Number 72B- Hex- Thomas Olde Heuvelt

 

I’d heard a lot of good things about this book so I chose it for my book group for the annual Halloween Horror read. The time pressure on reading it means I had to put aside book 72 to read  this.  The review of book 72 will follow shortly.

Black Springs is not your average village. It’s haunted by the ghost of a 17th century witch. Her eyes and lips are sewn shut and her arms are chained to her sides. She can vanish and appear wherever she likes at will. The locals are so used to her that she’s just a part of the furniture. They have a complex system of cameras to track her movements around the town and clever schemes to hide her if she appears in front of outsiders.

There’s a downside. If you move to the village, you can never leave. Anyone who stays outside the town borders for too long starts to experience suicidal thoughts that will only go away if they return home. The local teens are bored of the situation and want to make their own fun.

That’s the basis for this exceptionally original treatment of the old Witch’s Curse trope. We mainly follow the Grant family, with diversions to other locals every now and again.

The normalisation of such a strange situation with the townspeople is brilliantly done, and the changes as the mask of normalcy start to slip are the stuff of nightmare.

It’s well written for the most part. There are some flashes of brilliance in there. For example, at one point, when one of the human antagonists has just punched his own mother in the face and knocked her to the ground, we get the line ““I told you not to touch me,” he said softly.” That use of the word softly after a barbaric act of violence tells us he’s in complete control of himself and made me genuinely worried for the other characters and what he might be capable of doing.

The final chapters, once the s**t has really hits the fan, form one of the best horror set pieces I’ve read in years. The book has one of the best finales in recent fiction. My first thought on putting the book down at two in the morning (there wasn’t a chance I could put it down in the middle of all that mayhem) was ‘Wow that was intense’.

It’s not a perfect book. I did think there were some issues with pacing. There was a lot of building to an event then life back to normal, build to the next one. In the days since I finished it I realise that this is just an extension of the whole normalisation theme of the book, but it grated slightly while reading it, Having said that, I also think it would have been nice to get to know some more villagers, and to know the villagers we did meet better, which would have impacted the pacing more, so I’m contradicting myself.

There were some events that didn’t quite gel with the American setting that might well have made more sense in the original Dutch version. Maybe I would have accepted them better with a Dutch setting...

Overall, I really enjoyed this book even with its flaws.  There's the occasional bon mot and the ending is one of the most horrific in a good way that I've read in recent years. I will be seeking out more of his work, When he wants to disturb the reader, this book shows he's more than capable.

Number 70- The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw

 

After reading Khaw's previous work, I felt somewhat frustrated.  I liked the writing but couldn't bring myself to love the book. Full thoughts on that book here. However, I decided to give them a second chance, especially with that cover...

A mermaid and her companion, a plague doctor, travel across a destroyed kingdom and encounter a group of children in the process of hunting and killing one of their own.

To say any more would be unfair.  This is a book that's best experienced completely cold without knowing any more than is on the blurb in the inside flap of the dustjacket.

I absolutely loved this book. The tricksiness of her prose style completely suits the weirdness of the subject matter and made this into the new best horror I've read this year by a long way.

I pretty much read this in one sitting.  It's compulsive, gruesome, deeply strange and you'll never watch/read/think about The Little mermaid in the same way ever again. It's beautiful and repulsive in equal measure. A strange hybrid of Mary Shelley, Hans Anderson and...

I can genuinely say I have never read anything quite like this and just cannot find the final comparison point to finish that last sentence. But it's something horrifically violent yet gorgeous to look at...

Some of the imagery is seared in my brain still, a week after finishing it. Her use of language is stunning throughout. Not one word is wasted in this novella and every phrase is calculated for maximum impact.

I'm almost tempted to give this a 10/10 since I can't pick a fault with it other than I wanted more... even though Khaw finishes it in a perfect place.

If you weren't convinced by Nothing but Blackened Teeth, give this a go.  This confirms Khaw as a major talent. I will 100% be buying everything else she releases now.

Number 44 - Mapping The Interior - Stephen Graham Jones

 

Continuing my theme of short fiction, this is a novella by Stephen Graham Jones. 

Just because it's short fiction doesn't mean it can't be deep and filled with meaning, metaphors and social commentary.  This manages all that whilst remaining an easily accessible read, and low key creepy as hell with a gut punch ending.

Junior is a Native American boy who leads a troubled life and is wildly protective of his young brother Dino who suffers from fits and has learning difficulties. One night aged 12, he thinks he sees the ghost of his father walking through the house . His quest for explanations leads to darker places than he could possibly have imagined.

I know a lot of people have issues with SGJ's style, but though it's still very evident here, I found this book is a lot more accessible than The Only Good Indians which took me a fair time to tune into. 

The back cover suggests that this is a House of Leaves type story where the house has hidden spaces not of this earth, but it's more that he finds out what's inside himself and what he's capable of doing.

It's not a perfect novella, the ambiguity as to whether he's actually seen something or if it's all in his mind goes on for a bit too long before he confirms one way or another. There are some sequences where it's not entirely clear what's just happened and I did reread a couple of pages for clarity.

It will certainly reward a second full reading at some point.  Junior was a sympathetic narrator with a creepy story to tell. There are enough layers to the story that I know I'll see new meanings next time I follow the maps into the interior of this character's head.

Number 71 - Holy Ghost Road - John Mantooth

 

This was a NetGalley read and another brand new author for me.

Some books take their time in establishing a setting and the characters and the plot will slowly develop as the location etc become clearer.

This doesn't. we're plunged into the action on page one and it never lets up.

When we meet our central character Forest, she's on the run. She needs to get to her Gran's house.  her Gran can help her, she always has done in the past. Surely her dreamwalking powers will save Forest now. What is she running from? She's not sure herself.  It's scary though. It has something to do with the strange preacher Nesmith who has an uncanny influence on everyone in the county, and indeed has shacked up with Forest's mother.

The only thing worse than Nesmith, is his sister Ruby Jewel, a blind old woman who still seems more alert and aware than any human should be. Or maybe the goat-headed thing that is following Nesmith as he searches for Forest to deliver her into a fate possibly worse than death.

Together with a friend she meets on her dangerous run, Forest must travel the Holy Ghost Road to her Granny's house and her only hope of salvation.

This is gorgeously written southern-gothic horror. The atmosphere of dread and mystery is sustained through every word of the book. 

There are familiar elements to the story but they feel fresh under Mantooth's restrained prose and perfectly nuanced storytelling. 

There are layers upon layers to the story and this will certainly reward a reread sometime. There are dark themes running through the book, loss and grief, the negative side of family, the power of belief vs logic.  These make for a compelling coming of age story as Forest travels her own spiritual journey as well as the grueling physical trek down the eponymous highway.  All the while she needs to avoid the grasps of the villainous trio who dog her footsteps the whole distance.

I will certainly be buying a physical copy of this for my reread, whenever that might happen. Mantooth is a major talent. By all the gods and demons, he can spin a damned scary yarn.

Number 53 - Dead Water - C.A. Fletcher

 

This was a NetGalley read provided for a fair review.

C.A. Fletcher is another completely new name for me.  It wasn't until the rather brief author bio at the end of the book that I even knew he was a he. There are no previous publications listed so I assume this is a debut novel.

On a remote Scottish island, trouble breaks out when an ancient curse is released. The water becomes a source of terror, and the islanders are pulled into a struggle between life and death,

Stated that way this sounds like standard fare, but Fletcher is a damned good writer, and this feels like a totally fresh, original and frankly, bloody terrifying, read.

This is packed with set pieces and action sequences that left me reeling. Some of the imagery is dredged from the scariest of nightmares. 

The plot takes a while to build and become clear, but it's never slow paced.  He switches viewpoints between each of the characters in alternating short chapters. The tension builds from the first pages.  Events may start slowly, but there's a clear set of dominoes that he topples one by one, each time raising the stakes and thinning out the cast still further. 

It's all told in a perfectly rendered present tense, which gives everything a sense of immediacy and ratchets the sense of unease even more. He uses the opening chapters to put flesh on the bones of his characters, giving them all good backstories and motivations. The location is perfectly painted and is almost a character in itself.  The sense of isolation from the rest of the world is palpable.

I loved the way that he credits the reader with enough intelligence to put the pieces together, particularly in the first half of the book.  

The power of the writing raises what could have been a very generic story into something new and brilliant. There's even space for some of the blackest humour I've seen in a good while.

It's a fantastic book. If you like deeply chilling tales of remote communities getting being destroyed by unstoppable supernatural forces, this is the book for you.

Number 46 - The Creeper - A.M. Shine

 

This was a Netgalley read, free in exchange for a fair review.

AM Shine is a completely new name to me. but I loved that cover and the story sounded interesting.

And by God does it deliver in spades!

This is one of the best horror novels I've read for a few years. A. M. Shine is a major talent.

As far as I can see, this is only his second novel. Within a minute or two of finishing this book, I'd already ordered his debut, The watchers, and it will be very high up on my TBR pile when it arrives.

Back to this book though.

The story opens with a young woman hiding from something following her. The atmosphere is palpable even in the short prologue. 

We then jump forward a couple of years and we're introduced to Alec Sparling, a reclusive type living in a secluded mansion who's just paid off a detective to deliver him the recording of the last 999 call made by the terrified girl in the prologue.

He then recruits Benjamin French and Chloe Coogan, a young historian and a newly qualified architecture student respectively, to investigate a hidden village deep in the countryside of Ireland, apparently untouched by the outside world for 200 years.  While they're there, he instructs them to ask about a local superstition known as The Creeper.

You see the Creeper three times, first time, from a distance, the second time he's closer, the third night, he's at your window, after that you won't see much else.

From this fairly simple premise, Shine has created a paranoid and deeply scary thriller. Ben and Chloe are likeable and sympathetic protagonists.  Their mounting terror as they come to believe the superstition is superbly realised, with Ben's skepticism steadily eroding.  

Shine proves he can handle gory detail just as well as he can build atmosphere using shadows and suggestion. His prose is a pleasure to read, lucid and intelligent, and creepy as hell.

he's a name to look out for.  If he's this good on book 2, who knows what heights he'll reach.

Number 41 - Sallow Bend - Alan Baxter

 

I was sent a review copy of this from Cemetery Dance in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I was very happy to be sent this review copy, as regular readers of this blog will know, I think the name Alan Baxter is an assurance of quality and he is one of my current "collect everything I can that he's written" authors. It feels good to be reading his latest before it's officially out.

This book, actually the first full length novel I've read by Baxter, continues the tradition of quality I've seen in his other works.

Nestled in a sweeping curve of the river Sallow, the town of Sallow Bend harbours its own dark secrets.

The carnival has just rolled into town. Two local girls have gone missing. When the girls are found alive and well, the townspeople are jubilant. But what they don't know is that something else has come back to the town with the girls, and it has its own agenda. People start dying, and only one man has any idea of what's happening, but what can he do to stop the rising death rate when no one will believe what he has to say?

In a welcome twist to the traditional tropes, the carnival isn't the source of the troubles; they've just arrived at the same time as an old evil has risen in the town, and they're as likely to die by its hands as any of the townsfolk. 

This is a fast paced and occasionally pretty gross horror novel. Despite the presence of so many familiar tropes (small town American setting, ancient evil rising etc) this wrong footed me on several occasions. The way the villain is introduced to the story was brilliantly done and totally unexpected.  

At least one character who I assumed to be an unredeemable bad guy turned into one of the most sympathetic characters once we found out why he was the way he was. Even the villain has good reason for her quest for vengeance against the town.

Baxter creates an ever increasing sense of dread and hopelessness throughout. We're never quite certain who will survive. The final confrontation is as tense as any you'll read in a Stephen King novel. (I know I try not to compare horror writers to King because it feels lazy on my part, but again, this shares enough thematic similarities it's almost unavoidable)

I missed the Australian setting of his other books that I've read. The American setting has a more familiar feel to it and therefore less of the weird atmosphere I found in the two Gulp collections. that's only a minor quibble though. My only other quibble is that some of the characters were so well drawn that I wanted them to play a more active role in the story and it was slightly disappointing that they didn't. 

