fever dream and the horrors of a world all too real, all too startlingly familiar. This book is a living nightmare, and it is time to wake up and open your eyes.

‘Wake Up and Open Your Eyes’ splits nicely into three distinct parts, or as Clay puts it, ‘phases’. Phase One follows Noah Fairchild, who is forced home to check up on his parents, after becoming increasingly concerned with their obsession with conspiracy theories that they have seen online, culminating in days upon days of unmissed calls. Phase One sets the tone for the chaos that is to come, thrusting you into the insanity and holding you under. It feels like the cold open to a slasher that is never going to end, capturing the anticipation and adrenaline that these bloody scenes encompass and strapping them to your chest. The novel settles in at a break-neck pace that neither Noah nor the reader is ready for. We are starting from behind, trying to collect the pieces of a wreckage that we had no hope of preventing. We are slowly waking up and opening our eyes, but it is way too late.

On surface level, ‘Wake Up and Open Your Eyes’ seems singularly like a commentary on radicalisation, on the helplessness so many of us feel as our elders slip down dangerous, fascism-laced rabbit-holes that we cannot pull them out of. This is a starring aspect of the novel, and Phase Two of the novel is an in-depth examination into the process of radicalisation. The story observes how your typical happy family can fall apart in record time, and in a multitude of different ways, whether that be politically motivated conspiracy theories, incel culture, or wellness-orientated pyramid schemes. We begin Phase Two thinking we know what to expect, but the body blow upon body blow that is inflicted on our senses cannot be prepared for. I, quite frankly, was a mess. The story unapologetically pushes the boundaries of how extreme you think it will go. I will warn you now that anything goes in this story, there truly are no rules. The consequences are visceral, they are shocking, and they are oh so bloody. Chapman places you in the safe and secure surroundings of the nuclear family and then relishes in the gore as he tears it limb from limb.

The dangers of the internet, technology, and how it can worm into your brain chemistry makes up the beating heartbeat of the novel. You can call it radicalisation, you can even call it possession, but ultimately the word behind the action matters little when the world is in disarray. The story is frightening and unnerving with how it taps into very real and very prescient aspects of the world around us. Reading it while living in the UK in August 2024, it was impossible not to think of the mindless racism-fuelled riots that occurred over here just weeks ago, all because of lies on the internet. However, Clay’s novel does much more than simply point the finger, it is a story that forces uncomfortable thought and self-reflection. We are left wondering what responsibility we have in all of this, where did it all go wrong? ‘Wake Up and Open Your Eyes’ may make a catchy mantra for a radicalised nut trying to convince you that slaughtered children are paid actors, but any phrase can have multiple interpretations, multiple meanings, and this mantra, this book, explores all of them.

‘Wake Up and Open Your Eyes’ is unlike anything else I have read this year. It is experimental and it is ballsy, but it absolutely works. Clay Chapman’s vibrant personality gleams through the pages, and you can’t help but laugh maniacally alongside him. ‘Wake Up and Open Your Eyes’ will indoctrinate you, cling to your mind, and make you view the world around you through a different lens – through new, open eyes.

Out January 7th 2025

Synopsis:

Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life.

Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi.

Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever.

The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.

Review:

Many thanks to NetGalley for my E-arc of this novel!

If in theory Rachel Harrison + vampires sounds like a juicy cocktail brimming with drama, romance, and of course, blood, then I am here to confirm that the theory very much lives up to the billing, and more. So Thirsty takes our main character Sloane from the calm, shallow waters of her mundane day to day life and thrusts her into the dangerous, choppy waters of the unknown. Sloane has long been going through the motions in her steady, loveless marriage, but this is all flipped on its head after a birthday night out with her outgoing best friend Naomi. So Thirsty is a novel of upheaval, self-discovery and personal growth, and this is matched by the story’s break-neck pace. Just as Sloane struggles to adapt to her rapidly altering life-state, so too do we struggle to match speed. Harrison’s latest is an intense little bundle of heart and heartbreak that critically examines the complexities of friendship and self-identity through the microscope of what it truly means to live and be happy.

For a story that widely discusses the importance of independence and finding joy and acceptance in your day to day life, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting medium to examine these ideas through than the vampire. Our bloodthirsty friends are renowned for living their lives at their own speed and at the whim of their own desires, desires that they are not afraid to quench at a moment’s notice. The story centres around Sloane and Naomi, and Naomi’s desire to help Sloane ‘live’ more. The vampiric lifestyle offers a fantastic foil for this dynamic, emphasising both Sloane’s personal troubles and the rift in her friendship with the more outgoing Naomi.

