Richie Tankersley Cusick (gee, what a mouthful) is one of my favorite YA horror authors. I've read most of her work that is still in circulation and a handful of her books that aren't. She's probably one of my favorite Point Horror line authors, even more so than Christopher Pike and Caroline B. Cooney, whose works tend to be more uneven (even though I love them both). There's something about Cusick's work that just speaks to me on a profound level: hot bad guys, gothic undertones, female gaze, and surprisingly poetic writing that just makes me really wish that I'd devoured more of her books as a young teen. I MISSED OUT, Y'ALL.
That isn't to say that she doesn't have her duds, too. I don't like all of her books equally and sadly, FATAL SECRETS is one of her books that I liked the least. I think it's because it kind of feels like an R.L. Stine book: cheesy and formulaic with a bit of a ridiculous ending (although the subjects in this book are things I don't even think Stine would touch-- even his contemporaries felt like timewarps to the 1950s). Basically, Ryan's sister Melissa dies under the ice while they're in the woods and after that, Ryan is haunted by images of her supposedly dead sister. But if Melissa isn't dead? Where is she? And if she is... who's doing this?
The set-up has everything I normally love in an RTC book: hot bad guys, lots of mystery, narrative gaslighting, etc. But like I said, the ending jumped the shark (the ice shark, shall we say?) and I just didn't feel like we got to know the sinister guys for me to really care about them as will they/won't they love interests. SILENT STALKER and HELP WANTED were kind of peak RTC as far as I'm concerned, and SUMMER OF SECRETS had great love interests. This one fell flat on all counts. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I liked this even less than THE DRIFTER. Bummer.
Still, it's a Christmas-themed YA horror novel so if you're burned out on Hallmark movies and you're one of those chaotically evil people who consider Die Hard a holiday movie, you might like this.
I was so excited when I saw the blurb for SILENT STALKER because it kind of sounded like a YA-friendly version of this author's adult horror novel, BLOOD ROOTS, which if you've been following for a while, you probably know is one of my favorite horror novels OF ALL TIME. Do I even care if it's derivative? Nah. If I love the story, I'll happily reread various iterations of it in perpetuity. I'm a sucker for trash that hits right. How you feel about this book is going to depend a lot about your thoughts on teen girl melodrama and gothic romance. I personally love both those things, so this was an instant win for me.
Because right from the beginning, SILENT STALKER doesn't disappoint. I loved the imagery of the heroine and her father driving through the woods on a stormy night, in search of the replica castle that a crazy eccentric family had built in mirror image of their English ancestral home. This felt like such a classic horror/retro gothic scene, and when they're met at the driveway by a man who won't show his face, who shines his flashlight over Jenny in a rather suggestive way, I knew this was probably going to have at least one hot bad guy in it. YAS. And mere instants later, we're treated to more fan service as Jenny meets a mysterious man in old clothes who tells her that he wants to TORTURE her.
Me: lying on the floor, with the ghost of my feminism floating above my deceased form
SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY LOVE OF TOXIC TRASH
The owner of the castle is a man named Sir John, who has three sons: Wit, Malcolm, and Derreck. They're here to perform in the Medieval Festival, so they're all in costume when Jenny and her father show up. Wit's the jester, Malcolm is a knight, and Derreck is a carnival performer. Also, they're all HOT. And kind of evil. I don't remember other YA horror pulps having such spicy dialogue, but this one does. I really wished that the author had written this one as an adult horror romance like BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW because she actually writes really good smut, but the sexual tension here is off the charts good. A+. Also it's refreshing that the characters are older. The brothers are all college-age and Jenny is an older teen. They all sound like that too. Which I really liked.
But it's not just suggestive glances and double-entendres. Someone wants to play a game with Jenny. A game that will let them own her forever. Which probably will make you think of another YA pulp with a heroine named Jenny. And you wouldn't be wrong. The comparison is apt. And even though the twist for this book kind of came out of nowhere, I didn't even care. The build-up, the atmosphere, and the tension were excellent. I think this is easily one of the best vintage YA thrillers I've ever read. In fact, it felt like something I would write. Or that I'd want to write, since I feel like Cusick is a much better writer than I am. And let me just tell you that the jealousy you feel when you read a book that you wish you'd written, as an author, is a bittersweet feeling that still ends up being surprisingly satisfying.
If I were being picky, which I'm obviously not given my rating, I'd complain that Jenny's father is almost unbelievably stupid (but sadly not entirely unbelievably-- he definitely has the selfish and distracted academic role down pat), and the twist stretched my suspension of disbelief. But mostly this book just made me want to take Ms. Cusick out for coffee and be her best friend, so I can pick her brain and learn from her talent and also hear the stories and experiences that gave her inspo for her ideas.
