Blog Posts

THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR DISSECTS THE NOVELS ON THE YA STOKER PRELIMINARY LIST

19/2/2021

Since 2017 Ginger Nuts of Horror has reviewed all the books which feature on the Preliminary Ballot of the YA section of the prestigious Bram Stoker Award and I am happy to announce that this year boasts is a very strong collection of ten titles. Arguably, the best they have selected in many years. Eight of the featured novels have all previously been reviewed in ‘Young Blood’, the YA section of Ginger Nuts of Horror, so it looks like the Stoker judges have been keeping an eye on what we have been reviewing. At some point half the field will be cut for the Final Ballot and good luck to all those involved.

ADAM CESARE – CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (9/10)

Clown in a Cornfield is undoubtedly the most read (and anticipated) YA horror novel by adults in several years and it more than matched its pre-publication hype. This highly impressive teen debut from adult horror author Adam Cesare ticked many of the boxes required for a sure-fire YA hit: gore, engaging characters, great kill scenes and a sly sense of humour. I do love a ‘Final Girl’ and main character Quinn Maybrook was a great lead, particularly when the body count spirals in the second half of the story. Clown in a Cornfield truly is a book of two halves in which the first establishes the plot with the story exploding in the second stanza. Upon arrival in the sleepy and remote small town of Kettle Strings (Missouri) Quinn and her father Doctor Glen Maybrook are quickly sucked into a white-knuckle ride which, like many of the b-horror films it is inspired by, most of the bloodthirsty action takes place over a single night.

What of the clowns? This part of the plot is inspired by ‘Frendo’, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat which has been associated with the town for decades. If you have watched many of the slasher films Clown in the Cornfield plays homage to, you’ll realise these films were all about the kill sequences and in this regard the novel does not hold back on the gore which involves chainsaws, shotguns and crossbows. The clown action sequences were outstanding set pieces and are guaranteed to nail any teenage reader to the page as the body count spirals. I hope this highly entertaining novel is taken in the spirit in which it is intended: old fashioned gore, unrelenting action and gleefully violent fun which is played out with a nice group of teenage characters. First and foremost, teen fiction is a form of escapism, which is supposed to be fun, and in that respect this novel is an absolute winner. AGE 13/14+

DANIEL KRAUS – BENT HEAVENS (9/10)

Kraus has a superb back-catalogue of dark/horror YA fiction, including the highly recommended Rotters, and this latest release maintains this high standard. Eighteen-year-old Liv Fleming leads this genre-bending thriller which dances around horror and 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, but it is the circumstances surrounding her father which makes this story fascinating. 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, with patchy memories of being experimented upon. Officially, it was presumed he suffered a mental breakdown and the family struggled to cope with the very public emotional fallout.

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. 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 an impressive twist (although I saw it coming) which was also completely heart-breaking. 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. AGE 13+

ERICA WATERS – GHOST WOOD SONG (8.5/10)

The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Hell, how many mid-teens even know what bluegrass is? I just asked my fifteen-year-old daughter and she responded with “that weird hillbilly banjo music that kid from Deliverance played” so perhaps a few might! Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school bluegrass music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern or mainstream tunes. Older teens looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones will find much escapism in these pages.

Family dynamics play a key part of story after a death in the family, whilst Shady struggles to get over the death of her father, continually returning to one of his favourite songs. She believes that her father’s fiddle had the power to conjure up the dead and is set on finding it and although the supernatural story was interesting, I was more drawn to Shady’s relationships with Sarah and others. The music scenes genuinely sparkled, as they should in novels with this kind of vibe, and I thought Shady was very cool in sticking to her guns and not selling out. Ghost Wood Song also had an outstanding ending and although it will be too slow for some teens, those who enjoy a thoughtful read, with well-drawn characters are in for a treat. AGE 13/14+

DARREN CHARLTON – WRANGLESTONE (8.5/10)

Whilst zombies dominated the adult horror market a few years ago, they were a mere blip on the YA landscape and never amounted to much. It has also become trendy to write zombie novels without the dreaded ‘Z’ word ever used 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 it is also a love story between two boys who find each other in a novel which has its own clever take on the zombie mythology. 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, for example, not accepting newcomers. Early in the story everybody is edgy as when winter arrives, the lake will freeze and that will 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, with the focus more on Peter and Cooper and their place in the community. 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 refreshing to read about a teenager who knew he was gay from the outset, there was no questioning or ambiguity, he had been attracted to Cooper since day one and that was that. AGE 12/13+

ESTELLE LAURE - MAYHEM (7.5/10)

I always enjoy authors who change directions with their fiction and with her third YA novel Estelle Laure edges away from teen dramas into the world of the supernatural with the beguiling Mayhem. The novel begins with sixteen-year-old Mayhem Brayburn and her single parent mother, Roxy, returning to the family home in the seaside town of Santa Maria where her father died when she was a baby. Much of the story is built around Mayhem’s return to her hometown and the secrets connecting her to her family and their unconventional history. Mayhem deals with the family dynamics in the Brayburn family and the vaguely explained hold they exert over the town they live just outside. In the time Roxy has been away her sister Elle has fostered three other children who are key characters in the novel and in the convincing relationships Mayhem builds when she uncovers her past.

The convincing developing friendship of the four children was crucial to the success of the book and for most of the time their relationships dominated the plot and the supernatural element lurked in the background. The subtle supernatural angle revolves around what makes the Brayburn’s different from everybody else in Santa Maria, with added conflict thrown in because the three other children are not Brayburn by blood. At a certain point, the ‘magic’ is explained away because the town is built upon a ‘Psychic Vortex’ where weird stuff can happen. Although I enjoyed Mayhem, its success with real teen readers will depend on how well they connect with Mayhem as a leading character and their interest in the family vibes which dominate the story. Other readers may find it a tad slow, but for those teens who enjoy thoughtful dramas with a supernatural twist it was highly engaging. AGE 13+

LESLIE KAREN LUTZ – FRACTURED TIDE (7/10)

Fractured 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 am 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, including the underutilised Ben. 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+

ANN DAVILA CARDINAL – CATEGORY FIVE (FIVE MIDNIGHTS BOOK 2) (7/10)

Category Five is a welcome sequel to the YA Bram Stoker Award nominated Five Midnights (2020). Although this continuation of the story of teenager Lupe, who is half Puerto Rican and half American, is not as strong as the original, it is a very readable sequel, which has the same strong cultural feel of its predecessor. In Five Midnights, Lupe and her friends were stalked by the Puerto Rican version of the bogieman in a novel which had a neat sense of time and place which convincingly blended with the supernatural. Category Five does its best to repeat the same trick but lacks the freshness of the original and as another spooky mystery unfolds, Scooby Doo, Shaggy, and the gang sprang to mind in a story which although has its moments, lacked scares in the supernatural area of the story.

Much of the action takes place on the island of Vieques, not far from the Puerto Rican coast, some months after a devastating category five hurricane. Around the same time, a new holiday resort is being built on the island when strange things begin to happen, weird lights are seen, and before long there are dead bodies, some missing their hearts. Ghostly figures are also sighted which are introduced in a superb prologue. Meanwhile, Lupe is back in Puerto Rica visiting her police chief uncle and the story picks up the developing romance with Javier from the end of the previous novel. The supernatural mystery itself was slightly old hat and when revealed the concept will be very familiar to adult readers, however, it worked fine within a less demanding YA context. The strength of the novel was undoubtedly its setting, coupled with its vivid connection to local culture. Lupe was also a great character, unable to speak proper Spanish (and very pale skinned) her search for identity, as a ‘gringa’ with the locals was an enthralling read and was perhaps more engrossing than the supernatural story itself. AGE 13+

ASH PARSONS - GIRLS SAVE THE WORLD IN THIS ONE (7/10)

Girls Save the World in This One was the only comedy of the ten books on the preliminary list, and although it was some very funny moments it suffers from being much too long and perhaps being so stupid it becomes slightly hit and miss. But as it is billed as “Shaun of the Dead meets Clueless” you get what you pay for and a few moments had me snorting out loud and I also happily recommended it to my fifteen-year-old daughter who enjoys fiction with pop culture references and the world of fandom which is lightly explored and mocked in this book. It is also worth pointing out that the title Girls Save the World in This One is a total misfire, because girls save the world in every YA horror world these days with boys no longer getting a look in. The ridiculous story revolves around three best friends, June Blue, Imani and Siggy, and their day out to a zombie convention in their local town. Top of the bill is the opportunity of meeting the heartthrob of their favourite zombie apocalypse show, ‘Human Wasteland’ (remind you of anything?) and listen to panels, have photo opportunities, and meet other stars from the world of zombie film and television.

These types of uber-fan conventions are more of an American phenomenon than anywhere else and one wonders whether some of the jokes may go over the head of British or other non-USA readers? Before long, the teenagers realise that there are real zombies at the event and the fight for survival, even if the novel lacked true threat, is on. Because of the ‘cosplay’ aspect there are those who are dressed up as zombies, who looked more like ‘real’ zombies than the actual zombies! Some of this was very amusing and before long the girls are fighting for survival along with the heroes of the TV show and other quirky veterans of zombie films. Although much of the dialogue was snappy and engaging, the problem with Girls Save the World in This One is that it was a one-joke book and playing it out over 400 odd pages was just too much. This was dumb, but fun, and probably highly acquired taste. AGE 12+

MONIQUE SNYMAN - THE BONE CARVER (NIGHT WEAVER BOOK 2) (6/10)

The Bone Carver is a sequel to the entertaining fantasy horror The Night Weaver (2019) which reached the final ballot of the Bram Stoker YA Award a couple of years ago. This sequel which takes us back to the New England town of Shadow Grove, has the same main characters, locations and having read book one would be advisable before tackling this, however, there are recaps and it could also be read as a standalone novel. Shadow Grove is one of those weird towns where strange things happen and many people either take it for granted or turn a blind eye, as it is strongly connected to the fairy realm, with the supernatural bleeding into our world. The location is one of the great strengths of the book, as is Ridge Crest High School, both are very well drawn, and the author does a fine job of bringing to life.

In this latest adventure high school senior Rachel Cleary (and her cool Scottish cousin Dougal) start finding strange little models in odd places around the school, which they connect to a rash of accidents around town. Although Rachel is stressed about her exams, she realises that something powerful has come across from the fairy realm and as her aunt has had an accident she has to turn to Orion Nebulius, the supernatural being who helped her defeat the Night Weaver in the previous book. Although The Bone Carver was an entertaining enough read it took a while to get going and ages for Rachel to firstly find and bring Orion into the action before the plot moved into the key story thread. Overall, although this was a solid sequel, the central story, once it was revealed could have been stronger, but Rachel is an engaging enough character to partially gloss over that crucial shortcoming. AGE 12+

AIDEN THOMAS - CEMETERY BOYS 6/10

Yadriel, a trans teenager, is the main character of Cemetery Boys, who comes from a long line of ‘brujos’ which is the Latin American term for ‘witch’ and within the context of this novel is very much part of their local culture and day-to-day life. Due to Yadriel’s sexuality he has clashes with his family and issues of acceptance with other members of the Latin East Los Angeles community where he lives. His best friend is his cousin Maritza who is supportive of his situation and helps him in his quest to become a recognised brujo, which is seen as a rights-of-passage in the Latin community. To do so the pair perform a ritual to find the ghost of his murdered cousin, Miguel, however, something goes from and instead they raise the ghost of another recently murdered teenage boy, Julian Diaz, who it turned out attended the same high school as Yadriel. Following the surprise appearance of the ghost (which few other people can see except for Yadriel and Maritza) the plot takes in a few murders, family drama, sexuality, and romance, all of which is handled with a relatively light touch.

Firstly, it was nice to see a trans character take the lead role in a YA horror novel, even if the ‘horror’ was very minimal, with the plot predominately dancing around the Latin supernatural angle and the personal situation of Yadriel. Lots of Spanish words are dropped into the text, which I found quite appealing, and had me reaching for Google translator. However, apart from the fact that Yadriel was trans and has both family and community problems because of it, he was presented in a relatively shallow manner. It was also incredibly easy to see where the book was going with everything telegraphed right to the cute ending. Ultimately, Cemetery Boys has a very positive message about diversity and accepting people for being themselves, also giving the readers an insightful look into the Latin American community and some of the issues trans teens might face. I am sure many readers will love this book, however, I found the blend of romance and the supernatural slightly unconvincing, but nevertheless enjoyed it.

the-best-website-for-horror-promotion-orig_orig

new BOOK REVIEW THE GATHERING OF SHADOWS BY MARK N DRAKE

Comments

WOMEN IN (YA) HORROR MONTH: 30 YA AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW

15/2/2021

What have the thirty authors featured in this article got in common besides the fact they are all women? That is easy, if they had a new book coming out tomorrow, I would have already pre-ordered it! In covering such a wide range of YA horror for Ginger Nuts, and through my day job as a school librarian, I track countless dark fiction authors (both male and female) and these thirty are all writers who have caught my eye and I look forward to what they might have next in the literary pipeline.

They are also connected by the fact that they are all in the early stages of their ‘horror career’. This is not an exact science, by that I mean, the majority have only written a couple of novels (or one) or are new to YA horror, having already published in other areas. In that manner, they are all authors to watch, particularly if you follow YA horror.

YA horror and dark fiction is already dominated by female writers however, it is still a useful exercise in bringing together in one article, potentially, the big names or stars of tomorrow. Some have had much more media coverage than others and there are many here who are ripe for literary exploration or with a lucky break could hit the bigtime overnight. Never forget also, if you are looking for a cool book for your favourite niece or nephew this is the perfect place to start. This list is an absolute treasure trove of great books and wonderful authors.

Ladies, The Ginger Nuts of Horror salute you all. YOU ROCK!

MELISSA ALBERT

Melissa’s dark fantasy debut, Hazel Wood (2018), impressed me greatly, a story which she continued in The High Country (2019) and a collection of short stories. What will this talented author give us next?

Here’s what we said about Hazel Wood when we first reviewed it:

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road travelling from place to place, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck which seems to follow them everywhere. There is something uncanny about the level of ill-fortune which is connected to the dark past of her family. Alice’s grandmother was a reclusive, somewhat of a cult writer, semi-famous for a collection of frightening fairy-tales which for some unknown reason is incredibly difficult to buy or find anywhere online no matter how much cash you have.

After the disappearance of her mother, Alice suspects she has been kidnapped by a character who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world of her grandmother's stories which are set in the Hazel Wood. This was an excellent fantasy novel which expertly blended two worlds together, some of the fantasy characters which seeped into ours were totally terrific. It was eerie, compelling and a fine mix of light romance, teen stuff, great characters, and fantasy mystery.

Laura Bates

Laura Bates is well known in the UK for her work and writing on feminism, however, her fictional debut The Burning (which does feature some of the same elements) truly blew me away. I hope she continues to write fiction and sticks with the supernatural theme.

Here’s what we said about The Burning when we first reviewed it:

If you’re on the hunt for a YA novel which effortlessly blends the horrors of teenage social media with the tale of a 400-year-old witch trial, then look no further. This was a superb read which carries a powerful message about the dangers of posting the wrong stuff online and peer pressure, delivering it in a naturalistic style, which never becomes heavy handed or preachy. In no time at all you will be rooting for the teenage protagonist Anna who is dragged through a horrific emotional wringer. The Burning is horror with a light touch, the pain, and long-term repercussions of one naive decision becomes scarier than any supernatural bogeyman. The fallout was severe, with Anna and her mother leaving their old life in Birmingham behind to live in a small coastal village near Saint Andrews on the east side of Scotland.

Starting any new school is difficult and Laura Bates completely nails the awkwardness of this transition, but before long she becomes friends with local girls, but bullying is never far away and soon her past catches up with her. The Burning has a second main story which nudges it into the horror genre, beyond that of everyday teenage life. As part of a school history project everyone researches a topic of local interest and after Anna discovers an obscure reference to someone who was suspected of being a witch centuries earlier. As she uncovers the story, the plight of Maggie, she realises the ‘witch’ has many startling similarities to her own plight and starts to feel a strong connection to the long-dead young woman, part of which whose narrative is told in flashback. With YA kids generally avoid books which obviously have a heavy-handed message, The Burning works because its warning are very subtle with a top-notch story, believable story, and a convincing dose of history.

EMMA BERQUIST

I have really enjoyed both of Emma’s supernatural novels, Missing Presumed Dead (2019) and the western zombie romp Devils Unto Dust (2018), and I hope we see a third novel soon.

Here’s what we said about Devils Unto Dust when we first reviewed it:

Emma Berquist’s startling debut Devils unto Dust is a zombie story set in the American old West which has an outstanding teenage girl character leading the action, which involves a hunt across largely empty desert landscapes which is beautifully described. The story revolves around problems with the nuclear family and what the main character Daily Wilcox (known as ‘Willie’) will do to protect hers after problems with her disappeared father. But along the way savour the empty, but incredibly described landscapes as Willie and her friends battle for survival. So, where do the zombies come into it?

Like most novels of this type the ‘Z’ word is never used, and they are known as ‘shakers’ with Texas being quarantined from the rest of the country as the undiagnosed virus spreads. In fact, the plot could have been lifted straight out an old b-western novel from the 1950s, but the horror twist Emma Berquist brings to the table is perfectly pitched. Willie’s drunk father steals money from a local moneylender who threatens to hurt Willie and her siblings if he is not reimbursed. The young woman then takes it upon herself to hire two ‘shake’ hunters with what little money they have left and sets out away from their home of Glory, Texas to find her father and retrieve the cash. There are some outstanding action sequences, but the zombies never dominate the story, and all the characters are incredibly well drawn.

