The disappearance of a parent lead to a heart-breaking chain of events in convincing genre-bending YA horror thriller Although Daniel Kraus’s forthcoming collaboration with zombie godfather George A Romero The Living Dead will undoubtedly pick up the headlines in the horror world, I would suggest also checking out the excellent Bent Heavens. Kraus has a superb back-catalogue of dark/horror YA fiction, including the highly recommended Rotters, and this latest release maintains his high standard. Surprisingly, in the UK he remains a relatively unknown quantity and Bent Heavens merits a proper release on this side of the pond. Eighteen-year-old Liv Fleming leads this genre-bending thriller which dances around horror, science fiction in a very convincing, Ohio, small-town setting. Teenage readers will easily tap into the troubled psyche and angst of a girl whose world was turned upside down when her father disappeared two years earlier. Her pain and grief from the lack of closure radiates from the page. She believes him to be dead, but a tiny part of her suspects he is still alive somewhere and has never given up hope, taking solace by competing for the school’s track team and remaining emotionally distant and detached from her friends. It is the circumstances of the disappearance of her father which makes this story fascinating with the occasional flashback thrown in. Lee Fleming was a very popular English teacher at the school Liv attended and before he disappeared indefinitely, vanished for a much shorter period before reappearing, naked, on the school campus. He was not the same man and was deeply psychologically traumatised claiming to have been abducted by aliens, or at least having vague memories of being experimented upon. Officially, it was presumed he suffered some sort of breakdown and the family struggled to cope with the emotional fallout. After his initial naked reappearance Lee Fleming directed, as he did every year, the school’s annual musical and reimagines “Oliver!” in a way which hints at aliens, abductions and other crazy stuff which lead to the show being halted in embarrassment. Early in the story Liv finds out the school will be staging a new version of “Oliver!” and is deeply upset by the insensitivity as the wounds are still very raw. This kicks off a chain of events which lead to her getting into trouble at school, which are not helped by the fact her mother is failing to cope at home. The relationship between Liv and her absent father and the sense of loss she feels lie at the heart of Bent Heavens and plays a major part in this convincing emotional drama. She is conflicted, confused, and struggling to cope within a realistic high school setting. Daniel Kraus does not ram usual high school tropes down our throats and the changes are subtle as Liv begins to pull away from her track group friends. She was an engaging central character and some of the scenes, such as when she loses control with the drama teacher were superb and any teen reader will surely connect with her pain. I do not know whether Daniel Kraus has come across the Iain Banks Scottish cult classic The Wasp Factory as Bent Heavens shares some of its vibe. Once Lee Fleming returns after his first disappearance, he becomes obsessed with aliens and constructs a series of six very dangerous traps in the woodland surrounding his house and names them; Amputator, Hangman’s Noose, Crusher, Neckbreaker, Abyss and Hard Passage. If you have ever read The Wasp Factory the traps might ring some bells and soon the creations catch something significantly larger than a squirrel. In other articles Ginger Nuts commentaries, I have lamented the lack of male lead characters in current YA fiction and Bent Heavens is yet another example of the boys being kicked into touch. I found this very disappointing at Doug Monk was a fascinating, tragic, and ultimately underused character. This troubled teenager was the same age as Liv and was taken under the wing of Lee, who Doug hero worshipped. Touchingly, even two years after the disappearance Doug still maintained and checked the dangerous alien catching traps created by Lee. The dynamics between the two teenagers was great, but I would have liked to have seen more of the boy who suffered the loss of Lee as much as Liv. It was also touching that Liv also continued to watch out for Doug at school and, ultimately, he was a very sad and broken character and their relationship could have been explored further. I found Bent Heavens to be a great read and it has enough strings in its bow to attract differing types of teen readers with its convincing blend of horror, drama, and thriller. In the end the story did not go where many readers might expect it to and is backed up a killer twist (although I saw it coming) which was also rather heart-breaking. I will be interested in finding out whether genuine teen readers figure it out. Reading it from an adult’s point of view, Liv probably solved the ‘mystery’ too easily, but YA audience should be happy with how things conclude. Ultimately, even though Liv might not have been the most sympathetic of characters, her pain and grief were convincingly portrayed in a powerful novel about the lengths people will go to know the truth. Even if the answers are going to provide more pain, there is at least closure. I have this book in my school library and look forward to recommending it to kids aged around thirteen or older. 