FAVORITE DARK FANTASY/HORROR BOOKS OF 2021

You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

A mystery about a writer who narrates her imagined or not relationship with the faeries amidst an insidiously abusive upbringing. Loved it because this is some of the best and creepiest depictions of faeries I've read in a while.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Four young Indigenous men pay for an elk hunt gone horribly wrong as the spirit of a young mother elk twists up into a diabolical and malevolent entity that stalks the men and destroys them by using their own weaknesses against them. Terrifying and heartrending.

Bunny by Mona Awad

A dark academia of sorts. A young woman is menaced by a click of cuddlecore girls at a small and fancy college. The first half of the story is a WTF nightmare. The second half is poignant and beautiful.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

A Romeo and Juliet theme set in 1920s Shanghai? Genius. Starring a ruthless Juliet and a gangster Romeo, the story also features a gruesome monster straight out of Lovecraft.

White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

A haunted house book about legacy. A young woman and her twin brother live in a house infected by their ancestors, a house that becomes particularly unfriendly to anyone who isn't white. There is a bone-chilling mannequin scene and apparitions that made my skin crawl.

Black Light by Elizabeth Hand

I recently re-read this dark fantasy about a girl who ends up confronting a dark version of the Greek god Dionysius in the persona of  one of her actress mom's infamous friends. Like her story The Erl King, this one is eerie and lushly entertaining.

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

Set in contemporary Ireland, this is a tale about a family who are prone to strange accidents at a certain time of the year as the teenage protagonist tries to figure out the mystery of a strange, forgotten girl who keeps showing up in photographs.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

This author excels at anti-heroines and Elizabeth is no exception. She is an orphan who is selfish and desperate, forges a grotesque alliance with the ruthless (and psychotic) son of the Frankenstein family.

White Fox by Sara Faring

Set on a contemporary but fictional island, this story is about twin sisters, daughters of privilege, who seek to discover what happened to their missing mother, an actress with a mysterious and possibly supernatural origin. 

GodChild by Kaori Yuki

This is a manga, set in Victorian England, about a cold-hearted young man who solves occult mysteries and his mysterious butler/bodyguard. The hero's nemesis is his older brother and this manga is seriously Gothic.

THE STRANGE MYTHOLOGY OF BEARS

Arctolatry-bear worship

Bears may have been the first animals worshiped in the Paleolithic era, as evidenced by ocher-painted bear skulls arranged in Neandertal shrines, signifying the oldest human/animal relationship. If you've ever seen a brown bear walking upright, it's uncannily human-like in its stride. Bears were terrifying and shamanic figures in prehistoric times. They appear in numerous guises as gods, in fairy tales as heroes. In American Indigenous folklore, they are the king of the beasts, wise and moral. Inuit hunters learned patience from the polar bear, Tuurngasuk, the Great Spirit who devours the shaman and returns him whole and powerful and ready to aid his people.

In Ainu myth, bears are sacred. A young bear is captured and treated like a king for a year, before being sacrificed. In Korea, Ungnyeo is a bear who wanted to be human and was made so by a god. In Hindu mythology, Jambavana is the king of bears, created to assist the god Brahma.

There are many bear goddesses throughout the world. Dea Arturio is the Celtic bear goddess. The bear is the sacred animal of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. In Greece, young girls would wear bear masks and act predatory in order to honor Artemis. The bear was also Ursa Major, the constellation, to the Greeks, named after the huntress Callisto, who was cursed into bear form by a jealous Zeus. In many ancient cultures, the bear is considered a Mother, a deity of resurrection and birth, of protection.

Ildiko is a Hungarian bear goddess. Mielikki is Finnish, and both are associated with forests. In Finnish folklore, bears seek to reincarnate through women, so women must keep away from a bear's funeral feast. The bear, the king of the forest, was never called by name, but referenced through euphemisms such as The Honey Eater, Golden Light Foot, The Fur Robed Forest Friend. Norse berserkers wore only bearskins into battle because the bear was sacred to Odin.

