by C.J. Weiss, author of Secrets Gnaw at the Flesh, curator of HOWLS Book Club nominees for January 2024’s “This Chill is Giving Me Chills” category
I live in Texas, and a big reason why is because I hate cold weather (and I don’t want to pay a coastal tax). Mother Earth can give me all the 100 degree summers she wants, but please leave me alone in winter. Anything below 50 is an abomination, and every 10 degrees is an exponential increase in pain.
Horror, on the other hand, is a great genre for exploring fears in a safe environment. While I’m not afraid of the cold per se, it does rile up my anxiety when I see an unfavorable weather forecast. If nothing else, I hope to come out of this with some perspective that the cold could be a lot worse.
Ancient Enemy by Mark Lukens
Ancient Enemy – it wants things . . . you have to give it what it wants . . .Seven hundred years ago the Anasazi people built massive cities in what is now the southwestern United States . . . and then they vanished. Stella, an archaeologist specializing in Anasazi culture, and David, a mysterious Navajo boy, are on the run from something terrifying. As they flee up into the snowy mountains of Colorado, they are carjacked by criminals escaping a botched bank robbery. Caught in a blizzard, they must take refuge in what they believe is an abandoned cabin. It’s at this cabin where they will face horrors beyond their imagination. (StoryGraph)
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I love main characters with unique jobs, especially one that’s historical in nature. The supernatural elements give it a bit of haunted house vibe but with a winter snow storm for a unique angle.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Devolution by Max Brooks
As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now. The journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing–and too earth-shattering in its implications–to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and, inevitably, of savagery and death.
Yet it is also far more than that.
Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us–and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.
Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it–and like none you’ve ever read before. (StoryGraph)
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Creature feature, natural disaster, and survival horror all rolled into one.
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Snowblind by Michael McBride
They come at night.
Forward.
A stranger staggers out of the wilderness under the cover of a blizzard and stumbles into a diner full of people. He collapses in the entryway, unzips his jacket, and allows the object hidden inside to fall out. Screaming commences.
Down.
Four old college buddies embark upon their annual elk hunting trip into the Rocky Mountains. This promises to be their last, for the passage of time is as merciless and unpredictable as the Colorado weather. And they’re not alone.
Help.
There are other hunters in the mountains, stalking game of a different breed. They know exactly what they’re doing, because they’ve been hunting in these woods for a long, long time. And no one ever survives to betray their existence. (StoryGraph)
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The premise reminds me of The Ritual but with snow. I figure if you’ve got to be placed in a terrible horror plot, it’s at least nice when you can experience it with friends.
StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The Drift by C. J. Tudor
During a deadly snowstorm, Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors.
Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board.
Carter is gazing out of the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, the threat of something lurking in the chalet’s depths looms larger.
Outside, the storm rages. Inside one group, a killer lurks.
But which one?
And who will make it out alive? (StoryGraph)
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The dystopian future shaped by a pandemic where the pandemic isn’t the main plot is cool. Plus, I love multiple points of view.
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The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone–or something–is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow a disastrous experimental route West, or just plain bad luck–the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest and most disastrous western adventures in American history.
While the ill-fated group struggles to survive in the treacherous mountain conditions–searing heat that turns the sand into bubbling stew; snows that freeze the oxen where they stand–evil begins to grow around them, and within them. As members of the party begin to disappear, they must ask themselves “What if there is something waiting in the mountains? Something disturbing and diseased…and very hungry?” (StoryGraph)
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A bleak survival narrative about a real historical event, now with new supernatural horrors! This book just speaks my language.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
And The Winner Is…
Out of these five books, HOWLers voted to read The Hunger by Alma Katsu. Discussion starts on January 8, and you can join in by joining the Discord!
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