“October was always the least dependable of months… full of ghosts and shadows.” So said Joy Fielding in her novel “Tell Me No Secrets.” If you’re looking for something scary to read this spooky month, the library has several new horror and thriller novels available to give you a shiver.
Horror master Stephen King has a brand-new novel. “Holly” brings back the character Holly Gibney, seen before in King’s novels “Mr. Mercedes,” “Finders Keepers,” “End of Watch,” “The Outsider,” and “If It Bleeds.” Holly is now a private detective, and she reluctantly accepts a missing person case. It will require all of her resourcefulness to take on a brilliant pair of 80-something professors who appear to be behind a string of disappearances. King doesn’t have supernatural elements in this book, just the horror of human evil.
More a psychological thriller than a horror novel, “Looking Glass Sound” is the story of an author writing a book about his youth. Wilder returns to a small vacation town in Maine to write a book about one summer when a killer stalked the town, and he and his friends bonded over a tragedy. Author Catriona Ward has created a layered puzzle of a novel, where the main character is being haunted by something that makes him question his sense of reality.
“Mister Magic” is a creepy supernatural thriller by Kiersten White. Thirty years after a tragic accident ended a popular children’s TV series, the remaining cast members who were child actors on the show are brought back together. They all have happy memories of their time on “Mister Magic;” however, no video survives, and no one even knows who Mister Magic was. Critics describe it as a blend of “Twin Peaks,” “Stranger Things,” “It,” and “The Stepford Wives.”
What if the little mermaid was a dangerous creature, as mermaids in legend used to be? This is the starting premise of the novella “The Salt Grows Heavy” by Cassandra Khaw. The daughters of the mermaid and the prince have devoured and destroyed their kingdom. The mermaid flees, meets up with a plague doctor, and discovers a village of vampire children. Reviewers say this gory novel is beautifully-written and surprisingly heartfelt.
“Tell Me I’m Worthless” by Alison Rumfitt does what horror and speculative fiction can do very effectively: examine real-world issues through an unreal lens. Alice spent a night in an abandoned house with her friends three years ago, and her life has spiraled out of control since then. One of the friends asks her to accompany her to the house again. Together they face the horrors that happened there, and they try to rescue the third friend who was taken by the haunted house. Not for the faint of heart, this novel has been compared to the works of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson.
Author Mona Awad spins a gothic but modern fairy tale in “Rouge.” Belle has always been obsessed with skin care, and when her estranged mother dies mysteriously, Belle is drawn into the cult-like California spa to which her mother was devoted. Another examination of modern issues through horror, this novel skewers the wellness and beauty industries and the modern obsession with appearance.
“Black Sheep” is yet another horror novel that examines real life terrors from an imagined perspective. Author Rachel Harrison writes about a family of religious fanatics and an estranged adult daughter, Vesper, who has left the fold. A wedding invitation from a cherished cousin brings Vesper back to her family home, where she discovers a terrible secret.
Looking for more scary ideas? Search for the subject “horror fiction” in the library catalog, and find some thrills and chills for your October.
— Beth Cronk is Meeker County librarian for the Pioneerland Library System, overseeing libraries in Litchfield, Cosmos, Dassel and Grove City.
