I consumed this one in audiobook format, and each night I would sit up alone listening to it with all the lights off. Cockroaches are fucking gross at the best of times, and they are particularly frightening after developing a taste for human meat. This book had me squirming every time I sat down with it. There were a few scenes here where things probably went too far, gloriously grisly scenes of visceral carnage. My complaint with that novel was that it never went far enough, always shying away from a potentially gory good bit.

Excluding Cujo, the only ‘animal attacks’ horror novel I had read before this was the underwhelming yet ludicrous Fleshbait. Engstrom’s horror is unsettling, but I enjoyed the ride. Again, I don’t want to give away details here, but I will say that this turned out far darker than I had expected.

The protagonist is a victim of brain damage, and I didn’t want to read about anything bad happening to her. The next story, Beauty is…, was a little harder to get into for me. Engstrom doesn’t rely on a spooky monster to frighten her reader she uses the frailty and shortcomings of humanity. A few months ago, I read an utterly awful novel about a bunch of kids getting stuck in a cave, and this story puts that one to shame. The first one, When Darkness Loves Us, is about a woman who gets trapped in a cave. This is actually a collection of two novellas. Don’t let the doll on the cover of this fool you. When Darkness Loves Us – Elizabeth Engstrom Valancourt have put out a few more books by Taylor, and I am looking forward to reading more of his stuff. I will recommend that you pick it up if you get the chance. I reckon you’re better off not knowing anything about this one, so I won’t give any plot details.

The sense of mystery that Taylor develops is awesome, and my only complaint about the book is that it’s too short. The writing is excellent, and I found it difficult to put down once I got a few chapters in. I read it soon thereafter and was so impressed that I knew I’d have to read the rest of these books.

However, soon after the series was announced, I bought a cheap copy of The Tribe in a used bookstore. My experience with “Paperbacks from Hell” had been pretty varied, and none of the books in Valancourt’s series had the Devil or a guitar on the cover. In truth, I wasn’t super excited when the Valancourt reissues series was announced. Some of the books I read were amazing, but some were utter shit. After reading Paperbacks from Hell, I made a list of the books featured therein that I thought sounded cool and tried to hunt them down. Last year, Valancourt books teamed up with Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson to reissue some of the better books featured in Paperbacks From Hell.

The reaping bernard taylor