I loved the main character, Vesper, and how she navigates the strained relationship with her mother and father. And when you find out the 'why' of the strained relationship...it shifts the story into overdrive! Secrets, twists, and terror, all in one great novel.
A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family…
Grady Hendrix brings conflict, horror, humor, and angst into this story about a woman, Louise, and her brother, Mark, who have to get their parents' house into 'sellable' condition after their sudden deaths. But their dead mother's doll collection doesn't seem to want them to succeed. I loved the very 'real' sense of how family dynamics: emotional distance, jealousy, and resentment between a brother and sister weigh over every scene. But beneath it all, this is a bizarre and frightening story that you don't want to miss.
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn't want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn't want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father's academic career and her mother's lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn't want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Mostly, she doesn't want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and…
Stephen Graham Jones gives us a coming of age story about an unnamed narrator who is struggling with identity and belonging in this different type of werewolf novel. I love how the novel is both brutal and emotional and focuses on a family of werewolves (or soon-to-be werewolves) who must navigate a world where they are feared, hunted, and misunderstood. The non-linear manner in which the story is told is an interesting choice but one that adds to its brilliance.
A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy, whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them. He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his…
When the ride ends, the terror begins… The nightmares and visions are getting worse for crime writer Jack Rainne. He can’t shake the childhood memory of a haunting carousel ride in a desolate Missouri cornfield. The psych ward docs convinced him long ago the frightening images were all in his head. Twenty-five years later, he’s not so sure. He spots the carousel and its grizzled operator a thousand miles away from the Missouri cornfield, captured in a photo taken the night a young family vanishes from a local carnival. The problem? Jack is in the photo, too. Did I mention dead people? Jack sees them. And the murders he pens in his novels resemble several unsolved killings in the area. His wife, Sam, begs him to get help—right before she vanishes. With a trail of evidence pointing his way, Jack is forced to go on the run. His only hope for answers is a return to the Missouri cornfield where it all began. There, he uncovers a shocking truth—and a long-forgotten promise he’s condemned to fulfill.
