Category: The Fright Stuff

Women in Horror Month: Terrifying Short Fiction Collections

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date January 29, 2021

Thin Places by Kay Chronister

I have to open with Kay Chronister’s debut collection, Thin Places, because it is the epitome of everything I love in the horror genre. Her work is such aesthetic catnip for me. When this gorgeous cover from Undertow Publications first popped up on my Twitter feed I was intrigued because it definitely looks like a me thing. So I read the titular story “Thin Places”, which was published in The Dark magazine and is still available on their site, and loved it so much that I turned right around and ordered her collection. Gothic, monstrous, emotional and strange – this collection is everything.

All the Fabulous Beasts by Priya Sharma

Oh look Jessica’s talking about All the Fabulous Beasts again. But listen: I love this collection. It is breathtakingly gorgeous and I want to just crawl inside it and disappear. Priya Sharma’s collection is a powerhouse of imagery and tone. All 16 stories are a glorious blend of the monstrous and the beautiful, full of nature and humanity, life, death, and transformation. But my personal favorite was “Pearls”, a continuation more than a retelling of a Medusa myth, and a lushly emotional one too. I also loved “Fish Skins” about a man whose wife came from the sea, and “The Sunflower Seed Man”, a harrowing look at the nature of grief and how we survive.

Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due

Due’s collection Ghost Summer is well known and beloved in the genre for a reason. It’s a captivating selection of 15 short stories and an award winning novella that really showcases Due’s impressive range, from emotional realism to chilling horror. There’s a section of viral/contagion/zombie horror stories in this collection that will for real turn you into a hypochondriac. Due’s writing in this collection is as vivid and unforgettable as ever, and this is one of those books you’ll want to add to your permanent library so that you can revisit it again and again.

The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Kiernan, though a member of the Horror Writer’s Association, is not really – or at least entirely – a horror author. While many of their stories are rife with horror elements, Kiernan’s short fiction covers a broad range of subjects and genres, from science fiction to fantasy to the cosmic horror that they’ve become so well known for with their novella Agents of Dreamland. Their stories are strange, beautiful, and full of emotion, possessing the sort of staying power that makes them linger with you for months. Kiernan is also one of my favorite Lovecraftian authors, giving me all that eerie, sea-themed weirdness I need in my life without having to resort to actual Lovecraft who is, of course, Not Great.

Everything That’s Underneath by Kristi Demeester

DeMeester’s work is another perfect example of my favorite horror aesthetic, steeped in powerful, unsettling nature imagery, with the horrors coming from deep below the earth. It’s the gritty, earthy feel of folk horror meets the vast, unknowableness of cosmic horror, and I could eat it with a spoon. In her debut short story collection Everything That’s Underneath DeMeester pens 18 terrifying stories that drag her readers into the dark corners of the world and the human soul.

Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth

How gorgeous is this cover reveal for Caitlin Starling’s forthcoming The Death of Jane Lawrence?! Starling describes it as lush, gross, gorgeous, and sinister and she is NOT wrong!

Ladies of Horror Fiction’s YA/MG horror spotlight for January has been posted!

To celebrate Women in Horror Month, Sadie Hartmann (AKA Mother Horror) is leading a group read of Kenzie Jennings’ Reception – a gruesome wedding from hell meets cannibalistic in-laws horror novel – starting quite appropriately on Valentine’s Day!

As always, you can catch me on Twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

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The Recuperative Power of Nostalgia

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date January 22, 2021

Sponsored by Black Spot Books, an imprint of Vesuvian Media Group.

Despite the twinkling lights and steaming cocoa, the winter months are the darkest time of the year—a season of short days, long nights, and cold skies. In this special anniversary anthology, the best-selling and award-winning authors of Black Spot Books mix Ye Olde Yuletide hauntings with modern-day holiday horrors to weave a chilling new collection of eight chilling winter tales to read under the Cold Moon. From frozen forests stalked by eerie Christmas ghosts to rotting gifts of winter malice, the spirits of Christmas come home for the holidays in the Dead of Winter.

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.

Life hasn’t been easy on any of us lately, and I don’t know about you but my usual coping methods have started to fail me one by one. When all this started last spring, I was devouring horror content non-stop, which proved a wonderfully cathartic way to deal with my anxiety and anger. But in the last few months I haven’t been able to read or watch horror. I was starting to worry it was going to be permanent, which – among other things – would have made writing this newsletter a little difficult.

Turns out what I needed wasn’t a break from horror, it was a healthy dose of nostalgia.

When I was younger I had a massive vampire obsession – in fact it was vampire fiction that originally made me into a horror reader! I don’t remember what age I was when I first read Interview with the Vampire, but my collection of Vampire Chronicles hardbacks still occupy valuable shelf space in my apartment. I found Mary Downing Hahn’s Look for Me By Moonlight in my school library and it blew my tiny fangophile mind. And I still love that book so much that I write about it every chance I get (thank you Book Riot for perpetually indulging my obsessions). I was born at the end of the ’90s vampire craze, was in my late teens when it came around again, and now it seems that finally – after a general vampire burn out following the Twilight explosion of the early 2000’s – vampires are making (yet another) come back. Last year gave us the amazing anthology Vampires Never Get Old, and 2021 will see the publication of the book that single-handedly freed me from my book slump: Mina and the Undead.*

(*I’m not sure it has a US release day yet, but Mina and the Undead will be out April 1st in the UK from Uclan Publishing. So remember: Book Depository is your international book friend, friends.)

