Pleasant Nights

Title: Who Haunts You

Author: Mark Wheaton

Genre: YA Horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

What a fun YA book! I don’t read a lot of YA these days, mostly because it’s so watered down with garbage, but I enjoy any good horror book, and I’m happy to say this was great! The main character, Bex, is autistic, which I rarely stumble upon in books. Hooray for representation!

The story is pretty crazy, in a great way. Other seniors at Bex’s high school are dying. As Bex digs into the deaths, she realizes they all have something in common. They believed they were haunted by long-dead relatives their own family members swear never existed. When Bex starts having the same visions, she knows she needs to figure things out before she is next. The plot isn’t perfect, but it was enjoyable and kept me guessing. Bex was an excellent character, and you root for her the entire time. I would recommend this to any horror fan, whether they read YA or not.

Title: Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror

Editor: Jordan Peele

Genre: horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I’m usually not an anthology reader, but I will read anything in the horror genre, so this was a definite must. I had read works from about half the writers in this collection already, which was fun. But I really loved discovering new writers, also. And the best part of an anthology is that if you don’t connect with something, you can just skip it. I admit that there were two stories that I just didn’t connect with, so I skimmed them.

Most of the stories were of a reasonable length, meaning on my Kindle, about 15-20 minutes for my reading speed. The book is described as horror by Black writers. However, most, if not all, of the stories involve racism of some form. Some stories are realistic and could have happened in society. Some involve the supernatural. Some were actually horrifying and will stick with me for a while. Some were more mild and lighthearted. But I definitely recommend this one for horror fans. It’s an easy one to pick up and put down if you are short on time, but each story presented a new scenario of terror.

Title: Daphne

Author: Josh Malerman

Genre: horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

Josh Malerman is a must-read for me. I love his books and have yet to be disappointed. Daphne is another great one and seriously spooky. Set around a high school girls’ basketball team, during a sleepover, Natasha tells the team about Daphne. She lived in the town but was murdered. Now she haunts people and will kill you if you think about her too much.

Kit has anxiety and, of course, can’t stop thinking about Daphne. When other team members are killed, one at a time, Kit is sure Daphne is coming for her next. What I loved about this book is how real the anxiety descriptions were. Intrusive thoughts suck, and Malerman captured this perfectly but in a more terrifying way. Because Daphne will literally kill you if you can’t stop thinking about her…. or so the legend says….