What better way to fall in love than by running through the halls of a haunted house together? I have been absolutely sleeping on the horrormance subgenre, which combines—you guessed it!—horror and romance. At first glance, you might think these genres are complete opposites and wouldn’t blend well. But when you think about it some more, it makes sense: Both horror and romance are about putting characters in extreme situations to explore particular emotions at their heights. If I Stopped Haunting You, a debut horrormance by Colby Wilkens that came out in October, has completely sold me on the genre combo! Continue reading If I Stopped Haunting You—Horromance
Tag: horror
#AScareADay 2024 Reading Challenge Reflections
If you saw my Preview of #AScareADay Reading Challenge 2024 post last month, you’ll know I spent my October reading 31 scary stories and poems curated by Dr. Sam Hirst of Romancing the Gothic. This was my third year participating in this spooky season reading challenge, and I loved it more than ever! Every year, I discover new-to-me authors, both contemporary and from centuries past, that I’m excited to explore further. These challenges are also a great reminder of how much I love short stories and poetry—forms I don’t devote quite as much attention to as novels. Plus, this year we explored a format I’ve never really read before: short webcomics. You can find the stories for this year’s reading challenge here, and check out the #AScareADay hashtag on Twitter and Bluesky to see the great discussions we’ve been having all month. Read on to see what I thought of the specific stories from this year’s challenge and stick around to the end of this post to hear about my recent guest appearance on a podcast! Continue reading #AScareADay 2024 Reading Challenge Reflections
Review of The Spite House—An Emotional Haunting
Need a good haunted house book for Halloween that will genuinely send shivers down your spine? Johnny Compton’s debut horror novel, The Spite House, which came out last year, features a desperate dad who moves with his two daughters into a strangely built house haunted by a handful of ghosts and generations of spite. Continue reading Review of The Spite House—An Emotional Haunting
Review of I Was a Teenage Slasher
Have you ever wondered what goes through a slasher’s mind as he goes on his bloody rampage? If you’ve read any of Stephen Graham Jones’s other novels (such as My Heart is a Chainsaw or The Only Good Indians), you’ll notice that Jones is fascinated by classic slasher films and their tropes and often uses these topics as a lens through which to explore deeper issues. In his latest horror novel, I Was a Teenage Slasher, which came out last month, he returns to this topic once again but from a new perspective: that of a reluctant killer. Continue reading Review of I Was a Teenage Slasher
Review of What Grows in the Dark—A Spooky Debut
What if you could turn your trauma into your hustle? It might not be the healthiest way of dealing, but Brigit does just that by creating a ghost hunting show centered on her connection to her dead sister in What Grows in the Dark, a debut horror novel by Jaq Evans that came out earlier this year. Continue reading Review of What Grows in the Dark—A Spooky Debut
Review of Vampires of El Norte—Monsters and Mexican History
Books like this convince me that the vampire genre will never be dead. You think you’ve seen everything that could possibly be written about vampires already, and then someone comes up with something completely new and unique. Isabel Cañas (who made a big splash with her Gothic debut The Hacienda, which I still need to read) does just this in her second novel Vampires of El Norte, which came out last year. The novel weaves both supernatural/horror elements and a romance that pulls at your heartstrings into a historical tale about the Mexican–American War. Continue reading Review of Vampires of El Norte—Monsters and Mexican History
Jurassic Park and Sci-Fi Horror
“At times like this one feels, well, perhaps extinct animals should be left extinct….” I just read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park for the first time, the 1990 novel that inspired the iconic Steven Spielberg film series. The film franchise, with its groundbreaking CGI dinosaurs and star-studded cast, has become so pervasive in the popular imagination it’s hard to imagine a time before T-Rex stalked the nightmares of multiple generations. But the source material is just as terrifying as the blockbuster films that came after. Jurassic Park draws on a long tradition of blending science fiction with horror to explore terrifying possibilities of the future and to warn about the dangerous consequences of misusing new technologies. Continue reading Jurassic Park and Sci-Fi Horror
Review of Your Shadow Half Remains—More Pandemic Horror
Humans are not meant to live in total isolation. Many of us had just a small taste of this during the shutdowns in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But Sunny Moraine takes social distancing to the extreme in their apocalyptic horror novella Your Shadow Half Remains, which came out last month. Continue reading Review of Your Shadow Half Remains—More Pandemic Horror
Review of Womb City—African Sci-Fi Horror
Would you give up your freedom to live in a world without crime? This is the basis for a futuristic Botswana in Tlotlo Tsamaase’s dystopian debut novel, Womb City, which came out earlier this year. With elements ranging from invasive microchips and AI-powered simulations to vengeful ghosts, this book straddles the line between sci-fi and horror, drawing deeply from the wells of both genres. Continue reading Review of Womb City—African Sci-Fi Horror
Review of I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me
The world of professional ballet can be cut-throat—literally. Jamison Shea’s debut YA horror novel, I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, takes an unflinching look at ambitious young women in a highly competitive field and the hellish lengths to which they will go to achieve their dreams. If you like morally gray female characters who embrace their dark sides, you definitely don’t want to miss this book, which came out last summer. Continue reading Review of I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me