The Grimoire: 13 Spine-tingling Titles for Halloween 2022

There’s nothing like a scary story told in the dark. So with longer nights and the approach of the spookiest day of the year, Staff Writer Jen Rawlinson recommends these creepy tales that will have you sleeping with all the lights on.

Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry

edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli

October 2022

“The fiction and poetry of Queer Little Nightmares reimagines monsters old and new through a queer lens, subverting the horror gaze to celebrate ideas and identities canonically feared in monster lit. Throughout history, monsters have appeared in popular culture as stand-ins for the non-conforming, the marginalized of society. Pushed into the shadows as objects of fear, revulsion, and hostility, these characters have long conjured fascination and self-identification in the LGBTQ+ community, and over time, monsters have become queer icons.

In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems - the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past - relish their new sparkle in the spotlight. Pushing against tropes that have historically been used to demonize, the queer creators of this collection instead ask: What does it mean to be (and to love) a monster?

Contributors include Amber Dawn, David Demchuk, Hiromi Goto, jaye simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, Matthew J. Trafford, and Kai Cheng Thom.”

Motherthing

by Ainslie Hogarth

September 2022

“A darkly funny take on mothers and daughters, about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give – to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different ways: Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura’s hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…”

Sing, Nightingale

by Marie-Hélène Poitras

February 2023

“Peter Greenaway meets Angela Carter: a Gothic tale of secrets and revenge

Beneath the bright sky of Noirax lies a long tradition of secrets. Generations of men on the Malmaison estate have fathered countless children, both legitimate and not. The women all meet tragic ends or live in the shadows of the estate, and the illegitimate offspring are cared for by nursemaids or sent off to orphanages.

Right now the estate is quiet. But the son is returning home, and the father, worried that the land has been less generous with its sumptuous offerings, decides to bring in a whisperer to make the plants and animals grow. But this whisperer awakens the past. The generations of silenced women will begin to make their voices heard, and the violence lurking under the lush perfumes of the forest will make itself known. The hunters will be hunted and the wolves will howl an announcement of a new reign.”

Careful What You Wish For

by Mahtab Narsimhan

August 2022

“A lonely teen discovers a website that grants wishes.

Eshana is a bit of a social misfit. She feels more comfortable talking to people online than in person. One day she discovers a website that claims to be a safe space where young people can support each other in making their dreams come true. She starts talking with someone called Wise One. They hit it off immediately. Eshana admits to the Wise One how hard it is for her to make friends. The next day she goes to school and suddenly everyone wants to talk to her. Eshana is thrilled. But then, after telling Wise One about a girl who has been bullying her, she hears that the girl has been injured in a car accident. Are Eshana’s wishes really coming true? If so, is having the life she’s always wanted worth the costs?”

*The Strange Case of Mikey Dunbar and Other Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants.* Jeremy John. Dundurn Press. $20.00, 168 pp., ISBN: 9781459751071

The Strange Grave of Mikey Dunbar and Other Stories to Make You Poop Your Pants

By Jeremy John

October 2022

“A creepy collection of spooky short stories perfect for reading out loud any time you want the fun of a good fright.

Boo! See, scared you already. This collection of short, spooky stories is perfect for reading out loud on Halloween night, at a sleepover, or around the campfire. Jeremy John takes you on a frightening trip to the past, where Wild West criminals meet the hangman and brave knights battle monsters in the forest, through to today, where young vampires find victims through dating apps and spirits possess smart speakers.

Turn out the lights, grab a flashlight, hide under the blankets, and enjoy the fun frights of ghosts who feed on trick-or-treating kids, a pumpkin patch that hides a terrible secret, and who – or what – is buried in the grave of Mikey Dunbar.”

