Tag: horror

Review: Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro

If you’re looking for a big fantasy/horror novel you’ll get lost in for a while, this is a book to consider. It combines elements of many other stories — a gothic mansion in the Scottish highlands, a school for “unusual” children, a tormented villain, and brave heroes, both young and old. It’s one of those…

Review: Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

I had mixed feelings about this book, which generated a lot of buzz when it came out, but I continue to think about it.  It’s an unusual blend of character-driven horror, something like Station Eleven. It’s a book where not much happens, but it’s still terrifying.  I would have liked it more except that sometimes…

Why do we read books that scare us?

As Halloween approached, I’ve been thinking about scary books and why we read them.  With all the horror in the news, my work colleagues have been increasingly asking for “lighter” book recommendations (I’ve been recommending Less). I’ve written several posts with recommendations of good horror reading recommendations of good horror reading, but in this post…

Joyland by Stephen King

This is my last review for Halloween and the R.I.P. IX Challenge. Happy Halloween! Joyland is part murder mystery, part ghost story, part coming of age novel. There’s nothing ground-breaking about Joyland, but it’s the kind of novel that shows King at his best. He’s writing about real people experiencing real-life drama, it’s just in…