What Have You Read - 2021

[Rachel]

[sanchi 🙌]

I’ve just finished New Moon form the Twighlight Saga from Sthephanie Meyer. I recommend it

[Marie]

I finished this one yesterday:

Accursed Ground by Brian G. Berry - really good!

[Marie]

I finished this one day before yesterday and it was really good! Will be pursuing more books by Tim Curran! ;)

Skull Moon by Tim Curran

[Peter]

Horrorfrost

[Char]

Wow, well done Navi!

[Navi]

- ★★★
- ★★★
- ★★★★
- ★★★
- ★★★★★

[[deleted user]]

A nice collection of horror stories. Not all of them are top, but some of them are, for sure!




A fun adventure set in ancient Russia. Asterix & Obelix meet amazons and shamans and sabotage to a Roman cryptid hunting expedition for the legendary griffin. It is my general opinion the new Asterix comics (post Uderzo) are very strong and of high quality.

[Navi]

- ★★★

[Char]

Navi wrote: " - ★★★
- ★★★
- ★★★★
- ★★★
downright fabulous?

[Char]

Yesterday I finished listening to Strangers on a Train and I thought it was pretty darn good. I was surprised to see so many low ratings on it, though. Then I again, I love psychological stories so that might explain why I enjoyed it so much.

[Navi]

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Navi]

- ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Navi]

Sorry, Char! Missed your message. Yes, Nothing But Blackened Teeth was fabulous!! Thanks to your positive review, I bumped it to the top of my TBR😊

[Peter]

Blood and Rain

[Catherine]

Cunning Folk: A Folk Horror Thriller from the Author of No One Gets Out Alive and The Ritual by Adam Nevill
IMO, Adam Nevill's greatest achievement to date. A folk-horror tale that ticks every box and then some

[Navi]

@Catherine - I have Cunning Folk: A Folk Horror Thriller from the Author of No One Gets Out Alive and The Ritual on my Kindle right now. Can't wait to read it!!

[Badseedgirl]

Char wrote: "I finished , an anthology of stories centered around trains. Pure fun!"

Oh Char, you are the devil of my TBR List!

[Bruce]

I finished by

[Char]

Badseedgirl wrote: "Char wrote: "I finished , an anthology of stories centered around trains. Pure fun!"

Oh Char, you are the devil of my TBR List!"

I hope you like it, if you give it a go!

I finished Pearl by Josh Malerman. A novel about a psychic pig. Yep. A pig. And I liked it! LOL

[Badseedgirl]

Char wrote: "Badseedgirl wrote: "Char wrote: "I finished , an anthology of stories centered around trains. Pure fun!"

Oh Char, you are the devil of my TBR List!"

I hope you li..."

Josh Malerman may be my darling of 2021. I've read several of his works this year and enjoyed them.

[Catherine]

The Restoration by J.H. Moncrieff

A great, creepy haunted house horror inspired by the author's spooky experience of staying in a haunted house. Loved it!

[Catherine]

Faithless by Hunter Shea Hunter Shea is one of my favourite authors and this latest novel of his packs a lot of punches, scares, emotion, twists and turns. Brilliant

[Rachel]

finished this last night. i think it's the weakest darcy coates i've read to date, unfortunately. it was incredibly slow and the characters were just a big nope for me, ha ha.

[Catherine]

The Waiting by Hunter Shea

This is a reissue (by Silver Shamrock) of a novella first published by Samhain in 2014 and, somehow or other, I missed it the first time around. It's an absolute gem. Scary, creepy, a ghostly child and a woman whose life hangs in the balance, caught between life and death. A quick and enjoyable read

[Peter]

Terror Mannequin

This was an absolute blast!

[WendyB]

Very good. Had a wonderful fairy tale, magically quality to it. Not horror but it did have a few horrific scenes. Loved it.

[[deleted user]]

Excellent collection of experimental short horror fiction.

[Rachel]

wasn't as into this one as i hoped i'd be, but i'm willing to give the next one a read because i really liked cardinal black.

[Char]

WendyB wrote: " Very good. Had a wonderful fairy tale, magically quality to it. Not horror but it did have a few horrific scenes. Loved it."

I grabbed this on sale a while back and all I need is some time to read it. Since we read American Elsewhere as a group, I've been wanting to read more of his work.

