artsy musings of a bibliophile

horror october

Trend Alert: Island Settings in YA

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Of trends and lesser-knowns.

No, this isn’t a post about taking books to a deserted island, it’s about books that takes place on them. A deserted island, a huge isolated piece of land floating in dark water, a death trap; you get the picture. It’s spooky, there’s a high likelihood of getting murdered and possibly no way out. But it could also be adventurous, full of mystery, chilling to the bone, or romantic.
Enid Blyton’s Five on a Treasure Island was the first book I read which was set on an island. Full of adventure and mystery, it made me fall in love with the Famous Five.

Classic When it Comes to Island Settings

There are always classics, the books that came before everything else and set a standard or just became classics on the basis of their stories. However, most of the classics in the genre are fantasy-based.

L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Green Gables series takes place on Prince Edward island and who doesn’t know that. Not many people like William Golding’s Lord of the Flies which is all things downright creepy and nightmarish and takes place on a deserted island. However, Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World takes place on a jungle island with dinosaurs.

Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague features ponies and horses and Rachel Neumeier’s The Floating Islands is a fantasy that features dragons and men with wings.

Juliet Marillier’s Wolf’s Skin is a sweeping historical fiction fantasy about Eyvind who dreams of becoming a Wolfskin. Dan Elconin’s Never After is a reimagined tale of Peter Pan with perils and laughter as no genre is complete without a retelling.

And oh, Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale is also a classic in the sci-fi genre with an island setting.

Lastly, Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races takes place on a fictional island and what could be better than that?

Stranded with Suspense and Murder

I’ve watched one too many movies where a group of people get stranded on an island only to find that their number is decreasing one by one. Nothing good could come out of that.

In Gretchen McNeil’s Ten, it was supposed to be a three-day party weekend on an island. But now it’s all about one person having a killer party. Similarly, Abigail Haas’ Dangerous Girls and Dangerous Boys is all about everything gone wrong when a brutal murder happens. Running for your life has a new meaning and it’s Haas.

However, in Megan Shephard’s The Madman’s Daughter, we go back in time on a remote tropical island to uncover the truth about Juliet Moreau’s mad, mad father. Whereas Francis Hardinge’s The Lost Conspiracy is more about adventure than murder but there’s definitely something sinister going on.

Threats and Unraveling Truths On an Island

What is it about islands that’s just so damn creepy, anyway? I mean, yeah, they could be romantic and beautiful like that one time in Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn (barf). However, islands are majorly full of truths and mystery and if you want to get off one, you gotta figure out the truth. For instance, how in Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire, the arena was in a jungle with the Cornucopia situated on an island.

But could island settings also be something wrought with a different kind of a danger?

Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is spine-tingling for a sinister reason and Marcus Sedgewick’s Midwinterblood is an unsettling story about immortality set in the future on an, you guessed it, island.

Anna Collomore’s The Ruining features insanity and I bet that insanity on an island is worse than in other place. There’s just something about it… Moving on, E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars is creepy on a private island.

But it’s not always psychological as Austin Aslan’s The Islands at the End of the World is a bloodchilling dystopia set on Hawaii featuring an epileptic main character. Moreover, Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island is all about finding out the truth and Lynne Matson’s Nil and Nil Unlocked feature an island that’s full of dangers and a terrible truth.

Francine Prose’s The Turning takes place on an isolated island where things are bound to get spooky and Megan Crewe’s The Way We Fall is about a community surviving on an island after it’s been quarantined because of a virus.

Crash! Now Survive

For some reason, crashing on islands isn’t as popular as one would think. It is a chilling scenario, though to find yourself on an island with no way out. How would you survive?

Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens is perhaps a stellar book when it comes to suvival because you got a bunch of beauty pageant participants on an island. Fun times ahead, eh? Contrastingly, S. A. Bodeen’s The Raft is about a couple of survivors, one of whom is unconscious for a better part of the book.

Basically, books set on island make me wish never to be on one. Do you like books set on islands? Does it get old for you fast or does the thrill of it all excites you?

Thirteen Authors and YA Horror

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It’s Horror October and today I’m focusing on YA authors who write horror books that really terrify or are just downright creepy.