I have mixed feelings about anthologies. I like the idea of them in theory but the overall quality hinges on not just the quality of the individual stories but also how they fit and work together. In past collections I've read, there's always one or two stories where I'm like, "Did you NOT understand the assignment?" Happily, that was not the case with this book-- it's one of the few where everything feels cohesive. Gothy, gloomy Addams family-aesthetic Latinx stories? Uhhhh let me go ahead and slam down that YAAAAASS button.
So here are my jotted thoughts and feelings about each individual story, with a respective rating.
The Nightmare and the Lark: ☆☆☆ Chantel Acevedo
This is a Romeo and Juliet retelling with monster hunters and monster sympathizers, replete with a twist. I can see why it was chosen to kick off the collection because it sets the overall theme and tone of the stories to come and hooks you in with a lil' bit of romance, but I found it just okay.
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Donde Esta el Duende?: ☆☆☆ Jenny Torres Sanchez
I thought this one was also just okay, although it's a very different story than the first. Apparently a "duende" is a sort of monster elf creature (and not a cuddly rosy-cheeked one, either!). This has more of a classic horror movie vibe to it, like a 1950s pulp. It also kind of gave me Troll 2 vibes.
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El Viejo de la Bolsa: ☆☆ Alexandra Villasante
I didn't care for this one much at all. It's a very strange story revolving around an entity that kidnaps and eats children who don't finish their meals. The ending was weird and didn't really make sense to me. I get the purpose of vague, open-ended endings but if they're not executed well, they just feel lazy.
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Beware the Empty Subway Car: ☆☆½ Maika and Maritza Moulite
This was almost a good story. I've actually read a book by these authors before and it had similar problems: it tried to get a little too fancy for a story that didn't quite have enough substance to carry it off. I liked the premise-- a lougaru living in New York-- and it had '90s grunge vibes. But I didn't like it.
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Dismembered: ☆☆☆☆ Ann Davila Cardinal
This story was actually really sweet. It's about a girl who inherits her grandmother's house after she is killed in a gruesome car crash. On a completely UNRELATED note (*cough*) she learns that so many people die on the road where her grandmother had the accident that an urban legend has surfaced about the dismembros, body parts that just blob around, searching for their missing pieces. *shudder*
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Blood Kin: ☆☆☆ Ari Tison
This is a story about revenge for the indigenous people of Costa Rica and it involves, strangely enough, panther shape-shifters. Or the legend of them, anyway. *wink* I thought this one was only okay. It kind of felt like it could have been a Captain Planet episode. I just don't think the story was long enough to do its thing. Not a bad book-- again, it was okay plus-- but it could have been better.
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La Boca del Loba: ☆☆☆ M. Garcia Pena
I thought this one was fine. It's an Angela Carter-like story about female rage that becomes carnivorous in its fury. Surreal and very magic-realism-y, but I rolled with it. And I did kind of like it.
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Bloodstained Hands Like Yours: ☆ Gabriela Martins
There's always ONE. This is the story in the book that I really didn't like. It didn't offend me or make me angry or anything like that, I just didn't feel like it made sense (even if I liked the idea of a mummy story where the mummy is targeting this one girl for ~reasons~).
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The Boy from Hell: ☆☆☆☆ Amparo Ortiz
So satisfying. Almost five stars. I want to see this one played out in a full book. Latinx vampires and a kickbutt female vampire huntress who seeks them out with the help of her chaotic good granny? YAS
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La Patasola: ☆☆☆☆☆ Racquel Marie
This is more of a five-star rating in terms of the overall collection than something that really had me obsessing, but it was an excellent short story. I guess it's a feminist spin on a Colombian story of a woman who, after being murdered by her jealous fiance, becomes a flesh-eating monster. So good and it's set in a camp and talks about biphobia and bisexual erasure. SO GOOD.
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The Other Side of the Mountains: ☆½ Claribel A. Ortega
This one was confusing and weird and I feel like it was going for a maybe Tim Burton sort of vibe and it almost succeeded but wasn't quite there. It's about a boy looking for the witch who took his sister into the mountains. Creative but confusing and also kind of depressing.
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La Madrina:☆☆½ Yamile Saied Mendez
This is a story about a girl who ends up encountering the woman who guides the dead to their final place. I rounded up a bit because I liked the ending, but I wanted more from it.
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Sugary Deaths: ☆☆☆☆☆ Lilliam Rivera
I was obsessed with this one and clearly need to check out more of this author's works. 80s nostalgia! Tough girl heroine! Pac-Man! Arcades! Also the premise revolves around a girl getting revenge on a privileged older guy who's taking advantage of her friends. SO GOOD. Love love love.
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Leave no Tracks: ☆☆½ Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez is such a big name in Latinx fiction that I went in with really high expectations but this story felt pretty dialed in. I liked the environmental theme and the supernatural element but this one didn't really impress me much. Sadness.
