Twenty scary books for Halloween

At People magazine Sharon Virts tagged twenty books of creepy suspense, scary thrillers and ghoulish ghost stories.

One title on the list:

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Stephen King called it “deeply disturbing.” I call it horrifically delicious (no pun intended). Based on the true story of the Donner Party, a group of pioneers crossing the Nevada Sierras in the winter of 1847, The Hunger explores the gruesome depths of evil. Warning: Do not read this one after dark!

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Hunger is among C. J. Tudor's five top winter thrillers, Brittany Bunzey's twenty-five "must-read, truly bone-chilling" horror books, Deborah E. Kennedy's seven hot mysteries set in the Midwestern winter, Meagan Navarro top ten scary good horror novels, Jac Jemc's top ten haunting ghost stories and Mallory O'Meara's top thirteen spine-chilling books written by female authors.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles that go behind the scenes of publishing

Amy Reading is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the New York Public Library. She is the author of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker and The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con. She lives in upstate New York, where she has served on the executive board of Buffalo Street Books, an indie cooperative bookstore, since 2018.

At Electric Lit Reading tagged "eight nonfiction books that tell stories of the behind-the-scenes relationships that have resulted in some of our most beloved books and magazines." One title on the list:

Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb

The late Robert Gottlieb indulged in a bit of self-mythologizing of his long editorial career at Knopf and The New Yorker, and here the editor is not gray and nondescript but a nerdy, quirky genius. There he is, in the photo insert, intensely conversing with Joseph Heller across his messy desk, brandishing a copy of The Power Broker next to a very young Robert Caro, laughing with Toni Morrison at the National Book Awards, leaning over a stack of pages with Bill Clinton at Chappaqua. He gleefully quotes a long passage from a review of The Journals of John Cheever which praises Gottlieb’s heroic editorial scalpel by way of a comparison to Max Perkins.

This fleet, gossipy memoir proves that the author found his métier in publishing—like Blanche Knopf, he was both a book- and a people-person. He chronicles his friendships among fellow staffers as well as his growing stable of authors, though there are gaps. He has little to say of his colleague Judith Jones, for instance, calling her only “a calm and steady presence in the Knopf mix, unassertive except when pushed to the wall.” Nor does he provide much insight into the work of publishing, writing at one point, “I don’t keep track of my editorial interventions.” He does not add anything of substance to the much-chronicled story of his controversial—indeed, heavily protested—assumption of the editorship of The New Yorker after William Shawn retired or was forced out. But there are thumbnail portraits aplenty and lots of behind-the-scenes stories that make vaunted authors into real people. This is an important supplement to more staid accounts of the business of publishing. It was here that I learned, for instance, that Knopf as a literary powerhouse was fueled for decades by the runaway success of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, which sold as many as four hundred thousand copies a year without need of advertising, thus subsidizing the highbrow stuff and paying Gottlieb’s salary—which he spent on ballet tickets and an enormous collection of plastic handbags.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four of the best (and most cynical) fixers in fiction

Matthew FitzSimmons is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Gibson Vaughn series, which includes Origami Man, Debris Line, Cold Harbor, Poisonfeather, and The Short Drop, and the Constance series. Born in Illinois and raised in London, he makes his home in Washington, DC.

[The Page 69 Test: Constance]

FitzSimmons's new novel is The Slate.

At CrimeReads he tagged four of the best (and most cynical) fixers in fiction, including:

Nena Knight / Her Name is Knight / Yasmin Angoe / 2021

Is there a difference between the Fixer and the Assassin? The line between the two is fine and likely comes down to the application of force. A great example of a character that straddles that line is Yasmin Angoe’s Nena Knight, an elite Ghanian assassin stolen from her village as a child who now works for a business syndicate known as The Tribe. While comfortable resorting to violence, it’s Knight’s intelligence that sets her apart. She’s always weighing all the options on her mission to topple a human trafficking ring while also avenging the death of her family. She’s a survivor. No mere blunt instrument, she believes it’s possible to bring order to a chaotic world but to literally fix the broken places as well.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top contemporary & genre-spanning vampire books

Claudia Guthrie is a writer covering culture, entertainment, and lifestyle content. Her work has appeared in ELLE, The Muse, Food52, and more. Originally from Kansas City, she now resides
 in Denver, where you can find her reading the newest thriller or knitting sweaters for her cats.

