Title: Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales
Author: Fran Friel
Publisher: Apex Publications
We are wrapping up Women in Horror Recognition month with a book that exemplifies what women bring to the genre. Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel is a collection that in one light is very diverse, is also tied together by recurring themes and ideas you don’t see much in horror.
Posted in Book Spotlight
Tagged apex publications, bram stoker finalist, children, dark fiction, deals with the devil, dogs, family, food, fran friel, hawaii, horror, humor, novella, pirates, psychological, rape, red hair, religion, serial killer, sex, short stories, supernatural, virgina, women, women in horror
Title: The Haunting of Hill House
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Penguin
“The literary effect we call horror turns on the dissolution of boundaries, between the living and the dead, of course, but also, at the crudest level, between the outside of the body and everything that ought to stay inside.”
-Laura Miller (from the introduction to The Haunting of Hill House)
To be perfectly honest, Laura Miller’s introduction will say everything about this book I wish to say and in a more elegant way. Though, unless you don’t mind spoilers, I wouldn’t read it until you read The Haunting of Hill House.
So where should I start? Madness? Ghosts?
Posted in Book Spotlight
Tagged beginner level horror, ghosts, haunted house, horror, literary, madness, psychological, shirley jackson, women in horror
Title: Spellbent
Author: Lucy A. Snyder
Publisher: Del Rey
When any book is nominated for the Stoker Award, it automatically has a quality that others won’t. Spellbent by Lucy Snyder is a urban fantasy about a novice witch, Jessie Shimmer, caught in the middle of a horrible accident that will change not only her, but the world she is a part of. Her boyfriend, Cooper Marron, is pulled into a hellish dimension while they were trying to call rain to end a drought. The damage caused by the rip in dimensions causes a cover-up of supernatural proportions with Jessie now considered a fugitive for things she never knew about or took part in.
Title: Morbid Curiosity
Author: Deborah LeBlanc
Publisher: Leisure Horror
Not only will this be the first post for Women in Horror Recognition Month, but this will also be the first Fan Horror Level Spotlight we’ve done. Morbid Curiosity is the story of twin sisters, Haley and Heather, that lost there father to physical illness and mother to mental. They are shipped from Louisiana to their paternal grandparents in Mississippi. They loss of parents, friends, and lifestyle is too much for both of them, but more so for Haley. A popular girl in school, Karla, decides to help them out by showing them how she became popular: Chaos Magic. And like it’s name implies, chaos slowly takes over the lives of Haley and Heather.
Posted in Book Spotlight
Tagged #wih, chaos magic, dark fantasy, deborah leblanc, extreme, fan level horror, Fear, gulf coast, horror, leisure books, Louisiana, Mississippi, snakes, teenagers, twins, women in horror
