Suspense
Peril in Paradise: A List Of Thrillers In Which Bad Things Happen In Beautiful Places
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Conflict lies at the heart of all mystery and suspense, and what could be more conflicting than taking a trip to paradise only to get caught up in the dark and deadly underbelly you didn’t know was there? Imagine your favorite or most desired vacation mecca, somewhere beautiful, maybe even exotic, somewhere you feel relaxed…
Mystical Threads: Spirit Mediums and Psychics in Crime and Suspense Fiction
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I never met my paternal grandmother. She died before I was born, but from a few family photos, I formed a picture of a smartly turned-out woman with warm brown eyes, a wavy, blunt-cut bob and a weakness for silk scarves. Deeply respected in her small north-eastern England mining town, she was a pillar of…
A Supernatural Survival Horror Reading List
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Have you read Dan Simmons’s The Terror – and are you looking for more reads which combine gruesome survival horror with a creepy supernatural element? Have you been binge-watching Yellowjackets, and looking for something to tide you over until the next season? Well, this just so happens to be my favourite genre, so let’s dive…
Dark Academia: YA Edition
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll find the winter evenings perfect for immersing yourself in a little dark academia. Whether you enjoy the prestigious school settings, the thrown-together friendships that shouldn’t work but do, or simply the higher education of it all, there is one thing in particular that brings readers to this genre in…
Femi Kayode Considers Groups, Belief Systems, and the Village of Readers
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When I am asked if my new novel, Gaslight, was inspired by real events, I answer no. But while the events themselves didn’t happen; the emotional center of the book originated with an incident that happened more than three decades ago. It was Sunday service like none I had ever experienced. Everything about the way…
Sinking Into the Gothic Gloom: My Favourite Works
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I’ve always struggled with some of the prevailing definitions of ‘gothic’ fiction. Tradition dictates there should be elements of fear, threat, woe, that hauntings should occur and vile things must transpire. Gloominess and atmosphere are everything: crumbling castles (gothic architecture inhabits many gothic novels, see Thornfield, Manderlay, High Place, the castle of Otranto), windswept coastlines,…
The Mystery of Real Estate Porn
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It’s a game in New York and we all play. Everyone talks real estate, how the condo market’s soft, how the rental market’s skyrocketing, how Manhattan’s suddenly affordable but forget about Brooklyn, and really, the south Bronx is incredibly convenient on the 2, the 5, even the D, Hoboken’s way out of reach but have…
Troubled Teens in Crime Fiction
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Teenagers don’t have it easy. On top of navigating a microculture rife with veiled rules and unspoken expectations—also known as high school—they often get a bad rap. Adults tend to view them through the lens of popular culture, assigning labels born of books and screen: rebel, cheerleader, nerd. But while they may well cycle through…
Parties Gone Wrong: A Beloved Trope in Crime Fiction
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Parties are terrible at the best of times. So much hope and anticipation is heaped onto them, they can never live up to the pressure, collapsing into tears and piles of vomit. Not only the teenage ones, either… The preparation is the best part, when hope still springs eternal as the canapés come warm from…
Horror for the Holidays, Or, Scary Novels To Read While Being Nice to Your Family
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I find the holidays a good time for horror. Whether the festive season makes you happy or miserable, you can read about people who are (hopefully) in more immediate and serious trouble than you. If your family has gathered, as so many do at the holidays, you can finish the last page of a novel…