THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR DISSECT THE NOVELS ON THE YA STOKER PRELIMINARY AND FINAL BALLOTS

2/3/2023

The Ginger Nuts of Horror Dissect the Novels
on the YA Stoker Preliminary and Final Ballots

Every year Young Blood, the YA section of Ginger Nuts of Horror, reviews all the books on the Preliminary Ballot for the YA Bram Stoker Award. By the time you read this article the HWA voting procedures will have whittled their list down to those on the Final Ballot. In previous years some weak books have won this award, but thankfully for 2022/3 the overall standard was very good.

Sadly, the list lacks any British or international involvement and there were virtually no books featuring male narratives, the lack of boy characters in YA dark fiction is a worrying trend which seems to be worsening. The lack of international author representation (horror does not begin and end in America) will be addressed in a future accompanying article where the Ginger Nuts of Horror counterbalance this all-American list with an all-British selection. This will be published much closer to the HWA awards ceremony.

I rated and ranked the books long before the Final Ballot was announced and I strongly recommend voting members check out Tiffany Jackson’s The Weight of Water as it was a genuinely outstanding YA horror novel which could also be enjoyed by adults (even more so if they have read Stephen King’s Carrie). However, the next three highest ranked on my list by Kate Alice Marshall, Vincent Tirado and Ann Fraistat were also impressive reads, Marshall has been on the Final Ballot previous for Rules for Vanishing and would be a very worthy winner.

Robert Ottone’s The Triangle was one of the weaker books on the Final Ballot and I presume this has been voted onto the ballot by the HWA members and because of that might be considered a favourite. I hope this book does not win though as it is just not strong enough to be a flagship novel in a major ‘international’ horror award. VE Schwab is clearly the biggest ‘name’ on the Final Ballot and most well-known out with the hardcore horror community, but Gallant does not rank alongside her best work, even if it has picked up a big mainstream audience.

Tiffany D Jackson – The Weight of Blood   9.5/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Amy Christine Parker – Flight 171       8.5/10
Kate Alice Marshall – These Fleeting Shadows   8/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Andrew Joseph White – Hell Followed with Us    7.5/10
Vincent Tirado – Burn Down, Rise Up       7/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Ann Fraistat – What We Harvest       7/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Nicole Lesperance – The Depths           7/10
V.E. Schwab – Gallant               6/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Robert P Ottone – The Triangle           5.5/10   (FINAL BALLOT)
Lily Anderson – Scout’s Honor           5/10

The books are presented alphabetically by author.

Lily Anderson – Scout’s Honor (5/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ St Martin's Press

Various blurbs compare Lily Anderson’s Scout’s Honor to Bully the Vampire Slayer and although I’m not sure how many teens of today know much about Buffy I found this comparison to be a little off the mark. This novel attempts to blend comedy, drama, science fiction and horror and probably tries to do too much as it was not particularly successful at any of them. The Buffy style character is sixteen-year-old Prudence Perry who is a Ladybird Scout (rather than a Vampire Slayer) is born into a family of hunters sworn to protect the human race from weird creatures called mulligrubs, which are interdimensional parasites who feast on human emotions like sadness and anger. I found these creatures to be totally underwhelming and for the most part extremely easy to despatch and not particularly threatening. In Buffy speak this ‘Big Bad’ was very dull and the story could have had significantly more bite if the enemy to the Ladybird Scout movement had sharper teeth.

Four hundred pages was way too long for a book that suffered from a serious sag in the middle and because of the light tone lacked convincing action sequences. Every chapter starts with a quote from the Ladybird Scout manual, which are not so different from what you might find in the official Scouting (minus the supernatural) manual. When the book opens Prudence is suffering from PTSD from an earlier encounter with the grubs (but does not show much evidence of it) and gets involved in training other Scouts where the story kicks off and she has to come to terms with her past and losses. I struggled with this book and if not reviewing it would have given up on it, however, young teens who like a blend of fantasy, girl power and a light read will surely enjoy it more than I did.

AGE RANGE 12+

Ann Fraistat – What We Harvest (7/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Delacorte Press

Ann Fraistat’s debut What We Harvest was an engaging blend of dark fantasy, horror and teen drama. The story is set in the small town of Hollow’s End which, historically, is known for its fabulous crops attributed to the high quality of soil. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of main character Wren's family's farm. However, the drama starts five months after an unexplainable disease has started to kill the crops, but this was only the start and the Quicksilver blight which then moved onto the animals and eventually people. This was all very cleverly done, infected livestock and wild creatures staggered off into the woods by day, only to return at night, their eyes fogged white, leering from the trees. Effectively when people start disappearing (including Wren’s parents) she knows if they return they will definitely cause her harm and will no longer be human.