At Electric Lit Guthrie tagged ten of "the best contemporary and genre-spanning vampire books, including:

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

As a half-vampire, Lydia has been able to sate her hunger with pigs blood for her entire life. But she craves more: pizza and sausages and stir fry and other meals … maybe, even, other sources of blood.

After she moves to London to pursue an internship at an art gallery, pig’s blood is much more difficult to come by—and there are a lot more humans in close quarters. Now, Lydia has never been more tempted as she wrestles with her identity and her humanity.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Woman, Eating is among Isabelle McConville's eleven greatest recent bloodsucking books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles that explore the complexities of the stock market

Samantha Greene Woodruff is the author of Amazon #1 bestseller The Lobotomist’s Wife. She studied history at Wesleyan University and continued her studies at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where she earned an MBA. Woodruff spent nearly two decades working on the business side of media, primarily at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, before leaving corporate life to become a full-time mom. In her newfound “free” time, she took classes at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she accidentally found her calling as a historical fiction author. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Female First, Read 650, and more.

Woodruff's new novel is The Trade Off.

[My Book, The Movie: The Lobotomist's Wife; My Book, The Movie: The Trade Off; Q&A with Samantha Greene Woodruff]

At Lit Hub the author tagged five standout books that explore the complexities of the stock market:

Hernan Diaz, Trust

Probably the most lauded and currently well-known book in my round-up, this Pulitzer Prize winner expertly touches many of the same themes I hope to in The Trade Off. On the surface it is the story of a Wall Street tycoon who foresaw the Great Crash of 1929 and made a fortune from it. (NB: I was already well into writing my new novel when this literary gem came out.)

Cleverly told in four separate fictional texts—a “novel,” an “autobiography,” a “memoir,” and a “diary,” each with a different narrator—Trust takes the classic tale of stock market excess and spins it like a globe, offering the reader a puzzle with an ambiguous solution. It is no surprise that this unexpected tale with an innovative narrative style has appeared on so many “best of” lists.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top dark academia novels by BIPOC authors

Lauren Ling Brown received a BA in English literature from Princeton University and an MFA in film production with a focus in screenwriting from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she works as a film editor.

Her new novel is Society of Lies.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "favorite dark academia novels by BIPOC authors." One title on the list:

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

In this literary work, a young woman gets drawn into a religious cult and the violence it unleashes on innocent people. It is about how terrible people can hide behind religion, preying on the vulnerable. Kwon’s voice is poetic and captivating as she explores love, faith, and the loss of both.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Incendiaries is among Tara Isabella Burton's seven titles with fictional characters in search of utopias.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles with deadly invitations

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged nine "thrillers that’ll make you think twice about booking your next stay, from themed hotels to haunted mansions and sinister ski trips." One title on the list:

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

Obsessions turn deadly in this propulsive locked-room mystery. A Hitchcock fanatic plans an elaborate weekend trip to the mountains where things get complicated when a corpse turns up…

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about places for women

Maggie Cooper is a graduate of Yale College, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Ninth Letter, Inch, and elsewhere, and her chapbook of short fiction, The Theme Park of Women's Bodies, is published in September 2024 from Bull City Press. She lives with her spouse in the Boston area and also works as a literary agent.

At Electric Lit Cooper tagged seven books that carve "out space for the pleasures, rewards, and even the radical possibilities of creating space for marginalized genders—on the page and in the world beyond our bookshelves." One title on the list:

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

Not unlike Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers, Joanne Ramos’s The Farm uses an institutional setting to dig into the complications and injustices of modern motherhood. The novel is centered on a commercial surrogacy outfit called Golden Acres, where women are paid big bucks to gestate under intense surveillance; the main character, Jane, is an immigrant from the Philippines who hopes carrying the child of a super wealthy client will be her ticket to financial security. The novel toes the line of realism and dystopia, offering a character-driven critique of the all-too-recognizable ways the economy of motherhood rests on the exploitation of low-income and BIPOC women.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Farm is among Sara Flannery Murphy's nine books that explore the weirder side of reproduction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven crime novels that address the Covid era head-on

Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus, Derringer, and International Thriller Writers-award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes Private Eye series, featuring a former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns quarterback turned investigator, and editor of Columbus Noir. His stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, the 2022 anthology Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, and other magazines and anthologies.

