{"id":192,"date":"2016-10-31T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=192"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:44:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:44:32","slug":"halloween-review-roundup-scary-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Halloween Review Roundup: Scary (ish) Stories and Books that Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yeah, so the irony about me doing a post about scary books for Halloween is that I am a wimp who tends to avoid anything scary. But I do like suspense, and sometimes I can handle a good dark fantasy. And, of course, I’ve had to read more than a few books for the Cybils that are scarier than I would normally pick up on my own. So here’s a roundup of a few of my favorites, with links to reviews. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

\nZombies<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Rot & Ruin<\/i><\/a>, Dust & Decay<\/i>, and Flesh & Bone<\/i><\/a> by Jonathan Maberry
\nI’m not a huge fan of zombie books, but this series is great–the author created a cast of memorable and diverse characters, made the logistical rules of zombie-hood believable, and above all, retained a sense of humor throughout. Plus there’s tons of edge-of-your-seat action.<\/p>\n

\nGeneral Scary Tales<\/b><\/h3>\n

Through the Woods<\/i><\/a> by Emily Carroll
\nThis one’s got the added bonus of being a graphic novel–a wonderfully spookily illustrated graphic novel. It’s a series of dark fairy-tale-like stories that will bring to mind the scariest parts of the stories you know–the big bad wolves and the Bluebeards and the creatures under the bed. It was a Cybils finalist a couple of years ago. Don’t read it at night…<\/p>\n

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Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Death and Dementia<\/a> <\/i>illus. by Gris Grimly
\nA graphic novel featuring several of the classic tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Definitely de rigeur<\/i> Halloween fare. This one was a Cybils finalist, too. <\/i><\/p>\n

Red Spikes<\/i><\/a> by Margo Lanagan
\n*Shudder* Dark and scary short stories. And this is not her only book of such tales. They are SO GOOD, though. <\/i> <\/p>\n

\nVampires<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

Well, whaddya know? Tanita and I put together a roundup of fun vampire books<\/a> some* (*many) years ago. Neither of us is what you would call a vampire enthusiast, but we’ve got a handful that come highly recommended. My favorite is always going to be Sunshine<\/i> by Robin McKinley. But we wrote the the roundup so long ago that it doesn’t include a few later fun ones, like Sarah Beth Durst’s Drink Slay Love<\/i><\/a> and Kimberly Pauley’s Sucks to Be Me<\/i><\/a>. <\/p>\n

\nGhosts<\/b><\/h3>\n

There are way too many good ghost stories to list them all here, so I’m just going to focus on a couple of SERIES that I really enjoyed, the better for you to binge-read in bed until you’ve missed Halloween and then you get up and realize it’s December. Just kidding.<\/p>\n

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Shades of London<\/i> by Maureen Johnson
\nThe first two books are The Name of the Star<\/i><\/a> and The Madness Underneath<\/i><\/a>, and if you’re a fan of anything set in London, you’ll want to check these out. Ghosts! Jack the Ripper! Mysterious deaths! It’s good fun.<\/p>\n

Gilda Joyce<\/i><\/a> by Jennifer Allison
\nThis is an incredibly fun mystery series suitable for younger readers, full of humor and strange happenings, and headed up by the irrepressible Gilda Joyce, psychic investigator extraordinaire.<\/p>\n

\nWitches<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Texas Gothic<\/i><\/a> and Spirit and Dust<\/i><\/a> by Rosemary Clement-Moore
\nThese are so, so good–funny and scary both. (Sensing a theme in my picks?) If you like the Southern Gothic genre, you’ll want to pick these up. I didn’t even know I might <\/i>like the genre, but if Rosemary Clement-Moore keeps writing them, I’ll keep reading them. The books relate the intricate and supernatural adventures of the Goodnight clan, in which witches and ghosts and ne’er-do-wells abound.<\/p>\n

Enjoy a safe and spooky Halloween! <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, so the irony about me doing a post about scary books for Halloween is that I am a wimp who tends to avoid…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,87,12,32,35,5,22,6],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-af","tag-bradbury-season-october-country","tag-fantasy-sci-fi","tag-graphic-novels","tag-horror","tag-reviews","tag-roundups","tag-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9118,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/9118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}