Showing posts with label Book Lists. Show all posts

It's april! That means it's time for another Bookish Blog Hop!  Each day, bloggers answer questions about themselves and the b...



It's april! That means it's time for another Bookish Blog Hop! 


Each day, bloggers answer questions about themselves and the books they are reading. 
Yesterday, we were over at the Upstream Writer Blog hosted by Leslie Conzatti where we talked about books set in the past.

Today's prompt is:

 A Book you haven't read yet by an author you love!


It's weird to talk about it in April but I love Christmas horror. Every year I look forward to watching Krampus, A Christmas Horror Story, and Rare Exports. I know, it's kinda strange. While others are watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Miracle on 34th Street, I'm watching murderous elves and sinister santas. I'm always looking for holiday horror in story form to give me that same feeling so that's how i ran across Snowball by Gregory Bastianelli. 

In Snowball, a group of motorists on their way home for Christmas get stuck on the highway in a freak blizzard. They end up in one of the  couple's motorhome where they all start telling stories of their worst winter memory because that is TOTALLY what you do when trapped in a preternatural blizzard. A few of the stranded motorists set out to try to find help and end up in a worse position than they started. The book was so much fun and exactly what I was looking for: totally irreverent Christmas spirit! 
(If you want, you can read my review of Snowball here.)

I was very excited when I saw that Gregory Bastianelli released another novel just last week; this time one that appears to be ecohorror leaning. In Shadow Flicker, an investigator is sent after strange events start happening in a town living in the shadow of wind turbines. I have the ebook in hand and hopefully will be able to start it soon!


From Goodreads, here's the blurb:

An old man nearly chokes to death after stuffing dandelion heads into his mouth. A pregnant cow repeatedly runs headlong into a fence post. Oscar Basaran investigates a series of strange events on the Kidney Island.

Investigator Oscar Basaran travels to Kidney Island off the coast of Maine to document the negative effects of shadow flicker from wind turbines on residents living near the windmills, but is unprepared for what he encounters from the islanders.
Oscar’s research shows that sleep deprivation, light deficiency and ringing headaches brought on by the noise and constant strobe-like effect of the sun filtered through the spinning blades of the turbines brings on hallucinatory episodes for the closest neighbors to the machines.

Melody Larson’s elderly father nearly chokes to death after stuffing dandelion heads into his mouth. The Granberrys' pregnant cow repeatedly runs headlong into a fence post. Tatum Gallagher mourns her young son who vanished more than a year ago, presumed swept out to sea by a wave while fishing on the rocky shore, but several people claim to see him appear only in the glimmer of the shadow flicker.

Aerosource, the energy corporation that owns the turbines, hired Oscar to investigate the neighbors’ claims, but the insurance agent shows no allegiance to the conglomerate, especially after learning a previous employee sent to the island a year before has disappeared without a trace.

When Oscar meets former island school science teacher Norris Squires, fired for teaching his students about the harmful effects of shadow flicker, he learns a theory regarding Aerosource that sounds too preposterous to believe.

While it seems the shadow flicker effect has driven some of the island’s animals crazy, is it possible it’s caused an even worse mental breakdown among the human inhabitants? Or is something more nefarious at work on the island?

As Oscar’s investigation deepens, he discovers the turbines create an unexpected phenomena kept secret by a select group of people on Kidney Island who have made a scientific breakthrough and attempt to harness its dark power.


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Here's what the others had to say:



In the Tall Grass by Stephen King

I have read A LOT of Stephen King books and haven’t found many that I didn’t enjoy (the only one I didn’t enjoy was Cell, which took too long to get to the point). To read all of them would take years, so I am slowly trying to get through the collection. He is the most influential and iconic thriller and horror fiction writer whose novels have made several feature films, including The Shining, IT, Carrie and The Mist, to name a few.

