Ready for a new season of Spring Into Horror

 Despite the persistent chill in the air, spring has officially begun according to the calendar today. One way to keep warm inside until the weather outside matches up with that is to gather together some chilling books for the next Seasons of Reading challenge, Spring Into Horror.

The sign-ups for this readathon (hosted by the excellent Michelle Miller) started yesterday and since this event doesn’t begin until the first of April-not a joke-there’s plenty of time to join in. Now, you are only required to read one scary book and it doesn’t have to be horror (mystery, thriller,etc are fine) but I am running a full gambit in my TBR trio of terror this time around!

First up is Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Silver Nitrate, which follows a pair of film fans into a cinematic nightmare.

Audio engineer Montserrat and aging actor Tristan have a shared love of movies since their childhood and the discovery of a once famous film director, Abel Urueta, living nearby brings some much needed excitement to their lives.

That excitement is way more than they bargained for as Urueta convinces them to help him finish a long abandoned film project in order to break the occult spell placed upon the movie by its Nazi occultist screenwriter.

Willing to bet on the film becoming a hit that could change their lives for the better, Monserrat and Tristan agree to help Urueta but the magic tied to the movie is very real indeed, bringing forth a potentially deadly price to pay for any fame and fortune here.

Moreno-Garcia is great at embracing genre norms and taking them up to the next level in more ways than one, so I am definitely looking forward to this one. Plus, she adds her love of cinema into this popcorn flavored mix of fear and frenzy, making this story worth the price of admission for sure:

Next up is The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett. Told via text, email and group chat app, this novel follows two ambitious reporters eager to get the full story on a past tragedy first in order to secure book deals.

Amanda Bailey already has a publishing contract to write about the cult who intended to offer up a baby as a sacrifice to save the world. Eighteen  years later, no one knows who that child, rescued from its intended fate, was or where he or she is now.

Oliver Mendes is also planning to write a book about the cult and his research has him running neck in neck with Amanda as the two of them are determined to interview that mystery child for their work before the other one does. Where their journey towards the truth takes is truly stranger than fiction to say the least.

I’ve heard great things about this book, particularly from Booktuber Mara at Books Like Whoa, so I had to get this as soon as possible and this readathon is just the perfect opportunity to dive on in here. Plus, it appears that Hallett also wrote a screenplay for a 2011 thriller film called 

Retreat starring current Oscar winner Cillian Murphy, which might be an interesting watch along companion to this challenge , we shall see:

For the finale, I have the acclaimed Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, which focuses more on the women pursuing justice for the dead rather than the serial killer who achieves notoriety for his crimes.

Pamela is a survivor of a murder spree in her college dorm which took the lives of two of her friends when she meets Tina, who believes the same man murdered her friend Ruth over four years ago. 

Getting very little help from the authorities, these women team up to track down the man who not only left a gruesome mark on their lives but continued to destroy others along the way. Their mission, however, is justice not revenge because he wasn’t worth such an effort as the latter.

By keeping these women front and center of the narrative instead of the killer, Knoll brings new light to such dark material that showcases the power that those subjected to violent crime can reclaim as their own, which is the kind of story we need right now in this genre:

 Spring Into Horror will be here soon and I wish my fellow readers  who take this literary journey a happy bookish time. I have a link above in the second paragraph of this post if you want to know more about SIH and/or like to sign up for some scary page turning time.

I know the world around at the moment is fraught with far too many real terrors , based on the daily headlines alone, as it is and yet, reading something scary can be a good coping method.

Depending on the book, it could be a welcome yet brief escape from those menaces and possibly renew your spirits as such internal/external challenges are dealt with in a way that reality rarely provides.

 Best case scenario, you can talk about something other than the news or reality TV with good book buddies and perhaps watch a scary movie or two to take the edge off, worth a try, I think!: