Category Archives: supernatural

The Darkest Part of the Forest

fantasy, horror, supernatural April 18, 2020 1 Comment

Holly Black was an author I hit hard in 2018. Not as hard as Stephen King or Bill Bryson, but still pretty hard for me (3 books).

This was the second Holly Black book I listened to, again, mostly at the gym.

I will say that it was under the Stephen King umbrella of supernatural/fantasy/horror, although this book was definitely less horror and more fantasy.

This was my favorite of Black’s books. Hazel and Ben, her brother, live in a town where the humans and fae live in close proximity. In the woods is a glass coffin where a boy with horns has been asleep for as long as anyone can remember. Then he wakes up.

Black has a knack for capturing the tumultuous inner lives of teenagers, and anyone who does a decent job of making teenagers anything other than just angsty whiners is a hero in my opinion. I’ve just read so much teenage angsty garbage that when I find characters that do more than this, I really appreciate it.

The story is a complex mix of fairy magic and a damsel-in-distress-with-a-twist story. Hazel’s relationships with her brother Ben, and another teenager named Jack, and with herself are basically the defining narratives here, that all combine to solve the mystery of what’s terrifying the people in town and how to stop it.

I liked Hazel, although she was a bit of a sociopath. Kids killing creatures – even non-human creatures – with delight always freaks me out a little. That said, children’s sense of justice is frequently much more black and white than an adult’s.

To illustrate: when I was a very small child in playgroup, a girl bit me. I was wearing a thick sweater, and still had teeth marks and a huge bruise on my arm. Also there were apparently no just consequences for this in my little mind. The girl wasn’t really “punished” (and again we were about two years old). My parents did as parents do – parenting. They tried to explain that sometimes kids do things wrong and it’s not nice to bite and the girl didn’t mean to hurt me, and I should forgive her etc… apparently I spent the time until the next playgroup saying “Not nice to bite?” and my parents would say “Yes, not not nice to bite.” Then, at the next playgroup, I apparently waited on a chair for that girl to run by, pulled her up by her hair, shook her around and yelled “NOT NICE TO BITE!” at her.

I don’t remember any of this, but I know myself well enough now to know that sounds like something Toddler!Kristine would do. VENGEANCE.

I didn’t love Black’s technique of going between the past and the present to reveal Hazel’s character. It felt a bit contrived, something to draw out the plot and prevent the reader from getting these pieces of the puzzle too soon, but without a real reason for doing it.

The story, though, was fun and well paced and there were some twists to keep me guessing, even if there was a bit of teenage angst that slowed things down here and there.

Overall, I liked The Darkest Part of the Forest. Would recommend.

Vlad

fiction, horror, supernatural February 15, 2020 Leave a comment

Vlad was a novella by Carlos Fuentes that I didn’t enjoy much, but a lot of other people seemed to really like it.

Set in Mexico City, our star vampire is once again on the lookout for a new place to call home, and Yves Navarro, a respected attorney, and his wife, a real estate agent, become trapped in his web.

This was a shorter book than others I read that year and while I liked the vampire storyline, some of the other aspects made me feel…gross. I suppose the vampire legend in the Dracula form is gross all the way around – an undead man runs around praying on young girls. Ew.

I read a review of this book a long time ago that stuck with me on Fuentes’s social commentary through this story. I’ll leave it here:

Carlos Fuentes’s ‘Vlad’

This was an okay story. Didn’t love it. It was short, and I thought that was great.

John Dies At The End

fiction, horror, humor, supernatural October 12, 2019 1 Comment

So this book was under the horror label at the library and I guess it kind of was, but mostly it was just weird. Don’t get me wrong, it was darkly funny and enjoyably weird, but weird.

I can’t even begin to recap it. I can’t. It was drugs, and aliens, and time travel and…it was insane. I do recommend it for the pure insanity. It really was funny. But…oof. What a wacky shitshow.

2018: The Year of Stephen King (Part II)

crime novel, fantasy, fiction, mystery, supernatural September 16, 2019 1 Comment

Because Stephen King’s Dark Tower audiobooks are popular at the library, I couldn’t just listen to them all in a row. I had to wait in between and listened to more of his books in the meantime. The other Stephen King books I completed last year were:

Doctor Sleep
Gwendy’s Button Box (co-written with Richard Chizmar)
Mr. Mercedes
Finders Keepers
End of Watch
Salem’s Lot

Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch were a series of detective novels featuring retired detective Bill Hodges and his nemesis Brady Hartsfield. I don’t know if I loved the supernatural-ish twist the series took, but overall I really enjoyed it, especially because Hodges’s side kick characters, Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney.

