Tag: horror

The Cracks by T.H. Huddleston

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The Cracks is a gothic horror novel about an English stately home with its own secrets, working to uphold tradition in the modern day. Sandra’s a recently widowed ex-punk without a job and about to lose her home when her old university friend Gerry offers her a sanctuary in the form of staying with them in his wife’s family manor in the countryside. At first, Sandra thinks she can use this as a chance to rebuild her life, but the longer she spends there, the more strange things happen, sinister accidents and figures in mirrors, and it seems that Hautmond Hall has its own ideas about what Sandra should do.

This book is a classic ‘haunted building makes people act in certain roles’ story, using gothic horror to explore the British class system (as gothic horror often does). Like the fictional punk song at its centre, this is not a subtle book. The history of the house and its family is cartoonishly evil, hitting all the expected horrible landed gentry notes, and Sandra’s friendship with Gerry is a take on the Brideshead-esque class difference between university friends.

The narrative starts as a slow burn, with the gothic trope of Sandra thinking she’s going mad with some of the things happening, and then builds to a bloody conclusion. I like the attempt to combine old manor house gothic horror with punk rock, though the story does end up very predictable, and the punk ethos perhaps didn’t quite get enough space to shine or make the book feel very different to other horror stories with old houses wanting to keep people acting in certain ways.

The Cracks is a fun take on punk gothic horror that is perhaps most for people who are like Sandra and her late husband: those whose punk ideals (or former punk ideals) sometimes brush up against being friends with people with other backgrounds and political views. I didn’t find it as funny as it was marketed as being (it isn’t quite as quirky and high concept as Grady Hendrix and Rachel Harrison, whose work this was compared to), but I appreciate the use of gothic tropes alongside punk ideas.

Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella

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Quaint Folk is a horror novel about an American family who move to a British island where the inhabitants take their strange traditions very seriously. Jessica is trying to appear like the perfect wife and mother, whilst also feeling inadequate and scarred from her upbringing. When her husband Greg’s job has him, Jessica, and their non-binary child Sandy move to a town on a British island to complete a deal, Jessica sees this as a fresh start. Once they’re there, both Jessica and Sandy find themselves battling the town’s expectations and the traditions for the upcoming holiday.

Having read Karella’s previous novel Moonflow, I was expecting something queer and weird, and Quaint Folk is certainly those things too, but sometimes in a different way to Moonflow. Immediately as you begin reading, the narrative tone gets across the satirical side of the novel, from the parody of an idealised American family with a father working for a generic tech company to the utter ridiculousness of the quaint British town they go to, complete with nonsense elements and very real ones. 

You need to read the book with this tone in mind, as the actual narrative combines this nonsense side with a very dark side, in which the characters are threatened for not conforming and treated with contempt, but the combination of the two elements gets across how Karella is exploring folk horror through a queer lens. For queer characters, folk horror isn’t just weird townspeople feeling a bit off; it is being actively misgendered or told you’re not the right kind of person, or being actually in danger. It’s more of an unsettling folk horror than something with scares, but that makes the nastiness more insidious.

There’s a lot of really interesting setup in the book, delving into Jessica and Sandy’s characters and building up the unsettling question of where the power in the town actually lies. The conclusion feels quite sudden after that, leaving a lot of questions unanswered and not quite exploring all of the implications, and I’m not entirely sure what I think of it. I think the ending might work better if it was a film, but as a book, I wanted slightly more from it.

Newbourne Park by Jennifer Thorne

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Newbourne Park is a horror novel about a woman whose weekend getaway changes her life in a completely unexpected way. Martha is stuck, unable to move on with her life after the death of her mother, but when her brother invites her to a weekend at the country house his friend works at, she takes him up as a chance to do something. Their weekend starts well, but when the owner returns along with a whole load of other people, it turns out that the house has secrets, and Martha is about to be drawn into them.

Like Thorne’s Diavola, this is a horror novel that explores class and privilege, but Newbourne Park is also a werewolf novel in a similar way to Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth. That means that instead of scares and creepy stuff, the focus is much more on the horrors of being a werewolf and the power dynamics between the characters. The first part of the book is a tense unfolding of Martha and the others spending an illicit weekend at the house, and then from there is becomes more about Martha dealing with the consequences in a slower, more drawn out way.

There’s some great ridiculous moments—like having to be approved to join the werewolf pack via a Whatsapp vote—and generally this fits into the fun horror genre that I’d categorise Rachel Harrison’s books as, in which there’s some gore and a supernatural concept, but nothing scary. I liked all the commentary on the British class system and how that was interlinked with werewolfism. This isn’t a subtle book, but it’s a fun ride.

Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gould

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Until the Last Light Goes Out is a horror novel about a mysterious Florida resort where almost an entire high school class was massacred. It is twenty five years since most of the Ripley Memorial High School senior class were killed at the Kaleidoscope. Paige’s mother was one of the survivors, but Paige has tried to put that behind her, even as her best friend KJ obsessed over the place. However, when Paige returns for the anniversary of the massacre, she discovers KJ is missing, and it is time for the survivors’ children to face the Kaleidoscope and what happened there.

This is a very atmospheric horror novel that creates a very vivid Backrooms-esque resort that feels like the images of the poolrooms you see online. I loved that sense of the Kaleidoscope as something unknowable, whilst its labyrinthine structure allows for questions about the price you pay to get out. The character relationships were also good, with the two generations offering space for parallels and building good structural tension as it cut between then and now. I also liked the romantic tension between Paige and KJ and how that compared to the treatment of another character from the parents’ generation.

I was really picturing the events and the resort as I was reading this book and I think it would be great adapted into a film. It was described as YA on Netgalley, but I honestly think this book is good for any age if you like its style of horror, which is more existential and survival-based rather than anything scary. If you’re a fan of cursed vibes in horror and the idea of something bad lingering across generations, Until the Last Light Goes Out is one to try.

This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want by Hailey Piper

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This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want is a horror novel about a woman whose sister and best friend disappeared at a movie theater as children. Val is estranged from her parents who blame her for her sister and lives haunted by the strange film she watched all those years ago. After Val stumbles across someone dead, she finds herself facing the memories of the past as she tries to work out how the film works, helped by a former classmate who hunts down lost media as a job.

This book is a fun take on the cursed media genre, quite self-aware of how that genre is centred around online video these days and the fact that there’s actually a lot of work (and people) that go into making a film. There’s also a lot around character, particularly Val’s relationships with other people and how her parents let her down after the disappearance of her sister. There were some elements that could have maybe done with a bit more detail, particularly during the climax of the plot, but I liked how the story ended up hazy and surreal in places (a style which ironically often works better in horror films than books).

Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison

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Kiss Slay Replay is a time loop horror novel about a woman who goes to her friend’s wedding, only to find herself replaying the day over and over, with a new nightmare each time. Willa is struggling, having recently broken up with her ex-fiancé, but when her best friends are getting married, she needs to put that behind her for the day, even though said ex will be at the wedding. When she gets there, she finds out he brought a date, but then Willa meets a charming friend of the groom, and maybe she’ll have a good time after all. That is, until a masked slasher appears and starts killing the wedding guests. Despite Willa’s best efforts, things don’t go well, but then she wakes up in her bed on the morning of the wedding, and it becomes apparent things aren’t going as expected.

Having read quite a few of Rachel Harrison’s other books, I was expecting light high concept horror, and that’s very much what this is. The concept is a great crossover between a time-loop story and a range of classic horror tropes, bringing something a bit different to a story that might initially seem like a time-loop romcom. I liked how each loop had a different ‘bad guy’, so it wasn’t about learning how to be good at the loop and had a lot more space for ridiculous scary things. There could have maybe been a few more loops just to play around with the potential for dark comedy, but I did like how the narrative wasn’t focused on her having to keep making the same mistakes to learn from. Nevertheless, due to the concept, there is some nice character development for Willa amongst all the silliness.

This is very much a book that does what it says on the tin, offering a fun time that still centres around a character with some depth as she attempts to imagine herself having a future after a break up. It isn’t full of explanations for why things are happening, but instead you just have to go along for the (repeating) ride.

The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty

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The House That Eats the Dead is a horror novel about a family who move into a dream home, only to find it has a special hunger. Claire feels like her family have made it when they move into a big house in the suburbs. Her two children love it, and and her lawyer husband Tom feels like it is the chance for him to move up the career ladder. As they unpack, they notice that things start to disappear. The house is hungry, and it can be fed. Can Claire, and anyone else who suspects the house’s secret, resist the temptation to make use of its powers?

This is the kind of straightforward horror book that does what it says in the title. Some haunted house books have more twists when it comes to the house itself, but this one doesn’t: the house eats the dead. It isn’t a scary book, but any horror elements come more from people and what they would do with that concept than the house itself, which never feels malevolent, just doing what it does. The twists and turns of characters’ plots are fairly predictable too, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t work for a fun read that hits the expected plot moments. I can imagine this book working well adapted into a film, and the house’s “eating” would probably be more horrifying onscreen than it can be when reading it.

The main frustration with this book is that, other than Claire (and her sister) to some extent, there isn’t much backstory for anyone, including the house. It feels like a bit like a horror story for people who don’t like the amount of backstory that characters get from writers like Stephen King, if you find that there’s too much information and not enough plot. The blurb I read compared this book to Grady Hendrix, but I think that in Hendrix’s best works (including How to Sell a Haunted House), there is both emotional depth to the characters and more to the concept than the title. The concept at the heart of this book, and the realities that Claire faces, are dark and interesting (especially the idea that all of the serial killers and creeps want the house), but it could’ve gone deeper, even without making it a darker kind of horror.