AMELINDA BERUBE

Amelinda Berube has written two supernatural novels, with the second, Here There Are Monsters (2019) being particularly impressive. Amelinda has the potential to be one of the stars of the genre. A new novel soon please!

Here’s what we said about Here There Are Monsters when we first reviewed it:

I was really captivated by this slow-burning YA horror/fantasy novel which genuinely nailed the troubled psyche of a sixteen-year-old girl who is trying to deal with the sudden disappearance of her little sister, aged thirteen. The younger girl Deirdre had issues, which are revealed slowly as the plot moves backwards and forwards through narratives before and after the disappearance. Although Skye was not to blame, she feels guilty and it puts a strain on her relationship with her struggling parents who try not to accuse her. But when they’re so stressed tensions run very high and it is easy to cast stones.

The supernatural aspect is slowly filtered into the book and the haunting aspect of the story is cleverly connected to Skye, her new friends, and what lives within the local forest. Or is it something which has followed the sisters throughout their childhood? The compelling friendship dynamics Skye has with her new school friends works very well as she struggles to cope even more as the length of the disappearance stretches. The mystery quickly deepens, and I found this to be an excellent and atmospheric read for teenagers looking for a subtle supernatural slow burner.

THERESA BRAUN

I thoroughly enjoyed Theresa’s YA debut Fountain Dead (2018), and I know she has been busy on other writing and editing projects, but hopefully she will return to the world of YA soon. Tap me for a review any time Theresa!

Here’s what we said about Fountain Dead when we first reviewed it:

Mark and his family relocate due to work reasons and he finds himself friendless and lonely in a big old house which right from the start gives him the creeps and feelings of unease. Crucial to the story, he is also becoming aware that he is gay. The sexual awakening part of the story is handled very well and is convincingly woven into the supernatural plot which spirals back to the early inhabitants of the house in the 1860s. Mark also has a dominating mother, and a little sister, both of which play an important part of creating a convincing family dynamic.

Although Fountain Dead is not a long book and I hope potential teen readers find the 1860s storyline set in the Civil War period concerning American Indians as engaging as the present-day sequence which takes place in 1988. The way in which the paranormal activity escalated and morphed into a creature story was entertaining but the tension could have been ramped up even higher. Often in haunted house novels it is the location which dominates proceedings, but on this occasion, I thought the central character Mark was the real strength of the story and that’s a key ingredient to a successful YA novel. This thoughtful and entertaining ghost story has much to catch the eye of teens you enjoy character driven supernatural thrillers.

ANN DAVILA CARDINAL

Ann Davila Cardinal’s debut, Five Midnights (2019), was a deserved finalist for the prestigious YA Bram Stoker Award, layering a supernatural tale with a strong flavour of Puerto Rico. Her second novel Category Five (2020) continued the same series with a fresh supernatural mystery. What can we expect with her third? More horror please.

Here’s what we said about Five Midnights when we first reviewed it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced supernatural thriller set over a few hot and sweaty days in Puerto Rico. An American teenager (who has a Puerto Rican father) who speaks rubbish Spanish visits the island for the summer she gets sucked into a supernatural mystery surrounding the disappearance of her cousin and several of his friends. Luckily, her uncle is the chief of police and so she has some insider knowledge on what is going on and inserts herself into a convoluted and brooding mystery.

The horror aspect revolves around a Puerto Rican version of the boogieman who is killing teenagers with birthdays whose are very close together and known to Lupe. Has someone activated a curse, or how does this create targeting its victims? This is all part of the drama Lupe is sucked into. Seen from multiple points of view, throw in a splash of romance, a musical heartthrob, Lupe is an energetic lead character who is not scared to clash with the tough local women who see her as a ‘gringo’ interloper who needs to be put in her place. A highly entertaining supernatural thriller with a convincing and enlightening culturally different setting.

ERIN CRAIG

I was impressed by Erin’s dreamy and romantic debut The House of Salt and Shadows and look forward to reading Small Favors later in 2021.

Here’s what we said about The House of Salt and Shadows when we first reviewed it:

The House of Salt and Sorrows is a fascinating retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses fairy tale in which Annaleigh is the oldest surviving sister, determined to break the curse that's slowly killing her sisters. The deaths have left her family distraught as they are forever dressed in black and in mourning, also on edge, forever wondering who might be next. Annaleigh’s father has also remarried and announces his wife is pregnant with a son and the complex family dynamics begin to change. Although it was a slow novel, there was a lot going on with numerous creepy scenes and some decent twists, particularly in the second half.

The wind-swept remote castle setting was one of the strongest aspects of the story and the strong romantic aspect of the story point the book towards the female audience ever more so. Annaleigh was an engaging main character with a nice voice and after deaths by plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, and a slippery plunge there is no surprise she tries to break the curse and instead is plagued by a series of ghostly visions whilst her sisters disappear at night, but to where?

VICTORIA DALPE

I adored Parasite Life (2016), the startling debut from Victoria Dalpe, and I hope we see new fiction from her soon. This novel was originally published by the troubled ChiZINE and I hope the rumours that the novel had found a new home are true.

Here’s what we said about Parasite Life when we first reviewed it:

When it comes to unsettling and intense debut novels Victoria Dalpe’s Parasite Life is up there with the best of them. The teen market has been saturated with vampire novels, but this unnerving tale sails miles above the pack, partly because the ‘teen-life’ sequences are so painfully believable they exist without any need for horror, an isolated and lonely seventeen-year-old girl with no friends is horror enough. However, when the supernatural angle is filtered into the plot, it is done so cleverly and believably you are going to be sucked into a unique take on the vampire myth. Blend both story strands together, supernatural, and teen angst, and you have an intoxicating and very feminine vampire tale. Jane is the novel’s powerful narrator and voice, who spends her time looking after her invalided mother who either cannot or refuses to talk to her and has an undiagnosed wasting illness. She has no friends, they have little money, and she escapes her humdrum life by hiding away in books. However, early in a novel outgoing and vivacious Sabrina arrives at her school and life takes an amazing and exciting upturn.

Equally cool is the fact that Dalpe creates her own version of what a vampire is and sets her own rules, for example, the vampires in this story can live in sunlight. It sounds strange, but something about these weird deviations click. The author also tackles tricky subjects such as menstruation, which when you think about it, should play an important role in vampire novels, but never do. There is a budding sexual attraction between the two girls which awakens something hidden in Jane and it takes the girls into some dark places as the novel progresses. These relationship scenes are a combination of sexy, sensual, sleazy, and terrifically edgy writing as Jane discovers her hidden talents. This is a very mature YA novel which was originally written as an adult novel before being toned down at the request of the publisher.

SHEA ERNSHAW

I thought both of Shea Ernshaw’s supernatural novels were great, The Wicked Deep (2018) and Winterwood (2019) and am looking forward to tackling a new novel before too long.

Here’s what we said about The Wicked Deep when we first reviewed it:

The Wicked Deep was an entertaining debut which blends dark fantasy, horror, and a taste of teen romance. Ernshaw’s novel deserves to be a hit, probably with a young teen female audience who enjoy the supernatural mixed with engaging teen drama. The plot is centred around a local myth… Two centuries ago, in a small town in Oregon, three sisters were drowned in the ocean who were suspected of being witches. According to folklore, every summer since, they've emerged from the shadowy depths, temporarily possessing the bodies of drunk or stupid teenage girls and using them to lure boys to the harbour where they will meet their deaths. Something like sirens from Greek mythology.

Over the years there have been several suspicious deaths which has fed the myth, and the town makes great tourist trade from the summer festival which celebrates its colourful history around the witches. Penny Talbot’s mother owns a local bed and breakfast and after she gives a summer job to Bo Carter, who she thinks is cute, is sucked into the old town mystery and might even be the next victim. It’s definitely aimed at girls, and had a great mix of folklore, magic, witchcraft, the paranormal with young love blossoming in the background.

SARA FARING

Sara made a well-deserved splash with her startling debut, The Tenth Girl (2019), which she followed with another supernatural tale, White Fox (2020). I look forward to seeing in seeing which direction her third novel takes.

Here’s what we said about The Tenth Girl when we first reviewed it:

The Tenth Girl is one of those books which is picking up as much love as it is hate, being polarising in all sorts of ways, in particular, because of the outrageous twist ending. I am not going to comment which way I swing, as this is one of those occasions where you need to make up your own mind. Also, was this a YA novel? Yes and no. To be frank, an adult could pick it up by mistake and never twig it was predominately aimed at teens. This very twisty gothic thriller is mainly set in an Argentinean boarding school of the 1970s, so it is unique for points of references, making it challenging for a YA audience with the oppressive government dictatorship of that decade lurking in the background. It follows a young teacher beginning at a girl’s boarding school in Patagonia, in a house built by colonizers on land that formerly belonged to the Zapuche, an indigenous people in Argentina.

The young woman is attempting to escape the Argentinian government, but it seems that she may have gotten herself into an even more dangerous, disturbing situation as very quickly strange things happen at the boarding school and she is told not, under any circumstances, to go out at night. This book will not be for everyone, but when you do get to the end, some of the more abstract sequences make a lot more sense. Whatever you think, you’ll be shaking your head and will never see the ending coming. Avoid spoilers at all costs.

KATHRYN FOXFIELD

Good Girls Die First (2020) was Kathryn’s impressive debut novel and it heralded the arrival of a new voice in YA UK horror.

Here’s what we said about Good Girls Die First when we first reviewed it:

Good Girls Die First is a fast paced, eventually supernatural, spin on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None involving a group of ten teenagers who are lured to the derelict carnival on Portgrave Pier. Each are given a flier which implies blackmail, or the revealing of deep and dark secrets, should they fail to turn up at the pier. The novel is told in the third person from sixteen-year-old Ava’s point of view and the ten characters have varying connections to each other and part of the fun of Good Girls Die First is finding out what they are. As those involved are all sixteen expect bitchiness, fallouts, failed relationships, sexual encounters, drunken moments, half-truths, and out-and-out lies. In a nutshell: a bunch of relatively normal teens!

All ten characters each have a big secret they are desperate to protect and this was the most convincing aspect of the novel which leads to intense interactions between the characters, name calling and blaming. But what do they all have to hide? Ava is our central character, whose hobby (and potential career) is photography who loves snapping ruined buildings and desolate urban landscapes. After ten have made their way onto the pier and abandoned amusement arcade disaster strikes and the construction crumbles and their only way back to dry land disappears. Soon fog rolls in and a storm approaches, they are well and truly stranded, and the fun begins. Good Girls Die First has a lot to offer; it was edgy, pacey, and written with convincing dialogue, it was also refreshing to read a thriller set in the UK that does not particularly play to the stereotypes you might find in an American equivalent. Good Girls Die First delivers old-fashioned entertainment in spades, was not deep, but very easy to get lost in for a few hours.

CAROLINE FLARITY

I enjoyed Caroline Flarity’s debut The Ghost Hunter’s Daughter (2019) tremendously and I hope she releases new fiction soon. Send is some news please Caroline!

Here’s what we said about The Ghost Hunter’s Daughter when we first reviewed it:

Sixteen-year-old Anna is having a tough time at school, often known as ‘Zombie Girl’, because she has a prominent scar on her face and a father with a very odd job. He is a type of ghost hunter (or exorcist) and specialises more in ‘cleaning’ haunted objects, rather than ghosts. They struggle to pay the bills and Anna still reflects on the death of her mother eight years earlier and the fact that her soul may be stuck in spiritual limbo and could still be possessed by a demon. I thought this novel cleverly balanced its supernatural story with the normal trials and tribulations of a teenage girl who comes from a weird family and does her best to deal with it. Anna has two good friends she can count on (Freddy and Dor) but has a major crush on a boy from school which plays an important part in the story.

As well as covering stuff like social media shaming, bullying and peer pressure the supernatural angle builds nicely as the plot develops into a much wider conspiracy. As Anna is her dad’s assistant in his supernatural dealings she is bullied at school, but at the same time strange stuff really does seem to be happening, which many people believe is because of a rare solar storm which will light up the night sky. Anna is an engaging character, she is not perfect, makes a lot of wrong decisions, but nobody gets it right all the time and shines when the chips are down. A great combination of school life, teenage angst, and a few demons.

LIANA GARDNER

Liana has published three novels, two of which are supernatural, with the third Speak No Evil (2019) truly blowing me away, both her other novels are aimed at younger age groups. I cannot wait to see what this talented author produces next, and hope she sticks with YA.

Here’s what we said about Speak No Evil when we first reviewed it:

Liana Gardner’s outstanding Speak No Evil has a fascinating musical theme to it, with the story revolves around a sixteen-year-old girl who is in the American care-home system and has not spoken for almost two years. The doctor treating her realises music is very important to her and uses lyrics as a way of breaking down the communication barriers. The reasons for this are revealed very slowly and is told over multiple time periods, going back to when Melody Fisher was five years old, with the novel repeatedly jumping across the time periods, but as it progresses the backstory slowly closes in on the Melody who is sixteen. Ultimately this is a powerful novel about abuse, overcoming abuse and the resilience of Melody Fisher as she slowly, with a lot of help, turns her life around. I’m not ashamed to say I had a tear in my eye on more than one occasion.

Perhaps it is the backdrop of the story which edges it towards dark fiction rather than family drama, as this is very dark indeed. Melody’s parents both attend a church where snake-handling is part of the normal Sunday service, however, Melody’s mother is scared of the snakes, but Melody is gifted with animals and has a beautiful voice which almost has a hypnotic quality, but soon something goes horribly wrong with the snakes. Teenage novels which touch on subjects as dark as this, which also features a very unpleasant rape scene, need hope and even though Melody does not talk she does have others fighting in her corner for her. Perhaps in real life she would slip through the cracks of society? But this if fiction and we all need hope. A quite beautiful book.

CHRISTINE LYNN HERMAN

My fifteen-year-old daughter truly adored Christine’s debut The Devouring Gray (2019) and immediately hoovered up the sequel The Deck of Omens (2020). Although Titan do not necessary bracket their books as ‘YA’ these two novels tick all the boxes. Christine returns later in 2021 with All of us Villains. My daughter cannot wait. I will happily buy it for her.

Here’s what we said about The Devouring Gray when we first reviewed it:

The Devouring Gray begins when Violet Saunders returns to her mother’s hometown, Four Paths, after the death of her sister. When she arrives, she realizes she is a member of one of the very old founding families and many people deliberately keep their distance from her because of her heritage. But she eventually connects with the other founder’s children: Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper. She begins to see Four Paths true nature and the danger that lurks in the forest. When bodies start showing up, the teenagers must put all their differences aside and figure out how to stop ‘The Beast’, a dangerous creature that comes from ‘The Gray’ before it strikes again. I loved this book so much, mainly because of the convincing characters and its highly original take on magic.

The biggest mystery throughout the books is what exactly is ‘The Gray’ and where did this ‘Beast’ come from? Considering none of the characters genuinely know, it is also a self-discovery journey for all of them uncovering their origins. If you are confused by what ‘The Gray’ and ‘The Beast’ are, I am not going to give any spoilers, but they are highly significant to both novels. I realised that some people are comparing this to the hit TV show Stranger Things and it certainly has similarities, for example, ‘The Gray’ is reminiscent to ‘The Upside Down’ and ‘The Beast’ recollects ‘The Demogorgon’ but is significantly smarter.

LAUREN JAMES

Lauren is five books into a highly impressive career, with The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker her first supernatural effort. Her previous stories have taken in first love, with her third novel The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (2017) (science fiction) and fourth The Quiet at the End of the World (2019) featuring a virus which kills off most of the human race both top quality reads. But this is her debut ghost story, I hope it is not her last.

Here’s what we said about The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker when we first reviewed it:

I love authors who confidently dance around the genres and few do it better than the highly versatile Lauren James. In the simplest of terms this latest novel is a confident splash into the supernatural world and her world-building after main character Harriet Stoker falls to her death in the opening pages is second to none. YA novels set in the ‘after-life’ are dime-a-dozen (see the underwhelming previous novel in this list as an example), but this effort was top loaded with engaging characters and a carefully thought out after-life eco-system which adds extra dimensions to the plot. It is much too easy to have dead teens observing those they have left behind this novel throw that concept out the window and concentrates on the ‘being dead’ side of things and is all the better for it.

Harriet lives with her grumbling grandmother and has just started a photography course at university, whilst exploring an abandoned building, she falls to her death. When she wakes up, she does not realise she is dead, but the moment of her demise sent a bolt of life energy around the building and reawakened all the other ghosts which inhabit the building. Why do so many ghosts ‘haunt’ this building? You will have to read it to find out. Although Harriet is the main character, the story is also seen from a few other ghosts, who have been there for varying lengths of time. There is a lot going on in this book, some great twists, including ghosts having unique special powers and the system in which ghosts exist within the house (which they could not leave) was outstanding. And watch out for the granny!

E. LATIMER

E. Latimer’s debut Witches of Ash and Ruin (2020), a tale of witchcraft in rural Ireland really caught my eye, which Latimer followed with the Middle Grade tale The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Grey (2020). I will be looking out for Escape to Witch City, which is released later this year with some interest.

Here’s what we said about Witches of Ash and Ruin when we first reviewed it:

E. Latimer’s Witches of Ash and Ruin has a striking opening sequence, seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is in school and struggling to cope with terrible OCD when a flock of birds fly and crash against the classroom windows. Dayna suspects it is somehow connected to herself, probably because she is a ‘witchling’, the term used for a trainee witch who has not completed her training and is yet to ascend to full witch status. Dayna has recently split up from Samuel and is coming to terms with the fact she is bisexual, which is a key part of the plot. She is also part of a local witch’s coven, who effectively hide in plain sight, and her religiously strict father has no idea that she is training to be a witch. As the story is set in rural Ireland, a Catholic country, religion also plays a part in the plot.