I enjoyed reading the classics in the past, and I’ve recently read The Institute and The Outsider, but for some reason I skipped In The Tall Grass. I saw the movie for this novel recently, and thought the storyline was a bit weak and could have been summed up in a few sentences: It follows the story of a pregnant college student called Becky who is traveling to her aunts with her twin brother Cal. Along the way, they pass a field of tall grass where they hear a boy called Tobin calling for help. They venture into the tall grass to help Tobin, only to find they cannot get out. Eventually, a bunch of weird stuff happens and it is clear that there is some enchantment on the tall grass that stops people from being able to leave.
Because I found the movie boring, I haven’t been able to pick up the book yet, even though I know that I will love it. This is the problem with watching the movie instead of reading the book - it puts you off.
Leslie Conzatti www.upstreamwriter.blogspot.com
Okay, I have to hype this up, because I’m so unbelievably excited!! There’s an indie author I have followed ever since he had just one self-published book with a bad blurb and a terrible cover–but an UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME story, and that is R. R. Virdi, author of The Grave Report novels, the first of which was that book I mentioned.
This was back in 2014, and this book, as terribly-presented as it was, easily earned a place among the Top 5 Books I read for that year! I loved it, and I couldn’t rave about it enough! He kept writing, and every successive book in that series just got better and better. He improved the covers and improved the blurbs–the series was even nominated a couple times for a Dragon Award, and he was actually a finalist, although they didn’t win at the time. He started out another series, and I absolutely loved that one, too. I confess, I haven’t yet read his monster-hunter/LitRPG series, but The Grave Reports stands out as pretty much the best thing he’s written, in my estimation.
Which brings me to the book being released this year, produced by a legit publishing house, Tor Books. It’s called The First Binding, and it’s being compared to The Name of The Wind and The Lies of Locke Lamora–it’s a thousand-plus-page epic fantasy, and I’m so flipping excited!! Definitely I would recommend this to any fantasy lovers!


Kriti @ Armed with A Book

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Marie Benedict is one of my favorite authors! The first book I read of hers was The Other Einstein and since then, I have dived into The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and Her Hidden Genius. I also had the chance to interview Marie on The Nerd Daily and honestly, all her future books are on my TBR. The one I want to highlight today is The Personal Librarian. As an avid reader and book collector, I am drawn to books about librarians and manuscripts. Below is the excerpt of the book:

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray. In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.
The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.


I am going to go with a list here instead of just one book. A few of these books are also on similar top ten lists on my blog here and here. It is going to be a short list of five though this can become a list of too-many!!

  • Jane Austen’s Persuasion

  • Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed (His Kite Runner is one of our favorites)

  • Kim Michele Richardson’s The Unbreakable Child (I loved The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek)

  • Shel Silverstein’s  Everything on It

  • Colson Whitehead: Any book other than Underground Railroad (read this already) 



Be sure to check out the other days of the hop!!

a book by or about a political figure
a book you haven't read yet by an author you love

No April Fools here! Take a gander below at this month's roundup of anticipated horror releases for April 2022. 




No April Fools here!

Take a gander below at this month's roundup of anticipated horror releases for April 2022. 

It's time again to check another box on the  Scaredy Cat Bingo Challenge   which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board.  Not p...

It's time again to check another box on the 

Scaredy Cat Bingo Challenge 

which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board. 

Not playing yet?  

Jump in anytime here. 



Today's prompt:

Let's Summon Demons 


Is there anything scarier than demons and possession in the horror genre? I don't think so. The thought that something can overtake you and that you won't have control over your own mind and body. *shudders* 

Today's prompt is all about possession, though it might not be in the expected way. 


Grab your crucifix and some holy water. 

Here are 18 books about possession to keep you up at night!
MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM BY GRADY HENDRIX

Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?


A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS BY PAUL TREMBLAY
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil. 


The Fervor by Alma Katsu

1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn’t matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.

Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.


GODDESS OF FILTH BY V. CASTRO

One hot summer night, best friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline hold a séance. It’s all fun and games at first, but their tipsy laughter turns to terror when the flames burn straight through their prayer candles and Fernanda starts crawling toward her friends and chanting in Nahuatl, the language of their Aztec ancestors.

Over the next few weeks, shy, modest Fernanda starts acting strangely—smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty. The local priest is convinced it's a demon, but Lourdes begins to suspect it’s something else—something far more ancient and powerful.

As Father Moreno's obsession with Fernanda grows, Lourdes enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor, Dr. Camacho, to understand what is happening to her friend in this unholy tale of possession-gone-right. 
Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen

#EvilLibrarian He’s young. He’s hot. He’s also evil. He’s . . . the librarian.