Whatever genre an author debuts with definitely impacts their image. Now, there are many things responsible for the success of any book. YA has come a long way in that a good guy facing off the bad guy isn’t limited to the darker genres anymore. However, I can’t help but notice that there are only a handful of young adult horror authors and that its subgenres are much more popular (re: zombies and dark fantasy). So while we definitely need more young adult horror, here’s a list of thirteen authors who delved into the genre.

Before. Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood is probably the most popular book when it comes to young adult horror. And why wouldn’t it be, featuring a ghost harboring murderous rage for anyone who dares enter the Victorian house that was her home back in the 1950s? The sequel titled Girl of Nightmares is almost, if not quite, as popular as its predecessor.

After. Blake then went on to write an adult mythology series titled Goddess War which mainly garnered mixed reactions and ratings despite most of Antigoddess ratings averaging four stars while, the recent release of its sequel, Mortal Gods, seems to receive more love.

What’s next? A young adult fantasy series, the first of which is titled Three Dark Crowns, releasing in fall 2016. There are assassins and it takes place on a remote island and who doesn’t want to read stuff like that.

Before. Writing under the alias of Mira Grant, Seanan McGuire made her debut as a young adult author with Feed, the first book in the Newsflesh trilogy. A series that majority of people love which Grant describes it as ‘thoughtful horror and horrific science fiction’ set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies exist.
After. In 2013, Parasite, the first book in her new Parasitology series, was released which tells the story of parasites going after the human race. I guess, letting tapeworms grow in one’s stomach for immunity purposes is horrifying.

What’s next? An anthology and the conclusion to her Parasitology series titled Chimera are set to release in 2015. And oh, a standalone book titled Rewind set in the same world as Newsflesh is coming out in 2016.

Before. Brenna Yovanoff is primarily a young adult paranormal fantasy writer that crosses over as paranormal fantasy horror. Her debut, The Replacement, tells the story of Mackie Doyle (who might not be human) uncovering the cause of mysterious happenings and eerie creatures roaming the underworld of the small town of Gentry.

After. Since her debut, Brenna Yovanoff has published a book every year. The Space Between, her most popular title to date, is about the daughter of a demon and a fallen angel who travels to earth and dips in her demonic powers in the process. Paper Valentine is a haunting murder mystery whereas, Fiendish is a gothic tale of Clementine who was locked in a cellar for ten years.

What’s next? Again, not exactly horror, Fourteen Dreams ‘is about a high-achieving girl who falls for the most imperfect boy in school through a series of mysterious dreams that change how she feels about herself, her future, and love.’

Before. Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a story about Mary and others from her village trying to in a village overrun with flesh-eating zombies.

After. In between writing a couple of anthologies and a collection of short stories, The Dead and Empty World, Carrie Ryan have co-authored a middle grade fantasy series with her husband, John Parke Davis. The Map to Everywhere is about a master thief Fin who combine forces with a crew to scour the world for the map to Everywhere.

What’s next? Daughter of Deep Silence releasing on June 2nd, 2015 is a young adult romantic thriller about Frances Mace who seeks revenge from a rich family posing as her friend who died as a result of the attack on the luxury yacht they were on. There’s also an untitled book releasing in 2016.

Before. Jonathan Maberry is known for horror fiction and rightly so because of his Benny Imura series. But before he wrote horror, Maberry used to write about martial arts. His departure from martial arts began with Ghost Road Blues, a highly acclaimed adult horror thriller about three criminals. 

After. His adult Joe Ledger series about a Baltimore detective began in 2009 and a year later, Maberry’s Rot & Ruin was released. Set in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been infested by zombies, the series follow Benny Imura as he struggles to survive. Maberry also wrote some graphic novels as well as a few anthologies and collections of short stories.

What’s next? A middle grade urban fantasy series starting with The Orphan’s Army releasing in June 2015 along with an untitled horror novel that will be released in 2016 by St. Martin’s Griffin.

Before. Madeleine Roux debuted with a young adult series featuring zombies back in 2011. Allison Hewitt Is Trapped initially started out as experimental fiction on her blog.
After. HarperTeen published a creepy photo-illustrated series starter Asylum in 2013 that many found page-turning despite being predictable. Sanctum, the second installation of the series, isn’t nearly as creepy or impactful as Asylum as fans of the series either ended up feeling underwhelmed or overwhelmed.
What’s next? The conclusion to Asylum series coming in August 2015.

