Category: The Fright Stuff

I have such a love/hate relationship when it comes to killer clowns. On the one hand, they’re a classic! On the other: big yikes. When Noelle Layne uses her horror movie expertise to throw the biggest, most exclusive Halloween bash for her senior class, she expects the night to go down in history as one of the best parties of her high school career. Not one of the most deadly. That is, until the knock-off creepy clown that she hired puts an axe in one of her guests, and a serious wrinkle in her party plans. As the night descends into terror, Noelle will have to rely on everything she’s learned from a lifetime of watching horror movies if she want’s to be the Final Girl in her own personal slasher film.

Nothing says small town secrets like being the new girl who gets sacrificed to the ancient monster that lives in the woods. Ah. Summer memories. Though maybe not the kind that Latavia thought she was going to be making when she was forced to spend the summer in Sanctum, Alabama with her aunt. This creepy little town is full of mysteries and suspicious locals who treat Latavia with a weird hostility reserved for outsiders, and the rules that Latavia’s aunt gave her the minute she arrived in Sanctum are even weirder. But when Latavia is suddenly dragged out of her bed and into the Red Wood one night, to be sacrificed to the beast that resides there, it quickly becomes clear why her aunt was so afraid. Faced with a choice — be eaten or risk becoming a monster herself — Latavia will do what it takes to survive, no matter how terrible the cost.

Another accidental theme for this week is “well, that forest is spectacularly fucked up,” apparently, because there’s something really old and really hungry living in the forest outside Regent Academy. It’s a creature with a 400 year old blood debt that it intends to call due, and if the citizens of Winslow, Vermont don’t pay up, they’ll suffer the consequences. All of which Douglas stumbles upon by accident, while investigating the death of a fellow student at Regent Academy. No one even seems to remember that the murdered student existed or was ever one of their peers except for Douglas and one other boy. Determined to understand what’s happening inside Regent, Douglas begins to dig into Winslow’s dark history and uncovers centuries of dangerous secrets.

By now you all know how much I love anthologies, so obviously I’m beyond excited for the publication of All These Sunken Souls this october. Several of the contributors’ names will look familiar from past Fright Stuff newsletters and even from this two-part list that we’re concluding today, including Kalynn Bayron, Donyae Coles, Dyan Douglass, and Liselle Sambury among other talented authors. The stories in All These Sunken Souls explore a range of horrific tropes and subjects, from haunted houses to monsters to zombies and more, promising nightmares a plenty for its readers.

Does it get better than a queer retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? I honestly don’t think it does. I am so excited for My Dear Henry to finally hit shelves. Everything Kalynn Bayron writes is a win, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m sure this is going to be no exception. Gabriel Utterson knows that something is wrong with his friend Henry Jekyll. Having finally returned to London after scandal imploded his and Henry’s lives two years ago, Gabriel is desperate to find out what has become of his friend and why Henry stopped writing to him. What he finds instead, is Hyde, the strange and charismatic young man who claims to be Henry’s new friend.

Also worth noting, My Dear Henry is actually part of a series of classic story retellings, the Remixed Classics series, which frequently features authors of color and queer retellings.

Raise your hand if you’re also super excited for a new Victor LaValle book! And a historical horror novel to boot! Set in the American West of the early 20th century, LaValle’s newest novel, Lone Women, is about a woman fleeing her past by taking up the government’s offer of free land in Montana to any homesteader to can settle and keep it. And Adelaide isn’t the only one. There are other “lone women” taking their chances on the Montana frontier, but not all of them have Adelaide’s secrets, like the massive steamer trunk that travels with her but which always remains locked. It was Adelaide’s secret that destroyed her family and drove her out of her hometown, but out in the wilds of Montana, it may well be her secret that will help her survive the hardships to come.

Where are my space horror fans? Because wow do I have a must-read book for you. Nightfire has blessed us once again with nightmares from the depths of space! Ness Brown’s novella, The Scourge Between Stars, is a bit of a flip on the sci-fi narrative of colonists going forth to seek the stars (and often finding horrors instead) in that it’s actually about what happens after the long dreamed-of colony has failed. Jacklyn Albright is the acting captain of the Calypso, a starship containing all that remains of humanity. The Calypso is making its way back to Earth after the catastrophic failure of the colony that was supposed to set humanity’s future among the stars. And if the lack of food and the dangers of the crushing void of space around them weren’t bad enough, Jacklyn has reason to suspect that there is something alive onboard her ship that shouldn’t be there — an intruder that might kill them all before they ever make it home.

After how much I loved Tirado’s Burn Down, Rise Up last year, any new books of theirs are always going straight onto my to-buy list, and that definitely includes We Don’t Swim Here. In Hillwoods, nobody goes in the water. Not in pools, not in lakes. No swimming period. Which is unfortunate, because Bronwyn is stuck in the tiny rural town for a year while her father gets her grandmother’s affairs in order, and there’s not much else to do. Everyone is so weird and secretive, all they’ll tell her is “don’t go in the water” but no one will tell her why. Anais, meanwhile, just wants Bronwyn to stop asking why when it comes to Hillwoods. It’s the only way to guarantee that the new girl will be safe from the town’s notice. Anais grew up in Hillwoods, and she has her own means of protecting herself from the town’s secrets. But Anais won’t be able to protect Bronwyn if she can’t keep her from trying to discover the truth about Hillwood’s painful history.

I just couldn’t, in good conscience, make a list about romance in horror without including the absolute gem of a vagina monster book that is Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper. I actually wasn’t aware that there was a bit of a love story at the heart of Queen of Teeth, so I was delightfully surprised the first time I read it. I’d even go so far to argue — subjectively — that it has a happy ending! (It all depends on how you look at it.) Queen of Teeth is about Yaya Betancourt, who discovers that she has spouted teeth in her vagina. Yaya assumes it’s a side effect of a pharmaceutically induced genetic condition that she and thousands of others developed in the womb with a little help from AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical. Whoops. But when she realizes that ABP is determined to hunt her down because of her mutation, Yaya has to consider the possibility that there may be another, darker motive behind the company’s pursuit.

The love story in Echo is one of my favorites, to be honest, even though it breaks my heart. If you’re looking for an “all’s well that ends well” bit of romance in your horror this Valentine’s Day, maybe save this one for later. But even when it hurts, this book is so good. I desperately need more queer horror love stories like this in my life. Echo is about Nick Grever surviving a terrible mountaineering accident that left him horribly scarred, killed his climbing buddy, Augustin, and left him figuratively and literally haunted by the mysterious mountain, Maudit. But Echo is also about Nick’s boyfriend Sam. It’s about their relationship, their past, and their horrifying present as Sam tries desperately to save Nick from the mountain intent on possessing him.

What’s a list of romance plots in horror without at least one ill-fated Gothic love story? And they don’t get much more ill-fated than thinking that you’re going to live happily ever after with a blood-drinking countess. But in Marion’s defense, even I was in love with Lisavet by the time things got… messy. Looking for a way out of the city and out of the poverty she was born into, Marion Shaw answers a newspaper listing to be a bloodmaid in the House of Hunger. The House of Hunger is perhaps the most infamous of the noble houses in the North, presided over by the seductive and beautiful Countess Lisavet, and if Marion does her job well, she’ll be set for life. Bloodmaids who have aged out retire in luxury, everyone knows that. So, when the beautiful but fearsome Lisavet fixes her eye on Marion, it certainly seems that Marion’s fortunes are on the rise. But a string of disappearing bloodmaids throws her new life into chaos and if Marion can’t discover the truth, she may soon find herself numbered among the missing.

Proms are supposed to be fun, right? Fancy dresses, one last hurrah before graduation, all that high school jazz. But wow, the horror genre just does NOT agree! We have a whole tradition of stories best referred to as “proms you definitely don’t want to attend.” And Tiffany D. Jackson’s retelling of Carrie is a brilliant new addition to that long, violent, frequently bloody history. So hold on to your plastic tiaras, folks! Madison has been passing for white her whole life, on the insistence of her abusive father. But when she is revealed to be biracial, the bullying that normally plagues Maddy’s high school existence goes from bad to worse. The ensuing public fallout of a bullying video gone viral has the student body scrambling to repair their school’s reputation, but their plan for an integrated prom won’t be the solution they expect it to be. Not when Maddy’s classmates have decided that she still has to pay for her lies. Not when Maddy still has one secret left to to hide.

