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Hello Ghouls and Spirits, I’m Jessica Avery and I’ll be delivering your weekly brief of all that is ghoulish and grim in the world of Horror. Whether you’re looking for a backlist book that will give you the willies, a terrifying new release, or the latest in horror community news, you’ll find it here in The Fright Stuff.
This week’s horror is brought to you by the deep freeze of winter. Why am I taking you to the dark, cold depths of winter in the middle of July? Because (depending on which hemisphere you’re in) it’s summer, and summer this year has not been kind. In fond memory of the mercury in the thermometer that hasn’t seen 60 when the sun is out in what feels like an age, let’s talk about some horror that might just make us grateful for the heat.
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
A freezing Vermont winter, a small town full of legends and suspicious disappearances. Nineteen-year-old Ruthie, her younger sister, and her mother Alice live in a house haunted by one of West Hall, Vermont’s darkest mysteries, the disappearance and death of Sara Harrison Shea. When Alice vanishes, and Ruthie uncovers a hidden copy of Shea’s diary, she finds that history is threatening to repeat itself and she may be the only one who can stop it.
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
The Donner Party. The pinnacle of snow-bound terror. And Alma Katsu, with her gift for haunting historical horror, takes this grim tale and spins it into an elegantly terrible new nightmare. The party makes their way into the mountains plague by disaster and the gut feeling that something terrible is stalking them. When the group becomes stranded, struggling to survive the elements, and members of the party begin to disappear, fear and suspicion grow.
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Ever since Lily died, her husband Luc and her twin children Miranda and Eliot have lived with both their grief, and the strange happenings inside their home. Whatever lurks inside the Silver house strains against the walls until they groan, and turns its rooms and hallways into a threatening, shifting maze. In the garden apples grow out of season. Miranda is more sensitive to the spirits than her father and brother, she can feel the women in the walls. Then she disappears.
The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn
Blizzards in Colorado never bode well. I mean Stephen King wrote two separate books about the evil that lurks in a Colorado mountain blizzard. But Ania Ahlborn gives that terror new form in her winter creature feature, The Shuddering. Twins Ryan and Jane Adler used to spend happy days at their parent’s cabin when they were kids. During a snowboarding party at the Colorado cabin with some of their friends, a last fling before the cabin is sold, a blizzard strands the group. Inside interpersonal tensions mount, and outside monsters lurk in the snow, waiting to strike.
Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories
Taaqtumi (an Inuktitut word meaning “dark”) is an anthology of own voices horror short stories from Northern writers. Featuring award winning authors Richard Van Camp, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Aviaq Johnston, and more, Taaqtumi is made up of tales of the darkness and the cold. From zombies to mysterious doors to post-apocalyptic towns deep in the Arctic, these tales of terror on the ice are not to be missed.
August Releases
Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
Clowns will always be the worst. And Frendo – mascot of the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory – is particularly creepy. Baypen used to be the heart of Kettle Springs, the tiny town Quinn and her father moved to for a fresh start, but then the factory closed. Kettle Springs is dying, split between those who want to see the town thrive again and the youth who are just biding their time until they can get out. That’s when Frendo the Clown goes berserk, determined to remake Kettle Springs anew, minus all those troublesome, ungrateful kids.
Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis
When Lola Nox’s father is attacked in their home, he sends her away to the safety of her estranged grandmother’s house in Harrow Lake, the eerie little town where her father filmed his most famous horror movie. But things are not what they seem in Harrow lake. The locals are obsessed with the film that made their town famous, people are disappearing left and right, and Lola is certain that something is stalking her as she tries to get to the bottom of the town’s dark mysteries.
The Living Dead by George Romero and Daniel Kraus
I couldn’t very well leave this book out of the August releases when it promises to be one of the top books of the year. The zombie plague of George Romero’s beloved Dead series walks again, bringing together a range of characters in a battle for their lives against the undead. Told in a series of interconnected stories, reaching from a Midwestern trailer park to a US aircraft character, The Living Dead is, as expected from Romero, as much about the struggles of humanity as it is about the rising dead.
Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth:
Lookout and Chernin have announced that they will be adapting R.L. Stine’s YA horror series, The Babysitter, for TV! It’s one of a number of Stine adaptations currently in the works.
The Ladies of Horror Fiction announced the winners of their inaugural 2019 Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards. Congratulations to all the winners! Also, this list makes a pretty good TBR killer.
Both Off Limits Press and Nightfire have hinted that they’ll be dropping information about new books next week! Follow now to make sure you don’t miss the latest horror news!
Speaking of Nightfire Books, over on their blog Nicole Hill has created a list of 6 Horror Short Stories That Haunt Us, and the books in which you can find them, if you’re looking to add a little short fiction to your reading list.
Over on Book Riot, Blair Carpenter is revisiting the Scary Books that Doomed Millennials as Kids. It’s a feast of horror nostalgia for all those of us who spent our formative years reveling in the macabre.
Until next time, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening. See you there!