Amy McCaw’s debut YA horror novel set in 1995 New Orleans, is a nostalgia-driven, retro trip through the vampire fervor of the ’90s. Twin sisters Mina and Libby find themselves embroiled in the nightmarish game of a serial killer who is draining his victims of blood and staging them in macabre scenes of violence across the city. In a city drunk on vampire mania, it’s hard to say if this killer is a pretender, or a true immortal.

Nostalgia is a common theme in the horror genre. Moreso, I think, than other genres. Sometimes you’ll see works in romance, fantasy, or sci-fi that allude to or play homage to their genre’s history, but there is something about horror that really seems to invite that perspective. Too much nostalgia can be counterproductive, of course. There have been times when the horror genre has shown a tendency to use nostalgia to gloss over a history of racism, homophobia, misogyny and more. As responsible readers we want to be aware of these tendencies, of our history, and our need to consider the horror genre critically.

But – particularly in the right hands – nostalgia can serve a genuine purpose in storytelling. It evokes feeling. We are nostalgic about things we enjoyed and loved. Indulging in doing or consuming things we love makes feel happy, and finding ways to make yourself happy is one of the best ways that you can take care of yourself. It can be hard to find joy when it seems like everything is figuratively, and sometimes literally, on fire around you. We’re all tired/sad/mad/scared/grieving right now. It’s ridiculous how much we’ve been through, and that – despite absolutely EVERYTHING going on – many of us are still called to go about our day to day lives as though everything were normal.

We need joy in our lives right now, more than ever. Mina and the Undead brought me joy! McCaw made me remember how much glee I used to get out of vampire fiction, something that I indulge in far too infrequently these days. At one point McCaw referenced Rasputina’s “Transylvanian Concubine” as the song in the background of one of the club scenes and I was just overwhelmed with all these happy, fuzzy nostalgia feelings and memories of watching Buffy re-runs on the tiny screen of the TV in my parent’s bedroom after school.

It was such a small thing, but it made me genuinely joyful. So many of the little nods to vampire classics in this book were so delightful, and McCaw’s love for the genre so clear. Mina and the Undead was all fake fangs, a few real ones, cheap velour, underground blood bars and black lace parasols, and I ate it up.

So here’s a little end of January reading challenge: in the midst of keeping up with what’s hot off the presses, and in between the horror that shocks you viscerally or rocks you emotionally, add a horror book that sets off your warm, fuzzy nostalgia feelings. Maybe it will be something drowning in 80’s neon like Grady Hendrix’s hilarious but so gross My Best Friend’s Exorcism, or something like Stephen Graham Smith’s amazing The Last Final Girl which is a loving homage to slash films everywhere. The Rewind or Die series by Unnerving Books is a whole line of short novels based on a love of retro-horror and creature features.

Just find something that makes you happy. Something that reminds you why you love horror, why you’ve always loved horror, how you got started loving horror. Find a little pocket of nostalgia and let it bring you some much needed joy.

As always, you can catch me on Twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

Just Take My Money Nightfire.

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date January 15, 2021

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Oops. Here I am talking about The Last House On Needless Street again. But this Nightfire release is definitely one of the most anticipated titles of 2021.The available synopsis is limited, but full of promise: a serial killer, a stolen child, death, revenge, a (suspiciously) ordinary house, and a dark forest hiding dark secrets. Add to that the tantalizing suggestion that whatever we’re expecting is not to be trusted, and honestly sign me right the heck up.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Along with releasing a new paperback edition of Heuvelt’s lauded witchcraft horror novel, Hex, Nightfire is also releasing a hardcover translation of his 2019 novel, Echo. Following a climbing trip in the Swiss Alps gone wrong, Nick Grevers wakes up to find that his climbing partner Augustin is dead and Nick’s face has been maimed and swathed in bandages. They had been scaling the ominously named Maudit, a little documented mountain, when in its valley they found something waiting for them in the mountain’s shadow. And though Nick has survived, he is haunted by what has transpired. More than even he knows. I’m not sure if this is going to end up being monsters? Ghosts? I’m always down for a little demonic possession? I mean the peak is called Maudit, which basically means damned (feel free to shout at me on Twitter if I’ve got that wrong). But whatever it is that’s haunting Nick is bound to be capital-T terrifying.

Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

That cover though. Definitely one of those books I’ll have to flip upside down when not reading it because talk about creepy! Dark tourism meets horror wedding culture when a group of friends choose an abandoned Heian-era mansion as a wedding venue. But this house has literal skeletons, not in its closets but in its walls and under its floor. Beneath the foundation lies the body of a bride, and the girls who were sacrificed to keep her company rest uneasily between the walls. What should have been a fun night of thrills in a creepy old house turns into a nightmare as the friends find themselves pursued by the lonely, hungry bride. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like total nightmare fuel. I embrace my imminent insomnia

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

So this sounds AMAZING. Maybe I’m biased by my love of historical horror, or my general dislike of Puritans whom I shall be glad to see get beat down by some gnarly black magic (fingers crossed), but I definitely need to add Slewfoot to my reading list. Abitha is already betrothed to a stranger when she arrives at the Puritan colony that is to become her home, only to find herself widowed almost as quickly as she became a bride. Now she stands alone, grasping at her sudden freedom in the midst of a pious and patriarchal society that would rather see her tucked neatly under the thumb of another man. Slewfoot is a newly woken spirit who like Abitha is searching for his place in the world. Suspicious deaths in the colony give rise to rumors of witchcraft, and Abitha and Slewfoot must decide who they will be and how to survive in a world determined to see them hang.

Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror edited by John. F.D. Taff

This anthology, a tribute to the classic 1980 Dark Forces anthology edited by Kirby McCauley, features 12 all-new stories from some of the modern horror genre’s most prominent voices, including Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Priya Sharma, Caroline Kepnes, and more. With an introduction and a new short story by Josh Malerman of Bird Box fame, and an afterward and story by horror legend Ramsey Campbell. You all know how much I love anthologies as it is, and I’m super excited for a new piece by Priya Sharma! I devoured her collection All the Fabulous Beasts last year and it was so gorgeous.

Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth

Hailey Piper has a new short story collection coming out May 7, 2021! Pre-orders for Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy are open now at your preferred retailer.

Audiobook fans this one’s for you: The Women of Weird Tales, recently released by Valancourt Books as part of their Monster, She Wrote series, is now available in audio version narrated by Tanya Eby. The Women of Weird tales is an anthology of stories by women that were published in Weird Tales magazine between the 1920s and 1950s.

S.T. Gibson is holding a giveaway for an annotated copy of her forthcoming (and highly anticipated by this newsletter author) A Dowry of Blood. The giveaway ends on 1/31, so be sure to go enter before it’s too late!

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

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Celebrating the New Year with Latinx Horror

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date January 8, 2021

Latinx Screams ed V.Castro and Cina Pelayo

In this delightfully chilling anthology from Burial Day Press, editor Cina Pelayo and editor and contributor V.Castro have collected 12 tales of terror from some of the most talented Latinx voices in the horror genre, including Hector Acosta, E. Reyes, and Book Riot’s own Laura Diaz de Arce. You all know I love an anthology, but diversity in anthologies has not always (or often) been the horror genre’s strong suit, so celebrate a truly diverse anthology and add Latinx Screams to your 2021 TBR.

Into the Forest and all the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo

Pelayo didn’t contribute a story to the Latinx Anthology, but believe me her work should be on your radar if it’s not already. She recently released a gorgeous but harrowing volume of horror poetry, Into the Forest and all the Way Through, which is a collection of true crime poetry exploring over 100 cases of missing and murdered women in the United States. I also really adore her collection Loteria, inspired by the 54 cards of the titular Mexican game of chance.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

A recent release published back in September (which in 2020 time is only a half a decade ago, so really it was practically yesterday), Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys is a stunning paranormal YA debut. Yadriel is determined to prove to his traditional family that he is a real brujo so that they will finally accept his true gender. But when he sets out to find and free the spirit of his murdered cousin, he accidentally summons the ghost of resident school bad boy, Julian Diaz, who now refuses to leave him alone. Until Yadriel helps Julian find out what happened to him, Julian is determined that he isn’t going anywhere.

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro

You might remember Goddess of Filth from my list of most anticipated reads of 2021. Well, thankfully, March is that much closer now, because I can’t wait to get my hands on this one! Friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline get together one hot summer night to drink and hold a séance. And it starts out all fun and games, until it’s not. “Not” being Fernanda Exorcist crawling towards her friends, chanting in the language of their Aztec ancestors. A possessed friend, a helpful professor, a “bruja Craft crew”, and one seriously creepy priest guarantee that this is definitely one book I don’t intend to miss.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Definitely one of the must-read books of 2020, Mexican Gothic is beautiful and frightening, which a good horror should be if it possibly can. A frantic letter from a cousin brings Noemí Taboada to High Place, a house far off in the Mexican countryside. Her newly-wed cousin is terrified, the groom is cold but compelling, the patriarch is concerningly interested in her, and the house itself fills Noemí’s head with terrible dreams. In a house full of secrets her only ally is the family’s gentle second son, but even he is not above suspicion.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

This is probably my favorite horror collection of all time. It is so absolutely beyond beautiful – as beautiful as it is horrific in some places. Some of the stories in this collection are more instantly recognizable as horror – like the infamous “The Husband Stitch” – and others are more sad or sentimental, underlaid by the knowledge that something has gone terribly wrong. “Inventory”, the first-person recounting of the narrator’s past lovers against the backdrop of an apocalyptic pandemic, has been living rent free in my brain for ages. Especially this year.

Lobizona by Romina Garber

Manuela Azul, on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, has been living a closely protected life in Miami until the night her surrogate grandmother is the victim of a violent attack that upends Manu’s existence. Alone with no home, and surrounded by the ruins of a life built on lies, Manu goes in search of her real past and her real identity. What she finds is a secret world of magic where she hopes that she can finally belong, but the truth of her identity is more complicated than she knows.

Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth

Off Limits Press’s 2021 line-up is looking pretty amazing! Sign me the heck the up for that adventure horror anthology. Off Limits is still a really young press but let me tell you they are KILLING it with their selection and with the gorgeous product they are putting out. Call me shallow, but I love a pretty book.

Nightmare Magazine has a new short story from Stephen Graham Jones: “How to Break into a Hotel Room”! Scary heist gone wrong anyone?

Nightfire has released the 2021 edition of their “All the Horror Books We’re Excited About” list so… you know… apologize to your bank accounts in advance.

