Books That Sink Their Teeth into You

Posted on October 26, 2012 by aaron smith

As the author of a vampire novel, I’ve sometimes been asked which books about the undead have inspired me the most. That’s a hard question to answer since everything a writer reads influences him or her on some level. So I can’t really measure the degree of influence each vampire story has had on me, but I can certainly choose some books that left strong impressions that, like the scars on the throat of a vampire’s victim, are still there years after reading them. So here’s a list of my five favorite vampire novels, counting down from five to one.

Five: Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

I read this novel in my late teens and it left a huge impact. It was probably the first horror novel I read that did not pull any punches. Brite’s frank, brutal, merciless depictions of violence and sex and the emotional states of her characters hit me as hard as any book had at that time and made vampires and the people around them seem more vivid, more real than anything I had encountered before.

Four: ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

I’m not a huge fan of Stephen King. I respect his work, have enjoyed some of it, but he’s always been hit or miss for me. This one is a hit, maybe his best. ‘Salem’s Lot is a long epic of a vampire novel that works on two levels. It hits all the beats one expects to find in a story about blood-drinking fiends, paying homage to its predecessors, and also forces readers to care about the humans caught up in the terrible events in one little town and delivers a handful of very gruesome shocks along the way. If I could recommend only one book by America’s most famous horror writer, this would be the one.

Three: Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

Newman’s alternate history novel asks the question of “What if Dracula had not been defeated at the end of Bram Stoker’s novel?” Well, for one thing, he’d have married Queen Victoria! Newman does a masterful job of tying together the lives and fates of dozens of characters from all corners of literature of the time, making sense of a plot that might have seemed forced and convoluted in the hands of a lesser writer. Characters from authors like HG Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and many others appear and all have a reason for being there. The novel’s two sequels, The Bloody Red Baron and Judgment of Tears, take the story further, jumping ahead in time to World War I and then the fifties.

Two: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

This, unlike the other books I’ve listed here, is not really a horror novel. Rather, it’s a brilliantly written, very eerie mystery. The book’s narrator is a 16-year-old girl who never tells us her name. In 1972, she sets out to find her father, who has vanished while searching for her mother, who they had thought was dead. The book weaves back and forth between three separate points in time and does a wonderful job of connecting Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula with his possible historical inspiration, Vlad Tepes. Kostova’s writing will addict you. This is a 900 page novel and I finished it in three days, stopping only when I was at work, driving, or asleep.

One: Dracula by Bram Stoker

This had to be first on the list; none of the others would exist without it. The story Stoker tells here is one that everyone thinks they know, whether they’ve read the book or not. Here’s what I’d recommend doing if you’re about to read Dracula for the first time. Empty your mind and forget Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee and every other film version of the character. Start from page one as if you’ve never been exposed to any of the story before and let Stoker’s wonderfully creepy little collection of journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings (a great choice of how to tell his story) carry you further and further into a deepening nightmare until your nerves are as frazzled and frayed as those of the inhabitants of the book. You’re about to meet the real Dracula. He’s not going to charm you like he does in the movies. He’s far worse than that. You’ve been warned.

THE THIRTEEN by Susie Moloney

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Dani Stone

First of all, let me say, Susie Moloney scares the hell out of me. Here she is, unassuming in her snuggly white turtleneck sweater with just a glint of something mysterious in her eye. Do not let her fool you, my friends. Susie is not thinking about sitting at the ski lodge in her sweater drinking hot cocoa. No, Susie is thinking about dark and sinister things, and she’s very good at it

In her latest novel, The Thirteen, Moloney introduces us to Paula Wittmore, a down-on-her-luck single mother who has just lost another low-paying job and isn’t fairing much better with her moody tween daughter, Ro. When Paula receives a call saying her mother has been stricken with a mysterious illness, she decides it’s time to go back to her home town, the one she hasn’t seen since she left in disgrace when she was a teenager. There, she must face old demons and new ones, literally, and piece together her mother’s secrets before her daughter has to pay the ultimate price for the greed in Haven Wood.

