30 Days of Horror: #29 & #30 #30daysofhorror

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

Wow, I made it. I had a few set backs and had to double-up on posts a few times (like today), but I made it! I have spotlighted 30 books, for 30 days of horror.

My first pick for today (day 29) is a book that isn’t out until February. I hope it’s as good as it sounds.

Available in hardback & digital, 384 pages

Published February 20th 2018 by Feiwel & Friends

 

Set against a future of marauding space scavengers and deadly aliens who kill with sound, here is a frightening, fast-paced YA adventure from the author of the acclaimed horror novel, Shutter.

Tuck has been in stasis on the USS John Muir, a ship that houses Earth’s most valued artifacts—its natural resources. Parks and mountains are preserved in space.

Laura belongs to a shipraiding family, who are funded by a group used to getting what they want. And they want what’s on the Muir.

Tuck and Laura didn’t bargain on working together, or battling mutant aliens who use sound to kill. But their plan is the only hope for their crews, their families, and themselves.

In space, nobody can hear you scream . . . but on the John Muir, the screams are the last thing you’ll hear.

 

Goodreads // Not My Review

Will you be adding this one to your TBR too?

My second, and final choice for day 30 is one of my favourite books (that I own). And I can’t think of a better way to end this challenge. It is of course, The King of Gothic Horror himself, Edgar Allan Poe! I really need to review this book, I’ve only just realised that I didn’t! Good excuse to pick it up again if you ask me.

Available in Hardcove,  208 pages

Published November 15th 2014 by Rockport Publishers

Rockport Books revisit the classics in a new series lushly illustrated by some of today’s most endearing and sought-after artists. These aren’t your typical classics–our artists reinterpret these stories and create a stunning presentation unlike any you’ve ever seen. Book enthusiasts and artisans will want to collect the entire series.

Renowned artist David Plunkert takes readers on a dark journey into the gothic stories of Edgar Allan Poe, through his luscious imagery. These stories take on a whole new meaning when accompanied by Plunkert’s mystical, and sometimes spooky interpretations.

With this edition of the Classics Reimagined series, you’ll think classics boring, nevermore!

 Goodreads // Not My Review

Well that’s a wrap on my 30 days of horror. I hope you’ve discovered some new books, and perhaps been reminded of some creepy classics.

30 Days of Horror: #27 & #28 #30daysofhorror #HO17

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

So yes, I failed to keep up with this once again, but that means you get two picks for the price of one today and tomorrow.

My first pick for day 27 is a non-fiction book that I’ve only recently come across. It’s like everything I love about trashy horror in one book!

Available in paperback & digital, 256 pages

Published September 19th 2017 by Quirk Books

 

Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of the 1970s and ’80s . . . if you dare.

Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate!

Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. It’s an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of two iconic decades, complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles.

You’ll find familiar authors, like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, and many more who’ve faded into obscurity. Plus recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.

 

Goodreads // Guest Post: Paperback Lost by PG Bloodhouse

Read this? What did you think?

My second choice for today is a book that I really enjoyed. It was much better than the film, but it was still worth a watch.

Available in all formats incl. audio, 460 pages

Published June 19th 2014 by Orbit

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.

 Goodreads // My Review

Don’t forget to vote in the flash fiction battle!

You can catch up on all four stories here.

 

30 Days of Horror #26: Doctor Sleep #HO17

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

Tonight’s horror book choice is one that I was pleasantly surprised by. I’ve liked most of the Stephen King books I’ve read but perhaps not as much as some people. I didn’t know what to expect from a Shining sequel though, especially so many years after the first was published. But I thought Doctor Sleep was a great effort. And well worth revisiting.

Available in all formats incl audio, 531 pages

Published September 24th 2013 by Scribner

 

Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special 12-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless – mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

 

Goodreads // My Review

Read this? What did you think?

Don’t forget to vote in the flash fiction battle!

30 Days of Horror #25: The Hollow Girl #HO17

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

My choice for day 25 is a book I’ve only just come across, and mannnn it looks pretty creepy. Want!

Available in hardback and ebook, 272 pages

Published October 10th 2017 by Delacorte Press

Five boys attacked her.
Now they must repay her with their blood and flesh.