Before. Before he was a YA author, Ransom Riggs wrote The Sherlock Holmes Handbook in 2009. Two years after that Quirk published his novel. Set on a mysterious island, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children features strange, gifted children who are pursued by monsters from a set of spooky photographs.

After. The Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children graphic novel was released in 2013 and gave an extra edge to the overall mood of the story. Three years later, the just as peculiar but much more adventurous sequel, Hollow City, was released in January 2014.
What’s next? The conclusion to Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children trilogy which doesn’t have a release date yet.

Before. Bethany Griffin debuted with Handcuffs in 2008, a young adult contemporary before the publication of Masque of the Red Death. Inspired by the similarly titled work of Poe, Masque of the Red Death and its sequel are more of a dystopian steampunk with elements of gothic horror thrown in for good measure.

After. A psychological thriller of sorts, The Fall is Bethany Griffin’s entry into young adult horror. Again influenced by Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, it tells the story of Madeline Usher who is trapped in a house that has a mind of it own.

What’s next? An as-of-yet untitled book that will probably release in 2016.

Before. Hillary Monahan’s debut, MARY: The Summoning, takes root in the urband legend of Bloody Mary. Rightfully creepy, Mary seems to lack the gore which makes many wonder where the series is headed next.

What’s next? The sequel to Mary which doesn’t have a release date. Also, The Awesome releasing on May 26th, 2015 under a pen name of Eva Darrows. The Awesome is a paranormal comedy featuring a sassy and smart protagonist, Maggie Cunningham.

Before. Laurie Faria Stolarz debuted with a paranormal mystery Blue is for Nightmares and then went onto to write paranormal romance series Touch.
After. Told from multiple point of views, Welcome to the Dark House is about a contest to face your scariest nightmare in order to meet the movie producer of the Nightmare Elf series but of course, things aren’t as simple as they seem.
What’s next? The sequel Return to the Dark House releases on July 21st, 2015.

Before. Rick Yancey debuted with adult literary fiction, A Burning in Homeland back in 2003 and then entered the YA genre a couple of years later with a fantasy series beginning with The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp.

Then. 2009 saw the release of The Monstrumologist, a horror thriller about the monstrumologist chasing gruesome monsters with the help of his assistant. The series is four books long as of now.

After. Released only last year, The 5th Wave, become hugely popular. Set in a post-apocalyptic world with aliens, the starter and its sequel are fast-paced and filled with edge-of-your-seat action.

What’s next? The conclusion to The Fifth Wave’s trilogy is set to release in August 2015.

Before. Nova Ren Suma’s debut and sophomore novels, Dani Noir and Imaginary Girls, are mystery YA with surreal and creepy elements thrown in for good measure.

After. Released in 2013, 17 & Gone is Suma’s most creepy novel to date where a teen receives visions of missing girls. The boundaries of mental perception are tested in this psychological horror.

What’s next? The Walls Around Us, which follows the stories of a living and a dead girl, is a haunting novel featuring magical realism and is set to release on March 24th, 2015 and an untitled book releasing in 2016.

Before. Before writing books about serial killers and such, Barry Lyga used to write contemporary YA. Boy Toy is one of his highly acclaimed coming-of-age novel about Josh Mendel. His venture into the middle grade genre with Archvillain proved successful for the most part.
After. Mostly renowned for I Hunt Killers, Lyga’s Jasper Dent series follows Jazz, the son of a serial killer who’s finally been jailed. Can Jazz follow in his notorious father’s footsteps? The series conclusion, Blood of My Blood was released recently.
What’s next? Co-authoring with Peter Facinelli (Carlisle from Twilight, anyone?) and Rob DeFranco, Barry Lyga’s After the Red Rain has already started gathering hype despite its release date of August 2015. Set in the future, the cli-fi dystopia follows the life of a boy named Rose.

Have you read any of these? What are your favorites? Looking forward to any creepy, scary titles by any of the thirteen?

A Fortnight of Horror

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A fortnight of Horror October begins today! For the next two weeks, Asti and Leanne of Oh, the Books! and all the participants will be blogging about horror-related topics. Leanne hosted the event last year and it was all sorts of spooky fun.

The Thing About Horror

What has changed since the last time the event took place?