Ophie’s Ghosts is a middle grade historical horror book about grief, and how our lives — and maybe even our afterlives — can be haunted by the things we’ve done or the things that were done to us. Ophie and her mother lost every thing in a single night in November 1922. The night Ophie’s father died, and Ophie learned that she had the ability to see ghosts moving through the world around her. After that night, Ophie’s mother moved them to Pittsburgh and got Ophie a job working with her in a creepy old manor house. Like many old houses, Daffodil Manor is (un)alive with the ghosts of its long and not always happy history. As Ophie gets to know the ghosts, and even befriends one, she begins to realize that her gift might actually let her help the ghosts of Daffodil Manor. But houses that old don’t just have ghosts, they also have secrets, and those secrets may run deeper than Ophie knows.

Megan Giddings is the author of hard hitting social horror books, and her newest is only further testament to her skill. An innovative variation on witchcraft and magic, The Women Could Fly is about a future in which witches are real, and the State will do anything it can to stop them. Any woman is susceptible to becoming a witch, which means that every woman has to be meticulously controlled. Women are “encouraged” to marry by age 30 and put themselves in the care of a husband who can “help” them stay good. At 28, as a Black women and the daughter of a suspected witch, Jo is already feeling the pressure to conform to the State’s demands when a new version of her missing mother’s will suddenly comes to light. What it asks of Jo is strange, and will likely subject her to even closer scrutiny from the State, but Jo will have to risk being declared a witch if she wants to find out what really happened to her mother.

If you prefer your horror with a side of humor, you should definitely be reading Lily Anderson. She married the two perfectly in Undead Girl Gang, and came back for another round with her 2022 book. Scout’s Honor is about an organization called the Ladybird Scouts, who disguise themselves as a proper ladies’ society when in fact they’re trained monster hunters sworn to protect humanity. Prue is a legacy Scout, descended form a long family history of hunters. Their prey? Mulligrubs — weird inter-dimensional parasitic monsters who feast on human emotion. Prue walked away from the Scouts when her best friend was killed in a hunt, and she has no intention of returning, but monster slayer is in her blood, and when a heist-esque plan to infiltrate the Ladybirds goes seriously sideways, she finds herself left with only one choice: in order to save her town and everyone she loves, she’ll finally have to confront that past she’s been running from for three long years.

I mean, how could I even try to talk about 2016 and leave out what is, to this day, one of my favorite horror books. My Best Friends Exorcism was the first of Hendrix’s books that I read, and he has definitely become an instant-buy author for me in the years since. This book is gross, hilarious, nostalgic, and just fantastic. Abby and Gretchen are best friends, and have been since they were little kids. Until, that is, a strange acid-induced incident the summer before their junior year throws their friendship into jeopardy. No one really knows what happened to Gretchen that night in the woods, not even Abby. But when Gretchen’s behavior beings to change, becoming increasingly frightening and violent, Abby is forced to accept the one possible explanation that presents itself: Gretchen is possessed.

Book one of Zoraida Córdovas’ Brooklyn Brujas series also came out in 2016! A bit horror, a bit fantasy, Labyrinth Lost is about a young bruja named Alex who hates magic, even though her immense abilities mean that she’s the most powerful witch of her generation. Determined to rid herself of her magic, Alex performs one final spell to banish her power forever. Something goes horribly wrong, and before Alex can end the spell, her whole family vanishes. The only person left standing when the dust settles is a brujo called Nova, who’s the last person she would trust to help her. But if Alex wants to fix her mistake and rescue her family from Los Lagos — the strange land to which she accidentally banished them — she has no choice but to follow Nova out of her world and into the dark in-between.

I’m so glad to get to include a graphic novel pick this month! This last year has really given me a new appreciation for graphic novels. An alternative history story that merges horror and steampunk fantasy in a matriarchal 1900’s Asia, Monstress is one of those graphic novels that is as beautiful as it is captivatingly written. Sana Takeda’s art is breathtaking and I can’t wait to see more of it. Monstress is about a girl struggling through the midst of a war. The key to her survival may rest in the mysterious psychic connection she shares with a powerful monster. But only if together they can evade the forces that would use that connection against them.

We all know that when ghosts start possessing people or objects, things in a haunted house can get pretty weird pretty quickly. But I don’t think it gets weirder, or creepier, than puppets. Ventriloquist dummies, marionettes, or just your generally creepy hand puppet in the case of Grady Hendrix’s new novel, How to Sell a Haunted House. Here I was thinking I was getting a story about a haunted house, estranged siblings, and deep, dark family secrets. And I did! But I also got Pupkin, the nightmare-inducing, scariest killer puppet in the known world. Louise and Mark Joyner have barely spoken in years. But when their parents die in a tragic accident, the siblings are forced to work together to clear out and sell their childhood home. Mark and Louise both have very different memories of a childhood marred by violence and family secrets, and the longer they spend in the house, the more they begin to realize how strange and dark the truth may be.