There's also some well integrated social messaging that comes across as a natural part of the story rather than preachiness. 

The writing is unpretentious and an easy read. Good characters and a refreshing and unpredictable take on some old conventions. The monster is genuinely threatening and almost completely original.

This is a great slice of small town horror. Go out and buy it when it's released. You won't regret it.

Number 27 - Nothing But Blackened Teeth - Cassandra Khaw

 

I picked this up because of that gorgeous cover, and word of mouth on social media.  That plus quotes on the back from several of the brightest stars in modern horror which claim it to be the absolute cat's whiskers and best new thing since Hill House...

I went in therefore with expectations set at very high...

That might have been a mistake. Although I can see the quality of the writing and it did move me in the final chapters, I was a little underwhelmed.  I don't think it completely lives up to hype. 

It tells the story of a group of friends who pitch up at a haunted mansion in the depths of rural China for the marriage of a pair of them.  The bride has always wanted to get married in a haunted house (as you do) and this place certainly fits the bill.

A lot of time is spent detailing the past love lives and interactions between the friends. The bride is so opposed to the narrator, it's hard to believe that she would have agreed to allow her to come along since there are so few in the group.  A wedding party of 20 or 30, maybe, but only 6? It's not like she's a plus one to a fully welcome guest. In fact, for a close knit bunch of friends willing to travel to a remote (500 miles from the nearest hospital we're told at one point) part of China for a wedding, there seem to be a lot of underlying resentments. That might be the ghosts dragging their worst feelings out though. 

The atmosphere is built nicely. the legend of the house is suitably nasty and the style of writing is mostly very good. Despite the short length of the book (a shade over 100 pages) this is a slow burn until the terror kicks in.

There's some meta style commentary going on too.  "This is the part of the story where this happens" sort of dialogue.  That was a weak point in the writing for me I will admit. If it was meant as comic relief, it wasn't.  It it was meant to heighten tension, it lessened it.  IMHO.

I think I probably need to set aside a couple of hours uninterrupted reading to properly appreciate this.  Over the last few days I've only managed to catch a few pages here and there, which isn't ideal for this style of horror.

Overall, it's mostly fairly well written and atmospheric, but I wasn't 100% won over, and I'm not sure why. There are some stylistic tricks she overuses which become very noticeable and dragged me out of the story. That's one reason. But it wasn't so much that it's unforgivable. 

One for a reread... This is the sort of book I usually love.  I'm disappointed I didn't like it more.

Number 87 - Starve Acre - Andrew Michael Hurley

 I finished this a few hours ago and it hasn't quite settled yet.  I'm not entirely sure it's going to.  I think that a picture of this book will be included in the dictionary next to the word unsettling from now on. 

I picked this up on the strength of that cover, with the verse around the pages as seen in the second picture.  On the top edge of the book the last line reads  “T’is part of his game To vary his name”  

The book follows Richard and Juliette Willoughby as they struggle to move on after the death of their five year old son Ewan. Whereas Richard has thrown himself fully into  his work to the point that they forced him to take administrative leave,  Juliette has taken the opposite path and retreated into herself.  She hasn't left the country home -the Starve Acre of the title - in months.  Richard has found projects to keep himself busy at home particularly the search for remnants of a legendary oak tree in the field across from the house.

This story is the definition of a slow burn.  Hurley takes his time drip feeding us information, dropping hints as to the nature of events at Starve Acre.  Juliette truly losing her mind or is something else at work? All may or may not be revealed.

Hurley's prose is immaculate and dispassionate.  He never asks us to feel sorry for the couple, he merely presents us with their behaviours and allows us to decide for ourselves. The atmosphere builds steadily. Events take a turn for the strange after Richard discovers the skeleton of a hare in the field. His absolute disconnect from reality is demonstrated by his reaction to those events.

The end of this book sent a genuine shiver down my spine.  For a horror aficionado like me, that's an achievement by the writer.  

As with any book, your mileage may vary but I found this to be a creepy and effective slice of folk horror. I recommend it highly.

This special edition with the writing on the page edges is available through Waterstones.  the regular edition is available from all good bookshops (and probably some bad ones).