#Darcy Coates

[victoriadallonfan]

What is that genre of fiction called where there is a supernatural perpetrator and normal if intelligent investigators facing off in a cat and mouse chase?

Stuff like Death Note, At Night I Move, Hunted (by Darcy Coates), and The Outsider (by Stephen King) are examples of this.

#death note #At Night I Move #Yoru ni Naru to Boku wa #the outsider #Stephen king #Hunted Darcy Coates #darcy coates

[brokehorrorfan]

The Darkest Night will be published in paperback and e-book on September 24 via Crooked Lane Books. The 320-page anthology of winter horror stories is edited by Lindy Ryan and includes an introduction by George C. Romero.

It features 22 stories by Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, Clay McLeod Chapman, Rachel Harrison, Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, Jamie Flanagan, Kristi DeMeester, Nat Cassidy, Darcy Coates, Tim Waggoner, Hailey Piper, Thommy Hutson, Gwendolyn Kiste, Sara Tantlinger, Christopher Brooks, M. Rickert, Cynthia Pelayo, Lee Murray, Mercedes Yardley, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Jeff Strand, and Kelsea Yu.

From some of the biggest names in horror comes an Advent calendar of short holiday horror stories perfect for the darkest nights of the year. Edited by award-winning author and anthologist Lindy Ryan and with contributions from masters of horror like Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, and Clay McLeod Chapman, this horrific anthology will chill you to the bone.

Pre-order The Darkest Night.

#josh malerman #eric larocca #clay mcleod chapman #rachel harrison #christopher goldren #tim lebbon #jamie flanagan #nat cassidy #darcy coates #book #gift #crooked lane books #horror #horror books #george romero

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2024 📖 no. 022

From Below by Darcy Coates

“Skin turns white as they try to hold their breath inside. They can’t. The bubbles vanish from their gaping mouth. You watch as they drown.”

#books #2024 reads #darcy coates #booklr #lit edit #from below

[bookaddict24-7]

New Young Adult Releases Coming Out Today! (November 7th, 2023)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

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New Standalones/First in a Series:

Artifice by Sharon Cameron

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

With or Without You by Eric Smith

Swarm by Jennifer D. Lyle

Last Girl Breathing by Court Stevens

The Revenge Game by Jordyn Taylor

No One Left But You by Tash McAdam

Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng

Wren Martin Ruins It All by Amanda DeWitt

Finding My Elf by David Valdes

Emmett by L.C. Rosen

Where He Can't Find You by Darcy Coates

New Sequels:

Vengeance of the Pirate Queen (Daughter of the Pirate King #3) by Tricia Levenseller

Nightbane (Lightlark #2) by Alex Aster

The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be #2) by Amber Smith

Loveboat Forever (Loveboat, Taipei #3) by Abigail Hing Wen

Dawnbreaker (Salvation Cycle #2) by Jodi Meadows

The Hunting Moon (The Luminaries #2) by Susan Dennard

___

Happy reading!

#New Releases #new books #on books #on reading #November 2023 #Sharon Cameron #Ali Hazelwood #Eric Smith #Jennifer D. Lyle #Court Stevens #Jordyn Taylor #Tash McAdam #Linda Cheng #Amanda DeWitt #David Valdes #L.C. Rosen #Darcy Coates #Tricia Levenseller #Alex Aster #Amber Smith #Abigail Hing Wen #Jodi Meadows #young adult #yalit #yareads #tbr #to-read #Features #book blog #book blogger

[url-is-url]

Hey Danny Phantom fans, do you like the GIW as an antagonist? Do you want a story about a scrappy group of friends, one of whom can see ghosts and make them move on, spying on a mysterious organization doing shady things with the spirits of the dead? Then read the Gravekeeper series by Darcy Coates! In which an amnesiac medium, a conspiracy theorist, and a medical school dropout help the ghosts of a small town cemetery with their unfinished business and try not to get murdered by secret agents!