4.5/5 Tony Jones the heart and soul of YA fiction reviewsYA Round Up March/April 2020 Ten dark fiction titles worth a closer look It’s time for a whistle-stop tour of the latest YA and kid’s dark fiction titles to darken my door since the new year. We have a fine mixture of zombies, witches, dystopias and some very cool dark fantasy. Sadly, as with previous roundups, which I have highlighted in other articles, there is a continued lack of boys as lead characters. Thanks to Tim Major and Darren Charlton for giving us some great teenage boys to get behind! I am not surprised statistics show boys are abandoning YA horror fiction when 90% of the books only feature female voices. Boys make up 50% of the population and it is a great shame there are so few male characters for them to connect with. Most of these books have been published in the last few months and are presented alphabetically. If you have something you would like to see featured on the site, contact GNOH. KR Alexander – The CollectorIf you’re looking to introduce a primary school aged kid to horror, then KR Alexander’s The Collector is a fine place to start. It’s telegraphed to the adult reader, but for those aged eight to eleven this is great page-turning stuff with loads of creepy scenes, nice characterisation and a solid plot. Josie, her little sister Anna and their mum go to live with their grandmother as she is beginning to suffer from dementia. Upon arrival the granny warns the girls not to do three things: leave their windows open after dark, bring dolls into the house and not to go anywhere near the big house in the nearby forest. Both girls struggle to settle and make friends at their new school, but soon Josie meets Vanessa and things begin to pick up. At the same time, she receives strange warnings in her school locker telling her to avoid her new best friend Vanessa. There is something about creepy dolls that puts kids on edge and this very entertaining story has them in spades. Soon Josie and Anna are on edge, bad dreams kick in, the granny gets even more erratic and they break the golden rule by visiting the house in the forest. This great little book is going to have your freaked out eight-year-old looking under their bed for a month. This has been published by Scholastic, who have published a lot of kid’s horror in the past, let’s hope there are many more to follow. AGE 8+ Darren Charlton – WranglestoneWhilst zombies dominated the adult horror market a few years ago, they were a mere blip on the YA landscape where never amounted to much. It has also become trendy to write zombie novels without the dreaded ‘Z’ word and in Darren Charlton’s excellent Wranglstone we have another, instead the Zs are referred to as the ‘Restless Dead’. It might be a zombie yarn, but at heart its also a love story between two boys who find each other in a novel which has its own clever take on the zombie mythology, with a few nods to Warm Bodies along the way. The ‘Wranglestone’ of the title is an excellent location for what is effectively a survival story set a generation or so after a zombie holocaust. Most people are dead and the story focusses upon a group of survivors who live on an island and follow very strict rules and regulations to survive and, for example, do not accept newcomers. Early in the story everybody is edgy as when winter comes in the lake will freeze and that could bring the Restless Dead to their doorsteps. You could argue that Wranglestone is not a horror novel, for long periods the zombies are in the background, and the novel is more about Peter and Cooper and specifically how Peter fits into the community they live in. Cooper, on the other hand, is more outgoing and has more of a role as a hunter and defender, showing Peter the ropes in how they go about defending their home. I thought the story had excellent world-building, a credible backstory and was a fresh take on the zombie yarn. Adult connoisseurs on the ‘Z’ subject will undoubtedly have come across most of the ideas elsewhere, but for a teenage reader it was excellent stuff and the final third throws some very entertaining curveballs and decent twists about the darker side and origins of Wranglestone. It was also nice to read about a teenager who knew he was gay from the outset, there was no questioning or ambiguity, he was attracted to Cooper and that was that. AGE 12+ Sara Holland – HavenFallSara Holland follows the top-notch fantasy duology Everless with another very cleverly drawn fantasy novel, HavenFall, which is a strong entry in what promises to be another successful new series. The action takes place in a remote hotel (HavenFall) in the Rocky Mountains which is a magical gateway between three (often feuding) worlds. The hotel is the only place where there is a permanent truce, effectively safe grounds for parley and trade, between Byrn, Fiordenkill and Solaria. When HavenFall begins there are delegates from the different worlds for a big yearly event, however, there is also long-standing bad blood between various different factions and in particular, the shape-shifting, Solarians who have been cut out of recent negotiations because of a previous war. This was an intriguing set-up for the novel but unfortunately, we never visit any of the other worlds, which is probably being saved for a later novel. The story is seen from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Maddie who is the niece of the InnKeeper, Marcus, which is a very important position. To