The story is told in five different voices, Dayna is the only one belonging to the local coven, along with ex-boyfriend Samuel who has a smaller part, is unaware of the coven, and drifts in and out of proceedings. Two of the other voices are Meiner and Cora who come from a visiting coven and appear after another local witch is murdered. The two covens then band together, but with much distrust and friction, attempting to solve the murder. The fifth voice is of one of the killers, Dubh, who pops up here and there, but has limited interactions with the main characters until near the end. Witches of Ash and Ruin was an engaging mythological fantasy novel which should appeal to teenage girls.

LORIEN LAWRENCE

I loved Lorien’s very cool Middle School debut, The Stitchers (2020), and cannot wait to read more of her fiction. Bring it on Lorien.

Here’s what we said about The Stitchers when we first reviewed it:

If you are looking for a Middle Grade, top end of primary age 10 to 12 then The Stitchers was an entertaining read. It lacked the scares and depth of character to mix with out-and-out YA horror, but if pitched at the right age level has much to enjoy. The cover implies it to be the first book in the ‘Fright Watch’ series and seen as it finishes (not exactly with a cliff-hanger) there is plenty of scope for a second book. The Stitchers main strength are the two main characters and their interactions with each other (and growing attraction) as the plot develops. It features a very engaging first-person narrative from Quinn Parker’s perspective and young readers will enjoy being in her head. Set in small-town America, the two best friends are future members of the ‘Scoobie-Gang’ who enjoy solving mysteries, fooling around, snooping on their neighbours, and in particular, “the Oldies” who live close by on Goodie Lane.

Whether the pair have an over-active imagination or not, when the action begins, they suspect the group of old people who live on Goodie Lane are hiding a deep dark secret. These old folks never seem to age, have lived there longer than anyone else can remember and as the snooping continues, “the Oldies” realise they are being watched. Some kids might find the supernatural story very slow to get going, but this is not a Goosebumps BOO! type of story and relies of strong characterisation, nice descriptions, and atmosphere rather than shock scares. I also thought it was very cool when it was revealed why the book was called The Stitchers.

LESLIE LUTZ

Leslie’s debut, Fractured Tide (2020), is an impressive blend of fantasy, science fiction and horror. I await her second novel with interest.

Here’s what we said about Fractured Tide when we first reviewed it:

Fractured 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 a slight tension killer. The 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. 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.

KATE ALICE MARSHALL

I thoroughly enjoyed Kate’s second novel, the twisty Rules for Vanishing (2019) and in her third she stuck with the supernatural in a tale for younger kids, Thirteens (2020). In her soon to be published fourth novel, Our Last Echoes (2021), Kate returns to YA. I cannot wait.

Here’s what we said about Rules for Vanishing when we first reviewed it:

Rules for Vanishing was a very clever, original, and sneaky novel told via transcribes, written testimonies, interviews, exhibits, and video evidence. We know from the beginning that the action kicks off in April 2017 and that police discussions are conducted in May 2017 with Sara being the suspect under the microscope. The story revolves around a local legend; once a year an isolated road is rumoured to magically appear, which leads to the entrance to a supernatural dimension and those who follow the path must follow precise rules or risk being trapped there forever. If Sara’s crazy story is to be believed she was lucky to make it out alive, what we don’t know is which of her friends survived along with her, and so we enjoy a story which is enticingly told out of synch.

Why was Sara attempting to enter another dimension you might ask? Exactly a year previously her sister Becca went missing and her parents think that she ran away with her boyfriend, but her sister Sara has another solution to the disappearance and begins to investigate. Did Becca play the game and became lost in another world? Of course, the world is real before long Sara, on the hunt for Becca, and her friends are attempting to get through the seven gates to complete the challenges and be free to leave. I thought this was a very entertaining novel which was both atmospheric and very cleverly written, almost with a documentary feel to it in which the reader had to solve their own puzzles and conduct their own analysis right to the end. Well worth checking out. AGE RATING 12+

AMY McCAW

Amy is possibly the ‘newest kid on the block’ as her debut Mina and the Undead (2021) is out very shortly. It is a promising debut, and I will be interested to see if Mina returns in Amy’s second novel.

Here’s what we said about Mina and the Undead when we first reviewed it:

Set in New Orleans in the 1990s, seventeen-year-old Mina joins her sister in the city for the summer vacation, hoping for some excitement and escape from her family problems. Visiting from Whitby in the UK, she hooks up with Libby’s friends and is quickly sucked into a murder mystery after a young woman is killed at the house of horrors, Mansion of the Macabre, where her sister’s cute flatmate Jared works as a vampire. Her sister is quickly pegged as a suspect and the reader realises that there have been other similar killings and the police are struggling for suspects. But is there anything genuinely supernatural going on?

Vampire obsessed Mina was an engaging lead character, as she negotiates spending time with her sister and her friends, whilst adapting to life in a foreign city. The supernatural angle was an interesting one and although the vampire story is not introduced until well into the action, the reader could see it coming and could have done with more of a bang upon arrival. The teenager is also dealing with the disappearance the previous year of her mother and it was obvious she was going to reappear and how. Mina and the Undead was a very easy and undemanding read, which young teens should see as a fun read.

CYNTHIA MURPHY

Last One To Die (2021) was a cool early new addition and voice to YA horror fiction. Let us hope Cynthia is here to stay, bringing in a new generation of UK YA horror writers.

Here’s what we said about Last One To Die when we first reviewed it:

Last One to Die is a very easy read and I found myself speeding through it trying to identify who the killer was. Genuine teen readers should have a lot of fun negotiating the red herrings and it was one of those books which had “I’m just going to read one more chapter before bed….” written all over it. It does not pretend to be deep, or have anything particularly new to offer, but instead delivers a solid page turner and escapism around shadowy areas of the Southbank area of London. The story begins when 16-year-old Niamh arrives in London to study drama for the summer, as part of the course she will also work in a Victorian museum which has interactive exhibits in which she will play a teenager who is connected to one of the paintings/exhibits in the museum. Niamh also looks uncannily like the genuine Jane Alsop who died in 1838.

Niamh was a very sympathetic leading character which is an important attribute in a YA novel, and I am sure most readers will connect with her plight. The early stages of the romance between Niamh and Tommy were also very cute and added an extra element to the story. Last One to Die is written in such a way that it should appeal to both thriller and horror fans, with the supernatural element becoming more pronounced as the story develops.

STEPHANIE PERKINS

If you follow YA Stephanie Perkins will be a very familiar name as she has written some very successful novels. However, in 2017 she changed direction completely with the excellent There’s Somebody Inside Your House, another horror novel, The Woods Are Always Watching should be coming later this year. I’m looking forward to that one.

Here’s what we said about There’s Someone Inside Your House when we first reviewed it:

There's Someone Inside Your House was a very quirky change of direction for an author best known for writing teen romances. Essentially the plot harks back to the teen horror films popular in the 1980s and 1990s with a serial killer on the loose. Set in a small sleepy Nebraska town a teenager has been killed in a particularly gruesome way and when there is a second death tension ratchets up. The main character is a mixed-race Hawaiian girl, Makani Young, who is living with her grandmother after her parents split up and have little time for her. Makani has her own secrets as to why she left Hawaii, which are revealed slowly, and the novel very carefully builds her friendships and relationships, whilst maintaining a certain level of attachment, even nostalgia, to its slasher roots. It features some gruesome scenes, is a lot of fun and overall a very decent page-turner for young teens and is equally entertaining for those who do not normally read horror and are more drawn to thrillers.

RORY POWER

I have enjoyed both of Rory’s supernatural novels, Winter Girls (2019) and Burn Our Bodies Down (2020), this is an author which is going places! I await with interest what Rory comes up with next.

Here’s what we said about Winter Girls when we first reviewed it:

Wilder Girls begins eighteen months into a quarantine in which the Raxter School for Girls has been cut off from the rest of the world. Because the action is set on an island, once a weird illness called the ‘Tox’ begins to manifest, keeping the girls isolated on a corner of the island is not too difficult. However, the government airdrop in minimal food and switch off the telephones and internet and the reader soon realise something truly fishy, or some kind of conspiracy, is going on.

The ‘Tox’ can lead to strange body altering manifestations such as developing a second spine, or an eye closing over, bits of anatomy fall off or grow in weird ways. Over the eighteen months many girls have died and as the promised cure has failed to materialise the ‘Tox’ forces the girls to go to extremes to survive. The story is seen from three rotating perspectives Hetty, Reese and Byatt who have complex relationships and friendships with each other. Although it was a very enjoyable read which I’m sure teenagers will get sucked into, successfully blending the troubled teenage psych with extreme situations.

REBECCA SCHAEFFER

Between 2018-20 Rebecca released the superb Market for Monsters trilogy which began with Not Even Bones. The kids in my library loved this trilogy. I wonder what the author will come up with for us next?

Here’s what we said about Not Even Bones when we first reviewed it:

Not Even Bones was a very clever and original debut which had me hooked from the beginning with an intoxicating blend of fantasy and horror. Nita is a teenage girl who acts as a mortician for her psychopathic mother and dissects the bodies of supernatural beings she has caught and killed. In this fantasy version of our world there are all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures, some of which are protected by certain laws, but on the black-market are fair game and can be worth a fortune. Nita’s mother auctions bits and pieces of her kills on the internet with her daughter helping. However, in the opening stages of the novel the mother brings home a live boy and expects Nita to cut his ear off so she can auction it. After that she intends to sell his eyes. This is too much for Nita who helps him escape, leading to a whole load of new problems, her mother only being one of them. This was a gleefully gruesome book, with some very explicit scenes, however the world the author creates is incredibly well drawn, especially when you realise Nita has her own supernatural powers. Truly superb fun for kids with a top-notch blend of fantasy, world building and the supernatural.

CAT SCULLY

I loved Cat’s funky and highly stylised debut, Jennifer Strange (2020), and cannot wait to read the second novel which the author has in the pipeline. The world has not seen the last of Jenny Strange and this girl is a fighter and deserves to be a star.

Here’s what we said about Jennifer Strange when we first reviewed it:

If you are after a fast-paced, gory, and very stylish YA horror novel then look no further than Cat Scully’s excellent demon-soaked debut Jennifer Strange. The pace is unrelenting from the first page with the entire plot spread over a few days after Jennifer arrives in Savannah to stay with her estranger elder sister Liz. Jennifer is a conduit for ghosts and demons, which means that the undead can attempt to inhabit her body and take over her physical form and possess her. Bearing in mind that Savannah is regarded as one of the most haunted places in America, Jennifer really is in the wrong city and on the first day of school there are deaths connected to a demon manifestation and her weird gift. The plot does not hold back on either the violence or death, with a swiftly mounting body count as Jennifer is sucked into a supernatural mystery. Much of the violence does have a stylised bubble-gum, almost comic book, feel to it which complement the cool drawings which open many of the chapters.

Written with a first-person narrative, Jennifer was an engaging lead character, who is presented in an accessible and down to earth manner which young teens will have no problem connecting with. She is neither a superhero or ultra-cool and is just coming to terms with her new power and the reader has fun following her initial baby steps into the realms of the supernatural. I also loved her vulnerability; highlighted with her nerves when she attends school for the first time, head down, scared to draw attention to herself. Jennifer Strange is also an outstanding gateway read for young teenagers developing an interest in horror. The creatures are relentless in their quest to get to Jennifer and it was incredibly easy to be sucked along on this rollercoaster journey. I have a feeling the story of Jennifer Strange is not yet over and I will certainly be returning for more.

PAM SMY

Pam’s debut, the wonderfully ghostly and moving Thornhill, was publish back in 2017. Her long awaited second novel, The Hideaway, arrives later this year. It is long overdue, and I cannot wait.

Here’s what we said about Thornhill when we first reviewed it:

Thornhill is a huge book weighing in at around 500 pages which an adult could easily read in a couple of hours, mainly because it is a time-slip story with the present-day element told only in beautiful pictures, which are just so easy to read and are incredibly expressive.

Thornhill itself is a care home for kids in 1982 which is shortly going to close for good, the story focusses on Mary who is a lonely orphan who suffers from selective mutism and is bullied mercilessly by other girls and one particularly nasty girl who is the ringleader. Flick forward to 2017, Ella moves into a new house which overlooks the burned-out shell of Thornhill and she is sure she can see a ghostly figure watching her in the derelict building and in her loneliness feels an attachment to her. Adult readers will be able to tell where the story is going, but it is so beautifully told you will still have a tear in the eye come the end. The drawings are so simplistically great they really do tell the 2017 story of Ella without the needs of any words at all.

MONIQUE SNYMAN

Monique’s YA debut The Night Weaver (2018), which was a great read, reached the final ballot of the YA Bram Stoker Award a couple of years ago, and the recently published Bone Carver (2020) takes us back to the spooky down of Shadow Grove. Monique’s debut Muti Nation (2016) has a sequel Dark Country out later this year.

Here’s what we said about The Night Weaver when we first reviewed it:

Shadow Grove is one of those small sleepy American towns where nothing much ever happens and main character Rachel Cleary dreams of escaping and studying to be a vet at university. However, she is from one of the town’s oldest families and her house borders upon a huge forest which everybody avoids without saying why. When the story opens several small children have disappeared and both the police and local community are strangely lethargic in doing anything about it. A mystery begins to develop when Rachel and a former close friend suspect something has happened to their parents and other adults. Before long we’re heading into Stepford Wife territory with a strong whiff of dark fantasy and fairy folklore with an entertaining novel which moves along at a good pace.

The Night Weaver was a very easy to read page-turner and even though the supernatural being of the title which stalks the novel was not particularly scary the novel has much to commend and I could see young teenage girls in particular spinning through this in no time at all. The main character Rachel Cleary stole the show, engaging, funny, knows her own mind and is trying to overcome the death of her father. She is ably supported by a super cool local granny, a distant relative from Scotland and a cute guy from school. As the mystery develops it moves deeper into dark fantasy and scary fairy supernatural realms.

PETERNELLE VAN ARSDALE

I adored Peternelle’s debut, The Beast Is An Animal (2017), which she followed with The Cold Is In Her Bones (2019). Hopefully Peternelle has something new in the pipeline for us.

Here’s what we said about The Beast Is An Animal when we first reviewed it:

This wonderfully dark fantasy horror novel might have been pitched at the adult market in the USA, however, it is most definitely a YA novel. You’re not going to come across many darker and edgier fairy-tales than this, which is one of those books which can be equally enjoyed by both teenagers and adults.

The setting of this imaginative and dreamlike novel is kept vague but is probably medieval Wales. A farmer and his wife being blessed with twin baby girls, Angelica and Benedicta. But there is a problem, the twins are the mirror image of each other, both carrying a mark which symbolises ‘the Beast’ (a simple birthmark). Their mother realises this, fearing for their safety, keeps them hidden from the local villagers. But before long their secret is out, and the farmer succumbs to the pressure of the masses and casts his wife and daughters out into the ‘forest’, an alternative to seeing them drowned or stoned as witches. For a while he visits them but as time goes on, they are forgotten, but begin to change when they have no contact with humanity, until they contact a little girl called Alys.

ERICA WATERS

I was blown away by Erica’s debut Ghost Wood Song (2020) and cannot wait to read her second novel, The River Has Teeth, published later in the year.

Here’s what we said about Ghost Wood Song when we first reviewed it:

The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern tunes. Although Ghost Wood Song was terrific and older teens who are looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones there is much escapism to be had in these pages.

Family dynamics play a key part of story after a death in the family, whilst Shady struggles to get over losing her father, continually returning to one of his favourite songs. She believes that her father’s fiddle had the power to conjure up the dead and is set on finding it and although the supernatural story was interesting, I was more drawn to Shady’s relationships with Sarah and others. The music scenes genuinely sparkled, as they should in novels with this kind of vibe, and I thought Shady was very cool in sticking to her guns and not selling out. Ghost Wood Song also had an outstanding ending and for those who enjoy a thoughtful read, with well-drawn characters are in for a treat.

MARY WATSON

Although Mary Watson has written an adult thriller and has a short story collection, she is relatively new to YA, but genuinely caught my eye with her debut The Wren Hunt (2018) and its companion story The Wickerlight (2019). Mary returns later in 2021 with a brand-new YA novel, Blood to Poison. I cannot wait to see which direction her fiction heads into next.

Here’s what we said about The Wren Hunt when we first reviewed it:

The Wren Hunt was a strange one which takes its time getting going but is worth sticking with. It’s more dark fantasy than horror, but fans of the latter will happily cross genres with another highly impressive YA debut which cleverly utilises Irish mythology. Two supernatural factions (the Judges and the Augers) battle for survival in a version of modern-day Ireland which is top heavy with magic, superstition, and queer goings on. The two factions are eternal enemies, and the main character is an Auger, ‘Wren Silke’, who has a powerful supernatural gift which is one of the main thrusts of the novel.

Wren is a really engaging character, and for the sake of her family, goes undercover, as an intern, at the family home of their sworn enemy hoping to discover anything which might tip the ancient battle in her family’s favour. However, with magic the reality is rarely black and white, and the teenager gets into trouble along the way, especially as her power and gift is slowly revealed. The Wren Hunt was a very ambitious novel, and I enjoyed the quirky mix of genres and cleverly drawn fantasy world which eerily echoed our own.