Indeed, the friendship between Sloane and Naomi was the real highlight of this novel for me. In these two, Harrison presents two women who love each other through thick and thin, no matter their differences. Childhood friendships are unique in their ability to survive and adapt through personal growth and any challenge that life inevitably throws at you. Long lasting friendships are special in this way, and I thought that Harrison did a great job at examining the rich tapestry of their friendship – both the good and the bad – and the ramifications of this on these new frightening developments in their lives. These are two women who ultimately just want the other to be the best version of themselves, and although this creates multiple uncomfortable moments and several difficult conversations, the intentions of both are always pure and love felt.

So Thirsty is a journey in not just quenching your thirst and fulfilling your basic human needs, but also in indulgence – finding satisfaction in your day-to-day life and freeing yourself of its guilt-riddled shackles. Reading this, it dawned on me how silly it is that coming-of-age stories only represent the mammoth leap between childhood and adulthood, blissful innocence and jaded knowledge. We as humans are always learning, always evolving, and our age should never be a restriction on that. So Thirsty offers an honest look into the mundane terrors of adulthood and loveless relationships, before crystallising into something beautiful in its simple yet important message: live life at your own speed, but savour every last drop. 

Synopsis:

Willow’s worst nightmare was being canceled. But the shadows in the woods of Camp Castaway might destroy more than her reputation.

After sitcom star Willow tweeted herself into infamy and stumbled blind-drunk into a swimming pool, her agent shipped her off to Camp Castaway. Tucked away in upstate New York, Castaway is a summer camp for adults who are desperate to leave their mistakes behind. No real names, no phones . . . no way to call for help.

Willow’s fellow campers seem okay. Her own favourite actress is even here, making a s’more. And did that jaded writer, Dani, just wink at her? But the peaceful vibe is shattered when one of the campers vanishes and Willow finds a mutilated doll in her room with a threatening message rolled up inside its mouth. Terror grips the group, campers begin to lose their heads—literally—and disturbing past deeds come to light.

Is Willow about to get cancelled all over again, this time for good?

Review:

Many thanks to Michael Joseph for sending me a copy of this one!

A book that undoubtedly delivers on its promises, ‘Heads Will Roll’ is a thoroughly entertaining slasher novel that fully embraces the blood and guts that it eagerly coats itself in. Summer camp has always offered fertile grounds for bloodshed, gleefully soaking up all the secrets, drama and of course, blood, that is spilled at the hands of the vengeful killer. ‘Heads Will Roll’ is not a novel to re-invent the genre and make you completely reconsider what a slasher should be, instead Winning’s novel excels in the roots that it unapologetically sticks to.

The story primarily follows our main character Willow, a ‘cancelled’ sitcom star who runs away to Camp Castaway in the upstate New York woods in order to escape the limelight. The power of the internet and its impact on us is a crucial aspect of Winning’s novel, delving into fandom, cancel culture and online versus real life identities throughout the story. So relevant to our world today, these aspects definitely felt relatable, and if not then at the very least realistic. Winning goes to great lengths to emphasise the damaging impacts being chronically online can have on someone’s mental health, while skilfully masking the potentially life saving positives of the internet – connectivity to the outside world.

For a book of relatively short length, I thought that Winning did a stellar job at building up unique and memorable characters. No camp members got lost in the shuffle for me, I knew who every character was and how Willow perceived them with no issues at all, which really is also a testament to Willow and her crafted personality. The story does occasionally flip from Willow’s perspective to her other camp mates, but this did not take away from the story at all for me. These chapters very much felt like when a film switches to a character that has not had much of any spotlight so far, and in fitting with the genre, you know exactly what is coming next for this character, you just don’t know when or how…

It is clear reading ‘Heads Will Roll’ that Josh Winning is a huge fan of the genre, and for me this is the story’s strongest trait. Winning’s knowledge of slashers does not gatekeep the story or make it inaccessible, instead he uses his passion and expertise to create a story that I believe any fan of horror can enjoy. More than anything else this story is fun, and fun has no boundaries. Whether you are a seasoned horror reader or someone looking to tentatively dip your toes into the genre, I would strongly urge you to consider adding this story to your summer tbr!

Synopsis:

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”  
 
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay. 
 
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unravelling.  
 
But Other Mommy needs an answer. 
 
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.