I am still not into horror but so excited to celebrate it because apart from ghosts, apparitions and weird scary noises, I’m all for it. Okay, I’m mostly for it. It’s just that I can’t handle watching a horror movie or TV show. I tried to, as a kid, and I still get creeped out if I start thinking about some of the stuff that I watched (which isn’t even that horrifying and mostly embarrassing).

What’s the most Halloweeny thing about me? Well, the fact that I went from Sana to Sanatorium on Twitter for it. Ha. Nevertheless, as soon as fall arrives all I want to do is curl up in a blanket with tea and just read really disturbing books.

Read to Be Unsettled

Let’s face it. I haven’t read a purely young adult horror book since the last R. L. Stine book I read as a teenager. I just keep thinking that I will get around to at least one but I never do and it’s sad. So it’s mostly the subgenres that I end up reading like psychological horror or paranormal horror.

So in regards to that, I started reading The Young Elites by Marie Lu which is pretty disturbing and dark. After that, I plan to read Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater which isn’t horror but it has dark elements and fist-slamming Ronan, so there. I also might read Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini because witches.

Horror: The Subgenres

Last year, I could only manage a couple of posts on Horror October and let’s not just get into that more than this. However, since I already talked about horror in YA back then, I would be focusing more on its subgenres this year. A post about books that give you the creeps, another about authors who write YA horror, yet another on how the trend of island settings in YA have changed over time and maybe a couple of book reviews. And oh, a discussion about the subgenres of YA horror seeing how they are vastly more popular than the genre itself.

Do you tend to read creepy, spooky or horror books in fall? Read a good horror YA lately? Let me know!

Horror in YA

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There is no lack of gory details and slasher attacks in horror and a zombie apocalypse always seem to be the next big thing. There is a reason why we love Dexter, Ripper Stefan and The Walking Dead on TV and why we’d be willing to read such books. However, most of us seem to like a genre obsessively while reading others only occasionally so we need the occasional genres to be irresistible. I’m pretty much a contemporary girl which is why I need a paranormal as good as the Vampire Academy or a dystopia as good as The Hunger Games to reel me in. But what to read when it comes to YA horror?
Classic horror like Flowers in the Attic and Frankenstein will never cease to creep out generations to come and horror movies like the Evil Dead will never cease to reboot. But it is cringe-worthy for any YA readers to see The Mortal Instruments series, or the Twilight saga for that matter, being classified as horror. Yes, horror is hard to define which is why it works as a perfect disguise in fiction. There are things that go bump in the night in a seemingly contemporary fiction and I love when that happens. Horror exists in YA because there is no lack of demons, monsters, spirits and zombie but good horror needs to be filtered out. 

Monstrous

Ghosts, ghouls and possessed souls are a forte of YA writers like Patrick Ness (A Monster Calls), Gretchen McNeil (Possess), Kendare Blake (Anna Dressed In Blood), Nova Ren Suma (Imaginary Girls), Brenna Yovanoff (The Space Between) and Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children). What’s a ghost story without it being a psychological thriller? I like it when books make me question the reality. Creepy but titillating like White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick and Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore. 
Mind takes over sleep in Insomnia by J. R. Johansson, Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender and Sleepless by Thomas Fahy. While, Mary Lindsey’s Shattered Souls is all about helping the lost souls and boarding school horror is all too real in Frost by Marianna Baer and Possessions by Nancy Holder.

Dark

Whether it’s murder on the island as retold in Gretchen McNeil’s Ten or how Victor Frankenstein came to be in Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor, retellings are always hard to resist. Jackson Pearce is doing it in her Fairytale Retellings series. Meanwhile, gothic retellings such as Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson, The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd and New Girl by Paige Harbison are also on the rise.

Kill

Murders are always interesting. A serial killer on the loose makes for a great horror mystery story such as Barry Lyga’s I Hunt Killers series, Stefan Petrucha’s Ripper (coincidence much?) or Robin Wasserman’s The Waking Dark. Killers are dark, psychotic and violent but the best part is that they could totally be even real and get haunted by the kills (Velveteen by Daniel Marks). A killer imaginary friend exists Damage by Anya Parish which is nothing compared to the inhumane creatures in prison in Alexander Gordon Smith’s Lockdown.

Devils

What’s better than falling in love with a beast? Falling in love with a devil (April Genevieve Tucholke’s Between series). But the horror truly begins when demonic beings come to inhabit humans in The Devouring by Simon Holt. Historical horror is very much alive in books like The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey, The Diviners by Libba Bray, Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard and Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough. Lia Habel’s Dearly, Departed an antique era has been modeled in the future and there are zombies to be reckoned with. ‘What if’ should’ve been declared a genre by now.

