Middle Grade Horror Favorites

Tomorrow is Halloween Month, and I know I lot of people will finally kick off their Spooky Season. My house has been celebrating Spooky Season for about two weeks, but we love Halloween. Anyway, I couldn't think of a better way to kick off the Eve of Spooky Season than sharing some of my favorite scary reads growing up.

I'd like to say I've always loved being scared, but I'm sure my dad could tell you all the times that statement was incorrect. But, when it comes to books, I've always been drawn to the spookier stuff. It started with a love for Goosebumps, move to a love for Christopher Pike and Fear Street, and then morphed into becoming a fan of Stephen King. My mom put one of his books in my hands for the first time. I can never remember which one, but Tommyknockers has always been my favorite.

Anyway, I say all of that to then talk about some of my favorite Middle Grade Spooky books growing up. I has a massive Goosebumps collection back in the day thanks to the Book Fair and saved allowance. A collection I'm trying to build again! A few of Roald Dahl's books had me sleeping with the covers over my head, and I was a lover of the kid's versions of the classic monster tales (which turned into an adult love in high school when I read the full versions).

Over the last two decades horror for Middle Grade, aged kids have changed. It's morphed and evolved into books little me would have loved, but the books pictured above will always have my heart. They were the first books to show me how fun it is to be scared, if just for a second. How much I love a good mystery, and how cool it was to figure it all out before the big reveal. These books shaped me as a reader and left me with core memories. 

So while I'm sad to have lost that amazing collection of R.L Stine books. I hope they went to kids who got to make similar memories with them!

HAPPY READING & SPOOKY SEASON!

Remember Me - Review

Author: Christopher Pike

Genre: Young Adult / Horror

Format: Paperback

Pages: 230

A lot of years have passed since I first picked up Christopher Pike books, but I thought I had a good mind about which ones my local library had in the early 2000s. I thought this had been one. Because the plot sounded familiar, and I started reading I felt like I'd been here before. Not just because of the plot, or the main character. I vividly remembered how one of the side characters killed himself.

I also swore I knew who had killed our main character. 

My memory of this place was only half correct. While I called the real reason behind Peter's death, I had forgotten our Shari had been killed. Along with the side plot with Amanda. Without giving away spoilers of a book published in 1989, I'm still not sure how I freaking forgot about Amanda. 

Just, no, no thank you.

Apart from my faulty memory, I enjoyed this read. I had gone into this book expecting a cheesy horror plot and whiney teenage girls, with a little bit of jump scares thrown in. And, while I got what I wanted on all fronts. That freaking Shadow thing was not okay. Just no. Though I very cool plot device there toward the end to toss in that twist. Kudos.

So, while I got what I knew I'd get, and wanted, I also got a solid story. Shari isn't a half-bad main character. And, yes she's whiney and slightly annoying, but she wasn't as bad as I'd thought she'd be for a teenage girl written by a male author. She's annoying, but I found pretty much all the characters grating to some degree.

Beth is my least favorite, quickly followed by Daniel who should have Legos shoved in shoes. So also kudos to Pike for writing characters I hated but I also didn't make them murderers. Just terrible humans.

The plot on this is also solid and moved quickly enough. I like that everything came back around so all the random pieces you thought might be plot holes get touched on again. Everyone gets a small little wrap-up since there is quite a few cast of characters, and the plot felt finished by the time I hit the last page.

This is why I'm kind of unsure how I feel that this is book one in a three-part series. I liked how this story wrapped up for Shari. So I'm not overly sure I'll be hunting down book two and three.

But, if you're looking for a fun, not-so-spooky read, for the Spooky Season. This is one you should pick up. There is a couple of jumps scares and sort of gory moments. But nothing too graphic or too spooky.

 

HAPPY READING!   

Waiting on Wednesday

 Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor, and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis, and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling--

And keep the real killer from striking again.

Why I'm Waiting: I really like Mary Robinette Kowal's other works, so I'm excited about something new!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

  

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of New Haven. Ben Bookman, the bestselling novelist, and heir to the Blackwood estate spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.

