I find most traditionally published work is similar, or at best live within a narrow boundary. Independently published work is vastly more original but raw. I picked this up on a whim and absolutely loved it.
It deals with a unique blend of themes that I have never seen before and sets them in a believable world. Catholicism, artificial intelligence, the treatment of Uyghurs, and demonic possession being tackled by a first-time author in a self-published work is an impressive feat, and more so that he was able to bring it together in such a compelling way.
I love books where the setting is just as big and alive as the characters. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a familiar place or someplace new: if a vivid setting is a key element of the story, I’m in. I think it’s because I grew up in one of those small towns in the beautiful middle of nowhere where if someone asks where you’re from, it’s just easier to say someplace else. I wanted to see the world, and books let me do that. I also wanted validation in reading—and writing—about the small places I knew, and books let me do that, too.
I’ve read countless books set in New York City or its boroughs, and I’m going to confess that sometimes they can feel a little generic. Not A Girl's Guide to Love and Magic.
The plot in this book is driven by Cicely’s quest to save her aunt through a scavenger hunt of sorts that is all tied into the excitement and action of the West Indian Parade on Labor Day in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
I also love how while this is technically a young adult book (Cicely is a sophomore in high school), it can be a great read for most older middle-grade readers, especially those who want to read up.
Perfect for fans of The Sun Is Also a Star and Blackout, this YA novel from Debbie Rigaud is a celebration of Haitian and Caribbean culture, and a story of first love, vodou, and finding yourself, all set against the backdrop of the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn.
Cicely Destin lives for the West Indian Day Parade, the joyous celebration of Caribbean culture that takes over the streets of her neighborhood. She loves waving the Haitian flag, sampling delicious foods, and cheering for the floats. And this year? She’ll get to hang with her stylish aunt, an influencer known…
My training is in Classics (especially Greek drama), which has given me an appreciation for clever writers who tweak conventional themes to surprise readers, foil expectations, and explore new ideas—or new sides of old ideas. Greek epic and tragedy also exhibit fairly rigid expectations about personal responsibility: even if a god made you do it, it’s still your responsibility. Agamemnon has to pay for sacrificing his daughter; Heracles has to perform his labors. Madness and possession are vivid ways to explore where one’s autonomy leaves off and another power takes over. They’re excellent tools for poking at humans to see how a thinking, feeling individual deals with unintended disaster.
Greek tragedy is similar to fantasy except for matters of form (e.g. the chorus). Euripides was a startlingly modern playwright, especially when it comes to psychology.
Heracles can be portrayed as a monstrous monster-slayer (I’m looking at you, Sophocles), but in Euripides he’s noble, brave, and domestic. He performs his labors because he’s the kind of guy to use his powers for good.
Hera, being a jealous jerk, drives him mad; Madness herself is unenthusiastic about the whole affair, recognizing that Heracles has made the world a better place.
But insane Heracles knows that he’s murdering innocent people. Is that who he really is? Is it all Hera’s fault?
Or is Heracles a good, normal person who’s lost a bit of his decency after so much fighting?
Euripides' Heracles is an extraordinary play, innovative in its treatment of the myth, bold in its dramatic structure, and filled with effective human pathos. The play tells a tale of horror: Heracles, the greatest hero of the Greeks, is maddened by the gods to murder his wife and children. But this suffering and divine malevolence are leavened by the friendship between Heracles and Theseus, which allows the hero to survive this final and most painful labor. The Heracles raises profound questions about the gods and mortal values in a capricious and harsh world.
No movie has traumatized me more than The Exorcist. I saw it at a sleepover when I was twelve years old, and I’ve never forgotten Regan McNeil’s disfigured face and demonic voice. It’s hard to say how many nightmares that possessed little girl has generated. I read the novel a few years later and was equally shocked. Creating art that can affect someone in such a formative way has been my goal ever since. I often set my stories in my native state of West Virginia, which because of its scenic beauty, is commonly referred to as “Almost Heaven.” I feel that it’s my job to balance that out.
Due to the financial success of The Exorcist film, a sequel was ordered (The Exorcist II: The Heretic) which had no involvement from the original writer and director and was universally panned. William Peter Blatty then wrote a screenplay for what would have been a sequel to the original film that ignored the second entry. William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist, was attached but backed out. Blatty turned his inactive script into what became the novel, Legion, which he eventually re-adapted and directed in 1990. The majority of the book is dialogue, so it’s easy to see its origins as a screenplay, but that does not make it any less effective.
This story takes a minor character from the original novel, Detective Kinderman, and chronicles his confrontation with a patient in a mental institution claiming to be possessed by the spirit of a dead…
From the author of The Exorcist -- Legion, a classic tale of horror, is back in print!
A young boy is found horribly murdered in a mock crucifixion. Is the murderer the elderly woman who witnessed the crime? A neurologist who can no longer bear the pain life inflicts on its victims? A psychiatrist with a macabre sense of humor and a guilty secret? A mysterious mental patient, locked in silent isolation?
Lieutenant Kinderman follows a bewildering trail that links all these people, confronting a new enigma at every turn even as more murders surface. Why does each victim suffer…
The novel took me by surprise. It was sitting on my Kindle for an age before I started reading and, initially, I struggled with Blatty’s style. It felt all over the place at first, overwrought and with more semicolons per page than I’ve used in total over the course of writing more than twenty books. It took me a while to get into the rhythm, but once I’d got it I was hooked. The narration felt detached, oddly remote from the unbearable emotions of a parent watching her child go through an appalling ordeal, powerless to help. It felt almost matter of fact in the way Regan’s possession was described, and I think that’s why it had such an impact. The grotesque things the spirit makes the child do and say are described without unnecessary histrionics, and that added an unexpected layer of realism to impossible scenes.