WOMEN IN HORROR – IT’S A MATTER OF CONFIDENCE

Comments

YA HORROR & DARK FICTION ROUND-UP FOR JAN/FEB 2021

29/1/2021

Today we feature six novels which I have read over the last couple of months. They are presented alphabetically and are a range of dark thrillers and YA horror. Note that although none of these books truly blew me away, they are all very solid and I would happily recommend them all the appropriate teenager. So, read closely and perhaps you will find something for a youngster in your life just waiting to be enthused. Not also, a few have not yet been published. They are presented in alphabetical order.

Ann Davila Cardinal – Category Five (Five Midnight book 2)

Category Five is a welcome sequel to the YA Bram Stoker Award nominated Five Midnights (2020) which Ginger Nuts of Horror gave 8/10 when it received its Stoker nod, noting that it was “A highly entertaining supernatural thriller with a convincing and enlightening culturally different setting.” It would have been a very deserved winner. Although this continuation of the story of teenager Lupe, who is half Puerto Rican and half American, is not as strong as the original, it is a very readable sequel, which has the same strong cultural feel of its predecessor. In Five Midnights, Lupe and her friends were stalked by the Puerto Rican version of the bogieman in a novel which had a neat sense of time and place which convincingly blended with the supernatural. Category Five does its best to repeat the same trick but lacks the freshness of the original and as another spooky mystery unfolds, Scooby Doo, Shaggy, and the gang sprang to mind in a story which although has its moments, lacked scares in the supernatural area of the story.

Much of the action takes place on the island of Vieques, not far from the Puerto Rican coast, some months after a devastating category five hurricane. Around the same time, a new holiday resort is being built on the island when strange things begin to happen, weird lights are seen, and before long there are dead bodies, some missing their hearts. Ghostly figures are also sighted which are introduced in a superb prologue. Meanwhile, Lupe is back in Puerto Rica visiting her police chief uncle and the story picks up the developing romance with Javier from the end of the previous novel. Written in the third person, the story moves from Lupe to Javier and their friend Marisol, before long, it looks like Lupe is being targeted by something otherworldly. The supernatural mystery itself was slightly old hat and when revealed the concept will be very familiar to adult readers, however, it worked fine within a less demanding YA context and should hold the attention of teen readers. The strength of the novel was undoubtedly its setting, coupled with its vivid connection to local culture. Lupe was also a great character, unable to speak proper Spanish (and very pale skinned) her search for identity, as a ‘gringa’ with the locals was an enthralling read and was perhaps more engrossing than the supernatural story itself. AGE 13+

Courtney Gould - The Dead and the Dark (out August 2021)

The Dead and the Dark was a quirky combination of horror, dark thriller with a twist of teen romance thrown into the mix. The action takes place in the small Oregon town of Snakebite, where several teenagers have disappeared. Now attracting media attention, a team of ghosthunters from a popular TV show hit the town looking for answers and a big story, much of the novel revolves around Logan, who is the daughter of the presenter of ParaSpectors and is used to being dragged from place to place and fake haunting to haunting. But this time it is different….

Quite early in the action we realise that this is one of those towns where weird things happen, the weather is unpredictable, ghosts are real and that the town in buried in a layer of secrets. Beyond the secrets, there is something in the darkness and the town is the target or perhaps part of the problem. Although the book had plenty of engaging characters, in particular Logan, I quickly found myself feeling I had been around this block before and found The Dead and the Dark offered little which was new. However, it was a solid debut, features decent twists, has lots of quirky characters and a supernatural feeling which darkens as the novel progresses. For young teens who are looking for a blend of thriller and horror it will be worth closer inspection. AGE 13+

Amy McCaw – Mina and the Undead (out April 2021)

YA horror novels set in the eighties and nineties continue to hit the market at pace, with Amy McCaw’s Mina and the Undead the latest example. Set in New Orleans, seventeen-year-old Mina joins her sister in the city for the summer vacation, hoping for some excitement and escape from her family problems. Visiting from Whitby (famous for its connection to Dracula) in the UK, she hooks up with Libby’s friends and is quickly sucked into a murder mystery after a young woman is killed at the house of horrors, Mansion of the Macabre, where her sister’s cute flatmate Jared works as a vampire. Her sister is quickly pegged as a suspect and the reader realises that there have been other similar killings and the police are struggling for suspects. But is there anything genuinely supernatural going on? The story takes its time, perhaps too much time, spilling the beans…

Vampire obsessed Mina was an engaging lead character, as she negotiates spending time with her sister and her friends, whilst adapting to life in a foreign city. The supernatural angle was an interesting one and although the vampire story is not introduced until well into the action, the reader could see it coming and I found them rather uninspiring when they eventually appeared. These types of novels always seem to namecheck similar source material of Buffy and The Lost Boys, with Mina and the Undead going one step further by making Ann Rice’s Interview with the Vampire’s Mina’s favourite book. The teenager is also dealing with the disappearance the previous year of her mother and it was obvious she was going to reappear and how. Similarly, the story sequence of the vampire diary was also totally telegraphed, but it was interesting to see how it integrated into the modern setting. Mina and the Undead was a very easy and undemanding read, which although it was fun, adds little new to YA vampire literature. It was also totally devoid of scares and although the main characters were aged from seventeen to nineteen the book is aimed at much younger kids. AGE 12+

Monique Snyman - The Bone Carver (The Night Weaver 2)

Laurie Faria Stolarz - The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep (out March 2021)

More thriller than horror, The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep was a fascinating survivor story of a teenage girl called Terra who was abducted six months earlier, however, the problem is nobody truly believes the kidnapping ever happened, including the aunt who Terra lives with. Her parents died five years earlier in a fire, which also becomes part of the story. Written with a first-person narrative, with a strong whiff of unreliable narrator, Terra was an interesting lead character, and you will feel her pain when nobody believes her story. Suffering from a form of post traumatic shock, she was a fragile and intense character who was easy to like, but perhaps not trust.

As the 'kidnapping' was very public everybody knows who Terra is and the whispering goes on. As things develop Terra believes the kidnapped is still out there and her paranoia intensifies, whilst most other people (including her friends) think she is an attention seeker. A major part of the novel revolves around an online chat group for survivors of abductions which gives Terra somewhere to vent and chat with others who believe her more than her friends in the real world. This book was a stylish combination of drama and thriller which is aimed at teens aged thirteen and over and mixed within a convincing thriller, issues such as catfishing are also cleverly explored. AGE 13+

Jonathan Stroud - The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne (out April 2021)

I am a massive fan of Jonathan Stroud and a new book of his is something to savour. If you have never come across him, I highly recommend both the Bartimaeus series (which begins with The Amulet of Samarkand) and Lockwood and Co (which opens with The Screaming Staircase). The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne is obviously the first entry in a projected series, and although it was a solid read, it will have to up its game to match the reputations of the books I just mentioned. The setting is a post-apocalyptic south England, in which very little information is revealed on how we ended up living behind fortified walls in the last surviving cities. Although Stroud drops hints and pieces of information here and there, I found everything slightly too vague. Likewise, there are monsters roaming the wilderness, (the ‘Tainted’) who are humans who have turned into cannibals, but these creatures spend too much time in the background and do not pose much of a threat or add to the excitement.

Scarlett is the main character, who is a young outlaw and survives by robbing banks and traveling around the wasteland, she is given very little backstory and although she clearly does not like the ‘system’ readers might wonder why she is an outlaw? She is not particularly a Robin Hood style of character (it has more of a Wild West vibe to proceedings) and although she was a sassy lead, particularly with her new friend, Albert Browne, her character could have done with more meat on her bones beyond being a teen rebel. As a result, I failed to make much of a connection with her, but I am sure genuine teenage readers will find more to engage with. However, although the main plot does not reveal itself until well into the story there were solid action sequences and a strong ending. Obviously, it finishes with the potential for a further adventure, but I am unconvinced this was a genuinely strong enough opener to pull kids in for a sequel. Very solid, but not a patch on the author’s earlier work. AGE 11+

Comments

LAST ONE TO DIE BY CYNTHIA MURPHY: BOOK REVIEW

8/1/2021

BOOK REVIEW LAST ONE TO DIE BY CYNTHIA MURPHY

Entertaining page-turning horror thriller YA debut

One of the back-cover quotes calls Cynthia Murphy’s entertaining YA horror thriller debut Last One to Die “Point Horror for a new generation” and it is not wrong. This quote might well catch the eye of school librarians and others in the book trade; however, it is unlikely to impress the target audience of 12-15 years-of-age kids. Sadly, 99.9% will not have the faintest idea what this famous horror series, which was at its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was all about! However, nobody can argue against the fact that RL Stine, and the other Point Horror authors and the nostalgia surrounding it, is great source material to call upon for inspiration and Cynthia Murphy achieves that in some style.

Last One to Die is a very easy read and I found myself speeding through it trying to identify who the killer was, in fact there were only a few suspects, so even if the big reveal might not come as a huge surprise it was an entertaining journey getting there. Genuine teen readers should have a lot of fun negotiating the red herrings and it was one of those books which had “I’m just going to read one more chapter before bed….” written all over it, which is what all YA novels should attempt to deliver. It does not pretend to be deep, or have anything particularly new to offer, but instead delivers a solid page turner and escapism around shadowy areas of the Southbank area of London. YA literature is drowning in ‘serious’ books loaded with heavy subjects, Last One to Die thankfully abandons that in favour of solid entertainment over a deeper message. And quite right too as page-turners should be the bread and butter of YA literature.

The story begins when 16-year-old Niamh arrives in London to study drama for the summer, as part of the course she will also work in a Victorian museum which has interactive exhibits in which she will play a teenager who is connected to one of the paintings/exhibits in the museum. Niamh also looks uncannily like the genuine Jane Alsop who died in 1838. She has arrived from a rural part of Ireland and the story successfully plays upon the fact that Niamh is quite isolated, does not have any friends, and is away from home for the first time and desperate to make the trip a success and have some fun along the way.

One of the most popular story strands of the Point Horror series were young women being stalked by unknown assailants and Last One to Die honours this simple blueprint, but also cleverly fleshes it out. As the novel begins Niamh arrives at her YMCA style lodgings and switches rooms with another girl who is killed the same day and within no time at all there are other assaults in the local area, all young brunette woman who have a striking resemblance to Niamh and the action moves closer to home and eventually into the realms of the supernatural and connections to the Victorian era.

Niamh was a very sympathetic leading character which is an important attribute in a YA novel, and I am sure most readers will connect with her plight. Apart from Tommy, who also works at the museum, not that many other characters have enough page time to make much of an impact, except for a nice support role for a kindly librarian. The early stages of the romance between Niamh and Tommy were also very cute and added an extra element to the story. Overall, although it had some chilling moments, I would allow any children of secondary school age to read Last One to Die, as the violence was not too explicit and there was no swearing or sex.

Last One to Die is written in such a way that it should appeal to both thriller and horror fans, with the supernatural element becoming more pronounced as the story develops. There were no drops in pace and readers will be quickly sucked along into Niamh’s world, including the museum which was a great setting and the historical references to Spring-Heeled Jack. Although it lacks the scares or the intenseness of the very best YA horror, Amy Lukavics or Dawn Kurtagich for example, it was a book perfect for getting kids to switch the TV off or putting their devices down. Another quote claimed this was “Point Horror for the social media generation” but I am not sure about that as there was virtually no social media in the story!

If this debut is anything to go by then Cynthia Murphy looks like a good signing for Scholastic who have a great recent track record for their current YA fiction, including Kathryn Foxfield (Good Girls Die First), Melinda Salisbury (Hold Back the Tide) and KR Alexander (The Collector or FearZone – both aimed at younger children). It is heartening to see big publishing houses giving horror a decent push and considering there is very little competition, except for the Red Eye series (Little Tiger), who have not released anything since 2018 and seem to have given up the ghost, there is most definitely space for a Scholastic ‘brand’ in the YA book world. With Last One to Die just the type of book to get young teens interested, also acting as a nice gateway into horror.

Tony Jones

Yesterday we welcomed Cynthia to the site with her entry in our The Good, The Bad and The Ugly series of articles, check it out here

Young, brunette women are being attacked in London.

16-year-old, Irish-born Niamh has just arrived for a summer of freedom, and quickly discovers that the girls being attacked look frighteningly similar to her.

But Niamh is determined not to let her fear destroy her Summer. But can her new friends be trusted?

Will she be able to stay ahead of the attacker?

Or will she be next?

Packed with voice-driven whodunit storytelling, and a retro slasher-movie feel reminiscent of cult classics Scream and Urban Legend, this dark, pacy, and irresistibly-creepy debut really has something for everybody!

One of Us is Lying meets This Lie Will Kill You but with a chilling supernatural twist that will keep you guessing until the very end . . .'Chilling, funny and gripping' Emily Barr, author of The Truth and Lies of Ella Black

'A supernatural terror-fest!' Kat Ellis, author of Harrow Lake

'Point Horror for a new generation' Kathryn Foxfield, author of Good Girls Die First

book-review-freak-night-at-the-slee-z-hotel-by-amy-m-vaughn_orig

Comments

CHRISTMAS YOUNG ADULT SELECTION: YOUNG BLOOD TOP TEN NOVELS OF 2020

14/12/2020

Christmas will soon be with us and you may well be looking to buy a literary gift for your favourite niece, nephew, or any kid who might appreciate a book instead of a box of chocolates, voucher, or novelty socks. As usual we feature books which cover the broad areas of ‘dark fiction’ rather than straight horror which always seem to be thin on the ground. All these books were published in 2020 and have been previously reviewed at some point on the site over the year. These choices are solid YA selections, rather than Middle Grade which we often feature, and are aimed at kids aged twelve or thirteen and above.

Courtney Alameda is undoubtedly the most seasoned Ginger Nutter on the list and is the only author to have featured in our previous annual top ten lists and has written three outstanding YA horror novels on the bounce. We love you Courtney! It is also heartening to see several debut authors making convincing splashes and I am sure we will read further great works from Darren Charlton, Cat Scully, and Erica Waters in future. The top ten also features some very experienced authors in Lauren James, Kat Ellis, Estelle Laure, and Daniel Kraus who between them have written a great range of horror and non-horror fiction. No YA list of 2020 would be worth its salt without the inclusion of the all-conquering Clown in a Cornfield in which Adam Cesare seamlessly moves from adult to YA horror. Go Frendo!
In 2019 Ginger Nuts of Horror wrote about the worrying trend of the disappearance of the teenage boy from YA horror and dark fiction. Sadly, this has continued throughout 2020 and only one of the ten novels featured today has a lead male character. It must be said, I am shocked by the tiny percentage of YA novels which give boys a fair shake. Follow the link to read the original article:

https://gingernutsofhorror.com/young-blood/the-strange-disappearance-of-the-male-lead-in-ya-dark-fiction

There are some very original and engaging titles featured here and I guarantee there are some real winners for budding horror fans out there….

They are presented in alphabetical order by author.

Courtney Alameda & Valynne E Maetani – Seven Deadly Shadows

I am a massive fan of Courtney Alameda and would highly recommend both her previous novels Shutter and Pitch Dark which are beautiful blends of horror and science fiction. This latest effort, co-written with Valynne E Maetani, changes direction beautifully with a supernatural story set in Japan which is partly inspired by Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. Who knows how many teens of 2020 (zero possibly!) will be aware of that masterpiece, but it remains a very cool source to tap for inspiration. In Shutter, ghosts are visible to everybody and in Seven Deadly Shadows the premise is slightly similar, in that some people can see ghosts and spirits. The novel is very top heavy with Japanese culture and references and you will find yourself dipping into the word glossary at the back of the book.
The story revolves around seventeen-year-old Kira Fujikawa who is one of those who can see the ghosts, called ‘yokai’ and soon discovers that a powerful demon will rise imminently and to counteract it she summons seven other death gods (hence the Seven Samurai reference) to help in the fight to save Japan and also the world. The authors obviously put a huge amount of research into this book and if you are a fan of Japanese mythology it is truly unmissable. It was so cool seeing the main character going from bullied schoolgirl to a powerful type of sorceress who battles to maintain control over the wildly different creatures she summons but grows whilst doing do. This novel is aimed at very strong, confident teen readers and is a sophisticated blend of horror and Japanese culture which any adult reader could also enjoy. AGE 13/14+

Adam Cesare – Clown in a Cornfield

With a title like Clown in a Cornfield you might be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled upon a glorious ‘straight-to-video’ release from the 1980s heyday of lurid but wonderful horror films. However, you would be mistaken, as this is a Young Adult (YA) horror novel and an impressive teen debut from adult horror author Adam Cesare and in the several months since its release is surely destined to become the biggest YA horror hit for a while. I do love a ‘Final Girl’ and main character Quinn Maybrook ticks many of the boxes when the body count spirals in the second half of the story. Clown in a Cornfield truly is a book of two halves in which the first establishes the plot with the story exploding in the second stanza. Upon arrival in the sleepy and remote small town of Kettle Strings (Missouri) Quinn and her father Doctor Glen Maybrook are quickly sucked into a white knuckle ride which, like many of the horror films it is inspired by, the main bout of action takes place over a single night.