As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continue to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.

As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.

HAPPY READING!!

Hell's Half Acre - Review

Author: Susan Jonusas

Genre: True Crime

Format: Audiobook

Time: 9 Hours

This was a mixed bag for me because there were parts about this book I really liked, but toward the middle of the book, it started to feel like this book would never end. Maybe it was the audiobook version that made it feel like, nine hours for a book that's just three hundred and sixty-eight pages. Toward the end, this book felt like a chore, and I had to make myself finish it. All of these really disappointed me because I'm from Southeast Kansas and I grew up on the Bender Family stories. So I was really excited about this book.

So let's start with what I really liked about this book. First, I loved how much history was in this book. I grew up in one of the towns mentioned in Hell's Half-Acre and I learned a lot of things I hadn't previously known. Not even just about my hometown, but towns I've been to a dozen times. So I really enjoyed that part. This continues throughout the book with each new region we follow the Bender Family too. It was kind of fun to think about these small little towns that were once bustling cities back then. 

I even liked that we got a feel for the landscape back then, not much as changed really when you get out of the farming communities, but the roads are paved now. And, while I grew up there, having those descriptions for the readers that have never been to the Middle of the USA, or even to this country. I thought it was great. I'm sure the physical copy even had pictures. So it was nice to see Jonsusas add these to the story she was telling about the Benders. To give an idea of isolated everything was, how hard it was for news to spread, or even communicate to anyone, not within a hundred miles of you. It sets a great scene for what this family did.

I also really like that Jonsusas did her best to tell the story of the victims of this family. Which had to be hard to piece together. However, this was where things started to stretch for me and get long. Each person connected to this case got a backstory, and I love that we were able to get to know the victims. We also got a deep dive into some of their families, and at times this was where the book seemed to slide from the story a little. Because with the audiobook it felt like we have taken a sharp left turn with no warning, and I have to stop to try to catch up with the story. Eventually, it would all connect together in the end, but occasionally I had forgotten we'd gotten that backstory in the first place.

Toward the middle of the book, it started to feel like an information dump with all the facts we started to get thrown at us, and I was having a hard time keeping up. At first, I thought it was because I was reading at work while I was multi-tasking trying to open. So I started listening in the morning with breakfast and at night when doing household chores, same problem. It was a lot of information just coming out of me, and I didn't always know how it was connected.

Here is where I wonder if this problem was because I had the audiobook and not the physical book. So there was no way to backtrack. But I also kind of feel like there should have been a way to tell this story without having to flip back a hundred pages to refresh myself on what happened. It might also be that I didn't just marathon this book, I read it over the course of a couple of weeks. Again lots of people do this.

In the end, it's a solidly researched book that does a good job of telling not just the story of the Bender Family, but the people they murdered while living in Southeast Kansas. While this book wasn't exactly for me, I wouldn't tell people interested in the history of these murders not to pick up. Just to maybe pick up a book or ebook version instead of the audio.

HAPPY READING!!

Book Mail

So, the Midnight Club is about to hit Netflix in October. Christopher Pike was one of my favorite authors growing up, which means I'm beyond excited for Midnight Club. It was one of my favorites, and one I re-read several times. That being said it's been about a decade since I last cracked it open. While I kind of remember what went down in the story I had the bright idea on my lunch break to buy the old mass market copy and give it another read.

I tell you that story because while I find copies of that book, the price tag was way out of my price range. But! I didn't find my favorite book by Christopher Pike, Die Softly. 

This leads to a book mail because free shipping is free shipping. So I snagged a couple of extra books. I'm practical that way. I'm a little practical with about how little space I have left on my shelves for actual books.

But, that is a problem for another day!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

 Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

 A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America. While other infamous homicides from the same eras—the Lizzie Borden slayings, for example, or the “thrill killing” committed by Leopold and Loeb—have entered into our cultural mythology, these four equally sensational crimes have largely faded from public memory. A quartet of gripping historical true-crime narratives, Butcher’s Work restores these once-notorious cases to vivid, dramatic life.

