Whoa!  Strap yourself in and hold on because Grady Hendrix has another tightly strung, gut-wrenching horror novel that will keep you up at night.

Siblings Louise and Mark Joyner are absolutely devasted at the death of their parents at the end of the coronavirus pandemic. Mark and Louise haven’t gotten along for years and would rather not be in each others’ company but the circumstances have forced them to work together to clear the family home and put it on the market.  But upon arriving they notice how strange their parents’ final days must have been as mirrors are covered by newspapers and the attic door has been nailed shut. There isn’t much up there other than some old family puppets.

But when worn, one particular puppet won’t come off and it controls the movements of the wearer.  Louise is forced to cut off her own brother’s arm to save him. But she can’t do the same when her daughter puts the puppet on her hand.

I am not generally a fan of horror stories featuring dolls or puppets – it seems like they’ve been done to death (pun intended) – so there was definitely a moment or two when I rolled my eyes. Fortunately this is a horror novel by Grady Hendrix, who fuses the horror with humor better than anyone else I’ve read, making this a delightful read.

There’s a small cast of characters here and Louise and Mark are just a little bit bland, letting Punkin the Puppet take the leading role.  This is just a bit odd because most of the book is about setting up the characters of Louise and Mark, giving us a reason to care about them so that we can want them to survive the horror about to befall. It’s a lot of setup and I’m not entirely sure the payoff is there.

The payoff comes because of a minor character … Barb, ‘an expert on cursed dolls.”

“Don’t worry!” Barb laughed, seeing Louise’s expression. “Dolls and puppets come under the same department as far as the Lord is concerned. I do dolls, I do puppets, I once even did a blow-up s-e-x doll. Now, that one was wild, let me tell you. Come on inside and let’s pray together.”

Barb plays a small role here, but she (along with Aunt Gail, who introduces us to Barb) steals the book – I laughed out loud a number of times with her.

The final quarter of the book is a fast-paced rollercoaster ride – not only exciting but fear-filled. It was an absolute page-turner and it makes up for the earlier, slower-moving set-up.

This isn’t my favorite Grady Hendrix, but it’s well worth reading.

Looking for a good book? How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix is an often funny, yet still dark horror novel that is worth reading, but fair warning it relies on the horror trope of possessed dolls/puppets.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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How to Sell a Haunted House

author: Grady Hendrix

publisher: Berkley

ISBN: 9780593201268

hardcover, 400 pages

Sisters Eve and Dinah are youthful members of a cult, led by a man known only as “Uncle,” living in an old stone castle on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. Uncle promises his wards, his followers, all young girls, that the future holds something profound, something they’ve never seen before. One of the girls will inherit tremendous powers and Eve is willing to do anything to be the chosen one.

But even on a remote island in Scotland, just after the war to end all wars, a cult with young girl followers catches the eyes of the law. Chief Inspector Christopher Black investigates a brutal murder, which derails a sacred ceremony on the island, and he desperately wants to get Eve away from Uncle’s control. But no matter how bad things get, Eve is devoted to Uncle and his teachings.

It is quite appropriate that this was a Shirley Jackson Award winner (2019) because this feels so much like a Shirley Jackson book – it is a dark, Gothic horror novel, heavy on character.

Author Catriona Ward plays fast and loose with time here and it’s important to pay attention to the date at the beginning of a chapter. We bounce around a bit but rest assured, the story does come together.

I especially appreciated the character of Inspector Black.  He seemed the most complex character. While the focus is on Eve, she doesn’t seem to be in control of her own actions through most of the book and her wants and desires seem pretty straight-forward. Black on the other hand is highly conflicted. He is suspicious of Eve, but he also wants to get her out of her situation (being in a cult), but he also knows he has no direct action he can take other than trying to convince her it’s in her best interest – which is typically not enough to get someone out of a cult.

There are layers of horror here, sometimes subtle, sometimes in your face, but overall it definitely has a gothic horror feel to it, and as I’ve already mentioned, it sings of Shirley Jackson.

Author Catriona Ward notes that while this is only just being published by her current publisher, she actually wrote and had this published in 2018 (it received the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel in 2018), making this her first novel. I’ve now read two books by Ward and she is definitely an author to seek out.

Looking for a good book? Little Eve by Catriona Ward is solid, spine-tingling, Gothic horror and worth reading if you like a little shiver in your reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Little Eve

author: Catriona Ward

publisher: Tor Nightfire

ISBN: 9781250812650

hardcover, 271 pages

Oghi is just waking from a coma – the result of a car accident that took his wife’s life. Oghi is paralyzed and disfigured and he is left alone in his bed with nothing to do but remember and reflect on his life. He thinks often of his wife and realizes that she was never able to realize any of her goals, except for one – her garden in front of their home.

One day Oghi notices that his mother-in-law is in the front yard, digging up his wife’s garden and digging larger and larger holes. When Oghi tries to question his mother-in-law about it, she only answers obliquely that that she is finishing what her daughter started.

With nothing to do but reflect, Oghi imagines the worst possibilities and terror takes over.

I love psychological horror. The mind can often go to darker places than any story and that’s what happens both to Oghi and to the reader of this book. Not knowing what is happening is far darker and more terrifying to Oghi.

I’ve seen this book often compared to Stephen King’s Misery, but I liken it more to Kafka’s The Trial or any of Shirley Jackson’s novels. And yet …

I wasn’t a big fan of this book.