Bethan is the apprentice to a green healer named Drina in a clan of Welsh Romanies. Her life is happy and ordered and modest, as required by Roma custom, except for one thing: Silas, the son of the chieftain, has been secretly harassing her.

One night, Silas and his friends brutally assault Bethan and a half-Roma friend, Martyn. As empty and hopeless as she feels from the attack, she asks Drina to bring Martyn back from death’s door. “There is always a price for this kind of magic,” Drina warns. The way to save him is gruesome. Bethan must collect grisly pieces to fuel the spell: an ear, some hair, an eye, a nose, and fingers.

She gives the boys who assaulted her a chance to come forward and apologize. And when they don’t, she knows exactly where to collect her ingredients to save Martyn.

 

Goodreads // NOT My Review

 

Already read it? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

Flash Fiction Battle: The vote opens!

 

30 Days of Horror #24: There’s Someone Inside Your House #HO17

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

We’re on the homestretch, guys! My choice for day 24 is another YA book. I haven’t got my hands on a copy of this yet but it’s at the top of my wishlist. It’s a bit of a departure for the author, too, which intrigues me.

Available in all formats incl audio, 287 pages

Published September 26th 2017 by Dutton Books for Young Readers

 

Scream meets YA in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss.

One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.

 

Goodreads // NOT My Review

 

Read this? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

This Week in Books

30 Days of Horror: Day #22 & #23 #HO17

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

I’m still catching up from going AWOL at the weekend so today you get two picks for the price of one again.

My choice for day 22 is by an author that I’ve been meaning to try for so long.

Available in paperback and ebook, 384 pages

Published March 21st 2017 by Titan Books

There’s an underground black market for arcane things. Akin to the trade in rhino horns or tigers’ bones, this group trafficks in mummified satyrs, gryphons’ claws, and more.

When Angela Gough’s lover Vince goes missing, she sets out to find him whatever the risk. She learns that he was employed by the infamous London crime lord Frederick Meloy, providing bizarre objects beyond imagining. Descending into the city’s underbelly, she uncovers a deadly side to the black market. It might have claimed Vince, and Angela may be next.

Gripping supernatural terror launching a new trilogy by the acclaimed author of Coldbrook (distinct, unique, and absorbing), The Silence (truly addictive), and the Alien-Predator Rage War.

 

Goodreads // NOT My Review

My second choice (day 23- today!)) is a book that I’ve wanted to reread for a while now. It is the book that TV show Moonlight was based upon, a vampire show that was ahead of its time in my opinion!

Available in paperback and ebook, 269 pages

Published February 1st 2011 by Titan Books

“NO WOMEN. NO CHILDREN. NO INNOCENTS. THOSE ARE THE RULES…IT’S HOW I LIVE WITH MYSELF, SO TO SPEAK”

L.A.-based Private Eye and vampire Mick Angel has been hired by a beautiful red-headed burlesque dancer to find her missing sister. But the apparently simple case of a teenage runaway is soon complicated by drug dealers, persistent cops, murder, and Mick’s own past.

Mick must learn the hard way what every vampire should know – nothing stays buried forever. Especially not the past.

Goodreads // My Review

Have you read either of these? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

TTT: Scary Book Titles

30 Days of Horror #20 & #21 #HO17 #30daysofhorror

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

OK, so I had a little unforeseen break over the weekend and I’m therefore in catch-up mode. So today you get two picks for the price of one. 😉

My first pick for (day 20) is a ghost story by an author I haven’t tried yet. The cover got my attention as it screams Autumn to me. The book was released in January 2017.

Available in paperback, ebook and audio, 182 pages

Published January 10th 2017 by Tor

When her sister Patty died, Jenna blamed herself. When Jenna died, she blamed herself for that, too. Unfortunately Jenna died too soon. Living or dead, every soul is promised a certain amount of time, and when Jenna passed she found a heavy debt of time in her record. Unwilling to simply steal that time from the living, Jenna earns every day she leeches with volunteer work at a suicide prevention hotline.

But something has come for the ghosts of New York, something beyond reason, beyond death, beyond hope; something that can bind ghosts to mirrors and make them do its bidding. Only Jenna stands in its way.

