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Graphic Novel Review: Harrow County Volume 2 by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Tyler Crook, Carla Speed McNeil, Hannah Christensen, and Jenn Manley Lee

Harrow County, Library Edition, Volume 2: Snake Doctor & Family Tree by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Tyler Crook, Carla Speed McNeil, Hannah Christensen, and Jenn Manley Lee

Dark Horse, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1506710655

Available: Hardcover, Kindle, comiXology

There is so much happening in this second library edition of Harrow County. Eighteen-year-old witch Emmy Crawford feels alone in the world in terms of her abilities, but a group of strangers appear in Harrow County claiming to be her kin. Emmy learns more about her past, opening more questions for her and the reader. Cullen’s storytelling is brilliant, in that the more we find out about not just Emmy, but her friend Bernice, the more intricate and entwined their stories become. I find myself wondering about the future of these young ladies and what their relationship will look like in the future. Finding out more about Hester Beck has also been intriguing. She is a terrifying figure to be sure, especially since we get more than just a glimpse of what she was capable of.

The reader meets the first of these beings when the skinless boy, Emmy’s familiar, is taunted and hounded by a long haired man, Levi, who kills a bird to play it as he walks along. He talks of pickled pigs’ feet being no substitute for his favourite meat, long pig. Levi coaxes the skinless boy to find his home, discovering what he is and who created him. Clinton and Bernice discover there is another witch in Harrow County after the former’s Uncle Early starts acting strangely after confronting a cottonmouth in the berry bushes. When his uncle ends up missing, Clinton goes to Bernice to help find him out at Old Lady Lovey’s cabin. What she finds out about herself in the process will help protect the people of the county. Emmy ventures to Creech’s County after hearing rumors about a haunted house where the children are hunted by something that wishes to do them harm. She soon discovers there is more to the house than she and the family originally thought. Emmy and Bernice hunt for a lost Clinton in the corn field, only to be attacked by the scarecrows. After Bernice is able to fend them off with the help of a gift from Old Lady Lovey, they come face to face with Levi and a hypnotized young Clinton. They are led to the spot by bloody footprints, who Levi introduces as Mildred. He insists they are related to Emmy, but she is a hard one to convince. When he takes her to meet the rest of her kin, her decision to go with him could mean the destruction of Harrow County.

This library edition collects volumes three and four of Harrow County and includes a sketchbook with notes by Crook, McNeil, and Christenson, essays, and more. The short comics under the title “Tales of Harrow County” written by Tyler Crook with art by David Ruben, the amazing Kate Leth, Kel McDonald, Brian Hurt, Matt Kindt, and Jessica Mahon, are a great addition to the second library edition.

Contains: some blood and gore

Highly recommended

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Book Review: Ladies of Gothic Horror: A Collection of Classic Stories edited by Mitzi Szereto

Ladies of Gothic Horror: A Collection of Classic Stories edited by Mitzi Szereto

Midnight Rain Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1794556317

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Next time someone says that women can’t write horror fiction, point them to this book. In Ladies of Gothic Horror,  Mitzi Szereto has collected 17 stories by women writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries that will creep you out, chill your bones, and check the locks on your doors.  While some names may be more familiar to readers of supernatural fiction, such as Mary Shelley, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, many of the stories are by women writers better known for other works: Edith Nesbit is chiefly known for her children’s books, Elizabeth Gaskell for her social realist novels, Edith Wharton for her novels about the American upper class, Virginia Woolf for her modernist and feminist writings, Helena Blavatsky for her theosophical and occult work. Szereto follows each of the stories with a detailed biographical note about the author, when that information is available (very little is available on Eleanor F. Lewis, who evidently wrote only two stories– it’s too bad she didn’t write more).

