Jenn McKinlay: As autumn creeps in with the start of school, the shortening days, and the crisp snap to the air, let’s talk about one of my favorite things about the changing of the seasonal guard...horror novels!
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October always brings me back to this genre. With the rapid approach of Halloween, I long for the thrill I felt when I first heard The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving when I was a kid. I mean, schoolmaster Ichabod Crane in the ride of his life from a headless horseman - does it get any better? No, it doesn’t.
That being said, there are so many great horror novels being published these days that I’ve been on an absolute binge, devouring Stephen Graham Jones, Simone St. James, Riley Sager, and Grady Hendrix.
So, do tell, Reds, who else is a fan of horror novels? If not, why not? If so, what are some of your favorite books?
LUCY BURDETTE: No, no, no! I have to say I mostly read to relax, and horror is the opposite of that for me. Anything with rotating heads, zombies (unless it’s a Key West bike ride), chainsaws...scares me to death.
HALLIE EPHRON: I’m not a big horror fan, either. But I did LOVE a book that’s one part Southern Gothic, one part horror, and one part mystery: Joe R. Lansdale’s “Edge of Dark Water.” It’s got a truly memorable bogeyman and a cast of utterly delightful young people. And I’ve set aside an as yet unread copy of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill because so many people have recommended it.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I suppose it depends on what you class as horror. There is a lot of very weird stuff in Ben Aaronovitch's novels, but I love them. I like Jim Butcher's books, too, but I think both of those series straddle horror and urban fantasy. I used to read Dean Koontz, but I have never managed to read a Stephen King novel. My tolerance for anything scary is so much lower these days...
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, did you read Riley Sager’s SURVIVE THE NIGHT? It’s amazing--but you have to read the whole thing. Do not make decisions until you read the WHOLE thing. I think it’s genius. Ah, horror, though? No, I’m not big on gruesome. I agree, Lucy, no chainsaws. Or the like.
Carrie, yes, The Stand, of course, are those horror? What do you all classify as horror? Big suspense in a scary house? Sure. Seething simmering creatures that rip people’s heads off and leave bloody gory gunky stuff around and turn you into devils? Nope. But--ah, well, Rosemary’s Baby, one of the classics of all time.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I love… I guess what you’d call legacy horror? I read everything Stephen King comes out with, and I adored Peter Straub, Tom Tyron and Richard Matheson. Shirley Jackson - THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is a masterpiece, with one of the best opening paragraphs ever written:
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
I can’t read that without getting a chill up my arms.
RHYS BOWEN: I am the world’s biggest horror wimp! I will not read horror, watch horror. I can handle silly horror like giant tomatoes eating New York but anything slightly supernatural really does haunt me for ages afterward. I am someone who is still scared of the dark! I need a chink of light in the room where I sleep. I put it down to growing up in a big spooky house that my brother and I swear was haunted.
As I get older I become even more of a wimp about what I can handle in a book. Do some of you feel that way?
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