Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 10

“Be careful not to wake the evil.”

25. The Memory of Trees – F.G. Cottam

Saul Abercrombie has hired Tom Curtis, whom he refers to as “Tree Man” to reforest an area of Wales that he bought to its ancient, super dark, “Forest of Mourning” glory because he has the money and the technology exists to do it, and oh, there may be a supernatural bargain he’s trying to make based on those who lived and perished in the area before.

Tom Curtis really needs money for a custody battle because he had an affair he barely remembers even having an inkling to have but he really loves his daughter. And there’s a little super old church on this ancient forest property which has a stained glass window that appears to be depicting him, at least Gregory the one who killed the ancient evil beasties in the before time super looks like him, with the head of something monstrous he lopped off. So, Tom is supposed to be in this place and that means the ancient battle never ended. Leave it to billionaires to restart ancient battles just because they can.

Once the work starts the history and darkness and hunger of the place are revealed further and there are disappearances and ghosts and although a lot of the characters are stuck sort of being fodder in various ways, it was a really good story. I enjoyed the retired Oxford professor’s bits a lot, he had to pretend his colleague who was clearly in the wrong was actually right so he could get away with some artifacts he technically didn’t want to steal from the Ashmolean Museum. That’s quite the conundrum.

 

Finny’s always ready for an ancient battle. Always.

 

If I’m recalling correctly, it was almost like the city was another character…

15. The Lesser Dead – Christopher Buehlman

I thought I would like this story of vampires in 1978 New York City more than I did. It’s not bad or slow or anything, it’s just perhaps I didn’t get as much enjoyment from Joey Peacock or the endless grittiness of the city as I would have liked. And they’re living in the subway tunnels and traveling through them constantly, so gritty. The misfit children who Joey encounters on his gnarly adventures drinking blood around New York City are also gritty, and creepy. Now, I am interested in times when children form creepy groups and scare people, I have seen Village of the Damned and The Children (the one where their fingernails turn black), but I just didn’t get into this story as much as The Suicide Motor Club or Those Across the River, which I guess would be dusty and sweaty stories instead of gritty.

 

It may very well be dusty under the chair in the corner of the living room, but it’s not gritty, so Peregrine and Ozma are having a hard time starting a gang for committing evil in the dark and dangerous city.

“Don’t deny me your wonders.”

76. Small Town Monsters – Diana Rodriguez Wallach

Vera is the girl who wears black, or super dark red, and is never ever invited to any of the creek parties or pretty much anything because of her parents, who are demonologists, but the townspeople only know of that sort of thing via rumor. Vera’s parents aren’t even home that much. Like, now, the summer after 11th grade when a cute and popular boy needs the kind of help Vera’s parents provide. So it’s up to her and her Aunt Tilda and Father Chuck to get things going on a major demon who had enough time to develop a cult.

Vera already had a lot of things going for her outside of her townspeople and all peers- except at work at the hospital -based humiliation, so even though the romance was a little teen book, this is a teen book, and it didn’t get in the way of Vera stepping into her own power. I liked that. Rodridguez Wallach didn’t leave behind the scary part for the teen romance part either. Phew.

I appreciated the references to real situations I noticed, culty and otherwise, it was not heavy handed. And for anyone who weren’t aware yet, there were a couple of pages with source materials, which of course as a librarian I approve of heartily.

But, you should probably go to a library to access JSTOR, that’s a database that tends to be more accessible on site, unless you’re part of a university library system, then it might be accessible at home provided you are logged in to said system. It’s a place you can do your own research on all kinds of things and use viable and verifiable sources. I am so glad I didn’t have to read through an internet search scene for getting rid of a demon in this book. Bad idea.

 

Good idea, cilantro in the summer. Bad idea, exorcism via internet search. Salem and Hen Wen are all about good ideas.

This time, she’s crushing on a priest too, well, he has a secret, but for once it’s not that he’s the devil in disguise. No he is not.

56. The Hacienda – Isabel Canas

This is quite a spin on the Gothic and I believe it’s supposed to be listed as gothic romance, but it’s more of a gothic horror. In horror, there are fewer structurally sound elements that have to be upheld, unlike romance where structure seems to be queen. One thing that sets it aside from a lot of the 1970s gothic thrillers and romances that I’ve been reading lately, which all share some similar traits (like this does), to Rebecca, mostly that stately house that you have to run away from at some point, is Beatriz being more of a lady of action than a run and screamer. Probably because she’s a little bit older than the usual gothic heroines, at almost 20 or 20ish. Although, Beatriz does spend a lot of time upset and sleepless (which honestly makes one a bit fragile for sure) and sometimes wants her husband, who she barely knows, there to help, which is not so actiony. However, the other deviation is what she’s trying to run away from is actually scary. The haunted house here, San Isidro, is very ominous and present. It’s not shy, it’s like super mad and I like that. She takes steps on her own because her sister-in-law sure isn’t going to help her, her husband’s gone constantly and just a means to a house, and so the relationship she develops with the priest and the combination of tactics needed to overcome the obstacles in her way are fun and enveloping and more interesting than they usually are in these stories. It’s very nice to have more options and more folklore to work with and a bit of haunted Mexico in the gothic world.