When Cynthia Rothschild’s best friend, Annie, falls head over heels for the new high-school librarian, Cyn can totally see why. He’s really young and super cute and thinks Annie would make an excellent library monitor. But after meeting Mr. Gabriel, Cyn realizes something isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s the creepy look in the librarian’s eyes, or the weird feeling Cyn gets whenever she’s around him. Before long Cyn realizes that Mr. Gabriel is, in fact . . . a demon. Now, in addition to saving the school musical from technical disaster and trying not to make a fool of herself with her own hopeless crush, Cyn has to save her best friend from the clutches of the evil librarian, who also seems to be slowly sucking the life force out of the entire student body! From best-selling author Michelle Knudsen, here is the perfect novel for teens who like their horror served up with a bit of romance, plenty of humor, and some pretty hot guys (of both the good and evil variety). 


The Gates by John Connolly

Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe. A gap in which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out...

Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith, and love to save the world as we know it?

Bursting with imagination, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power.


Come Closer by Sara Gran

There was no reason to assume anything out of the ordinary was going on.
Strange noises in the apartment.
Impulsive behaviour.
Intense dreams.
It wasn't like everything went wrong all at once.
Shoplifting.
Fighting.
Blackouts.
There must be a reasonable explanation for all this.



Margaret Willow has never met an eleven-year-old as dangerous as Natalie Glasgow. Natalie spends her days comatose, but at night she prowls her mother’s home, unnaturally strong and insatiably carnivorous. With doctors baffled, Natalie’s mother reaches out to Margaret, an expert in the supernatural. But even Margaret is mystified and terrified by Natalie’s condition. She’s dying, and before she dies, she might kill someone. Has a demon clawed its way inside an eleven-year-old girl? Or does the source of this nightmare lie with Natalie’s dead father?

A tight, tense novella, The Possession of Natalie Glasgow twists the exorcism tale at every turn down to its final grave confrontation
Mister. B. Gone by Clive Barker

The Mister B. of the title is Jakabob Botch, a demon whose ghastly past could make even the most merciless sociopath whimper in sympathy. Born in the deepest regions of hell, the spawn of an abusive drunkard and his whorish wife, Jakabob escapes to the world above after suffering fiendish torture. Once topside, he lands conveniently in 15th-century Mainz, the home of printing inventor Johannes Gutenberg. However, Mister B. isn't interested in merely observing history; like any other self-respecting diabolical being, he's just searching for a new demonic angle. A ghoulishly good fright fest. 


The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Four decades after it first terrified the world, William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is back! An extraordinary classic work of horror and dark paranormal suspense. In this stunning 40th Anniversary Edition, a desperate mother and two priests fight to free the soul of a little girl from a supernatural entity of pure malevolence.


RING SHOUT BY P. DJÈLÍ CLARK

In America, demons wear white hoods.

In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.

Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.

Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world? 

BUILD YOUR HOUSE AROUND MY BODY BY VIOLET KUPERSMITH

Two young women go missing decades apart. Both are fearless, both are lost. And both will have their revenge.

1986 The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family loses her way in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed.

2011 A young, unhappy Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace.

The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Alongside them, we meet a young boy who is sent to a boarding school for the métis children of French expatriates, just before Vietnam declares its independence from colonial rule; two Frenchmen who are trying to start a business with the Vietnam War on the horizon; and the employees of the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co., who find themselves investigating strange occurrences in a farmhouse on the edge of a forest. Each new character and timeline brings us one step closer to understanding what binds them all.

Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this book takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.



In the realm of Awara, where gods, monsters, and humans exist side by side, Miuko is an ordinary girl resigned to a safe, if uneventful, existence as an innkeeper’s daughter. But when Miuko is cursed and begins to transform into a demon with a deadly touch, she embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her normal life. Aided by a thieving magpie spirit and continuously thwarted by a demon prince, Miuko must outfox tricksters, escape demon hunters, and negotiate with feral gods if she wants to make it home again. But with her transformation comes power and freedom she never even dreamed of, and she’ll have to decide if saving her soul is worth trying to cram herself back into an ordinary life that no longer fits her… and perhaps never did. 
A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god--and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she'll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good. 


Exorcist Falls by Jonathan Janz 

Chicago is gripped by terror. The Sweet Sixteen Killer is brutally murdering young women, and the authorities are baffled.

When the police are called to an affluent home in the middle of the night, they learn that a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy has attacked his family. The boy exhibits signs of demonic possession, and even more troublingly, he knows too much about the Sweet Sixteen killings. Father Jason Crowder, a young priest assigned to the case, must marshal his courage in order to save the boy and the entire city from the forces of evil.

