Welcome to our final post for the Horror A Month Storygraph Reading Challenge. This month’s prompt was to pick a horror book released this year. Let’s take a look at the ones we read.
December Prompt: A 2021 Release
Discussion of the Prompt:
I had a couple options that caught my eye, When the Reckoning Comes & Nothing But Blackened Teeth. When the Reckoning Comes arrived first at my library so that was how I chose the final prompt for this year! I was hopeful that this book would be a fitting finale to our year of horror, where we branched out through many different subgenres. Having a fitting final book is a tall order, since we both read so many great horrors over the year.
Like you, Ariel, I had so many options to choose from, though I don’t remember any anymore. I knew my pick wasn’t going to be the fitting finale book but it met my need to read a horror book about a book so I will call it a success in finding something unique. 😀
Ariel’s December Horror Read
When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
More than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder.
But now Mira is back in Kipsen to attend Celine’s wedding at the plantation, which has been transformed into a lush vacation resort. Mira hopes to reconnect with her friends, and especially, Jesse, to finally tell him the truth about her feelings and the events of that devastating long-ago day.
But for all its fancy renovations, the Woodsman remains a monument to its oppressive racist history. The bar serves antebellum drinks, entertainments include horrifying reenactments, and the service staff is nearly all black. Yet the darkest elements of the plantation’s past have been carefully erased—rumors that slaves were tortured mercilessly and that ghosts roam the lands, seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who tormented them, which includes most of the wedding guests.
As the weekend unfolds, Mira, Jesse, and Celine are forced to acknowledge their history together, and to save themselves from what is to come.
General Thoughts of Book
This book was a debut novel and I felt that it was very well done overall. The horror had a haunting feel to it that felt very real due to the real historical aspects it touched. There were many layers and themes between the characters and how they grapple with their local history. For a short book, this had a lot of impact, and I’m very glad I read it.
Kriti’s December Horror Read
The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
When Tess and Eliot stumble upon an ancient book hidden in a secret tunnel beneath the school library, they accidentally release a devil from his book-bound prison, and he’ll stop at nothing to stay free. He’ll manipulate all the ink in the library books to do his bidding, he’ll murder in the stacks, and he’ll bleed into every inch of Tess’s life until his freedom is permanent. Forced to work together, Tess and Eliot have to find a way to re-trap the devil before he kills everyone they know and love, including, increasingly, each other. And compared to what the devil has in store for them, school stress suddenly doesn’t seem so bad after all.
Content notes: Gore, Blood, Death, Self harm, Terminal illness, Body horror
General Thoughts of Book
I hadn’t read a horror book linked to a magical book so I thought this would be a good one to try out for this month. I am not a Young Adult fan so this was going out of my comfort zone but overall, The Devil Makes Three was a fast-paced story about two teenagers studying at a prestigious school. There is an amazing library and our protagonist Tess helps out there. She comes from a poor family and her parents can’t seem to keep their wealth for their kids so she takes the help of a relative and moves out with her sister, in the hopes that they can have better opportunities. Eliot is the son of the headmasters and is diving into forbidden sections of the library, looking for something to help his dying mom. They come across a very interesting book and let loose the devil, an entity that can grant all wishes at a cost.
The Devil Makes Three was a good book. It wasn’t particularly horror though once the devil made his appearance, things went crazy. There is some good humor there and I enjoyed the dynamics between Tess and Elitot and their families. I wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t for this challenge!
Thank you for joining us for this last post in the Horror a Month challenge! Look through all our horror reads at our Horror A Month Challenge home page. It has been a pleasure exploring horror this year and we hope that you will join us in 2022 for a Romance challenge. Details can be found here.
We will be doing our annual wrap up for buddy reads on the 2nd so stay tuned for that! All horror books will be present. 🙂
Cover image: Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash
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