Review:

Home is where the heart is…

A phrase that typically generates feelings of comfort and safety in us all, Josh Malerman’s latest novel ‘Incidents Around the House’ flips this on its ice-cold head in deeply sinister fashion. Malerman wields the tired and over-rehearsed haunted house story and strips it clean, taking components and moulding them into something entirely original and completely terrifying. ‘Incidents’ is a whirlwind of a novel that plainly examines childhood innocence and its battle to cope in a world plagued and withered by its own shortcomings.

The story is written from the perspective of Bela, our 8-year-old protagonist, and the form and format of the novel is reflective of her age and maturity. Bela’s thoughts and reflections, like that of any child, are often short and snappy, and this coupled with the well-spaced formatting of the book allows the book to be read at breakneck pace. There is no escaping this rollercoaster-ride of a story until its bitter end. Overall, I thought that Malerman did a great job characterising Bela. Her thoughts and verbiage felt befitting of a girl her age; a bubbly and intelligent girl, but also a naïve girl.

It is Bela’s naivety that allows for terror to thrive.

The crux of the novel is of course ‘Other Mommy’, a spectral presence that haunts Bela wherever she goes, asking Bela to let them into Bela’s heart. For me the relationship between Bela and Other Mommy was undoubtedly the most disturbing aspect of the novel. I could not help but read Other Mommy through the lens of them being a predator, and their relationship with Bela as a type of grooming. Other Mommy befriends Bela in its attempts to get what it wants, and Bela, too young to know differently, is never 100% averse to, in her eyes, simply having a friend. Other Mommy is constant in her manipulation of Bela to try and get what she wants, a scenario bound to fill the hearts of any unknowing parent with absolute terror.

Malerman’s novel is fascinated by liminal spaces. Think of a hallway between rooms or a stairway between downstairs and upstairs, a void with no definitive definition or meaning. Other Mommy thrives in these areas of liminality, living in Bela’s closet and disappearing through walls. Similarly, Other Mommy stands as a marker between two modes of being: floating in the long void between childhood innocence and adulthood, pulling Bela into unchartered waters too deep for her to swim in.

Indeed, like many predators, Other Mommy latches onto the vulnerable and innocent. ‘Incidents Around the House’ does not simply refer to supernaturally haunting incidents but also scenarios very much of the every-day variety for many of us growing up. Malerman highlights just how scarring it can be for a child growing up in an environment with conflict between those that they love. It is heart-wrenching to read from Bela’s perspective as she ponders and worries about her parents’ conflicts, understanding it in her own little way, but not truly comprehending what is going on. Malerman examines the impact these incidents can leave imprinted on a child, and Other Mommy in its predatory nature is the amalgamation of the very worst that childhood trauma can dreg up to punish the vulnerable.

‘Incidents Around the Novel’ masquerades as a tale of ghosts, hauntings and possessions, and then packs a punch with unexpected brute force. Malerman has perfected the art of the literary ‘jump scare’, and there are plenty of those in this novel, but where ‘Incidents’ really shines is its ability to place us in the shoes of an 8-year-old child once again, a child naïve to the darkness that sits in every corner of every room, while we are forced to watch as it creeps ever closer and closer.  

Synopsis:

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.

Review:

‘Some people are just good, aren’t they? I wonder what that must be like.’

It feels almost as if we are cheating as fans of horror by following the works of Stephen Graham Jones. Indeed, the blood had scarcely just dried, and our wounds barely healed after reading the heart-wrenching conclusion of Jade Daniels’ story in ‘The Angel of Indian Lake’, before we were summoned once again to draw our weapons, sharpen our blades, and prepare for more bloodshed with Jones’ latest slasher novel ‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’. SGJ has spoken about the relationship between these two novels himself and so I will simply add that it is a testament to his creativity and master of craft that both novels are individually brilliant in their own right. It is only the slasher genre that loosely ties them together, and in fact the rules that genre stories are typically confined within has never been a hinderance for SGJ. In the works of SGJ the slasher sub-genre has always seemed like a playground of infinite bloody possibilities, and ‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’ offers in my opinion, not just another example of how genre can be subverted and bent to the creator’s will to create something fresh from tired and worn parts, but the greatest example of such in SGJ’s burgeoning catalogue of stories.

