Welcome to our tenth post about the Horror A Month Storygraph Reading Challenge. Two more prompts to go after this!
October Prompt: Magical, Halloween & Fall vibes
Discussion of the Prompt:
Halloween can easily be related to a witchy theme and I found myself the perfect witchy book. I already wrote in length about HEX and in this post, I will share a shorter version of the review in case you missed that one!
Set in a foggy and dense Irish forest in fall, The Watchers perfectly immersed myself into an overcast fall day at the brink of early winter. I saw it was being published mid-October, so having it on my Netgalley shelf and reading it for this challenge was perfect timing!
Ariel’s October Horror Read
The Watchers by A. M. Shine
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
You can’t see them. But they can see you.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 and why are these creatures keeping them imprisoned, keen to watch their every move?
General Thoughts of Book
An overall quick read, The Watchers felt suspenseful throughout. When the main character has to travel through a forest and gets stranded, she finds it’s not so easy to leave, and the creatures within the forest are determined to keep her there. There’s an element of Irish fae folklore, which adds to the suspense and overall reasoning behind the horror, and those parts I really enjoyed. I found myself continually rooting for the characters to escape and uncover the mystery of their capture. While this wasn’t the scariest horror I’ve ever read, I did enjoy the thrilling parts of it.
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Kriti’s October Horror Read
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay ’til death. Whoever settles, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters your homes at will. She stands next to your bed for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened.
The elders of Black Spring have virtually quarantined the town by using high-tech surveillance to prevent their curse from spreading. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in so doing send the town spiraling into the dark, medieval practices of the past.
Content notes include depiction of suicide, suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, domestic violence, animal cruelty, animal death, death, disappearance.
General Thoughts of Book
Translated horror that meets the monthly prompt? Yes please!
The writing in HEX is brilliant. The witch is introduced and treated as an everyday part of life. She is ‘Grandma Katherine’ who visits people whenever she wants or walks down the street if she wishes. No one is supposed to talk to her. No one is supposed to touch her. A group of volunteers keep track of the witch’s activities with the help of technology and the town folks. With her mouth and eyes shut, the witch is a persona in the book. She doesn’t say anything though people know she is always muttering something. Through the different characters in the book, it is very interesting to see the emotions that she brings out in people – they all fear her but some also worship her.
I have never read this sort of collective fear before. When the town starts to descend into its 17th century ways of making an example of people, they feel the malicious intent of the witch. But when one is soaked in fear and there is no way out (remember they can’t leave town?), what are they going to do?
The moments that will build the most tension and suspense are stretched to the limit, keeping the reader at the edge of their seat. It made me think about how low we can go as humans if the circumstances turn out that way. It also made me confront grief like no other book. I felt the character’s pains and I wanted so badly to console them but I also did not want to be in the world that the author had created. I would not set foot in Black Spring, let alone move there.
Read my full review and see bookish art in the dedicated blog post about HEX.
Next month is November, where our challenge is to read a horror by a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color author! The challenge creators suggest we pick something outside of our own culture to expand our horizons, stay tuned for some new recs next month!
Thank you for joining us for yet another Horror a Month post! Look through all our horror reads at our Horror A Month Challenge home page.
Cover image: Photo on Unsplash
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