Seasonal
Best Books for October (the Dread Month)
Haunted toymakers. Mythos extensions. Megan Abbott's suburban menace. Stephen Dobyns's upstate New York unraveling. October is the month for books that take dread seriously. These do.
7 books on this list.
The 7th Guest : A Novelby Matthew J. Costello
3.0“The 7th Guest: A Novel by Matthew J. Costello 1995 review. The official novelization of the landmark 1993 CD-ROM horror game, expanding the Stauf mansion mystery into a full haunted-house story.”
The Lurker At The Thresholdby August Derleth
4.0“The Lurker at the Threshold by August Derleth 1945 review. The first Derleth posthumous 'collaboration' with H. P. Lovecraft, building a Mythos novel from unfinished Lovecraft fragments.”
The Watchers Out Of Timeby August Derleth
3.0“The Watchers Out of Time by August Derleth review. A 1974 collection of additional Derleth-Lovecraft 'posthumous collaborations' that round out the Mythos extension project.”
The Church of the Dead Girlsby Stephen Dobyns
4.0“The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns 1997 review. Three teenage girls disappear from an upstate New York town and the community begins to suspect everyone, including itself.”
Bury Me Deepby Megan Abbott
5.0“Megan Abbott rewriting a real 1930s Phoenix murder case as a fever dream. Period noir with a feminist undertow.”
The End of Everythingby Megan Abbott
5.0“Megan Abbott writing a thirteen-year-old's point of view as her best friend disappears. Quiet, devastating, almost too uncomfortable to recommend.”
Cold Steel Rainby Kenneth Abel
5.0“The first Danny Chaisson novel. Kenneth Abel writing New Orleans politics and corruption with a New Orleans-specific moral exhaustion you cannot fake.”