[My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave; Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins; The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave; Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023); My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road; The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road]

Welsh-Huggins's newest novel, the eighth Andy Hayes mystery, is Sick to Death.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven "crime novels that incorporate COVID-19 within their pages," including:

Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim

In Virginia, the lives of a biracial Korean American family are changed forever when the father and his son don’t return from a walk at a park. Later, the son, Eugene—who has a rare genetic condition, Angelman syndrome, which prevents him from speaking—rushes home bloody and alone. Narrated by Eugene’s older sister, Mia, the novel follows the family’s efforts to understand what happened and the ensuing police investigation, all of which unfold beginning on June 23, 2020.

Kim started the novel during the pandemic and found it hard to get writing done. But the lockdown also produced a breakthrough, she told Jane Ciabattari of Literary Hub.

“Somehow, imagining a family dealing with a crisis during the same quarantine my family and I were experiencing gave me a way into the story and inspired specific scenes and situations,” Kim said, noting she had friends with autistic children having an especially hard time adjusting to the disruption.

“Once I was done,” Kim continued, “I realized how much elements like wearing masks, the racial tensions involving police interactions, and our society’s changing baselines and expectations not only added to the plot, but reinforced some of the themes I wanted to explore.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve modern classic horror titles

Drew Broussard is a writer, podcaster, bookseller, and producer of creative events. He spent nearly a decade at The Public Theater before decamping to the woods of upstate New York, where he lives with his wife and dog.

At Lit Hub he shared a spooky season starter kit for readers curious about horror. One title on the list:

Laird Barron, The Imago Sequence

Another contemporary writer, Laird Barron works largely in the ‘cosmic’ horror realm—a kind of horror inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen and Robert Chambers, which looks at unknowable entities from other dimensions or from across the cosmos whose sheer existence so warps the state of reality that it will leave any human who encounters them permanently scarred. Barron’s stories often have a bit of noir to them as well (he’s since added crime novelist to his resume) and the blend of tough guys facing down mind-bending horrors provides a refreshing spin on both. His stories can often be mind-bending in their scope, but that’s part of the fun.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles about growing up through ballet

Lucy Ashe is the author of Clara & Olivia (shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger 2024), The Dance of the Dolls, and The Sleeping Beauties. She trained at the Royal Ballet School, before changing career plans and going to St. Hugh's College, Oxford University, to study English Literature. She is an English and Drama teacher and she reviews theatre for the website “Plays to See.”

At Electric Lit Ashe tagged "eight books that cut to the heart of what it means to learn to define oneself as a dancer." One title on the list:

They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey

Set in both the present day and during the AIDS crisis, this is a psychologically powerful novel about longing for acceptance in a complicated adult world. Carlisle Martin’s childhood holds secrets, some of which she will not admit even to herself. When, as an adult, she returns to New York City to visit her father, those memories cannot remain hidden any longer. She confronts her relationship with her ballerina mother and her father’s partner, James, learning what it is she needs to let go of in order to accept her past. The novel opens with a description of a ballet class, the fragile relationship between a teacher and student revealed: “He watches his words take shape in the boy’s body.” For this is the power of an adult mentor in the world of professional dance: every word can transform but also destroy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

They’re Going to Love You is among Tammy Greenwood's four books that juxtapose the beauty and ugliness of ballet and Lindsay Lynch's eight books that deliver behind-the-scenes drama.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books about the perils of memory manipulation

Margot Harrison is the author of four young adult thrillers and the adult novel The Midnight Club.

[The Page 69 Test: The Killer in Me; Q&A with Margot Harrison]

At CrimeReads she tagged "six compelling fictions about the power of memory and the dangers of manipulating our own memories—or other people’s." One title on Harrison's list:

Confessions of a Memory Eater by Pagan Kennedy

In this 2006 novel, a memory drug offers a washed-up academic an escape from midlife crisis into golden moments of his past. While former zine publisher Kennedy is technically (just barely) a boomer, this book shows she had her finger on the pulse of Generation X’s “retrophilia,” as I call it in The Midnight Club.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Confessions of a Memory Eater.

--Marshal Zeringue