My Review
I love horror novels and horror stories, so when I heard about this book, I knew it was going to be for me. I knew I was going to enjoy it before I even started it, and I wasn’t wrong … Continue reading
Tag Archives: horror
Synopsis
Multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author Jonathan Maberry compiles more than twenty stories and poems—written by members of the Horror Writers Association—in this terrifying collection about worst fears.What scares you? Things that go bump in the night? Being irreversibly different? A brutal early death? The unknown?
This collection contains stories and poetry by renowned writers such as R. L. Stine, Neal and Brendan Shusterman, and Ellen Hopkins—all members of the Horror Writers Association—about what they fear most. The stories include mermaids, ghosts, and personal demons, and are edited by Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker award winner and author of the Rot & Ruin series.
Synopsis
Stay on the roads. Don’t enter the woods. Never go out at night.Those are the rules in Rowan’s Glen, a remote farming community in the Missouri Ozarks where Ivy Templeton’s family has lived for centuries. It’s an old-fashioned way of life, full of superstition and traditions, and sixteen-year-old Ivy loves it. The other kids at school may think the Glen kids are weird, but Ivy doesn’t care—she has her cousin Heather as her best friend. The two girls share everything with each other—or so Ivy thinks. When Heather goes missing after a May Day celebration, Ivy discovers that both her best friend and her beloved hometown are as full of secrets as the woods that surround them.
My Review
The May Queen Murders is an interesting YA horror/thriller that isn’t for the faint of heart – there is a lot in this book that reminds me of a really gory horror film (and since I really like that kind … Continue reading
Synopsis
From YouTube sensation Marzia “CutiePieMarzia” Bisognin comes a debut young adult paranormal thriller about a girl whose dream house quickly becomes a nightmare.When Amethyst stumbles upon the house of her dreams, she can’t help but be enchanted by it, even if there’s something a little…off about the place.
It’s everything she’s ever wanted in a home, so when the Blooms invite her to stay the night to avoid an impending storm, she instantly accepts.
Yet when she awakes the next morning, alone and unable to bring herself to leave, Amethyst comes face-to-face with unexpected twists and turns—like Alfred, the creepy gardener; Avery, the handsome but secretive neighbor, and a little girl who keeps appearing and vanishing within the house.
As Amethyst searches for the Blooms and tries to unravel the truth, her connection to the house only grows stronger. Will she be able to break free of the house’s allure, or will its secrets keep her trapped forever?
My Review
This book gets a rare 5 stars from me, because it was just that absolutely fantastic that it has earned a special place on my “Will probably read again like 20 times this year” shelf. I haven’t seen much hype … Continue reading
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she's been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780's to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.Or so she thought.
But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths. . .
A genre-bending thriller from Stefan Bachmann for fans of The Maze Runner and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods.
You cannot escape the palace
You cannot guess its secrets.
My Review
This book was a tad bit…difficult for me to review. On one hand, I enjoyed it – the mystery, the creepy aspects of it, the way everything seemed to wrap up neatly. On the other hand, I spent the majority … Continue reading
Synopsis
Carrie meets American Horror Story meets The Shining in this terrifying YA horror novel from the author of Tweak and Schizo.Something’s not right in Beach Haven.
Jen Noonan’s father thinks a move to Harmony House is the key to salvation, but to everyone who has lived there before, it is a portal to pure horror.
After her alcoholic mother’s death, Jen’s father cracked. He dragged Jen to a dilapidated old manor on the shore of New Jersey to start their new lives—but Jen can tell that the place has an unhappy history. She can feel it the same way she can feel her anger flowing out of her, affecting the world in strange ways she can’t explain.
But Harmony House is more than just a creepy old estate. It’s got a chilling past—and the more Jen discovers its secrets, the more the house awakens. Visions of a strange boy who lived in the house long ago follow Jen wherever she goes, and her father’s already-fragile sanity disintegrates before her eyes. As the forces in the house join together to terrorize Jen, she must find a way to escape the past she didn’t know was haunting her—and the mysterious and terrible power she didn’t realize she had.
