2025 I Read Horror Year-Round Challenge

Here we are at year five! Time for another year of reading great horror!

This year I'm including an optional BINGO challenge...the Cryptid BINGO Challenge! 

Details and BINGO card are below.

Once again, there are 12 categories and 4 levels of participation.

Here are the categories, or themes:

• Vampires
• Witches
• Folk Horror (Ideas: https://tinyurl.com/yy8jj56a or https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/folk-horror?page=1)
• Written by a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) author
• A Ghost Story
• Written by a female author
• Cosmic Horror
• Frightening Cover
• Adapted as movie/series
• Katsu, Ketchum, King, or Koontz
• Black, gray, orange, or red cover
• Book featuring a Cryptid (mark off one BINGO square!)

Levels:

Spooky: Read 6 books from 6 categories
Chilling: Read 12 Books from all 12 categories
Frightful: Read 2 books from each category for a total of 24 books
Horrifying: Read 3 books from each category for a total of 36 books

Challenge runs from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Cross overs with other challenges count. Short stories are allowed if you're reading an entire collection or anthology. Books must be over 100 pages (one book under 100 pages is permitted). You do not have to pick your books ahead of time, but you can if you want.
Hashtag for social media: #IReadHorror

Details for the optional Cryptid BINGO Challenge:

Complete as one BINGO, or more, or go for the cover-all. 

Here are some lists for ideas on Cryptid horror books:

Cryptid Horror Books

Cryptofiction

Pre-2000 Cryptofiction

Crypto Fiction Books
Cryptids Books

Any questions? Leave a comment or contact me (via image in sidebar).

Grab the button and spread the word. Thanks!

Sign up here:

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

Stephen King's Fairy Tale Read-along - Final Discussion

This is going to be a short post. I know I'm already late. I apologize. My head is not in a good space right now so developing thoughts is proving to be difficult at the moment.

I will say...I LOVED this book! I was already enamored of the ties to fairy tales and The Wizard of Oz. Adding in the Lovecraftian Cthulhu vibe added just the right amount of horror to make this a dark fantasy, and I'm impressed.

Wrong-o about Charlie's mom being from there (lol), but correct about what was under Flight Killer's robes. Yuck. Kind of bummed that Charlie and Leah could not be together, but it wasn't that kind of fairy tale. I thought the ending was quite appropriate actually. So happy that Radar lived, and Charlie went on to live a good life...and protected Empis from being discovered by our treacherous world and destroyed. 

What did you think? Let me know if I failed to touch on anything, and add your personal thoughts in the comments.

Thanks so much to those of you who joined our Something Wicked Fall read-along. If you're participating in the I Read Horror Year-Round challenge, I will be posting next year's challenge before the end of the year (and I might have something extra this year). Stay tuned!

Something Wicked Fall Review - Andrew Najberg's Gollitok

So, I'm a girl who loves "expedition" horror. Archaeology expeditions as depicted in Michael Rutger's The Anomaly, and in this case, a team on a cataloguing survey of an abandoned prison. The name of said prison is Gollitok, and if that in itself doesn't sound menacing, the story is even more perilous. 

Through the entire novel, there is a sense of something not being right, and not just because the characters are saying it. There is a palpable feeling of dread as the story progresses through increasingly gruesome discoveries. This is an island prison that was really much more than just a prison. The various elements of strange phenomena and wildlife are very Lovecraftian in nature. There's something the "Bureau" did not disclose to the team, and some know more than others. This makes for a difficult time for the team in addition to the horrors that await them. 

This is my first Najberg novel, and it will not be my last. Any story that keeps me filled with dread is a sure winner, and Gollitok proves he certainly has a talent for it.

About the book

In a post-nuclear Eastern Europe, Hammel E Varka departs for a remote island to join a survey team cataloguing the abandoned Gollitok prison in the hopes that he will redeem his family’s tarnished reputation. After the passage across the strait leaves a team member injured, Varka quickly realizes that this survey is far from routine and that what he thought he knew about the island was a cover for more horrifying truths. As his team presses deeper into the decaying facility, hidden agendas splinter the team, and they find themselves beset with dangers beyond their worst nightmares.

Check out the book and read about the author on Goodreads.

This post is a part of Something Wicked Fall.

Jason Parent's Mischief Night Massacre: Ten Tales of Halloween - Review

What could be better during spooky season then to read a book of stories centered around Halloween? I say, nothing! These stories have everything. Monstrous creatures, ghosts, the undead, deranged slashers...everything needed for a genuinely thrilling Halloween ride.

My favorites from the collection...

Russian Dollhouse

Abandoned Colonial house, misguided teens looking for mischief, ghosts, and deepest fears revealed.

Keeping Up Appearances

Looks can be deceiving, know when to quit, Karma (perhaps?)

Ride Like the Devil

Ever went on one of those carnival horror rides (like at the fair) and wondered who might be lurking? Yeah, been there, done that. This one evoked memories of my true terror on those rides.

Pulp

A high school horror movie club, costumes based on horror movie characters, mayhem, keeps you guessing.

These were the standouts for me, but all of them are thrilling and horrifying. This collection is perfect for those who like to read scary around Halloween, and for the horror aficionados who love reading horror year-round. Highly recommend.

Grab this on Kindle for $3.99 and read it before (or on) Halloween. It will definitely complete your holiday. Paperback is also available.

From the back cover

Halloween. For the costumed child skipping along a safe, well-lit street, pillow case chock full of candy, it is a night of magic and mischief, delightful frights met with sugar-toothed grins. But for the would-be revelers in these tales, Halloween is a horrifying ordeal the likes of which many will not survive. And those who do make it to November may wish they hadn’t.

In this collection, Jason Parent gathers ten tales that embody the holiday in ways surely to surprise and delight the most avid horror reader. From traditional settings like amusement parks, Halloween parties, and haunted houses to more obscure locales where you might think terror couldn’t possibly find you, each story will have you breathing a little faster, startling at every bump in the night.

"If you're looking for a collection that pays homage to all things Halloween, look no further than Jason Parent's Mischief Night Massacre: Ten Tales of Halloween. Featuring its own unique brand of urban legend lore, horror-savvy kids, and more monsters than you could squeeze into an entire season of Creepshow, Mischief Night Massacre is a collection of tales you'll want to reread (and recommend!) every October...and beyond.”
—Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker-winning author of The Daughters of Block Island and Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked

“Every Halloween theme—and many unexpected ones—are featured in this terrifyingly exciting collection. You’ll stay up long past your bedtime gorging on these seasonal confections.”
—Anthony J. Rapino, author of Soundtrack to the End of the World

About the author

Jason Parent is an author of horror, thrillers, mysteries, science fiction and dark humor, though his many novels, novellas, and short stories tend to blur the boundaries between genres. From his EPIC and eFestival Independent Book Award finalist first novel, What Hides Within, to his widely applauded police procedural/supernatural thriller, Seeing Evil, to his fast and furious sci-fi horror, The Apocalypse Strain, Jason’s work has won him praise from both critics and fans of diverse genres alike. He currently lives in Massachusetts, surrounded by chewed furniture thanks to his corgi and mini Aussie pups.

Author Website
Facebook
Twitter

I also reviewed another excellent collection by Jason back in 2016, Wrathbone and Other Stories.
Check out that review here.

This post is a part of Something Wicked Fall.