The Horror Bookshelf

I am back again with the second installment of my most anticipated summer reads! It seems like I just posted the first installment,  but time seems to be flying by with summer  just around the corner and I still have TONS of books I want to write about. The last batch included novels from Stephen King, Hunter Shea and Brian Moreland. This time around I will be featuring John F.D. Taff, Tim Curran and Stephen Lloyd Jones!

John F.D. Taff The End In All Beginnings (Late Summer) from Grey Matter Press

I am a relatively new fan of Taff’s, but this one has rocketed right to the top of my list after it was announced by Grey Matter Press due to how much I loved his novel The Bell Witch and his story “Angie” in Ominous Realities. The End In All Beginnings will feature five new novellas that, according to the folks at Grey Matter Press, “explore the painful, emotional horrors of life, love and loss through the ages”. Sign me up!

Tim Curran Blackout (August 2014) from Dark Fuse

While summer usually conjures images of pool parties, barbecues and warm, beautiful weather, there is also a less pleasant side to most people’s favorite season.  I am talking about the huge storms complete with downpours, thunder and lightning. It is not unusual to lose power for long periods of time after lightening lights up the sky and the booms of thunder rattle your windows. At most, this is a minor annoyance. However, Tim Curran’s upcoming novella for Dark Fuse takes this mundane scenario and dials up the horror by throwing in tentacles that snatch people into the sky at random. I imagine that the first time a big storm rolls through town after I read this novella, I will be absolutely scared out of my mind and fighting with my wife over who gets to hold the flashlight (though I doubt that would be a good defense against airborne tentacles).

Stephen Lloyd Jones The String Diaries (July 1, 2014) from Mulholland Books

The String Diaries follows a woman named Hannah as she attempts to outrun a centuries-old man who has the horrifying ability to take on the persona of any person he wants, including Hannah’s loved ones. Throw in a pile of mysterious diaries that have been passed down for over 200 years within Hannah’s family that supposedly hold the clues to surviving this monster and this has all the makings of a book that will probably rule my life from the minute I start it.

The story is said to jump from present day all the way to Hungary at the turn of the 19th century and I love books that do that because in addition to being a huge horror fan, I am also a bit of a history nerd. I know very little about The String Diaries other than what is in the official synopsis, but it kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Kostova’s brilliant 2005 novel The Historian.