Holly might be the best female character King has written. She is neurotic, socially inept, and has a ton of anxieties, but she is brilliant, loyal, funny, and infinitely capable. I loved loved loved her, and she appears in The Outsider (which I haven’t read yet), and is apparently getting her own book next year. I am so excited.

Gwendy’s Button Box was a novella set in Castle Rock, Maine, where 12 year old Gwendy meets a stranger in dark clothes who invites her to “palaver” (hello, reference to The Dark Tower series) and gives her a box with – you guessed it! – buttons. This was a novella, mostly about personal choices. It was ok. I didn’t love it as much as other books by King this year.

Doctor Sleep was a sequel to The Shining, which follows once cute 5 year old Danny Torrence into his alcoholic adulthood. Alcoholic Dan is way less adorable but he does pull it together to help Abra, a girl with “the shine,” who is being hunted by the cult True Knot. I liked Doctor Sleep, but for some reason felt it was missing something. Can’t quite figure out what it was.

Salem’s Lot is the story of a man named Ben Mears, who returns to his childhood town to discover it’s being taken over by vampires. I watched the TNT miniseries starring Rob Lowe in 2004 but never got around to reading the book. This was one of the books I listened to last summer at the gym (I spent A LOT of time at the gym last summer). I really liked this one. It’s one of King’s earliest books and easily one of his most famous and beloved. I liked a lot of the vampire lore that King built on (again, this was a Dracula year) and I liked the ending immensely. I decided to listen to the whole story because Father Callahan appeared in the The Dark Tower novels.

So that was my year with Stephen King. I plan to continue with his stuff. King can suck me into just about any story within a few pages, which is a talent beyond measure. How many books do I start and then drop because they just aren’t interesting? Quite a few, but none of Stephen King’s books, that’s for sure.

Dracula

fiction, horror, supernatural August 15, 2019 1 Comment

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic and one I’d been planning to read since I was about 12. Finally got to it at 30. Oooffff.

Basic premise: Count Dracula is trying to move from Transylvania to England in order to spread his undead curse, and the story follows the small group of men and one woman battling against him, led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing (the other most famous character to come out of this book).

Interestingly, I feel the need to add the premise here. Count Dracula one of the most famous characters in all of fiction – definitely the most famous vampire and possibly the most famous in all of horror fiction. He has influenced vampire lore and hundreds, if not thousands, of stories over the last 122 years. But I’m willing to bet that, at this point, most people are not familiar with the original tale. I only had a vague idea of it.

Unlike another original horror story I’ve read – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – I actually liked this one. The story was pretty well paced, I enjoyed the villain as a villain, and it was a lot of fun hearing all the old stuff I knew about vampires in its original context.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book, and I admit it was a minor flaw, was the constant meetings of what my grandmother would call the “mutual admiration society.” Nobody was ever just called by their name – Arthur, John, Lucy, Mina, etc – there was always at least two adjectives describing the person before their name followed by a description of their personality. “Dear, sweet Lucy who was always so kind and gentle,” or “Brave, stoic Arthur who put on a good face for his wife…”

…throughout the entire book. And all the descriptions were favorable. ALL OF THEM, except for the ones of Dracula and his ilk, nobody had a bad word to say about anybody. This was so over the top that it was comical. I mean, I know the Victorians were a courteous lot, but come on.

Anyway, aside from the over the top, over flattering descriptions, I truly enjoyed Dracula. So many hours of fun with other books, movies, stories came from Bram Stoker’s book. It’s one hell of a legacy for a guy who was best known as an actor’s personal assistant when he was alive.

Welcome to Night Vale

horror, humor, supernatural August 13, 2019 Leave a comment

I can’t remember exactly why I decided that my next book would be Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. Frequently, I end up putting a book on hold (basically putting my name on the list to listen to it) and take another out for the present moment. I think that might be what happened here. I know the podcast is highly rated, but the novel gets mixed reviews.

I enjoyed the novel itself but the person who read the audiobook’s voice drove me crazy. I want to say it was Cecil Baldwin, but I can’t swear to it. I liked the novel, in spite of this, but it took me awhile to warm up to it.

