Santa Womble - The Fourth Stocking - Horror!

Ho Ho Hoooooo

“We’re book tempting in the air

We’re reading in the moonlight sky

The people far below are reading as we tempt”

So, if you want to let people know what is good as a gift for you someone else or perhaps just treating yourself too; then join me in my grotto and let’s talk some book ideas.  My favourites of the year come later this month but these listed are all worthy of your consideration.

Stocking 4 – Horror

I’m really really happy to have got back into reading horror stories this year. It’s a versatile genre and can often hold like SF and fantasy a way of looking at societies’ issues that helps us see why these things are terrifying. Definitely a genre I will review more of next year and so many different types of stories hidden within it.

A story of the supernatural and military kicks things off in Weston Ochre’s apparently final instalment in his duology (of which I’d like to see  a little more one day)in Dead Sky

An absolutely stunning novel is The Remaking by Clay Mcleod Chapman in which the same tale of ghostly revenge moves from the camp fire to movies and then to podcasts. A great ghost story but also a look at how horror can eat itself and those within it.

Wintertime always suits the Gothic and Michelle Paver’s excellent Wakenhyrst this delivers a tale of mystery and potential supernatural menace that will keep you up reading it all night. You also if you enjoy gothic horror NEED to pick up Laura Purcell’s chilling tale of how two women’s lives are changed in a house set up high on a cliff along the Cornish coast – just keep the lights on when reading Bone China

In contrast Jason Arnopp moves to the present day and the menace of our social media addiction.  A novel that will really make you wary of your phone is Ghoster

And the horror of moving house (I know that so well!) is explored within a strange and puzzling new home that slowly starts to tear the couple moving in to pieces within The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

But horror can often also be about the monsters awaiting us outside their door and in a trip to Australia and a town that now only has only a handful of people still living in it then Soon by Lois Murphy which gives you a memorable ride into the not so quiet night.

Whereas Jo Thomas’ fascinating novel  25 Ways to Kill A Werewolf provided a uniquely different lead character taking on so so many werewolves.  While funny the situation is unremitting and explores trauma as someone had to survive their constant attacks changing who they are.

It is easy to forget that space can be filled with horror but Adrian Tchaikovsky will lull you into an ancient alien artefact  in Walking to Aldebaran where everyone is so cheerful and everything will look so charming until it is too late to escape…

And finally come with me to a small welsh town for a tale of crime, revenge and ghosts in the sombre but eerie Ragged Alice by Gareth L Powell