Have You Read This? The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

There are works of horror that have violence and works of horror that are violent. They are violent with their depictions of a human body’s surgical deconstruction, violent with their brazen exploration of taboo subjects, and violent with their wanton disregard to the fairy tales that remain sacrosanct for many people. This is, of course, a good thing, even necessary, since horror is a genre that often pushes and even destroys boundaries. Cassandra Khaw’s retelling of The Little Mermaid story, The Salt Grows Heavy, is a novella that rejoices in its violence. 

It starts with the tale that everyone is familiar with, that of a mermaid princess who falls in love with a prince whose kingdom is on land and her sacrifices to be with him. What those books don’t mention is how the prince mistreated the mermaid once she was his or how the mermaid’s daughters went on to eat the kingdom. Disney execs would likely be horrified to learn that this mermaid then goes on the run with a nonbinary plague doctor who discovers a village full of murderous children ruled by “saints” who really love performing surgery. 

As a novella, this is a quick read. As a story, it’s a fever dream/acid trip of a fairy tale retelling. This is mostly due to Khaw’s writing. Not content to simply describe events as they happen, she paints a gloriously visceral picture with her words, blurring the boundaries between what is beautiful and what is horrifying. In this retelling, the mermaid who is not named Ariel is no longer a victim; instead she is a force of nature that will tear through anything to get what she wants. 

Have You Read This? Rabbit Hunt by Wrath James White

 

Though I consider myself a scary librarian (meaning one who loves all things horror, and not an actual scary librarian), I must admit that my knowledge has been lacking in one particular area: extreme horror. If more mainstream horror is a hamburger that might have mustard on it, then extreme horror is a burger covered in Carolina Reaper Scorpion Devil’s Spit Sauce (if such a sauce exists). Why I am just dipping my toe into this genre is likely due to a lack of understanding of the genre. Detractors of extreme horror might say that it favors gore over story necessities like plot and character development, but I wanted to see for myself, which is why I checked out Rabbit Hunt by Wrath James Wright. 

The story follows former fraternity brothers Big Mike, Mooky, Rashad, and Steve are excited about a hunting trip and leaving behind their adult responsibilities like their jobs and their wives. Six college kids are also looking forward to getting back to nature by dropping acid and getting drunk. When these two groups meet in the woods, far away from civilization, readers will see a hunt where bodily fluids flow freely and respect for human life flies completely out the window. 

This book definitely lives up to its “extreme” reputation, going above and beyond not just in its original methods of desecrating and destroying a human body but the visceral detail in which these acts are described. However, while such books also have a transgressive quality to them, its level of violence will be readily familiar to fans of such movies as Terrifier. And like Terrifier, the characters might not be considered likable, or even well-developed, but these serve the purpose of the story: to either tear apart human flesh or be torn apart. Slashers like Friday the 13th are filled with these kinds of shallowly drawn characters who are simply fed to the meat grinder in a hockey mask. However, describing Rabbit Hunt as a slasher clone does ignore White’s attempts to ground it into the current and volatile political climate. Many of White’s characters, despite their political leanings, seem quite capable of violence; all they need is the opportunity, which White repeatedly gives them. If White’s tale does have a message, it’s that anybody, anywhere is capable of violence that would shock the sensibilities of civilized (or uncivilized) society. 

Have You Read This? Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

 

While some might have a TBR pile, I have a TBR tower. As a librarian, I am surrounded by so much great stuff to read, I feel like a kid locked in a Toys R Us. Sadly, it takes me longer to read books than it does to play with toys, so my TBR tower can become either an architectural marvel or a disaster waiting to happen. To prevent such a collapse, I decided to finally read a book that I have wanted to read for a long time: Scott Thomas’s Kill Creek. While the cover seems to promise a by-the-numbers haunted house story, Thomas adds enough dramatic flair and compelling characters to help it stand out from the other haunted houses on the block. 

Somewhere in the Kansas countryside, situated by the titular Kill Creek is the Finch House, an abandoned home with its share of ghosts. It is here where four of the most famous writers of horror have agreed to be interviewed. There’s introspective Sam McGarver, reeling from a recent split from his wife; Daniel Slaughter, a writer of Fear Street-like books who is a devout Christian; Sebastian Cole, the esteemed elder statesman of horror, and T.C. Moore, an acerbic female Splatterpunk author. All are intrigued by the Finch House and the house is more than happy to let them in. In fact, a little bit of what haunts the Finch House might follow each of these authors home. 

Moving past the standard groans and rattling chains, Thomas takes his time building up the discomfort, which steadily grows into dread. What really sells the book is the ensemble cast, who all have their own approaches to horror but all bring assorted traumas that the house will gleefully exploit. As with all the great haunted house stories, it’s the mix of those haunted with the things that are haunting that create the book’s combustible elements, showing them that any horror these writers can devise pales in comparison to what Finch House shows them. 