What of the clowns? I will drop no spoilers on how they are factored into the story, however, this part of the plot is inspired by ‘Frendo’, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat which has been connected to the town for decades. If you have watched many of the slasher films Clown in the Cornfield plays homage to, you’ll realise these films were all about the kill sequences and in this regard the novel does not hold back on the gore which involves chainsaws, shotguns and crossbows. The clown action sequences were outstanding set pieces and are guaranteed to nail any teenage reader to the page as the body count spirals with the kids trapped and being hunted in the cornfields. I hope this highly entertaining novel is taken in the spirit in which it is intended: old fashioned gore, unrelenting action and gleefully violent fun which is played out with a nice group of teenage characters. YA horror does not take up a large slice of the overall teen book market and there are very few novels like this in the bookshops. First and foremost, teen fiction is a form of escapism, which is supposed to be fun, and in that respect this novel is an absolute winner and I hope school librarians everywhere shove it into eager teen hands everywhere. AGE 13/14+

Darren Charlton – Wranglestone

Whilst 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 ever used 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 it is 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, for example, not accepting newcomers. Early in the story everybody is edgy as when winter arrives, the lake will freeze and that will 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, with the focus more on Peter and Cooper and their place in the community. 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 refreshing to read about a teenager who knew he was gay from the outset, there was no questioning or ambiguity, he had been attracted to Cooper since day one and that was that. AGE 12/13+

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake

A sly and clever YA novel for teen horror freaks to savour! Lola’s father is a very famous horror film director and after a serious knife attack, he remains in hospital. Lola’s mother has been missing for more than a decade, so she is sent to live with her grandmother in the isolated town of Harrow Lake when strange things begin to happen. Harrow Lake is also the location of where the film ‘Nightjar’ was filmed, which made both the insignificant town famous and her father a star. It is very strange for Lola to be visiting the town which was also the home of her actress mother made famous by the flick. Also, Lola soon realises many of the locals know much more about her family history than she does as she struggles to adapt to her new location. She is also the spitting image of her missing mother, Lorelei, which is made worse when her clothes strangely disappear, and she is forced to where those which once belonged to her mother. Even freakier.

Harrow Lake was a smartly plotted novel which has several layers which you will want to read very carefully, especially as you head towards the end. Along the way there are lots of smart film references as Lola tries to make sense of her life, her missing mother (who seems to haunt her) and the parallels which connect with twenty years earlier when the famous movie was shot. An extra layer of supernatural possibilities is added by ‘Mister Jitters’ a local legend which may (or may not) be true and involved in odd goings on when the famous film was created. Jitters lurked in the background and for the book to truly live up to the hype of ‘Scream meets the Babadook’ (Kirsty Logan) we perhaps needed to see more of him. As a main character Lola was superb and I can think of lots of teenagers who are going to love this book and get lost in its gripping story. Clever, creepy, very original, and superb YA preparation for adult horror. AGE 13+

Lauren James – The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker

Lauren James is five books into a highly impressive career, with The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker her first supernatural effort. Her previous stories have taken in first love, with her third novel The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (science fiction) and fourth The Quiet at the End of the World featuring a virus kills off most of the human race, particularly enjoyable reads. I love authors who confidently dance around the genres and few do it better than the highly versatile Lauren James. In the simplest of terms this latest novel is a confident splash into the supernatural world and her world-building after main character Harriet Stoker falls to her death in the opening pages is second to none. YA novels set in the ‘after-life’ are dime-a-dozen, this effort was top loaded with engaging characters and a carefully thought out after-life eco-system which adds extra dimensions to the plot. It is much too easy to have dead teens observing those they have left behind, this novel throws that concept out the window and concentrates on the ‘being dead’ side of things and is all the better for it.

Harriet lives with her grumbling grandmother and has just started a photography course at university, whilst exploring an abandoned building she falls to her death. When she wakes up, she does not realise she is dead, but the moment of her demise sent a bolt of life energy around the building and reawakened all the other ghosts which inhabit the building. Why do so many ghosts ‘haunt’ this building? You will have to read it to find out. Although Harriet is the main character, the story is also seen from a few other ghosts, who have been there for varying lengths of time. Also, many of the chapters are elusively opened by an unnamed narrator who drops hints here and there of the bigger picture at play. There is a lot going on in this book, some great twists, including ghosts having unique special powers and the system in which ghosts exist within the house (which they could not leave) was outstanding. And watch out for the granny! This was a great book and a fine splash into the world of horror by Lauren James. AGE 13+

Daniel Kraus – Bent Heavens

Kraus has a superb back-catalogue of dark/horror YA fiction, including the highly recommended Rotters, and this 2020 release maintains this high standard. Eighteen-year-old Liv Fleming leads this genre-bending thriller which dances around horror and 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, but it is the circumstances surrounding her father which makes this story fascinating. 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, with vague memories of being experimented upon. Officially, it was presumed he suffered a mental breakdown and the family struggled to cope with the very public emotional fallout.

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 Iain Banks cult classic The Wasp Factory the traps might ring some bells and eventually his creations catch something significantly larger than a squirrel. 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 an impressive twist (although I saw it coming) which was also completely heart-breaking. 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. AGE 13+

Estelle Laure – Mayhem

I always enjoy authors changing direction with their fiction and with her third YA novel Estelle Laure edges away from teen dramas into the world of the supernatural with the beguiling Mayhem. The novel begins with sixteen-year-old Mayhem Brayburn and her single parent mother, Roxy, returning to the family home in the seaside town of Santa Maria where her father died when she was a baby. Much of the story is built around Mayhem’s return to her hometown and the secrets connecting her to her family and their unconventional history. Mayhem deals with the family dynamics in the Brayburn family and the vaguely explained hold they exert over the town they live just outside. In the time Roxy has been away her sister Elle has fostered three other children who are key characters in the novel and in the convincing relationships Mayhem builds when she uncovers her past.

The convincing developing friendship of the four children were crucial to the success of the book and for most of the time their relationships dominated the plot and the supernatural element lurked in the background. The subtle supernatural angle revolves around what makes the Brayburn’s different from everybody else in Santa Maria, with added conflict thrown in because the three other children are not Brayburn by blood. At a certain point, the ‘magic’ is explained away because the town is built upon a ‘Psychic Vortex’ where weird stuff can happen. Although I enjoyed Mayhem, its success with real teen readers will depend on how well they connect with Mayhem as a leading character and their interest in the family vibes which dominate the story. Other readers may find it a tad slow, but for those teens who enjoy thoughtful dramas with a supernatural twist it was highly engaging. AGE 13+

Melinda Salisbury – Hold Back the Tide

Melinda Salisbury, who has written some excellent YA fantasy novels, seamlessly moves genres, blending historical fiction, drama and ultimately monsters in her debut horror tale. The story is narrated in the first person by sixteen-year-old Alva, who believes her father murdered her mother seven years earlier, and dreams of escaping her harsh life. Meantime, she helps him monitor the surrounding mountain lake (loch in Scottish) which feeds essential water into the local mill in the nearby village. Crucially, a drop in the water level uncovers caves nobody has seen for years and the mill owner worries of shortages. Her father is disliked by the local community and Ava is tarred with the same brush, but remained a spiky, likable and believable heroine which readers will easily empathise with. She also has a very cute friendship with a boy, Ren, whom is also an outsider for other reasons. They often meet secretly, or unchaperoned, and I did wonder how common this would be in the late 1800s, however, this may well be another example of Alva breaking the mould of what was expected of a teenage girl in that period.

What of the horror you might ask? The first half of the novel sets the scene perfectly, with believable dynamics involving the mill owner, her father and the fact that the individual with most money holds court and is effectively the law in a village that was so small a priest only visited twice a year. Once the horror is fully introduced, and there is no surprise it is connected to the lake, the pace really picks up and some readers might be surprised in the direction the story heads, effortlessly switching from period drama to horror. I really enjoyed the mythology behind the loch and what lurks there and with that the conflicts, and sense of duty, Alva faces. YA novels can often be let down by either cop-out endings or are frustratingly left open for an unnecessary sequel. Be rest assured Hold Back the Tide has a tremendous and very moving ending which I hope teen readers will find very satisfying and might even lead to a tear or two being shed. But before you get to the ending there is also a knockout twist about seventy pages from the end. AGE 12+

Cat Scully – Jennifer Strange

If you are after a fast-paced, gory, and very stylish YA horror novel then look no further than Cat Scully’s excellent demon-soaked debut Jennifer Strange. The pace is unrelenting from the first page with the entire plot spread over a few days after Jennifer arrives in Savannah to stay with her estranger elder sister Liz, whom she has hardly spoken to since their mother died a few years earlier. Savannah is beautifully portrayed as a city full of ghosts which helped create a funky Buffy: The Vampire Slayer style vibe. Jennifer is a conduit for ghosts and demons, which means that the undead can attempt to inhabit her body and take over her physical form and possess her. Bearing in mind that Savannah is regarded as one of the most haunted places in America, Jennifer really is in the wrong city and on the first day of school there are deaths connected to a demon manifestation and her weird gift. The plot does not hold back on either the violence or death, with a swiftly mounting body count as Jennifer is sucked into a supernatural mystery. Much of the violence does have a stylised bubble-gum, almost comic book, feel to it which complement the cool drawings which open some of the chapters.

Written with a first-person narrative, Jennifer was a cool lead character, who is presented in an accessible and down to earth manner which young teens will have fun connecting with. She is neither a superhero or ultra-cool and is just coming to terms with her new power and the reader has fun following her initial baby steps into the realms of the supernatural. I also loved her vulnerability; highlighted with her nerves when she attends school for the first time, head down, scared to draw attention to herself. Jennifer Strange is great fun and a colourful read for young teenagers developing an interest in horror. The creatures are relentless in their quest to get to Jennifer and it was incredibly easy to be sucked along on this rollercoaster journey. There is a serious lack of this gory type of horror for kids on the market and I am sure if the book is targeted at the correct audience it could be a major hit. I have a feeling the story of Jennifer Strange is not yet over and I will certainly be returning for more. AGE 12+

Erica Waters – Ghost Wood Song

The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Hell, how many mid-teens even know what bluegrass is? I just asked my fifteen-year-old daughter and she responded with “that weird hillbilly banjo music that kid from Deliverance played” so perhaps a few might! Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school bluegrass music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern or mainstream tunes. Although Ghost Wood Song was terrific, I question whether it will transfer to the UK teen audience easily, with the combination of bluegrass, family problems and trailer park small town American life distant from our lives on this side of the pond. However, for older teens looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones there is much escapism to be had in these pages.

Family dynamics play a key part of story after a death in the family, whilst Shady struggles to get over the death of her father, continually returning to one of his favourite songs. She believes that her father’s fiddle had the power to conjure up the dead and is set on finding it and although the supernatural story was interesting, I was more drawn to Shady’s relationships with Sarah and others. The music scenes genuinely sparkled, as they should in novels with this kind of vibe, and I thought Shady was very cool in sticking to her guns and not selling out. Ghost Wood Song also had an outstanding ending and although it will be too slow for some teens, those who enjoy a thoughtful read, with well-drawn characters are in for a treat. AGE 13/14+

Comments

DON’T TURN OUT THE LIGHTS EDITED BY JONATHAN MABERRY

28/10/2020

Wide ranging 35-story tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s legendary
‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ featuring many top names of 2020

If you are after a massive multi-author anthology of horror stories to scare young kids (ages 8-12 according to the cover) then Don’t Turn Out the Lights, which has been edited by Jonathan Maberry, has much to recommend. 35 stories, spread across 380 pages, is a lot of reading with many a mere five-to-seven pages in length. The shortish page length did detract from some of the tales, as it is hard to build-up effective scares with so few words and instead have to rely upon “BOO!” style ending, some of which worked better than others. However, one could easily imagine many of the stories being read aloud in class by teachers, during circle time with the lights dimmed, around the campfire or at sleepovers. They would be at their most potent in these situations and many will have been written for such occasions. The great Alvin Schwartz would surely be nodding in approval.

The anthology is a tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s legendary Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and it was nice to see many of the stories written in a similar style to the original and two sequels. It is worth noting that although Schwartz’s collections are routinely and deservedly eulogised by the American horror community they made little impact in the UK and whilst American kids of the 1980s were being scared by the three collections published between 1981-91, we in the UK had our own anthologies and were more impressed by the likes of Christopher Maynard’s Usborne’s World of the Unknown: Ghosts which was massive on our side of the Atlantic. Even though I am a lifelong horror fan I never read them myself until well into the 1990s and that was because of their reputation as a banned book during a period when there was heavy censorship in American libraries rather than their status in the horror world. I am not sure why they never truly took off in the UK, as other literary exports from roughly the same era Goosebumps and Point Horror both transferred beautifully and hit the jackpot. Interestingly, the recent film version is aimed at a YA audience, whereas the books targeted kids of primary age.

It is heartening to see the Horror Writers Association ‘presenting’ this anthology as there is plenty of scope for them to get involved in the junior horror market. However, if they are contemplating dipping their toes in this particular literary pond they need to make a better job of it than with the Young Adult (YA) Bram Stoker Award in which they have regularly presented their prestigious gong to books which are incredibly weak and have zero YA credibility beyond their own organisation. If the current holder of the YA Stoker Award is an honest representation of the ‘best’ in teen horror available of 2020 then I am a Martian.

Thankfully, the anthology does include a decent mix of the best of current YA horror writers, including, Courtney Alameda, Amy Lukavics, Madeleine Roux, Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Barry Lyga, Brendan Reichs, RL Stein, Sherrilyn Kenyon and Brenna Yovanoff. It is worth noting than none of these authors have ever won a YA Stoker and several them have written books which deserved to. Make of that what you will, or you could always ask the HWA. Many other notable names are thrown into the mix, including adult horror writers Josh Malerman and Christopher Golden.

My three personal favourite stories were by Madeleine Roux (The Tall Ones), Amy Lukavics (The Neighbor) and Christopher Golden (The Open Window). Roux’s story closes the anthology in some style with probably the longest story, a small town has its own weird local myth, when strange chalklike signs appear in the local community this is a warning that creatures called the ‘Tall Ones’ are shortly going to visit. Although nobody knows what they look like, everybody follows the rules and leaves out offerings of food and gifts. The story is seen from the point of view of a little girl called Estrella who befriends a new boy, whose family do not believe in the myth and pay the price. Amy Lukavics is one of my favourite YA authors and I always take a keen interest in what she releases, in The Neighbor Dennis wakes up and sees a little boy across the street staring at him, they quickly become friends and go wandering in the encroaching forest which Dennis is usually forbidden to play in. This was also a slightly longer story, with a slightly deeper and impressive twist and a great description of a boy digging himself out of a grave, this is a story permeated with a deep sense of melancholy. Christopher Golden’s crazy The Open Window features a little boy who has a nightmare night when he is stalked by multiple doppelganger versions of his dad, to the extent that he does not know who the real one is. It does not end well.

The beauty of the short story, both for adults and kids, is that there is no necessity to provide a happy ending and that is certainly the case with many of the stories in this anthology, as is the great tradition with campfire stories, nobody wants a ‘happily ever after’. Alethea Kontis’s The Golden Peacock was another entertaining entry with a grim ending which will have the kids going yuck! A couple with a five-year-old girl inherit a painting of a peacock feather which they hang in her bedroom. Soon she begins talking of an invisible friend called Melora, a name of some significance from their family history and a dark connection to the painting. Laurent Linn’s The Funeral Portrait was one of the few stories to be set in a different historical period. A blood thirsty newly crowned king gets too big for his boots and has his funeral portrait done by a painter with a mysterious reputation when still a young man, a big mistake, and you just know pride will come before a fall. Brendan Reichs’s The Carved Bear was the other story with a historical setting. A young boy steals a bear carving from a gypsy peddler and later the night, whilst gloating with his sister, the bear seemingly changes shape whilst the children sleep and becomes more threatening, moving closer to the fearful children.

Jonathan Auxier’s Lint Trap is the first of the final five stories I would like to flag as personal favourites. A family move into a house with a dodgy past and soon five-year-old Jasper hears strange voices from coming within the washing machine in the basement. The voices are just so inviting and friendly he cannot resist their pull and hang in there for another bleak ending. Luis Alberto Urrea and Rosario Urrea’s Brain Spiders was a quirky spin on the school bully story. Katya is a Ukrainian immigrant who is tormented by her mean girl style classmates, because of her dress sense and strange health problems and once her classmates start digging beyond her bandages, they are really going to regret it. Tananarive Due’s The Garage is the only zombie story in the anthology. This was a stylish tale of a family in hiding from ‘The Freaks’ who started appearing six months earlier, with the daughter who narrates the story now very bored any living in the family garage. But being bored is better than being dead. DJ MacHale’s The Green Grabber was one of the longer stories, kids fooling around drinking beer tell the story of ‘The Green Grabber’ and then a mysterious new tree suspiciously appears in the garden of the holiday home. Finally, in Tonya Hurley’s Pretty Girls Make Graves an unpopular girl invites members of the cheerleading team home for a beauty makeover as she believes her mother is a beautician and can borrow her make up. Things do not turn out as planned.

Too many of the other stories followed a very similar pattern and if you read the stories close together, you will pick up on the pattern. It goes like this: A kid is warned of a dodgy graveyard, ghost or urban legend, the kid then ignores the warning and goes outside anyway. The kid, to his or her peril, realises their parents were right all along and is killed or disappears never to be seen again. This is the standard format for a campfire story, it is not deep but is effective in delivering a short sharp horror shock. So, teachers, or parents reading the stories out loud, would best read them in small doses.