As always, you can catch me on Twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

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Happy Birthday, Frankenstein!

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date January 4, 2021

The Best Frankenstein Editions for a Reread

Frankenstein, the Second Norton Critical Edition

This is my favorite edition of Frankenstein. I mean I’m unapologetically obsessed with Norton Critical Editions anyway because they’re like buying the special edition of a book and having it come with all the bonus features. There are actually more pages of critical and contemporary content in this edition than there are pages in Frankenstein itself! Norton editions tend to be more expensive, but are always worth it.

Penguin Horror Edition of Frankenstein

If you want something a little less academic, but still beautiful and possessing a little something extra, consider this hardcover edition of Frankenstein. It’s one of a collection of horror novels that Penguin curated and released as deluxe hardcovers back in 2013, each of them containing both the collection forward by horror film genius Guillermo Del Toro and a text introduction by a well-known literary personage. The intro for Frankenstein is written by Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian.

The New Annotated Frankenstein ed. by Leslie Klinger

This edition for Frankenstein is for if you really want to nerd out. I have the annotated Dracula from this series (also from Norton, this is now a W.W. Norton appreciation newsletter, apparently) and let me tell you these hefty, beautiful editions are chock full of marginalia to make sure that you get the most out of every possible detail of the novel.

Ethereal Visions’ Illuminated Frankenstein

This is the most expansive edition on the list, but also the most beautiful. For the art lover, or the Frankenstein devotee, Ethereal Visions’ Illuminated Frankenstein is breathtaking. Really. Do yourself a favor, click through to their product page, and feast your eyes on some of the devastatingly gorgeous illustrations that bring Shelley’s novel to vivid life.

Frankenstein Adaptations in Film and on the Page

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

This modern retelling of Frankenstein, set in U.S.-occupied Baghdad, is about a man sewing together body parts to make a single corpse. A corpse that then disappears. Then a string of murders across the city is accompanied by rumors of a hideous, bullet-proof creature. Hadi, who was only stitching body parts together into corpses to force the government to recognize them as people and give them a decent burial, realizes that he has, in fact, created a person. A monster that feeds on human flesh.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

Hands down the best film adaptation of Frankenstein out there I swear on the grave fight me. Fight me. Okay don’t fight me. But listen. Every film adaptation of Frankenstein, much like any film adaptation of a novel, takes liberties with its source text. What Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein manages to do, even though it’s excessively (sometimes absurdly) dramatic and at times guilty of questionable costuming choices, is capture the spirit of the novel.

A Complex Accident of Life by Elizabeth McHugh

Elizabeth McHugh’s collection of blackout poetry and visual art may be small, but it is powerful. Using the text of Frankenstein itself McHugh has crafted 52 pieces of stunning blackout poetry that stand as both a tribute to and a deconstruction of Mary Shelley’s original novel. If you’re a fan of poetry, Frankenstein, or both, I highly highly recommend this recent release. It’s a love letter to its source text.

The Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein

Really, Jessica. A Ballet? Yes. Because 1) It’s so beautiful that it actually causes me physical pain, and 2) in this newsletter we respect all the incredible ways that works of horror make their way into the world. Staring Royal Ballet principals Federico Bonelli, Laura Morera and Steven McRae, choreographer Liam Scarlett’s ballet adaptation of Frankenstein (which debuted as part of the company’s 2016/17 season) is a dark and breathtaking. Even if you’re not a ballet fan you should at least watch the clips that the Royal Ballet uploaded to their Youtube channel and see for yourself. Lowell Liebermann’s score is beyond gorgeous.

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

It’s Not All Sugarplums and Marzipan

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date December 18, 2020

Sponsored by Remina, the newest manga from Horror Legend Junji Ito.

An unknown planet emerges from inside a wormhole, and its discoverer, Dr. Oguro, christens the body “Remina” after his own daughter. His finding is met with great fanfare, and Remina herself rises to fame. However, the object picks up speed as it moves along in its curious course, eliminating planets and stars one after another, until finally Earth itself faces extinction… Is the girl Remina the true cause of the catastrophe? A masterwork of horror from Junji Ito, unfolding on a universal scale.

Hey there holiday 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

We’re going to venture out of horror into more general dark fiction this week, because there is only one time of year when it is permissible for me to talk (obsessively) about one of my favorite stories (and certainly my favorite Christmas story) of all time: The Nutcracker.

I don’t need to tell you why, being a lover of dark fiction, The Nutcracker is my favorite. Even if, like myself, your first exposure to The Nutcracker was through a candy coated and family friendly ballet at your local theatre, a preliminary googling of The Nutcracker will turn up any number of articles from past years about the dark heart behind this perennial Christmas classic. Here’s one from NPR in 2012, talking about the dark Romantic roots of E.T.A. Hoffman’s much darker original tale “Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which is particularly good as it features commentary on Hoffman’s story by renowned fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes.

The divide between the ballet, full of sugar dreams and marzipan divertissements, and Hoffman’s original with its seven headed Mouse King who “driveled bloodred, out of seven gaping maws” (“Nutcracker and the Mouse King“, Penguin Classics, 2007, p.45) is, of course, thanks to Alexandre Dumas’ 1845 reimagining of the story, “The Tale of the Nutcracker”, which in turn inspired the creation of the ballet. Dumas sweetened the story, turning Marie from a mercurial girl trapped by her own existence who escapes into her (at times nightmarish) dreamscape, into Marie the delighted dreamer who has a splendid time in the Land of Sweets before waking to continue with her own perfectly pleasant real life.

