Modern Folk Horror Explored: Tony’s Top Tips
To celebrate the recent release of James Brogden’s excellent The Strandling I am dipping into my huge back catalogue of reviews, highlighting personal favourites which have key Folk Horror traits. If obvious favourites which often pop up on such lists are absent, this only means I did not review them.
The term Folk Horror can be tricky to pin down and aspects of this sub-genre can appear in most aspects of supernatural fiction. In modern cinematic history three classic films Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973) are widely agreed as the major Folk Horror benchmarks, with Midsommar (2019) being the most commercially successful recent example.
However, in regard to literature things are not so clear cut; ask fifty fans to name three Folk Horror ‘classics’ and there will be an astonishing range of responses.
Many will mention recent fiction by Andrew Michael Hurley or Adam Nevill, whilst others will dig further back into the classics by Robert Aikman, Algernon Blackwood, MR James or the influential children’s writer Alan Garner. Adam Nevill’s The Ritual frequently pops up on Folk Horror lists, however, you might argue the film version, which has a radically different second half than the book, has more prominent Folk Horror traits than the novel. Ultimately there will be fierce discussion and being no different from anybody else, I would also struggle to list a definitive top three.
It’s generally accepted that Folk Horror involves a return to the ‘old ways’ or contains elements which can predate or contradict Christianity, often with pagan traditions or rituals. It does not necessarily have to be anti-Christian or Satanic, although the demonic can be involved. The settings are often remote villages, locations which not moved with the times or technology, and stories which may feature stone circles, cults, weird relationships with nature, forgotten traditions, localised folklore, overpowering landscapes, sacrifices, superstition, witchcraft, or bastardised versions of Christianity. If your crops fail; perhaps there is an obscure deity to pray to for assistance which has no connection to the Bible.
The books are presented in alphabetical order.
Lindsey Barraclough – Long Lankin (2011)
Do not let the Middle Grade tag put you off, Long Lankin is a terrifying tale of a house cursed by an ancient evil, set in the 1950s, inspired by a haunting folk song about murder, witchcraft, and revenge. Two unlucky children, Cora and her little sister Mimi (aged fourteen and ten), are sent to live with their aunt in the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon, and, receiving a less than warm welcome, are desperate to return to London.
Instead, their arrival reawakens an evil that has lain waiting for years and they find themselves next on this entity’s hit list. Along with Roger and Peter, two young village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries – before it is too late for Mimi. You will rarely see a better use of a rural setting than Long Lankin, with the narrative effortlessly moving into the realms of Folk Horror, giving this tale an exceptionally convincing backstory.
It is based around a ghostly character from local English folklore and this horrible creation is as nasty as anything you will find in adult horror fiction.
Worse even. I met Lindsay Barraclough at London book events, and it is amazing such a charming lady is responsible for such an evil monster, sadly she has not published anything since the companion story, Mark of Cain. If adult horror author Adam Nevill ever wrote a kid’s book, I imagine it might be a bit like this, coincidentally Nevill also found it equally unsettling and noted online “I’ll read it to my nipper when she’s twenty!” which says it all, as it is genuinely scary.
Nevill is totally correct, you’ll quickly forget you are reading a book aimed at kids, which unnerves to the bone. Not one to recommend to overly sensitive children (or adults). The Long Lankin unsettling song which opens the book ticks any number of Folk Horror boxes!
Fiona Barnett – The Dark Between The Trees (2022)
The dual narratives set in 1643 and the present day is a real strength of The Dark Between the Trees and I loved the way in which they often mirrored each other but deviate in other instances. The soldiers of 1643 were all God-fearing men, which led to clashes, whilst the women in the present-day narrative believed in science, archaeology and logic, but found themselves at odds in having to accept the impossible.
By way of a taster, on their first night they camp in a clearing with a huge tree, but in the morning the tree is gone. How do they explain this rationally or irrationally for that matter? How could they return to their university funding boards and reveal this astonishing fact? The arguments, conversations and sheer incredulity of five intelligent women made riveting reading and was in stark contrast to the soldiers of 1643 who were much more open to accepting the supernatural.
Dr Alice Christopher, an historian who has devoted her entire academic career to uncovering the secrets of Moresby Wood in north England leads the party.
Through her we realise that the area is knee deep in folktales and myths which the book cleverly explores, some of which predate the ill-fated 1643 expedition into the forest.
