Nightingale by Amy Lukavics

When I first read the description of Nightingale, I knew that it would be a book that I added to the collection.  It sounded right up my alley.  1950's, not wanting to conform to the norm, wanting to be a writer.  Then add the insane asylum (an iffy trope for me) and something that sounds like maybe cannibalism and I knew that I would have to read this.

Nightingale goes back and forth in time, dividing this time into "the institution" and "days past".  We learn that June is in the institution because she believes that her parents have been replaced.  Leading up to this incident, June has been under a lot of stress.  She has been writing a horrific sci-fi novel and wants to be published someday.  While her parents map out the perfect future for her with her father's boss's son, June has secretly applied to a writing program.  But the morning after her disaster of an engagement party, June's mother calls her "nightingale" and June is sure that her parents are no longer her parents.

Shipped away to Burrow Place Asylum, June finds herself in a strange kind of nightmare.  She befriends her roommate, Eleanor, who thinks that she is dead, and Eleanor's friends and quickly discovers that things are not normal here.  The nurses and doctor seem off.  The medical treatments are brutal.  The sanitation is questionable at best.  Even worse, when someone speaks up they are bound to disappear or die.  Can June unravel the mystery of the asylum and of herself in time to save them all?

I was surprised by the direction this one took.  It definitely had a twist that I should have seen coming but didn't.  I don't know what was more horrifying: the institution or watching June being forced into a mold at home.  This was a great read and much more horror than I expected. -RYQ

Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney

This book was a reread for me.  I read the first five books in this series when they first came out and I remember being absolutely riveted.  I wasn't wrong!  This book sucked me in and kept me there, sufficiently scared but also needing to know what was going to happen.

Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son and when he turns thirteen he is apprenticed to the spook.  A spook's job is to protect the county from the dark, from ghasts and boggarts and witches.  Tom is not necessarily excited about his future job.  He knows that the spook's life is lonely and dangerous but his mother, who seems to have the gift of sight, tells him that he is meant for this life.  Tom resolves to make the best of it.

However, he quickly gets himself involved with a girl who wears pointy shoes, something the spook has warned him against.  Now there are missing children in the village and a witch on the loose and the spook just happens to be out of town.  Can Tom handle it himself with just a couple of weeks worth of training?  What about when an angry witch gets too close to his family?

This book was exciting and scary.  However, it's definitely not for the faint of heart!

-RYQ

Alive by Chandler Baker

I really, really enjoyed this book.  Really.  Enough that it almost got five stars.

Stella has a shot at a newish beginning.  She has just received a heart transplant and after months of recovery, she is ready to go back to school and live like she hasn't lived before.  She is happy to be back with her best friends, Brynn and Henry, even though she has left Henry hanging for far too long.  Henry asked her out when she was sick but she didn't want him to be "the sick girl's boyfriend" and then have to be "the dead girl's boyfriend" if something went wrong.  Stella isn't sure what she wants out of her new life, but she thinks it might not be safe old Henry.  Plus, she's still dealing with the side effects of her transplant: hallucinations and a searing pain every day at 5:08 PM.  It's hard enough just trying to pretend that everything is normal.

Then she sees the new boy, Levi.  Levi is gorgeous.  Levi is intense.  And Stella doesn't feel the pain when Levi is around her.  It isn't long before they become inseparable and Levi begins to educate Stella on music, taking her to concerts and in search of records.  Stella longs for the relief she feels when she is around Levi, even when she begins to suspect that there is something very wrong with their relationship and something very wrong with him.

Then a girl is found dead and her heart has been cut out.

Okay, reasons I loved this:  Even though I had an idea of what was going on, the twists and turns in the plot felt twisty and turny.  They made me gasp.  They made me need to shove the whole book in my face right this instant.  It was entertaining even with the flaws.  It tickled my horror bone, which needs tickling once in a while, and there was even some gore.  Also, I really admired Stella's voice.  I liked how determined she was to change and I related to her for that.

RYQ

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

I've really been enjoying the revival of Archie Comics.  I absolutely adore the new Archie.  I can't wait for CW's twisted take on Riverdale, which has been described as "dark" and "noir."  I tried Afterlife with Archie, which fell flat because I'm not a big fan of zombies.  When I heard about the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I could not wait.  Witches are totally one of my things and this was hyped as playing back to old school horror.

The hype was exactly right.  Warning, this is a comic more suited to older teens.  There is blood and witchcraft and horror.  It's not the sunny Sabrina that I grew up with.  It is aimed at a specific kind of horror fan but definitely at a horror fan.

That being said, I ended up really enjoying this one after a slow start.  It takes place in the 1960's and really does pull from those classic horror movies.  The first issue, learning about Sabina's birth, could be Rosemary's Baby.  It hit so many of the horror tropes: teen witches, succubi, funeral homes, raising the dead, and insane asylums.  It also used the history of New England and the Salem witch trials in the story line.  Sabrina is part witch and part human and she walks the line between these two worlds.  When she starts human high school, she falls for Harvery, an all-American boy.  Sabrina's cousin offers to help her do a love spell to attract Harvey's attention and for a while everything seems perfect.  But as her sixteenth birthday approaches, little does she know that something is being summoned in the woods that will ride into town on a wave of revenge.