The immediate and obvious difference between ‘Teenage Slasher’ and your typical slasher is that the story is written from the perspective of the slasher. Regrettably I cannot make any real comparisons between this and the recently released film ‘In a Violent Nature’, that I know toys with similar concepts to controversial reviews, but what I can say is the idea definitely worked for me on paper. Before we really get to know Tolly Driver and his story we know one thing for certain, he is a killer. In this context the talkative, autobiographical tone of the story is in two words ‘morbidly addictive’. It feels impossible to look away even as Tolly nonchalantly talks about his past killings as if he was recounting any other mundane activity. The writing feels tinged with a scent of insanity, think Joe Goldberg, and this is immediately captivating and terrifying.

Indeed, the tone of the story develops drastically from this strong opening. One of the themes prevalent throughout the whole story is the age-old debate of free will and determinism. What exactly makes a good person? What differentiates a good from a bad person? How much control does anyone really have over that? Towards the end of the novel Tolly describes his autobiographical account of his bloody past as an apology, and the story absolutely carries all the necessary traits of an apology. Our protagonist recounts his past with guilt and regret, but also with sorrow and acceptance. This is not your typical slasher story and Tolly is not your typical slasher. SGJ makes you confront your own moral compass and question the meaning of right and wrong in the most extreme of circumstances. The story batters you with a maelstrom of conflicting feelings and emotions, unapologetic and remorseless in its attack.

Just like a slasher, if there is one thing you come to expect from a new SGJ novel it is bloody, visceral carnage. Fear not, the story does not lack in this department, but I would argue that another strand that I have came to expect from SGJ is heart. Through Jade Daniels and the Lake Witch trilogy, SGJ crafted a cast of memorable characters who we grew to love and care for, making it that much more painful when they were taken from our clutches. In many ways this is story-telling 101 but the way SGJ marries heartless bloodshed with moments of tender human emotion is uniquely impressive. Of course, the story’s unique perspective on the slasher contains all the memorable hallmarks of the genre, but what sets the story apart from the rest is its relationships. The autobiographical nature of the story offers us a level of honesty and intimacy with Tolly that simply cannot be replicated in any other way. Take away the killings and you just have Tolly and Amber, two teenage best friends with their lives ahead of them, and the world right up against them.

‘I Was a Teenage Slasher’ once again highlights Stephen Graham Jones’ unique ability to bend genre to his will to create art that rings both comfortingly familiar and gratifyingly unfamiliar. Trust me, this one will stay with you for a long time, just not for the reasons you might expect.

Synopsis:

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale―”for the algorithm”―Misha discovers that it’s not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what’s right―before it’s too late.

Review:

Firstly a massive thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for my eArc of this one!

Tragedy is inevitable. Fortunately, so is joy.

‘Love is real’, the phrase synonymous with author Chuck Tingle is so much more than a mantra, slogan or hashtag, and his latest novel ‘Bury Your Gays’ is the embodiment of the fearless, uncorrupted pledge of emotion that it truly represents. It is not a statement to be marketed, monetised and mass replicated, but instead to be felt wholly – a declaration of joy and peace in a world so often stripped of authenticity. ‘Bury Your Gays’ stands as a bastion of hope, a reminder that no matter how far the world seems to drift away from what it truly means to be human, love will always stand in opposition, a sprinkling of magic that no computer can replicate.

‘Bury Your Gays’ contends itself with dangerously relevant issues in 2024 day-to-day life. Anyone who spends any amount of time analysing, consuming, or creating art most likely views Artificial Intelligence less so now with a sceptic eye and more so through a lens of existential terror. I can only describe it as a multiple-headed beast that seems to be growing additional heads by the minute. Our main character Misha, a Hollywood scriptwriter recently nominated for his first Oscar, lives in a world where those with all the power believe that art and commerce have become one and the same (sound familiar?). The crux of the novel centres around the tussle between Misha’s own creative ideas, stories, and characters born through real life experiences and emotions, and plot directions produced by a computer with the single intention of optimising profit. When Misha refuses to accept that his gay protagonists be killed off, as apparently ‘queer tragedy sells’, matters quickly devolve into chaos.

‘Bury Your Gays’ offers a cautionary tale about being careful what you bring into the world. Just because you could, it does not mean that you should. AI is an all-consuming and dominating presence throughout the story, like a plague sweeping across the lands. It was difficult to read without feeling as if Chuck Tingle is a prophetic being, able to predict our near future, such was the startlingly real possibility to many of the challenges faced by Misha. The story is Frankenstein-esque in relation to creator/ creation relationships. Misha is forced to reckon with creations both of his own hand and of AI, that both grow out of his control in a way that cleverly blurs the lines between fiction, reality and his personal trauma that blends the two together.