The Other Ones

by Jamesie Fournier, illus. by Toma Feizo Gas

October 2022

“In ‘The Net,’ a girl and her mother arrive at their secluded cabin on a frozen lake to find their fishing net has been attacked, a massive hole ripped through the middle. After the net has been mended and the night's catch eaten, the daughter sits awake playing with a bit of leftover netting string. When she was a girl, her grandmother taught her to make string figures – just as her mother had taught her – a game played by Inuit for generations, but a game not to be taken lightly … as the daughter plays late into the night, and the mother sleeps, other monstrous forces are soon awakened from beneath the frozen lake.

In "Before Dawn" a young boy runs out onto the tundra to play with his new friend by his side, venturing far beyond his mother's rule that he not stray past the inuksuk on the horizon. The boy's friend beckons him farther and farther, and the farther they get from home, the more the friend seems to change … until he is no longer human at all. Horrified, the boy listens to the creature's proposition: return home before dawn, or be lost forever to the other side …

Complemented by haunting illustrations from Toma Feizo Gas, The Other Ones is a fresh take on modern horror by an exciting new Inuit voice.”

Possessed: A Novel

By Jowita Bydlowska

October 2022

“From the bestselling author of Drunk Mom, comes a story of romantic obsession, mental illness, and self-discovery as one woman travels to a haunted quarantine island.

Josephine is obsessed. Or possessed – by unrequited love for a younger man who doesn’t promise anything, but who gives her a taste of intimacy that puts her on the brink of losing her mind. Oscillating between her elusive lover and her older former partner, stuck in the hell that is working in a cubicle, and obliged to tend to her destructive, senile mother, Josephine is trapped.

After a work assignment promises to deliver distraction, Josephine makes a decision to visit a former quarantine island in the Adriatic Sea, where she meets an enigmatic, beautiful man with a haunting story. Intimate and erotic, Possessed is a dark and funny story exploring sexual obsession, mental illness, and the supernatural.”

Silencing Rebecca

by Nikki Vogel

August 2022

“In this genre-bending debut YA novel combining elements of horror, magic realism, and realistic fiction, Rebecca Waldmann’s sheltered life as an Orthodox Jewish teen in Toronto is shattered when her father moves them to Edmonton, where she is plunged into the worldly life of a public high school. Ordinary teenage angst is complicated by Rebecca’s lack of experience with a culture of wearing cool clothes, swearing, talking back to teachers, and other aspects of secular teen life. Things take a darker turn when Rebecca encounters antisemitism and discovers a secret about the long-ago death of her mother that her father has been hiding from her. Rebecca doesn’t just defy the strictures of her ultraorthodox religion by wearing tight jeans and flirting with a non-Jewish boy. She discovers to her horror that she has undergone a change that makes puberty look easy – she’s been transformed into a golem! When this mythical clay creature from Jewish folklore takes her over, body and soul, she’s helpless to resist – or almost. Is it because she’s so furious with her father, is that why she is sometimes a girl with a cute boyfriend, and sometimes a very earthy, ugly monster?”

Eve's Rib

by C.S. O'Cinneide

September 2022

“After losing her young son in a tragic accident, Eve struggles to protect the one child she has left, a teenage daughter who just might be pure evil.

The dark side of magic is where the Ragman dwells. Nobody knows that better than Eve. Desperate for a child, she called on that cunning conjurer eighteen years ago. Her daughter, Abbey, was the result.

After Abbey’s younger brother dies in a fall, Eve fears the worst about her daughter. Five years later, she still battles her guilt and grief over what happened the day she lost her son. Her husband, Richard, doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know the truth about Abbey; and besides, he has secrets of his own to keep.

But when terrible things begin to happen to those who get in Abbey’s way, Eve must overcome her own pain and loss and find the strength to deal with what she fears most – a teenage daughter she can no longer control and a past that could come back to haunt her in the most monstrous of ways.”

Tear

by Erica McKeen

September 2022

“A reclamation of female rage and a horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman.

Frances is quiet and reclusive, so much so that her upstairs roommates sometimes forget she exists. Isolated in the basement, and on the brink of graduating from university, Frances herself starts to question the realities of her own existence. She can’t remember there being a lock on the door at the top of the basement stairs – and yet, when she turns the knob, the door won’t open. She can’t tell the difference between her childhood memories, which bloom like flowers in the dark basement, and her dreams. Worse still, she can’t ignore the very real tapping sound now coming – insistently, violently – threatening to break through her bedroom wall.