One book down, several more books to go. 

Have You Read This? Your Body Is Not Your Body edited by Alex Woodroe and Matt Blairstone

 

As a genre relying on generating a particular emotion within its audience, horror can be both universal and very personal. Horror can often touch on universal fears, such as the fear of death, but it can also be used to discuss the personal fears of the author, including fears of being attacked simply for being who they are. Often, these kinds of stories aren’t so much a whimper of submission as they are a cry of rage. Such stories are included in Your Body is Not Your Body, an anthology of weird fiction featuring authors from the Trans/Gender Nonconforming community. 

Editors Alex Woodroe and Matt Blairstone have compiled stories that definitely put the weird in weird fiction. Take, for example, a medieval monk whose body is transformed by a different kind of possession. And if such a tale is too tame, there are stories featuring living weapons, transcendental massages, haunted telephones, and a story from rising star like Hailey Piper about women exploding. Many of the stories in this collection focus on all the ways that a human body can become twisted into something unimaginable, both beautiful and horrifying. The weird in this fiction anthology is definitely the gloriously great kind of weird. 

Anthologies such as this serve not only as an introduction to the various authors who are presented in this book, but books like this one also introduce readers to weird fiction. There are no gothic castles or classic monsters here; the horrors presented in this book are from not only one’s body becoming unrecognizable, but the world they live in becoming hostile, which is what many transgender and gender-nonconforming people are experiencing with the rash of anti-LGBTQ laws being ratified by various states. Horror is supposed to create a fear response, but horror, of all kinds and especially the stories in this book, rely on creating feelings of empathy for the protagonists in these stories. 

Have You Read This? I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House by Ben Farthing

 

One of my favorite things about horror is how, no matter how far out there the premise is, one is still able to tell an emotionally resonant story. Add vampires, add vampire musicians, or add vampire hunting musicians hunting vampire musicians; readers of horror can afford to have their suspension of disbelief stretched to its limit if they feel the emotions being portrayed are authentic. One such example of this is the writings of Ben Farthing. My wife had recently purchased two of his books for me as a Christmas present. While I liked the nutty nostalgia-laced horror in I Found Puppets Living in My Apartment Walls, my mind comes back more often to his more emotionally relevant I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House.

The book is a quick read but it packs quite the emotional punch, despite its seemingly light premise. Proud dad Dave is hiking in the woods behind his house with his four-year-old son Jacob when both father and son make a fascinating discovery: somehow, a circus tent has appeared on Dave’s property. Dave at first doesn’t know what to do about such an oddity near his home and Jacob seemingly doesn’t want anything to do with the house, but all it takes for the two to become prisoners of the tent is to approach it. What began as a mere curiosity for Dave becomes a fight to escape a tent that seems to swell beyond the size of most tents, as though it somehow exists outside the boundaries of time and space.

Once father and son are trapped inside the tent, all sorts of seemingly impossible occurrences and monstrosities try to keep them from leaving. Dave is not only struggling to find a way out but he is trying to keep Jacob relatively calm and not have him break down in a way that would impede their escape. Much of the emotional weight of this story is in Dave questioning his own fitness as a parent and the end of the book provides a surprising knife in the gut for both Dave and the readers who, like Dave, wonder if they are really a good parent. How the book ends won’t give readers a sense of relief as it gives them a chance to say, “At least I’m not Dave.”

Have You Read This? A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper

 

The drive-in is a vanishing part of the cultural landscape, which is rather sad considering the myriad and delightful horrors that once graced their screens. Many people have fond memories of the drive-in, even those who haven’t watched horror movies, but for horror fans, the drive-in conjures thoughts of monsters from the stars like the ones from Joe Lansdale’s magnum opus The Drive-In. It’s fitting, then, that Hailey Piper begins her latest book A Light Most Hateful at a drive-in on the night of a reality-rending storm, but Piper also takes the concept to some original and terrifying places.

This journey into the frightfully fantastic begins in the small town of Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania where Olivia lives after running away from home. She has managed to eke out a life while she deals with small-town boredom and an unrequited crush on her best friend Sunflower. Then a summer storm shows up, bringing more than just thunder and lightning. This storm brings with it the power to bend the will of the people of Chapel Hill to an otherworldly intelligence, even as it transforms the landscape. Olivia now tries to survive the night and rescue Sunflower before the storm and the being it serves wipes Chapel Hill off the map.

This tale’s beginning in the drive-in and what happens to people after the storm approaches makes it feel like a by-the-book but still enjoyable monster movie that would entertain the late night drive-in crowd, but Piper has always excelled at taking her fiction in new and exciting directions that subvert her audience’s expectations. Rather than a simple tale of running and more running from a mob of brainwashed humanity, Piper has crafted a tale that explores the power and limits of friendship, exploring both the bonds that strengthen us and those that hold us back. Without revealing too much of the twist that brilliantly transforms the book as much as an unnatural storm, Piper also explores concepts of identity and the connective threads that are so tenuous yet somehow manage to hold us together. Come for the pseudo-zombies, but stay for the high-concept, mind-bending story.

