I read eleven books this week, which is probably a record for this year (not for all time; a while back, I read thirty books in one week, just because I was bored).
A lot of the books I read were part of the Horror High series. It turns out that I had already read all but one of these. This wasn’t apparent right away, because they’d changed all the names.
Bizarrely, the horror high series is a reprint of several point horror books. The only change is a simple find and replace on the names. So, Althea becomes Alexandra. Devnee becomes Bethany. Lacey becomes Holly (a change I did not approve of), Roxanne is Laura, Randy becomes Ben, and Shannon is still Shannon, for some odd reason.
My mother collected point horror and similar books, and I read a lot of them as a teenager and pre-adolescent. They are oddly comforting to me. My mother has begun clearing out her clutter by giving the books to her mother, which is where I found them and claimed them. I remember seeing these as a teenager – I think – but I don’t recall actually reading them then.
The first two Horror High books – Toxic Beauty and Killer Instinct – are the second and third books in Caroline B Cooney’s Vampire trilogy. I love this trilogy. The vampire is a dark, rotting mass of shadows who tempts people to wish for things and then pay him back with other people’s lives. In the final book, Lacey and five other teenagers decide to party in the now abandoned mansion, and the vampire decides to make them choose which five will leave and which one will stay. I first read this when I was about fifteen and I loved it. I loved Lacey. I loved that she was strong-minded and quick-thinking, even though all her “friends” and her younger brother thought of her as an unexciting airhead. I also quite liked the name ‘Lacey’ which is a bit more unusual than ‘Holly’.
Date with Death, or Diane Hoh’s Prom Date was the only Horror High I hadn’t read before. I quite liked it. 230 pages of teen horror fiction. Very comforting.
The Starlight Crystal isn't really aimed at teenagers, but it is by Christopher Pike who wrote quite a few point horror books and other books I loved. I liked this one. It's like a cross between The Forever Wars and Downtiming the Nightside or "- All You Zombies -". It has romance and time stuff and some spirituality. I liked it.
I listened to Season 4 and Season 5 of Clare in the Community too. Not much more to say there; there are seven or eight seasons in all.
I read Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness for a bookgroup. I think I might have read it before, but I can't recall whether I actually have or not, so that should tell you how interesting I found the plot. The world building was really interesting, but the actual book was a bit meh.
The Water's Rising is by Sheri Tepper, my favourite author. It's the sequel to Plague of Angels, and the prequel to Fish Tails which was released on Boxing Day and which ties together the series which contains my favourite novel of all time, Jinian Footseer. I pre-ordered it, and it was delivered to my Kindle but I've been nervous of starting it, in case it disappoints me.
Finally, The Golden Slipper is a nice little book of detective stories by Anna Katherine Green. It was published over a hundred years ago, and so is out of copyright. The detective is Violet Strange, a Victorian society lady. It's like Sherlock Holmes meets Totally Spies.
I need to apologise for the late post. I sent the image to myself at work, so I could work on it in quiet moments, but those turned out to be totally non-existent.
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