I feel like this book is probably ideal for people taking their first steps into the horror genre or who don’t like things that are too scary or disgusting. I think it does feel similar to Rachel Harrison’s books, so it fits into that kind of fun horror with a supernatural concept and looking at what regular people do with that. However, for people who read a lot of horror, it can feel a bit one note, not really delving enough into the house itself.

The Sea Hides Its Dead by Megan Bontrager

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The Sea Hides Its Dead is a horror novel about a academic expedition to try and find an underwater cult of Leviathan. Caroline is a grad student who is the only person who believes in Edward Beck, an academic obsessed with a strange quasi-religious cult there’s little proof of. When Beck, who is also her lover, says he needs her to come along on an expedition into the sea caves where the cult may have dwelt, it seems like the chance she needs. However, once the group gets to the caves, they become trapped there, forced to undertake trials relating to their greatest sins.

I was drawn to this book thanks to the title and the sea horror idea, and whilst it isn’t really a sea horror book like I was expecting, I did find it a fun horror adventure. The plot is very much as you’d expect, with the group descending and then facing various dramatic things happening. There’s a big focus on Caroline realising that Beck doesn’t really care about her, and her focusing on her friendship with Mallory, a relationship she previously undervalued. At times it feels like Caroline gets all this emotional depth at the expense of the other characters, who are mostly just stand-ins for certain concepts or tropes. I also found the morality at times a bit black and white, with the ‘good’ characters always having ‘sins’ that are completely justified in the narrative. The ending reinforces this, with a sudden happy ending that didn’t quite carry the weight of its negative aspects.

To me, it felt like a cross between a ‘stuck in a cave’ horror like The Descent and the academia/power/belief side of Katabasis. The horror of the Leviathan wasn’t really there for most of it, so it felt less about that side, and more about the human side of things. Personally, I think that the title perhaps isn’t the best for the book, as the book really didn’t feel much about the sea at all, which I was expecting. If you go into this expecting horror about power and trying to find a cult whilst trapped in a changing cave system, I think you’ll have a decent time.

Splasher by Billie Host

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Splasher is a horror book set within a university swim team, as people start dying in and out of the pool. Spencer is back at the university where a fellow member of the swim team died ten years ago, now the assistant swim coach for the team. When two students are found dead in the pool on his first day, the whole team are thrown off, but it doesn’t stop there.

I loved the concept of this book, combining a slasher with such a specific setting as a university swim team. My sister is into competitive swimming so I appreciated all of the detail behind the swim team, rather than it being a cursory theming, though I can see that some people might find there is a lot of swimming content in the book. The narrative itself is pretty simple, and the reveals are barely reveals, but I still found it pretty fun to come along for the ride. The narrative perspective swaps between a few characters, which doesn’t always work—I think it would have been better without one of the perspectives who was antagonistic, as it felt like revealed too much— but I liked how it meant you got some depth to more of the characters through their perspectives.

The book was marketed I believe as adult horror, but I think it is most similar to Point Horror books and fits more into that kind of genre (or at least into Point Horror nostalgia for adults). It reminds me a lot of why I used to love the Nightmare Hall books as a teenager: taking a specific element of university life and doing horror around that. However, despite being set in 2006 (mostly, and for occasional flashbacks in 1996), it is updated from Point Horror as there’s actual queer characters, which I appreciated. It’s not a particularly tense or scary slasher and it has quite a slow pace, so it is best for something fun and a bit silly with Friday the 13th vibes.

Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen

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Slasher Summer is a horror novel about a group who were once friends in high school, now reunited in the remote cabin where their cult favourite slasher film movie was filmed. Patrick has invited his old group of friends, all of whom came together to watch horror films, back together to stay in the cabin in their hometown where the film Slasher was made. Things between them haven’t been the same since high school, but this is their chance to come back together. However, when they spot the slasher from the film in the woods, suddenly their reunion is more than just a chance to remember the horror films they used to watch.

This book is one of the many love letters to slasher stories that have been released in recent years, featuring many references to classic slasher films and characters. The book doesn’t get too bogged down in the references though, and it really builds up the characterisation of the group as the focus rather than just ticking off tropes. I loved the way that it plays with some of the more dated elements of slasher tropes, particularly around race and sexuality, and questions who is allowed to play which role in the genre. At the same time, the narrative has a slow build up and then a gory second half, so it doesn’t lack the kind of excitement you’d expect from the genre. I worked out the twist partway through, but it was still a satisfying ending that felt decently set up.

If you’re a fan of fun slasher stories, but also want a version that takes characters who are slightly older than the usual teens and has them wonder if they really want to stay who they were in high school, then Slasher Summer is one to look out for. There’s definitely a few characters whose deaths make you feel like you wished they could’ve had longer, which I think is a testament to the characterisation as in many slashers you can often struggle to tell the initial deaths apart.