Rotten

We’re all prepared for a zombie apocalypse in some way. Or is it just me? Seriously, what can happen during a zombie apocalypse (Courtney Summers’ This is Not a Test) or in a post-apocalyptic zombie world (Carrie Ryan’s The Forests of Hands and Teeth)? What if a zombie falls in love with you (Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies), infects you with a zombie virus (Mira Grant’s Newflesh trilogy) and you barely escape from a zombie hunter (Jonathan Maberry’s Benny Imura series) only to start decaying into something other than a typical zombie (Rotters by Daniel Kraus)? Clearly I’m just going off a wild tangent here.
And oh, vampires are truly scary creatures in Darren Shan’s A Living Nightmare (Cirque Du Freak).

Dead Set

There is more YA horror to come in the future. Sequels aside, Nova Ren Suma is set to release her YA ghost story The Walls Around Us in 2015 while Gretchen McNeil’s latest release, 3:59, is about creepy overlapping parallel universes. The Troop by Nick Cutter is a survivor story of boy scouts on a deserted island while in Dead Set by Richard Kadrey there’s a strange presence in Zoe’s dreamscape.
So there you have it, the many kinds of horror YA to devour on. It’s a great way to scare yourself snuggled under a blanket during winters, isn’t it?
Also, if you want to read more about YA Horror, I found an article by SLJ on how Horror in YA Lit is a Staple, Not a Trend and there’s also a Horror Writers Association for YA.

Fourteen Days of Horror October

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Click the image for more #LEHorrorOctober posts.

“I think… someone is standing behind you.” 

Alright, alright, I confess that that line has fooled me on many occasions and I don’t like to speak much about it or at all. So why am I doing this? Because creepy books are my guilty pleasures. I’m not kidding. I pretty much went straight from reading sweet little kid stories by Enid Blyton to R. L. Stine. His Fear Street and Goosebumps series were fodder for a 12-year-old me. I did try watching horror TV shows and movies but failed horribly (see what I did there). I go from normal to freaking out under sixty seconds just because a scary thought creeped into my mind and BAM! 
Two of my friends have been pushing me watch Evil Dead and I might cave in but who knows, right? Right.
So when Leanne from Literary Excursion had this thrilling idea for Horror October, I was all over it. I’ve somehow lost touch with the horror genre as I grew up and I’d like to finally catch up.

All the Horror-Related Confessions

Everyone has these, right?

– I’ve never read a Stephen King book. *runs and hides*

– I love Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I’m fascinated by the monster. Yes, I’m weird.
– If I ever do dress up on Halloween (we don’t celebrate it), I’d totally dress up as a Gryffindor first. Rules of being a Potterhead and if you don’t agree then Avada Kedavra!
– I like blood and gore but too much of it disgusts me which is why I wonder how on earth did I ever want to become a brain surgeon. (I still do. Clearly I’m deluded and sad).
– Sinister looking jack-o’-lanterns creep me out. So do those scary-looking rubber masks. Ew.

Oh, the Horror of Reading Horror!

From classic horror to the standard serial killers and the ghostly undead, I’ll be reading a variety of horror books this month. There isn’t a set number but it is essential that I read some *points to The Shining* 
I’ll also be re-reading some of the R. L. Stine books I own which is still in the works because they’re back at home and I’m not. *pouts* 

The Shining by Stephen King
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ten by Gretchen McNeil
Insomnia by Stephen King
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Feed by Mira Grant
Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
I’m pretty satisfied with my list and more than ready to begin.

Horror is More Than Just a Genre

It’s not all about me reading. I’ll be posting all sorts of horror posts. 

– Essentials of Horror: Be it the undead or the living dead, there are certain elements that have to be present to make any book a horror book.

– Horror in YA: What do YA readers like to read when it comes to horror? 
– Books about Horror on Deserted Islands: Such books are pretty much staple when it comes to horror but the good news is that they never grow old. I’ll also be talking about why are settings important.
– Top Ten Tuesdays the Horror Editions: From scary-to-look-at book covers to scary character names, I’ve got it all covered.
– Book Reviews: First one up is Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard.
Let the horror begin!