Armed with metal detectors, GPS units, mobile phones and the most recent map of the area (which is nearly fifty years old), her group enters the wood ready for anything, but soon find themselves quickly out of their depth and clashing about what to do next. These are not adventurer Indiana Jones types, with the narrative concentrating on a couple of the women. The manner in which the story of the modern women and English Civil War stories converge was wild stuff, even if not all questions were answered, it was creative and unpredictable. The sense of hopelessness and dread is skilfully heightened as we realise maps and technology are useless in the vividly drawn Moresby Wood.
Tori Bovalino (editor) – The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror (2022)
The Gathering Dark brings Folk Horror out of the shadows and into the realms of YA with a masterful anthology, utilising all the elements of folklore, rural settings, superstition, religion, smalltown horror, sacrifice, strange beliefs and the darker aspects of nature. The strength of this book is the fact that most of the stories use elements of these classic Folk Horror tropes beautifully blending in believable modern teenage characters with a near melancholic feel of longing to leave their smalltown, angst-ridden feelings, young love or a need to break the unwritten rules. Within their natural environments, and whichever code they follow within the boundaries of their own story, all convinced and throbbed with a Folk Horror vibe.
In picking out a few favourites, Hannah Whitten’s One Lane Bridge is an unsettling tale of a group of bored teens who fool around at the local bridge, which is supposedly cursed, and awaken something ancient. Allison Saft’s Ghost on the Shore is a sad tale of loss and a teenager who believes she can bring back her dead best friend by visiting a local lake with an otherworldly reputation. Olivia Chadha’s Petrified revolves around a remote religious cult and how they select their next sacrifice.
Aden Polydoros’s It Stays With You is a terrific revamp of the Bloody Mary mirror curse and the lingering effects of childhood trauma. There was a huge amount to savour and enjoy in this intelligent anthology which is aimed at older and thoughtful teens as it completely abandons shock horror or violence in favour of mood and atmosphere. As the stories are very mature adult readers will not feel shortchanged in the slightest.
James Brogden – Bone Harvest (2020)
Bizarrely, much of the story in Bone Harvest is set around a plot of village allotments and you may wonder whether it is possible to build a horror novel around potato, cabbage, and tomato patches? In the pivotal allotment storyline retired Dennie Keeling leads a quiet life and spends most of her time on her plot and suspects the new allotment tenants are up to no good. Although the Dennie Keeling story takes place in 2020, it takes its time reaching that point.
Beginning in the trenches of the First World War, with a British deserter, turned cannibal, who is told by a fellow soldier to seek out a tiny English hamlet which follows an ancient cult, which is as far away from Christianity as you can get. This man embraces this new way of life with both hands and before long is adopted by the strange group. Written in the third person, the cult plays a big part of the story and is incredibly well drawn, making a bizarre contrast with the pottering around on the village allotments.
The cult is so well developed and cleverly presented it was truly fascinating,
being spread over a century, the reader gets a genuine sense of how it grew, moved with the times with the various time jumps throughout the 20th century leading us to the present.
James Brodgen obviously spent a lot of time researching and creation a believable alternative pre-Christianity type of religion, which had survived so long because it deliberately flew under the radar and was very selective with who it recruited. I would highly recommend this novel, which is a brilliant package of Folk Horror, dark fantasy and an ancient belief system, to rival The Wicker Man, which is so clever it is worth reading just for that. And gardening. And strawberries which taste like human flesh. Yuck.
Daniel Church – The Hollows (2022)
The Hollows is set over several days between 19th of December and 22nd where the remove Peak District village of Barsall goes through a terrible ordeal, an astonishing amount of death, destruction and cold-blooded murder. The action opens with Police Constable Ellie Chapman discovering a body of a man from a family of local troublemakers who has frozen to death. It appears to be a tragic accident, but even though he was undoubtedly drunk Ellie has an inkling of foul play, and when she breaks the shocking news to Tony Harper’s family they react badly and her suspicions are heightened even further.
In the background a huge snowstorm is approaching, which cuts Barsall off from the outside world, limiting transport and causing accidents, but something ancient is waking and it is much nastier than the weather. The horrendous conditions add much to the novel, a combination of atmosphere and the instinct to survive, particularly as the body count and violence mounts in the second half.
Folk Horror elements get more pronounced as the story moves on,
which is soaked in long forgotten pagan ideas which are significantly older than the arrival of Christianity to the British shores. If at all possible I want to avoid spoilers, but it is worth pointing out that the creatures are introduced incredibly early into what was a chunky novel. This was a very brave literary move from Daniel Church, as when the second killing occurs there is no doubt that the villagers are up against something enormously powerful and hungry.
The temptation might have been to hold the creatures back until further into the story, but since it was set over such a fleeting period of time events have to move extremely fast. I do not recall the Peak District as being a popular setting for British horror novels but Daniel Church vividly brings it to life, with a genuine chill factor which sends people spinning into a horrifically violent world or survival horror which was loaded with tension and fear.
Joshua Gaylord – When We Were Animals (2015)
When We Were Animals is a beguiling novel set in an isolated small town where when teenagers reach a certain age ‘breach’. Although the concept of breaching is never fully explained, it is best described as a powerful, irresistible mental and physical pull, resulting in teens losing control of their inhibitions, running wild in the streets, sometimes naked, abandoning all normal civilised boundaries. Their parents do not do anything about this because they did it themselves years earlier and it is seen as a peculiar right-of-passage into adulthood.
There is a lot of magic in the novel, particularly in relation to the ‘bad boy’ Blackhat Roy. He was not a main character, but his shadow dominated the book and my teenage daughter felt herself being drawn to his dark, irresistible, side. Blackhat Roy was a mass of contradictions; nasty, layered, violent and ultimately a very tragic character. He was the supreme outsider.
Main character and narrator Lumen, however, swears she will never breach because of a mystery surrounding her mother. As she comes of age, soon everyone she knows is breaching, including her only friend Polly. When the sound of the teens howling echo along the streets, she hears her classmates calling her name and the urge becomes almost irresistible. The novel also flashes forward to Lumen as a married adult with a son, as she reflects upon her past and begins to feel the urge again; this is a coming-of-age tale like no other. Technically an adult novel, but very accessible to teens, I have used When We Were Animals for my school book club on several occasions and it has been hugely popular with strong readers and prompts great discussion.
Alex Grecian – Red Rabbit (2023)
I am a sucker for strange novels and few from recent times rival Alex Grecian’s Red Rabbit, a slow, mediative, meandering and sprawling odyssey across the southern states of America in the years following the Civil War. Set in Kansas, Arkansas and other southern states the participants have a peculiar acceptance of the supernatural, witchcraft is tolerated and seeing ghosts seems to be fairly normal. This was a fascinating backdrop to a literary odyssey of a ragtag group of characters thrown together to find the witch Sadie Grace. Most have personal reasons for seeking her out, but principally the large bounty on her head is enough for most.
Told from numerous perspectives, including Sadie and even some ghosts, she is aware of the group approaching her farm in Burden County and their apparent threat. Red Rabbit puts its many characters through the wringer with some being lost along the way, blame horrible toad possessions, demons, cannibal towns and all manner of other unpleasant episodes in this threatening but captivating landscape. If you are patient, Alex Grecian’s version of the wild west is a revelation; vibrant, haunting and soon you will be hedging your bets as the big showdown against the dangerous witch approaches with it difficult to decide who is good, bad or neither. This novel is almost impossible to pigeonhole and blends elements of alternative history, Folk Horror, Weird Western and the supernatural.
Lucie McKnight Hardy – Water Shall Refuse Them (2019)
Water Shall Refuse Them is narrated entirely, in the first person, by sixteen-year-old Nif, whose family is in crisis after the recent death of a younger sibling. Nif is an outstanding lead character and as things develop you’ll realise that she is a sneakily unreliable narrator who drops hints here and there, sometimes out of context. In trying to recover from the death, Nif’s father takes the family on holiday to a remote cottage in a tiny Welsh village which does not take too kindly to outsiders. Set in the roasting hot school summer holiday of 1976, the story has a vivid sense of time and place which is often crucial in Folk Horror stories. Upon arrival they find the cottage to be a real dilapidated dump and this only worsens the fractured relationship between her parents.
To say the village was cliquey is a major under statement
and this is where elements of Folk Horror filter more strongly into the story. Whilst Nif is out exploring she spots a group of men acting strangely outside of the local church and after she meets local boy Mally is told that the churchgoers are different from the normal villagers. The plot moves further into Folk Horror territory when the girl experiments with incantations: “Robin’s egg, magpie’s egg, duckling bill and bone. Blackbird’s egg, feathers of wren….”
Following these rituals make her feel safer and more comfortable in her own skin and after arriving in the Welsh countryside her senses are heightened. Did the novel have any witchcraft at all? Much will depend on your personal interpretation. The novel also convinces as a family drama seen from the point of view of a sixteen-year-old girl who had nobody to talk to and lives, for the most part, inside her own head. The author astutely avoids all of the usual horror tropes and one of its strengths is the simple fact that it is very hard to classify at all.
Andrew Michael Hurley – Starve Acre (2019)
Set in the wilds of remote north Yorkshire, Starve Acre revolves around the death of a child which is revealed in the opening pages, with the story ultimately bleaker than the location. The first narrative follows the events leading up to the death and the second a few months afterwards. Both sections are harrowing reads, especially as the death itself dominates both threads but is described in only the vaguest of terms until the end.
Developing bad dreams and fear of the dark,
Starve Acre is a study of the grief felt by Richard and Juliette Willoughby and how they cope with the loss of their five-year-old son Ewan, but there is much more to it than that. Richard and Juliette inherited Starve Acre from his parents and although he did not particularly wish to return to his childhood home, his wife persuades him to do so. Not long afterwards, Ewan’s behaviour becomes unpredictable, with signs of cruelty, and there is a brooding sense that something is not right. What makes this even more powerful is that the reader knows right from the beginning about the death and what follows centres upon the journey towards this horrific event and the shocking fallout.
Ewan claims to hear a man called ‘Jack Grey,’ who sounds like a boogieman from English folklore. These sequences simply crackled, and the fear experienced by the child is palpable, especially as the reader is aware of what is to come, but not the specifics of how it plays out. Much of the supernatural element is exceptionally subtle and kept low key until well into the story and the scene, for example, with the hare in the pram is hard to shake off. With exquisite pacing Starve Acre heads towards an outstanding ending which, with brutal imagery, lives long in the memory. Note that there are two slightly different versions of this book on the marker with slightly changed endings, bleak and bleaker!
Tom Fletcher – Witch Bottle (2020)
In Witch Bottle, a modern day witch creates bottles and protection wards holding supernatural properties and has her boyfriend deliver these ‘extras’ to her customers whilst on his daily milk run around the rural parts of northwest England. As she hopes to keep her witch identity anonymous, she relies on Daniel to make these peculiar deliveries. Strong Folk Horror vibes are present and the remote location truly dominates the book as we head along the A595 to Beckermet, Thornhill, Westlakes, Craggesund and other villages delivering eggs, bacon, fruit, milk and other less traditional, and certainly not over the counter, products you will definitely not find in Sainsburys.
The use of the undiagnosed supernatural was truly superb; lots of people (including Daniel) start seeing ghosts, most accept this as relatively normal and turn to witch bottles as a way of protection. Ghosts are big business in rural Cheshire and so the side-business sees immediate success, if it was not for the fact that the bottles are sold via the internet, the book has a feeling of being set much further back in time. A deep sense of loneliness permeates throughout Witch Bottle, much of it centres around Daniel and his problems regarding repressed guilt, loss, grief, fear, and his estranged family. Various aspects of this is covered in flashback, which has a deliberately disjointed style which mirrors his state of mind which worsens when he also begins to see a ghost and becomes tied to a witch bottle.
Alexander James – The Woodkin (2023)
I am a sucker for survival horror novels and this beauty had me coming out in cold sweats.
I am not one for long hikes, but in the first quarter of The Woodkin I found myself happily keeping pace with Josh Mallory, who is tackling large swaths of the Pacific Crest Trail. On the trail Josh is known by the trail name ‘Switchback’ and after he meets Appletree’ the two travel together until Josh makes a forced detour to Belam for fresh supplies.
Upon arrival, nobody has a phone and there is even less interest in the dead hiker, who Josh wants to report to the mountain rangers. Feeling that something is not quite right, he hurries back to the trail, but soon something is chasing him and he wishes he heeded a “be careful” warning a friendly driver gave him earlier. Suddenly Josh realises all those ‘Missing’ posters on the diner wall were there for a reason.
And The Woodkin takes a horrifying turn and we head into an intoxicating mashup of Hillbilly and Folk Horror.
Once Josh returns to the isolation of the mountain trail, hold onto your hat for a punishing and painful ride into hell. The levels of fear are palpable as the young man simply cannot believe what befalls him. Some of the chase sequences were totally exhilarating and I felt exhausted just reading them. Even if there is not much to the plot which has not appeared in similarly set backwoods novels, Alexander James skilfully weaves his own narrative around familiar tropes and morphs it into his own living and breathing beast. Even if I predicted the direction the novel headed into and prompted some of the twists, but not all the betrayals it remained a riveting read with spiralling levels of cruelty with Hillbilly Horror evilly clashing with Folk Horror.
Robert McCammon – Boy’s Life (1991)
There are few better books out there than Boy’s Life which effortlessly insert the reader into the mind of an adolescent with such authenticity and clarity. It is also one of my favourite coming-of-age tales which cleverly blends horror, thriller and fantasy into a snapshot of small-town life in the early sixties. The dangers of bullies, roaming free on your bike, the beauty of the never-ending summer holidays, but also lurking in the background an unspecified darkness, are all elements of this intoxicating tale.
The blurring of fantasy and reality truly merge together and on occasions you’ll question what was real, and what was distilled from imagination of Cory Mackenson who loyally helps his father with his daily milk-round before heading to school. Cory and his father witness a car crashing into the local river and as a result Tom MacKenson has recurring nightmares and Cory vows to solve the mystery of the dead man found drowned, handcuffed, in the car. Through the eyes of Cory, the novel also covers many broad themes including racism, segregation, baseball, friendship, religion and corruption.
I’ve surprised Boy’s Life has never been filmed, or turned into a television series.
as a few of the intricate plots are as vivid as anything you’ll ever read. A small sample of the highlights include Cory’s possibly supernatural bike which he names ‘The Rocket’, a mythical creature which lives in the local roves called ‘Old Moses’ and ‘The Lady’ an ancient venerable black lady who is the local expert in voodoo.
Straddling fantasy, horror and coming-of-age storytelling, Boy’s Life has nostalgia for the bygone era of small-town America and it has rarely been done better than this. Even if you’re too young to have experienced it, Boy’s Life will take you on a time-warp back to Zephyr, Alabama, and this place is real. If, as an adult, you’ve ever returned to a place you lived as a kid and found it to be much smaller than you remembered it in your dreams you’ll get on with Cory Mackenson.
Adam Nevill – The Reddening (2019)
The Reddening remains one of my favourite Adam Nevill novels and like many of his more recent tales features strong Folk Horror elements. If you have never previously experienced this author, prepare to discover one of the most impressive back-catalogues in the world of horror. Whilst out paragliding, Matt Hull stumbles upon the entrance to a cave which leads to the excavation of an archaeological site that was the location of ritualistic mass slaughter.
The discovery of the caves is only one sequence in a complex conspiracy in this terrifying novel set in the coastal region of the south of England. Before long, the gripped reader is led on a merry dance on what horrors lurk within the caverns which exude weird unnatural noises. Once you come across the truly freaky ‘Red Folk,’ you are not going to forget them again in a hurry or go rambling on isolated south of England hill walks.
I’m amazed that after so many novels, Nevill still produce refreshing new fiction that does not tread over old ground, which is very easily done. The plot is a complex one, which effortlessly moves over time periods with several strands which pull together as the brutal body-count rises with the novel heading towards an outstanding climax revealing what ‘Reddening’ and its cryptic variations really means. Some years ago Nevill relocated to the south of England and as a result much of his novels and short stories have featured rural settings with a strong Folk Horror vibe.
Adam Scovell – Mothlight (2019)
Mothlightis told entirely in the first person by a young man called Thomas, who develops a friendship with a much older woman, Phyllis Ewans. Thomas gets to know Phyllis when he visits her house with his grandfather, who sells groceries in his mobile van, and is instantly attracted to her huge collection of moths which are mounted on the walls. The setting of the novel plays a crucial part of the story; an area of Cheshire called the Wirral, close to the Welsh border, walking also plays a significant part. Copying Phyllis, Thomas also takes up walking, and whilst he walks he catches moths or tries to retrace her steps. Along the course of the novel you’ll read quite a bit about moths, but this is never dull, and Thomas’s obsession with these small creatures really brings them to life.
Much of Mothlight comes from inside head and inner thoughts of Thomas. He may believe what he reveals, but that does not necessarily mean it is true, and there is definitely an unreliable narrator aspect to the story. As the tale is only seen from this single point of view, if he believes it, perhaps then that is all that matters? This is a convincing aspect of the novel. There is a lot of atmospheric black and white photography in the book, mainly of Phyllis when she was a young woman, but a number of these also feature another woman which help form an intriguing mystery strand to the novel. Thomas becomes obsessed with discovering who this other person in the photograph this becomes key to the story.
Neil Sharpson – Knock Knock Open Wide (2023)
Even if it takes some time to reveal its importance to the main plot, an unsettling children’s TV show lurks in the background of Neil Sharpson’s ultra-creepy Knock Knock Open Wide, which even though it is outdated, remains strangely popular. This story strand is a perfect blend of sinister and unsettling, as ‘Puckeen’ is built around what lurks inside the box which sits centre stage on the show. Trust me, you do not want to know. There are several storylines over multiple timelines, starting in 1979, with it taking a while for them to interconnect with Puckeen, but it is well worth the wait detouring through sinister priests, man-eating dogs, kidnappings, and dangerous conspiracies.
The horror elements, ultimately very Irish in theme, are deftly woven into a story of complicated family history, damaged people and convincing coming-of-age drama with an LGBTQIA+ college relationship. Everybody has secrets and the novel implies that weird supernatural forces might guide Irish life, hell, I almost believed it! The second half of the novel ramps up beautifully when more revelations are dropped with everything circling back to a key aspect of Irish folklore and, of course, what is in the box. Irish mythology and folklore is a very close bedfellow with Folk Horror.
A.M. Shine – The Creeper (2022)
AM Shines tops his terrific debut novel The Watchers with The Creeper an outstanding sophomore effort which once again effectively plays around with Irish mythology, folklore and by association Folk Horror. This book also contains the best single jump scare I have read in years (whatever you do, stay away from the window!) and if it were in a horror film would undoubtedly induce heart attacks.
A reclusive academic sends two young researchers to investigate a remote village which is supposed to have been cut off from the rest of Ireland for 200+ years. But how? Once they arrive there is no record of its history, its stories or anything else. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. This isolated location is the ultimate location for a Folk Horror inspired story. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown and a nameless entity called ‘The Creeper’ supposedly stalks the streets. The clash between superstition and science is brilliantly explored in this intense horror novel which will have you looking over your shoulder and double checking all the windows are locked. And whatever you do, make sure the curtains are closed!
Francine Toon – Pine (2020)
Francine Toon’s Pine makes excellent use of its location, from the remote Scotland Highland landscape to the encroaching forests and unpredictable weather. This is a thoughtful and atmospheric read, which relies heavily on childhood, family conflict with an underlying supernatural theme connected to a dead parent. The principal players are ten-year-old Lauren and her broken-down father Niall who live on a small holding outside a tiny village near the Moray Firth. Lauren is old beyond her years, mainly because she has no mother and her father has alcohol problems. They live hand to mouth with neighbours keeping an eye out for Lauren because of neglect and the problems her father has.
For much of Pine the supernatural theme is kept low key, blending with the family drama concerning the relationship between Lauren and Niall with some references to paganism and the occult. It is most convincing when focussing upon the relationship Lauren never had with the mother, she dreams of understanding by examining old photographs. This is a tiny village and even though the disappearance is ten years old it remains a topic of discussion and the youngster picks up tip-bits of gossip about her mother from snatches of conversations. This was an intriguing character driven novel with a delicate supernatural touch. The ten-year-old Lauren steals the show, followed closely by the striking and authentic Scottish location.
Modern Folk Horror Explored
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“The YA Horror 400 is a fabulous resource for librarians, parents, and fans of horror kidlit.” Lora Senf (Bram Stoker Award winning author of The Blight Harbor series)
“I highly recommend the YA Horror 400: an almanac of 400 teen horror novel reviews published between 2008-2024 by Tony Jones, featuring reviews of the best YA and middle grade horror (including my own novel Channel Fear”. LISA RICHARDSON (YA author of Channel Fear)
“Teachers, librarians, readers… This brand new almanac from horror expert Tony Jones is all you need to navigate your way through YA spookiness, gore and thrills. SJ Wills (YA author of the Bite Risk series)