When it comes to unique and strange twists on the haunted house trope, be still my black little heart because Mexican Gothic still takes the cake. Because High Place, a crumbling, old mansion that now sits almost forgotten amid high mountains and jagged ravines, isn’t haunted by ghosts. Not in the traditional sense. Noemí’s cousin Catalina marries, falling out of touch with her family until a frantic, barely coherent letter arrives at Noemí’s home, begging for help. Catalina claims that her new husband, Virgil, is trying to poison her and that High Place itself, full of death and rot, is trying to do her harm. Noemí makes the journey into the mountains to discover the truth, but what she finds behind the aging veneer of High Place is much darker than she could have imagined.

So in the strictest terms, the house in Tell Me I’m Worthless is a more familiar take on the haunted house. It has ghosts. It has bad memories lurking within its walls. But the reason I wanted to include it on this list was because the house may be haunted, but the real specter that stalks its halls isn’t some lingering spirit of the once living. It’s hate. Part of what makes the house in Tell Me I’m Worthless so frightening is that there’s no mistreated ghost to sympathize with, no rhyme or reason to the haunting that makes it understandable. It’s just unbridled hatred. When Alice and her two friends entered that house — on the night that only two of them came out again — it was the house’s hate, and what it made them do, that drove the two survivors apart. Ever since, Alice’s whole life has been haunted. She does everything she can to keep the memories and the ghosts at bay, until her ex-friend Ila turns up and asks Alice to go back into the House with her. It’s the only way they’ll ever really know what happened on the night that sent their lives careening in such tragically different directions. It’s the only chance they have to try and save the friend they lost.

So I know that In the Dream House is a memoir, not a novel. Nor is it exclusively horror, though it certainly leans in that direction. But it is, without doubt, a haunted house story, and one of the most interesting takes on a haunting that I’ve ever read. Using the titular “Dream House” as a structure, Machado navigates the memories contained within its walls through a number of narrative elements and classic fiction tropes. Many of which will be familiar to horror readers! It’s probably one of the most unusual and captivating reading experiences I’ve ever had, watching Machado explore the Dream House’s uniquely haunted corridors, and the way in which, when our memories become ghosts, our own bodies can become haunted houses. Like much of Machado’s work, it’s difficult to fully define what makes In the Dream House so compelling — you really just have to experience this particular “haunting” for yourself.

I love Rachel Harrison’s books. So when I found out that her next novel, Such Sharp Teeth, was going to be a werewolf story I knew I had to add it to my reading list. When an animal strike during a late night drive turns into a vicious attack, Rory Morris counts herself lucky to have gotten away with her life. But soon after the attack, Rory starts to notice strange changes in how she looks and acts: unnatural strength, an aversion to silver, and a fixation on the moon. Rory reluctantly returned to her hometown to help her struggling sister, but now she’s turning into a monster and even those she loves most may not be safe around her.

Dimaline’s Indigenous horror novel isn’t technically a werewolf story, it’s a Rogarou story (like the ones that Dimaline learned from her family). And a Rogarou isn’t exactly the wolfman-type monster we often associate with the concept of werewolf. It’s a trickster figure in Métis stories, actually, but it does bear some resemblance to the figure of the werewolf. Empire of Wild is about a woman, Joan, who is searching for her lost husband when she suddenly stumbles upon a man in a revival tent who looks and sounds just like Victor… but doesn’t have any of his memories. The man claims to be a charismatic preacher called Eugene Wolff, who has been ministering to the local Métis population, and he’s never heard of Victor. If Joan wants her husband back, she will have to find a way to remind him who he really is, before the sinister mission behind Wolff’s ministry comes to light.

Blackwater is so queer, and so delightful, and I love it to pieces. True, it’s not going to be the scariest werewolf story you’ll ever read. But it definitely has its moments, and the art styles and color choices really set the mood for this creepy, atmospheric graphic novel. The story takes place in the haunted town of Blackwater, Maine where strange, supernatural happenings are an every day occurrence, if you know where to look. Two teenagers, Tony Price and Eli Hirsch, who couldn’t be more different, become unlikely friends (and a whole lot more) as they set out to solve the mystery surrounding Blackwater. But when Tony is bitten by a monster, he finds himself busting out in teeth and fur, and it suddenly becomes clear just what kind of creature has been stalking the woods around their small town.