the public at large he appears as a hotel manager, but to the magical world of HavenFall he is the peacemaker and go-between those who visit from the other worlds. Maddie arrives for the summer just as the big parley is beginning and is sucked into a web of political intrigue after something happens to her uncle. With him indisposed the running of HavenFall falls on her, which brings a whole load of pressures, stresses and dodgy dealings as others try to gain control of this magical gateway between the worlds. As with Everless Sara Holland develops a very believable fantasy land lurking within the shadows of our own world. Maddie is a very likable heroine as she discovers her own destiny, a smattering of romance is thrown in and although I saw all the twists coming this is a very engaging read for teenagers who enjoy fantasy. More please. AGE 12+ Justina Ireland – Deathless Divide (Dread Nation 2)Dread Nation was one of the best YA horror novels of the last few years, sadly Deathless Divide falls well short of its predecessor lacking its freshness, originality and hampered by a huge page-count and rambling central storyline. To recap the original; during the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, the dead begin to walk and both sides of the bloody conflict realise there is a new enemy and temporarily put their differences aside. Dread Nation picks up the action fifteen years later when the ‘Thirteenth Amendment’ ensures there is still no equality between races. A new law, the ‘Negro and Native Re-education Act’ forces young black women to be taught a mixture of fighting skills and house etiquette and are the first line of defence against any ‘shamblers’ (zombies) which might attack the walled settlements. They are entirely expendable, but it is still seen as a better life for poor black people. Deathless Divide picks up the stories of the same characters from the previous book and is alternatively seen from the first-person point of view of Jane and Katherine who were former members of ‘Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls’. The early action concerns the fallout of the ‘hoard’ which invaded the town of Summerland at the end of book one, as the group head to another town, Nicodemus, which is rumoured to have lots of Negro inhabitants. Weighing in at a huge 565 pages Deathless Divide was way too long and not enough happened in plot that might have been lifted from The Walking Dead, many YA readers might struggle to connect with. The internal ‘voices’ of Katherine and Jane were too similar, and the themes of revenge and discovering a zombie antidote, were not strong enough to carry the story. Sadly, this book was a real trudge and did little to develop the original, even though it did have a strong plot-twist at the mid-point. AGE 13+ E. Latimer – Witches of Ash and RuinE. Latimer’s Witches of Ash and Ruin is set in rural Ireland and central character seventeen-year-old Dayna is training to be a witch. She is part of a local witch’s coven, who effectively hide in plain sight, and her religiously strict father has no idea of her hidden life. The story is told in five different voices, the others being her ex-boyfriend Samuel and two other young trainee witches from another coven, Meiner and Cora. The two covens band together, with a lot of distrust and friction, whilst attempting to solve the murder of another local witch, with the killer being the fifth narrative. Dayna is also coming to terms with the fact she is bisexual, and sparks begin to fly when there is obvious attraction between her and Meiner. Some readers might find that the relationship, a bit of a soap opera, dominates the supernatural story which often took a frustrating backseat. Everything moved along at a decent pace and is connected to a serial killer who may have murdered many times in the past. YA readers should find this a solid, if undemanding read, which will undoubtedly remind them of lots of other fantasy novels. I also found the gender balance misfired slightly and potential male readers may be disappointed to find that the only teenage boy, for the most part plays second fiddle to the witch girls. If you don’t dig too deep Witches of Ash and Ruin is a solid mythological fantasy novel which should appeal to teenage girls, few boys will read this, but when you look below the surface it was not quite so convincing. AGE 13+ Leslie Karen Lutz - Fractured TideFractured Tide action kicks off with Sia on a scuba-diving trip; her mother owns a boat and together they entertain tourist on day excursions. Whilst on a dive around a popular ship-wreck site with a large group of teenagers they think they are being stalked by a shark, but quickly realise this is something much nastier lurking in the water which quickly claims its first victim. From that point on, which is still quite early in the novel, expect the unexpected. Monsters, time-travel, Bermuda Triangle style shenanigans, weird sinkholes, time repeating itself and all sorts of outlandish stuff are thrown into a convoluted mix. I’m not going to go into any details about any of this part of Fractured Tide, just don’t expect it to make much sense, as it is as much X-Files as thriller. Fractured Tide has an odd narrative style which some readers might find both frustrating and a tension killer. The whole story is told in the first person, present tense, by seventeen-year-old Sia in the form of journal entries written to her absent