horror books – GoodeyReads

Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: Middle Grade Horror
Length: 218 pages
Author: Katherine Arden
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Release Date: September 25th, 2018
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

New York Times bestselling adult author of The Bear and the Nightingale makes her middle grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story destined to become a classic

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn’t think–she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with “the smiling man,” a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she’s been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn’t have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: “Best get moving. At nightfall they’ll come for the rest of you.” Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie’s previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver’s warning. As the trio head out into the woods–bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them–the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: “Avoid large places. Keep to small.”

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

NO SCARECROWS FOR ME.

Wow this was SPOOKY for a middle grade read! Had me shivering a few times at the absolute creepiness of those scarecrows. Hard NOPE. I will not be hanging around a corn maze or pumpkin patch after dark, better believe that.

This was a good book though. A quick audio book read that kept me interested and worried for all involved. It was an interesting tale and strong characters. I enjoyed Ollie. She really fit the middle school narrative (in a good way). Ollie was coping with loss, friendships and finding a way to take on the fear in front of her.

It’s fast-paced and reminds me of why I love Arden’s writing [if you’re new here, The Winternight Trilogy is one of my favorite series EVER]. I will happily keep reading anything she publishes and this is no exception. An eerie atmosphere with budding friendships really brought this book home. I have definite plans to continue this series!

Overall audience notes:

Middle grade horror
Language: none
Romance: none
Content warnings: minor bullying, loss of a loved one, grief and depression

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ARC Book Review: Our Last Echoes by Kate Alice Marshall

March 11, 2021January 18, 2021 GoodeyReads

Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: Young adult thriller/horror
Length: 416 pages
Author: Kate Alice Marshall
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Release Date: March 16th, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Kara Thomas meets Twin Peaks in this supernatural thriller about one girl’s hunt for the truth about her mother’s disappearance in Kate Alice Marshall’s most commercial book yet.

Sophia’s first memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it fills her throat. She remembers the cold shock of going under. She remembers her mother pulling her to safety before disappearing forever. But Sophia has never been in the ocean. And her mother died years ago in a hospital. Or so she has been told her whole life.

A series of clues have led Sophia to the island of Bitter Rock, Alaska, where she talked her way into a summer internship at the Landon Avian Research Center, the same center her mother worked at right before she died. There, she meets the disarmingly clever Liam, whose own mother runs the LARC, as well as Abby, who’s following a mystery of her own: a series of unexplained disappearances. People have been vanishing from Bitter Rock for decades, leaving only their ghostly echoes behind. When it looks like their two mysteries might be one and the same, Sophia vows to dig up the truth, no matter how many lies she has to tell along the way. Even if it leads her to a truth she may not want to face.

Our Last Echoes is an eerie collection of found documents and written confessionals, in the style of Rules for Vanishing, with supernatural twists that keep you questioning what is true and what is an illusion.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own!

CONVOLUTED.

Yes. I enjoyed this. But also yes, some of this went over my head.

This is totally CREEEEEPY. Granted, I’m a wimp when it comes to thriller/horror books, but still. I preferred to read this in the daylight hours and I accept that. The mist and twisted souls wandering around had me second guessing every character in the book (with good reason).

I liked the formatting of this one with flashbacks (and forwards) to “videos” of what was happening at different times on the island. Also, who would even want to stay on this island!?!?

What kind of lost me, was the last quarter or so. I didn’t quite get what all of the echoes were doing, who they were following (and why), and a few other questions. A lot more world-building and deeper explanations would have helped me make sense of everything with Sophia and the echoes.

This is a highly atmospheric read and I think that’s why I thought it was intensely chilling. It kept me flipping pages fast and furious to see who survived and made it out alive. I enjoyed the characters and while I didn’t think the sub-plot of romance was all that necessary, I didn’t mind it. I liked that this group worked together to suss out the entities wreaking havoc on Bitter Rock.

Overall audience notes:

Young adult thriller/horror
Language: some strong
Romance: kisses
Violence: murder, attacks by supernatural entities

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Book Review

Book Review: Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

February 25, 2021October 9, 2020 GoodeyReads

Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: Thriller
Length: 384 pages
Author: Riley Sager
Publisher: Dutton Books
Release Date: June 30th, 2020
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?

INDEED, IT WAS SPOOKY.

I have officially decided this is my second favorite of Sager’s (The Last Time I Lied being the first). It freaked me out, had some interesting story lines, and was overall a good spooky thriller.

The ghosts and haunted manor setting had me reading in the day time. I do NOT do haunted houses. Regardless of ridiculousness, I still found myself totally on edge. This is a slow-burn kind of haunting. It felt like a movie, slowly amping up to the climax of all the weird things going off at once.

I liked the alternating chapters between the Dad and daughter, Maggie. Though I think I leaned more towards her Dad’s more horrific tale. Which lead me to being let down by the ending. I almost wanted more ghost-y-ness (is that a word?) then having every single answer laid out. I have a confused mix of how I feel about the end. I liked how things were overall solved, but still, just something, *something* was missing for me.

What also had me out of the book from the beginning was the ease at which this entire book wouldn’t have existed if she sold the house. And I always love a character who sprints towards the danger rather than away.

Overall audience notes:

Thriller
Language: occasional
Romance: none
Violence: murder, physical altercations
Trigger warnings: multiple discussions a murder-suicide and of multiple children being murdered

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Book Review

Book Review: The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

February 12, 2021September 13, 2020 GoodeyReads

Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: Thriller / Mystery
Length: 327 pages
Author: Simone St. James
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: February 18th, 2020
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn’t right at the Sun Down, and before long she’s determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…

DEFINITELY CREEPY.

Another thriller that I immensely enjoyed. Even as my Husband asked multiple times in the last 50 pages if I was okay. I was that enthralled and NEEDED TO KNOW.

What creeped me out most about this book was that relevance of it all. How easily this can and does happen to women. It was freaky to think of being watched, of being chose “just because” and disappearing without a trace.

The alternating story lines worked really well. I occasionally found them repetitive of each other, but overall, they kept the story moving. I was equally interested in both stories and thought they connected at the right time to tell the newest timeline.

I’m usually not into ghost stories, but this worked so well!! I was spooked by them, but they also played their own part. They definitely added to the ambiance and vibes of the whole book and gave me the heebie-jeebies multiple times. Remind me to never work at a run down motel in a small town. NOPE. That ending with all of the information rolling out was like WHOA. I loved finding out who was all included in what really happened in 1982.

Generally, thrillers slow down to where I feel like I need to just skim and get it over with. I never felt that way here. I found it easy to want to keep reading and the pages really flew by. An all out great thriller for it being a lesser read genre for me.

Overall audience notes:

Thriller / Mystery
Language: some strong
Romance: kisses
Violence: murder, physical altercations
Trigger warnings: mentions of rape victims (no full scenes), harassment, kidnapping, stalking