But even Dumas’ determination to gentle the darker, more subversive elements of Hoffman’s original text could not entirely erase the shadows from the margins. There are, after all, still the mice and their king. There’s still the looming, unknowable figure of Drosselmeier and the magic he weaves. It’s a nighttime story, existing in the candle lit hours between bedtime and waking. It’s full of warfare and strange happenings well suited to a dream state, and the darker parts of the story have a way of reasserting themselves in retellings.

The true adaptation of my heart, and the one which Zipes agrees is most true to the heart of Hoffman’s original story, is the one Maurice Sendak (of Where the Wild Things Are) designed for the Pacific Northwest Ballet in the 80’s. The company wanted to return to Hoffman’s original tale, even going so far as to resurrect the seven-headed Mouse King in all his terrible glory. Yes, there is still that classic scene where the tree unfolds to indicate that Clara is shrinking down to the size of her dear Nutcracker, but if you think that’s impressive, wait until you see the giant Mouse King towering over the stage. Yeah. Definitely fodder for the budding horror mind. Sendak also lent his designs for the ballet to a beautiful illustrated edition of Hoffman’s tale which is delightfully violent at times!

E.T.A. Hoffman’s “Nutcracker and Mouse King” is unforgettable. It’s the feverish, beautiful, nightmarish, dreamscape of a young girl who lives a waking life of convention and very little control and spends her nights dreaming of all the desires she will never realize and the choices she isn’t allowed to make. In the end of Hoffman’s original tale, Marie leaves the real world behind to marry her Nutcracker and live forever in a land of Marzipan Castles. And it is a happy ending if you choose to read it as such. But I have always been struck by the potential for a much darker interpretation of the ending – for a much darker interpretation of the entire story, too – lurking beneath the surface of the text.

Potential that a number of authors have already chosen to explore:

Winterspell by Claire Legrand

Claire Legrand (author of Sawkill Girls) is not stranger to dark fiction. Her retelling of The Nutcracker is set in 1899 New York, and follows the story of Clara Stole as she ventures deep into the war-scarred land of Cane to find her missing father. Together with Cane’s cursed and deposed prince Nicholas, Clara must face down the queen of the faeries if she hopes to recover her father and help Nicholas reclaim his throne.

The Nutcracker Bleeds by Lani Lenore

Set in London, 1905, The Nutcracker Bleeds is the terrifying tale of Anne, a young governess who becomes trapped in the nightmarish world of her unstable teenage pupil, Olivia. In this world where toys have come to life to horrible effect, Anne’s only ally is the mysterious Nutcracker doll. As the mice and their terrible Rat King wage war with the toys, Anne must try to get Olivia and herself back to the real world before they become trapped forever.

The Nutcracker King by Eustacia Tan

(His eyes on this cover are FREAKING me out.) In the eight years since the Mouse King’s defeat the Nutcracker has fought to break the curse that keeps him trapped in the form of a doll so that he can take his place as King and make Marie his queen. When a dark secret about his kingdom finally reveals the answer, the increasingly desperate Nutcracker makes the decision to use what he has discovered to break the curse. He will have his crown, and his bride, and his happily ever after. At any cost.

Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth

I’d like to give a shout out to probably the best collection of winter holiday horror you could ever hope to get your hands on. Cynthia Pelayo’s Burial Day Books has released the sixth volume of the Gothic Blue Book: A Krampus Carol, and the table of contents is stacked with a talented and diverse gathering of authors. This is definitely not one that you want to miss this holiday season!

Still need more seasonal scares to get you through the season? Cassie Gutman has you covered over at Book Riot with this list of “Ho-Ho-Holiday Horror”.

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

Here’s to Hoping All the Horror in 2021 is Fictional

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date December 11, 2020

Sponsored by Dickinson Publishing Company.

A Romanian sorcerer. A nudist limo driver obsessed with Back to the Future. A ten-foot-tall vigilante who mutilates their victims.…and one old man who has been keeping a secret for half a century.

Out in the desert, a chasm opens that glows crimson below. The possessed, cellphones drilled into their heads, run wild through the streets of New York. And, a 24-hour MDMA-fueled dance party surrounding a site of ancient evil.

All this and more, in:
THE INFLUENCER!

Most of the time we sort of loose the end of the year in the rush of the holidays, but since the holidays promise to be a bit… muted this year, all things considered, I’m trying to remember that there’s something else to celebrate about the changing of the year (aside from 2020 finally fucking ending): NEW RELEASES! After what has been a stellar year of horror releases I am so excited to see what 2021 has in store for the genre. And I have to tell you, the early picture looks promising! Check out some of these brilliant horror titles forthcoming in the new year:

What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo (2/2)

Is it on this list because it’s set in Maine? Maybe. Is it on this list JUST because it’s set in Maine? Certainly not! There’s a lot about What Big Teeth to be excited about. Eleanor has been estranged from her family since they send her away to boarding school. All she has are a few memories from when she was young, and the knowledge that her strange family regarded her as the freak among them. But when she finally finds the courage to return to her home on the rainy coast of Maine she finds them waiting to welcome her home. Everything seems too good to be true – and a sudden death suggests it just might be.

Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap (2/9)

You know I love a short fiction collection. Collections are in fact probably my favorite form of horror, over even novels, because they give you in one go the best picture of an author’s range and talent. Plus horror, as a genre, really shines in short story form. Isabel Yap’s forthcoming debut combines urban legends, immigrant tales, spells, and stories, all into one irresistible collection that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

The Last House On Needless Street by Catriona Ward (3/18)

I’ve written a bit about The Last House On Needless Street on the Fright Stuff before when Nightfire first announced that they’d be handling the American release, and I am so on board with this book. The available synopsis is limited, but full of promise: a serial killer, a stolen child, death, revenge, a (suspiciously) ordinary house, and a dark forest hiding dark secrets. Add to that the tantalizing suggestion that whatever we’re expecting is not to be trusted and honestly sign me right the heck up.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten (3/21)

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has put together a crew of friends to follow her to the site of a tragedy that has haunted her since she was a little girl: the vanishing of the residents of the old mining town known now as “The Lost Village”. Her grandmother’s entire family disappeared along with the rest of the village, leaving only two behind – a woman who had been stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned baby. Now Alice is determined to find out why. But no sooner do she and her team set up camp in town, things start to go very, very wrong.

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro (3/30)

Nothing could possibly go wrong at a séance. Definitely not. So when friends Lourdes, Fernanda, Ana, Perla, and Pauline get together one hot summer night to drink and summon some fun, it starts out all fun and games. Until it’s not. “Not” being Fernanda Exorcist crawling towards her friends, chanting in the language of their Aztec ancestors. Over the next few weeks Fernanda’s behavior just gets more unusual. The local priest, Father Moreno, is crying demonic possession but Lourdes has a suspicion that it’s something more powerful and much much older than that. She enlists the help of her “bruja Craft crew” and a professor to try and understand what is happening to Fernanda. Hopefully before Moreno’s obsession with her can lead to disaster

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (8/24)

Okay so, not technically a new release. But a very exciting reissue from Tor’s upcoming horror imprint Nightfire! Certain Dark Things has been out of print for a bit now and it’s beyond delightful to see it back in publication and available to new readers and old fans. In Mexico City, street kid Domingo is just trying to survive when he meets vampire-on-the-run Atl. Atl is the descendent of Aztec blood drinkers, on the run from a rival vampire clan. Their meeting happens by chance, but as time goes on the two find themselves working together to escape the dark streets with their lives (life and un-life?) intact. Certain Dark Things is praised for, among other aspects, its rich worldbuilding and fascinatingly varied vampire culture.

Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth

Burial Day has tweeted to announce that their Latinx Screams anthology is on it’s way! And speaking of Burial Day, their most recent anthology We Are Wolves is a number one new release in horror anthologies on Amazon! Have you ordered your copy yet?

Neon Hemlock Press has announced their 2021 Novella Series and it looks AMAZING. Go check it out!

Kiersten White has been a must-buy author of mine for years now, and I couldn’t be more excited to find out that she’s sold her adult debut novel! Can you say “hide-and-seek competition in an abandoned amusement park”? Because I can, and it sounds like “sleeping with the lights on for like a week”.

Off Limits Press is putting together an anthology of adventure horror, Far From Home, that I will probably commit murder to get my hands on… I mean only if necessary, but still.

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

A Very Haunted Holiday: Gifts for Your Constant Reader

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date December 4, 2020

Mugs

Always good. Particularly if you wrap them up with a healthy supply of your giftee’s favorite hot beverage. I mean, can you ever have too many mugs?

Final Girl Mug

The quintessential gift for the caffeine or cocoa consuming final girl in your life. Even better if that final girl is you. It’s 2020, we’re all final girls, treat yourself.

Harvest Campfire Mug

The Harvest may be over for the year, but the Harvest never really ends. A mug for the folk horror reader in your life! Mug nerd confession: I don’t know why, but the campfire style mugs are straight up my favorite mugs in the whole world.

Horror Love Mug

Ooooooooooooooh no. I may have to buy this one. It’s so pretty. And that King quote is so good. I mean take a look at my apartment sometime – I love skulls. They’re everywhere. But that is an exceptionally pretty skull and I love the way the quote is displayed.

Horror Novel Mug

It’s always good to warn people before they get between you and your morning coffee and reading time. And if they insist on ignoring your mug and intruding, well… you DID warn them.

Bookmarks

There is no bookworm I’ve ever met – me included – who has enough bookmarks. I mean one minute you have a whole stack, the next they’re gone! It’s like that goblin that steals your left socks also has a thing for bookmarks. Clearly the only explanation.

A Stranger Dream Bookmarks

I have to send you off Etsy for this first one, because no one is as well known for gorgeous – and gore-geous – horror book marks as Karlee Patton of A Stranger Dream. The whole selection is worth browsing. Just feast your eyes on this gorgeous Lestat book mark! I can’t live.

Nature’s Garden Bookmark

This is peak horror aesthetic. The line work, the colors, UGH so pretty.

Zombie Hand Wooden Bookmark

Wooden bookmarks make fabulous gifts. They’re sturdier than paper bookmarks, their medium allows for all sorts of neat carving tricks, and they’re just so darn aesthetically appealing. If you love someone, why WOULDN’T you give them a zombie hand to celebrate this nouveau apocalypse of ours?