In fairy tales,, bears are creatures of wisdom and savagery. In East of the Sun, West of the Moon, the bear befriends two sisters and helps them on their quests. Eventually it is revealed he is a cursed human. When one of the sisters falls in love with him, he transforms into a man. Goldilocks and the Three Bears is about a girl who colonizes the house of three bears and has the nerve to complain about everything.

In Fiction, Phillip Pullman's Iorek Byrnison is a standout, a polar bear in The Golden Compass who is a scarred, alcoholic warrior. /Who doesn't love Baloo, the mentor, from The Jungle Book? There is Bluebear from Walter Moers The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear. Katherine Arden's The Bear and The Nightingale has Medved, the evil bear. On a gentler note, we have the intrepid immigrant Paddington Bear. And, of course Winnie-the-Pooh. 

Bears have been revered by many cultures throughout history, and mostly as a mother. They are the true queen of the beasts.

TIME OF THE DARK BY BARBARA HAMBLY

 

THE TIME OF THE DARK series, published in 1981, is one of my favorite fantasy series. Here's why:

Gil, a student of Medieval history, dreams of a strange world haunted by monstrous, shifting creatures called The Dark. She also dreams of the prince and the wizard trying to save this dream kingdom. When the wizard shows up in her kitchen one night, Gil--along with a motorbike-riding young man named Rudy--are dragged into a world in which they quickly need to learn how to survive, with swords and magic. It sounds cliche, but Hambly creates such fantastic, realistic characters, while vividly painting a world you could believe she visited. The devil's in the exquisite details. It's a dark, gorgeous,and intensely human story. Gil and Rudy's journeys are harrowing--he becomes an apprentice wizard and she becomes a soldier, nascent abilities made irrelevant in their modern lives--but they also find family in this terrifying and beautiful world.

THE CHARACTERS make the story. Ingold is the wizard, an old war veteran turned magic user who was a red-headed troublemaker in his youth. Minalde is the young queen and mother of the kingdom's infant heir and she's a Snow White who has to transform into a ruler, fast. Alwir, handsome and raven-haired, a warrior and an aristocrat, is her older brother and becomes a memorable villain. Ice Falcon is a cold-hearted young soldier from the White Raiders,a nomadic people who terrorize the borders.

AUTHOR'S HISTORY: Hambly has a Masters in Medieval History and it shows. She's also written about a band of mercenaries and a group of wizards, set in the same world, as well as a separate series about a free man of color who solves mysteries and another series about Victorian vampires.

WHY I LOVE IT: The interesting characters, pungent details, and tense plot.

FAV SCENES:

When Gil discovers Ingold the wizard sitting in her kitchen and offers him a beer, which he graciously accepts, figuring out how to open the can.

Rudy, learning how to control his latent magical abilities, tries to hide from the White Raiders by appearing as a dung beetle. The White Raiders instantly spot him, and, later, Ingold asks Rudy when has he ever seen a dung beetle in that world.

If you're looking for something to replace Game of Thrones, this rich, dark, portal fantasy is for you.

WHY IT'S SO GOOD TO BE BAD: WRITING THE FEMALE ANTIHERO

'Trickster dwells in the realm of shadow, but perhaps that is for our salvation.' C.G. Jung 

The antihero. The trickster. Why are they so appealing? They toe the line between good and bad, but never commit any atrocities that would turn them into the villain. The outcome for them is usually redemption--but not always--and victories come at a cost that's bittersweet. Antiheroes aren't the White Hats, the knights in shining armor. They surprise and delight and sometimes disappoint in delicious ways. They're spiky, unreliable, always have a trick up their sleeve, and we never know what direction they're going to take. The female antihero isn't afraid to walk in the shadows, to do what must be done, and never considers herself to be the hero. She likes that she can be bad and people expect it of her. Or she's flawed and has no desire to be perfect. Being morally ambiguous, she can surprise us. Antiheroines have been dismissed as Bad Girls, but they're more than that. They're not heroes by any means, and would scorn being called one. They aren't in the story for the glory--they're in it for the mayhem. But, occasionally, instead of spiraling towards self-destruction, these ladies can rocket into a crazy noble orbit.