Many of these women were supporting their families by writing for magazines, and their writing can be dramatic, depending on stereotypical characters, but they also skillfully build suspense and atmosphere, administer retribution, and illuminate tragedy.  Standout stories include Gertrude Atherton’s “Death and the Woman”, which manages to create dread and suspense without ever having the main character leave her husband’s bedside;  Edith Nesbit’s “Man-Size in Marble”, in which a newlywed husband discovers why you should pay attention to your housekeeper; Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “The Cold Embrace”, in which a young man learns that having your fiancee return from the grave is not actually romantic; Edith Wharton’s “Afterward”, in which an American couple discover that an English haunting is no joking matter; and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s famous “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Elia W. Peattie’s “The Room of the Evil Thought” and Eleanor F. Lewis’ “The Vengeance of a Tree” are brief, terrifying stories of strange hauntings. Helena Blavatsky’s “The Ensouled Violin” is positively gruesome. The collection ends with Virginia Woolf’s “A Haunted House”, a much lighter piece than the rest, that provides a satisfying conclusion.

Ladies of Gothic Horror does a valuable service by spotlighting supernatural and gothic works by women writers better known for other work and by introducing some of the 19th and early 20th centry women writers of supernatural fiction that can still be found in print (some, like Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s The Wind in the Rose-bush, are even available free on Kindle).  While there are a few writers, like Eleanor F. Lewis, who may have been previously unknown, this book makes a good starting place for further investigating works by women writers of supernatural and gothic horror from the time period. There are few other anthologies similar to it that are still in print, although I expect we will see more now that people are discovering women writers of horror through the just-released Monster, She Wrote by Lisa Kroger and Melanie Anderson, which we recently reviewed.  Ladies of Gothic Horror is a great opportunity for widening your horizons and experiencing the chills, suspense, and terrors, that can be found in these women’s works. Highly recommended.

 

 

Book Review: Curse of the Boggin (The Library, Book 1) by D.J. MacHale


Curse of the Boggin (The Library, Book 1) by D.J. MacHale

Random House Books for Young Readers, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1101932537

Available: Hardcover, audiobook, audio CD

 

Marcus O’Mara was an ordinary troublemaking kid headed to detention until a ghost in pajamas started haunting him, and the words “surrender the key” appeared in shattered glass in the school hallway. Suspended from school for accidentally blowing out all the computers in the computer lab while in unsupervised detention, he researches the term on the Internet and finds the obituary of the man who has been haunting him, and decides to sneak out of the house to find the man’s family. When Marcus arrives at the man’s household,  his wife recognizes Marcus, and tells him that both her husband and his birth parents were paranormal investigators who died under mysterious circumstances. Her husband had been holding onto something left for Marcus by his parents: a key that can open any door into a library of unfinished stories. The librarian tells Marcus it is up to him to finish the chain of events that will lead to the end of the ghost’s story, which means capturing the spirit who led to his death: the boggin. The boggin is a spirit with the power of illusion whose chief purpose is to cause fear and dread, and it is the one demanding that Marcus “surrender the key”. With the help of his friends Lu and Theo, Marcus must find a way to defeat and imprison the boggin and prevent it from getting the key to the library.

This is the first book in a series, and provides the setup for further volumes that the author says can be read in any order as stand-alone adventures. And they are adventures: from the prologue on, the action rarely stops. MacHale’s economy of words means the story moves along, but there’s enough description to create appropriately frightening atmosphere (much of which is related to weather, such as lightning strikes and thick fog). A spirit who can create completely effective illusions gives the author a lot of latitude to work with in terms of creating some pretty nasty experiences for Marcus and his friends.  As in many suspense and mystery novels for middle-graders, there are a lot of unlikely coincidences and character tropes (MacHale plays with these, but the physically adventurous risk-taker and the cautious, nerdy skeptic are pretty standard) and the ending is predictable, but I love the concept of the Library! Kids looking for a mildly scary, suspenseful ride, with plenty of ghosts and spirits (and spiders), will enjoy this.

 

Editor’s note:  Curse of the Boggin is a nominee for the 2019-2020 Young Hoosier Book Award in the grades 4-6 category.