Waukegan Public Library - horror

Have You Heard About... The Floating Staircase

Fran J — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:23:54 +0000

…the rickety staircase rising out of a Maryland lake? In Ronald Malfi’s latest book, The Floating Staircase, Travis Glasgow and his wife buy a house in Maryland with a distinctive feature: a staircase rising out of the lake behind the property. But it’s easy enough to overlook, until Travis starts hearing weird noises and seeing shadows flit across the house. He realizes that the ghostly incidents are connected with the staircase, and he begins to investigate. But the more he uncovers about the house’s history, the more he realizes that some secrets can’t stay hidden forever.

This book takes the traditional haunted house story and combines it with an extremely compelling murder mystery – so compelling, in fact, that I found myself just as obsessed with the house’s secret as Travis Glasgow. And the author does a fantastic job of taking the small ghostly incidents (a strange noise, a shadow flitting across a hallway) and transforming them into something truly unsettling. A very impressive and entertaining ghost story.

Reviewed by Katie (staff)

Have You Heard About... Chasing the Moon

Fran J — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:28:21 +0000

… the end of the world as we know it? In Chasing the Moon, A. Lee Martinez shows us just how funny things can be when the world is about to end. Diana finally finds the perfect apartment – reasonable rent, furnished in her style, even utilities are included. It turns out to have one small catch in the form of Vom the Hungering, an ancient entity who lives in the apartment’s closet. Diana can’t leave the apartment until she opens the closet door, but when that happens, Vom will come out and eat her. On the bright side, as long as she is Vom’s warden, she won’t age, grow sick, or die by conventional means. On the down side, even the best apartment gets boring after a while. Fortunately for Diana, she turns out to have a knack for dealing with this sort of problem, because Vom isn’t the only monster in the world.

A. Lee Martinez has a way of turning anything from fantasy wars to robotic noir into absolutely insane humor, and eldritch horrors are no exception. Sure there are unspeakable monsters everywhere, but most of them are just regular guys, waiting for another rift in space and time to open up so they can go back to their home dimensions. They may cause a little damage while the wait, but the universe will work around them and get things more or less back the way they were. Usually. Most people won’t remember the differences anyway, so it doesn’t matter all that much, right?

One of my favorite quotes (from p. 65):

“… it always gets better. One way or another.”

“One way or another?”

“Oh, you know. Crossword puzzles. Pornography. Video games. Knitting. Madness. Death. We all find a way of coping, Number Five.”

Reviewed by Fran (staff)

Have You Heard About... Bedbugs

Fran J — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:35:51 +0000

… New York City’s infestation of demonic bedbugs? And now that I’ve freaked everyone out, I highly recommend Bedbugs by Ben H. Winters, which is horror fiction at its creepy-crawly best! The story follows Susan and Alex Wendt, who have just moved into a spacious (and cheap!) apartment in New York City. But it isn’t long before Susan starts worrying that their new home is crawling with bedbugs. She wakes up with odd bites, and the more stuff she reads about bedbugs, the worse the situation becomes. But the exterminator can’t find anything, and Susan’s husband hasn’t seen anything either. Is Susan going crazy, like everyone believes, or are these bedbugs actually after her?

This book is scary on two levels - on the one hand, the idea of supernatural bedbugs is gross enough to make anyone check their sheets before they go to bed. But on the other hand, Susan’s obsession with these insects is just as frightening, and we start to wonder how far she’ll go before she breaks down completely. If you read this book, keep the lights on, and make sure you inspect your sheets before you go to bed.

Good night…sleep tight…and don’t EVER let these bedbugs bite!

Reviewed by Katie (staff)

Have You Heard About... The Good House

Fran J — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:32:09 +0000

… the African spirits haunting the Washington woods? Angela Toussaint is struggling to cope with the death of her fourteen year old son, who committed suicide in her grandmother’s old house. But other townspeople are dying in similar, brutal ways, and everything seems to center around Angela’s childhood home, the Good House. Do the strange events have anything to do with Angela’s deceased grandmother, who could raise the African spirits of her native homeland?

The Good House, by Tananarive Due, is a fresh take on the traditional haunted house story - instead of wailing ghosts and clanking chains, Due gives us African spirits both benevolent and vengeful, while still keeping the elements of a good, spooky ghost story. But this isn’t just a horror novel. It’s also novel about grief, the bonds of family, and cultural history - definitely a story to be savored.

Reviewed by Katie (staff)

Have You Heard About... Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Fran J — Thu, 03 May 2012 06:27:08 +0000

…the stuck-in-a-time-loop orphanage that serves as a home for some very peculiar orphans? Jacob learns the truth about it in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. When Jacob’s grandfather is brutally murdered by monsters only Jacob can see, he is determined to find answers. Jacob hunts through his grandfather’s old photographs and finds some very peculiar snapshots of children. His hunt leads him to a remote island off the coast of Wales filled with tight-lipped locals. While roaming the moors, Jacob stumbles into a time loop and into the very orphanage where his grandfather took refuge from the Nazis 60 years ago.

The book is punctuated by the unsettling photos Jacob found among his grandfather’s possessions. I enjoyed reading the story from Jacob’s perspective, an antihero filled with fear and self-doubt, struggling to come to terms with his family’s past and his own future.

Reviewed by Sara (staff)

Have You Heard About... The White Devil

Fran J — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:09:15 +0000

… the spectacularly spooky English ghost story? The White Devil by Justin Evans follows the story of seventeen-year-old Andrew Taylor, who is sent to a British boarding school for his last year before college. But it proves to be a tough adjustment, as Andrew’s classmates succumb to a mysterious epidemic as soon as he steps foot on campus, and Andrew begins having frightening visions of a malicious, jealous ghost haunting the school. To make matters even stranger, the school’s poet-in-residence, Piers Fawkes, notices an uncanny resemblance between Andrew and the school’s most famous student, poet Lord Byron. But this resemblance is extremely dangerous, for the ghost seems to be tied in with the history of Lord Byron, and he’s coming after Andrew next.

This novel, with its foggy landscape and crumbling English houses, borrows heavily from classic ghost stories, but what makes this book really special is the literary background that forms the basis of the book’s central mystery. But don’t be fooled - this isn’t your average tale, with wailing ghosts and clanking chains. This book is extremely scary, and best read in a well-lit room.

Reviewed by Katie (staff)