With the thematic considerations of Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson’s work, and in the style of Herta Müller and Daisy Johnson, Tear is both a horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman and a bristling reclamation of female rage. Blurring the real and the imagined, this lyric debut novel unflinchingly engages with contemporary feminist issues and explores the detrimental effects of false narratives, gaslighting, and manipulation on young women.”

Midnight Storm Moonless Sky

by Alex Soop

October 2022

“Blackfoot storyteller Alexander Soop plunges us into a shocking well of imagination in his debut collection of short stories, Midnight Storm Moonless Sky. From hauntings on the Highway of Tears to fearful gatherings of ghosts and the sorrows of racism, Soop combines the social anxieties of Indigenous life with spellbinding flights and frights of speculative fiction. Through these enthralling stories of reality mixed with terror, readers get a wicked glimpse into the genre of Indigenous Horror – a combination of First Nations legends, dark fantasy, apocalyptic and paranormal enchantment, and monstrous secrets. In addition to his hungering to scare the wits out of readers, Alexander Soop also examines the overlooked matters affecting First Nations across the diverse world of Turtle Island. Illustrations by Patricia Soop and Alex Soop.“

Black Dove

by Colin McAdam

September 2022

“In a tall and narrow house, on a stained and busy street, live twelve-year-old Oliver and his father, a story-loving writer. Haunted by the ghost of his alcoholic mother, Oliver finds comfort in his father’s impromptu tales: the Black Dove, an elusive flower that gives strength; the girl who consumes it as she battles attackers and yearns for happier realms. Stories where lonely souls keep searching despite their losses and grief.

Running from a bully one night, Oliver finds refuge in a junk shop owned by an enigmatic man. Soon, instead of hiding in the janitor’s closet after school, Oliver spends afternoons in the shop, a cavernous place full of storied oddities and grubby wonders where creatures rise up from the basement. A snake in the shape of a boy. A hunter named Night, part panther, part hound, who proves to Oliver that the world holds invisible wonder.

Wanting to forget his mother, afraid of his own genes, constantly harassed by bullies, Oliver decides to follow the shop-owner down the path of genetic editing. As he begins his transformation he meets the girl from across the street, and their friendship grows in a neighbourhood where magic is real, where murderers gather, and where the darker consequences of fantasies play out.

A twisting story of grief and revenge, Black Dove is a thrilling read with its own kind of magic. In rich but tightly reined prose, McAdam celebrates the value and shortfalls of storytelling, finding a light in all the darkness to conjure a tender portrait of childhood’s end.“

Seth's Christmas Ghost Stories

November 2022

*A Visit*. Shirley Jackson, Seth (illus.). Biblioasis. $9.50, ISBN: 9781771965095

“Margaret visits the lavish home of her friend Carla Rhodes for the summer holidays. But when Carla’s brother arrives with a mysterious friend, strange occurrences cause tensions to rise within the group, and secrets hidden within the house begin to emerge.”

*The Dead and the Countess*. Gertrude Atherton, Seth (illus.). Biblioasis. $9.50, ISBN: 9781771965071

“The dead sleep peacefully – until a railway is built near their cemetery. While the old priest works to keep them at rest, the count’s dying wife begs to be buried near the railway. But when her last wish is granted, the priest finds that the sound of the train leaves the countess far from at peace.”

*The Corner Shop*. Lady Asquith, Seth (illus.). Biblioasis. $9.50, ISBN: 9781771965088

“Peter Wood enters a charming antiques shop owned by two young women one stormy evening. But after he returns a second time to a strange old man and a far gloomier atmosphere, and leaves with an unusual jade frog, Peter soon discovers that his purchase was worth more than he paid.”

Columns, RoundupsDana HansenOctober 11, 2022Halloween, 2022, Fall 2022