This one’s for you, Mistress of the Dark

So hot off the presses that the ink’s barely dry, Ame’s To Break a Covenant is about an ex-mining town capitalizing on its haunted past to bring in the tourism money that’s keeping the town alive, and a group of girls determined to discover the mystery behind the strange phenomena that plague their town. Moon Basin’s haunting supposedly stems from the violent deaths of sixteen people the day the mine exploded and touched off an underground fire that burns still. Now only New Basin is left. Clem and Nina, best friends since childhood, and on the verge of being something more, are joined by Lisey and Piper as they journey deep into the abandoned mines of Moon Basin in search of the truth.

I love Machado’s work, so I was beyond excited when I found out she would be contributing to the 2020 Hill House comic series! Her graphic novel, The Low, Low Woods, is about two teenagers, El and Octavia, who are best friends that grew up in the tiny town of Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania. A strange forgetting illness has begun to affect the inhabitants of the town, stealing their memories as horrors stalk the streets of a town on fire. Its long burning coal mines abandoned but still aflame (sense a theme here?). When El and Octavia are infected, the two take it upon themselves to investigate the dark mysteries of their town before they loose themselves forever.

This one probably sways the most towards dark fantasy, rather than being more fully horror. Our heroine Jessamyn hears the voice of her estranged grandmother, now a mysterious deity who is determined to make use of Jessamyn to settle a vengeful score. With that, plus the existence of a whole strange world full of danger, gods, ghosts, and secrets, I think there’s plenty here to keep dark fiction readers intrigued. And while I freely admit that I haven’t read Black Water Sister yet, the reviews I’ve seen suggest there might even be a few scenes that are down right, graphically scary. Cho described Black Water Sister as “A stressed zillennial lesbian fights gods, ghosts, gangsters & grandmas in 21st century Penang”, and I mean honestly what better inducement can I offer?

I will never miss a chance to include zombies on absolutely any list where I can fit them. Particularly these days, when zombie apocalypse novels have taken on an additional shade of emotional significance. There’s something extra cathartic about a plague with a physical manifestation that you can actually fight. I doubt that comes as much a relief to Taren and Joy, though, as the hospital they work at is suddenly overtaken with the living dead. With a soured “almost romance” hanging between them, the two find themselves unable to avoid one another, trapped in the hospital with a group of other survivors. Their only way out is to work together and fight their way free. Which makes this a bit of an awkward time to find themselves falling in love. Did I specifically make room for this book because I am absolutely obsessed with the idea of the horror romance? Pfft. Of course I did.

So this one might also fall more under the umbrella of dark fantasy, but it has plenty of creepy, Gothic goodness to sate horror readers. In This Poison Heart, Briseis finds herself spending the summer at the dilapidated estate of her dead aunt, surrounded by its vast gardens. There, Bri hopes that she will learn to control her extraordinary gift: the ability to grow plants from seed to full bloom with just a touch of her hand. But the estate is old, and dark, and one of its gardens is comprised of nothing but the world’s most deadly plants. As she falls into creating tinctures and elixirs for those who come to the estate seeking help, Bri meets Marie, a young woman keeping dark secrets, who knows more about the estate than she is letting on.