I liked this one but, again, it is only going to work for older teens who like horror. -RYQ

Through the Woods, by Emily Carroll

Don't go into the woods. There are things waiting there. Strange things. Monstrous things. Hungry things. Things waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting traveler foolish enough to wander off the path.

Artist and writer Emily Carroll's Through the Woods is a collection of five deliciously creepy stories about things that happen to those who dare to venture into the woods. 

A young woman trapped in her house during a snowstorm does the only thing she can: Wait for the thing that took her sisters to return for her

After marrying a wealthy man, a new bride learns too late the awful truth her husband's last wife. A fate that will soon be hers as well?

Two brothers enter the woods to stop a monster that has been terrorizing their village. One brother comes out. The monster is not what the reader first believes.

Two young women make a living fooling people into thinking they can communicate with the dead (they can't really). Then one of them really does become haunted. 

A young girl, home from school for the summer, visits her brother and his pretty new fiancee in their pretty new home. Then the girl wanders into the woods...and learns the horrible truth.

The girl walked safely through the woods at night. It was lucky the wolf didn't find her. Or did it?

Through the Woods is shivery, creepy, and lots of fun to read. The illustrations are gorgeous and vivid. Pick it up and read the stories all in one sitting, or savor them one by one. Either way, you've got a treat in store.

And maybe next time you're faced with the choice of taking the shortcut through the woods, you'll think twice and take the long way around. Because there are things in the woods. Strange things. Monstrous things. Hungry things.

Waiting to pounce.

On YOU! --AJB

The Lonely, by Ainslie Hogarth

Easter Deetz is dying, but she's not wasting away from cancer or any other tragic condition popular teen literature has romanticized as of late. No, Easter's demise is coming about from something much more gruesome: She's slowly bleeding to death, alone in the woods, after a boulder has fallen on top of her, crushing her legs.

Or is she?

Easter is a chronic liar. She admits as much early on in Ainslie Hogarth's debut novel, The Lonely. Of course, this confession could also be a lie, leaving readers locked in the paradox of whether you can trust her or not... But for the sake of argument, let's say she's dying under a rock, legs crushed and blood and guts soaking into the forest floor for insects and worms and other things to feast upon (Easter is very graphic). For this horrible, bloody death, Easter blames her sister, Julia, who apparently dropped the boulder on her.

Julia is the only thing that stands between Easter and what she calls The Lonely, a debilitating mental condition that cripples all the women in her family (her mother, her witch of a grandmother). Julia also makes Easter do horrible things like shut the neighbor's cat in a garbage can to die in the summer heat...like vandalize her grandmother's neighbors' lawns with obscenities...like set fire to the cabin her parents are renting one summer. 

Another important thing about Julia: She only exists in Easter's imagination.

And what an imagination! Stephen King would sell his soul (maybe) for the sort of horrid thoughts and images that regularly pop into Easter's head.

But then one day Easter walks into the upstairs bathroom and sees Something Terrible. Something even more Terrible than she could ever dream up. Of course she's wished for it more than a few times, but to see it in cold, hard reality... It's too much.

This is what sends Easter fleeing into The Woods where she encounters Julia and the fateful boulder. 

As Easter lies under that boulder, watching her body slowly bleed out and decay, she reviews her life with hamburger-eating, cigarette-smoking squirrels to bear witness.  And when the sun finally sets and darkness takes over the woods, she must finally face the Something she knows has been coming for her all day.

The Lonely is a very different sort of story. Easter is the ultimate unreliable narrator, and she will keep you guessing until the very end. And even after you've finished the book and set it aside, you'll still be wondering what exactly happened. A great choice for those who like a little horror and mystery and confusion (in a good way) mixed with their weird and bizarre reading choices. Awesome! --AJB 

Mary: The Summoning, by Hillary Monahan

First-time author Hillary Monahan's Mary: The Summoning explores the famous urban legend of Mary Worth, a.k.a. "Bloody Mary." Paranormal fiction of recent years has turned nightmare creatures like vampires, werewolves, and spirits (oh my!) into glittery, romantic figures meant to make readers swoon rather than scream in terror. Not this book, though. Mary: The Summoning is straight-up horror, reminiscent of the Fear Streetesque stuff I used to scare myself silly reading when I was a teen in the 1990s. 

There is a right way and a wrong way to summon the vengeful ghost of Bloody Mary. And Jess, Shauna, Anna, and Kitty do it all wrong. Jess, as it turns out, secretly wants to do more than just see Mary. She wants to speak with her. There's much more to this story, but no spoilers.

Unfortunately, this lapse of judgement releases Mary (and all of her rage) from her mirrored prison. Once out, Mary attaches herself to the girls, particularly Shauna. Now Mary is popping up in all sorts of shiny surfaces and terrorizing the teens at every turn. No place is safe from Mary's wrath. As the girls search for a way to put Mary back behind the mirror where she belongs, they unravel the horrifyingly tragic story of Mary Worth, a young woman from the 1800's who died under horrible circumstances. There is blood, there is horror, there is death... 

And there is a cliffhanger.

Yep, In true Horror Story fashion, Mary: The Summoning is apparently only the first in a series of books involving Bloody Mary. But don't all worthy horror story villains deserve a sequel or two? (Freddy, Jason, Chucky... even that creepy kid from The Ring got a second shot to scare audiences)

Hopefully the rest will be as horrifyingly good as this one. --AJB