Not solely because of the recent rise of AI, ‘Bury Your Gays’ is a timely novel in its relation to pride month. Tingle has created a magical story here that is powered by authenticity, and this is reflected in how queer representation is treated throughout the novel. There is often so much cynicism around queer representation in media and the role that disingenuous commercial profiteering plays in the celebration of pride. ‘Bury Your Gays’ explores this matter with eloquence and humour, but what Tingle also does is show exactly why representation is so important. Tingle shows how characters are more than just figures on a screen or words on the page, they are real life role models that come to life and show you who you really are.

In the same vein of discussing characters that embody authenticity, I would be remiss in discussing this novel without touching on the relationships at the heart of the story. Misha, his best friend Tara, and partner Zeke are the light in this story of looming dark. It would have been easy for Tingle to apply the typical trope where those closest to Misha do not believe his stories of seemingly supernatural events, and so we have the arduous task of enduring as Misha eventually convinces them of the truth. There is none of that. Tara and Zeke believe Misha because why would they not believe the person they love? Sometimes it can be that simple. That is not to say that Tingle portrays unrealistically perfect relationships. Misha has a complex relationship with his own sexuality tied up in the scripts that he writes, and this does create moments of disconnect with Zeke. But like real, genuine people who want to make something last, they attempt to work through it together. My only regret finishing this story was that I could not spend any more time with these wonderful people all together.

In ‘Bury Your Gays’ Chuck Tingle offers a defence for authenticity, for horror, and most importantly for love. Tingle’s argument is raw, it is heartfelt and most of all it is honest to himself. In a piece of art, bared from the soul and unregulated, we have a combination that will in my humble opinion, always remain undefeated.

Synopsis:

At a meatpacking facility in the Missouri Ozarks, Dee-Dee and her co-workers kill and butcher 40,000 chickens in a single shift.

The work is repetitive and brutal, with each stab and cut a punishment to her hands and joints, but Dee-Dee’s more concerned with what is happening inside her body. After a series of devastating miscarriages, Dee-Dee has found herself pregnant, and she is determined to carry this child to term. Dee-Dee fled the Pentecostal church years ago, but judgment follows her in the form of regular calls from her mother, whose raspy voice urges Dee-Dee to quit living in sin and marry her boyfriend Daddy, an underemployed ex-con with an insect fetish.

With a child on the way, at long last Dee-Dee can bask in her mother’s and boyfriend’s newfound parturient attention. She will matter. She will be loved. She will be complete. When her charismatic friend Sloane reappears after a twenty-year absence, feeding her insecurities and awakening suppressed desires, Dee-Dee fears she will go back to living in the shadows. Neither the ultimate indignity of yet another miscarriage nor Sloane’s own pregnancy deters her: she must prepare for the baby’s arrival.

Review:

Often the stories I find most frightening are the ones that explore everyday life, the repetition and mundanity of a life that there seems to be no escape. It is difficult to imagine a job that embodies a so wearisome and dispassionate existence more than a role that measures success by the number of chickens killed on a daily basis. ‘Deliver Me’ quickly places us in these lonely, clinical surroundings. This is a place where coworkers are referred to by number rather than name (our main character Dee-Dee is number 4), nobody can leave until the daily quota of 40,000+ chickens have been slaughtered, and workers’ rights are a pipe dream. Hour upon hour of robotic massacre, slicing chicken breast after identical chicken breast. If this sounds like a depressing and completely dehumanising experience then you would be correct, but the slaughterhouse in which our main character works at barely even scratches the surface of the mundane horrors that slither and crawl throughout Elle Nash’s ‘Deliver Me’.

Nash’s latest novel offers a volatile concoction of dread and pity. The inevitable feeling that something bad is going to happen aches and lingers as Dee-Dee’s mental wellbeing deteriorates, but more than anything this story leaves you with a sorrowful emptiness characterised by gut-wrenching sympathy. Dee-Dee’s job is the tip of the iceberg in her sorry life. Dee-Dee is a woman with little self-esteem and with no core identity. She craves validation and acceptance from the people around her, particularly her judgmental Christian mother and her emotionally manipulative, criminal boyfriend. A baby seems like the magic cure, the way to keep her partner for good, and to finally win the approval of her mother. After another miscarriage, matters take a turn for the worse.

