Genre Picks: September 25,2012

Two spooky picks for this week! Read on for details…

Richard E. Gropp’s debut novel Bad Glass looks to be a creepy exploration of a Spokane, WA that has suddenly and mysteriously been evactuated and cordoned off. Amateur photography Dean Walker slips the military cordon and hooks up with a group of outcasts exploring the city. The novel uses the imagery of Walker’s photographs along with the text to explore the mystery at the center of the city’s dark heart. An interview with the author can be found here.

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I was immediately struck by the cover of German born debut-novelist Stefan Kiesbye’s Your House Is on Fire, Your Children are All Gone which reminded me of of the film Village of the Damned (the original film is name-checked in the publisher’s blurb). The novel’s title cited by Publisher’s Weekly as coming from a Tom Waits song is in truth the second line of an old folk rhyme the grimmest version of which goes: “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, / Your house is on fire, / Your children shall burn!” This looks to be a spooky and atmospheric read sure to unsettle.