But this is a darkness mankind has never encountered before. It craves more than blood. And it won’t rest until it possesses Father Crowder’s soul.

This volume brings together the original novella that started it all—Exorcist Road—and an all-new full-length novel (Exorcist Falls) for a shattering experience in supernatural terror.


Small Town Monsters by Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Vera Martinez wants nothing more than to escape Roaring Creek and her parents' reputation as demonologists. Not to mention she's the family outcast, lacking her parents' innate abilities, and is terrified of the occult things lurking in their basement.

Maxwell Oliver is supposed to be enjoying the summer before his senior year, spending his days thinking about parties and friends. Instead he's taking care of his little sister while his mom slowly becomes someone he doesn't recognize. Soon he suspects that what he thought was grief over his father's death might be something more...sinister.

When Maxwell and Vera join forces, they come face to face with deeply disturbing true stories of cults, death worship, and the very nature that drives people to evil.


The Devil You Know by Mike Carey

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghost buster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle--but there's a risk: Sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London - just to pay the bills, you understand. But what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize. That's OK: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It's the living who piss him off... 


  

I don't know about you but I'm so excited for some of this month's new releases. Paranormal, sci-fi, creatures, apocalyptic...th...




I don't know about you but I'm so excited for some of this month's new releases. Paranormal, sci-fi, creatures, apocalyptic...they are all here!

Take a gander below at this month's roundup of anticipated horror releases for March 2022. 

It's time again for another box on the  Scaredy Cat Bingo Challenge , which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board. Not playing...

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Weird shit happens on the Titanic and true to history, this version sinks too. A maid survives the sinking and after a brief stint in an asylum, decides to go on its sister ship turned medical hospital, The Britannic, with absolutely no medical training because why the hell not? Is Annie the maid crazy or is there something supernatural going on here?  At least we won't have to argue that Jack could have fit on that door with Rose.


tidepool by nicole willson

Sorrow's brother Henry disappears so off she goes to the small seaside town of Tidepool to find out what happened to him. First off, who names their kid Sorrow? That's just setting her up for failure and that's before the bodies start washing up looking like chew toys for giant ocean monsters. This is the kind of book where you constantly scream at the protagonist to get the hell outta dodge but they say "You're not my mom" and stay.


Flowers for the sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

Stuck on a boat surrounded by air and sea monsters, survivors of a flooded kingdom are struggling to exist. One of them, a woman named Iraxi is extremely pregnant and like most pregnant women, doesn't really want to be pregnant anymore except for very different reasons. She resents everyone, including her unborn er, thing. The ship reeks, the people reek, and being pregnant also reeks. 
Read my review.


it calls from the sea

This anthology is part of Eerie River Publishing's It Call From series with "twenty brutal tales of horror from the deep blue sea." There's killer kelp, menacing mermaids, elder gods, family curses, and all things in between. 
Read my review. 


the kelping by Jan Stinchcomb 

The Kelping by Jan Stinchcomb is number nine in Unnerving's Rewind or Die series. Those of you expecting a horror-filled flesh-eating mermaid tale might find it a little tame. What's inside these 67 pages is a more insidious tale of mermaids infiltrating a sleepy little seaside town. 
Read my review.
Saltblood by t.c. parker

People are shipped off to an island with a Faraday cage prison to reflect on being trolls on social media. It's a peaceful place, except for—you know—the whole evil monster bit.


The Devils shallows by Debra Castaneda

Salt marshes are weird places anyway but add an urban legend about the Slough Devil and it's extra weird. Adam doesn't believe in monsters, but that's okay, the monsters still believe in him. 


sea witch by Sarah Henning

Now we get to the Little Mermaid retellings. C'mon, I had to toss a few in. 

Set in 1860s Denmark, Evie (the witch) meets a mermaid with the face of her dead friend. They fall for a couple of princes and Evie has to help her new friend keep her legs. Life's full of tough choices, isn't it?


To Kill a Kingdom by 
Drown by Esther Dalseno 
Sticking more closely to the original by Hans Christian Andersen, this one is dark as it should be. No singing or friends named Flounder. Matter of fact, a girl has no name...nor does anyone else. It's just The Little Mermaid or The Prince.  


Well, there you have it. 18 book choices to check off the Under The Sea box on your Scaredy Cat Bingo card. If you haven't started playing yet, check out the board and jump in at any time. 
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