father. As Sia has a lot of swimming and diving experience the others look at her for leadership as events continue to get more outlandish and she holds things together admirably due to the lack of adult leadership. Her mother appears in patches and she also must watch out for her little brother Felix. Fractured Tide might have had a broader YA appeal if there had been more than one POV. Ben is underutilised and there is a lack of strong male teen characters in current YA horror fiction and this novel is yet another in which girls run the show. Some of the reveals were handled very nicely and Fractured Tide keeps the reader guessing until the bitter end, which is no surprise as the story is wild. Even if you pick a few holes in the outlandish plot it was still very good fun. AGE 12+ Tim Major – Machineries of Mercy (watch out for republication later in 2020)Machineries of Mercy was originally published in 2018 on CHITEEN, the YA section of the troubled CHIZINE publishing house. There problems have been well documented elsewhere, so if you are interested in this quirky dystopian thriller, perhaps consider waiting until it is republished on a new label later this year. I don’t know how fashionable the computer game SIMS is with kids today, but my fourteen-year-daughter remains an avid fan and there is an element of that system in this novel, there is also a large slice of Orwell’s 1984, John Wyndham’s Midwich Cuckoos and other novels of this type will probably spring to mind. Told through a double-narrative, Lex and Ethan, are involved in a break into a powerful company Mercy HQ and after he is caught, and imprisoned, things go from bad to worse. The story takes its time revealing what is going on and being set slightly in the future an Orwellian style world is chillingly mapped out in a Wyndham style village. Lex and Ethan are railing against the system created by the all-powerful Mercy HQ, but ‘the man’ is big and very powerful. Once caught Ethan is not sent to a prison, he is sent to a virtual reality village called Touchstone, adult readers will quickly realise this is very similar to Westworld. However, this is a freaky place and is incredibly well drawn out by the author. There are loads of glitches in the system, the ‘prisoners’ so to school and many are avatars mixed in amongst the real prisoners who band together. Like 1984, the objective is brainwashing and breaking the spirits of the inmates. In one great scene Ethan runs in a long-distance race and is doing well, but eventually finishes last, as he is an avatar, the system is rigged for him to lose. Whilst he fights to survive in the virtual reality world Lex tries to solve the mystery of where he disappeared to. Things might fit together a bit too easily in the end, but for teens who like computer games and YA dystopian novels it was very entertaining. AGE 12+ saundra Mitchell – All the Things We Do in the DarkYou are not going to read many braver books than Saundra Mitchell’s edgy mystery All the Things We Do in the Dark which deals with the long-term fallout of a teenage girl who was raped as a nine-year-old. Picking up the story several years later Ava continues to deal with PTSD type symptoms, and few know about her ordeal except her family and her best friend. The assault also left her with a badly damaged face and the first-person narrative helps creative a very emotional and personal story which was very convincing. This is not a subject which is easy to write about, and is only revisited through flashbacks, but remains very powerful. The plot features a touch of magical realism, after an argument with her best friend Ava is walking home in the forest and discovers a dead body. Instead of reporting it to the police, she keeps the body a secret, calls her “Jane” and later begins to see what she things is her ghost before attempting to solver her murder. This seventeen-year-old is a great central character and is easily triggered and uses things like secret tattoos to compartmentalise her feelings. It was a tough book to read and this sort of YA fiction rarely existed twenty-years-ago, and it is fantastic that we have brave novels that can lead to discussions on the long term psychological effects of rape, guilt, and the perception that a woman can be ‘asking for it.’ Highly recommended. AGE 13+ rhonda Parrish - HollowThere was much going on in Rhonda Parrish’s YA debut Hollow, which takes its time revealing its supernatural story, around 30% before anything much happened. That is not to say what went before was not interesting to read, as we are introduced to sixteen-year-old Morgan who has a difficult home life. Her mother is in a wheelchair and suffers from depression and her little brother died in the same accident, as a result Morgan looks after her little sister. She is also bullied at school by an ex-boyfriend who spreads nasty rumours about her, something she really struggles with. Her only form of escape is with her best friend and through her hobby, running. This was all very easy to read, with snappy engaging dialogue, with Morgan an easy character to spend time with. The story takes a turn for the supernatural when she discovers an old camera in an abandoned hospital, which has strange qualities which seem to suck the goodness from people if they are snapped. Morgan’s first photo is of a squirrel, which quickly goes mental in a very cool scene. It picks up the pace in the second half, but I liked the balance