A glorious bundle of horror stories that readers will find entertaining and unnerving.
Parent offers tales of terrifying and potentially deadly happenings, set around the October 31st holiday.
In the opening story, “Russian Dollhouse,” high school freshman Kit reluctantly takes her younger brother trick-or-treating. Her mood brightens when she runs into Jordan, a sophomore she has a crush on. She’ll happily go anywhere with him, even if it means venturing inside an abandoned house, where other kids reputedly went missing decades ago. Unexpectedly, that house has new decorations for the holiday—almost as if it’s trying to draw in unsuspecting youth. All 10 of this book’s tales unfold on or near Halloween; some include trick-or-treaters, although not all of them are harmless kids. For example, Carlos in “Keeping Up Appearances” runs an armed crew that goes door-to-door and demands much more than candy. However, when they knock on the door of one especially odd family, they get a very unwelcome surprise. These somber tales cover other October happenings, as well, including Mischief Night (traditionally the night before Halloween) and a haunted hayride. The cast, too, ranges from naïve children and a candy-swiping eighth-grade bully to a spouse who’s starting to regret his illicit affair. The longest story, “Dia De Los Muertos,” is also the best, featuring a U.S. Army gunner Russell Thompkins who’s AWOL in Mexico. As locals celebrate the Day of the Dead, his post-traumatic stress disorder dredges up memories of a Taliban assault during his second tour in Afghanistan. What happened to him back then, and what’s been affecting him ever since, is truly unspeakable.
Over the course of these tales, Parent hits on several reliable horror tropes: Creepy houses stir up anxiety, the telling of scary stories begets more frightening realities, and trick-or-treat bags and pillowcases hold hidden terrors. The collection features several unlikable characters who arguably deserve their grisly fates, but there are just as many that will elicit reader sympathy. Eleven-year-old Danielle, for one, has an understandable fear of alligators in “A Not-So-Scary Halloween,” and a holiday in Orlando, Florida, with her relatives puts her on high alert. Most of the stories trek into grim territory and contain violent, often grotesque imagery with lots of chunky bits, spurting blood, and biting teeth. There’s humor in these tales, as well, but it’s of a dark variety that complements the horrific goings-on, as in “Pulp,” which follows a film club’s Halloween party that—for one teenager, at least—becomes a real-life horror movie. Overall, the book is a fun read, and horror fans will appreciate its numerous nods to classic genre films (some of the players even share names with famous directors, actors, and cinematic characters). Parent also skillfully generates suspense with deft descriptive passages, as in the story “Rain”: “Lightning flashed through the house, casting Dad’s shadow long and thin up the wall and over the ceiling. Thunder followed quickly, crashing so violently that it rattled the picture frames hanging on the wall, knocking one askew.”
A glorious bundle of horror stories that readers will find entertaining and unnerving.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9798336822137
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Corpus Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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