I’ve loved reading short horror stories ever since I got my elementary school-aged hands on a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. In high school, I discovered my love of poetry, and I’ve never stopped trying to find a new favorite horror book. I love being able to sit down with a cup of tea on a rainy autumn afternoon and read a whole book in one go. I’m co-chair of the Horror Writers Association’s Seattle Chapter and find myself adding new horror books to my TBR pile every week. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I did!
While I will read anything written by Lee Murray, I loved this anthology of horror poetry! The variety of voices that Murray and Ryan have pulled together is powerful when read cover to cover. I love how the real-life horrors that women can face are illustrated by the poets through these creative, powerful, and well written pieces.
A showcase of poetry from some of the darkest and most lyrical voices of women in horror.
A follow-up to the award-winning poetry showcase Under Her Skin, UNDER HER EYE features the best in never-before-published dark verse and lyrical prose from the voices of Women in Horror, themed on domestic horror and the terror women too often experience in their own homes.
Edited by Lindy Ryan and Lee Murray, UNDER HER EYE celebrates women in horror from cover to cover. In addition to poems contributed by over one hundred poets worldwide, the collection features poems from Stephanie M. Wytovich, Jessica…
I loved the way Christina Sng’s language and descriptions kept me in a daydream-like state while reading. I felt as though I was fully immersed in a different world. It was easy to continue flipping pages and reading the whole collection in one sitting.
The creepy and unsettling bits haunted me a little afterward, bleeding their way into my dreams, but I think that’s something powerful about well-written poetry. I’d happily suffer through a few sleeps with nightmares to read more from this poet.
Hold your screams and enter a world of seasonal creatures, dreams of bones, and confessions modeled from open eyes and endless insomnia. Christina Sng's A Collection of Nightmares is a poetic feast of sleeplessness and shadows, an exquisite exhibition of fear and things better left unsaid. Here are ramblings at the end of the world and a path that leads to a thousand paper cuts at the hands of a skin carver. There are crawlspace whispers, and fresh sheets gently washed with sacrifice and poison, and if you're careful in this ghost month, these poems will call upon the succubus…
I absolutely loved this creative take on the whole final girl slasher trope! I really enjoy a strong female character in horror where they’re “just like us.” Reading these poems where the females can be outspoken and confident but also quiet or slutty was powerful.
I enjoyed how they’re inspired or based on different movies. When I finished the book, I had a whole list of movies I needed to watch or re-watch. This collection was on my mind for days after.
"There is nothing else in this world / like realizing / you’re going to live / and not being sure / you can."
From Claire C. Holland, a timely collection of poetry that follows the final girl of slasher cinema - the girl who survives until the end - on a journey of retribution and reclamation. From the white picket fences of 1970s Haddonfield to the apocalyptic end of the world, Holland confronts the role of women in relation to subjects including feminism, sexuality, violence, and healing in the world of Trump and the MeToo…
I read this poetry and prose collection a while back, and it’s still one of my favorites in terms of flow and visuals. I like the way Linda Addison formats the poems on the pages. The indents and line lengths vary, and so, to me, it’s like a little treat for your eyes as you read.
I loved the take on demons and how the “real world” the works felt versus feeling too unrealistic and supernatural.
Who doesn’t need to know How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend? From the first African-American to receive the HWA Bram Stoker award, this award-winning collection of both horror and science fiction short stories and poetry reveals demons in the most likely people (like a jealous ghost across the street) or in unlikely places (like the dimension-shifting dreams of an American Indian). Recognition is the first step, what you do with your friends/demons after that is up to you.
I am a sucker for a good supernatural poetry collection where female characters can be unapologetically evil. I couldn’t put it down; the book had a death grip on me. The variety of drabbles and poems flowed well with all of the different voices and authors.
I enjoyed the different sea creature tales full of macabre and grisly takes on sirens, mermaids, and others.
Dangerous waters takes us deep beneath the ocean waves and shows us once more why we need to be cautious about venturing out into the water.
Featuring stories, drabbles and poems by Sandra Ljubjanović, John Higgins, Patrick Rutigliano, Candace Robinson, Emmanuel Williams, Desirée M. Niccoli, L. Marie Wood, Samantha Lokai, Christina Henneman, Gully Novaro, Christine Lukas, Alice Austin, Dawn Vogel, Victoria Nations, Mark Towse, Kristin Cleaveland, Ben Monroe, Kurt Newton, E.M. Linden, Eva Papasoulioti, Ann Wuehler, Rachel Dib, A.R. Fredericksen, Daniel Pyle, Megan Hart, Ef…
To be in a love haze means being so in love with another person that you can’t see your partner’s flaws, those little red flags that pop up. Love can be all consuming and oftentimes you give up little pieces of yourself in order to stay in that bubble.
Readers should expect a variety of relationships, where the mortal considers giving up themselves for just a moment more with their love. But along with this, expect feelings of uneasiness and discomfort to creep in. And possibly new beings to haunt your nightmares. Think falling in love with human sacrificing witches, screaming banshees, vampires who will kill without a second thought, and even death herself.
For dark romance lovers who've contemplated what love would look like with a little more BITE.