of school stuff, the new love interest and the teenager trying to do the best for her family. It takes its time revealing what happened with the ex-boyfriend, in the form of a sexual assault, but it fits well into the wider story. Much of it is very reminiscent of the famous Point Horror novels of the 1990s and I think lots of teens might enjoy this. AGE 13+ Suzanne Young – Girls with Sharp SticksI was a huge fan of Suzanne Young’s Program series and was interested in seeing what she was going to produce next and Girls with Sharp Sticks, which promises to be the start of a new sequence, does not disappoint. Reading this as an adult the plot is telegraphed and fairly predictable from the numerous clues dropped, however, if you put yourself into the shoes of a 12-15 year-old-girl, it is an entertaining tale of friendship, identity in the oppressive atmosphere of the Girls of Innovations Academy. In the opening sequences we’re introduced to main-character Mena and it looks like she attends some sort of old-fashioned finishing school where girls are taught manners, obedience and other society rules. However, lots of hints are dropped very slowly and you’ll have fun figuring out the big picture about the true motives of the school. When Mena is out on a day trip, she meets a boy, who the girls are not allowed to fraternise with, and things develop further. These beautiful (all are perfect) girls are taught not to ask questions, but when one of Mena’s classmates disappears the cracks begin to show. This novel has many similarities to Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours, which asks the same ethical questions as this thoughtful novel, albeit in a more dystopian setting. AGE 12+ The Heart and Soul of Horror PromotionThe Horror Writer’s Association (HWA) recently voted for a particularly weak novel as their winner of the prestigious Bram Stoker Award, Young Adult (YA) section. The Ginger Nuts of Horror, who review more YA titles than most websites, does not recommend this book and suggest avoiding it. We also believe that on this occasion the HWA has shot itself in the foot; the last couple of years has featured some excellent titles on the final ballot, and if the organisation had any intentions of making inroads into the wider YA literature world they can forget it, Oware Mosaic is not the book to do it. In the build up to the award Ginger Nuts traditionally reviews all those featured on the preliminary list, which was subsequently cut to six for the final ballot, and were dismayed when Oware Mosaic made it through to the final ballot as it was clearly the weak link of the original ten titles. How we rated them is directly below and ultimately, we would have been happy to see any of the top eight books pick up the gong. Jacqueline West: Last Things (9.5/10) (prelim ballot) Liana Gardner: Speak no Evil (9/10) (final ballot) Amelinda Berube: Here there are Monsters (8.5/10) (final ballot) Ann Davila Cardinal: Five Midnights (8/10) (final ballot) Dawn Kurtagich: Teeth in the Midst (8/10) (prelim ballot) Shea Earnshaw: Winterwood (8/10) (prelim ballot) Sara Faring: The Tenth Girl (7/10) (prelim ballot) Kate Alice Marshall: Rules for Vanishing (7/10) (final ballot) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Adam Salomon: 8 Minutes, 32 Seconds (5/10) (final ballot) Nzondi: Oware Mosaic (3/10) WINNER Our review of Oware Mosaic was published after it appeared on the preliminary ballot:
“I really struggled with Oware Mosaic and found large sections made little sense, making it a novel I would not recommend to YA readers. Teenagers get frustrated easily and even though it features some creative ideas, much of it is lost in stilted prose with a voice which is both dull and repetitive. Set in Ghana, some years after a massive war, scientists have developed a technology that stores consciousness on data-orbs called retcons. Through a combination of human characters and a future type of (almost) vampire they end up in a virtual reality via a very advanced computer game. I’m not explaining this very well, mainly because I understood little of it and much of what it presented was hard to visualise and I found myself reading the same piece of text several times to pick up the flow. It’s nice to see the story set almost entirely in Africa, but I failed to connect with it and think teen readers would also struggle.” The highly respected blogger, ‘Monster Librarian’, who also reviews a lot of YA also raised concerns below. This is one of very few reviews of the book to appear anywhere. It said: “Despite my really wanting to love this, there is a serious flaw in this book that made suspension of disbelief for this book impossible for me [...] There is the germ of a good story in here but it needs much more work for that to emerge. Based on what I read, though, I don’t think I can recommend this as YA horror. Is this science fiction? Post-apocalyptic fiction? Crime fiction? A combination? If Nzondi decides to reshape the story, I will be interested to see how he does it.” As a school librarian of nearly thirty years I practice what I preach, I love nothing more than promoting horror to kids and teenagers, but ultimately awards are only as good as their winners. I have all eight of the top books in my library, two copies of my favourites and really enjoy chatting to kids about horror and the Stoker award to those who show that level of interest. I hasten to add this is not about