On one level the book is about Wren’s battle to save her farm (the wheat in particular), whilst trying to discover the cause for the Quicksilver blight. Along the way she turns to her ex-boyfriend Derek for help (who lives on a local farm) and together them team up whilst there is unresolved relationship tension in the air. Having thick silver sludge bleeding from the earth was vividly described and I had fun finding out where the blight came from and particularly how it affected people. An eye-catching debut.

AGE RANGE 13+

Tiffany D Jackson – The Weight of Blood (9.5/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Katherine Tegen Books

The Weight of Blood was the first time I had some across Tiffany Jackson and I was totally blown away by this intense riff on Stephen King’s Carrie, with an additional kick-ass racial social commentary. Interestingly, the readership of this superb read is probably thirteen to sixteen with the majority unlikely to pick up on the blow-by-blow similarities to the King masterpiece. In her afterward Jackson does say “Speaking of which…. To Mr King, you are one of my greatest inspirations”. And what Jackson does with the original is nothing short of inspirational, adding a whole new layer regarding the legacy of racism in a small Georgian town, beautifully blended into a story of an isolated and bullied teenage girl developing telekinetic powers. Think of what the old Howard Hawks film Rio Bravo with John Wayne and Dean Martin being circled by relentless bad guys and how this was effectively remade by John Carpenter in Assault on Precinct 13 as a way of comparison. The Weight of Blood does something similar, instead takes the bones of the King story and sets it in a high school where Black students are in the minority, where Black kids have separate proms and where blackfacing is still seen as funny and an acceptable form of fancy dress. Undercurrents of institutionalised racism throb throughout the book, but it is nicely balanced by an engaging teen storyline and a second podcast radio style story strand set ten years later, which cleverly mirror the style in King’s Carrie.

The main character is Maddy Washington, who has hidden the fact that she is biracial from her classmates, predominately because her fanatical father controls every aspect of her life. She has no friends and is relentlessly bullied and this is before the fact she is half-Black is revealed. After another student films classmates throwing stuff at her afro-style hair the film snippet ends up on the TV news and the fact that the town still has separate proms ends under the spotlight. Right from the start we know something very nasty is going to happen at the first integrated prom as the second narrative of the documentary “Maddy Did It” makes this abundantly clear, but the fun is in how events play out. For large chunks of the book The Weight of Blood reads like a teen drama, taking in other characters, including Black football star Kenny who effectively ignores the racism and almost pretends he is white. I do not know exactly when segregated proms ended, or whether they carried on in secret, but The Weight of Blood balanced the social commentary, with the teen drama and the horror exceptionally well, with the location of Springville being a ‘Sundown Town’ years earlier. Maddy was a pitiful character and I found myself feeling more for her than I did the original ‘Carrie’ and Tiffany Jackson should take that as a serious compliment. I totally loved this book and it fully deserves to win the YA Stoker and is a novel the HWA could shout about from the rooftops.

AGE RANGE 13+

Nicole Lesperance – The Depths (7/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Razorbill

Nicole Lesperance’s fascinating and atmospheric The Depths is undoubtedly aimed at strong confident YA readers as it is probably too slow moving for those readers looking for a thriller or easy scare. This literary gothic horror is targeting more thoughtful readers attracted to strong characterisation, beautiful but threatening landscapes and slow burning romance. One of the main strengths of the novel is its main character seventeen-year-old Addie, who narrates the action, until a serious accident she was one of the world’s best free-divers, being able to sink to the depth of a 19-story-building without an oxygen tank. When the novel opens Addie is still convalescing from the accident where she drowned and was clinically dead for eight and a half minutes. Her recovery is slow, and an important part of the novel as she has restricted mobility and coughs up blood and remains in touch with her two best friends who are also free divers.

The setting and location were also key to the success of the story. Addie arrives on the remote Eulalie Island with her mother and new husband preparing to play gooseberry and regain her strength. The island is almost presented as a character in itself and is vividly described from the trees to the winds, the sand and the shades of the water. Soon Addie meets Billy, the son of the island keepers, and slowly the supernatural element of the story is introduced with local legends and ghosts which live on the island, which have their own agenda for Addie. As the story moved on there were some great underwater scenes and Addie realises Eulalie Island might not want her to leave. It was relatively easy to see which direction The Depths was heading, but it was an engaging and thoughtful read for those who enjoy immersive fiction.