Wooden Bat Bookmark

Bat! Flippy flappy widdle batsy — ahem. Look, everyone knows that not only are bats perfect horror mascots, they’re also the cutest creatures known to man. All of them. Even the smushed face ones with the funny noses. All bats are babies.

Candles

I have an aunt who is obsessed with Yankee Candle, so I am set for life. I have so many jar candles I use them for bookends. But your holiday giftee may not be drowning in an abundance of balsam and cedar wax, and a bookish soy candle is always fun.

Get Fictional Candles

All of Get Fictional’s candles are amazing, but Frankenstein is my favorite. It smells of cedarwood, pine embers, balsam fir, warm spices, and frankincense (frankincense in a Frankenstein candle – I love it so much), and is just one of the wonderful horror themed candles you can purchase on their site. So be sure to check out the whole collection!

Cabin in the Woods Candle

The cabin in the woods is one of my favorite horror tropes in film or on the page. And there’s nothing like the smell of fir needles, smoked woods, crisp forest greens, and warm spices to make you forget that you came to a creepy cabin in the middle of nowhere of your own free will and are most definitely going to die.

Krampus Candle

Celebrate the spirits of the season! All of them. Smells like holly berry, fresh cut apples, and Christmas lilies with a hint of getting beat with a birch switch by a guy with goat horns. Some people might considered that a fun way to spend the holidays. Old Soul Artisan has a number of horror-themed candles, so be sure to check out their whole inventory!

Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth

Still need gift ideas? Check out Tor Nightfire’s Horror for the Holidays shopping list!

Or just pre-order them a copy of this awesome illustrated anniversary edition of Masque of the Red Death that Raw Dog Screaming Press will be releasing in January.

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

Try the Grey Matter, It’s Delicious

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date November 27, 2020

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Alternative pandemics in which things could actually have been worse, take one. As the plague which caused the zombie apocalypse finally wanes, America is busy rebuilding and reclaiming lands overrun by the dead. What is left of the nation’s government is operating out of Buffalo, but they have their eyes set on a bigger prize: Manhattan. The tip of the island, south of Canal St, has been liberated, but even in Zone One there is still clean up work to be done. That’s where Mark Spitz comes in. He’s part of one of the civilian teams charged with eliminating the most docile of the remaining undead. But while the job itself is supposed to be easy enough, Spitz isn’t just slaying monsters in the street. He’s also battling them in his head, assailed by memories of his battle to survive the outbreak and struggling to reconcile himself with the devastated world he now inhabits. And when things start to go belly up in Zone One, he once again finds himself chest deep in the blood and ruin of the end of the world.

Feed by Mira Grant

Feed is the first novel in Mira Grant’s zombie-tastic Newsflesh Trilogy. Once again, the rider on the pale horse is making the rounds. In trying to cure humanity’s every ill, from cancer to the common cold, a terrible virus was created that spread unchecked. It took over bodies and minds and turned ordinary people into ravenous monsters obeying a primal, fundamental command to feed. 20 years after the virus devastated the population, Georgia and Shaun Mason are chasing the truth in a post-apocalyptic world. Who was responsible for the event now known as the Rising? How did it happen that something meant for good caused so much destruction and death? But when they discover the dark truth behind it all, Georgia and Shaun find themselves faced with an even more fraught situation: the truth will out, but getting it out there might just kill them.

The Living Dead by George Romero and Daniel Kraus

When it comes to zombies who else do we turn to but the father of modern zombie tale? There is no denying that George Romero forever changed the zombie narrative, and without him some of our favorite undead adventures on film or page would not be possible. His passing in 2017 was marked with great sadness by the whole horror community. So when Daniel Kraus, a talented horror author in his own right, was tasked with completing George Romero’s last work – the unfinished The Living Dead – the buzz was, understandably, massive. And most reviewers will agree, Kraus out did himself and in doing so did justice to Romero’s legacy. The Living Dead begins, as zombie stories do, with a body that won’t stay dead. And since zombies are a bit like the rodents of the undead, their numbers quickly spread. Romero and Kraus’s novel follows several simultaneous stories through the incipient apocalypse – an African American teenager and a Muslim immigrant battling the undead in a Midwest trailer park, a death cult taking shape on a US aircraft carrier, a lone news anchor broadcasting to a world that might no longer be listening, and an autistic federal employee compiling data against an unlikely future. Who will survive until the end, and what the end will be, only time will tell.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

In a crumbling, dystopian Toronto, young mother Ti-Jeanne helps her grandmother heal the people who live inside the barricaded city. The rich and privileged abandoned the inner city, blocking off the roads and retreating to the surrounding country side. Inside the walls there is no electricity, no modernity – the inhabitants have rediscovered older ways of living, growing food, bartering for goods, and healing through herb lore like that practiced by Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother. But when the rich outside the city start preying on those inside, harvesting their bodes for organs, Ti-Jeanne must embrace an ancient power to face down threats from both without and within the city walls. Even knowing how high the cost might be.

Bonus link: CBC Radio’s IDEAS Radio for the Mind ran an episode called “The Coming Zombie Apocalypse”, which featured Hopkinson as a guest. You can listen to the hour long program on the CBC website and I highly recommend that you do! It is both fascinating and horrifying.

Fresh From the Skeleton’s Mouth

If like me you’re seeking catharsis in the form of worst case scenario narratives, make sure to check out this new list of Post-Apocalyptic book recommendations over at Book Riot.