Why I'm Waiting: This was a neat book with interesting little true crime that I had never heard about before this book. I'm currently about 60% through this and I'm really enjoying!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 Ever since their on-again, off-again college romance, Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with charismatic but reckless Silas, who’s been chasing the next big high since graduation. When he texts her to spring him out of rehab, she knows enough is enough. She’s ready to start a career, make new friends, and meet a great guy—even if that means cutting Silas off. But when Silas turns up dead from an overdose, Erin’s world falls apart.

When Erin learns that Silas discovered a drug that allowed him to see the dead, she doesn’t believe it’s real but agrees to a pill-popping “séance” to ease her guilt and pain. When she steps back into the real world, she starts to see ghosts from her Southern hometown’s bloody and brutal past everywhere. Are the effects pharmacological or something more sinister? And will Erin be able to shut the Pandora’s box of horrors she’s opened?

With propulsive momentum, bone-chilling scares, and dark meditations on the weight of history, this Southern horror will make you think twice about opening doors to the unknown.

HAPPY READING!!

The Night of the Living Dummy - Review

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: Middle Grade / Horror

Format: Paperback

Page: 134

Throwback read! I devoured this series as a kid. In fact, by the time I graduated High School I had an entire plastic tub full of them stored under the stairs. Sadly, I think college let my Mom give them away to cousins or some garage sale. 

Now, a decade, and some change later, I've been digging through thrift stores to rebuild that collection! 

And, I couldn't think of a better time to start reading them again than the start of Spooky Season. Naturally, I had to start with the one that creeped me out the most as a kid. 

This book is the reason I jumped into bed as a kid because I swore Slappy was living under my bed. It was a hundred percent the cat, but small me was convinced otherwise.

I will say enough time has passed I remember zero of this book, its plot, or its characters. So it was like reading this again for the first time. I will say it's more fun reading this as an adult because they aren't on the scary side. Instead, I can enjoy the cheese factor and little jump scares that I know would have gotten me as a kid.

As a whole, it's a solid story, and even adult me enjoyed it, curled up on the couch in my fuzzy blanket. The story moves along quickly enough that it's hard to get bored or sidetracked, especially for younger readers. I had forgotten this was the start of a series, so the end caught me off guard as I remembered why this creeped me right out.

The only real complaint I had with this book was the parents. I don't know if it was because the book was told through the girls' point of view that they seemed so mean, but I remember this kind of being a theme with the Goosebump series, lackluster parents that shrugged everything off.

As I kid I never noticed, too focused on the story, the mystery, and the characters. As an adult, I did notice it, and I was kind of hoping Slappy got a hold of the parents.

Other than that it was a great break from more intense nonfiction reads. I remember why I loved these as a kid!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

  

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Welcome to the reality game show that'll scare you to death! Have you got what it takes to last the night?

On the reality show, It's Behind You!, five contestants competing for prize money must survive the night in the dark and dangerous Umber Gorge caves, rumored to be haunted by the Puckered Maiden, a ghost who eats the hearts of her victims. But is it the malevolent spirit they should fear, or each other?

As the production crew ramps up the frights, tensions rise and the secrets of the cast member start coming to light. Each of these teenagers has hidden motives for taking part in the show. But could one of them be murder?

HAPPY READING!!

Latinx Heritage Month

Thursday the 15th kicked off Latinx Heritage Month! I couldn't think of a better time to show off some of my books by Latinx authors! All of these are horror novels, and all but one are new authors to me. All of these books are sitting on my TBR shelf. 

I do need to give the ladies of Night Worms for bringing most of these books into my life. Without them, I don't think I would have ever known about these books! And, Bookstagram brought Camp Slaughter into my life, which I need to pick because I just saw it's getting a second book!  

Monster I found tucked away at a small little Indie bookstore in Seattle. I'm thinking it's a satire of monster horror novels, but I don't know exactly. It just sounds like it'll be a wild read.

Last, but not least, is Edgar Cantero! I discovered him through my local library. I fell in love with his Supernatural Encounters, it's trippy and an amazing read. It's one of those books that has stuck with me, and I need to read it again. His books are trippy, weird, and a lot of fun. I always suggest his books to people who like creepy and stranger reads!

