Happy (belated) Halloween! This year we’re excited to bring you short reviews of three terrific seasonal horror offerings recently out from various YA imprints of Penguin Random House. The first two novels are supernatural fantasies with distinct approaches to the paranormal: the classic gothic atmosphere of a haunting and a thriller that leans into realism even with its touch of Satan. The third novel is a slasher mystery that strictly might not fit into the genres Skiffy & Fanty normally covers. However, the Queer elements of its plot and characters will appeal to our followers who enjoy horror.
Holly Horror by Michelle Jabès Corpora
“Playmate, come and play with me…” Gothic horror is probably my most beloved of genres, and looking at the gorgeously dark cover of Holly Horror and reading its synopsis I knew I had to put this at the top of my spooky season reading list. And this is without any prior familiarity with the character of Holly Hobbie. I devoured Michelle Jabès Corpora’s dark take on this classic amid a spurt of haunted house reads and Holly Horror held up with them all, perhaps even being the creepiest among them. I had expected a haunted doll to be a focus of the novel. While one appears, it’s not at the center of things or much featured. And that is fine because the story manages to be plenty scary by balancing many gothic tropes without overusing any single one of them.
After her parents divorce, Evie’s mother brings her and her younger brother Stan to Ravenglass, Massachusetts, to live in an abandoned Hobbie family home known locally as the Horror House. Though owned by Evie’s fortune-teller aunt, the woman hasn’t stepped foot in the House since decades ago, and is reluctant to even open its doors again to her sister and niece and nephew. The house fills her with a sense of dark unease, memories of their cousin Holly Hobbie’s mysterious disappearance in the early 1980s, and a much-older legend of a patchwork girl who disappeared over a century prior. Evie begins to hear and see things, and her interest in the house and its history that her mother and aunt won’t speak of begins to distract her from problems her mother and brother Stan likewise face.
Though packaged as YA, there is a childlike innocence to the characters and their interactions that make Holly Horror feel more like middle grade gothic horror. And perhaps that’s why I liked it even more, particularly in how Evie’s aunt allows Evie to struggle and find her own way while still being there for her by imparting tools and advice for her personal journey. Corpora also very effectively incorporates the classic gothic within a contemporary environment of diversity here with cast of characters, such as touches of Korean traditions in cuisine and the supernatural.
Though secrets become unveiled and questions answered as Evie’s story progresses and reaches a satisfying ‘end’ in Holly Horror, this is just the start of what will be at least one other novel to follow. I’m hooked.
A Crooked Mark by Linda Kao
Since as long as he can remember, Matt has travelled with his father around the country to watch anyone who has just miraculously seemed to have survived a tragic accident, anyone who might bear Lucifer’s mark. As he’s grown, Matt has learned more from his father and his father’s mentor Kendrick about what happens with these marked victims. Strange, unlikely occurrences begin to follow them, bad luck that begins to befall people around them, misfortune that grows into a vindictive spite from the tainted, marked soul. If left alone, it could lead to the freak deaths of bystanders, born from a curse on a person who was once meant to die, but was touched by Satan and came back monstrous. Matt’s father and Kendrick were separately recruited following the tragic deaths of their wives to work for the Sweep, a clandestine organization that hunts for anyone bearing Lucifer’s mark before the curse can turn deadly for those around them. The only cure: burn those marked individuals.
Matt has begun to grapple with the horror of the Sweep’s actions, and the inherent uncertainty of judging whether a person is actually marked or if simply surrounded by moments of unfortunate luck. Act too soon and you may burn an innocent. Act too late and you may have let the marked soul cause deaths of those around. People who could have been saved. But Matt has also begun to question whether Lucifer’s mark is even a real phenomenon. At this moment of doubt, and on the precipice of turning eighteen, the Sweep gives Matt a project of his own: to watch over Rae Winter, a young woman his age who amazingly survived a car accident that took her father’s life. Matt is left on his own to use his training for determining if Rae is marked or not; the greatest test for him of all: can he do what needs to be done if all evidence indicates she is marked by the devil? As he gets closer to Rae and her group of friends, Matt’s doubts, fears, and humanity increase, just as his father increasingly pushes from the sidelines to make a quick judgement and execution that would prove Matt’s dedication to the Sweep. While trying to discern the nature of his project Rae, Matt also begins to uncover secrets of the Sweep and his father.
