5 Horror Novels for Valentine’s Day
How One Horror Lover Celebrates
Anti-Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is not a holiday that I celebrate. Okay, I’ll take that back a little as I do buy gifts for my kids, but for myself, I’m not really into all the mushy stuff at any time of year.
I do, however enjoy what I call Anti-Valentine’s Day stories. These are dark, twisted tales that take place around the holiday or the theme of the holiday.
Some hark back to my younger years, while others are relatively new. Some are novels, some are short stories, but they all have romance as a theme, just not in the typical sense.
This book came out in 1993, the year I graduated from high school. I had never read a Stine book before, so decided to give this one a try. I found it enjoyable in a creepy sort of way.
It starts with three sisters and their friend going horseback riding where Rachel is thrown from her horse, experiences head trauma, and is left in a childlike state.
Her sister, Josie, refuses to have anything to do with caring for her, and when Valentine’s Day rolls around, leaves the youngest sister to take over the nursing role and heads out with her boyfriend.
Josie has made a lot of enemies with all the boys she has dumped and the people she has hurt. She begins receiving threatening Valentine’s notes with threats to kill her.
The book does a good job of keeping the reader off the scent of the perpetrator. There are a lot of plot difficulties, but as YA novel, I enjoyed it.
A grim book, but one with such intense imagery, this describes a Valentine’s Day decision gone terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old, Gloria Ramirez is a bit of a rebellious teen hanging outside a local fast food joint when Dale Strickland pulls up.
“Hey there, Valentine,” he drawls to Gloria who, in a moment of defiance, climbs into Dale’s truck.
The story then cuts to the next morning where Gloria comes to, far away from home, having been brutally assaulted.
Dale has passed out in the truck leaving Gloria’s damaged body out in the field where she clings to life. She manages to walk her broken body to the house of Mary Rose, arriving just before Dale shows up demanding that Gloria be handed over to him.
Mary Rose fends him off with her trusty rifle named “Old Lady” until the sheriff shows up. This was a hard one to read, but the story was told so well with great characters, some you’ll love and some you’ll hate. I highly recommend it if you can move past the triggers.
The Date by Mort Stone
Released in 2022, this short story is about Dean who is nervous to be going on a date with Lara Reed, the girl in school rumored to never date because her dad forbids it.
She asked him, though, and he is going to her house to meet her family beforehand. He meets the charming mother and the overbearing dad and brother.
Things certainly start off a little weird, but insanity really kicks in when Lara’s father next enters the living room. Dean goes running for his life and frantically searches for a way to survive. His only goal is to live through The Date.
This short story is a livewire. It gets going quite quickly with some clever before-scenes tucked into the story as it moves forward. The action is intense and brutal.
The tension grows as each scene unfolds. Moral of the story: Don’t mess with horror movie addicts. They’ve learned certain things.
Also released in 2022, I was first intrigued by the cover art, a beautiful cover that portrays exactly how this relationship is being reconstructed.
The story begins from the viewpoint of Terry, and her desperate journey to reanimate her soulmate, Drew, who died in a terrible accident. I really felt so horrible for Terry. Her mind had clearly cracked, and although her actions were abhorrent, I was really hoping she would get her happy ending.
However, once the story switches to Drew’s point of view, some new details emerge that reveal the truth behind this supposed happy couple. They are both fighting for Drew’s life by the end.
I loved the description of Terry throughout the story. Each time new details were revealed about her, physically or mentally, a clearer image of her true nature was exposed.
It was also pretty fascinating to be inside a reanimated mind and contemplate what would and would not function properly in such a state. Are the physical feelings being felt yours or the remnants of someone else’s life? Pretty thought-provoking.
This tale evoked Frankenstein’s feelings, with a psychologically disturbing dash of the 1985 movie, Re-Animator, and a smidge of 1998’s Practical Magic. It reads quickly but is also detailed and descriptive.
Micah Castle is a skilled storyteller taking the reader on a journey through the twists and turns of the story to a perfectly-fitting conclusion.
This is exactly as it sounds, literal snippets (over 50 of them), about Valentine’s Day. Each extremely short story revolves around the trappings of the holiday, but with a horror twist.
One favorite is actually the very first story of a married couple who find themselves separated when Jace is banished from the community.
Jace begs Evan to come, but Evan’s responds, “I want to live.” So, they meet periodically until, one day, Evan realizes his mistake.
Another favorite is the snippet titled Hearts and Flowers in which Victoria is the focus of romantic attention when her lover makes sure her boss will never ruin another Valentine’s Day.
Then there is the one of the husband and wife who hate each other, but are sentenced to an eternity together in Until Death Do Us Part. All the stories are incredibly short but full of detail.
It takes real skill to build up the tension, humor, and plot of a story in such few words. There are a lot of gifted authors featured with a variety of writing styles. This novel is an enjoyable read.
Reading News
I finished Maeve Fly by CJ Leede. Phew, what a ride! I am still working on Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and received another batch of advance books!
One, I am extremely excited about is not horror at all. It is by the author TJ Klune and called In the Lives of Puppets. This book will be released in April and is fantastic so far. I have read every Klune book. He is a masterful storyteller and hits all the feels in every story.
I would love to see one of his books hit the big screen, particularly Under the Whispering Door. What a fantastic film it would make.