So most of these are sitting on my hopeful TBR shelf for Spooky Season. A couple seems intense, Jawbone, and I haven't hyped myself up for the pain they will cause.

HAPPY READING!!

The Church Supper Cookbook - Review

Author: David Joachim

Genre: CookBook

Format: Hardback

Page: 288

This fell into my hand's thanks to a friend of mine. We both work in the restaurant industry and they always find some cookbook gems. This was no exception to the rule. I covered this book in tabs of recipes to try, to fix, and things that were absolutely crazy. Some of these should have stayed in the decade they were created.

Or, just not be created at all. Because raisins are not a catch-all to make a dish better. Please stop adding raisins to nonbaking dishes. It's weird.

I will say this cookbook was a lot of fun. While there were a lot of recipes in here I won't try, my roommate and I had a lot of fun flipping through this one. And, she made a good point. We've probably eaten some of these recipes growing up in the middle and never knew it.

Sometimes you don't want to know what makes a dish good. 

On the other hand, I did find a lot of recipes here I wanted to try. A few of them need some tweaking. Like raisins were removed from the recipes. Why would put those in chili, why? A few of them just need a few more seasonings. Others sounded pretty solid and I will definitely have to give them a go.

There were a lot of solid baking recipes in though. If I ever feel adventurous I'll give some of the bread recipes a try. Bread has never been my strong suit. There were some cookie and bar recipes though that I really want to try over the winter when it's cool enough to have the oven on. 

So yeah, I"m glad to have this on my shelves. It's a fun little conversation starter, and it had enough solid recipes in it I'm keeping it around.

HAPPY READING!!

Book Haul

I went to Goodwill to look at their Halloween selection over my weekend. You never know when you'll find treasure, and I had thirty minutes to kill before my only meeting that day. While I didn't find anything new Halloween decorations I couldn't live without. So like always I wander over to the books because I'm me and I have a serious problem. My goal is to have a library like Merlin's from Sword in the Stone, seconds away from crushing him. 

Anyway, while I was sorting through the books I came across some gems! I have never heard of the Point Horror series by Scholastic in the 1990s. And, I'm a little bummed about that because Middle School me would have loved these. Adult me is also very excited because they seem absolutely ridiculous. I do know what of the authors, Caroline B Cooney. She wrote The Face on the Milk Carton which I did read back in Middle School.

These will have to happen over Spooky Season. I'm not expecting anything amazing, and I figured that probably haven't aged well. But, I do figure they'll be a fun and quick read.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

Erica Slaughter strikes out on her own in the bestselling, award-winning series!

After a year since we last saw her in Archer’s Peak, Erica Slaughter resurfaces to take on the case of a girl who’s seen a new kind of monster, one with terrifying implications. But Erica’s broken ties with the House of Slaughter and that can have deadly consequences. The Order of St. George does not forget nor do they forgive. Even as Erica goes on the hunt, she must keep an eye out for the mysterious figure on her trail in order to survive the coming storm. Erica Slaughter returns after the Archer’s Peak Saga in this volume of the Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated series from GLAAD Award-winning author James Tynion IV (The Woods, Batman), artist Werther Dell’Edera (Razorblades), colorist Miquel Muerto (Bleed Them Dry), and letterer AndWorld Design (Nightwing).

Collecting Something is Killing the Children #21-25.

Why I'm Waiting: I'm in love with this series! That's why I'm waiting.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Her city is under siege.

The zombies are coming back.

And all Nona wants is a birthday party.

In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back.

The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces has surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.

And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face...

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

  

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends' abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adele grew up in the shadows--first watching from backstage at her mother's Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father's manor. When she's finally sent away to boarding school in London, she's happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele's new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adele save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

HAPPY READING!!