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The Hour of the Wolf: ☆☆☆ Courtney Alameda
I have heard so many good things about this author and even own some of her books (but haven't read them yet). Clearly I need to because this book was pretty good. It served up old school Goosebumps-style horror with skulls and altars and a vengeful wolf. Plus, a strong heroine in her own right.
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So overall this collection was a little bit hit, a little bit miss, and a whole lot of okay. I did discover some new authors I'm pretty excited to read more from, though, so that's something! Also the editors put together a super cohesive collection that was the best of any anthology I've read, so go them on that. I'm honestly super impressed. Would make a great gift for the horror aesthete in your life.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
I hate to say it since T. Kingfisher is one of my favorite authors and usually I can't get enough of what she writes, but this honestly would have been better as a short story. A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES is the story of Sam, who goes to her mother's house in rural North Carolina after her brother calls her up and tells her that she seems "off." Almost immediately, Sam can see what she means. The changes they've made to the place after Sam's grandmother's death are all gone. The racist Confederate painting is back in its place of pride, the walls have been painted ghastly colors, and the rose bushes are flourishing.
Something is very wrong with the house... and with Sam's mom.
...But what?
So one thing I really like about T. Kingfisher is that she's great about writing REALLY creepy stories that end up feeling almost cozy. I don't know how to describe it, except that reading them gives me the same safe-but-scared feeling that I got from reading Point Horror and Goosebumps as a kid. Maybe it's because her heroines are always plucky and affably anxious, and maybe it's because the animal sidekicks almost never die, but even though I'm a wuss when it comes to most gore and horror, I can always pick up her books, no problem.
Usually, the atmosphere-to-cozy ratio is perfect but in this book it felt off. The story felt dragged out and silly, and while there were "good bones" for a story in this book, the execution really wasn't that great. I loved the fat rep and the fact that the heroine was a bug archaeologist (super neat), and there were a couple ghastly scenes that were worth writing home about, but I left the book feeling pretty disappointed. So far, THE HOLLOW PLACES reigns supreme, followed closely by THE TWISTED ONES. Here's hoping that this was a one-off and that she hasn't lost her magic.
So whenever I stay over at someone's house, I immediately stalk their bookshelves, so when I did a kitten-sit and saw that my sister had a copy of Melinda Salisbury's latest, I was all over that like white on rice. Salisbury is the author of THE SIN EATER'S DAUGHTER, which a lot of my friends didn't like but I actually thought was a lot of fun, and this Scotland-set The Village-esque claustrophobic horror novel sounded it was going to be absolutely perfect for Spooky Month.
Alva is the daughter of the master of the loch. For centuries he and his kin have looked over the loch and monitored the water levels. But now, things are different. The water levels are falling. Strange things are also happening. Animals are dying and traps are being ripped apart. Alva knows that he should tell the village elders but for some reason he's being secretive about it. She can't help but wonder if the reasons for that are as sinister as the ones behind her mother's disappearance.
This is a really good story but less is definitely more going in. Some of the reviews have big spoilers. For my part, I will say that I enjoyed the sort of Lovecraftian horror angle (except, you know, without the Lovecraftian racism) and the small village politics. There's even some cute boys and hints of romance and the heroine is unbelievably strong in a Katniss Everdeen sort of way. The ending is kind of a downer, though, so if you don't like downer endings I would recommend against this book. It definitely took some of the shine off the polish, if you know what I meant. But apart from that, this was an enjoyable way to spend my afternoon.
FREAK is the sequel to CREEP, and yes, you have to read the first book first. It takes place after the events of the last book with the characters trying to recover from their trauma. Sheila is struggling to remain stable in her career as her involvement in the murder trial becomes increasingly public, and Jerry is suffering from serious PTSD after getting attacked by a killer. He recovered, but has a grotesque scar to show for it and his marriage is on the verge of failing.
Meanwhile, Abby Maddox is in jail and not happy about it. And other people aren't happy about it, too. Dead bodies are showing up, demanding that she be freed. There are creepy fansites devoted to her crimes and beauty. The news calls her Angel Face, because the news is gross, and society doesn't really think women can be soulless killers-- especially not if they have pretty faces. Everything basically seems like a total hot mess that's going to drag all people involved down like they're standing in a sinkhole full of shit.
And that's this book in a nutshell.
At first I was pretty into this book. I initially wasn't super happy that the focus shifted to Jerry because I don't really like police procedurals, but I thought that his trauma and insights were really interesting and he grew on me as a character. But I never liked him as much as I did Sheila. Sheila was problematic as all get out, but I felt like her situation was way more relatable and I liked the dichotomy of her teaching psychology while also suffering from a serious psychological condition herself. That was kind of going on with Jerry, too, but I felt like he was way more one-note as a character.