 

Merricat’s on the lookout for ghosts of first wives. There are a lot of them lying around in brick walls apparently.

“After the coroner’s investigation, their bodies were taken to the mortuary where the undertaker took one look at them and said their bodies couldn’t be reconstructed for the burial without 6 days of steady work.”

47. City of the Dead – Herbert Lieberman

NYC’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Paul Konig, has A LOT going on. This could more accurately be titled “Bodies Bodies Bodies” for sure. And Dr. Konig is nearing the end of his career, he’s definitely nearing the end of his patience, and he keeps taking amyl nitrate so even if he wants to keep going, his heart’s saying: “Slow your roll.”

Beyond the day to day of how many people die in New York City of various causes, Dr. Konig also helps the police more directly. In the newest piece of grisly murder, they find pieces upon pieces in a derelict shack by the water and at first no one is sure how many bodies they’re even looking at. The perpetrator made it more difficult to ID anybody by shaving off fingertips, pulling teeth, scraping off skin where tattoos might have been, removing their heads, etc. And so that’s one mystery going on where Dr. Konig and Sgt. Flynn continuously yell at each other.

Inside said day to day, Dr. Konig is dealing with a body snatching situation that the mayor has learned about. He knows who is involved and that’s part of the problem. When you don’t report crimes, it does sometimes cause a scandal. There are no jobs without politicking, as much as I’d like to keep that dream alive, there’s always somebody who can’t do the work well enough and has to resort to politicking to get ahead instead of just working and going home. Bloody hell (this does describe the morgue well).

Dr. Konig also has an estranged daughter, Lolly, who has left home after realizing it’s not very fulfilling to have a major public servant as your father and her mother dies. Lolly both ran away and is an adult, so she doesn’t exactly count as missing until they realize she’s actually been kidnapped by criminals who think they’re revolutionaries. Lolly was trying to make a life for herself by painting under a different name and Dr. Konig has Det. Haggard on the case, especially once it’s a kidnapping for ransom and not just an estrangement situation.

This was a really interesting book, extremely graphic though, so if you mind fake death professionals and their work or fake gruesome murder scenes it will gross you out beyond anything in the actual memoirs of death professionals I’ve read. The actual death professionals tend to be just a tad more tactful in their descriptions, but, like I said, this Dr. Konig character is definitely at the end of his patience, but not for his patients, just the living.

 

Belvedere and Mortemer lost patience with each other living together as son and father, respectively, thankfully not over murders or pignapping.

 

I was sad that Witches: Truth Behind the Trials didn’t cover the Pendle witches in their England episode.

37. The Pendle Curse – Catherine Cavendish

Laura Phillips has recently lost her husband Rich, who she thought she was going to be with forever, and she can’t really stomach the idea of going back to her job just yet. She has some weird dreams about a hilly, wet place the seems unenjoyable and finds out it’s real – Pendle Hill. The hill for witchery in 1612.

She decides to head up and finds a nice B&B as well as a longstanding feud between descendants. Also, a scandalously good looking dude. The book flashes back between Laura at the B&B and the Device family back around 1612, who had their own scandalously good looking dude, James, a witch in his own right. He was really, really into his sister, Alizon. Really, really. Also several other ladies, but his sister Alizon was always #1.

Although Malkin Tower is gone by the time Laura’s there and no one is exactly sure where it was, Laura found it in a field by slipping through time accidentally. She keeps seeing who she realizes is Demdike after she kept seeing James in her dreams and she’s not sure if they mean her harm or not so much. They seem nice, but, we find in the flashbacks they aren’t exactly good. Is Laura good? Is she bewitched? Is she under the Pendle curse of the title or what is that, exactly?

 

To ask Murderface where her tower of witchery was, you would also have to slip through time. Pickles too. I’d like to, but not to ask them about witchcraft; I just miss them.

 

“Look, I don’t know what that is out there, but I don’t want to find out!”

119. Flowers of Evil – Robert Charles

From Russia to Scotland with bloodlust. This is a serious evil plants story. At first, they’re just in the “forbidden zone,” and this was written before the Chernobyl disaster, so they’re referencing the Kyshtym disaster, which I was unaware of as an 80s kid who did not realize there were more forbidden zones in the Soviet Union. And the villagers aren’t going near them, but they’re coming anyway after those pesky scientists and their secretary come in and move around. And the secretary makes the completely stupid decision to take a pretty blue flowering plant out of the FORBIDDEN ZONE, I mean, what about that name is not ominous? It eats her pets. It also eats her neighbor’s pet via spores taking flight and growing new evil plants in the lower groud area. This plant is not going to stay confined and it wants blood. It would have been best served by finding AC/DC as they’d get it.

The Russian secretary gives one of the plants to her brother, in exchange for him not telling anyone she took it from the forbidden zone like an idiot, and he is a sailor, so he brings it on the boat and now it has a license to travel the world and end up throwing spores at a small island in Scotland that is a major stop for migratory birds before eating all the sailors.

