Tag: Halloween Horror

Sign Here: A Novel by Claudia Lux

JLLeave a comment
Sign Here: A Novel by Claudia Lux

A departure from the more serious novels I’ve been reading lately, and perfect — if a little late — for the Spooky season. Still, if you are a horror fan, any time is a good time for a paranormal mystery, which is exactly what Sign Here is, with a generous injection of humor.

Sign Here is a combination of the television show, “The Good Place” and one of Simone St. James’s paranormal mysteries, the kind which unravels to reveal a multi-generational history. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and also deadly serious at the same time. I couldn’t have asked for a better post-Halloween read than this. It gripped me to very end.

The novel is set in two dimensions: Hell and Earth. The former is a bureaucrat’s heaven, a place where the radio station is constantly on commercial break and the music is every genre you can’t abide. There’s fun to be had in Hell, but no peace, utterly no reprieve from annoyance. Ever. One of the main protagonists of the novel is a demon who long lost his humanity and now deceives or manipulates souls in order to collect them for his hellish quota. His goal is to complete a “full set” of a family, one soul from each generation. And to find some measure of peace in the afterlife. The two objectives are not exclusive.

The family he has targeted is a wealthy and dysfunctional one, a collection of questionable traits has passed down from one generation to the next. They have a long history with this demon, a transactional history of quid pro quo. There is also trauma, murder, abuse, and just downright immorality in the family’s past; one might say, the stuff that Hell is made of. But they are lovable too. Their flawed histories and personalities make them all the more human, all the more recognizable, for all their privilege and wealth. The reader will get the impression there is something not quite right about them though, and as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that several of them have something to hide — even from the demon himself.

The novel is set at the start of the annual family vacation, a dreaded and welcome event. There’s a newcomer to the lake house with them: the new best friend of the daughter. She’s bright and curious — and may just force the family’s dark secrets into the light.

The two storylines intertwine: Will our demon be able to exploit the family to meet his quota? Will he ever escape his Hell? Will the family be able to keep their horrors safely hidden in the past? Someone’s soul is at stake. Will it be the father? The mother? One of the kids?

Sign Here ends explosively and satisfyingly. Everyone gets what they deserve.

Anybody Home? A Novel by Michael J. Seidlinger

JL4 Comments
Anybody Home? A Novel
by Michael J. Seidlinger

This novel is creepy AF. I really hope none of the home invaders in this story exist, but that’s the thing that makes this so terrifying: they probably do. Seidlinger’s Anybody Home? has no named narrator, no named characters at all, no named locale, and no loci in time; the events in this slim, punchy novel could happen anywhere and to anyone. That’s what makes it a successful horror story. Seidlinger lets the reader’s imagination do the work — some of the work — for him.

Some. The heavy lifting is done by Seidlinger. The prose is sparse, but accurate like a puncture to the jugular. A hanging question, a sentence left unfinished — the words in this novel function like a silent slice of a knife through air; they draw a spurt or an arc of blood, as desired. Seidlinger delivers enough to elicit pain, but not enough to kill; reader, you’ll live to read on. You’ll be compelled to read on to deliver yourself from the suspense.

Anybody Home? is about a home invasion, a carefully planned crime and its implementation. The story is told from the interior perspective of the mastermind of this crime.

Despite the facelessness of the narrator, the protagonist in this tale is not a mystery to the reader. This is, I think, part of Seidlinger’s brilliance. The reader is treated to the full landscape of insanity in the narrator’s head; what you’re not sure of is who they are talking to and what the relationship is between the narrator and the others of their kind. This unreliable narrator adds to the sensation of dis-ease; the further the reader gets into the book and into the narrator’s head, the more infectious the madness becomes. Things start to make sense. You can’t help but respect the madness a bit. In fact, it does not feel quite so mad. There’s a logic — even a sense of justice or nobility — to the plan the narrator has in mind. Almost.

Reader, you might begin to wonder if the madman is the hero here. But that feels squeamish; you can’t quite reconcile the deontological unfairness of this cruel act with some kind of enlightenment. You can’t quite call the ending “happy”, but you might be tempted to ponder on it. You might creep yourself out a bit when you realize your own moral compass may not point true north… Maybe.

I am adding this to my Halloween Horror reads for 2022. It warrants a place of pride on my list. For those of you following my reviews, I’m starting my Halloween Horror reading early this year (because why not?).