Miss Jaye's
Bookshelf

Well...sort of. We're back with another Fear Street tale, and this time we actually get a little taste of the supernatural! Mayra has taken a summer job working for Mrs. Cottler, who is paying her $5 an hour (doesn't seem like much, but remember that this was in the late 80s when minimum wage was around $4 an hour) to cook for her, do some light housework, read to her, and other chores as needed. Mrs. Cottler has a black cat, tons of weird trinkets and talismans, and a draw

I remember this being one of my favorite books in the series, and the reread did not disappoint! I remember loving this story so much as a kid; in fact, it may have been the first book in the series that I read (after borrowing - and potentially stealing! - The New Girl from my best friend. Two friends are making prank phone calls to boys in their class, when one of the girl's ne'er-do-well brother catches them and decides to up the ante. He dubs himself the Phantom of Fear

The fourth book released in the Fear Street series keeps its mystery grounded in reality, but things still go a little crazy! I remember the Fear Street books being more of a mix of grounded mysteries with supernatural events, but as I'm starting to work my way through the series, I think that the supernatural stuff started to come later when Stine began exploring the history of Fear Street. I know that the Cheerleaders series includes so wacky spirit stuff, but so far the f

A new book with ties to North Dakota, written by a queer author, and with plenty of sci-fi/horror? Yes, please! I've always said that the only thing worse than North Dakota is South Dakota, and this book by Minot-based author, Cody Blotter, hasn't done anything to change my mind. When I heard that one of my "theatrical colleagues" had written a new novel, I knew that I wanted to pick it up to support them. Lucky for me, this roller coaster of paleontological research and my

An epistolary novel that explores the darkest aspects of serial killer fan culture. I'm not usually a fan of epistolary novels - novels written through a series of letters - but when I saw this book, the premise sounded fascinating: telling the story of a serial killer through the letters written to him in prison. The novel separates the letters into sections: the time after Jonas Williker is caught, during the trial, after the verdict is handed down, and leading up to his e

This is one of the first books I remember making me cry. 40ish years later, I still got a little misty. After finishing Spellbound, I was very excited to move on to Witch. I remember this book having a huge impact on me and really being devastated by the ending. Even though the overall experience wasn't quite as emotional as I remembered, I definitely got a little misty. Julia is a witch. She can heal people with her touch, and she can travel to distant places when starin

As I read this book, I remembered that our teacher read this book to the class in 5th grade. The 80s were wild, man! [There are spoilers ahead. The book is 40 years old. If you haven't read it by now, I have to assume you won't. Have fun!] I've been enjoying reading some of the books from my youth, but R. L. Stine wasn't the only YA author that kept me captivated as a kid. I was also a fan of Christopher Pike; in fact, I think I discovered Pike before I picked up my first

This story starts out like a ghost story before it descends into a disjointed paranoia...in the best way possible. This book is the first one that has really spooked me in a long time. I am a fan of Paranoia horror - think The Stepford Wives, Karyn Kusama's The Invitation, Rosemary's Baby, etc., and this book completely delivers on this. I had to stop reading, go to bed, and finish in the daytime. I live alone and I have a creepy basement - this was a definite "must read i

An unchaperoned trip to Fear Island leads to a terrible accident, a vow of secrecy...and just a little light misogyny. Spoilers ahead. The third book in the Fear Street series introduces a new spooky location into the world of Shadyside: Fear Island. Della and her five friends in the Outdoors Club (really - that's the best we could come up with to justify a planned camping trip?) are disappointed when the club's advisor, Mr. Abner, announces that he has a family emergency an

"Between truth and madness lies ecstasy. Or perhaps between ecstasy and truth lies madness." Before this book, I had never heard of The King In Yellow. I was talking about which books I should read next on a livestream, and when I read the description of this book, some excitedly mentioned that this was related to a 19th century work about a cursed play. Published in 1895, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a collection of short horror stories about a madness-induci

In the second book I've read from author Nick Cutter, the horror of biological warfare takes a ride with another horror that is much less fantastical: other people. I'm definitely enjoying Nick Cutter's work. The Deep was a fantastic blend of underwater scifi horror mixed with Lovecraftian horrors and paranoia; in The Troop, Cutter still takes some big swings - the main conflict surrounds a bio-engineered threat taking over a small island currently inhabited by a scoutmaster

On the surface (pun intended), this book is an underwater horror story but it brings in elements of cosmic horror, body horror, ghost stories, and so much more. This is the first book by Nick Cutter that I've read, but it definitely won't be the last. In The Deep, Cutter has created a manifestation of terror that is so compelling, so utterly effective, that I can't recall anything like it. This book melds a bunch of different kinds of horror, or elements of horror at least,