***ONE MILD POTENTIAL SPOILER TO FOLLOW***
FREAK is a lot more violent than CREEP. The ending especially left me feeling a little wince-y. My least favorite genres of horror are splatterpunk and torture porn and I kind of felt like this verged on being in that genre. There was also a twist at the end that I didn't like. It feels a little cheap, making your villains LGBT+ as a shock, you know? That was pretty common in the 70s and 80s, and it's disappointing to see it now. I'm not saying that no villains should be queer or queer-coded, but when the only queer character in a book is the villain, that's not a good look.
One totally valid criticism about both dark romance and erotic horror is that they tend to be heteronormative, and finding a sapphic variant of either can be a chore. Therefore, I was super excited to find out that THE WICKED AND THE WILLING is a sapphic work of erotic vampire horror set in Singapore during the roaring twenties.
Our cast of characters are Gean Choo, a young and desperate girl who needs employment to pay off her father's debts; Mrs. Edevane, a British colonialist reaping the benefits of her beauty and privilege while feasting upon the locals; and Po Lam, Mrs. Edevane's gender queer estate manager, who she bought as a slave when she was a child. There are other players but these are the three main ones, who revolve around each other's orbits like toxic little doomed stars.
I really appreciated how vampirism was an allegory for colonialism (and I confirmed this with the author-- it IS canon). Mrs. Edevane literally consumes the locals, and she is blind to their plight or their culture, exotifying her Asian lovers, indulging in casual racism when it suits her, and devouring the people whenever it suits her. She is a destructive force, using a foreign country as her refuge and playground. But, as a woman, she is also a victim to a man who hunts her footsteps. Which shows how someone can be an oppressor but still a victim of infrastructural prejudice, even within a colonial structure. The complexity and nuances were brilliantly done.
This is a very violent book-- sexually, emotionally, and physically-- and I had a hard time reading some of the graphic rapes and torture scenes. It starts out so slow and unsettlingly, but by the end of the book, it's a blood bath. None of the characters are particularly likable and I don't think they're supposed to be, although I loved Po Lam's character and I really empathized with Gean Choo's desperation as the motivator for so many of her actions. Even some of the almost humorous scenes, like Gean Choo fleeing a nest of East Asian folkloric monsters when her period comes during a party, are couched in dread and horror. This is like intellectual grindhouse, which I feel is probably the vibe the author was going for, and I think extreme horror fans will probably like it, especially if they have been hungering for queer and diverse entries in the canon that aren't Eric Larocca.
Interestingly, this story has a "choose your own ending" ending. There are three endings: two are in this book and apparently there's a third ending you can get by signing up for their mailing list. I'm not sure how I feel about this-- I read both endings and I think the author made both work, and suit the characters, but it also felt like a lack of commitment to the story. THE WICKED AND THE WILLING has a very strong beginning and I loved the portrayal of vampires and the gays-behaving-badly themes of the work, as well as the anti-colonialist narrative, but the ending petered out a bit and became far too violent for my own personal tastes, and even though I appreciated the uniqueness of this ending, I didn't really like it. I did ultimately like the book, though, and would definitely read more from this author.
Richie Tankersley Cusick was one of those Point Horror authors from the YA horror boom of the 80s and 90s. I've been gradually working my way through her whole backlist and her YA titles hold up surprisingly well, but the real gems in her collection are her two adult titles, BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW.
The titles and covers are very similar to her YA books, even more so in the rebrand, where it seems like the new publisher is trying to keep all her work in the same theme. However, BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW contain some very dark themes that would not be appropriate for really young kids. Like, at all. BLOOD ROOTS is like an old skool V.C. Andrews book set in the South, and SCARECROW is kind of like a disturbing cross between Midsommar and Wickerman, with a dash of messed up family drama.
Less is definitely more going in but basically, Pamela Westbook is newly widowed and lost her child in the same car accident that killed her husband. While driving to St. Louis from California, she gets lost in the Ozarks and then she has a car accident of her own. When she wakes up, her memory is super patchy and she's at the house of this super weird family, the Whittakers.
There's Seth, the gruff patriarch who knows more than what he's willing to reveal. There's Rachel, the godly and silently suffering wife with dark secrets. There's Franny, Rachel's much younger sister who's practically going crazy with the need to sow her wild oats (we won't talk about her relationship to scarecrows). There's Micah, Seth and Rachel's oldest son who comes and goes and is missing a hand. And then there's Girlie, the youngest child, who allegedly has some kind of "Gift."
Their house is super rustic. They house an outhouse with magazine toilet paper and grow and sow everything they eat and drink. It's claustrophobic and quaint... except for the scarecrows. Every year, they set up five scarecrows, and at the end of the season, they burn them. But this year, Franny's decided to hold hers back. And when the scarecrows don't burn, things go WRONG.