A Crooked Mark is an engaging story with Supernatural vibes, a thriller that keeps the reader turning pages to discover what happens to Rae and what Matt uncovers. Some of the later plot twists are predictable, but the consequences of Matt realizing them and the ways that the twists have governed character action throughout the novel can remain surprising even so. The themes of the novel are dark, and the fact that the protagonists are stalkers and killers (even if doing so for a believed greater purpose/necessity) could be disturbing for some readers. Those themes alone make the novel YA or adult in tone, but in terms of social interactions and behaviors, the characters come across younger than they supposedly are. In large part this is due to the naiveté of sheltered Matt, who has never had a friendship or romantic interest. Rae also faces trauma, grief, and guilt from the recent death of her father, making her more detached from what might be expected in the life of a teenager her age. Kao handles the psychology of these emotions surrounding tragedy/trauma well for both Matt and Rae. But the storyline doesn’t really permit any atonement or full processing by Matt for the terrible things he may have done under the guidance of his father and the Sweep. Presumably this could be explored more fully in a sequel.
What I enjoyed most about A Crooked Mark is the line it walks between a fantasy or a conventional thriller. For most of the novel it is quite uncertain whether Lucifer’s mark or the Sweep are realities in the story or fabrications; whether Kendrick has told Matt and his father the truth or if they have been spending the past approximate decade aiding a serial killer in his twisted delusions. Even while Kao closes the novel with revelations that make interpretation land more solidly toward the line of the fantasy genre, I wouldn’t call it a foregone conclusion.
Your Lonely Nights Are Over by Adam Sass
Longtime best friends Dearie and Cole are just two gay teens trying to survive high school along with everyone else. But they aren’t going to put up with everyone else’s crap, particularly the petty infighting of Queer Club and the clique-y factions that unite against them to gain face and social power. But things turn much more serious when a true murder series that features the unsolved murders perpetrated decades ago by a killer named Mr. Sandman leads to a resurgence of similar attacks at the high school, ones that particularly seem to be targeting Queer Club. The killer’s modus operandi involves targeting people not currently in a relationship, relaying a message to his victims exactly twenty-four hours before their deaths: “Your Lonely Nights Will Soon Be Over.”
Has Mr. Sandman returned, or a copy-cat? What do the students or teachers at the high school have to do with it? And why has the killer worked to ensure suspicion will fall on Cole and Dearie? As students rush to try and couple up to avoid being targeted, Dearie and Cole find their friendship being put to the test as they try to prove their innocence and discover the identity of the killer.
I found Your Lonely Nights Are Over exceptional in just how well it shapes a contemporary YA slasher genre thriller. Of all the novels featured here, this is the most assuredly YA, filled with teens who act like teens, with modern slang, emotional hills and valleys, sexual activity, vaping, cruelness and love. The characters are instantly relatable, in their mixture of not quite mature innocence and ignorance, keen and open perceptions, deep set flaws, and unabashed joy in finding their own personal success. The diversity of characters and personalities here is remarkably high and well represented, and having dual point-of-view perspectives from both Dearie and Cole in contrapuntal chapters works effectively, particularly from the contrast of Dearie’s white privilege compared to Cole’s relative hurdles and discrimination as biracial.
Described aptly as Queer Scream meets Clueless, Your Lonely Nights Are Over also succeeds in being an engaging mystery with twists and surprises. Even if some plot points are worked out by a reader in advance, it is unlikely that all predictions will be accurate or made. It hits all the notes that a fan of slasher horror will appreciate, without simply following a standard blueprint of tropes for the genre. In all, the novel tackles the theme of Queer loneliness by making it into a literal horror, but then showing how Queer relationships (and I don’t mean that exclusively in the sexual sense) can conquer the horror. With well-crafted dialogue and vivid description too, Sass has also created a start to a series I would gladly return to visit for future mysteries and horror.
Cover credits:
Holly Horror – Cover illustration by Benjamin Dawe, Cover design by Hsiao-Pin Lin
A Crooked Mark – Cover illustration and design by Vanessa Han
Your Lonely Nights Are Over – Cover illustration by Monica Loya, Cover design by Kaitlin Yang
