YA HORROR & DARK FICTION ROUND-UP FOR JAN/FEB 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)
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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.
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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+

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

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

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Monique Snyman - The Bone Carver (The Night Weaver 2)
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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.
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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 gloss over that crucial shortcoming. AGE 12+

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

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

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