Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Ten suspenseful horror novels featuring housebound terrors

T. Marie Vandelly has wanted to write her entire life but (after a career change) has only recently been granted the freedom to pursue her dream full-time. She lives on Gwynn’s Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, with her husband and their two dogs. Theme Music is her first novel.

At CrimeReads Vandelly tagged "ten suspenseful horror novels featuring housebound terrors will scare the hell out of your inner child," including:
Attica Locke, The Cutting Season

The Cutting Season by Attica Locke finds a single mother, Caren Gray, as the general manager of an antebellum plantation that has been turned into a tourist attraction for destination weddings and historical re-enactments. Having been raised on the grounds by a single mother herself, Caren knows all too well the haunting stories of Belle Vie. When the body of a local migrant is found face down in a ditch at the edge of the property, Caren begins to understand that more than a haunted cabin in the eerily well-persevered slave quarters is threatening her tranquil existence. The past and the present collide as the crime scene further divides two worlds—that of the picturesque plantation and a booming sugar cane industry—neither of which are prepared to give up their rightful claim to the land. But in order to solve one murder, which would save both the plantation and an innocent man, Caren must first solve another, one that might explain the continued and ghostly presence of her great-great-great grandfather, Jason, and expose a shocking secret that has been buried beneath the “loamy topsoil” of Belle Vie for over a century.
Read about the other entries on the list.

The Cutting Season is among Wil Medearis's seven favorite novels that explore real estate swindles.

--Marshal Zeringue