Father Damien Karras: 'Where is Regan?' Regan MacNeil: 'In here. With us.'
The terror begins unobtrusively. Noises in the attic. In the child's room, an odd smell, the displacement of furniture, an icy chill. At first, easy explanations are offered. Then frightening changes begin to appear in eleven-year-old Regan. Medical tests fail to shed any light on her symptoms, but it is as if a different personality has invaded her body.
Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest, is called in. Is it possible that a demonic presence has possessed the child? Exorcism seems to be the only answer...
I grew up reading Stephen King and Michael Crichton. That combination of horror and techno-thriller greatly impacted my writing style and genre. I love a page-turner and chapters that end with a cliffhanger. I love that creepy feeling of dread that washes over you when engrossed in a scary scene. I love when you put a book down for the night, turn off the light, and then wince when you hear a strange noise in the other room. I love a story that's so believable that you can't help but wonder, "Could this happen...maybe even to me?" If you do, too, you may enjoy my books.
Growing up in Rhode Island, I can't tell you how many times I told someone where I was from, and they would respond with, "Oh, Long Island, New York." Ugh.
Naturally, a haunted house story set in Long Island caught my eye. I can honestly say this book gave me nightmares. Oddly enough, I'm not easily sucked into supernatural thrillers because they often require too big of a leap of faith. The Amityville Horror was different.
My sisters and I all read the book and regularly tried to scare the crap out of each other with scenes from the story. We had a planter shaped like a pig and would carry it into a room, screaming, "Jodie is here!" The book is terrifying and well done.
“A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe.
In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up.
Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror.
This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the…
My training is in Classics (especially Greek drama), which has given me an appreciation for clever writers who tweak conventional themes to surprise readers, foil expectations, and explore new ideas—or new sides of old ideas. Greek epic and tragedy also exhibit fairly rigid expectations about personal responsibility: even if a god made you do it, it’s still your responsibility. Agamemnon has to pay for sacrificing his daughter; Heracles has to perform his labors. Madness and possession are vivid ways to explore where one’s autonomy leaves off and another power takes over. They’re excellent tools for poking at humans to see how a thinking, feeling individual deals with unintended disaster.
The Bloodwrath is basically Berserkergang, not possession, right? It affects badgers almost exclusively. What a bummer to be a badger and bear a burden that no one else has!
But it’s a bit more like possession in this book. Lady Cregga has the Bloodwrath more strongly than anyone has ever observed before; her personality seems to reflect this, as she’s impatient, brusque, and aggressive (even for a badger). She’s wounded and loses her sight, and the Bloodwrath goes away.
Even though her personality appears to be tied up with her madness, the Bloodwrath must be something external, since it can leave her without destroying her. Is it an inborn quality or an effect brought about by her personal choices, an appetite that can be satiated, or something else?
The tenth book in the beloved, bestselling Redwall saga - soon to be a major Netflix movie!
Tammo dreams of joining the Long Patrol, the legendary army of fighting hares who serve Lady Cregga Rose Eyes, ruler of Salamandastron. And with Damug Warfang's mighty battalion of savage vermin on the rampage, young Tammo's dream is about to become a brutal reality . . .
My training is in Classics (especially Greek drama), which has given me an appreciation for clever writers who tweak conventional themes to surprise readers, foil expectations, and explore new ideas—or new sides of old ideas. Greek epic and tragedy also exhibit fairly rigid expectations about personal responsibility: even if a god made you do it, it’s still your responsibility. Agamemnon has to pay for sacrificing his daughter; Heracles has to perform his labors. Madness and possession are vivid ways to explore where one’s autonomy leaves off and another power takes over. They’re excellent tools for poking at humans to see how a thinking, feeling individual deals with unintended disaster.
The brand of possession is fairly standard: a Drakhaoul possesses a man, enabling him to transform into a dragon—but the man must replenish his strength vampirically.
I like the interplay of personal responsibility and victimization, the use of supernatural powers to protect one’s friends at the cost of innocent suffering.
The Drakhaoul has a name and personality; it’s definitely a discrete being, but it’s also a part of the hero.
But then the hero successfully exorcises his demon.
But the demon’s memories are left behind, and the hero starts to wonder if he’s going mad.
The demon’s absence, not its presence, drives the hero to madness and despair (even though he hates the demon).
The hero simultaneously hates and longs for a dark power, which is and is not uniquely his.
A weaver of tales, a caster of spells, and a writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation to her story, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings.
Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from deep within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all of Gavril’s fearsome powers. Though no longer besieged by the Drakhaoul’s unnatural lusts and desires, Gavril has betrayed his birthright and his people. He has put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at…
Stephenie Meyer is underrated. This
gripping book is about an invasion by alien parasites who insert themselves in
people’s brains and take over their lives.
The premise sounds pulpy, but it
quickly becomes the most fascinating exploration of whether our identities
reside in our minds or our bodies and of the heart in conflict with itself.
Meyer’s ability to keep flipping the plot and wringing further emotional
complications out of the premise is astounding.
Now in the trade paperback edition: New Bonus Chapter and Reading Group Guide, including Stephenie Meyer's Annotated Playlist for the book.Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, didn't expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.As Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she's never met. Reluctant allies, Wanderer and…
