Here are 7 books that Colossus with a Poison Tongue fans have personally recommended if you like
Colossus with a Poison Tongue.
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It's midnight and in the midst of an ice storm when Claudia Dance boards the bright yellow bus to Lacelean Street, a destination she has never heard of. She has no coat, no luggage, and no clue as to why she left home. In fact, she has no memory of her past whatsoever, and yet she feels compelled to make the trip. She will come to realize that salvation lies within the red-brick house at the end of Lacelean Street, a salvation granted by the strange power that dwells within. Sanity will be questioned, limits tested, and answers revealed... But…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
"Hulse weaves two distinct textures - rift through space travel and gritty war horror - to build his most ambitious and unique novel to date." - Coy Hall (Colossus With a Poison Tongue)A violent gang of mind-controlling Kreetons pass through an interdimensional rift and collide with an RAF pilot, sending him into the arms of their mortal enemy. Roy is changed beyond human comprehension, but can he return to WWII and save the world he thought he'd lost forever.Stan McCormick thought the war was nearly over until the Kreetons crash-landed into the middle of his last mission. As his squad…
I grew up in an isolated rural pub in England. My love of folk horror was born of a strong nostalgia for that time and it has fed into both my writing and my reading. I understood isolation, small communities, the effect of strangers, as well as the sense of ‘otherness’ in the atmosphere of the countryside – the calm before the storm, the liminal twilight. It also meant that I could tell when a writer had captured the ‘essence’ of folk horror. When the author weaves a story between the landscape and man, blends traditions and mythology – they take me to that place I know.
Think folk horror and you think rural setting, pretty cottages, white picket fences, and lurking ritual. Harvest Home is a folk horror classic and hits these expectations spot on.
A city couple escapes to the village of Cornwall Coombe to give their daughter a better quality of life. Everything is perfect until the husband discovers they were welcomed for a very specific reason. This discovery, becoming more evident as the harvest ritual approaches, leaves him in fear of losing his life and his family.
I loved this gradual teasing out of horror, subtle nuances that build to the awful climax. The ending is chilling, contrasting so sharply as it does against the background of a rural paradise, giving me one of those ‘oh!’ moments.
A family flees the crime-ridden city-and finds something worse-in "a brilliantly imagined horror story" by the New York Times-bestselling author (The Boston Globe).
After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature-and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan's darkest alley.
When the Constantines win the friendship of the town…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I knew before I finished reading that this novel would jump straight onto my "Best of 2023" shelf. I enjoyed it immensely.
Having previously read The Loney by the same author, I knew what to expect: Folk horror, grief horror, and a smattering of weird. In my opinion, Andrew Michael Hurley is one of the best folk horror writers in the UK.
He captures the dark elements of the countryside like no other, and his flawed characters are so well portrayed.
I devoured each and every page and didn't want it to end.
The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby's son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place.
Juliette, convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, seeks the help of the Beacons, a seemingly benevolent group of occultists. Richard, to try and keep the boy out of his mind, has turned his attention to the field opposite the house, where he patiently digs the barren dirt in search of a legendary oak tree.
I grew up in an isolated rural pub in England. My love of folk horror was born of a strong nostalgia for that time and it has fed into both my writing and my reading. I understood isolation, small communities, the effect of strangers, as well as the sense of ‘otherness’ in the atmosphere of the countryside – the calm before the storm, the liminal twilight. It also meant that I could tell when a writer had captured the ‘essence’ of folk horror. When the author weaves a story between the landscape and man, blends traditions and mythology – they take me to that place I know.
I love the film The Wicker Man (released in 1973) and was delighted to discover this novelisation from its director and screenwriter.
Full of pagan religion and ritual sacrifice on remote Summerisle, it is wonderfully creepy. Nor is it a flat retelling of the film but an expansion of the character of poor Sergeant Howie. Set up by Lord Summerisle to be the May sacrifice, he is tormented and abused as he searches for a missing child and on film is shown as priggish and cold.
Yet in the book, he is brave, vulnerable, doggedly trying to do the right thing in the face of adversity. He also performs a touchingly heroic act at the end of the book even as he suffered - I admit to shedding a tear.
First published in 1978, five years after the release of the classic horror film from which it is adapted, The Wicker Man by director Robin Hardy and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, is a gripping horror classic.
A novelization of the haunting Anthony Shaffer script, which drew from David Pinner's Ritual, it is the tale of Highlands policeman, Police Sergeant Neil Howie, on the trail of a missing girl being lured to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle. As May Day approaches, strange, magical, shamanistic and erotic events erupt around him. He is convinced that the girl has been abducted for human…
I’ve been a fan of horror stories as long as I can remember. The sense of building dread, and the moment of release when the terrible thing happens. I love stories about people put in impossible situations, and seeing how they overcome them, and that’s what good horror brings to the table. Being an avid reader I always have a book with me. To me, picking the right book to take on a holiday is as important as choosing the right clothing. I certainly hope this list gives you some ideas for your next vacation read.
Spending the summer in a cabin in the woods? Then The Ceremonies is a darn fine choice. The first time I read it was on a camping trip, and I was captivated by the way Klein describes the empty, lonely wilderness surrounding the Poroth Farm (the main location of the tale).
The protagonist of the book is an English professor who’s writing a book on the Gothics, and through the course of the book name drops a ton of classic horror novels and stories from the early 20th century. This book is not only a tremendous cosmic/folk horror novel, but sort of a treatise on classic gothic literature.
Not only is The Ceremonies a truly unsettling horror novel in its own right, but it could inspire a whole new reading list for you!
Graduate student Jeremy Freirs and aspiring dancer Carol Conklin, summering in the New Jersey village of Gilead, are trapped in a nightmare of terror, with an evil force emanating from a place once called Maquineanok, the Place of Burning
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I grew up in an isolated rural pub in England. My love of folk horror was born of a strong nostalgia for that time and it has fed into both my writing and my reading. I understood isolation, small communities, the effect of strangers, as well as the sense of ‘otherness’ in the atmosphere of the countryside – the calm before the storm, the liminal twilight. It also meant that I could tell when a writer had captured the ‘essence’ of folk horror. When the author weaves a story between the landscape and man, blends traditions and mythology – they take me to that place I know.
Coy Hall is a newer writer on the scene but the work he has produced so far has been of exceptional quality.
This particular book contains short stories which interlink yet standalone. Hall’sGrimoire of the Four Impostershas its folk horror set against the historical backdrop of the 16th and 17th centuries. I freely admit to being a history fan and seeing this mixed with a favourite subgenre is a delight.
The stories are dark and menacing, vibrant with character, and melding folklore and the occult into a showcase of storytelling. They show that folk horror can be done differently.