Don’t Turn Out the Lights is a fitting tribute to Alvin Schwartz and there is much fun to be had within these pages. Editor Jonathan Maberry is no slouch at short story writing himself, but on this occasion does not contribute anything. Currently, Harper Collins (and imprint Harper Teen) are releasing some great stuff, including Adam Cesare’s excellent Clown in a Cornfield and it is nice to see horror in the spotlight at a big publishing house. This anthology will undoubtedly mean much more to American readers than I, many of whom will love it, but even this Scotsman thought it was highly entertaining and am sure lots of kids will be really taken by it. Potentially, it is a lovely gateway book into horror for many kids.
Tony Jones

Featuring stories from R.L. Stine and Madeleine Roux, this middle grade horror anthology, curated by New York Times bestselling author and master of macabre Jonathan Maberry, is a chilling tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
Flesh-hungry ogres? Brains full of spiders? Haunted houses you can’t escape? This collection of 35 terrifying stories from the Horror Writers Association has it all, including ghastly illustrations from Iris Compiet that will absolutely chill readers to the bone.
So turn off your lamps, click on your flashlights, and prepare--if you dare—to be utterly spooked!
The complete list of writers: Linda D. Addison, Courtney Alameda, Jonathan Auxier, Gary A. Braunbeck, Z Brewer, Aric Cushing, John Dixon, Tananarive Due, Jamie Ford, Kami Garcia, Christopher Golden, Tonya Hurley, Catherine Jordan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Alethea Kontis, N.R. Lambert, Laurent Linn, Amy Lukavics, Barry Lyga, D.J. MacHale, Josh Malerman, James A. Moore, Michael Northrop, Micol Ostow, Joanna Parypinksi, Brendan Reichs, Madeleine Roux, R.L. Stine, Margaret Stohl, Gaby Triana, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rosario Urrea, Kim Ventrella, Sheri White, T.J. Wooldridge, Brenna Yovanoff

THIRTEEN FOR HALLOWEEN CHRISTOPHER CARRION, PRINCE OF THE MIDNIGHT ISLE

Comments

IF HALLOWEEN IS CANCELLED…READ AN AMY LUKAVICS NOVEL INSTEAD!

27/10/2020

Last summer Ginger Nuts of Horror ran a series of articles on our favourite YA horror novels of the last decade. All four novels of Amy Lukavics featured in the top fifty and we rightfully crowned her the Ginger Nuts Queen of YA Horror. As it is Halloween and in honour of Amy having more entries than any other author, we asked our fifteen-year-old reviewer (and huge fan) AJ to review and rank her fiction.

4TH PLACE: The Woman in the Walls (SCORE 8.0/10)

In a Victorian mansion in the middle of a forest, Lucy lives with her distant dad, her cousin Margaret and her surrogate mother, Aunt Penelope. They live together as a tight knit family until Penelope mysteriously vanishes causing her daughter Margaret to withdraw into the attic, claiming Penelope is dead, but can hear her voice whispering from inside the walls. Lucy’s father shuts her out as she watches her cousin descend into madness and has nobody to turn to for help or advise. The levels of isolation, paranoia and madness came off The Woman in the Wall in waves and like in all of Amy’s books it revolved around an incredibly convincing teenage girl character.

I enjoyed this book because it had a creepy, dark mood that loomed over most scene. As the plot developed, I felt like the walls were their own character watching and looming everything, which created unease whilst reading. If there is any better YA author at creating this style of unsettling atmosphere I have yet to discover them. I also connected with the tension which arises between the two girls after Penelope has vanished and Margaret claims to hear her voice. The character of Lucy was particularly disturbing because of what is revealed later in proceedings. Overall, I really liked this story and although the ending was totally wild and which you will not see coming, I still think this is the weakest of Amy’s four novels. But it is still very, very cool.

3RD PLACE: Nightingale (SCORE 8.5/10)

June is a young woman living in small-town America of the 1950s, where she is about to be married off to someone who is very controlling and is certain she does not love. She has passion for writing, particularly science fiction and horror, and dreams of going to college but her family will not allow it. The story is told in two past and present strands, explaining how June ended up in an insane asylum after some sort of ‘episode’ which is revealed very slowly. The asylum sequences were amazing and eventually realizes, it is much more sinister than it first appears and she and the other girls there are trapped in a real-life nightmare as things get stranger and stranger, possibly supernatural. Or is it all in June’s head? That is part of the charm of this very sneaky and highly unsettling book.

This book was probably one of the strangest and most bizarre I have ever read and of Amy’s four novels this is probably the least traditional ‘horror’ novel she has written. It also creeped me out because of the detailed descriptions, particularly of the asylum and the possibility of madness. I liked the way the book is split up into the two sequences as we get to see June’s life before being committed showing us how she lacked control of her life. Women in the fifties were expected to behave in a certain way and she would love to buck the trend and be free. Throughout Nightingale June is trying to find herself again because of an incident that happened when she was writing her first story. The present part of the book was probably favourite due to the wide arrange of characters in the asylum and the sense of dread we feel for June. Towards the end, it gets even better with quite a bit of gore and the shocking ending left me stunned where the author really pushes the boat out. It would have been easy to write a ‘safe’ ending, Lukavics does the opposite. The ending is totally bonkers. I loved it.

2ND PLACE: Daughters Unto Devils (SCORE 9/10)

Amanda and her family are moving to a different house, hoping to forget the last winter when her mother gave birth to their sickly sibling Hannah. But most of all she wants to forget the boy she was secretly liaising with, who also got her pregnant. When the family relocate to a remote cabin there is something wrong, it entirely covered in blood from the previous owners. Amanda realizes something is not right with the cabin or with her odd neighbours and then the crying starts. Her sins are weighing down on her as Amanda begins to think the devil is inside of her. This terrifying novel was set in the frontier period of American history, which is quite unique for a horror novel, and once again we have the theme which threads throughout Amy’s fiction: a troubled teenage girl. The blend of horror, historical detail and a convincing teen ‘voice’ was a complete knockout in this frightening and edgy book.

Daughters Unto Devils left me uneasy at night whilst trying to fall asleep as I expect to suddenly hear a baby crying or my curtains to start rustling when there was no wind. It is slowly revealed what happened to the family in the winter and one particular moment freaked me out so much I had to put the book down and look at the window just to check that “it was only a book”. What I also like about this novel is that it was very psychological due Amanda’s guilt and how isolated the characters feel, another theme which often comes up in Amy’s fiction. The last few pages of the book were very disturbing, and the last sentence sent a shiver down my spine. I cannot recommend Daughter Unto Devil’s highly enough.

1ST PLACE: The Ravenous (SCORE 9.5/10)

Mona Cane and her four sisters live a perfect lie as they hide the fact that they hate each other, their mother battles addiction and their father is never there due to working in the military. One night a fight gets out of hand and the youngest sister Rose is killed when she falls down the stairs in a particularly shocking scene as her neck breaks. After their mother disappears with her body, she is brought back from the dead but her surviving siblings soon discover not everything is the same and the little girl has changed. For Rose to stay alive she must now eat human flesh. With their mother having abandoned them for the bottle, the four Cane sisters must find a way to feed Rose before things get even worse. But who is to go into the cooking pot and who decides? Decisions. Decisions.

After reading Ravenous I was incredibly grateful I am a Vegetarian, because this book portrayed meat in a disgusting and unsavoury way. Some of the homemade stews genuinely made my stomach spin! I loved that all the sisters did not get along but would work together to help Rose and that their morals were tested. The sibling dynamic were pitch perfect and I am sure lots of readers will see elements of their own family within the pages, hopefully without the murders though! There are a lot of graphic descriptions of cannibalism so be warned, this book is for those with a strong stomach. Towards the end, Ravenous escalates to even more unpleasant heights which had me on the edge of my seat. I think that all the characters were deeply traumatised from their upbringing and it showed by the way the interacted with each other as they found themselves in a mess which was impossible to get out of. A common theme in all the books is the main female characters are deeply troubled and Amy Lukavics does an amazing job getting into the head of the damaged teenage girl who is very easy to root for. I loved all her books, but this was my personal favourites.

I am going to save the 10/10 for Amy’s next book. Whenever that might be! Soon, I hope.
A.J.

Comments

YA AND MIDDLE GRADE DARK FICTION ROUND-UP FOR OCTOBER 2020

26/10/2020

Today we feature eight novels which I have read over the last couple of months. They are presented alphabetically and are a range of dark and genre fiction, rather than straight horror which, as usual, are in short supply. Some are traditional Young Adult (YA) fiction aimed at kids aimed 12/13 or older, whilst several others are aimed at younger children, at the top end of primary school, or Middle Grade in the USA.

This collection is a slightly mixed bag with the strongest entries being The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker by Lauren James, Lorien Lawrence’s The Stitchers, The Project by Courtney Summers, and the superb Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters.

Paige Dearth – My Final Breath

Amazon lists My Final Breath for ages 13-18, armed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer this is not a novel I would recommend to any teenager. Early in the action a twelve-year-old girl awakens in Limbo - after being slowly poisoned by her mother over a long period of time. The prologue lays the seeds for this with some of the mother’s backstory. Whilst in Limbo she is guided by a Holocaust victim to come to terms with her death and it blatantly obvious the mother was involved as the little girl looks down on her life, realising that the same thing might happen to her little sister.

Abuse are tricky subjects to tackle in fiction, but I found this example clunky, obvious, and dull. There are no other hidden layers to the story and there are many better stories on the YA market which tackle both abuse and life after death. The Lovely Bones is still probably the best on the market with a dead child looking down on their family and their lives, this falls way short of that high standard. AGE 13/14+

Lauren James – The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker

Lauren James is five books into a highly impressive career, with The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker her first supernatural effort. Her previous stories have taken in first love, with her third novel The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (science fiction) and fourth The Quiet at the End of the World featuring a virus kills off most of the human race, particularly enjoyable reads. I love authors who confidently dance around the genres and few do it better than the highly versatile Lauren James. In the simplest of terms this latest novel is a confident splash into the supernatural world and her world-building after main character Harriet Stoker falls to her death in the opening pages is second to none. YA novels set in the ‘after-life’ are dime-a-dozen (see the underwhelming previous novel in this list as an example), but this effort was top loaded with engaging characters and a carefully thought out after-life eco-system which adds extra dimensions to the plot. It is much to easy to have dead teens observing those they have left behind, this novel throws that concept out the window and concentrates on the ‘being dead’ side of things and is all the better for it.

Harriet lives with her grumbling grandmother and has just started a photography course at university, whilst exploring an abandoned building she falls to her death. When she wakes up, she does not realise she is death, but the moment of her demise sent a bolt of life energy around the building and reawakened all the other ghosts which inhabit the building. Why do so many ghosts ‘haunt’ this building? You will have to read it to find out. Although Harriet is the main character, the story is also seen from a few other ghosts, who have been there for varying lengths of time. Also, many of the chapters are elusively opened by an unnamed narrator who drops hints here and there of the bigger picture at play. There is a lot going on in this book, some great twists, including ghosts having unique special powers and the system in which ghosts exist within the house (which they could not leave) was outstanding. And watch out for the granny! This was a great book and a fine splash into the world of horror by Lauren James. AGE 13+

Lorien Lawrence – The Stitchers (Fright Watch)

If you are looking for a Middle Grade, top end of primary age 10 to 12 then The Stitchers was an entertaining read. It lacked the scares and depth of character to mix with out-and-out YA horror, but if pitched at the right age level has much to enjoy. The cover implies it to be the first book in the ‘Fright Watch’ series and seen as it finishes (not exactly with a cliff-hanger) there is plenty of scope for a second book with the horror film style mini-twist which comes in the final pages. The Stitchers main strength are the two main characters and their interactions with each other (and growing attraction) as the plot develops. It features a very engaging first-person narrative from Quinn Parker’s perspective and young readers will enjoy being in her head. Set in small-town America, the two best friends are future members of the ‘Scoobie-Gang’ who enjoy solving mysteries, fooling around, snooping on their neighbours, and in particular, “the Oldies” who live on Goodie Lane, close to where the two kids live.

Whether the pair have an over-active imagination or not, when the action begins, they suspect the group of old people who live on Goodie Lane are either up to no good, or are hiding a deep dark secret. These old folks never seem to age, have liked there longer than anyone else can remember and as the snooping continues, “the Oldies” realise they are being watched. And, of course, they do have a secret. Some kids might find the supernatural story very slow to get going, but this is not a Goosebumps BOO! type of story and relies of strong characterisation, nice descriptions, and atmosphere rather than shock scares. I also thought it was very cool when it was revealed why the book was called The Stitchers. AGE 10+

Jason Price – Pleasant Grove

Adult readers who might stumble across Jason Price’s Pleasant Grove are undoubtedly going to think of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, as the story takes place within a town which is isolated from the rest of the world by a strange gigantic dome. Why is the town of ‘Pleasant Grove’ cut off? Good question, which main character twelve-year-old Agnes Goodwin asks of her parents, friends and teachers and never truly gets a straight answer. This is one of those novels where adults seem to sleepwalk through the story and do not do much of any interest. All Agnes is really told is that the outside world is dangerous and that the safest place to be is within the dome. However, once this sinks in Agnes wonders whether she wants to spend her entire life within a town where everybody knows everybody’s business and all the days are identical. Although Pleasant Grove was an entertaining enough read, it felt very long and at certain points became a slog, I felt it would have been stronger if it were significantly shorter. The town itself was deliberately bland, all the days blend into each other, and this was reflected in the writing which became repetitive and one wonders whether many kids would have the patience for it.

However, there were lots of plus points and the author drops lots of breadcrumb style clues over what the bigger picture is; namely what is outside? Young teen readers, unless they find Agnes slightly immature, should enjoy spending time with her and her gang of friends and will be intrigued when she discovers a boy, with no memory, who seems to have come from outside and plays a big part in solving the developing mystery. Although the plot meanders, it has some nice twists and heads into slightly unexpected deep science fiction territory but simply takes far too long to get there. AGE 11/12+

Lily Sparks – Teen Killer Club

Teen Killer Club was one of those novels which I struggled to decide whether I liked or not, and in the end found it rather frustrating. Perhaps this was because at its core it is built around such an old idea, turning kids with problems into potential killers. Since the 1960s, and films like The Dirty Dozen this idea has been played out repeatedly, and more recently in kid’s books, probably aimed at those slightly younger than the teen audience of this. So instead of turning kids into spies like in Anthony Horowitz (Alex Ryder), Robert Muchamore (CHERUBS) or Mark Walden (HIVE) convicted teen killers are offered the change of freedom (with a kill switch) if they do 'messy' kill, so as to throw the suspicion away from the government and professional hits. I thought this whole idea was dumb and unconvincing.

The main character is a confused (but engaging and one of the stronger features of the book) seventeen-year-old girl called Signal who has been convicted of killing her best friend, but her memory is foggy, and it is blatantly obvious she is innocent. Way too much time is spent in the training camp and I found this relatively dull and I am sure teen readers will too. There is limited action, all the characters are dysfunctional and the programme they followed was uninspiring. These killers are called 'Class A' and sadly there is another book already called 'Class A' which features teenage spies, so that was also similar. The action picks up when it moves away from camp, but it was little too late as Signal tackles a cult and a former Class A himself. It promises a sequel - which I will not be reading. I will be surprised if a teen audience connect with this book as it suffered from an identity crisis and most school librarians would struggle in figuring out who exactly it is aimed at. AGE 13/14+

Courtney Summers – The Project (PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2021)

I’ve been a fan of Courtney Summers for a while and initially came across her with her excellent zombie novel This is not a Test (2012) and since then she has written some varied YA which seamlessly moves around the genres, whilst always staying on the dark side of things. Her latest thriller, The Project is no different, and is aimed at teenagers aged 14+ for its mature themes, older characters, and relatively slow pace.

Aspiring journalist trainee, 19-year-old Lo, is looking for a scoop to climb the greasy pole of the magazine she writes for and after witnessing a suicide which she connects to The Unity Project she returns to a part of her life she thought was closed. Lo was a great character and I’m sure readers will tap into her anger when they realise she has personal reasons for investigating The Unity Project; her sister Bea, a member of the Project who she hasn’t seen for some time.

I have read a lot of books about fictional cults and from an adult point of view The Project offered nothing new, but teen readers might be gripped and pulled into its inner workings, revealed via Bea’s narrative. I loved the clash of narrative styles and the voices were incredibly clear and distinct. This is a very mature, and slowly paced book, which is aimed at strong teen readers and carries convincing emotional whack. AGE 14+

CL Taylor – The Island

Billed at “Lost meets the Hunger Games” fans of that famous cult show (but does it have any relevance to teens of 2020?) and the huge selling dystopian series might find themselves slightly underwhelmed. CL Taylor has written numerous page-turning thrillers and horror novels and made a minor splash a few years ago with The Treatment which was also targeted at the YA market. The story is set on a remote island near Thailand which six teenagers visit for a week. After the first day the guide suffers a stroke and dies leaving the teens stranded as somebody has seemingly sabotaged their boat, their only way of returning to the mainland and the trip of a lifetime turns into a nightmare.

The problem was that this ‘nightmare’ was rather boring, and the characters dull and unlikable. Written with a split narrative ‘Jessie’ who has issues connected to a serious accident the previous year and ‘Danny’ who is seriously possessive over his girlfriend, the outgoing Honor whom enjoys flirting with others. Early on strange things begin to happen and the story teeters along, not quite sure whether it wanted to be supernatural, weird or something else. In the end it fell between two posts and has a rather disappointing ending which I saw coming a mile off. This was undemanding stuff but young teens looking for an easy read might still enjoy it. AGE 12/13+

Erica Waters – Ghost Wood Song

The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Hell, how many mid-teens even know what bluegrass is? I just asked my fifteen-year-old daughter and she responded with “that weird hillbilly banjo music that kid from Deliverance played” so perhaps a few might! Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school bluegrass music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern or mainstream tunes. Although Ghost Wood Song was terrific, I doubt it will transfer to the UK teen audience easily, with the combination of bluegrass, family problems and trailer park small town American life distant from our lives on this side of the pond. However, for older teens looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones there is much escapism to be had in these pages.

