Tag Archives: horror

Heart-Stopping Horror: The Library at Hellebore and Certain Dark Things

23 Jul

The Library at Hellebore
by Cassandra Khaw
I’m always interested to check out a new work by Cassandra Khaw. Even when their work is at their goriest there is always something beautiful about the world they have created. The Library at Hellebore focuses on a school for those with dark supernatural powers. This is Dark Academy at its darkest; Harry Potter if the dementors were running the school. Although some of the students apply and arrive by choice, the main protagonist, Alessa Li, however has no other option after she is forcibly enrolled. When it becomes clear that the school is less about rehabilitation and more about using these would-be anti-Christs as fuel for the even more malevolent staff, they will need to use all their powers to if not save the world at least try to save themselves. I thought it was interesting how the school is often symbolized by carnivorous plants and many of the students are associated with insects and plays with the idea of symbiosis and parasitism. Also the idea of the ways love can become dark, obsessive and predatory are explored in a number of the characters relationships. Want to learn more about Khaw’s work; you can read my previous blog posts about Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy and Nothing But Blackened Teeth.

Certain Dark Things
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Sivlia Moreno-Garcia is best known for her novel, Mexican Gothic, but she has many other works of dark fantasy and horror that are also worth checking out. I enjoyed Certain Dark Things about a down on his luck young man, Domingo, who meets Atl, the beautiful jaded descendant of Aztec vampires. Atl is hiding from both the rival narco-vampire clan and the cops that would like to rid the streets of her kind. As always Moreno-Garcia does a fantastic job of weaving traditional native Mexican myths and legends in with modern stories with complex characters. Her vampires are unique in their physiology and history. In her feeding and behavior, Atl is often compared to not a bat, but a hummingbird. There is also a slow building romance between Domingo and Atl that added a sweet element to the darkness around them. I enjoyed listening to Certain Dark Things as an audiobook read by Aida Reluzco. If you are looking for more, you can read our previous blog posts about Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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Two Horror Novellas that Make a Splash: The Salt Grows Heavy and Rolling in the Deep

3 May

The Salt Grows Heavy
by Cassandra Khaw
After reading the lush writing of Cassandra Khaw in their novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, which I previously blogged about after reading it with the Library’s Science Fiction an Fantasy Book Discussion Group last Halloween, I was curious to check out more of their work. I had the opportunity to read an early copy of the Salt Grows Heavy, provided by Netgalley and the publisher in order to provide an honest review. The book had the beautiful evocative language and graphic horror elements that I expected from Khaw’s previous work, but the story itself was a very unique feminist take on the Little Mermaid story. In this story a mermaid is captured and forced to marry a prince, who cuts out her tongue so she cannot speak. Her daughters though bring vengeance unto the kingdom with their insatiable appetites and the story begins with the Mermaid and an immortal Plague Doctor fleeing the ruins and encountering figures from the Doctor’s past. The story merges horror with a fairytale love story; it is a bit like the beautiful corpse flowers that attract flies instead of butterflies, so smell like rotting meat, managing to be both gorgeous and repulsive in equal measures. This novella would make a perfect read to curl up with during a summer thunderstorm.

Rolling in the Deep
by Mira Grant
Mira Grant is the pen name of Seanan McGuire, whose Incryptid series I had blogged about previously. McGuire’s works tend to be much more urban fantasy while the works she writes under Mira Grant tend to be darker and more horror oriented. Unlike the Incryptid series where a happy ending is likely to be found in every book, I knew that in Rolling in the Deep, no one was safe. I enjoyed listening to it as a digital audiobook that clocks in at just over three hours, so a perfect length for getting some weekend chores done. Teri Schnaubelt, who narrates, does a great job of building suspense and bringing the story to life. The novella uses the setup that it is telling the story of found footage, similar to the Blair Witch series of films, of the ship the Atargatis, which was filming a documentary about mermaids for the Imagine Network. There is a troupe of mermaid performers on board, but those on the expedition soon learn that the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench may be home to something way more dangerous than the heroine of a fairy tale. We learn at the beginning that all hands were lost, but the story still had enough twists to keep me engaged and I especially liked the big reveal at the end. Although short, the characters featured are still compelling and diverse with one of the ship’s crew having a hearing impairment and a mermaid performer who uses a wheel chair when not in the water. Rolling in the Deep serves as the prequel for Grant’s novel, Into the Drowning Deep which is set seven years later when Victoria Stewart sets out with a new crew to learn what happened to her missing sister, Anne, who was a reporter for the Imagine Network.

Want more sirens? Come join us on Thursday, May 25 for this month’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion where we will discuss Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen, a dark fantasy, about an actress who rises above her working-class background by portraying a monstrous mermaid on the Silver Screen.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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