‘Deliver Me’ is a startlingly real look into how life can close in and suffocate you if you are not careful. Dee-Dee lives life through a mirror, constantly comparing herself to those around her and reducing herself to something below and lesser than her counterparts. This is no more apparent than through her relationship with childhood best friend and crush Sloane, who in having a baby and her mother’s love and acceptance, possesses everything that Dee-Dee wishes she had. Motherhood quickly becomes a fixation and an imagined salvation from the life she is trapped within, but the tragedy that the reader realises, and Dee-Dee doesn’t, is that nobody can save Dee-Dee except for Dee-Dee. In this way ‘Deliver Me’ is a lesson in suffering. We wish for Dee-Dee to break free from her life and yet she seems to only slip further into the abyss.

‘Maybe that’s why I need a child. Someone who is too much like me to reject me’

‘Deliver Me’ is a story that lavishes in its transgressions. Nash is unflinching in her writing, emboldened to cross boundaries that even the most seasoned of horror writers often veer away from. This of course does not come without trigger warnings. Sections involving pregnancy and miscarriage are known and to be expected, but what comes more as a shock are the instances of animal cruelty within the story that truly are difficult to get through. Simply put, ‘Deliver Me’ is mean and ruthless to both character and reader. Elle Nash rolls together themes of co-dependency, obsession, social conformity and religious trauma into a tight and compact little ball, and then delights in the murky chaos as it explodes in our faces.

Synopsis:

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions — demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost? 

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film” that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.

Review:

First of all, a massive thank you to Titan Books for my Arc of this novel!

You can never accuse Paul Tremblay of playing it safe. Never one to rest on his laurels, Tremblay novels are renowned for tinkering with format and perspective, carving open new avenues towards readers’ hearts. ‘Horror Movie’ is no different, flicking between the past, present and the original screenplay of a horror film’s creation with fluidity and purpose. It seems that no matter what this man tries he has the ambition and nuance to pull it off, and ‘Horror Movie’ is Tremblay’s jewel in the crown, the novel that propels him from being one of the most successful contemporary horror authors and into the stratosphere of the all-time greats. ‘Horror Movie’ brushes against decades of horror with a deft touch, culminating in a timeless classic.

The story follows our main character, unnamed other than his screen name of the ‘Thin Kid’, across three plains of existence: the original attempted 1993 filming of a low-budget horror film, the modern-day reboot, and the screenplay narrative of the film. All of this is compiled in an audiobook narrated by our main character. If that sounds like a lot, just be impressed that Paul Tremblay pulls it off with exceptionally more clarity than how I can describe it.

Dread is at the forefront of our minds from the very beginning of this story. The word ‘cursed’ is bandied around to describe the original shooting of ‘Horror Movie’, and in typical Tremblay fashion it is left to us to gradually determine the level of truth in that theory. What is evident is that something went wrong in the original shooting of the film, very, very wrong, and Tremblay does a great job at giving credence to our ever increasing concerns.

The story masterfully toys with identity to leave us in constant unease. It is no mistake that we only know our main character as the ‘Thin Kid’, the character he plays. On several occasions it is suggested that our main character does not have the greatest self-esteem, someone easily controlled and lacking a core sense of self. Even him taking the acting role feels indicative of someone transforming into someone they are not, someone who is valuing pleasing others over his own needs and wants. Fiction and reality blur and intertwine throughout the story, and considering what we learn of the character known as the ‘Thin Kid’ as the screenplay progresses, this becomes very unsettling indeed.

I have little to no knowledge about screenplays and how they are supposed to look, but the screenplay aspect of ‘Horror Movie’ was undoubtedly my favourite of the novel. Tremblay has shown before in ‘A Head Full of Ghosts’ that he has great knowledge of how directors can manipulate film shots to imply and produce specific results, and he showcases this knowledge once again in ‘Horror Movie’. Scenes are written with a unique clarity that managed to create truly vivid images in my head for how the film shots would really look, and I’m no film buff. We often read about bringing words from the page to life, but Tremblay expertly achieves the inverse in this novel.

‘Horror Movie’ has the impossible task of creating satisfying endings for three separate yet diverging stories and yet they all merge together into a truly devastating conclusion. Tremblay’s latest experiment produces a unique set of results that cannot be replicated. A diamond of a story, polished and sublime. ‘Horror Movie’ will shine bright for years and years to come, a beacon of light in the darkness that all of us horror fans enjoy inhabiting from time to time. This one is for the horror lovers.

We at FearForAll LOVE this book. Be sure to check out Ed and George’s own fantastic and unique reviews!