Night Vale is a place where they are used to the strange and bizarre, but the return of The Man in the Tan Jacket leaving people pieces of paper that say “King City” has put the town at odds. Jackie Fierro, who owns the city’s pawn shop, wants answers about King City and The Man in the Tan Jacket. Meanwhile, Diane’s son has hit puberty and become a shapeshifter, which is making life quite difficult for Diane. Additionally, his father is back in town for unknown reasons, but her son has taken an interest in him, which is bad news.

Jackie and Diane, who end up with a sort of frenemy relationship, must brave the oddities of Night Vale, including the library, in order to solve their respective mysteries.

This novel, while I enjoyed it, was clearly for people familiar with the podcast. I have no issue with this, but it made the start of the novel difficult to follow. I think there may have also been references in there that I didn’t fully understand. It took me a while to fully get into it and understand everything about it.

Once you are able to get into it, the novel is interesting, creepy, and darkly, darkly funny. The middle to the end of the book is much better than the start.

It did make me want to listen to the podcast. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but I will. If the podcast is better than the book, it will be worth it.

The Historian

fiction, history, horror, supernatural, suspense / thriller August 12, 2019 Leave a comment

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova may have been my favorite book of 2018 for its detail, complexity, and the blending of the history and folklore of Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) and his fictional counterpart, Count Dracula.

It kicked off a series of Dracula books for me in 2018. Dracula is a fascinating legend to begin with, and as I said previously, I did a lot of “scary” in 2018. The Historian isn’t a typical “horror” story but there are a lot of elements of it, and it’s definitely a suspenseful book. I’d put it mostly under historical fiction, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

The Historian is a story within a story. It’s actually a story within a story within a story, but it begins to get confusing if you think about it too hard, and it really wasn’t a confusing book. Don’t get me wrong – it was long and quite dense. I did the audiobook version and it was 24 hours? 26? It was long. But it wasn’t confusing.

The unnamed narrator, in Amsterdam in the 1970s, finds a vellum book with a woodcut of a dragon associated with Dracula, and she asks her father, Paul, about it. He explains that he found it in his study carrel during his time as a graduate student in the 1950s. He took it to his mentor/advisor, Professor Bartholomew Rossi, and discovered Rossi had also found one when he was a graduate student in the 1930s. Rossi researches Vlad Tepes, the Dracula myth, and these mysterious books. Rossi travels as far as Istanbul, but unexplained circumstances and characters send him back to his graduate work at the university and Rossi, in the 1950s, informs Paul that he believes that Dracula is, somehow, still alive. After meeting with Paul, Rossi disappears.

There are smears of blood on Rossi’s desk and on the ceiling, but other than that, everything is in place. The police suspect run of the mill foul play, but Paul is certain that something involved in research into the Dracula legend is to blame for his disappearance.

The majority of the book follows the 1950s story, with cuts in and out to the 1930s and 1970s storylines, with all three of the main characters – the narrator, Paul, and Rossi – researching the Dracula myth in Europe and eventually converging later in the book.

As I said, the blending of history and folklore in this story made it one of my favorites of 2018. There’s tons of cool info about Vlad Tepes, the Dracula legend, and Europe in general. I loved the story surrounding the narrator, Paul, and Rossi as well as the ambiguous ending.

The Historian was one of those books that made me sad it was over, like it should have kept going, like there was even more story that could have been told. It was so good that I jumped on Kostova’s The Swan Thieves, which ended up being one of the books I returned early and didn’t finish last year. I don’t know if Kostova is a one hit wonder, but if she is, I very much enjoyed and highly recommend this one hit. If you enjoy history and folklore like I do, I think you’ll like The Historian as well.

The Darkest Evening of the Year

fiction, horror, supernatural, suspense / thriller August 11, 2019 Leave a comment

This was my first Dean Koontz book, and honestly, I borrowed it because it featured golden retrievers.

Our heroine, Amy, runs a rescue group for abandoned/abused golden retrievers. Her dedication to saving abused animals can be reckless. She has a love interest who she can’t fully commit to, and when she adopts Nicki, a series of strange incidents start happening that indicate she’s being stalked.