It's SO GOOD. The action and heist scenes are deliciously nervewracking! 10/10, the fourth book in the series just came out earlier this month! There's a cat!

#danny phantom #giw #darcy coates

[laketooth]

finished craven manor and i’m losing my mind. fellas is it gay to use ur last strength to summon rain for ur homie as u both lay in the dirt just because he likes ur house and doesnt want it to burn. fellas is it gay for ur homie to then bridal carry u back to his cottage. fellas is it gay to then watch ur homie sleep to make sure he’s safe. fellas is it gay to then live in a fancy manor together and adopt ur little sister’s ghost and a flock of crows and a cat. fellas?

#craven manor brainrot but there’s no craven manor fandom. killing myself #there’s 1 work of them on ao3 😭😭 #which is more than i expected but still #toothposting #craven manor #darcy coates

[itsladykit]

Book rec--

From Below by Darcy Coates

It's underwater horror, and it is intensely claustrophobic and anxiety inducing. The supernatural aspects are done well, but she does such a good job of making the reader aware of just how vulnerable the characters are so deep underwater. You can tell she did her research too--a huge plus in my book.

Give it a read if you're in the mood to be scared.

#book rec #darcy coates

[sleepiesttoken]

has anyone read the black winter series by darcy coates because i want to talk about it and i think about that series at least once a day

#black winter series #darcy coates #horror books #book recommendations #that series actually changed my life #my other interests

[iwouldnthavesurvivedthestillness]

Would anyone be interested in a Black Winter (and just Darcy Coates books in general) Discord server?

UPDATE: Please check the reblogs

It's pretty much what it says on the tin. This is a post just to see if there are any other starving BW/DC fans looking for a place to talk about the books and hyperfixate.

Feel free to reblog so more people see this :)

#clare black winter #dorran black winter #dorran morthorne #black winter novel #darcy coates

[samwisethewitch]

Spooky Books I've Been Enjoying Lately

(Yes, this is a break from witchcraft/paganism-related content. It's been a long week and my brain is tired, so we're going to talk about other hobbies that require less research.)

Does anyone else feel like Halloween has totally crept up on them this year? This is my favorite holiday, but I feel like I just have not had time for spooky celebrations. It's like it was mid-August, and then I blinked, and then it was late October.

The one thing I have been doing to celebrate spooky season is reading horror novels. I love horror generally, but around Halloween I crave a certain kind of horror story. It has to be supernatural, it has to be atmospheric, and it has to be creepy. Realistically, it also needs to be pretty short because I've been crazy busy this year.

I thought I'd share the spooky books I've enjoyed lately, in case any of y'all are looking for something to read in the week leading up to Halloween. In no particular order, they are:

Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims

I have been looking for a good "haunted apartment building" type of story for so long, and this book is exactly what I wanted.

This is? not quite a short-story collection, but also not quite a novel?? As the title implies, it's thirteen short stories set in the same apartment building, but the stories overlap in some places and do come together into one big narrative in the last couple of chapters. It reminded me of horror anthology movies like The Mortuary Collection or Trick 'R Treat where the different stories are revealed to all be connected at the end.

The anthology format allows Sims to fit several different horror subgenres into a single book without it feeling like there's too much going on. The first chapter is a pretty straightforward ghost story, the third chapter is sci-fi horror about technology gone wrong, the fifth is psychological horror, etc. I really enjoyed this approach, because it really keeps readers on their toes and keeps things feeling fresh. Usually in short story collections there's a couple of standouts and a couple of duds, but I really enjoyed all of the stories in this book.

One of my favorite things about this book is its explicit anti-capitalist themes. The apartment complex was built by a billionaire and is funded by some of his business ventures, and many of the hauntings are tied to human rights violations, worker abuse, and illegal dealings in those businesses. Maybe I'm just a cynical leftist, but I felt like this helped ground the horror in real-world issues. And without getting into spoilers, the way these themes get wrapped up at the end was really satisfying.

(And yes, this author is that Jonathan Sims, the writer and narrator of The Magnus Archives. But for what it's worth, I'm not a TMA listener and did not buy this book because of the podcast, and I fucking loved it. I think Sims is a really excellent horror writer.)

*******

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten, translated by Alexandra Fleming

I was a little disappointed with this one, but it's not really the book's fault. This was recommended to me by someone who said it was similar to The Blair Witch Project, which I think set some unrealistic expectations going in.

This is a story about a documentary team investigating an old mining town where the entire population disappeared in the 1950s. Because this is a horror novel, things do not go as planned. Equipment breaks or malfunctions, distrust starts to build between team members, and of course, they start to suspect that the town isn't as empty as they thought.

This is also, in the author's words, "a book about how society views women suffering from mental illness." There are three women in this book living with mental illness -- one who has recovered, one who is in recovery, and one who never had access to treatment. There's explicit discussion of this in the book, including mentions of a suicide attempt and of sexual abuse. If either of those topics is a trigger for you, you may want to skip this one or read ending spoilers before deciding if it's for you.

Interpersonal relationships also play a big role here. Friendships, ex-friendships, and romances are all part of the equation, and feelings definitely get hurt along the way. That's not a bad thing, but I'd definitely say this is a character-driven book, not a plot-driven one.

This is a translation of a Swedish novel, but there wasn't any translation-awkwardness that I noticed. I'm sure there's things I missed because I didn't know the cultural background, but I thought the translator did a good job.

My biggest issue was the ending. No spoilers, but it was not what I wanted and I personally felt like it was kind of a let down. That's definitely just a personal preference thing, though.

*******

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

I think this might be the most disturbing book I've ever read.

Which may seem odd, because as far as horror novels go, this one is actually pretty tame. It's nowhere near as gross or nasty or viscerally unsettling as other books I've read, and yet this book got under my skin in a way that gorier, scarier, more action-packed books haven't.

Maybe it's me. Maybe as an older sister and survivor of religious trauma with close friends and family who have bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, I am uniquely positioned to be freaked out by this story of an older sister with schizophrenia whose father decides exorcism is a better option than psychiatric help. (Okay, I'm not being totally fair. Technically it's never made clear whether Marjorie is possessed or just mentally ill, and the fact that I lean hard into believing she's experiencing a psychotic break says more about me than about this book.) Maybe it's because this book is a little too real and hits a little too close to home for anyone familiar with real-life cases of religious abuse. Maybe Paul Tremblay is just really good at his job.

I would describe A Head Full of Ghosts as a meta horror novel. It reminded me a little bit of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski -- both follow a "story within a story" structure, although A Head Full of Ghosts is definitely less intentionally confusing than House of Leaves.

Let's break it down a little: When Merry was a child, her family was on a very popular reality show that revolved around her older sister's demonic possession. The book is framed as a series of interviews with adult Merry, who is telling her side of the story to a biographer. The book also includes a series of blog posts from a horror blogger who analyzes the episodes of the reality show through the lens of horror fiction. I really liked the blog posts, because that's where the author gets to be more self-aware and tongue-in-cheek.

I like that this book works both as a straight-forward modern possession story and as a deconstruction or commentary on the possession horror subgenre. I think horror nerds would really enjoy this book.

*******

The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates

Sometimes I just want to read a classic, simple, straight-forward ghost story, and Darcy Coates absolutely delivers on that front. I've been hearing a lot about Coates lately, and I chose to start with The Carrow Haunt because the synopsis reminded me of The Haunting of Hill House, with a bunch of people coming together to investigate a Very Haunted House which, of course, goes very badly almost immediately.

I've heard people describe Darcy Coates books as "bingeable," and I can definitely see why. Although I sadly didn't have the free time to binge this book in one sitting, I think I would have if I could have. It was definitely a page-turner, and I did finish it pretty fast even though I was mostly reading it in the mornings before work.

Again, I really like how simple this story is. It's a very classic ghost story, and it doesn't have a lot of subplots and extra drama like The Lost Village does. The story mostly stays focused on the haunting. It's also a bit more fast-paced than traditional gothic novels, so if you're someone who likes haunted houses but doesn't like waiting for things to start happening, I think you'd enjoy this book.

One thing that surprised me was that this book actually has explicit rules for how ghosts work. Most supernatural horror leans into the unknown and mysterious, but this book takes a very scientific (or at least pseudoscientific) approach. Several of the characters are experts on paranormal activity, and they talk about different classifications of spirits, the environment and energy required for a ghost to be able to manifest, etc.

My biggest gripe with this book is the ending. Without getting into spoilers, I felt like there was a very abrupt change in tone right at the end of the story. It felt inconsistent from what had come before, and in that way it left me feeling unsatisfied.

#books #horror books #book recommendations #book review #halloween reads #spooky books #halloween books #horror #bookblr #scary books #thirteen storeys #jonathan sims #the lost village #camilla sten #a head full of ghosts #paul tremblay #the carrow haunt #darcy coates #gothic #gothic novel #gothic literature #modern gothic #my writing #mine #long post #halloween

[bracketsoffear]

From Below (Darcy Coates) "No light. No air. No escape. Hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, a graveyard waits... Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course...a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean's surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life. Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia's rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished. But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them. Because once they're trapped beneath the ocean's waves, there's no going back."

Deeplight (Frances Hardinge) "In the old days, the islands of the Myriad lived in fear of the gods, great sea monsters that rose up from the Undersea to devour ships and depopulate entire islands. Now, the gods are no more. They tore each other apart in an event known as the Cataclysm. Fragments of their bodies (known as godware) are dredged up and sold. Hark and his best friend Jelt are petty criminals. When they embark on a dangerous scavenging expedition, they stumble across a strange, pulsing piece of godware and things begin to go very, very wrong."

Gods, the ocean depths, and poverty all play into the themes of insignificance in this novel.

#vast poll #the vast #poll #the magnus archives #leitner tournament #From Below #Darcy Coates #Deeplight #Frances Hardinge

[buniyaad]

love when i read books that were published months apart with similar motifs that run SO SIMILARLY that i know full well the corporate espionage at the corporate level was likely done over overpriced liquor and crabcakes, but the horror hits! one took place in outer space, and the other one’s deep in the ocean. either way, there’s an abandoned ship, and the people who’ve found it are aboutta get fucked up!

#from below #darcy coates #s.a. barnes #dead silence #real talk #book hoe

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2023 📖 no. 141

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates

“Someone here has that hunger for violence. They came on this trip with a plan. To hunt us. And they don’t intend to stop until we’re all dead.”

#books #2023 reads #dead of winter #Darcy Coates #booklr #lit edit

[dont-percieve-me-thnx]

I'm currently reading three different books and listening to one audio book. I can't ever just wait to start something 💀

#studyblr #study motivation #horror book recommendations #thriller books #the hobbit #the stand #gallows hill #let him in #stephen king #j.r.r. tolkien #darcy coates #william friend #bookblr #currently reading #book recommendations

[thejuniperjinx]

Book 11 of 2024

The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates

A phenomenal read that feels like watching Rose Red for the first time. I like the building tension in this book, both the setting and the between characters. This has the author's stereotypical villain reveal about three quarters through, but is written so well that it didn't bother me. I do like how her heroines tend to not be shrinking violets, but was mildly annoyed that the 32 year female side character was called old and desperate, as me, myself, am older than that. 😅 I also love the absolute clash of personalities between the cast of characters. I do wish the author had given a bit more outside the house description, but am satisfied either way.

#bibliophile #i like to read #book recs #reading challenge #52books #book tumblr #bookworm #reading #books and reading #spooky books #darcy coates

[witchyautumns]

👻 eleriel.mornie 👻

#autumn #fall #ghost stories #book #owl #mug #tarot #witchy #candles #darcy coates #hauntings #eleriel