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| Ring Shout by P. Djèlí ClarkThe premise: In 1920s Macon, Georgia, sorcerer D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation has unleashed an army of racist demonic monsters known as Ku Kluxes.
Starring: a trio of battle-hardened Black women ready to protect their town from the cosmic horrors lying in wait: sword-wielding Maryse; sharpshooter Sadie; and World War I veteran Chef.
Who it's for: This gruesome and darkly humorous alternate history will appeal to fans of Black-authored stories that interrogate the racist tropes of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, like Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom. |
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| Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth; illustrated by Sara LautmanThen: In early 20th-century Massachusetts, a series of mysterious deaths at a girls' boarding school are linked to the provocative (and real) 1902 queer memoir The Story of Mary MacLane.
Now: On the set of a high-profile horror film about the incident, creepy phenomena begin plaguing the cast and crew.
Read it for: a sardonic metafictional storyline that blurs the lines between past and present; evocative black-and-white illustrations that capture the novel's eerie gothic tone. |
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That time of year by Marie NDiayeWhat it's about: "After his wife and child disappear at the end of their vacation in a small French village, Herman sets out to find them, only to find that his urgent inquiry immediately recedes into the background and he wittingly and not, becomes one with a society defined by its strange traditions, ghostly apparitions, hospitality that verges on mania, and a nightmarish act of collective forgetting. For fans of: Compelling, creepy and farcical fiction. Reviewers say: NDiaye's novel is a nightmarish vision of otherness, privilege, and social amnesia, told with potent clarity and a heady dose of the weird.
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| The Loop by Jeremy Robert JohnsonWhat it is: a fast-paced techno-thriller set in the small Oregon town of Turner Falls, where a biotech company loses control of an experiment with devastating potential fallout for the town and the entire human race.
For fans of: apocalyptic stories that combine elements of horror with social satire, such as Wanderers by Chuck Wendig or Mira Grant's Newsflesh series.
Reviewers say: "unputdownable" (Publishers Weekly); "heart-pounding and deeply unsettling" (Booklist). |
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| The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado; illustrated by DaniWelcome to... Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, a small coal-mining community beset by an illness that causes women to forget the grotesqueries they've witnessed.
Starring: best friends El and Vee, two queer teenage girls investigating the bizarre goings-on in their town.
Art alert: Dani's darkly expressive and scratchy artwork complements the graphic novel's creepy tone. |
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Books You Might Have Missed
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The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham Jones
Ten years ago: A quartet of 20-something Blackfeet men embarked on an ill-fated elk hunting trip on tribal lands meant only for the elders' use.
Now: Still processing their lingering feelings of guilt and shame all these years later, one by one the men find themselves at the mercy of a vengeful entity that stalks their every move.
What sets it apart: This incisive own voices novel explores themes of cultural identity and intergenerational trauma while offering plenty of eerie supernatural scares.
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Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Welcome to...High Place, a decrepit mansion in the remote 1950s Mexican countryside that's home to a racist English mining family.
What happens: After her newlywed cousin Catalina sends a letter from High Place claiming abuse, resourceful 22-year-old socialite Noemí Taboada arrives at the estate, where she's quickly swept up in its nightmarish goings-on and deadly secrets.
Want a taste? "This house is sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment."
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The institute : a novel by Stephen KingWhat it is: A supernatural thriller finds an abducted youth imprisoned in an inescapable institute, where teens with psychic abilities are subjected to torturous manipulation. Why you might like it: As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King's gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don't always win.
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| The Unsuitable by Molly PohligStarring: Iseult Wince, a young Victorian woman who communicates with her dead mother; Iseult's cruel father Edward, who is determined to marry off his "old maid" daughter at any cost; and Jacob Vinke, a damaged young man and Iseult's most likely marriage prospect -- if Iseult can quiet her mother's increasingly worried voice.
For fans of: darkly humorous gothic fiction such as Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy.
Reviewers say: "Bloody and bizarre" (Kirkus). |
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The Cabin at the End of the World
by Paul Tremblay
What it's about: Eric and Andrew are enjoying a well-earned vacation with their seven-year-old daughter, Wen, until a quartet of weapon-wielding strangers appears, warning that the apocalypse is imminent...unless one of the family members sacrifices another.
About the author: Paul Tremblay is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts.
Why you might like it: Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, this thought-provoking home invasion thriller wrestles with questions of morality in the face of survival.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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