Yes, please, I very much would like to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a gorgeous, Gothic novel about a crumbling manor full of decaying splendor and terrible secrets. When Indigo married her husband, she made him promise her one thing: he would never ask about her past. With her fortune, and their love, they would live happily ever after, and nothing about who Indigo was or where she came from mattered in the face of their beautiful future. Until word of a dying family member forces the newlyweds to return to Indigo’s childhood home. In the House of Dreams, the past that Indigo tried to leave behind surrounds the newlyweds, and how can her bridegroom not ask questions when so many of the house’s secrets seem to be Indigo’s as well.

Speaking of books that I’ve been long anticipating and can’t wait to get my hands on! I’ve loved Cassandra Khaw’s work ever since I first got my hands on their novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth, and I’m so excited for their newest novella, The Salt Grows Heavy. A dark and fantastical tale about a mermaid and a strange doctor who set out together through the heart of the taiga, a wild subarctic forest*. Deep in the forest — as in all the best and most terrifying stories — our travelers come upon three surgeons charged with the keeping of a village full of eerie, ageless children and find themselves in terrible danger.

(*Yes I looked up what the taiga is, and yes I have a new biome to be obsessed with. Please give me all your boreal forest horror stories.)

Give me all the queer retellings of classic Gothic novels, always. In The Alchemy of Moonlight, a retelling of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Emile escapes his aunt’s guardianship when she threatens to disown him for being gay unless he promises to marry and secure his inheritance. But while hiding out as a servant in the home of Count Montoni, Emile realizes he may be in as much danger among strangers as he was among family. A murder on the estate only furthers Emile’s suspicions, while also bringing two new men into his life — one of whom is Montoni’s nephew, Henri. When Emile’s identity is suddenly revealed, however, things take an even darker turn. Montoni forces the entire household out of the mansion and into the isolated and forbidding walls of Udolpho Castle. If Emile wants to survive with both life and love intact, he’ll have to find a way to escape and foil the sinister Count’s plans, because the longer he remains trapped in Udolpho, the greater the danger grows.

After Hide completely blew my mind last year, there’s no way I won’t be preordering White’s 2023 novel, Mister Magic. There’s nothing better than a creepy “cult classic” children’s program that, while it lives on in the memories of its generations of devoted fans, mysteriously vanished without a trace after being shut down by a tragic accident. No recordings of Mister Magic, nor any clue as to who created it or why, survive. The remaining members of its cast remember, though, and they hold tight to the happiness they felt when all five were part of Mister Magic’s Circle of Friends. When they belonged. Thirty years after the accident, the five are reunited at a remote compound in the desert and it’s like they were never apart. Unfortunately, their reunion may be more than it first appeared. They all came to the compound by choice, but there’s a lot about that tragic day they don’t remember, and secrets about Mister Magic that they may have chosen to forget.

This book, ya’ll. brain exploding noises I was so sure I had it all figured out and White just threw my theories into a puddle and stomped on them. Look, there’s no terrestrial setting creepier than an abandoned amusement park, as far as I’m concerned. So empty, so silent. So many clowns. *Sob*. But White takes that to a whole new level in Hide with a deeply suspicious high stakes game of hide and seek, featuring a cast of players as desperate as their playing field is desolate. This book never stops, not even for a moment. You hit the ground running when Mack is dropped off in the middle of nowhere by a bus, and it’s just a headlong rush towards a nail-biting finale. Mack survived a multi-murder as a child by hiding. Now hiding and surviving on her own are what Mack does best, so this game she’s signed on for should be a piece of cake. And the prize money will finally lift her out of poverty and let her start a new life. All she has to do is make it to the end, which gets harder to do when the bodies start dropping.

So first I have to confess: I have many literary weaknesses in this life, and polar horror is definitely on that list. Add to that the fact that All the White Spaces is queer, historical adventure/survival horror, and it was pretty much a guarantee that I was going to love this book. Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic-bound ship, escaping his family and the pretty box of a life they would trap him in if he let them. The captain of the ship is his hero, a giant among men who cut his teeth on adventure, and who Jonathan would follow anywhere. Even into disaster. When a fire strikes the ship, the crew has no choice but to flee across the ice to the Antarctic mainland in search of a secure place to overwinter. Only to find an abandoned expedition camp full of nightmares. Something in the long darkness of the Polar nights is stalking the crew, turning their own minds against them, and unless they can find a way off the frozen continent, Jonathan’s first real adventure may be his last.