Goodreads // NOT My Review

My second choice (day 21) is  the first non-fiction book I’ve chosen so far. I love the cover, and it sounds right up my alley.

Available in all formats incl. audio, 320 pages

Published October 4th 2016 by Viking

An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most infamously haunted places–and deep into the dark side of our history.

Colin Dickey is on the trail of America’s ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why?

His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and “zombie homes,” Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as “the most haunted mansion in America,” or “the most haunted prison”; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget.

With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living–how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made–and why those changes are made–Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved.

Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we’re most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.

Goodreads // NOT My Review

Have you read either of these? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

Week 3 Wrap-up!

 

30 Days of Horror #19: Phantoms #HO17 #30daysofhorror

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book for each day until we reach Halloween!

Tonight’s pick is a classic. I haven’t read it, but I saw the movie adaptation late one night when I was probably too young to watch it, and boy did it stay with me. As I got older and started reading horror books, I remembered it and was sure it must be a Stephen King novel. It’s very King-esque. But no, it’s Dean Koontz’s Phantoms. I must read it at some point. I love these retro covers too!

Available in paperback & digital, 446 pages

First Published 1983

CLOSER…

They found the town silent, apparently abandoned. Then they found the first body strangely swollen and still warm. One hundred fifty were dead, 350 missing. But the terror had only begun in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, California.

AND CLOSER…

At first they thought it was the work of a maniac. Or terrorists. Or toxic contamination. Or a bizarre new disease.

AND CLOSER…

But then they found the truth. And they saw it in the flesh. And it was worse than anything any of them had ever imagined…

 

Goodreads // Not My Review

Have you read it? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

What will day 20 bring?

30 Days of Horror #18: Redder Than Blood #HO17 #30daysofhorror

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book for each day until we reach Halloween!

Tonight’s horror book choice is by an author that I’ve been meaning to try for ages now. This book was only released in April, but when I first saw the cover I thought it was from the 90s or something. I like it! It’s a short story collection of horror-interpreted fairy-tales. Sounds awesome.

Available in digital formats only, 209 pages

Published April 4th 2017 by DAW

A vampiric Snow White whose pious stepmother is her only salvation….
A supernatural Cinderella who strikes at midnight, leaving behind a prince mad with desire….
A sleeping beauty never meant to be woken…

In her World Fantasy Award-nominated short story collection, Red as Blood, Tanith Lee deconstructed familiar fairy tales, recapturing their original darkness and horror in haunting new interpretations. Behind gilded words and poised princesses, she exposed a sinister world of violence, madness, and dangerous enchantments.

With Redder than Blood, Lee resumes the tradition of twisting tales. Among its nineteen tales, this volume explores unnerving variations of Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, Snow White, and other classics, including three never-before-published stories.

A recognized master fantasist, Tanith Lee has won multiple awards for her craft, including the British Fantasy Award, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror.

 

Goodreads // Not My Review

Have you read it? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

Flash Fiction Battle: Entry #2

30 Days of Horror #17: The Haunting #HO17 #30daysofhorror

Join me for 30 Days of Horror in which we spotlight one horror book every day until we reach Halloween!

Tonight, I’ve chosen a great YA ghost story. The Haunting is part of the Red Eye series, a YA Horror imprint (which I love), and I’m hoping to do a special post in association with the publishers/one of the authors soon. Fingers crossed it all comes together. But for now, here’s a taste of The Haunting by Alex Bell. I also reviewed it here.

Available in paperback & ebook, 352 pages

Published February 11th 2016 by Stripes Publishing

 

Some curses grow stronger with time…

People say that all Cornish inns are haunted, but the Waterwitch’s history is particularly chilling. Built from the salvaged timber of a cursed ship, the guest house’s dark secrets go further back than anyone can remember.

Emma is permanently confined to a wheelchair after an accident at the Waterwitch which took place when she was ten. Seven years later, she decides to return to the place where the awful event occurred. But the ancient inn still has its ghosts, and one particular spirit is more vengeful than ever…

A chilling new title in the Red Eye horror series from the author of Frozen Charlotte.

 

Goodreads // My Review

Have you read it? What did you think?

Up Next on Horror October:

This Week in Books