Family dynamics play a key part of story after a death in the family, whilst Shady struggles to get over the death of her father, continually returning to one of his favourite songs. She believes that her father’s fiddle had the power to conjure up the dead and is set on finding it and although the supernatural story was interesting, I was more drawn to Shady’s relationships with Sarah and others. The music scenes genuinely sparkled, as they should in novels with this kind of vibe, and I thought Shady was very cool in sticking to her guns and not selling out. Ghost Wood Song also had an outstanding ending and although it will be too slow for some teens, those who enjoy a thoughtful read, with well-drawn characters are in for a treat. AGE 14+

we-wait-by-megan-taylor-book-review_orig

thirteen-for-halloween-the-nightbreed_orig

Comments

DARE YOU ENTER FRIGHTVILLE? MIKE FORD WANTS TO SCARE YOUR CHILDREN!

14/10/2020

Today we are delighted to welcome Mike Ford to Ginger Nuts of Horror in a wide ranging interview which covers publishing, writing for Scholastic, YA horror, pseudonyms, Shirley Jackson Award nominations, book agents, Indiana Eerie (who remembers that cool show?) and his latest middle grade series Frightville of which four titles have been released over the last few months. Mike writes across the board and is equally comfortable and skilled penning for adults as he is for teens and the younger middle grade age group. His back-catalogue is both vast and varied; labelling him a horror writer does not do justice as his outstanding body of work includes non-fiction and non-genre fiction.

Mike’s current project is the Frightville series for Scholastic which is aimed at kids in the third to fourth school grade in the USA (Reading Level Grade 4) which is around ages eight to ten in the UK. The books are on average 100-pages and are for children who are comfortable reading chapter books and are ‘spooky’ reads rather than outright horror, as Mike explains in the interview.

I read the first three books in the series and found them to be tremendous fun and I can guarantee if my daughter read them when she was eight, she would have adored them! They are:

BOOK 1: Don’t let the Doll in – The constant in all the stories is the new Frightville store in the local town where the action takes place and kids buy quirky junk store objects from the creepy Odson Ends. In this opening tale Mara is delighted to purchase a small figurine doll called Charlotte. Kids love creepy doll stories, and this is a beauty when odd things happen after Charlotte ends up in Mara’s dollhouse. A fast-paced supernatural story quickly develops, with a very cool ending which your children will love.

BOOK 2: Curse of the Wish Eater – Us adults (who have read The Monkey’s Paw) know making wishes lead to a world of pain and regret, but sometimes we have to let our kids must make their own mistakes! In this second outing Olson Ends sells Max a set of wind-up teeth which promise to grant any wish and he stupidly wishes his siblings out of existence! Once again there were some nice twists and turns and another smart ending which will have the kids smiling and thinking about how they would handle a similar gift.

BOOK 3: The Haunted Key – Sofia buys a skeleton key from Frightville shop and hopes the key will open a mysterious trunk in the attic of the old house her parents are developing for a hotel, however, a spirit is released from the trunk and we quickly head into a great haunting story which takes us back to the children who lived in the house a century earlier. Like its predecessors The Haunted Key is fast paced and perfectly pitched at the child hungry for getting lost in a book.

So, if you are a parent of a kid under the age of ten Frightville is a series which is well worth closer investigation, meanwhile, onto our chat with Mike….

Why do you keep ‘Michael Thomas Ford’ and ‘Mike Ford’ separate? I notice neither are connected to each other on the Fantastic Fiction site….

Mike Ford was the name Avon used when they published the first fiction I wrote for young readers, back in the 90s. I don’t actually recall having any conversation about it. I think they just preferred the shorter name on the cover. At the time I was publishing, under the MTF name, nonfiction books for teens on social issues that were considered a little controversial, so that might have been part of it. There are at least three other Michael Fords publishing that I know of, and we’re often mistaken for one another, often with amusing results. I also published the 15-book Circle of Three series under the name Isobel Bird, and even though those books were very popular in the US, it’s only been recently that people have connected me with them. I probably ought to have chosen a better name, like Garth Nix or Benedict Cumberbatch.

Combined, Mike and Michael have written a lot of books [way more if we include Isobel!] how did you get involved in the ‘Frightville’ book series which are aimed at third and fourth grade kids (age about 8-10 in the UK)?

My first (and only) job in publishing was as an editor at Macmillan Children’s Books in the US. One of the other editors there moved to Avon/Camelot, and she asked me to write for her on a series called Spinetinglers, which as you might guess from the name was a Goosebumps knockoff. When that editor left, I started working with another editor there, and we did 25 or so books together. I eventually followed her when she moved to HarperCollins, where we did two novels together, and then to Scholastic. She recommended me for the Frightville series which, as is often the case with Scholastic, began as a request from someone in the school book-club division for a series about a store that sells haunted toys.

I enjoyed the three ‘Frightville’ novels I read, I could see lots of ideas from adult horror repackaged for kids, similar to what RL Stine did with the ‘Goosebumps’ series, is that the plan, to write accessible gateway horror?

Scholastic has very specific dos and don’ts for most of the books that are packaged for their school book-clubs. They like certain things (haunted dolls and ghosts are big favourites) and stay away from others, like Ouija boards or anything specifically occult. Their books for older readers are a little more horror-oriented, but the books for younger readers are meant to be more spooky than terrifying. Also, my editor and I very deliberately try to include different types of kids as main characters and to come up with plots that allow the characters to be the heroes of their own stories. So, I would not say they’re intended to be gateways to horror as a genre so much as they’re meant to be quick, fun reads for kids who like their adventures on the slightly scary side.

You indicated in a previous conversation that Covid-19 played a part in cutting the series short?

Scholastic’s primary market is school book-clubs and fairs. With schools closed due to the virus, sales slowed dramatically this year. As a result, they have cut back on the number of new titles they’re putting out, so for the moment the Frightville series is on hold. I’ve proposed four more, so I hope they take it up again. But it is also a series where the titles are not connected, so they could also be done as standalone books, which would also be fun.

A few YA writers (horror and other genres) have dropped down to Middle Grade and younger age groups as their primary audience. Do you think this is a financial decision? There has been much in the media about the declining sales of YA…..

When I started in publishing, in 1989, I very much wanted to write YA horror, but the boom that saw series like Goosebumps and the Christopher Pike books selling phenomenally well was winding down, and I was told that publishers weren’t interested in horror. I’ve heard that every single year since. YA horror has always been a difficult sell here, I think mostly because so much adult horror is already popular with and accessible to teen readers, who often want to read more “adult” books anyway. I was reading Stephen King and Peter Straub and Anne Rice when I was a teen, and I think that trend has continued. That means authors writing horror often write for the adult market hoping YA readers will come along anyway. That leaves middle grade as its own thing. And I think it’s true of all genre fiction. There are more middle grade mysteries and fantasies as well. I judged the juvenile category for the Edgar Awards last year, and we had more than 120 books submitted. In comparison, I have been involved with the YA category of the Bram Stoker Award for several years and we never received more than 40 submissions.

There is an incredible nostalgia for both ‘Goosebumps’ and ‘Point Horror’, the heyday of kid’s horror from the 80s/90s, what are your recollections and thoughts on them?

I was too old for those books when they came out, so I didn’t read them except as part of my work in the publishing world. But I was certainly very aware of them and their importance, as they were everywhere, and everyone tried to copy their success. I was particularly pleased to see the Horror Writers Association give RL Stine a Lifetime Achievement Award a few years ago, as I think he almost singlehandedly created a market for middle grade horror. I actually took his Master Class online last year, as I was curious what he had to say about his writing process, and it was a lot of fun.

The ‘Frightville’ books are published by Scholastic, one of the powerhouses of kids/YA fiction, how hard is it for a new writer to get noticed by one of these big publishing houses? Do you have any tips for any indie horror writers who dream of breaking into the mainstream?

I am the worst person to ask about this, as my career has never progressed in any “normal” way. I’ve never submitted manuscripts on spec and didn’t use an agent for any of my books for young readers until a few years ago. With Scholastic, at least in the US, much of their list begins as requests from people inside the company for specific kinds of books. Then they approach writers they’ve worked with before or agents they work with to find a good fit for that specific project. As far as other large publishers, I think selling horror to them is the same as selling anything else, and the most effective way is through an agent. Then the question becomes one of how to interest an agent in representing your horror writing. Fortunately, finding those agents who actively want horror has become easier thanks to things like Twitter, where agents frequently post about what they’re looking for, and agency websites where individual agents often post their wish lists.

You seemed to have ‘retired’ Mike Ford in 1998 after writing ten of the ‘Eerie Indiana’ novels. That show lasted one season in the early nineties, I had never heard of it as a book series and was surprised it was deemed successful enough to be novelised, can you tell us a little bit about it?

One day my editor at Avon called me and she was in a mood. The company had recently been acquired by a larger media company that owned television properties, and they were pressuring the publishing division to come up with books based on some of these series. She said, “I have to do a series based on this show no one has ever heard of, called Eerie, Indiana.” I said, “That’s one of my favourite shows!” and proceeded to talk about the various plots and how great they were. She signed me up immediately, mostly because she was so relieved that I was already familiar with the characters and the peculiar quality of the show. It was supposed to be a huge deal, because they were rebooting the show with new actors and bringing it back. There were all of these product tie-ins and plans for marketing, my favourite being for a line of canned pasta. Then the reboot flopped and nothing ever came of the marketing plans. Those are actually some of my very favourite books that I’ve written, so it was disappointing to see the series not do well. I would have happily written a dozen more of them.

[ED: The Rebooted show was called Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension] (1998) and one of Mike’s books The Dollhouse that Time Forgot (Eerie Indiana #11) was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in the category - Works for Young Readers).

I loved your 2016 novel ‘Lily’, which made the preliminary ballot of the YA HWA Stoker Award and was a finalist for the prestigious (adult) Shirley Jackson Award. That is a strange double to be nominated for. Looking back; what are your feelings on this? Did you write it as a YA novel and how successful was it?

I didn’t write Lily as one thing or another, and the publisher (Lethe Press) didn’t position it as one or the other, so it was interesting to see how it was received. School Library Journal here in the US reviewed it as a YA novel. Then it got the Stoker nomination as a YA book. But it was a finalist for the Jackson and the Lambda Literary Award as an adult book. The character of Lily is a young girl, so I see how people could take it as a book for young readers. And the fact that it’s illustrated (by the remarkable Staven Andersen) also makes it feel like it could be for young readers. But the themes are significantly more adult. I kind of like that it isn’t one thing or another, as that fits both the style and themes of the book. But it definitely did not help sales. Despite the award attention, it’s sold the least of all my books, which is too bad because it’s my favourite thing I’ve ever written. It is also very difficult to get outside of the US, so I would love to find an international publisher for it and maybe get it wider attention with a new audience.

From our previous conversations I am aware that you read a lot of YA horror, have you any plans to return to this age group in the future? In the past you have written ‘Love & Other Curses’, ‘Suicide Notes’ and ‘Z’……

I love writing for both YA and middle grade readers. When the kinds of books I wanted to write for those audiences became less popular, I took a detour into publishing books for adult readers and doing other kinds of things like ghost-writing. That lasted quite a long time, and I only got back into writing for young readers under my own name in the past couple of years. I have a number of things I’m working on now for both YA and middle grade. The publishing world, like everything else, is in a peculiar state due to what’s happening with this virus, so it’s difficult to know how things will play out. But writing is the only thing I’ve ever done or am good at, so hopefully I can keep doing it.

Who are your favourite current YA writers?

There are so many wonderful books coming out now, and of course I always blank when asked for specific ones and authors. Some of my favourite writers for young people in general are Frances Hardinge, Susan Vaught, Colin Meloy, Kate Milford, Kenneth Oppel, Hilary McKay, Claire Legrand, Robin Stevens, Celine Kiernan, Marcus Sedgwick, and too many more that escape me right now. As far as specific horror(ish) books, some of my recent faves are Shea Ernshaw’s The Wicked Deep and Winterwood, Claire Legrand’s Sawkill Girls, anything by Amy Lukavics, Tessa Graton’s Strange Grace, Sara Faring’s The Tenth Girl, Kate Alice Marshall’s Rules for Vanishing, and Jacqueline West’s Last Things. I also really love Chavisa Woods, particularly her book Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country, who although she isn’t a YA writer writes about young people in a way that is absolutely extraordinary.

You have written a lot of books and have an incredibly impressive back-catalogue, which of your adult titles would you recommend to a reader who had never tried you before?

My absolute favourite of my books by far is Lily. But it’s best read in physical form, as the illustrations are so much a part of it, and it’s difficult to get the physical book outside of the US. I’m also very fond of the three humorous novels I wrote about Jane Austen living as a modern-day vampire in the United States. Of my non-genre books for adults, my favourite is probably a novel called Changing Tides.

GNOH: Which writer, living or dead, would you most like to see reading one of your novels on a train?

Tove Jansson is the author who made me want to be a writer. I got to correspond with her for several years, but she died before I published anything I wanted to send to her to read. I wish she could have read my novel Lily, as it owes so much to her. I would also love to be on a train and see the ghost of Iris Murdoch reading something of mine. Even better, a ghostly book group consisting of Jansson, Murdoch, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers. They are the biggest influences on me, each in their own way, and I would love for them to see that.

Mike, Michael, and Isobel it has been an absolute pleasure featuring you on the site. Many of us who watched the original Indiana Eerie show have similar nostalgia for it! Good luck with your future projects and we hope ‘Frightville’ is resurrected for your planned books 5-8 and that somebody much more influential than us namechecks ‘Lily’ and it goes on to be a surprise international bestseller!

Tony Jones

THE HEART AND SOUL OF YA HORROR FICTION REVIEW WEBSITES

Comments

THE YOUNG BLOOD LIBRARY'S SEPTEMBER RECOMMENDATIONS OF YA & MG HORROR FICTION

28/9/2020

Today we feature twelve novels which have caught my eye over the last couple of months. They are presented alphabetically and are a range of dark and genre fiction, rather than straight horror which, as usual, are in short supply. Some are traditional Young Adult (YA) fiction aimed at kids aimed 12/13 or older, whilst several others are aimed at younger children, at the top end of primary school, or Middle Grade in the USA. If you are after a genuinely great YA horror head straight to Kate Ellis’s Harrow Lake which is one of the best YA horror I have read in a while.

Kirsty Applebaum – Troofriend

I was a massive fan of Kirsty Applebaum’s debut The Middler and was delighted to read her follow up Troofriend which is a nice (but not too threatening) spin on androids and whether they can develop true feelings. This is an idea which has been well travelled in adult horror and science fiction, so it is nice to read something similar aimed at kids aged around ten. The story opens when grumpy child Sarah is given a Troofriend as a present, this is the newest model and is incredibly realistic. Eventually the Troofriend is named Ivy and Sara begins to warm to her, with the android’s dialogue being presented, usefully, in bold text. We also read the internal dialogue of the Troofriend as she begins to play a role in the family giving us another view of how humanistic she is, but also of her conflicts.

Bearing in mind this is aimed at younger children, in the background to the story there are news reports coming from the television about demonstrations against the Troofriend, claiming that they are breaking their programming and have hurt children, whilst others believe they should have their own personal rights. Overall, this was a very easy to read story, presented in an engaging and fun manner and I am sure some readers would love to have their own Troofriend and if you read this book with your child it could lead to fulfilling discussions on the merits of artificial intelligence. AGE 9+

Erin Bowman – Dustborn

I was a major fan of Erin Bowman’s 2019 science fiction YA horror Contagion and I am delighted to say that she has followed it with an absolute corker in Dustborn. It has a superb setting; a world completely parched of water, where the rivers have tried up and the last surviving ‘packs’ of people scavenge to survive and follow the last traces of water. ‘Old Tech’ is mentioned frequently and is highly prized and sought after, such as the last functioning binoculars or compasses. Most survivors live in small groups and rely upon trading to survive, the main character is seventeen-year-old Delta of Dead River, whose ‘pack’ has shrunk drastically and is struggling to exist day-by-day. Also, her sister is pregnant and in this very cruel world babies are a hinderance. With the baby coming soon, and her sister sick, Delta must undertake a dangerous journey to find a medicine woman to try and help and barter their last possessions for payment.

The setting of Dustborn is a high-quality adventure and you will be thirsty just reading it. It vibrates with echoes of cult films Mad Max and Hardware and it is easy to get behind leading character Delta who finds herself not only trying to survive but looking after a new-born baby. About a third of the way into the novel the story really opens up and Delta realises she has a much more complex part to play when she comes up against ‘The General’ who is also a very nasty piece of work. Delta also has an extensive and cryptic tattoo on her back which The General takes a very special interest in. I highly recommend this novel, which is an exciting blend of science fiction, action, strong characters in a very cleverly plotted post-apocalyptic western which teens should lap up.

NOT RELEASED UNTIL 2021. AIMED AT AGE 12+

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake

At last, a genuinely clever YA horror novel for teen freaks to savour! Lola’s father is a very famous horror film director and after a serious knife attack, he is stuck in hospital. Lola’s mother has been missing for more than a decade, so she is sent to live with her grandmother in the very remote town of Harrow Lake where strange things begin to happen. Harrow Lake is also the location of where the film ‘Nightjar’ was filmed, which made both the insignificant town famous and her father a star. It is very strange for Lola to be visiting the town which was also the home of her actress mother made famous by the flick. Also, Lola soon realises many of the locals know much more about her family history than she does as she struggles to adapt to her new location. She is also the spitting image of her missing mother, Lorelei, which is made worse when her clothes strangely disappear, and she is forced to where those which once belonged to her mother. Even freakier.

