It’s Women In Horror Month, and I can’t let it slip by without mentioning two great writers and their books. Please, if you get the chance, pick a copy up of either one. You won’t be disappointed.
The Bone Weaver’s Orchard by Sarah Read
Sarah Read’s debut novel about Charlie, a young boy attending a Yorkshire boarding school in the early 1900s, establishes Read as a writer you need to pay attention to. Weaving together just the right amount of tension and chills to keep you engaged, and the lights on, we find ourselves plunged into a school where ghosts roam the halls, children go missing, and a history more disturbing than someone called the Ragged Man. While the following comparisons should be taken as merely themes, not facsimiles, the book at times reminded me of the Devil’s Backbone, The Orphanage (only for its feel) and strangely, Harry Potter too. That I’m even drawing these comparisons in a testament to Read’s ability to craft prose that is as atmospheric as it is effortlessly composed. If you like your stories gothic, haunting, and beautifully constructed, then please check out The Bone Weaver’s Orchard.
The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
Sarah Rose Etter can write. Jesus, can she write. The Book of X, her debut novel, is beautiful. Telling the story of Cassie, a girl born with a hereditary disorder where her stomach is wrapped into a knot, we are plunged into a world where meat is harvested from quarries, male prostitutes can be amputated if you can’t afford the cost, and jealously forms in the body as granite. More wonderful than this is seeing this world through Cassie’s eyes. Part Amy Hempel, part Margret Atwood at times, I was instantly captivated by her voice, and long after reading, heard it resonate in my mind long into the night. If Bridget Jones was written by William Burroughs, this would it. Dark, hypnotic, surreal, heart-breaking, honest and sublime.
To find out more about WiHM, visit: https://www.womeninhorrormonth.com
Craig Wallwork 