Welcome to our first post about the Horror A Month Storygraph Reading Challenge. Rather than reading the same book, we decided to pick up different books and analyze the prompt. We hope that you will enjoy this new kind of discussion. 🙂
January Prompt: A Wintery Setting
Discussion of the Prompt:
Having chosen this reading challenge with the goal of exposing myself to a broader variety of horror novels, I had to do a quick internet search for book lists in order to find some ideas of where to start. Tor, Bustle, and Book Riot all had excellent recs! How did you choose your book, Kriti?
I chose mine from the Book Riot list you shared. Michelle Paver is one of my favorite Middle Grade authors (she wrote Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series) and I was happy to see a familiar name in a new genre. 🙂
I knew this prompt was going to be perfect for January. We’re both in North America, so the cold weather outside while we cozy up to read our horror books would be perfect for some spooky moments! Unfortunately, my first pick for this prompt didn’t arrive in time for the monthly prompt, so I chose The Winter People because I was fascinated by the synopsis.
Ariel’s January Horror Read
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter.
Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara’s farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea’s diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother’s bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she’s not the only person looking for someone that they’ve lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.
Some content notes to be aware of: Child death, Grief, Death, Animal death, Gore, Body horror, Violence, Blood, Car accident, and Murder
General Thoughts of Book
This book kept me fascinated and intrigued for almost the entirety of the book. I was much more interested in the historical journals and perspectives from 1908 than I was present day, and frankly I thought the present day perspectives only served to tie up the loose ends from 1908. I might have enjoyed it more if it was purely from 1908 and maybe an epilogue of present day where we know the mystery still lurks out there. However, the story all around was very compelling and I am glad to have chosen this book for this prompt!
Kriti’s January Horror Read
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…
Content Notes: Descriptions of death of a friend, confinement, suicide (off screen), drowning, animal cruelty, hunting, torture and gore.
General Thoughts of Book
Dark Matter gave me a lot to think about. Set in late 1930s England, the first World War had ended, leaving not just the ominous feeling that another war will happen but also a lot of unemployment. The main character of this book, Jack, went to university to study Physics but having found no employment in that area, he has been leading a dreary life, one day to the next. Poor with no hopes for the future, when he learns about an Arctic expedition, he decides to join in.
Through his time at Gruhuken, first with his team mates, and later alone, we learn about the atrocities that happened on that land many years ago. The malicious spirit haunting this place is this way because of the atrocities committed by other people to it. The book reminded me of The Only Good Indians in some ways – that the land remembers and no matter who harms it, a general distrust of our own kind perpetuates. Though Gruhuken is a fictional place, I have heard stories of other places that give a similar bad vibe.
“What I don’t like is the feeling I sometimes get that other things might exist around us, of which we know nothing.”
Dark Matter
Living in Canada in the winter, when sunlight hours are numbered and few, I felt for Jack – out in the Arctic, in the months when it is night all the time. I would be terrified too, being there. Dark Matter is partly Jack’s diary during his stay and he mentions looking back at the pages how his handwriting has changed, I have no doubt it did, even though I can’t know that from the print.
The book was very well done and the writing portrayed Jack’s descent into fear as time passed. He held on to his sanity by fixating on one of his team mates and whether those feelings were reciprocated, one would never know. Dark Matter was a haunting tale of winter and cold, the loneliness that comes from being on our own and the need for light. I will never forget these lines from the book:
“Fear of the dark. Until I came here, I thought that was for children; that you grew out of it. But it never really goes away. It’s always there underneath. The oldest fear of all.”
Dark Matter
Closing Discussion for January Horror A Month
I really enjoyed my horror read for the month and I am so glad that you suggested this challenge, Ariel! My book was indeed very wintery and it gave me the chills. Considering the psychological reaction I had to it (I refused to read the second half of the book when I was alone in the house), I can say Jack’s experience was very well conveyed. The descriptions of London fog, the icy vastness of the Arctic, the endless night and the snow storms, all helped make this book the perfect read for this prompt.
Yay!!! I’m so glad that this first month of this reading challenge was a success for both of us. Next month, our prompt will be a horror written by a Black author, so I’m excited to see what we pick!
Thank you for joining us for our very first Horror a Month post! We look forward to bringing you some horror recommendations this year! If there are horror books you would recommend, please let us know in the comments. We will try to fit them into our prompts.
Cover image: Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash
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