horror

  • A Dark and Stormy Night: The Weather In Fiction

    I’m typing this in my armchair, looking out at the snow – it’s a blizzard out there! – and listening to a classical music playlist I have on Spotify. It’s my go-to music for almost everything I write that isn’t novel specific. It also seems apt for the winter weather outside – it lends the…

  • My Top 5 Scary Movies

    Last week I blogged about my top five favourite scary books. This week it’s the turn of the silver screen. I love a good horror movie. There’s nothing to beat going to the cinema and sharing a “jump” with the audience, inevitably followed by a wave of nervous laughter. Although I love the genre, it…

  • My Top 5 Horror Books

    Do you like to be scared? Not the oh-my-gawd-there’s-a-madman-with-an-axe-chasing-me-down-the-corridor type of scared, but the ‘safe’ scare of a good horror film or book, the type of scare where the monster stays safely inside the cinema or the pages of your book? I do. While you’d never catch me on a rollercoaster, the thrill ride of…

  • The Perfect Family

    In the best traditions of Christmas, I’ve written a ghost story. The subject matter is very delicate so I think it only fair to issue some trigger warnings. If you have suffered from infertility, miscarriage or SIDS, you may find the following distressing.   The Perfect Family Joe had left her after the second baby.…

  • The Quick by Lauren Owen

    I love a book which conjures me away to a different time, a different life and The quick, the debut novel by Lauren Owen certainly ticks those boxes. Brother and sister James and Charlotte live in Yorkshire where, in the absence of parents (a dead mother and disinterested father), they are looked after by household…

  • Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas

    Dark Fuse is proving to be a great publisher of horror shorts and Red Cells by Jeffrey Thomas is no exception. Jeremy Stake is a shape-shifting PI who is doing time so his client he impersonates doesn’t have to. Stake is in no ordinary penitentiary: this future world, populated by aliens and mutants, has a…

  • Night Crawlers by Tim Curran

    If you look at the cover of Nightcrawlers by Tim Curran, see the oddly manicured female hands and the kitchy font of the title, you might be forgiven for expecting the literary equivalent of the type of movie shown by the Horror Channel at 3am: exploitative, all gore and no characterisation. Well, I hate to…

  • Horror Shorts

    Fancy a short shot of horror? I have two books to recommend to you. In Broken Sigil by William Meikle Joe Connors is a cop who is called to investigate the death of his friend, Johnny Provan. Connor’s investigations soon unearth an affair between his friend and his late wife and when he visits the…

  • The Troop by Nick Cutter

    I love horror films but it is rare that a book in the horror genre satisfies and excites as much as a good movie. The Troop by Nick Cutter is one of few to hit the mark. Set on a small uninhabited island off Prince Edward Island in Canada, a small group of scouts –…

  • The Heavens Rise by Christopher Rice

    Elysium, the New Orleans home of Nikki Delongpre and her parents, holds a secret and when Nikki breaks up with her long term boyfriend Anthem, and takes creepy Marshall home for a midnight swim, the consequences have repercussions beyond anything the teenagers could expect. I really enjoyed the first 80% of this book by Christopher…