In The Thirteen, Moloney creates a world where modern day witches have forsaken their broomsticks for SUVs and suburbia makes a nice cover for their evil deeds. In Haven Woods when a new friend asks you to come “meet the other girls,” you should politely decline and RUN, because this group could get you killed, particularly if you’re unlucky number 13.

Moloney writes with a dark wit, even when she’s describing the mundane. “Those tidy lawns, those trim hedges, that fresh paint. You just know some woman inside that house is going slowly batshit.”

When you read a book do you skip the Prologue so you can just get right to the action? Don’t do that. The Prologue of The Thirteen is written with the well-polished creep-tastic gore of Stephen King. It’s the hook. You’ll definitely say, “what the what,” then lock all your doors, pull your covers up to your chin, turn the page and dive in for more.

Not Yet Coming to a Theater Near You…But Really, They Should!

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Michelle Langston

It is hard to be a lover of both books and film, and not think after reading a really great book, “Wow, they should really make this into a movie.” As I have discussed in past posts, the transition from the page to the screen can be something that is done remarkably well (for example, Stephen King’s “The Green Mile”), or with abysmal results (Demi Moore’s “The Scarlett Letter” always comes to mind).

Here is a list of films that I would love to see on the big screen someday. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that should any of these books receive a big screen adaptation, the resulting product will be fantastic cinema, and not a major disappointment:

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Producer Scott Rudin purchased the film rights for this bestseller even before the book was published, and Carr admits while writing the film, he could envision a film adaptation with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. However, budget costs, major conflicts over scripts and other delays have left this project languishing in development hell for more than 15 years. Set in 1896 in New York City, this fast-paced thriller about two men and a determined woman who race to solve a series of brutal murders is my number one pick to see on the big screen, but ONLY if the project ends up in the right hands (which means there is no need to rewrite the storyline or the characters)! While over 500 pages, this tight, suspenseful tale of a barbaric serial killer will keep you up at night turning pages to the fantastic ending! If you haven’t read this book, do it, now. Come on Hollywood, a film version of this book is long overdue!

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Fans say this is the mother of all historical fiction books and have loudly voiced their desire to see a screen adaptation. However, for all the rumors, there seems to be no solid word of a film any time in the near future.

Set in 1945 and 1793, “Outlander” is a time-travel romance about Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, who is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon. When she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles, she is suddenly a Sassenach–an “outlander”–in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of 1743.

Unfortunately, it looks like fans will have to wait a while longer to see a screen version of this popular novel. Author Diana Gabaldon posted this comment on her website regarding the possibility of movie:

“There really isn’t any to speak of, but I know by this time that the fact that I don’t say anything isn’t sufficient to convince y’all that nothing’s going on. The option held by Essential Entertainment has expired, but they want to renew it, and we want to let them. So once that’s done, if anything’s changed or develops further, I’ll tell you, OK?”

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

Davidson’s debut novel kept me up late two nights in a row and made it hard to focus at work, even days after I finished the book. Beautiful and haunting, “The Gargoyle” tells the story of a nameless narrator who struggles to find his way after a fiery car accident robs him of his past life, a life of a handsome, but narcissistic, sex-obsessed drug addict. Horribly scarred from the accident, he waits out his days in a burn ward, waiting for the time that he can be released so that he can finally kill himself and end the life he feels is no longer worth living. But his life begins to change when a beautiful, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were lovers in past lives. As Marianne nurses him back to health, and spins mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life. Yet as our narrator’s life seems to be coming together, Marianne’s is spinning wildly out of control.

Make no doubt about it, this page-turner could be a promising film. Davidson’s detailed, visceral, emotional writing leaves lays the groundwork for scenes that could be breathtaking on the big screen.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Listen to the Mustn’ts,child,
Listen to the Don’ts
Listen to the Shouldn’ts
The Impossibles, the Won’ts
Listen to the Never Haves,
Then listen close to me –
Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.