Book Haul

Not that I need an excuse to buy more books, but last Wednesday was Buy a Book Day. How I could not, it's a National Holiday after all. It was also the day after my Spotlight Book, The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D Jackson, hit shelves, which means it was a win-win for me. So I met up with a friend during our lunch break and we did a bit of book shopping at our local bookstore. We are both very lucky to work just a few blocks from the bookstore. An upside for me, a downside for my wallet. But at this point, my bank account should be used to it by now.

I also picked up a new Grady Hendrix book for my shelves. Thanks to Horrorstor I adore Hendrix's writing and now I have a mighty need to collect them all. Including his new book when it finally comes out because that one also sounds so good. But, first I must make it through My Best Friend's Exorcism and The Final Girl Support Group!

HAPPY READING!!

Hollow - Review

Author: Shannon Watters

Genre: Graphic Novel / Retelling

Format: ebook

Page: 178

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Boom!Box for an early chance at reading this!

I'm a huge fan of Lumberjanes, so I jumped at the chance to read something new by Shannon Watters. What made it impossible to pass up is that Watters was putting a more modern twist on one of my favorite Spooky Season reads. So really, there was no way that I could have been disappointed. Too many of my favorite things were converging on top of each other.

I was in fact not disappointed, and I'm so glad I started more Spooky Season reads off with Hollow. 

My favorite part of Hollow is the characters. Of course, we have the staple characters of any Sleepy Hollow retelling, the Van Tassel's and the Crane's are present. Even Washington Irving gets a small mention at some point in the story. I liked that Vicky was the descendant of the original Van Tassel family like Iriving just used an existing family to set his story around. But, like the story, Izzy Crane was new to town. I felt it was a fun play on canon. Hands down though my favorite character was Croc. He's had such golden retriever energy. He honestly was the sweetest guy and I'm so glad he got himself a lady at the end of the story.

Of course no Sleepy Hallow retelling without the Horseman, and say this is my favorite version of the Horseman. I love the way that Watters changed his story, it's a nice twist and I thought it added a lot of comedy to the story. Gordo's responses to things Croc would say were my favorite moments. 

The storyline is also really good from start to finish. It's a lot of fun, it's heartwarming and full of a bit of teenage angst! The kind of story where everyone, except for the villain, gets a happy ending. Where one character finds their voice, another finally finds real friends, and Croc gets to have an adventure. Plus, the cutest sapphic romance of the Spooky Season.

Hollow is perfect for anyone looking for a non-spooky read this Spooky Season. This is definitely it, but it still gives off those Fall vibes.

I also can't close out this review without mentioning the artwork in Hollow. It was really good. This is one of those stories where the artwork helped tell Watters' story. From the amazing facial expressions from Gordo to Croc's master prank that almost worked. Every panel was amazing and the color palette worked perfectly not just for the spooky season vibe but kept the story from getting too dark as well. The story definitely has Scooby-Doo vibes and the artwork helps sell that.

I don't have a single issue with the Scooby-Doo thing, it did my 90s kid heart good! Hollow is for fans of the Lumberjanes series, Sleepy Hollow, or just cute Spooky Season reads, this is the book for you!

 

Hollow comes out on October 4, 2022!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

The Witch in the Well is a dark Norwegian thriller from Camilla Bruce, author of You Let Me In.

When two former friends reunite after decades apart, their grudges, flawed ambitions, and shared obsession swirl into an all-too-real echo of a terrible town legend.

Centuries ago, beautiful young Ilsbeth Clark was accused of witchcraft after several children disappeared. Her acquittal did nothing to stop her fellow townsfolk from drowning her in the well where the missing children were last seen.

When author and social media influencer Elena returns to the summer paradise of her youth to get her family's manor house ready to sell, the last thing she expected was connecting with—and feeling inspired to write about—Ilsbeth’s infamous spirit. The very historical figure that her ex-childhood friend, Cathy, has been diligently researching and writing about for years.

What begins as a fiercely competitive sense of ownership over Ilsbeth and her story soon turns both women’s worlds into something more haunted and dangerous than they could ever imagine.

Why I'm Waiting: I really liked In The Garden of Spite so I'm really excited for Bruce's next book!

HAPPY READING!!