Antiheroism used to seem solely a male domain, but folklore and mythology are peppered with female tricksters: Morgan le Fay, Circe, Lilith, Kali, Hecate, The Morrigan, the Kumiho. And it seems female tricksters are a lot scarier than their male counterparts. These ladies control dark magic and the elements of night or nature. They rule in the world of tempests and moonlight and are often associated with death.

Classic literature brought another Renaissance of trickster girls. The most infamous are Becky Sharp in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair; Emma Bovary in Madame Bovary; Catherine Earnshaw from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights; Emma Woodhouse from Emma by Jane Austen; Estella Havisham from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. They are all young, supremely selfish, and devious. The characters who encounter them often regret doing so. But these ladies are fighting against the limitations of their eras, when women were considered useless and frivolous. They aren't going to settle for what society demands.

Some of my favorite antiheroes in books and film:

    

    Harley Quinn (DC Comics)

    Villanelle (Killing Eve)

    Faith Lehane (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

    Beth Harmon (The Queen's Gambit)

    Lada Dragwyla (And I Darken by Kiersten White)

    Jude Duarte (The Cruel Prince by Holly Black)

                                         Jame Kencyr (Godstalk by P.C. Hodgell)

   

 Mia Corvere (NeverNight by Jay Kristoff)

  Morgaine (The Book of Morgaine by C.J. Cherryh)

  Miranda (Maledicte by Lane Robins)

We need more female antiheroes, more tricksters from people of color, women and girls whose venture into chaos shakes things up. Who are your favorites?

HOW TO KEEP YOUR SANITY AS A WRITER

Here are a few things that help me to avoid the depths of despair:

NEVER forget why you write: Because you LOVE it.

INSPIRATION. This is the driving force. What gave you the IDEA? Another book? Pinterest images? Films? TV series? A song? Revisit what inspired you. For me, my inspiring idea usually becomes the book's THEME.

IMAGINATION. You have to feed your brain dragon. As above--books, films, TV series, magazines, music.

READ. Read writers you love so that you REMEMBER WHY you love to write. But also read books outside your comfort zone. Expand your interests. There are compelling non-fiction books. There are exquisitely realistic fiction books.

BLOGS. Visit blogs about writing for strategy. Visit author blogs for advice.

SELF-PUBLISH. Remember self-publishing and small presses are an option. Make sure you invest in the two most important aspects of your book--a professional EDITOR and a gorgeous COVER. Then you need to invest in a marketing campaign.

FUTURE PROJECTS. always have a list of books you're looking forward to writing. This means you'll finish the story you began and you'll already have a few plot lines and characters for future fun.

SUPPORT. Connect to other writers via social media or writing groups.

TAKE A BREAK. Take a nap. Take a walk. Get some tasks done. Get away from the story so that you can THINK about the story.

JOURNAL. Keep a journal of future ideas. This keeps your creative fires burning. Write down everything. Cool character names. Weird little sentences. Fabulous words. Gorgeous descriptions.

That's it! Happy writing:)

YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWN: WRITING A QUEEN

 

Real queens' lives were chained to womanly duties and a future hinged on producing a male heir. So, writers of fictional queens probably don't want to follow the real-life rule book. Here are ten things a bad-ass queen does:

1.POLITICAL NAVIGATOR: Diplomacy. Monarchs deal with ambassadors and emissaries from other lands, as well as local leaders, guild lords, and the common people.

2.COMMANDER OF ARMED FORCES: She doesn't have to actually lead an army into battle, but she should know tactics, geography, strategies. Keep in mind she'll also have fleets, whether on the sea or in the air. (You know, airships).

3.PROTECTOR OF THE PEOPLE: She's the one in charge of disputes, local and foreign. Her word is law, unless she has a body of fellow politicians to advise her. Or keep her in check.

4.HEAD OF STATE: The Law. The queen decides who goes to prison. Who is executed or released. What laws are passed.