I finished In Darkness, Delight: Fear the Future and was quite impressed. First off there's a story by Penn Jilette-I didn't even know he wrote. Tim Curran, Phil Sloman and many others contributed and I thought this collection was above average. I haven't yet had a chance to write a review, but it will be a positive one, for sure.

[Char]

Rachel wrote: "

wasn't as into this one as i hoped i'd be, but i'm willing to give the next one a read because i really liked cardinal black."

These get better and better!

[Alan]

Jennifer McMahon somehow just keeps getting better. Y'all are in for a treat when this one comes out in Jan.

[Kasia]

Alan wrote: "

Jennifer McMahon somehow just keeps getting better. Y'all are in for a treat when this one comes out in Jan."

Even the cover is striking, I really enjoyed her The Winter People, glad I saw this post as it reminded me to read her other works.

[Alan]

Yes, you do.

[Kasia]

Alan wrote: "Yes, you do."

I was just reading the synopsis to her Burntown (2017) novel on Fantasticfition.com and looked at "Similar books by other authors" and ended up buying Who is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall ... I got the audiobook since I had some credits, if I like it I will thank Jennifer for this :P

Also any book of hers I should read next that you recommend? She has quite a few.

Novels
Promise Not To Tell (2007)
Island of Lost Girls (2008)
My Tiki Girl (2008)
Dismantled (2009)
Don't Breathe a Word (2011)
The One I Left Behind (2013)
The Winter People (2014)
The Night Sister (2015)
Burntown (2017)
The Invited (2019)
The Drowning Kind (2021)
The Children on the Hill (2022)

[Alan]

Most of her books are thriller/psychological horror with suggestions of the paranormal. The Drowning Kind, The Winter People, The Invited are her 3 pure horror novels, the latter two being hauntings. The Children on the Hill is closer to pure horror than a lot of the others.
My faves of hers are definitely The Drowning Kind, The Children on the Hill and The Winter People, but not so much because they're pure horror, but I just enjoyed them the most.
That being said, I read all the others as I found them in libraries and really enjoyed them all. The Invited was her weakest book, but I still call it a 3.5/5.
I would suggest maybe starting with Island of Lost Girls as it's only about 250 pages and will give you a good idea of what her thrillers are like. After that, maybe Promise Not to Tell, The Night Sister, Don't Breathe a Word - I think I found few things I disliked in all of them.
The rest, Dismantled, The One I Left Behind, Burntown I still liked a whole lot, I just found a couple issues I had with each one. But honestly, I rate all her books at least 4*.
I haven't read Tiki Girl, but I think that's a YA LGBQT story, not a horror/thriller.

[Kasia]

Thank you for the breakdown, I love all the genres she encompasses here, taking a screenshot of this so I can plot my TBR :)

The Drowning Kind it is then, glad I asked.

[Rachel]

a miss for me.

[Peter]

Body Art

[Marie]

I read these two within the last week:

Infinite

and

The Best of Indie Horror: Christmas Edition

[Rachel]

the first 20% was a bit of a jumbled mess. also hated reading sam's pov chapters at first 'cause he's pretty awful. but the story really sucked me in and was really interesting. ended up really enjoying the rest of the book.

[Melissa]

I've been in kind of a reading funk and only managed to finish The Midnight Library and Stone Harbor Bound.

[Peter]

Did both of these last week. Daniel Volpe is such a good writer!

Billy Silver

Talia

[Spyros]

The Girl Next Door I liked it for all the bad feelings it aroused on me.

[Alan]

This is THE book everyone needs to read, because no one wants to become their parents.

[Kasia]

If I ever get it I will have to hide it from my kid! He's not supposed to know such things exist.

[Marie]

I finished these two in the last week:

Desert Places by Blake Crouch

and

Shaken by J.A. Konrath

[Erin]

Marie wrote: "I finished these two in the last week:

Desert Places by Blake Crouch

and

Shaken by [autho..."

Desert Places was pretty good, what did you think about it?

[Char]

Rachel wrote: "

the first 20% was a bit of a jumbled mess. also hated reading sam's pov chapters at first 'cause he's pretty awful. but the story really sucked me in and was really inter..."

I have this coming up! I didn't enjoy HEX that much, but I was hoping this one was better. Glad to hear that you ended up enjoying it!

[Char]

Alan wrote: "
This is THE book everyone needs to read, because no one wants to become their parents."

Do some commercials, get a book deal? What's going on here?