Barry and his family are also on their way to Lairg so Barry can write his book about said migratory birds’ activities and mend his family back together via rainbow colored anoraks and isolation. You see, his wife is having an affair with a fancy living lad down in London, Simon not Bar Sinister, and Barry is not a fancy living dude. However, a guy who likes discos and upscale meals wouldn’t make it on an island full of sheep, birds, and bloodsucking plants either, which Valerie grows to appreciate. The sheep do not appreciate it. The sheep dog, however, makes it!

If you’re into plants eating people, this is a good story. I am definitely into plants eating people, because, what else is going to scare someone as allergic as I am? Dust, actually. I’m more allergic to dust than anything else. I haven’t finished the book where dust takes over the earth yet, aptly called Dust. I started reading it before the pandemic and still haven’t finished it because a dust pandemic is worse than an illness one as far as I’m concerned and I haven’t been ready to dive back into the idea. Anyway, these plants in Flowers of Evil are more intimidating than I expected. It’s the silence and the effectiveness, I bet they’d make me sneeze, then seize me to suck my blood when I’m indisposed by sneezing. An enemy no one can really negotiate with is scarier. And fire can only do so much when you’ve already shot your spores to Canada.

 

Horace was one of my most reliable pigs for pigmergencies and stoic support and possibly also killing carnivorous plants as he still had very sharp teeth.

Endless lemonade and black oozy stuff

80. Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey

Vera Crowder has a treacherous family history with her father being a convicted serial killer and her having a really contentious relationship with her mother. With a nefarious father alone, it’s understandable why she wouldn’t want to stay in her hometown, but her mother does…in the same house, even. Her mother even exploits the house and has boarders who usually want something notorious or spooky to happen for their art or their writing and/or their bank account and Vera doesn’t like that. She doesn’t want to talk about the situation with her father and it’s clear she doesn’t really want to talk to her mother either. But, when her mother asks, she comes home.

And everything gets really creepy and there’s definitely something wrong with her bed. Vera is not who she seems like she’s trying to be at the beginning. It is deeply traumatic to have the parents she’s had, one who murdered men in the basement and one who refuses to engage emotionally with her own daughter at all, so she really has no one to rely on, but why she has no one to rely on gets a little clearer as the book goes on through her childhood and her present. Both timelines are quite engaging and terrible, just like the artist who is currently boarding in the guesthouse when Vera gets home. Seriously, could he be more of a weasel? I think not.

It is a bit of a slow paced book, which depending on how much horror you read normally could be unsettling or a smidge annoying. I did find myself feeling like I was waiting a little too long at points for something to happen but it was also interesting and different enough to keep reading.

 

As you can see, Snuffy’s A-frame home does not have hidden depths. It’s like a foot in. Hard to haunt without her noticing.

“Skull-splintering spikes shatter my calm!”

54. Throwback – Mark Manley

So, you start menopause and suddenly a creature is growing out of your spine. I wonder why there aren’t any commercials about that. They’re so focused on hot flashes, but there are so many kinds of body horror for women. Anyway, the spinal creature growing symptom of menopause in this 1987 weirdie is a genetic condition specific to at least the one family in Wisconsin, the family of Arleen Lucas; who previously only showed emotion through her paintings and now just radiates the white hot urge to kill. The last time it happened, the Boulder Creek sheriff didn’t want to let the local doctor “pack her in ice and send her to Madison” and so, it’s happening again. But this time it gets to the point where Arleen is going to run amuck in Madison. Like seriously amuck. Even in the mall (just to note, there are actually two malls in Madison and I noticed that they did not specify which one, but maybe 1987 Madison only had one). She kills police, she steals a baby, she’s becoming one with the rat-like creature that grew forth from her spine, it’s ridiculous and not so bad.

 

Salem, even in 1987, was totally incapable of running amuck.

Dwindling power.

4. Snow Drowned – Jennifer D. Lyle

Fall Island has big snows, big history involving a surviving group of religious zealots and a cave system, and a creepy nun. If you’re from here, as in part of those original founding families, you might have a sigil for your family and you might be invited into the church. It’s obviously a cult, though, and based on what you learn about it later in the story, it’s having a recruitment problem on the island for sure. I mean, at some point you run out of people if it’s only for founding families.

Anyway, Grace was born on the island and she doesn’t get along with her mother, her father’s from off island, and she’s still doing the Sunday flowers for her grandmother’s grave when she runs into said creepy nun, Sister Francis. She was a great character. After trying not to talk to Sister Francis like her grandma told her not to, she also runs into the son of the foundingest of the founding families and then several dead sheep and a guy with his eyes gouged out covered in sigils. So, that’s different.

This was definitely different and unexpected for me. I’ve been disappointed a lot by recently published horror lately but this was certainly YA horror and not focused on a budding romantic relationship either. A weird church, lots of snow, ritual murder, and random sarcastic humor – this was a winner for me. It read quickly, it had a fun take on some very old ones topics, and it had a good ending too.

 

Camille has a sleigh in which she will slay during any onslaught of snow.