(I should totally write blurbs.)
I really liked this book a lot. It was weird and got kind of depressing, but as with BLOOD ROOTS, it had really solid atmosphere and kind of played out like one of those old 70s occult horror movies. I also really liked Pamela as a character. She was damaged and obviously super creeped out, and I think the author did a really good job showing how so much of the horror was in her own paranoia and fears of the unknown as she's literally trapped in the middle of the woods with the creepy family.
I'm pretty sure I read this when I was a kid but I didn't remember the plot at all, so when I found this in the garage while cleaning I was excited to give it a reread. If you've been following some of my vintage YA pulp reviews, you'll know I have ~thoughts~ about R.L. Stine. Namely, that he seems to have two modes: gleeful vicarious murder-joy and I'm-dialing-it-in-for-the-paycheck ennui. His Fear Street books can be hit or miss and most of the Goosebumps books don't hold up at all, but his standalone Point Horror releases are actually usually pretty good.
BEACH HOUSE in particular is balls-to-the-walls insanity, with numerous dated pop culture references, a dual timeline, and a grand reveal that is on par with The Langoliers in terms of redonkulous. So obviously, I loved it.
In the 1950s timeline, we have a bunch of teens who hang out at the beach. Maria, Amy, Stuart, Ronnie, and Buddy. They all decide to prank Buddy by stealing his pants when he's in the water and forcing him to come out to the beach naked, and then Maria stands him up on their date for Stuart. Buddy is pissed and then bad things happen. You also get references to Jackie Gleason, the Crewcuts, record players, Marilyn Monroe, and Tab Hunter.
In the "present" timeline, there's Ashley, Ross, Kip, Lucy, and Brad. All of them are summer visitors to the beach, except for Kip, who's a poor townie, and Brad, who's a rich townie. Lucy and Kip are together. Ashley and Ross are together, but Ross is like psychotically jealous and she's got a thing for rich Brad, and his big... tennis court. Here, in the "present," you will be treated to hot guys who look like Matt Dillon and Vanilla Ice, MTV and Coca-Cola towels, and day-glo sportswear. Also remember when people used to call sandals "thongs" and swimtrunks "baggies"? These were simpler times.
It would have been better if we didn't know who the killer was from the beginning and the connection between the two timelines was pretty lame. Also, this book kind of showed its ass with the "whoops, it's the 90s and we're not exactly tolerant to people who are different" mentality of the times because at the very end, one of the characters actually says "I was too ugly to have friends." LOL.
But I'm giving it three stars anyway because I had a genuinely good time laughing at this. It was almost four stars because it was surprisingly mature for a Stine book but the ending was really stupid and I'm afraid I can't condone that.
Who asked for the Deliverance/American Psycho mashup? Not me, but boy am I going to read that anyway. BROTHER is honestly one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. I normally hate horror novels but the kind that suckers me into traumatizing myself every time is the intimate, character portrait sort of horror novel, which is how I ended up being scarred for life by books like Misery. Once I get invested, I can't put the book down, no matter how much I want to.
Less is definitely more when it comes to BROTHER, but it definitely has TWs for basically everything under the sun. This is one of those books that not only shows people at their worst, but also kind of how they got that way. The two stars of this book are Michael, a not-so-ordinary teenage boy who hates his family (for a good reason). And Ray/Rebel, Michael's adoptive brother who is filled with a driving need for vengeance, poisoned by a hate that will literally stop at nothing.
The claustrophobic setting, high emotional stakes, and you-could-cut-it-with-a-knife level tension made this a gripping book, a real white-knuckler for sure, but I will also never read this again because it's so dark and so depressing. It's the sort of book that just kind of leaves you feeling dead inside. Brilliant story, brilliant writing, and daring author. I'll read more from her but it won't be this.
A gothic family melodrama for the YA crowd, HELP WANTED is a surprisingly grim and gritty book about secrets, tragedy, and what happens when the past repeats itself. Robin is just an ordinary girl, looking to make some extra money to live her life. So when she sees a "help wanted" ad promising quick money, she jumps.
It turns out the ad has been put up by Hercules Swanson, the patriarch of the creepy old Manorwood house, and grandfather of the hottest boy at school, Parker Swanson. Herk wants Robin to categorize the books left behind after his daughter-in-law's mysterious death. But the house is intimidating and filled with mysterious and unexplained happenings, and Parker's half-sister, Claudia, claims that she's been seeing her mother's ghost.
Richie Tankersley Cusick is honestly one of the better YA horror authors out there, imo. She has a formula she tends to stick with and it works: girl with single mother walks into a creepy haunted place filled with family drama that goes back generations. Girl meets two creepy and suspicious hot guys who may or may not be involved. There's always a creepy doomsaying old person who is also suspicious and may or may not be involved. Cusick also delivers on the chilling scenery, surprisingly humorous inner monologues, and some zinging one-liners.
