Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope whatever your plans are for the day/evening/night, they go wonderfully and you all stay safe! Today I'm sharing three more mini-reviews for some other horror books I read this month. I didn't like these ones quite as much as I enjoyed the ones from yesterday's reviews, but they were still solid reads with their own strengths, so be sure to check them out.
A Haunting in the Arctic by C.J. Cooke
Berkley
Publication: February 27th, 2024
Paperback. 304 pages.
About A Haunting in the Arctic:
"A deserted shipwreck off the coast of Iceland holds terrors and dark secrets in this chilling horror novel from the author of The Lighthouse Witches.
The year is 1901, and Nicky is attacked, then wakes on board the Ormen, a whaling ship embarked on what could be its last voyage. With land still weeks away, it's just her, the freezing ocean, and the crew - and they're all owed something only she can give them...
Now, over one hundred years later, the wreck of the Ormen has washed up on the forbidding, remote coast of Iceland. It's scheduled to be destroyed, but explorer Dominique feels an inexplicable pull to document its last days, even though those who have ventured onto the wreck before her have met uncanny ends.
Onboard the boat, Dominique will uncover a dark past riddled with lies, cruelty, and murder--and her discovery will change everything. Because she'll soon realize she's not alone. Something has walked the floors of the Ormen for almost a century. Something that craves revenge."
A Haunting in the Arctic was perfectly atmospheric for a ghostly story set against a dramatic Arctic backdrop. I do want to quickly note a couple content warnings: one for sexual assault--it’s pretty consistent to the plot so comes up repeatedly, and can occasionally be somewhat graphic, so if you’re sensitive to the topic then I’d be cautious going into this (feel free to reach out if you have any questions); and second for self-harm, as that also comes up.
That being said, the bones of this story are really strong and I enjoyed the overall premise. We have dual timelines predominantly between 1901 featuring Nicky and 2023 featuring Dominique. There are a few other small chapters thrown in featuring other characters and times, but nothing extensive. A majority of our setting consists of the whaling ship Ormen in different contexts, both of which are overall very isolated and slowly reveal many of their own unique horrors. I liked how Cooke worked with trauma as a connector to horror, as I tend to find horror is very much based around that concept in general.
My main downsides would be that it at times felt a little drawn out, and some of the dual narrative aspects felt a little clunky here and there, which made the story drag a bit and feel slightly unfocused. All that being said, I think this is a solid and worthwhile ghost story if you’re looking for something with a somewhat more unique setting and a strong atmosphere with lots of uneasy vibes.
Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca
CLASH Books
Publication: June 18th, 2024
Paperback. 226 pages.
About Everything the Darkness Eats:
"An insidious darkness threatens to devastate a rural New England village when occult forces are conjured and when bigotry is left unrestrained.
After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.
From the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats is a haunting supernatural thriller from a new and exciting voice in genre fiction."
I really don’t know how to feel about this one. LaRocca has so many really fascinating ideas and I’m always impressed by his creativity and ability to write truly visceral stories that bleed off the page. However, I tend to find that his plots suffer a bit in lieu of atmosphere and themes, and that’s where a lot of these works just don’t work so well. Also another quick content warning for rather graphic sexual assault; it’s just once in this book and near the end, but I think could be a bit shocking for those not expecting it.
We mainly follow our main characters Ghost and Malik, and I was completely hooked on both of their stories from the beginning. I found them very sympathetic and easy to connect with, and it made me really excited to see where this story would go--and unfortunately, the latter half did not quite live up to the first half, but I still enjoyed those parts where we really get to know these characters. I think LaRocca does a great job of really exploring the inner parts of the human mind and how we react to different things, especially how those small parts of our thoughts can sometimes grow into bigger things.
As I mentioned, I think this story started off really strong and had some good build-up, but the payoff wasn’t really there and it didn’t feel like everything ended up working together super well. There were some aspects that felt a bit abrupt and didn't fit, and I feel like a lot of the climactic parts of LaRocca’s books, Everything the Darkness Eats included, end up feeling just a bit too vague in some ways, as if the ideas just don’t entirely work out. But, much like with A Haunting in the Arctic, this horror plays a lot with pain and trauma, and I did appreciate those aspects and how LaRocca handled them, so there's always some positive to consider. Overall, I'd probably recommend this to fans who already enjoy LaRocca.
The Watchers by A.M. Shine
Head of Zeus
Publication: October 14th, 2021
Hardcover. 310 pages.
About The Watchers:
"This forest isn't charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina's is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams.
Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans—and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn't reach the bunker in time.
Afraid and trapped among strangers, Mina is desperate for answers. Who are the Watchers? Why are these creatures keeping them imprisoned? And, most importantly, how can she escape?"
I’m a bit mixed on this one! The concept itself is incredibly compelling and I loved a lot of things about the premise: Irish folklore, a kinda creepy remote forest, and of course lots of dread and tension in the atmosphere. I especially appreciated the Connemara setting because my husband and I visited Connemara last year and found it to be one of the highlights of our visit to Ireland, so that was a fun little personal note in there.
I really loved how all of the folklore elements were woven in and I appreciate how well Shine weaved everything into a unique and genuinely unsettling. We spend a lot of time in the heads of some of our characters, and I appreciated getting to really understand so many mindsets and understand where everyone was coming from. I do think sometimes Shine lingered a bit too much on some of her character’s musings, though, and this did slow down the pacing a bit for me. And speaking of pacing, I do think that a little tightening up could’ve allowed for the story to maintain a more consistent horror/dread-inducing feeling, but instead I occasionally lost some of that feeling at times.
Overall, I really liked what Shine did with this folk-horror and I think it’ll be a hit for many horror fans.