Ok, so I don’t remember that much of this book. Honestly? It wasn’t that good. What I do remember is the impression that golden retrievers are awesome (I now have one and he is super awesome, but he is a handful), this wasn’t the horror story I thought I was getting, and miracles are a cop out way to end a book.

This was marketed to me as a horror story but it seemed more supernatural/suspense because of the whole dogs are angels and a higher power is at play aspect of it. Like I said, miracles are a crappy way to end a book.

I know that Koontz wrote this book because of HIS golden retriever. IIRC, he said to the dog that she was an angel sent from Heaven, and that the dog seemed to recognize that he said this.

I believe it. Totally legit. Dogs ARE angels sent from Heaven.

This book’s biggest redeeming qualities are the golden retrievers. I love them, they are wonderful, and they are without a doubt special angels. The miracles and lack of interesting plot weren’t my favorite aspects. Buuuut golden retrievers. The book gets a pass.

Doll Bones

fiction, horror, supernatural June 25, 2019 Leave a comment

Doll Bones was the first of three stories I read by Holly Black in 2018. I didn’t realize it was a YA book when I started it, but I liked it enough to continue listening once I realized it was.

The story is about three kids named Zach, Poppy, and Alice who all play together and, now, at about 12 years old are caught between being kids and being teenagers. One of the characters in their game, the Great Queen, is based on a doll Poppy’s mother keeps in a case. Poppy, not wishing to grow up and wishing to keep her friends close to her (she’s figured out Alice has a crush on Zach and that Zach is now, for a reason unknown to her but revealed to the reader, embarrassed by the fact he plays with them) tells her friends that she had a dream about the Great Queen, and she’s actually a haunted doll made of human remains that wants to be put back in the cemetery where she belongs.

Poppy, Alice, and Zach end up on a quest to return the doll to its rightful resting place.

This was a good story that captured the heartache of adolescence so well. Everything’s hard, everything’s awkward, everything feels like the end of the world, even though it isn’t. I related too well to Poppy’s sense of losing her friends, to Alice’s crush on Zach, to Zach’s embarrassment about doing “baby” things but still loving them.

That said, the “horror” aspect to this story was a little weak. It wasn’t clear if the doll was haunted or if the kids were imagining it. A little more background on the girl who was supposed to be haunting them would have been nice too.

I also was sad because it was over too soon. I think the whole audiobook was done in about 5 hours and I wished there was more of it. Or a sequel. Sadly, there’s not.

Doll Bones was a fun one. It also convinced me I wanted to read more of Holly Black’s book, which I did later in 2018.

The Apartment

fiction, horror, supernatural, suspense / thriller June 24, 2019 Leave a comment

The Apartment by the S.L. Grey (which I think is actually a pen name for two people, IIRC) was disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, the premise sounds good. From Amazon:

Mark and Steph have a relatively happy family with their young daughter in sunny Cape Town until one day when armed men in balaclavas break in to their home. Left traumatized but physically unharmed, Mark and Steph are unable to return to normal and live in constant fear. When a friend suggests a restorative vacation abroad via a popular house swapping website, it sounds like the perfect plan. They find a genial, artistic couple with a charming apartment in Paris who would love to come to Cape Town. Mark and Steph can’t resist the idyllic, light-strewn pictures, and the promise of a romantic getaway. But once they arrive in Paris, they quickly realize that nothing is as advertised. When their perfect holiday takes a violent turn, the cracks in their marriage grow ever wider and dark secrets from Mark’s past begin to emerge.

Not as good as it sounds.

First, my entertainment curse continued: I figured out where the book was going pretty early on. I didn’t know exactly how it would get there, but it did. I won’t offer many spoilers here, in case you want to read the story. I didn’t find the ending great either. A haunting that travels? Please.

Second, I found the horror aspect of this story underdeveloped. There was not a lot of horror here. In fact, the book seemed a little bit confused about whether it wanted to be a ghost story or a psychological thriller. The mix made it fail a bit at both. It had some suspenseful moments, but overall…meh.

Third, I found Mark and Steph annoying, Mark infinitely more so. Steph was neurotic and paranoid and scared for her daughter, which is plenty annoying, but Mark just…ugh just brooding and whining and self-indulgent.

I will say there are literary references to Daphne du Maurier here. I don’t remember what they were at this point, but I remember thinking that I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

I won’t say that The Apartment is a complete waste of time, but I wouldn’t recommend it, either.