This really reminded me pleasantly of some of my favorite 70s gothic romances, especially with the tug of war between the rich brooding guy and the working class brooding guy, and the crumbling manor in the middle of the woods. There are some pretty chilling scenes in this one that you wouldn't see in a Point Horror imprint (this isn't Point Horror, BTW), but the gruesome stuff is mostly implied.
Is there anything more 90s than a horror novel set at the beach? I don't think so. So far this is my least Cusick book I've read as part of my experiment. The heroine, Kelsey, goes to this beachy island with her mom to meet her mom's boyfriend and his kids. There's townies and tourists and all the hot young things are lifeguards, and it should basically be 90s teen paradise. Which it is... except for the murders.
Richie Tankersley Cusick writes a lot of my favorite tropes. Hot dangerous guys, strong but kind of dreamy heroines, and sort of a modern gothy vibe. I don't think this one works quite as well as THE DRIFTER did for a couple reasons. One, it just didn't have the same level of suspense and drama and atmosphere. Two, it's way more dated (party lines?? LOL), whereas, THE DRIFTER felt kind of timeless. Three, I don't know, I was just really bored. There were some great lines in here about grief and getting over trauma and also some good zingers (check my Goodreads status updates), but apart from that, it was pretty bland.
Will 100% be checking out more of her stuff, though. She seems to have a really good formula going and, like Caroline B. Cooney, one of my other favorite Point Horror authors, she has way more hits than misses, which can't be said for other authors. Also, fun fact: a lot of these rereleased Point Horror books have little mini biographies about the authors in the back with pictures, so that's neat. I love that this author writes at a desk that's allegedly haunted! #goals
There aren't a lot of authors where I read their books and think to myself, "I need to know this person and pick their brain over a coffee. I want to be their friend." But I think that a lot about Richie Tankersley Cusick. Even when I don't LOVE her books, I appreciate what she does with them, and I love how she gives her heroines agency and how her stories always feel like "aged up" versions of the more middle grade-geared installments in the Point Horror line.
Sadly THE LOCKER did not live up to my hopes. To be honest, I didn't really think it would, though. A new girl experiencing suspicion and shady goings-on when she takes the locker of the last "new girl" who mysteriously disappeared? It sounded like some kind of weird retelling of REBECCA involving lockers. ALSO, am I the only one who didn't go to a school with lockers? I feel like a lot of schools had theirs ripped out because kids would use them to hide illicit materials. *cough*
Anyway, Marlee is the new girl and as soon as she opens her locker, she smells something foul. Everyone in town is acting kind of strange about her being new, and even her new friends, Noreen and Tyler, seem like they're hiding something. There's also another suspicious hot guy named Jimmy Frank who also seems like he's hiding something. Marlee navigates her attraction to the two hot guys and her burgeoning friendship with the cheerful but weird Noreen, while experiencing strange nightmares and visions, all tied to the disappearance of the last girl who came to town... and her new locker, of course.
I'm giving this a low rating because I thought the story was stupid. I'm sorry, but there it is. Some of RTC's stories are beautifully plotted and wildly inventive, and some are pulp trash. There's no shame in it, but it is what it is. That said, I do appreciate that she includes suggestive dialogue (makes the teens feel like teens), has heroines who are kind of bold and take-charge, and always includes not one but TWO suspicious hot guys. The heroine even spies on one of them as he's getting changed in his window. That feels like something a teen girl would actually do, you know? And it's unusual to see books of this age written from the vantage point of the female gaze.
Not a keeper or anything to write home about otherwise, though.
Also, what's up with her Kindergarten-aged brother being like a super genius?? He was giving Charles Wallace vibes. It didn't feel normal that a high school girl would go to a five-year-old for advice.
After reading and loving BLOOD ROOTS by this author, I immediately decided that I had to binge all of her books. Never mind that BLOOD ROOTS is adult and most of her other stuff is YA. When I love an author, it's a ride-or-die sitch. I will read literally anything they write.
THE DRIFTER is an old Point Horror-esque novel from the 90s. It's about Carolyn and her mother, and their move to an old house by the New England sea. Everyone around them, from the housekeeper to the librarian, swear it's haunted. The house is called Glanton House and it used to be the home of a sea captain and his wife. But when he was off on a mission, she had an affair, and, as the legend goes, when Michael Glanton returned, he murdered his wife and her lover, after the lover first tried to murder HIM by cutting off his hand in the middle of a storm.
Right away, creepy things start happening. There are accidents and strange footsteps and mysterious lights. Also there are two shady hot guys and one or both of them might be up to no good. Basically, this was everything that would have been total catnip for middle grade me. Even adult me was pretty impressed at the 90s thirst traps and some of the sensual passages that were age appropriate but still exciting in a non-threatening way. I stanned.
