Halloween is approaching and, with it comes the temptation to reach for a seasonally appropriate frightening tale. While the press has published on demons, shapeshifters, and knife-wielding killers lurking in plain sight, for this week, we checked in to see what stories haunted the staff this year.
The House with Good Bones, by T. Kingfisher
I don’t like horror. I don’t read horror. I much prefer fairy tales with a guaranteed happy ending. But when I ran out of books by my current favorite feminist fairy-tale teller, T. Kingfisher, I got desperate. I picked up one of her horror novels, The House with Good Bones, despite the extremely creepy vulture on the cover. And much like her fairy tales, this story features strong, quirky women (a paleoentomologist, her mom, and the neighborhood vulture whisperer) and lots of resourcefulness in the face of evil. Just what I needed! – Catherine Cocks, Director
The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery, by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James.
This one stuck with me long after I finished reading. The book came about when a father-daughter team scoured historic newspaper databases and found several murders before WWI that were investigated as unique crimes but actually formed a pattern. The authors realized that they were tied together through their heinous nature and proximity of each to local train lines. Using statistical analyses and archival databases, they were the first to make the case that nearly a hundred deaths, spread across the nation over multiple decades, were caused by one man, riding a train. – Heather Stauffer, Editor in Chief
Foster by Claire Keegan
Foster by Claire Keegan isn’t a traditional spooky story and it’s likely that most readers don’t find it scary at all. The novella follows a young Irish girl sent to stay with distant relatives one summer. On the surface, it’s a simple story of temporary guardianship. But Keegan captures something deeply unnerving: the vulnerability of childhood, when you have no control over where you’re sent or why. As the reader, you experience everything through the young narrator’s hyper-awareness—noticing everything and understanding just enough to be frightened but not enough to feel safe. For me, this is scarier than any ghost story. – Lisa Kuerbis, Marketing Manager
Everything the Darkness Eats, by Eric LaRocca
I tried to rein in my “to be read” pile this year and near the top of the stack was Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca. It’s probably the one that lingered with me the most all year. The setup feels straight out of Ray Bradbury’s oeuvre but that’s about the only thing that’s familiar, with the disparate loners of a close-minded small town all looking for a way to change their lives as a mysterious supernatural force offers promises in exchange for service and sacrifice. What follows is frequently disturbing, haunting, and always unexpected but I was most impressed with how much LaRocca lingers on subtle moments of unexpected humanity and connection between his wounded outcast characters. – Jackson Adams, Promotions and Publicity Coordinator