Oh gosh, what do I even say. I mean, Bathory meets Dracula but its somehow even more Gothic and gay and beautiful than you would expect. House of Hunger is one of those Gothic books where the tension of “some bad thing is coming” is constantly building in the background, and when it finally goes wrong it goes wrong suddenly and in spectacular fashion. Just glorious, Gothic chaos everywhere you look. Depending on who you ask, being a bloodmaid is either a disreputable path to a shameful end, or a golden ticket to a new life of luxury and wealth. Marion decides to take her chances and hope for the latter, because the only thing waiting for her in her old life is abject poverty and murder. When she’s placed in the service of the House of Hunger, one of the richest and most notorious old houses of the North, Marion soon finds herself falling for the enchanting Countess Lisavet. And when Lisavet seems to return her affection, it seems like Marion can finally leave the shadows of her past behind her. Except the House of Hunger has shadows of its own, far darker than anything Marion has encountered before.

My last pick of 2022, and easily one of my favorite books of the whole year (she says, having said the same thing about probably a dozen books at this point, but I mean it every time!). This is another book that’s perfect for those of us currently in the dark, frigid throes of winter (or those of us who wish they were). Leech is a queer medical Gothic horror novel set in a fictional Northern town locked in the depths of a terrible winter that keeps the residents trapped in their homes out of fear of the deadly cold. In the estate that overlooks the town, the house doctor has died violently by his own hand, and it’s up to the newly arrived Doctor, a member of the Institute just like the deceased, to discover the cause. In fact, all of the bodies of the Interprovincial Medical Institute are doctors, because for centuries the Institute has been systematically replacing all the unreliable human doctors with it’s superior bodies, whose mind(s) can overcome any challenge or puzzle the Institute might encounter. Until they can’t. Because the parasitic creature that our Doctor discovers lurking in the cold, might finally be a problem beyond the Institute’s ability to solve.

If, like me, you grew up rabidly consuming ’80s fantasy films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, you need to read The Shadow Glass. Jack used to love his father Bob Corman’s critical flop turned cult puppet fantasy film The Shadow Glass. That is, until his relationship with the film, and his father, soured. Estranged from his father for years, it’s only after Bob’s death that Jack, reluctantly, returns to his childhood home and the memories he buried there. When the creatures that populated his father’s film and Jack’s childhood adventures suddenly come to life, and insist that they need Jack’s help in saving their world, he finds himself catapulted into an impossible adventure to save both the fictional world of Iri and our world from certain destruction.

I have loved every single Alien book that I have thus far picked up with my greedy little hands, and Castro’s Aliens: Vasquez is definitely no exception. Jenette Vasquez was a secondary but unforgettable character in Aliens, and I can’t think of anyone who could have done her life story better justice than Castro. But Aliens: Vasquez isn’t just about Jenette and how she came to be on the ill-fated Hadley’s Hope mission. It’s also about her two children, now grown, who — though their lives have now gone in drastically different directions — also find themselves on a distant planet facing down the same chitinous nightmare creatures their mother did battle with so many years ago.

The hard part of this list wasn’t deciding “if” to include an Eric LaRocca book so much as “which one,” given that he’s had three amazing books published in 2022. But going back through my notes from this year, I realized I’ve yet to sing the praises of You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood on The Fright Stuff, and that’s not an opportunity I want to miss. This was the first of LaRocca’s books I ever read, and I’m so glad I started here. There’s a strange, Gothic-y, gloomy but gorgeous, dreamlike quality to this novella within a novella that instantly fascinated me, and I’ve been auto-buying ever since. To say anymore would be to give too much away! You’ll have to go see for yourself.

Gosh I love this book. I know the phrase “unputdownable” is overused, but I honestly was glued to my copy the whole time. Burn Down, Rise up is an unforgettable, action-packed rush of a horror book, where history and urban legend collide with deadly force. Fifteen year old Raquel’s life has just been upended by a violent attack that left her mother in a coma and infected by some unidentifiable mold-like substance that is slowly killing her. At the same time, Cisco — the cousin of Raquel’s crush Charlize — has disappeared and eye witnesses have identified him as the person who attacked and infected Raquel’s mother. Together, along with two other teens, Raquel and Charlize must venture into a world of ghosts and brutal histories, chasing an urban legend that may hold the key to saving their loved ones. But only if the girls can survive the Echo Game.