Happy Valentines Day 2022!
This year I did a theme read and chose books leaning toward the horror genre for my themed read. I did not realize how difficult it would be to find a Valentines related horror novel when I challenged myself. I discovered a few titles and took recommendations from readers and authors on social media to narrow it down to a few. Here are the books I read.
Valentine by Tom Savage was an interesting read. It was a crime thriller novel following author Jill Talbot as her stalker becomes deadly. She finally has love and a life she dreamed of when Valentine sends her his first paper heart.
This novel was addictive. It was organized well and easily transitioned from past to present as it tied in the story behind the murders. It had an easy flow with multiple scenes that had me at the edge of my seat. It was interesting how Valentine tied each woman’s death to the element she claimed during college.
I felt that Jill was the most difficult for him to get to but the plot twist at the end had me questioning this. The poor woman! I love how it ended though.
Overall, this book was the best pick of the selection for my themed read. Although more crime/thriller than horror, it really pulled in the Valentine theme and stuck with it throughout the entire novel.
Love In the Dark, A Paranormal Romance/Horror Valentine’s Anthology was my first discovery in my search for books. I had high hopes for this collection but ended up being disappointed. The first thing that happened was that pages fell out of the book as soon as I removed it from the package. This was a brand new, never used, book so it shouldn’t have done that. This did not affect my thoughts on the story.
As I began to read, I found several of the short stories enjoyable and several lacking. Some I wish would have had more to the and been longer. Some I could easily see turning into a novella.
What this collection did well though was stick to the theme. I much rather enjoy anthologies that stick to specific themes rather than jumping randomly from topic to topic.
My final read was a collection of poetry. I Am Not Your Final Girl, by Clair C. Holland, was filled with blood and horror. I was fascinated with how this author created such vivid poems with such few words. Some poems were brutal and made me question thoughts behind certain movies and toying with what ifs.
The collection wasn’t so much a Valentine’s read but was recommend as such. As I’ve discovered there isn’t a lot of Valentine’s horror out there.
Overall, it was a wonderful collection of horror writing. It has increased my interest in horror poems.