One of my all-time favorite books, “Where the Sidewalk Ends” is Shel Silverstein’s collections of poems and drawings that are not just quirky, good fun, but also quite profound in their message. I think this really has all the makings for a magical film. I could think of no one better to tackle the project than director Henry Selick (“Coraline,” “James and the Giant Peach”). I hope someone in Hollywood takes notice…this could be an amazing film.

The Poet Prince by Kathleen McGowan

With the big screen success of Dan Brown’s “The Davinci Code” and “Angels and Demons,” I am surprised that we haven’t seen a string of similar themed films at the box office. Kathlen McGowan’s “Magdalence Line”of books seem ripe for the picking. “The Poet Prince,” third in the series, just hit book shelves. The novel tells the story of Maureen Pasachal, an author who is promoting her new bestseller—the explosive account of her discovery of a gospel written in Jesus’ own hand. But a scandalous headline about her lover, Bérenger Sinclair, shatters her plans and sends her to Florence. In Tuscany, heretical secrets regarding the family of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the godfather of the Italian Renaissance, begin to emerge, as well as the shocking truth behind the birth of the Renaissance. McGowan has not only written a competent mystery, but also delivers a strong sense of setting through her skillful depictions of art and history.

What books do you most want to see on the big screen? Or which books do you feel should never be made into a film? I would love to read your thoughts, so leave me your comments!

The Little Stranger

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Malena Lott

by Malena Lott

35837811 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Stephen King recommended The Little Stranger in his best of 2009 list for Entertainment Weekly. The next day I read a tweet by thriller author MJ Rose who was reading it and loving it. (See how powerful frequency and word-of-mouth is?) Within thirty seconds I had purchased the hardback in Kindle format for my iPhone, only the second purchase I’ve made on my iPhone. I figured a ghost story might be just the thing I needed for holiday distraction. I was right.

What Waters has pulled off is a ghost story that may or may not be a ghost story – depending on whether or not you believe in ghosts. I happen to, full disclosure, so everything that happens in Hundreds Hall, the mansion which is the main character in the novel, feels haunted to me from the get go. That being said, the “ghost” part of the story is very minor, and the major aspects of the story are the history and functioning (and falling apart) of the house itself and the Ayres family who reside there. Mrs. Ayres and her two living children, a “hearty spinster” Caroline, her younger brother Roderick, who suffered burns and has a bum leg from the war.

The story is really about a man, our protagonist Dr. Faraday, a forty-ish bachelor whose parents gave up everything to see that he could become a doctor, and his relationship with the Ayres and Hundreds Hall. One quickly believes he loves the mansion, even in its tired state, more than he loves Caroline. His visits to the mansion begin as doctor-patient only and grow into a friendship. Throughout the story, the various members of the family confide in Dr. Faraday to determine what exactly is happening in Hundreds Hall – the burn marks on the walls and the bruises and marks appearing on the family members and later a bigger fire and suicide. As a medical doctor, Faraday explains it all away – clumsiness, candles too close to walls, and ultimately mental illness.

Does isolation and losing one’s standing in society – having to sell off parcel after parcel of your land, make you go crazy? In that way, can a house turn against you? Ruin your life? Or it something more – one’s own energy and anxiety causing things to physically happen within the house? Or could it be the ghost of little Susan, the first child of Mrs. Ayres, who the mother admits she was completely in love with and loved more deeply than her other two? Does the child miss her mother, want her on the other side?

Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, but acknowledge that places have chi – energy – then it’s easy to see how locking away whole sections of a mansion and letting it get to a dilapidated state because you can’t afford the upkeep or repairs, could change the home’s positive energy negative and stagnant.

Waters is a gifted writer for sure – and just scanning the acknowledgments in the back of the book on all the research she did to get the setting, time period, medicine and architecture right truly is astounding. While I would’ve preferred more haunted and less house, it’s an impressive book and certainly stands out as a literary exploration of the psyche and the supernatural.

Get LITTLE here.