Tag Archives: horror

Fall Horror Books: Malice House

Malice House by Megan Shepherd is the perfect horror book for those who love their horror mixed in with a little fantasy and supernatural.

For horror writers and artists of macabre, maybe our worst nightmare is seeing our work come alive and do what it was created to do: kill in the most gruesome of ways.

I received Malice House last year when I was in the middle of taking a course at Conde Nast College in London, so I wasn’t able to get to it then. When I finally sat down to read it last month, I sat there thinking, “Look at you, Megan Shepherd. Scaring the hell out of me was not what I was expecting from this.”

I love a good horror story, especially when I wasn’t expecting to be scared at all. For me, being scared all lies with me walking away and thinking about what the author just whispered to me in between those pages. Did I carry it with me, mull it over, and think, “Yeah, that shit was scary?” I did with this one.

The scare factor lies in those creatives (or those, like me, who are writing a horror romance novel) who would be petrified if their scariest creations came to life and they went on a killing spree and there’s no natural way to stop them. It is kind of like the Jason, Freddie Krueger, and Michael Myers genre where you can’t kill them. They’ll keep coming back.

So if that’s your kind of scare factor, this is your next read.

You can get Malice House on Kindle Unlimited as part of your KU membership. Book two, Midnight Showing, releases on October 3, 2023.

SYNOPSIS

“One step away from our world lies another: a land of violent fantasies, of sharp-toothed delights. . . .”Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father’s remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted. Clearly just dementia whispering in his ear . . . right?

Reeling from a failed marriage, Haven hopes an illustrated Bedtime Stories can be the lucrative posthumous father-daughter collaboration she desperately needs to jump-start her art career. However, everyone in the nearby vacation town wants a piece of the manuscript: her father’s obsessive literary salon members, the Ink Drinkers; her mysterious yet charming neighbor, who has a tendency toward three a.m. bonfires; a young barista with a literary forgery business; and of course, whoever keeps trying to break into her house. But when a monstrous creature appears under Haven’s bed right as grisly deaths are reported in the nearby woods, she must race to uncover dark, otherworldly family secrets—completely rewriting everything she ever knew about herself in the process.

[DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of review. The opinions expressed here are by no means influenced by the publisher or the author. This post contains affiliate links. Should you click on the link and purchase the product, I may receive a commission from the sale at no additional cost to you.]

Fall Horror Books: The Nightmare Man

The Nightmare Man by J. H. Markert was my first five star read of 2023. As a writer, I think this one scared me more than most horror books because the idea that your horror story could come to life scared the crap out of me. This scary story is for those who fear their own nightmares.

For parents, if you could find a way to save your children from having recurring nightmares, you would help them, right?

What appears to be a miracle for children to have their nightmares removed turns into a real-life nightmare for them as adults when their nightmares start hunting them. More and more people are found dead, and they all have one thing in common.

This debut made me such a huge fan of this author. Finding the next master of horror is a difficult task in and of itself. To find a story that just scares the crap out of you and it be delivered so well…I mean, how can you not become a fan?

I will say, I will be reading all of his books. His next book, Mister Lullaby, releases on November 21, 2023. That is a book I plan on adding to my collection alongside The Nightmare Man.

Synopsis

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of Crooked Tree. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.

As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.

As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.

[Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of a review. All opinions are my own and are not influenced in any way by the author or the publisher. This post contains affiliate links. Should you click on the link and make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you.]

Fall Horror Books: Black Sheep

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison is the perfect horror story for those who loved Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, and End of Days.

When the publisher first sent this book to me for review, I thought it was funny, because I am the black sheep of my family. I’ve even posted about it on my social media accounts. Usually, those who find themselves to be estranged from their families is because of their religious and/or political differences. Oftentimes, in America, both are synonymous with each other.

When I went into this novel, I assumed that this cult-like family would be Christian. Oh, imagine my surprise when the cult happened to be Satanists. Now, you have my attention.

After reading this book, I guess it doesn’t matter what religion you are from. All cults are the same. They have the same issues that affect families. People become brainwashed with scriptures as they learn how not to love the people they are supposed to love. That’s why there are black sheep out there. We know life was meant to be better than this. We deserve to be loved.

For those who are looking for a horror book featuring the Devil, this is your Perfectionistwannabe.com Horror Pick for the fall season. The ending is as epic as any ending you would expect from a book about the Devil trying to bring an end to the world.

Synopsis

A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
 
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. 
 
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
 
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Pub Date: September 19, 2023

[DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of review for this site. All opinions are my own and are in no way influenced by the author or the publisher. This site contains affiliate links. If you click on any of the affiliate links, I may receive a commission from the sale of the product at no additional cost to you.]

Fall Horror Books: The September House

The temperatures are starting to drop. People are running to pick up their pumpkin spiced lattes. For us bibliophiles who love spooky season, we are looking for every new and old scary book we can get our hands on to commemorate every thing we love about fall.

To start off the spooky season, I have a new title for you that is set to be released on September 5th called The September House. This book is for all those who love the haunted house and murderous ghosts vibe. This is for those who love The Haunting of Hill House.

Throughout most of this book, you may think it is comical how an older couple with a grown daughter could purchase a beautiful haunted Victorian and not care one lick that it is haunted. The wife loves the house so much that she will put up with the blood running down the walls every September. She will tolerate all of the ghosts that look the way they did when they were murdered. She can even put up with the priest that comes every other month to sanctify the house from whatever evil lurks in the basement.

Even when her husband goes missing, she does not bat an eyelash that something could be amiss, because she has her dream house. She can live with the ghosts, so long as she has her perfect Victorian.

But things start to go all sorts of wrong when her daughter starts asking for her father. He has not returned any of her calls. She is getting tired of hearing her mother make up excuses on why her father won’t come to the phone or return her calls. So she decides to show up right when the September season is in full swing, when the house is at its worst.

As the daughter begins to think her mother is suffering from dementia and is seeing things, the police show up thinking that she’s killed her husband. Yet, the house decides to take matters into its own hands to prove that it isn’t just haunted, there’s an evil being living in its basement. It plans on killing everyone in the house.

As you read through this book, stick with it until the end, especially if you love the good ole gory stories. What may seem as all innocent and comical at the beginning, can turn into a complete bloodbath at the end.

That’s the part I was not expecting from this. You hope it will turn out that way, but you start to give up hope that it will. Maybe it is just a feel good kind of haunted house story. Oh no. It turns into a bona fide bloodfest horror story towards the end, sure to make any horror lover happy.

Synopsis

A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee. 

Margaret is not most people. 

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.

Get Your Copy

The September House is out on September 5th. This book is the first in this year’s Perfectionist Wannabe’s Horror Picks for the fall season. There will even be a few witchy books (that may not be scary, but are excellent reads for those who love the season, but hate the scare factor). Stay tuned for more finds and suggestions from now until Halloween. Happy Haunting!

[DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of a feature on this site. All opinions are my own and are in no way shaped by the author or the publisher. This post also contains affiliate links. That means that should you purchase the book in the link, I may receive a commission from the sale at no additional cost to you.]