particular ‘taste’ but having the ability to read a book and then being able to decide which teen reader might be attracted to any title. This is the reason I struggled with this winner: I cannot fathom which group of teenagers whom I regularly interact with might want to read it. You might ask how can such a mediocre novel win such a prestigious international gong? In mainstream YA literature such a feat would be impossible with awards such as the Newbery (USA) and Carnegie (UK) Medals and every other mainstream literary prize. What makes the Stoker different is that the voting members of the HWA decide who win, the majority of which know zero about YA fiction. None of this has anything to do with the quality of Oware Mosaic. The Carnegie and the Newbery Medal winners are discussed and debated by YA professionals and literary experts. This is a big difference. The panel of judges are unlikely to agree on the winner, but there is healthy debate. I feel sorry for the YA Stoker panel as they put together a very strong preliminary list, based upon a lot of reading. But what makes the YA Stoker category slightly different is that in addition to the panel selections, if any other books receive more than five votes from the members it automatically goes on the ballot (quality does not come into it). This is a big mistake. I would be stunned if Oware Mosaic were a panel selection, those guys are certain to be specialists of some kind, so this book is almost certainly been pushed onto the ballot by the voting members. No YA experts worth their salt would vote for this book. The YA category is different from the other categories in that it is very specialist and I would suggest leaving it to the YA experts and not HWA members who want to vote for their friends or who campaigns the loudest. If this had been the case, then one of the eight top books would surely have won and then the HWA would have a worthy winner to promote around schools and libraries rather than a winner which will fail to connect with a teenage audience. For the last few years, I have sat on a committee for a book prize which involves around thirty schools and I appreciate how much work goes into organising these events. Our prize has a different theme every year and the shortlist is chosen entirely by a panel of school librarians, after which our job is done, and the winner is then selected by a vote by hundreds of children who have read them. There will always be a strong winner as the initial shortlist was chosen by the experts and there are no turkeys being stream-rolled onto the shortlist, which is obviously the case with the YA Stoker. If I were a librarian who bought Oware Mosaic after it won this ‘prestigious’ horror award, after reading it, I would question the validity of the award and would likely swerve it in future. Books which win big awards should expect to be raised up for extra scrutiny. I chat online with school librarians all the time and relatively few know much about horror, so they look to sites such as Ginger Nuts of Horror and others for recommendations. The HWA and the YA Stoker should be one of the first sites librarians should be checking for quality horror titles, however, with such disappointing winners there will be serious trust issues. Thankfully, the last couple of short-lists have been strong, but if parents are looking to buy books for teenage kids they often look to the overall winner and sadly this book will do zero to advance a love for reading. Also, these days libraries are strapped for cash and need to be selective in what they buy, and it would be a shame to hear of money being wasted on this novel. These are all reasons why we need a winner everybody can support 100% and confidently shout from the rooftops about, but this will only happen if the HWA abandons the ineffective voting procedure for the YA category. On a positive note, it has been encouraging to see the HWA trying to make some inroads into libraries with its ‘Summer Scares’ programme. This year the YA section features the excellent Daughters unto Devils by the fantastic Amy Lukavics, an author Ginger Nuts has championed for years. It is high time the HWA start recognising the talents of this stunning writer, who four novels into an incredibly varied career, has only made the final ballot on one occasion. Let us see if the HWA put Oware Mosaic forward for the Summer Scares programme next year! I doubt it. I am sure the members of the HWA would like to see the YA category flourish beyond the niche horror world, however, for this to happen they need to step back and let the experts decide the winners. Wouldn’t it be amazing if genuine teenagers got excited about the Stoker, or we heard of displays in school libraries or kids attempting to read all the titles on an annual shortlist? This will only happen if they have strong fiction which will connect and resonate with readers. We need the best books to win, plain and simple. Writers like Amy Lukavics and the best YA horror has to offer. In early summer Ginger Nuts of Horror will be presenting our top 100 horror novels of the last decade, of which the top fifty will have full reviews. Not one of the YA Stoker winners from the period 2010-2019 even makes the top 100 and that is, quite frankly, embarrassing for an award which is supposed to showcase the best in teenage horror from around the world, not just America. Tony Jones |
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