AGE RANGE 13+

Kate Alice Marshall – These Fleeting Shadows (8/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Books for Young Readers

These Fleeting Shadows is another complex read from the outstanding Kate Alice Marshall which blends the supernatural, dark family drama, LGBTQIA+ love story and twister of a thriller. Helen Vaughan’s grandfather dies and she returns with her mother to the expansive ancestral home of Harrowstone Hall for the funeral where she discovers she is the major beneficiary in the will. However, to claim the fifty million inheritance and estate she must live in the house for a year, without leaving the grounds and function as ‘Mistress’ to the house. The novel is built around the fact that this is no normal house and the fact that a supernatural presence called ‘The Other’ lives in the house and that Helen also has visions connected to a troubled past childhood.

The story concerns Helen’s year in the house as she negotiates the family members, some of which want her to succeed and other see her fail. However, it is much more complex than that as the house is intrinsically a part of the family and soon Helen finds herself getting deeper into a supernatural family drama, not to mention the witch she befriends who lives on the grounds. Although the book might be too slow for some and does not rely on jump scares or violence more discerning and mature readers and guaranteed to be sucked into its intoxicating revelations and drama.

AGE RANGE 14+

Robert P Ottone – The Triangle (5.5/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Raven Tale

I really wanted to like Robert P Ottone’s The Triangle more than I actually did, as it blended many areas of action fiction I enjoy, dystopia, environmental disasters, a blast of science fiction and a throwback to the monsters of Lovecraft. Although it was a solid read, it lacked the spark required to turn a good storyline into a genuine page-turner. Set in a lawless future after the Polar icecaps have melted with rising water levels, many people turned into scavengers of old technology to buy, sell and barter in order to survive.

The story revolves around a father and daughter who scavenge in the Caribbean, living in a flotilla community called Coral Cove, which was a cool setting for a story. The main character’s father is sent looking for a missing scout party which has disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area, unknown to him his daughter Azlynn (Azzy) and her friend have stowed away on board. Although nobody knows much about the original myth of the Triangle, everybody feels there is something unnatural about the area and the book is built around what nastiness lurks there and the power it wields. YA fiction is full of dystopian and environmentally themed fiction and this book fell short of the best of them and I found the action sequences slightly stilted and could have done with more bang. The Triangle is the first part of a trilogy (book two is already out) and there are plenty of unanswered questions and cliff-hangers left for future instalments.

AGE RANGE 12+

Amy Christine Parker – Flight 171 (8.5/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Underlined

In 2023 few genuine teen readers will know what Point Horror is or how popular this series was back in the late eighties until the mid-nineties, with nostalgia still being a big thing for adults of today who grew up reading this generation of gateway horror novels. Once in a while I read a new YA novel which pleasantly reminds me of Point Horror, in that it gives the same vibe, is fast paced and has an easy read page-turning style. Back in 1994, working in my first school library, we had to keep the Point Horror books in a special cupboard as they were always stolen! Amy Christine Parker’s Flight 171 is one of those kind of books, and I sped through this edge-of-the-seat horror thriller, which is almost entirely set on a four-hour flight, which quickly turns into a nightmare when a supernatural creature gives a group of high school students a sinister ultimatum. It is neither deep, complex or have any profound message, but it was superb escapism and tremendous fun. If you are looking to get a kid who has not been reading much back into books, this nasty little twister might be the ideal candidate.

When the plane takes off we realise everybody has secrets, which is one of the main themes of the book, and this haunts main character Devon Marsh, whose twin sister was killed in a hit and run accident the previous Halloween. Devon is wracked with guilt because she had an argument with Emily before her fateful car journey and has vowed to identify the killer and suspects one of her classmates. However, the way the secrets are uncovered was pretty wacky, an old woman has a spat with one of the flight attendants which results in her (not really an old woman) effectively cursing the teens: choose one among them to sacrifice before the end of the flight. Or the plane will crash. And then the clock begins to tick and the secrets begin to drop as everybody begins to try and save their own skins (some of which are pretty worthless). Flight 171 was built around a terrific story hook, which was in the same style as something you might have seen in an episode of The Twilight Zone decades ago. This was an addictive blend of horror, teen drama and thriller, with an evil entity which reminded me of the old woman in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. I have already bought a copy for my school library and I hope it does not get nicked like my old Point Horrors!

