Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
There was actually a different prompt for today (about bookish brags/confessions), but as it’s Blogtober I wanted to highlight some of the horror books I’ve really liked. I won’t be doing 10 for this either due to time constraints, so this will be a Top Six list instead (and not using any of the books I included on my Blogtober Day 1 post!). This is also focusing on what I’ve read the last few years, though I may do an ‘all time’ list later in the month.
Top Six Horror Books
Fear on 4: Six Chilling BBC Radio 4 Dramas
J.C.W. Brook
Genre: Horror – Full-Cast Short Story Dramatisations
Age: Adult
Format: Audiobook
Published: July 1st, 2018
An unsettling collection of full-cast dramas and dramatisations from the long-running Radio 4 horror series. Introduced by the sinister Man in Black, voiced by Edward de Souza, these terrible tales will make your flesh crawl and send a shiver down your spine. With adaptations of stories by John Wyndham, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Bram Stoker among others, the casts include Imelda Staunton, Bernard Cribbins, Anna Massey, Thora Hird and Sean Barrett.
Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome
Garth Marenghi
Genre: Horror Comedy
Age: Adult
Format: Audiobook
Published: November 3rd, 2022
Review
When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination—now leaking out of his own brain—Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick’s dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.
Can he and Roz, his frequently incorrect female editor, hunt down these incarnate denizens of Nick’s rampaging imaginata before they destroy Stalkford, outer Stalkford and possibly slightly further?
From the twisted genius of horror master Garth Marenghi—Frighternerman, Darkscribe, Doomsage (plus Man-Shee)—come three dark tales from his long-lost multi-volume epic: TerrorTome.
Revenge Arc
Cat Voleur
Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
Published: August 1st, 2023
Review
When controversial comic creator Riley Langdon is faced with an unimaginable crime committed in her name, she retreats from the spotlight she spent years seeking. But as media, fandom, and obsession churn, Riley’s story takes on a life of its own.
Camp Damascus
Chuck Tingle
Genre: Horror – Thriller
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: July 18th, 2023
Review
Love is real. Demons are real. Kill the demons.
Camp Damascus is the world’s most effective gay conversion camp. Nestled in the Montana wilderness, parents send their children from around the world to experience the program’s 100% success rate.
But, this story isn’t about that. This story is about Rose Darling, a God-fearing young lady who can’t stop puking up flies. It’s about her parents who ignore her visions of an eerie woman with sagging, pale skin who watches from the woods. It’s about the desires deep inside Rose that don’t seem to make any sense, and her waking nightmares that are beginning to feel more like memories. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a little bit about Camp Damascus after all.
Reluctant Immortals
Gwendolyn Kiste
Genre: Horror – Historical – Gothic
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: August 23rd, 2022
Review
Los Angeles, 1967. Lucy Westenra and Bertha Mason – the forgotten women in Dracula and Jane Eyre – have been existing as undead immortals for centuries, unable to die and still tormented by the monsters that made them.
Lucy has long fought against Dracula’s intoxicating thrall, refusing his charismatic darkness and her ensuing appetite for blood. Bertha Mason, the madwoman in the attic, is still pursued from afar by Mr Rochester, who wants to add her to his collection of devoted female followers.
Then Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in San Francisco. To finally write their own story, Lucy and Bertha must boldly reclaim their stories from the men who tried to erase them in this harrowing gothic tale of love, betrayal and coercion.
The Man With No Shadow
Bonnie Quinn
Genre: Horror – Fantasy
Age: Adult
Format: ebook
Published: January 1st, 2019
Review
This book is the collected edition of a series of posts from Reddit’s r/nosleep subreddit, containing the first major storyline of “How to Survive Camping”. It is largely unaltered, with only minor edits for readability in print form.
Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” In it is a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campground’s… other… inhabitants.
This has produced lackluster results and so Kate begins posting her experiences online so that people will understand why it is so important to drink from the skull cup or to not follow the lights. However, what begins as merely stories about her campground quickly becomes a struggle for Kate to maintain control of her land against the schemes of one of the campground’s residents – the man with no shadow.
What are some of your favourite horror novels you’ve read in the last few years? Anything that particularly sticks out in your memory, because of a certain plot or character or setting?
Unwrapping Words 