It’s no secret that I love Halloween. All things spooky and weird that go bump in the night are totally in my wheelhouse. At the same time, I’m picky. I prefer well-crafted creepshows with a bit of heart and/or humor (bonus points for both). So in honor of my favorite holiday, here’s a roundup of eerie books I’ve enjoyed recently–and a few in my To Be Read queue. Enjoy–but remember to leave the lights on!
For middle-school readers who enjoy a good freakout, Chuck Wendig’s Monster Movie delivers the creep factor as well as laughs. Ethan Pitowski is afraid of everything, including the Scariest Movie Ever Made, which his entire class plans to watch at a party. Ethan’s best friends try to convince him to go, but only when he gets some disturbing texts from them does he investigate. No spoilers, but I was impressed by how the story moved from kind of silly to pretty creepy to genuinely bizarre (in a good way!). There were a couple of plot twists I did not see coming, which made it all the more fun to read. The conclusion about being brave when it matters is satisfying and heartfelt. I’d recommend this for kids (and adults) who think the word decapitation is funny.
This historical romantasy had me hooked from the first page. Many of Leigh Bardugo’s novels are YA, but The Familiar has some violence and spicy love scenes that might bother younger teen readers. Luzia Cotado is a scullion in a noble Spanish household whose talent for magic attracts her mistress’s friends–and the mysterious Guillén Santángel–who want her to compete to become King Phillip II’s holy warrior. Of course, if her magic is deemed unholy–or her Jewish heritage is discovered–the Inquisition will burn her at the stake. But Luzia is not the kind of young woman who wants to stay hidden, so she risks it all. Wonderful story with a romance that’s both realistic and fairytale-like. A very dark, creepy fairytale, but that works for me.
I don’t normally go for war-set stories, but The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden has seances, ghosts, and a mysterious fiddler who can make reality disappear. Laura Ivens, a WWI field nurse, returns to the front when she receives a strange message about her presumed-dead brother. Freddie Iven, it turns out, is trapped in Flanders with a wounded German soldier. When the siblings encounter the fiddler, they must decide whether obliteration of the horrors of war is better than facing their painful realities in order to rebuild their lives. This is a haunting book, and though I needed to recover for a couple days afterward, I’m so glad I read it. Highly recommended.
As a bit of lagniappe, here are a few witchy books by authors I know that I’m excited to read next!
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