Melody Writes

I thoroughly enjoy horror stories set in the deep north. There is something about the icy cold isolation that just heightens the tension for me. Even if I am reading the book in the midst of summer, I always feel a chill. We Like it Cherry by Jacy Morris delivers on the chills, for sure. Ezra Montbanc hosts a video series about the cultures and celebrations of Indigenous tribes in North America. Buried in an endless string of powwows, Ezra is losing faith in his show and longs for an exciting assignment to punch things up. In a classic case of “be careful what you wish for”, Ezra gets just that. He is invited to observe and record an isolated and mysterious tribe, the Winoquin, as they conduct a once in a lifetime ritual. He believes that this discovery will be what catapults his tiny show from obscurity into the primetime. Travelling with him are Stu, his cameraman and secret lover, Jonesy, a rough-around-the-edges sound man, and Scott, their uptight producer. Each of the main four ha...

Vampire Hunters combines several things that I love - found fiction, creepy atmosphere, history, and monstrous vampires. This collection is dark, gripping, and genuinely scary. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing to the modern day, these twenty-two tales offer a rich variety of vampire lore told through a collection of letters and diary entries compiled over the centuries. Presenting the stories as historical records only adds to the unsettling nature of the work and adds a sense of realism few books possess. Tying all these stories together is a sort of bonus tale. The book is divided into sections and at the front of each one is correspondence from one curator to the next. The main difficulty with found fiction is the question of “why was this recorded”? The individual stories do a good job of this on their own. This framing story really adds to the suspension of disbelief that this is a real curated history. This is an excellent anthology for vampire fans of all types. I do r...

It is impossible to read Meg Elison's Number One Fan without comparing it to Stephen King's Misery. Both feature a famous novelist kidnapped by an unhinged fan who grows increasingly terrifying over the course of the novel. Both books speak to toxicity in fandom and the entitlement some fans develop towards creators. I cannot recommend Misery enough - it is a fantastic book - but I'm going to focus on Elison's book here. It is more than just a "gender-flipped" Misery. Note: My discussion will include some spoilers, but I will do my best to avoid the major ones. Eli Grey is on her way to a speaking engagement when she gets kidnapped by Leonard, a man who she thinks is a stranger, but knows her all too well. For years, Leonard has been circling at the edge of Eli's life, and he has finally decided to make his move. What follows was one of the most harrowing, uncomfortable reads of my life. The level of entitlement and intimacy that Leonard expects of Eli is ...

Maybe I’m a sick person. Maybe there is something wrong with me. Because when I read the book’s tagline, “Twelve six-year-olds and their three adult chaperones head into the woods on a camping trip. None of them make it out alive,” it skyrocketed to the top of my to-read pile. When I read the rest of the blurb that promised a child on a murderous rampage, I got even more excited to read it. “Part fairy tale, part horror story” – it seemed perfect for me.   Unfortunately, what I got instead was a bit of a mess. The book does deliver on its promises – everyone dies, it has a fairy-tale flavour, it’s definitely horror – but the way the deaths play out felt forced and even at times, ridiculous. The balance of the tale shifted widely. Some of the deaths were almost slapstick in their delivery, while others were quite gruesome. There is one death right near the end that is particularly disgusting and drawn out far too long. I think even hardened fans of gore may struggle with this one, a...

S. A. Barnes is on the way to establishing herself as a master of sci-fi horror. She is the author of Dead Silence, Ghost Station, and now Cold Eternity. Her novels star complicated heroines, deep space isolation, creepy darkness, and alien horrors that send chills up the readers' spines. I previously read and enjoyed Ghost Station, and Cold Eternity is even better. Our main character is Halley Zwick, who, running from her past, takes a questionable job on a remote ship called, The Elysian Fields. A century ago, a scientist claimed he could cryogenically freeze the dying to later be resurrected when a cure was found. Only, his experiment was not a miracle, but a disaster, and the ship has been regulated to a museum of cautionary tales drifting in space. Karl, the enigmatic overseer of the ship, needs Halley to be the ship's secret caretaker and make sure nothing goes wrong while it traverses the stars. For someone who can't go home, this seems like a second chance, albeit a...

First off, let me say that this is a fantastic resource for any horror lover. Sadie Hartmann has outdone herself with this guide. She has a fresh engaging rhythm that kept me reading about each book, even in the categories of horror that do not really interest me. I recommend grabbing this book in print, rather than e-book, because it makes such a great addition to my library. That said, before I read this book, I thought of myself as relatively up to date on horror. Hartmann has completely shattered that illusion. Of the 101 horror books listed here, I have read an embarrassing one of them, with one DNF, and two others sitting in my To-be-read pile. To remedy this shame, I have worked my way through the suggested books and the featured authors to curate a list of 32 horror books that I will be reading over the next year. I had no intention of reading all 101 because then people would be free to murder me. There are also some categories of horror that do not appeal to me such as cosmic...

What I like about... I recently finished watching True Detective: Night Country, which I enjoyed for many reasons, such as the strong characters, great acting, and terrifying scenes, but one aspect that heightened my enjoyment was the setting. Set in a fictional Alaskan town, everything was encased in ice and darkness. The long night begins at the start of the series, and freezing/hypothermia is a constant threat. Setting the story in such an extreme environment enhances the horror that the characters face.  While I have never been to the true, deep north, I have experienced some strong winter weather in my life. I have been stranded in a blizzard, snowed in, had the early stages of hypothermia and frostbite, and camped in the winter-time. When I read a story that utilizes cold, icy weather and winter to enhance the story, I can feel the literal chill. There is nothing like a howling wind rattling your windows while you curl up warm and safe in a blanket to read a frozen horror sto...