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Hey there horror fans, I’m Jessica Avery and I’ll be delivering your weekly brief of all that’s ghastly 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.
You think you have to worry about the walking dead, but really it’s the chatting dead you need to watch out for. The horror genre has history’s worth of proof that when the dead start talking, bad things are about to go down. Why does the trope of being able to talk to spirits pop up again and again in the horror genre? I mean, there are obvious storytelling reasons to include chatty dead people in your books. When they can speak for themselves they’re able to drop vital hints or bits of information that the protagonist might need to solve some mystery, escape alive, or even defeat the ghosts themselves. But is there another reason that we’re so involved with the idea of spirits who do more than moan and break your favorite coffee cup?
Maybe the obvious answer, and the one that we see realized in a lot of horror fiction–particularly novels in which grief and grieving are a theme–is that we want to think that the dead are reaching back to us. The ones we’ve lost, the ones who are trapped, forgotten, or wracked by injustice. Maybe it’s a bit like believing in aliens, or looking for bigfoot. We don’t want to believe that we’re alone out here. That we are all there is to the world.
And of course there’s the fact that of all the questions science has yet to answer, what becomes of us after death is still one of the greatest unkowns. We know what happens to the body, physically, and many horror authors make stunning and graphically memorable use of the decaying of the dead. But what about the rest of us? These big, squishy brains that give us such hell when we’re alive; do they just go out like lights? Every thought we ever had, all our dreams, emotions, and wants. There’s so much up there, and the thought that it all just stops beggars belief. So it makes sense that, more than just telling ghost stories or believing in ghosts, we want them to talk to us. To reach out. To make contact and prove that something of ourselves survives the end of our days.
Dozens of ghost hunting shows on the Travel Channel can’t be wrong! We talk to the dark because we want to hear the dead talk back. Though, as this week’s recommendations will show, you have to be careful when putting out a call to the dead. You never know who’ll answer.
The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu
Ropa speaks for the dead. In fact, she dropped out of school to make carrying their messages to the living her full time job. She’s a ghostalker. After all, she’s good at it, it pays, and generally it’s safe enough. But then a young child goes missing, taken from a dark corner of what Ropa considers her territory, and the dead are whispering chilling warnings about children sucked dry of their life and their joy. Ropa could chose to walk away. This could be someone else’s problem. But these children disappeared on her turf, and she can’t in good conscience turn her back while someone declares open season on the children of her city. So Ropa sets out to find a monster, and discovers a secret Edinburgh, full of unknowns, spirits, demons, and strange magics, where the very fabric of reality seems to bend.
The Whispering Dead by Darcy Coates
In the midst of a storm, hunted by unknown men with guns who want her dead, a woman on the run takes shelter in an abandoned groundskeeper’s cottage at the edge of a cemetery in the town of Blighty. Frankly, I think it sounds positively peaceful, but then again I have noisy neighbors. And technically, so does Keira. Because while to others the cemetery would appear still and silent, Kiera can hear the dead whispering all around her. The cemetery is alive with the ghosts of those recently, and not so recently, departed, led by a woman who died before her time who begins to haunt Keira when she realizes that the living woman can see her. With the clock of her life running down, Keira races to unearth the dark secrets of Blighty’s past that will not let the woman’s spirit rest.
Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis (August 24th)
Katrell makes her living talking to the dead, ironically. And it’s not much of a living, either. While clients are happy to pay her for access to their dead loved ones they don’t pay well. Let alone well enough for Katrell to pay her way and support her mother and whatever boyfriend her mother has kicking around. Still money is money. Which is why, when a ghost tells Katrell to stop summoning the dead, that terrible things will come of it, she ignores the warning. Besides. It’s dead. What do the dead have to do but moan vague warnings at the living for entertainment? Or so Katrell thinks. Until she accidentally raises a client from the dead, rather than just summoning their spirit, and catches a glimpse of a life beyond poverty. There is money to be made in making the dead undead, and she decides to seize the opportunity with both hands. But the bigger the magic the higher the price, and the dark is circling. Waiting for Katrell to fall.
Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth
If you can believe it (I hardly can) the end of June is nearly upon us! I’m not sure where the month went, but summer is really flying fast. And every month seems to bring with it a veritable pile of exciting new horror books. Check out this June new releases list from Ladies of Horror Fiction to make sure that you didn’t miss anything you were looking forward to!
Nightfire has a wonderful interview with Paul Tremblay on their blog, discussing putting story first, writing atmosphere, and the paperback edition of his amazing, deeply moving 2020 novel, Survivor Song.