Harrow Lake was a fiendishly well plotted novel which has several layers which you will want to read very carefully, especially as you head to the end. There are lots of film references along the way as Lola tries to make sense of her life, her missing mother (who seems to haunt her) and the parallels which connect with twenty years earlier when the famous film was shot. An extra layer of supernatural possibilities is added by ‘Mister Jitters’ a local legend which may (or may not) be true and involved in odd goings on when the famous film was created. Jitters lurked in the background and for the book to truly live up to the hype of ‘Scream meets the Babadook’ (Kirsty Logan) we perhaps needed to see more of him. As a main character Lola was superb and I can think of lots of teenagers who are going to love this book and get lost in its gripping story. Clever, creepy, and very original. AGE 13+

Sarah Harian – Eight Will Fall

Seventeen-year-old Larkin is an empath, who can sense the emotions of others and manipulate the magic which comes from them. However, in the land of Demura magic is illegal and those who have empath special abilities have been suppressed by the royal family, led by Queen Melay. Early in the story Larkin unwisely uses her gift to steal food from a shop and consequently finds herself arrested and in front of the Queen, however, it is not for the reason she believes. The Queen has gathered a group of powerful empaths and has a dangerous and has a secret and very special dangerous mission for them. Even if she wanted to, Larkin cannot refuse, as her little brother is being held as hostage along with other empaths who have their magical abilities suppressed by yokes around their necks which neutralise their powers.

Most of the novel is built around the mission Larkin and the seven other empaths are sent on – the descent into underground caverns which house an ancient evil which they believe to be wakening up after the disappearance of the Queen’s army. Nothing is quite what it seems and there is a deep conspiracy at work as Larkin relies upon her magic in a world full of monsters, threat, and deception. This was a thoroughly enjoyably fantasy romp which is built around a very well-developed magic system with a dose of court intrigue, led by a spunky lead character who comes into her own after unleashing magic she has spent her whole life trying to suppress. AGE 13+

Zach Hines – Nine

Zach Hines’s seriously good debut Nine was published back in 2018 and has slipped under the radar somehow, published by HarperTeen I am amazed I have never come across it before. It is set in an alternate universe (which is an almost identical version of our world) except for the fact that everybody has nine lives. Most people plan their own death, even making an event out of it before they return in their next incarnation. This process is incredibly well described and visualised; the government encourage their population not to spent too long on each of the nine stages (or sections) of their life before moving onto the next. If you are on the initial stage, you are known as a ‘one’ and the next stage is a ‘two’ and so on. Most older teenagers are already onto ‘three’ and also, when you return in your new body, you might be older, but your new ‘model’ will have lost any excess fat or other imperfections it might have picked up, there might also be other enhancements!

The very clever story revolves around teenager Julian, who is the only ‘one’ in his school, this does not bother him, but others laugh at him and even his family find this vaguely uncomfortable as a certain negative stigma is attached to it. As the story moves on it develops into a complex mystery thriller, but also has much to say about sexuality and there are many (often funny and serious) metaphors thrown into the mix where losing your ‘two’ or ‘three’ might be compared to something else. I was impressed greatly by this book and have since bought two copies for my school library! I also believe this will be a very easy book to sell to teenagers. Wise, quirky, very original, and why have I never heard of it before? It deserved to be a huge and very strange hit. AGE 13+

David Hofmeyr – The Between

I was a big fan of David Hofmeyr’s environmental futuristic adventure novel Stone Rider (2015) and was delighted to hear that, at last, he had a new novel. The Between did not disappoint and is probably aimed at a slightly older age group than its predecessor and is an enticing blend of fantasy, science fiction with a dash of horror. The main characters are two teenage girls Ana and Bea who are best friends and do everything together. After a fight, which was connected to bullying, Ana is suspended from school after another girl ends up in hospital and as the story develops we realise that Ana has a complex family history and their dynamics have resulted in her being seen as slightly odd and introverted. In the early stages there is a train crash where Bea disappears, and Ana believes she was snatched by a monstrous creature which she glimpses in the wreckage. When Ana approaches Bea’s parents they tell her Bea has been dead for a year. What on earth is going on?

Good question! Now things get VERY complex and I am not going to bother going into much detail as I will probably get something get something wrong and it takes time for everything to fall into place. When Ana begins to investigate the disappearance of her best friend, she meets a guy called Malik who explains that we live in one of seven different realities and that Bea has been snatched and taken to one of the others. Certain people ‘Pathfinders’ have the ability to move between the seven worlds and explains that Bea is has the Pathfinder gift but does not know how to harness it. Once the reader gets their head around what is going on this is a very exciting and well written trippy science fiction fantasy novel, with Bea an excellent leading character. Highly recommended. AGE 13+.

Jennifer Killick – Crater Lake

If I were nine years old, I would have loved Crater Lake! It concerns a class of Year Six pupils who are on their rights of passage school trip to an adventure centre. In the UK, many school kids in their last year of primary school do this before heading to secondary school. The action starts with the kids on the bus, excited, and soon to arrive at the centre. Just before they get to Crater Lake Activity Centre the bus is stopped by an old man who is covered in blood, disorientated, and a worker at the camp. Once the bus stops the camp is relatively quiet and the kids are not given an especially warm welcome. After a while, Lance, and his friends Chets, Katya, Big Mak and Adrianna realise there is something weird going on; is it a strange illness or something slightly more sinister?

Crater Lake was a lot of fun as the kids realise that those with odd bug-eyes have been changed in some way and might be no longer human. Adult readers will quickly pick up comparisons with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or from the children’s book world Gillian Cross’s The Demon Headmaster. Lance and co quickly go it alone as their teacher succumb very quickly and they plot to escape whilst the number of their classmates dwindle. There are terrific action sequences, some gore, great interaction between the kids and big exciting finish. This is an outstanding gateway into more mature science fiction and horror. It is also a terrific book for reluctant readers who want something relatively mature, but not too long. AGE 9/10+

Mikki Lish & Kelly Ngai – The House on Hoarder Hill

If you are after a not-too-threatening read which blends fantasy, magic, adventure, and some spooky goings on then The House on Hoarder Hill is a fine selection for kids over the age of nine. Siblings Hedy and Spencer are staying with their grandfather, whilst their archaeologist parents are abroad, and get involved in a strange mystery in the big old house which their grandfather lives in. There is no wi-fi in this place and the kids make their own entertainment exploring their ancient surroundings. They begin to think something odd is going on, when their grandfather who is a retired magician, becomes vague about what might be going on, particularly their dead grandmother.

The story moves up a year when they believe they are being sent messages (from beyond the grave?) which they think are coming from their grandmother. Set in a creaky and atmospheric house, the perfect setting for a gentle supernatural tale, this is a perfect novel to captivate younger children. It weighs it at well over 350 pages, so there is plenty of reading for children at the top end of primary. AGE 9+

Damien Love – Monstrous Devices

I loved Damien Love’s outstanding debut Monstrous Devices, a tale which has an old-fashioned mystery feel to it which beautifully blends spooky goings on, with thriller and adventure thrown into the mix. Twelve-year-old Alex is bullied at school and since he has started secondary things have got decidedly worse and is does not help that his mother gives him little room to breathe. Things take an interesting turn when Alex’s eccentric grandfather sends him a weird little (and very old fashioned) toy robot and then appears himself promising to take the boy on an adventure. The robot behaves oddly and soon the old man (in secret) whisks Alex to Paris to meet an old friend and find out more about the robot. However, things do not go to plan and Alex finds himself alone, being hunted and stranded in a foreign city. Scary times for a mummy’s boy!

I loved the way Monstrous Devices took the time to explain the original principles of robotics and its origins in the 1920s and as Alex goes on the run, the normally timid little boy, has to find extra reserves as he realises others are often the robot and will do anything to get it. Supernatural elements are threaded into the story, which also heads into Prague and the monsters known as Golems. This was an engaging page-turner with a hero thrown in at the deep end, but the attention to detail in Paris, Prague and the backstories was outstanding. It also had a cool ending, which hints at a sequel. More please! AGE 11+

Ben Oliver – The Loop

If you’ve after a cool twisty futuristic thriller then welcome to The Loop. Main character Luka Kane has been imprisoned within this weirdly looped shaped prison for over two years and is on a death sentence. However, there is a catch if inmates submit to medical experiments then their execution will be delayed. This happens all the time, but the experiments are very dangerous, might lead to death or having part of their body cut-off and replaced with an artificial limb. This was an outstanding setting for a dystopian thriller which was dominated by technology and very powerful artificial intelligence. Luka was an engaging character and I loved the way he passed his time reading what to us are contemporary novels, but to him are from the distant past.

Ben Oliver carefully drips information about what is going on in the real world beyond the prison, revealing the circumstances behind the Third World War and the fact that the world population is miniscule compared to what it once was. The bottom line: the machines are in charge. Early in proceedings excitement builds nicely towards a potential breakout; but this is tricky because inmates have devices attached to their hearts which will explode if they leave the prison grounds. There is much for young teenagers to enjoy in The Loop, which is a top-notch fusion of science fiction, thriller, and dystopia. As is often the case, the ending is slightly frustrating, and we are told to expect book two next year and book three in 2022. Irrespective of whether these future volumes are any good, there are just too many sequels in YA fiction, otherwise a great read. AGE 12+

Allison Rushby – The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery

If you are after a nice blend of supernatural mixed with historical fiction which is aimed at slightly younger kids, then The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery is well worth a closer look. As a London resident I also enjoyed the historical references and was unaware that the seven biggest London cemeteries, combined, were known as ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Set during the Blitz of the Second World War, the story revolves around twelve-year-old ghost girl Flossie Birdwhistle who is the ‘Turnkey’ at London’s Highgate Cemetery. This was an interesting concept; a turnkey is a ghost which has special types of responsibilities and powers which revolve keeping the newly dead at peace. As a turnkey Flossie can leave the cemetery (other ghosts cannot) and meet the turnkeys from other cemeteries. I thought the world building around the cemeteries and what the ghosts could and could not do was excellent.

The story develops into a nice mix of adventure and supernatural tale after Flossie spots the ghost of a German soldier in her cemetery who seems distinctly out of place because he seems able to hold physical objects (normal ghosts cannot) and can leave the cemetery (normal ghosts cannot) and after she meets the other turnkey ghosts realises the Germans might have a secret plan involving ghosts and the supernatural to win the war. Flossie might be dead, but she is still patriotic! And I had a lot of fun reading how she saved the day from a dastardly German scheme. AGE 9+

Jenni Spangler – The Vanishing Trick

Jenni Spangler impressed me greatly with her highly entertaining debut The Vanishing Trick which is ideal for kids at the top end of primary school looking for a spooky read, which is not going to scare them too much. The fast-moving story also has a convincing Victorian era setting which combines sad orphan children, the Victorian’s interest in seances and a supernatural touch which gives us an evil villain in the same ballpark as Oliver Twist’s Fagan. Arguably, the evil Madame Pinchbeck steals the show by using her magic to con rich folks into losing their wallets, during and after her seances which use the children she controls with her games of smoke and mirrors. Although she was a great character, the story is not seen from her perspective, instead it is told from the viewpoint of three children who have been tricked into her service and are used as slaves.

Orphaned thief Leander is our main character; however, he is quickly outfoxed by Pinchbeck when he is conned into a magical trade; she persuades children to part with precious objects, promising to use her powers to help them. But Pinchbeck is a liar, instead turning their items into enchanted Cabinets that bind the children to her and into which she can vanish and summon them at will and use them in her seances and effectively as slaves. As the story develops the action is also seen from the point of view of Charlotte and Felix and we realise that Pinchbeck may be responsible for the disappearance of many other children and they must fight to break the spell. Because this was aimed at younger kids you always knew things were going to work out in the end, but it was great fun, with larger than life characters and a great introduction to supernatural fiction, blended with a convincing historical setting. AGE 9+

the-best-website-for-horror-promotion-orig

Comments

Forward

ADAM CESARE – CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (9/10)​

DANIEL KRAUS – BENT HEAVENS (9/10)​

ERICA WATERS – GHOST WOOD SONG (8.5/10)​

DARREN CHARLTON – WRANGLESTONE (8.5/10)​

ESTELLE LAURE - MAYHEM (7.5/10)​

LESLIE KAREN LUTZ – FRACTURED TIDE (7/10)​

​ANN DAVILA CARDINAL – CATEGORY FIVE (FIVE MIDNIGHTS BOOK 2) (7/10)

​ASH PARSONS - GIRLS SAVE THE WORLD IN THIS ONE (7/10)

​MONIQUE SNYMAN - THE BONE CARVER (NIGHT WEAVER BOOK 2) (6/10)

​AIDEN THOMAS - CEMETERY BOYS 6/10

MELISSA ALBERT

​Laura Bates

EMMA BERQUIST​

AMELINDA BERUBE

THERESA BRAUN

ANN DAVILA CARDINAL

ERIN CRAIG​

VICTORIA DALPE​

SHEA ERNSHAW

SARA FARING​

KATHRYN FOXFIELD ​

CAROLINE FLARITY

​LIANA GARDNER

​CHRISTINE LYNN HERMAN

​LAUREN JAMES

​E. LATIMER

LORIEN LAWRENCE​

LESLIE LUTZ​

​KATE ALICE MARSHALL

AMY McCAW​

CYNTHIA MURPHY​

STEPHANIE PERKINS​

​RORY POWER

​REBECCA SCHAEFFER

CAT SCULLY​

​PAM SMY

​MONIQUE SNYMAN

​PETERNELLE VAN ARSDALE

​ERICA WATERS

​MARY WATSON

Ann Davila Cardinal – Category Five (Five Midnight book 2)​

Courtney Gould - The Dead and the Dark (out August 2021)​

Amy McCaw – Mina and the Undead (out April 2021)​

Monique Snyman - The Bone Carver (The Night Weaver 2)​

Laurie Faria Stolarz - The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep (out March 2021)​

Jonathan Stroud - The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne (out April 2021)​

Courtney Alameda & Valynne E Maetani – Seven Deadly Shadows

Adam Cesare – Clown in a Cornfield​

Darren Charlton – Wranglestone​

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake​

Lauren James – The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker​

Daniel Kraus – Bent Heavens​

Estelle Laure – Mayhem​

Melinda Salisbury – Hold Back the Tide​

Cat Scully – Jennifer Strange​

Erica Waters – Ghost Wood Song​

Kirsty Applebaum – Troofriend

Erin Bowman – Dustborn

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake​

Sarah Harian – Eight Will Fall​

Zach Hines – Nine​

David Hofmeyr – The Between​

Jennifer Killick – Crater Lake​

Mikki Lish & Kelly Ngai – The House on Hoarder Hill​

Damien Love – Monstrous Devices

Ben Oliver – The Loop​

Allison Rushby – The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery​

Jenni Spangler – The Vanishing Trick

Archives

ADAM CESARE – CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (9/10)

DANIEL KRAUS – BENT HEAVENS (9/10)

ERICA WATERS – GHOST WOOD SONG (8.5/10)

DARREN CHARLTON – WRANGLESTONE (8.5/10)

ESTELLE LAURE - MAYHEM (7.5/10)

LESLIE KAREN LUTZ – FRACTURED TIDE (7/10)

ANN DAVILA CARDINAL – CATEGORY FIVE (FIVE MIDNIGHTS BOOK 2) (7/10)

ASH PARSONS - GIRLS SAVE THE WORLD IN THIS ONE (7/10)

MONIQUE SNYMAN - THE BONE CARVER (NIGHT WEAVER BOOK 2) (6/10)

AIDEN THOMAS - CEMETERY BOYS 6/10

Laura Bates

EMMA BERQUIST

ERIN CRAIG

VICTORIA DALPE

SARA FARING

KATHRYN FOXFIELD

LIANA GARDNER

CHRISTINE LYNN HERMAN

LAUREN JAMES

E. LATIMER

LORIEN LAWRENCE

LESLIE LUTZ

KATE ALICE MARSHALL

AMY McCAW

CYNTHIA MURPHY

STEPHANIE PERKINS

RORY POWER

REBECCA SCHAEFFER

CAT SCULLY

PAM SMY

MONIQUE SNYMAN

PETERNELLE VAN ARSDALE

ERICA WATERS

MARY WATSON

Ann Davila Cardinal – Category Five (Five Midnight book 2)

Courtney Gould - The Dead and the Dark (out August 2021)

Amy McCaw – Mina and the Undead (out April 2021)

Monique Snyman - The Bone Carver (The Night Weaver 2)

Laurie Faria Stolarz - The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep (out March 2021)

Jonathan Stroud - The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne (out April 2021)

Adam Cesare – Clown in a Cornfield

Darren Charlton – Wranglestone

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake

Lauren James – The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker

Daniel Kraus – Bent Heavens

Estelle Laure – Mayhem

Melinda Salisbury – Hold Back the Tide

Cat Scully – Jennifer Strange

Erica Waters – Ghost Wood Song

Kat Ellis – Harrow Lake

Sarah Harian – Eight Will Fall

Zach Hines – Nine

David Hofmeyr – The Between

Jennifer Killick – Crater Lake

Mikki Lish & Kelly Ngai – The House on Hoarder Hill

Ben Oliver – The Loop

Allison Rushby – The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery