A nerve-wracking tale of four women, a raft, a river, and a seriously psychotic mother.
The spiders are coming! The spiders are coming! Remember all those old "nature turns against puny humans" novels from the 70's, like James Herbert's THE RATS? Well, this is that, only cranked up 500%. It made me squirm! These spiders are seriously TERRIFYING!
All the books on this site are here because they enthralled me. I recommend every one of them!
Mark Hodder
We all know from the movies that if you go hiking in the forest you'll definitely end up being chased, captured, tortured and eaten by a family of inbred cannibals. That's why I prefer seaside hotels. KIN is about the typical THE HILLS HAVE EYES scenario except it begins after all the hacking, slashing and chewing has been done. One word: revenge.
How could I possibly have got to be this old without having read any Agatha Christie? I'm delighted to have corrected that oversight. Christie was a genius! This is supposedly one of her best novels. The twist at the end caught me completely by surprise. Now I have to read all her other novels!
You know how I said I'm only recommending brilliant books? Well, this qualifies ... but with a reservation.
Have I mentioned that hiking in the woods is a bad idea? It's especially true in the off-season. That's when the cannibal families get most hungry. In this novel, they're bloody ravenous! Plot-wise there's nothing new here but Ketchum's writing is superb. He serves up a thoroughly gruesome meal that I consumed in a single sitting. Yum!
I suppose Jack the Ripper reigns as king of the serial killers because he never got caught. Truth is, though, he was strictly second-rate when compared to H. H. Holmes.
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A masterpiece of pacing, this builds and builds until I felt as if I was in the vice-like grip of some dreadful monster ... much like most of the characters!
Here's one that I heartily recommend despite thinking it had some issues. Few novels are perfect, after all, and in this one the faults are more than made up for by a creeping sense of dread and an intriguing scenario.
A novel that had me wondering what the heck was going on all the way through then left me with a choice to make at the end: was the truth this ... or was it that? The tale haunted my imagination for a long time after the final page was turned!
Beautifully written and completely convincing, this is a very different type of haunted house story in that the house in question is newly built and, rather than being haunted, does the haunting itself! The novel, like the house, draws you in and then tortures you ...
A fabulous visit to the TV of my childhood. This brought happy memories flooding back!
Mark Hodder is the author of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK and its sequels, and of the first officially sanctioned Sexton Blake novel to have been published in nearly half a century (he created and maintains BLAKIANA: The Sexton Blake Resource). He also writes short stories, flash fiction and vignettes. Find out more on his Patreon page. Mark was born in the UK but currently lives in Valencia, Spain, with his partner and two children.