For such a short book – easily read in a weekend – there isn’t much build up.  We’re pretty much dumped into the rising action of the story so our characters are generally anonymous or at least distant for the reader. Our focal character seems to be unreliable and yet we only have his reactions.

That psychological terror is strong, and the mother-in-law, being somewhat vague, is actually of much interest, and in this sense the book works. But as a novel, a full-length story of horror or madness, I wasn’t enamored. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise to regular readers of my reviews – I find the need to identify with a character to really care about a story (that identity with a character can always be a negative one if the desire is to enjoy watching the character descend into madness) and I didn’t get that here.

I do like reading books from different countries and getting a different cultural look at something and this book might be my first Korean fiction (translated, of course) that I’ve read. The shades of Kafka and Lovecraft are fun to identify, but not great enough to elicit a strong recommendation.

-late edit –

After writing this I read through a couple of Goodreads reviews and I found one comment particularly interesting: “a transliteration of the English word “hole,” 홀 (hol) is a Korean prefix meaning “alone” and most readily refers to one who is widowed.”

For me, this puts an interesting twist on the story and I wish I had known that aheda of time.  I’m not sure it would have made a difference, but I might have looked at Oghi as ‘the hole’.

Looking for a good book? The Hole, by Hye-Young Pyun is Korean psychological horror. Only true, devout fans of psychological horror are likely to really enjoy this book as it calls up memories of Lovecraft in the slow-moving method of madness.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Hole

author: Hye-Young Pyun

translator: Sora Kim-Russell 

publisher: Arcade

ISBN: 1628727802

hardcover, 137 pages

It’s been a bit more than thirty years since the events of the first book in Ramsey Campbell’s The Three Births of Daoloth series (this is the second book in the series). Dominic Sheldrake is now married and has a son of his own and he’s hoping he can finally put the incidents with Christian Noble behind him. But his son, Toby, is having nighttime seizures and nightmares, bringing back some terrifying memories.

Dominic and his wife Claudine have found a clinic that addresses the issues which Toby suffers from and it seems his symptoms are becoming more common. Are these shared visions? Is Christian Noble somehow behind this and is he taking aim at the world?

Dominic will need the help of some old friends to confront a familiar, growing evil.

Ramsey Campbell is a powerhouse in the world of horror literature but if you are looking for horror that is aggressive, slasher, or splatter, then you might be disappointed.  Campbell’s horror is slow and methodical. Think Lovecraft, not King.

Campbell’s horror is based on character – on people – and Campbell really understands what makes people tick, what drives them, and what terrifies them, and then he builds on to intensify each aspect.

What works especially well here is the history. Knowing that Dominic has survived a rough youth and his experiences with the betrayal of a trusted guardian, a teacher, puts the reader on edge immediately, and Campbell plays with this, making Dominic and Claudine’s life seem somehow idyllic. But we know the kind of book we’re getting in to and we can watch the horror build up, almost painfully slowly. But that in itself builds anxiety.

I wasn’t a big fan of Christian Noble in the first book, but here it’s Noble’s daughter who has taken up her father’s mantle and she makes a great foil in the story.

I did find the book a bit slow, but overall I enjoy this ‘slow-boil’ sort of psychological horror.

Looking for a good book? Born to the Dark is the second book in a trilogy by Ramsey Campbell.  It is methodical psychological horror, which definitely isn’t for everybody, but fans of the genre will want to dig in.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Born to the Dark

author: Ramsey Campbell

series: The Three Births of Daoloth #2

publisher: PS Publishing

ISBN: 1786361868

hardcover, 287 pages

Lois Cairns is … was … a film history professor. She is currently out of a job and now in a deep depression after her son was diagnosed with autism. She retreats to where she is comfortable – film history – where she discovers the previous lost to the public, early 20th century Ontario filmmaker Mrs. A. Macalla Whitcomb (possibly Canada’s first female filmmaker?) who disappeared.

Lois throws herself into researching Whitcomb, her obsessions and her filmmaking (often one and the same), but the mysterious forces that may have been behind Whitcomb’s disappearance are invading Lois’s life, putting not only herself but her son and husband’s lives in danger as well.

This is billed as a contemporary ghost story, something which really interests me, and combined with the subject of films, this looked really appealing to me.

So, we’ve got two great characters (Cairns and Whitcomb) with both a contemporary and historical setting (modern film researcher and 1900’s filmmaker), and a bit of unexplained supernatural activity. Unfortunately we also have some dreadfully slow pacing. The story itself doesn’t really pick up until about half way through the book, which means the first half is spent setting up the characters and establishing the grounds for the story. But does it really take half a book to set up two main characters?  Our minor characters our little more than stock characters used stereotypically (the husband is supportive and boring, the son, autistic perhaps senses something the rest of us don’t – ah, the supernatural).

I struggled to stay interested. While I definitely prefer strong characters who give me a reason to care about them (and this didn’t have that), I was still interested in the general concept enough to really want to like this and therefore even more disappointed that it let me down.

If you’re looking for a horror story or ghost story, there are a lot of really good options out there and this doesn’t stand up well to many of them.

Looking for a good book? Experimental Film by Gemma Files is a ‘contemporary’ ghost story that would fare better if it took on more a more ‘classic’ feel.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Experimental Film

author: Gemma Files

publisher: ChiZine Publications

ISBN: 1771483490

paperback, 352 pages