My Review
Harmony House was one of those books that I was so excited for that it felt like torture to wait for after I had heard about it. There just never seems to be enough good YA horror novels out for … Continue reading
Synopsis
Once upon a time, waiting for the mail was filled with warm anticipation, but the suicide of the local mailman has left the residents of this tiny Arizona town shell-shocked. Nothing this bad has ever happened here. But now it has and more bad things are on the way.Soon there's a new mail carrier in town, one who's delivering lethal letters stuffed with icy fear. He's bringing bad news and before too long the killing will begin.
Nothing — not even the most outstanding citizens or the most secret weaknesses — will be safe from The Mailman's sinister power...
My Review
I’m taking a break from my usual young adult genre reviews to review a book that has been a favorite of mine for years. Ever since I was little I had a strange obsession with horror movies, and as I … Continue reading
Synopsis
For fans of Holly Black and Nova Ren Suma, a gripping, hauntingly atmospheric novel about murder, revenge, and a world where monsters—human and otherwise—lurk at the fringes.When seventeen-year-old Breezy Lin wakes up in a shallow grave one year after her death, she doesn’t remember who killed her or why. All she knows is that she’s somehow conscious—and not only that, she’s able to sense who around her is hiding a murderous past. In life, Breezy was always drawn to the elegance of the universe and the mystery of the stars. Now she must set out to find answers and discover what is to become of her in the gritty, dangerous world to which she now belongs—where killers hide in plain sight, and a sinister cult is hunting for strange creatures like her. What she finds is at once empowering, redemptive, and dangerous.
Tense, complex, and wholly engaging, Shallow Graves is a stunning first novel from Kali Wallace.
My Review
Shallow Graves is an interesting little book about a girl who wakes up in a grave eighteen inches under the ground, a few houses down from her own house. She has been dead for a year, but doesn’t know this … Continue reading
Synopsis
Roxanne and Pepper are a teenage couple with problems. They leave their small town for a weekend to try and solve them. They don't really succeed, and when they return home they find their town empty.They call other towns.
They find the whole world empty.
But eventually they discover three other Kids their Age who are still alive in the town. They cannot imagine why the five of them seem to be the only ones left of the entire human race. They have only one thing in common. They were each directly or indirectly involved in the death of Betty Sue - the plain, shy girl who committed suicide only a short time ago. Betty Sue - the quiet, brilliant girl who wrote short stories about each of them. Stories of hate, of revenge, of death in a dead world.
It makes them wonder who Betty Sue really was.
Or what Betty Sue was.
My Review
I have had multiple copies of this book throughout the years, and I have read it countless times. However, between moving from my parents’ house, to moving into an apartment, and finally into my house (and failing to ever completely … Continue reading
Synopsis
Stay Tonight. Stay Forever.When Audrey Casella arrives for an unplanned stay at the grand Hotel Ruby, she’s grateful for the detour. Just months after their mother’s death, Audrey and her brother, Daniel, are on their way to live with their grandmother, dumped on the doorstep of a DNA-matched stranger because their father is drowning in his grief.
Audrey and her family only plan to stay the night, but life in the Ruby can be intoxicating, extending their stay as it provides endless distractions—including handsome guest Elias Lange, who sends Audrey’s pulse racing. However, the hotel proves to be as strange as it is beautiful. Nightly fancy affairs in the ballroom are invitation only, and Audrey seems to be the one guest who doesn't have an invite. Instead, she joins the hotel staff on the rooftop, catching whispers about the hotel’s dark past.
The more Audrey learns about the new people she's met, the more her curiosity grows. She’s torn in different directions—the pull of her past with its overwhelming loss, the promise of a future that holds little joy, and an in-between life in a place that is so much more than it seems…
Welcome to the Ruby.
My Review
I’m going to start off with this: Hotel Ruby is by far the best book I have read this year. And I’ve read a ton of books this year. It’s so very rare when I find a book that I … Continue reading
Synopsis
When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner's family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly Ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn't right on the prairie. She's heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.
My Review
On the cover of this book, there is a quote from the lovely author, Cat Winters, which states: “Imagine Stephen King writing Little House on the Prairie.” This one statement can sum up this entire book. It’s a dark, disturbing … Continue reading
