The standard of Middle Grade and YA horror continues to be very high, and I have so many books to review there will be a further roundup in August. For July we have a great selection of six books, including a unique double bill by Tom Deady. This author is well established on the adult horror scene, and is a winner of the HWA Bram Stoker Award, but The Clearing is his debut foray into YA fiction. I’m delighted to say Tom makes an impressive splash and this is solidly backed up by Of Men and Monsters, which although is an adult novella has strong YA vibes. Kathryn Foxfield follows her excellent Good Girls Die First (2020) with another quality read, It’s Behind You, will have teen readers speed reading everywhere when a group of low-rent social media stars get trapped in a haunted cave. YA horror great William Hussey continues his exile from the supernatural with the superb Outrage, which cements this amazing author’s reputation as a voice for the LGBTQ+ movement in dark fiction. Over the years I have read many Kenneth Oppel novels, this versatile Canadian really deserves to be better known in the UK, and in Bloom (book one in the Overthrow Trilogy) we have a very enjoyable horror science fiction thriller development of Day of the Triffids. Bryce Moore takes us back to 1890s Chicago in The Perfect Place to Die where a naive teenager arrives in the big city looking for her sister, a potential victim of a serial killer. Last (and certainly not least) Rose Szabo’s What Big Teeth arrives in the UK with some hype. Is it YA or adult fiction? It is very hard to tell and this dark fairy-tale defies categorisation when a teenager returns to her monstrous family after many years in boarding school. The books are presented in alphabetical order by author. Tom Deady – The ClearingIf you’re after a gateway horror novel for kids aged ten plus, then look no further than Tom Deady’s outstanding The Clearing which is perfect for the top end of primary to the early secondary years. Deady is clearly on fine form, as this roundup also includes his Of Men and Monsters, which although is adult has solid YA leanings, thankfully The Clearing does not feature the same bleak ending and is more in tune with Middle Grade fiction. This engrossing read had everything to get keen kids turning the pages; engaging characters, great pace, threat (but not too scary), a taste of early romance, and friendship which is all cleverly built around a snappy mystery, which develops supernatural overtones and conspiracy in the local community. I have already bought a copy for my school library. Bizarrely, something about it made me think of the 1970s cult film Race with the Devil where Warren Oates and friends are stalked by Satanists, who hide in plain sight. Set in a small and sleepy New Hampshire town, two young girls find themselves in danger after deciding to do a Nancy Drew and carry out their own investigation, instead of going to the police. It was the summer holidays, and they were bored, so who can blame them? The Clearing has a super cool opening hook which is guaranteed to reel any young horror hound in right from the off. Hannah Green is out walking her dog when the pooch makes a grisly find, a decomposing foot. Instead of going to the police she calls her best friend Ashley, and they begin to snoop, which leads them into a decades old mystery which they connect to the disappearance of a local girl. As they begin to join the dots, other characters are introduced and suspicion falls on a reclusive old woman, Mama Bayole. There were not too many suspects, but this mystery was great fun, with the supernatural story convincingly backed by the friendship story between Hannah and Ashley. Another story strands involves Hannah and her father, who is struggling to cope (as is Hannah) with the disappearance of her mother the previous year. The crisp pace, kidnappings and red herrings ensure the intensity keeps up right to the end, which finishes satisfyingly for a potential sequel. As with most Middle Grade horror, it was very clear who were the ‘good’ and who were the ‘bad’ guys, but it was great fun accompanying Hannah and Ashley on their adventure. AGE RANGE 10-13. Tom Deady – Of Men and MonstersTom Deady’s excellent novella Of Men and Monsters is undoubtedly aimed at the adult market, but it has a very strong YA vibe pumping through it. The thirteen or fourteen-year-old version of myself would have sped through these 88-pages in a single sitting, I might not have picked up on the heavy family abuse overtones but would have loved the convincing coming-of-age story set over a long hot summer and the cute girls hanging around in the background. Nostalgically set in 1975 the narrator Ryan Baxter, his brother Matt and their mother suddenly move to a small seaside town, which is generally empty when season is over. Ryan who is eleven, and in particular fourteen-year-old Matt are very sad to end up in Bayport (MA) but are on the run from their abusive father. However, they quickly make new friends and more importantly, both brothers meet girls. I really enjoyed the relationship between the two brothers and their mother and their struggles to escape the shadow of their father and had fond recollections of my own childhood summers which seemed to go on forever. However, I was not convinced by eleven-year-old kids having girlfriends and talk of “going through the bases”, come on ELEVEN, when I was that age, I was somewhat behind Ryan who gets his first kiss over the course of the novella. The supernatural element was very cleverly introduced into the story, with Ryan finding a huge pile of old comics in the attic, then bonds with his brother through shared reading, before filling in a coupon which leads to the arrival of a strange package. The uneasiness which this begins is cleverly balanced with the trials of first love and the dangerous shadow of the father, the silent telephone caller. In the end it was a moving story, perhaps the ending was a tad too bleak for YA readers (and me!) but it was a great little book which said and crammed a lot into its engrossing 88-pages. AGE RANGE 14+ Kathryn Foxfield - It's Behind You |
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