AGE RANGE 12+

V.E. Schwab – Gallant (6/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books

Victoria Schwab needs no introduction as a dark fantasy author who is equally skilled (and successful) writing for children, teens and adults. Her books often have supernatural and elements of horror which are nicely blended with urban fantasy aspects of dark fairy tales. Gallant comes across as more of the same and although the setting, main character and atmosphere was wonderful the plot was rather bland and I felt I had been here many times before. The story is initially set in a boarding school for girls (which was a great location) until it is revealed fourteen-year-old Olivia Prior has family who have been seeking her from her birth. Olivia is the classic outsider, who has no friends, sees ghosts, and longs for the family she never knew she had, until she is plucked from the Merilance School for Girls and taken to her new home, where the majority of the book is set. I had hoped we might return to the orphanage.

Although the estate of Gallant was a fascinating location not enough happened at the house to get the pulses racing. The very withdrawn Olivia finds herself in an unfriendly house where she is not wanted, which is top loaded with secrets regarding both her parents and her mysterious uncle. And from that moment on Olivia is on a journey of self-discovery into her family history, with a few ghosts along the way. Given a strange set of rules to follow, Olivia soon realises our world is not the only one. Gallant was a solid dark fantasy, but it lacked spark and did nothing to stand out from a crowded marketplace dominated by girls just like Olivia.

AGE RANGE 12+

Vincent Tirado - Burn Down, Rise Up (7/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sourcebooks Fire

Burn Down, Rise Up is a fascinating debut from Vincent Tirado set in the Bronx area of New York which nicely puts Black and Latino characters front and centre. It also has a convincing LGBTQ+ vibe with a gay lead character who has a crush on one of her oldest friends. The problem is her best friend (Aaron) also has a thing for the same girl, Charlize. The first half of the novel sets the teen scene and in the second things go full-blown supernatural. When the novel kicks off there have been a spate of disappearances which have been connected to a mysterious urban legend, a challenge called the Echo Game which soon sucks sixteen-year-old Raquel, Aaron and Charlize into its orbit, connecting to an alternative version of the Bronx from the 1970s.

A cousin of Charlize was also rumoured to have been playing the Echo Game, which leads to a mysterious Illness which Raquel’s mother catches. Looking for a cure and answers they have to play the game themselves, taking them to a sinister world beneath the city connected to a dark chapter in New York’s past. Raquel was a great central character and teen readers will have fun following her on her dangerous adventures in taking on the Slumlord, a nasty character who lurks in the shadows of the book.

AGE RANGE 13/14+

Andrew Joseph White - Hell Followed with Us (7.5/10)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peachtree Publishers

Hell Followed With Us has to be one of the strangest YA fantasy horror novels I have read in ages and will probably make more sense to American audiences, due to its heavy use of religion, which might pass UK audiences by. It also has terrific LGBTQ+ representation, with most of the characters falling under that banner due to the complex nature of the story. The main character is a transgender boy called Benji who is on the run from a cult (a type of Evangelical Christians) who unleashed Armageddon through a virus which Benji is connected to, leading to very gruesome body horror as the infection can turn him into a dangerous bioweapon. Whilst looking for a place to hide Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre, known as the ALC and the wide range of gender representations in the centre and the pronouns they use to identify themselves.

Teens who are interested in gender are sure to get a lot out of this book as it goes out of its way to be inclusive and builds a highly original, and wildly inventive story, around Armageddon. However, readers not so interested in these kind of gender scenarios might find it plays too big a part in the story. Benji’s sexuality was nicely explained, from his days in the church to how he likes to dress, going into detail about breast binders and menstruation etc. It was also heartening to have an autistic character Nick) lead the ALC, who realises the truth about Benji and his inner monster. This was a very gory book, which will have several triggers for readers who might have had similar problems as Benji and Hell Followed With Us is a rage filled blast at conformity, told from a unique perspective. At times it was not easy to follow but you will rarely see such a large and unapologetically queer collection of characters as in this wild end of the world romp.

AGE RANGE 14+

Tony Jones

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ON COCAINE BEAR AND OTHER HUMAN-CREATED MONSTERS BY TAMIKA THOMPSON

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