5.MISTRESS OF SPIES: The spymaster should report to her. Your queen can also be a conniving force if she is wed to a king and mingles with other royals, which brings us to . . .

6.SOCIAL BUTTERFLY: She'll attend events that will solidify alliances. Balls and celebrations. She'll circulate only with those she's interested in. She can love this role or dread it.

7.SPIRITUAL FIGUREHEAD: Whatever religion is most prevalent in the realm--that'll be hers. She should be attending church/stepping into temples/performing rituals in the forest. She doesn't need to keep her spirituality a secret unless you want her to.

8.FASHIONISTA: She'll be inspiring fashions. So will her companions. Even kings are considered fashion plates, with the court echoing their rulers' wardrobes.

9.MISTRESS OF THE HOUSEHOLD: Mostly, your queen will be in charge of the staff who run the staff. But she'll know where all the secret places are, the hidden passages, concealed rooms, and oubliettes.

10.SPORTSWOMAN: Horseback riding, croquet, tennis, hunting. Whatever gets a queen out of the castle.

So give your fictional queen her duties. Present her with obstacles and goals that will enrich her character and drive the plot.

10 DYNAMICS OF CHARACTER

 

I find these 10 rules helpful when I'm creating characters. Even if I don't use half the stuff that I journal, having these little bits and pieces helps with plot development, as well as character development.

1.HOBBIES: What does you character like to do in their idle time? Study butterflies? Play Scrabble? Listen to obscure music? Collect mouse skeletons? 

2.HISTORY: Scatter a few memories throughout. Preferably significant memories that made your character who they are. Landmarks that shaped them. Did her mom teach her how to use a Polaroid and now she's a photographer? Did he once run over a toad with his bicycle? On purpose? Accident? If, on purpose, he's a budding serial killer. If, by accident, maybe he becomes a herpetologist. Did she witness something terrible near a row of lilacs and now the fragrance of lilacs sends her into a downward spiral? 

3.HABITS: Gestures and dialogue. Does he use a certain slang? Does she scratch her nose when she's laying? Does he crochet while he's thinking over a case he's trying to solve? Give your character at least one habit out of type (but not too many, or they'll appear twitchy.)

4.DESIRES: What the character wants. What do they yearn for? Does she want a beautiful cottage by the ocean? Does he want to rule a kingdom on Mars? Does she dream of becoming an author of a mythical atlas? It has to be something that will change their lives. Something they're willing to sacrifice everything for.

5.ACTIONS: Is your character a hero or a villain? A trickster or an anti-hero? What path do you want this character to follow? Succeed or fail? Be solitary or have friends? His actions must always strive toward your ultimate goal for this character. She has to take action in every scene she's in. This ishow she carries the story, how she swims forward against the obstacles flung at her. She has to cross that bridge of teeth. He has to steal that rare book written by his grandfather.

6.LIKES: What are your character's favorite things? Mint jelly? Men in powdered wigs? Charlotte's Web? Peacock blue lipstick? Give them likes and dislikes.

7.ECCENTRICITIES: Strange habits, weird thoughts, odd things that have happened to your character throughout their history. He only reads leather bound books. She picks her teeth with peacock quills.

8.SECRETS: Everyone loves a good secret. It doesn't always have to be a tragic one. But a character's secret can result in a grand betrayal or an unexpected alliance. He lived in a haunted house when he was young. She grows poison plants. He's a doppelganger searching for his missing original.

9.OBJECTS/CLOTHING: What they own. What they like to wear. Set decoration. A Margaret Keane painting of one of those big-eyed kids. A maple leaf with a name inked on it in gold. A corset embroidered with blue doves. A naga-handled kris dagger.

10.FAMILY/FRIENDS: The people who surround your character. Your character's support system. These can be actual family and found family, who are usually friends. They can follow the roles of advisors, allies, adversaries, troublemakers, comrades-in-arms, sibling substitutes, parent substitutes, etc; These are the people who reflect your character's strengths and weaknesses.