For anyone who loves old skool YA pulp, this basically checks all the boxes. Strong heroine, creepy house, ghosts, town legends, mysterious hot guys, and a solid ending.
When I was in college, I used to read a TON of manga, and this series was one of my favorites (until they introduced that weird manic pixie dreamgirl character and the whole series started to fall apart, that is). The Death Note series is one of the darker manga I have read, and it's kind of sad that all of the attempts to bring it to the big screen have failed, because it's got so many disturbing and sensational twists that I think it would do really well if they got the right team on the project.
Light Yagami is a brilliant high school student and star test-taker. Ryuk is a shinigami, or a "death god," or is bored AF living in the shinigami realm doing nothing but gambling or napping. All hell breaks loose when he casually drops his Death Note into the human realm and Light picks it up. Suddenly, Light has power over human life and human death, and he thinks he's going to create his own personal eugenics paradise by killing off all the bad guys, psychos, and murderers.
I feel like this manga tackles a lot of really tough philosophical questions about good and evil. The cat and dog relationship between Light and L is also really fascinating. Both people are brilliant and think they are working on the side of good, but they're also super manipulative and willing to do pretty terrible things in the greater name of justice. A lot of manga doesn't hold up, but this series really does. It was fun to revisit one of my old favorites and still feel myself getting shocked by the twists.
WHEN THE RECKONING COMES is so good, I'm honestly surprised that it doesn't have way more reviews. It's kind of like a cross between Octavia Butler's Kindred and Stephen King's Rose Red, in that it's a haunted house story, but also a scathing criticism on the cruelty of slavery, and the way that future generations pave over the past, reimagining it as a picturesque idyll instead of what it really was.
Mira grew up with childhood friends, Jesse and Celine, but then they grew apart and she moves away. When Celine gets married, she phones up Mira and asks her to come to her wedding, which is being held at a recently restored plantation house. Mira is obviously like, what the heck, Celine, are you crazy, and initially refuses, but a phone call from Jesse changes her mind. Jesse, her childhood crush, who grew distant from her as well after one night in a haunted house went so, so wrong... So she decides to go to make things right.
Parts of this book are incredibly disturbing. I have a pretty high bar for disturbing content. This book flung from that bar and did somersaults over it. At the dark core of the Woodsman House is a gruesome history of some of the worst crimes against humanity, which are gradually revealed in pretty horrifying ways. I'm not particularly superstitious but some of my favorite ghost stories revolve around the idea that places of extreme anger or tragedy or pain can become psychic vectors, where all of that bleak emotion seeks into the walls and the floors and turns the house into a place of living, breathing hate and vengeance. I feel like WHEN THE RECKONING COMES buys into that sort of haunted house story, and man, is the payoff good.
My only qualm is that I would have liked more romance between Jesse and Mira, since I really shipped them as a couple, and I felt like the "present" portions of the book weren't quite as compelling as the scenes about their childhood and the historical passages, apart from the scene when Mira comes to the plantation and sees the Disney take on plantation life. It's physically sickening and I thought the author did such a good job with how understated it was, letting it all speak for itself.
This is a horror story, a ghost story, a coming of age story, and a lesson on the importance of social justice, all wrapped up in a bleak and oddly compelling parcel. I'd recommend it to anyone who has the stomach for it, which unfortunately won't be everyone. Read at your own risk.
I'm still slowly getting back into reading after taking a bit of a hiatus to publish my newest book, and lucky for me, Chronicle Books seems to be having an online book sale as of my writing this because a pretty considerable amount of their library was $1.99 and $2.99 each when I checked, so cut to me immediately snatching up all of these amazingly weird books about fashion and art and other weird things, like the history of pencils.
MONSTERS YOU SHOULD KNOW is an illustrated beastiary of monsters from all over the world, from South America to the United Kingdom to Africa. The illustrations are gorgeous watercolors and it comes back full circle from the beginning in a fun and unexpected way that serves as a really nice callback.
I think this is probably being aimed and targeted to children, but adults will like it too, just because some of the creatures in here are so fascinating. My only qualm is that it's too short-- I wanted more monsters! More illustrations! More everything!
Well, I guess it's official. My WtAFW Challenge broke my brain, because I actually thought this book was good. And to be fair... it kind of is, when it's not being so disgusting that you want to manifest some clean brain energy with some bleach and purifying crystals.
This is kind of like a tongue-in-cheek horror movie in book form. Like the first two Leprechaun movies or Evil Dead. It's weird and it's schlocky, but the book knows that it's being weird and schlocky and revels in it. And unlike a lot of the books I read for this challenge, which are usually pretty badly written and read like the rough draft was written out in five minutes on a napkin, in crayon, by someone who was getting tipsy on wine, this book is actually really well written.
The story is simple. A group of sexually frustrated older teens decides to summon a succubus. And they succeed, but not in the way that they hoped. Also, succubi apparently don't look like demon Barbie dolls. So that's kind of a downer, too. More than that, though, this is also commentary on gentrification, the problem with Nice Guys, and a really chilling insight into the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.
This book is very explicit and very gross and contains trigger warnings for basically everything you can think of, including a very literal interpretation of animal husbandry. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. But if you can look past the grossness, it's a really interesting, really original take on the classic monster horror story and I'm honestly shocked that I'm giving this such a high rating.
Okay, so here's the thing. I'm very picky about horror. I want mind horror, and I don't want my favorite characters or any cute animals to die. It took me ages as a reader to realize that I actually like the horror genre, in principle; I just don't want to be traumatized while reading. As you can imagine, this has led to both slim pickins and a lot of broken hearts on my end. Sorry for being real.
Catriona Ward is an author who kind of toes the line for me in terms of what I will and won't read. I think she can have a fabulous way with words, case in point SUNDIAL, which was creepy AF and lured me right in with its whispers of culty shenanigans and fucked up family dynamics. Parts of that book were 5-star worthy but I ended up giving it a three because it got weird on me in the final act.
HOUSE ON NEEDLESS, on the other hand, just feels... campy. Campy and mean and bloody. Any book that opens and lingers on a gratuitous bird death scene is probably not going to be a "nice" horror book. I always try to read to at least 15% before reviewing but sometimes, a book asserts itself so well that you really get a sense of whether a book is going to be for you or not right from the beginning. The only character I liked was the cat, although having the cat narrate in a book like this adds a preciousness that is really quite at odds with the dark and disturbing content.
I will not be finishing this book, but I do recommend SUNDIAL if you have the stomach for it. I think I also own her other book, RAWBLOOD, because that sounded amazing (albeit terrifying).
Hoo-boy. You know you're in for a doozy of a read when it has a title that you can't even say in your cross-posted Amazon review without tripping the "NOPE" censors. In case you didn't know, I have a weekly feature called "What the Actual F*** Wednesday," where I let my followers recommend me romance and erotica stories they want to see me read and review, and then I do that and talk about them.
This book is by Simon McHardy and Sean Hawker. It's a bit outside of what I would normally read because even though it has some erotic content, it's more of a straightforward horror novel. I believe it falls under the "bizarro" subgenre of horror. Which is personally not my cup of tea but YMMV.
You know what you're getting into when the book opens with a religious figure being attacked by an-- ahem-- adult toy that-- ahem-- is also possessed by a demon. Or something. (Spoilers!) Some of his fellow religious figures bless a bottle of Evian water and exorcise the toy, which causes it to fling itself away in anger. Where to? Who knows? Probably its next victim.
Cut to Christina, a plus-sized girl with a plus-sized chip on her shoulder. AKA, the next victim. She hates all her coworkers, who bully her; she hates her family, who abused her (horrifically and graphically so); and she hates the fact that she only really has refuge in food, which she indulges in by stealing her coworkers' lunches. One day, she soils herself in front of all her coworkers (who are dressed up in furry costumes at work-- because... inclusion??) and goes to an-- ahem-- adult toy store to cheer herself up.
That is where she meets Terry, the religious figure-abusing toy from earlier. He's just chilling in the bargain bin, obviously used (gross) and tells her that he'll give her three wishes if she purchases him. Which is a total lie. But Terry has evil powers. And faster than you can say "Feed Me, Seymour," Christina is killing people to feed Terry's blood lust in order for him to feed her-- ahem-- other lusts.
This book is INCREDIBLY graphic in all ways. The end of the book diverges from bizarro into straight up splatterpunk, imo. If you can't stand gore, you will not like this. There's also a lot of sexual content, and the book makes light of PC culture and blasphemy in a way that kind of reminds me of South Park. It's also kind of fat-phobic and big on gross-out humor. Personally, that style of humor doesn't always work for me and I think this book definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone and into the brain bleach zone, but I think other people will probably find it funny. People who are not me.
First, though, credit where credit is due. The book is very well written and it actually has a story. Which may seem like bottom-of-the-barrel praise, but HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT I READ FOR THIS CHALLENGE? Sometimes, the books read like they were written in fifteen minutes under the influence of dubious substances (even if said dubious substance is just too much sugar and too much free time). The story is also interesting. Even though I really didn't like the story, I could appreciate its construction and I found myself wanting to find out what happened despite knowing that this was probably a bad idea. And it was. Eep. I'm not really a horror fan, but if you are, and you also like South Park, you'll probably love this a lot.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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