On Episode 55 of Dead Headspace, Gemma Amor, Laurel Hightower, and Cina Pelayo guest star to talk about their forthcoming anthology We Are Wolves, which you have heard me tale about before and which I am SO excited about.

The Midnight Society has announced that it is crowdfunding Volume II of The Midnight Pals! If you missed out on Volume I, or are just excited to get your hands on more campfire hijinks from your favorite hypothetical gathering of horror authors, make sure to get your contributions in. The deadline is in mid-December!

As always, you can catch me on twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.

The Fright Stuff

Bad Food, No Biting

Post author By Jessica Avery
Post date November 20, 2020

Sponsored by Nightfire, a Tom Doherty Associates imprint publishing the full spectrum of horror in 2021.

At Nightfire, Halloween is all year long. COME JOIN US BY THE FIRE SEASON 2 showcases a wide collection of horror stories from emerging voices in the genre as well as longtime fan favorites. Horror has always taken many shapes, and this season focuses on the endless and complex ways it manifests itself in stories—whether through inexplicable holes in reality, creatures that go bump (and worse) in the night, or the sinister ways our own minds can twist against us.

Hey there hungry haunters, 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.

Obviously, Thanksgiving is not going to look the same this year as it has in the past. Many of us will be making our own dinners, and sharing them with our friends or families over video screens instead of eating around the same table. Thanksgiving, usually a day for joy, may be a source of sadness or loneliness for some this year. If nothing else the need for isolation – and the need for making one’s own green bean casserole instead of eating someone else’s – will mean that this Thanksgiving will be a weird one. So let’s do what we do best in horror when something is upsetting: Let’s make it WEIRDER!

Thankfully, there is plenty of fantastic horror about eating with which we can celebrate this most tasty of feasting days! Get ready for some truly stomach challenging titles of food horror meant to make you regret every bite of that turkey.

Please note that I did, through a considerable exercise of will, manage not to include Hannibal on this list. It was a struggle, I admit. But I contained myself. And besides, more than one cannibalism book seemed excessive – particularly when that one book is as horrifying as Tender is the Flesh. And particularly when I could just do a whole newsletter on cannibalism another day.

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

You might remember me talking about Tender is the Flesh when it first came out back in August. It’s premise is a harrowing: in a world in which all animal meat has become poisonous to ingest, humans having become the new livestock of choice. It is a chilling look at how far humanity might go, if only they are given permission. Marcos makes a living processing this “special meat”, all the while trying to focus on numbers, consignments, and processing not on how it really is that he makes his living. Until the day he’s given a “gift”. But the longer he spends with this “live specimen of the finest quality”, the less he is able to see her as just another number and begins to see and treat her like a human being. And with that comes the need to acknowledge the truth of what humanity has become.

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

I had to get one corn book on this list, obviously. Corn is ALWAYS evil and not to be trusted. And the corn that grows in Phalene, in particular, is not to be trusted. There is a reason that Margot’s mother left the town, and told her daughter nothing about where they’d come from no matter how often she asked. They had no family. No history. Until Margot found a photograph pointing her towards Phalene. But what she finds there is not at all what she expected. Her family’s roots, it seems, run deep and rotten beneath the town, and it soon becomes clear that her mother had good reasons for running.

Zombie Bake-Off by Stephen Graham Jones

Forget mutated viruses, radioactive fallout, or pestilences escaped from labs – apparently the real threat of a zombie apocalypse lies in a batch of infected donuts. The annual Recipe Days bake-off in Lubbock, Texas, was already a tense event when the usual crowd of soccer moms and grandmothers with baked goods in hand found themselves going toe to toe with a bunch of party crashing pro wrestlers. But when the suspect donuts transform most of the wrestlers into brain hungry zombies, things really get complicated. The doors to the conventions center are locked, the survivors trapped inside, and it’s mom’s against monsters to see who will survive the day.

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good edited by Octavia Cade

This anthology collects 22 stories from authors who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity, all centered around the theme of dark appetites. It explores the connection between food and violence in horror, the frequency of consumption as a theme in the genre, and the sometimes very thin line between eating and being eaten. The intersection is one that Cade is well versed in, being the author of Food and Horror: Essays on Ravenous Souls, Toothsome Monsters, and Vicious Cravings, which – if you’re interested in academic texts about the horror genre – is a fascinating read. From the dangerous culinary temptations of Hansel and Gretel to more modern tales of tasty terrors, Food and Horror lays the groundwork that the authors of the Sharp & Sugar Tooth anthology build their own narratives upon. Authors like Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, Betsy Aoki, Chikodili Emelumadu, and more.

Fresh from the Skeleton’s Mouth

Once you’ve made your way through this four course meal of food horror, may I recommend pairing this Ladies of Horror Fiction list of stomach churning books with your dessert? Guaranteed to make you wish you’d said no to that second piece of pecan pie.

Over at Book Riot, we’ve got CLOWNS people! *shudder* And horror in translation, if you were looking to take your scares international.

The Horror Writers Association wants to know if you’ve checked out their Haunted Library of Horror Classics lately. And if you haven’t, you definitely should! I’ve got my heart set on that edition of Phantom of the Opera. Sigh. Maybe for Christmas.

Horror author Kristi DeMeester has launched a line of horror inspired candles and I need one of each, please, thank you.

As always, you can catch me on Twitter at @JtheBookworm, where I try to keep up on all that’s new and frightening.