Have You Read This? Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith

There are those that love the sea for the same reasons that many fear it, and many have written stories about it: the sheer expanse of it as well as the accompanying mystery. There might be joy found riding jet skis atop its surface and beauty seen only by diving down beneath its surface, but there are plenty of places that sunlight doesn’t touch. And that’s not even getting to what happens when you're left out at sea with no solid, familiar ground to be seen. That intrinsic terror one feels is what drives Amy Goldsmith’s young adult horror debut Those We Drown.

 

The story is told through the eyes of Liv, a girl who is going to spend a semester at sea with her best friend Will. The trip starts going wrong when Liv and Will have a big fight, and then Will suddenly disappears. Most of the other kids are not interested in Liv and the crew of the ship isn’t talking. Soon more people start disappearing and Liv not only has to find her best friend but to get help from someone not possibly involved in making sure those people stay lost.

The premise of this novel is intriguing because there’s a lot of horror to be squeezed out of isolation and Goldsmith does a great job of making Liv seem isolated. Not only because many of the people on the cruise don’t believe her wild stories but because she feels so out of place among kids whose parents are in a totally different tax bracket than hers. Liv is a whirlwind of emotions, flitting from reassured to panicked to self-conscious, but it doesn’t make her unlikable; it just makes her a more relatable heroine. There are many undersea horrors, along with the secrets the ships’ crew are keeping, but Goldsmith has created a story for young adults that’s perfect to devour while sitting in a deck chair on a presumably safe cruise ship.

Have You Read This? Always Listen to Her Hurt by Kenzie Jennings

 

There’s a lot of aspects about an author’s life that seep into their fiction, but it’s often that writer’s home that seems to leave the biggest footprint. Some of the more well-known examples of this are the creepy hamlets of Stephen King’s Maine or the crime-riddled backwoods of Chris Offutt’s crime fiction. Kenzie Jennings might be adding Florida to the list of literary locations explored on the printed page with her short story collection Always Listen to Her Hurt. 
Many of the stories from this collection hail from the Sunshine State, particularly those that look beneath the seedy, sweltering underbelly of Florida’s thriving tourism industry. These tales include the story of a harried mother at Walt Disney World or a woman whose vacation destination is a little more out-of-the-way, learning with frightening consequences why some beware of what some locals call “a local thing.” There’s one tale that’s even a revenge fantasy of obnoxious tourists getting their comeuppance from assassins whose specialty is dealing with unwanted guests. 
However, the stories in this collection aren’t all gleefully wicked gorefests. Jennings offers an explanation about all the stories here, but the horror becomes all too real when she explains how some writings are more biographical. These works are typically shorter, but they also offer some revealing glances at true emotional pain. Some might call it jarring, but the purpose of a collection is often to introduce readers to a writer’s overall body of work. What this collection does is show Jennings at her most creative and her most confessional. 

Have You Read This?: A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

 

Family can be a source of comfort, but family can also be a source of anxiety, even trauma. When those who are supposed to protect us do the complete opposite, it can be uniquely terrifying. Jack Torrance running through the halls of the Overlook with a mallet is scary, but it’s particularly terrifying to Danny Torrance (and the readers when they are seeing Jack through his son’s eyes). The betrayal of grandparents might not have the sting of a parent emotionally harming a child, but those wounds can still run deep, especially when it forces someone to confront that grandparent’s influence on them.  T. Kingfisher’s A House with Good Bones features a less-than-kind grandmother who has already sowed the seeds of trauma within the minds of her family. 

Sam Montgomery heads to North Carolina to spend some time with her mother in the family home, the one inherited from Gran Mae. Sam loves dearly, but she notices that something is off with her. The changes range from her nervous energy and weight loss to the more obvious redecorating of the house in a style more similar to Gran Mae’s. Gran Mae was a spiteful and controlling old woman whose influence has somehow lasted even after her death. Sam tries to figure out what is happening to her mother and hopefully save her.

Kingfisher seems to excel in creating narrators who are human as well as humorous. Sam has a wry sense of humor that she manages to maintain even as she catalogs all the strangeness around her. There’re a few spooky phenomena in this book, but the unease comes more from Mom’s odd behavior. The terror doesn’t really kick in until late in the book where the supernatural elements decide to stop hiding. It’s a tonal shift, but readers will be rewarded with an off-the-wall yet heartfelt ending, if they stick with the book. The book being a novella, and the likability of Sam, makes finishing this book as easy as a trip through a not-haunted garden.