Katherine Harbour's Blog - Posts Tagged "urban-legend"

The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures
I love weird books on folklore. This book fits that category. Written by the host of the podcast Lore, it's filled with stories about the origins of monsters from antiquity and urban legend. Vampires, werewolves, the Jersey Devil, and hauntings are covered. Told with a skeptic's sense of a humor and a well-you-never-know detail, some of the tales are familiar, some I've never heard. Like the constable who came upon 100 vampire-hunting children in a 1950s Glasgow cemetery, or Detroit's sinister Red Dwarf, or a Youtube video of a Lithuanian hiker's encounter with a strange creature in a pool of water. I didn't want this book to end, it was so entertaining.

The Creeping
Sometimes YA horror scares me more than adult. And this was one of those.
Stella is a typical teen, but, in childhood, she survived a potential kidnapping while another girl did not. She has no memory of what took the other little girl, but she's haunted by it. She's the cool girl in town, her friends the stars of their galaxy. The friends are distinctive and beautifully drawn, including Sam, the geeky but handsome ex-best friend.
There's something in the woods, an urban legend that maybe some of the locals still believe in, a monster that devours children. Stella has a mystery on her hands and must remember what she and her friends encountered when they were children, before whatever took Stella comes for her again. If you liked Tana French's In The Woods, you'll love this terrifying mystery.