Guest post written by Dead Girls Walking author Sami Ellis
Sami Ellis is a queer horror writer from the Carolinas (bofa dem), and co-founder of the Write Team Mentorship Program. You can follow her @themoosef on Twitter, use her writing resource the Agent Adjacent Cheat Sheet, and check out her words in the upcoming Black horror anthology, All These Sunken Souls (2023) and in her debut novel Dead Girls Walking (2024).
Releasing on March 26th 2024, Dead Girls Walking is a shocking, spine-chilling YA horror slasher about a girl searching for her dead mother’s body at the summer camp that was once her serial killer father’s home—perfect for fans of Friday the 13th and White Smoke.
Reading Devolution by Max Brooks immediately after reading Near the Bone by Christina Henry entirely by accident, without really knowing what either book was about when I read them, was one of the best weeks I’ve ever had in my life. To everybody who hasn’t lived it, it may seem like it’s an obvious choice–two wintry Big Foot creature features by well-established authors, what’s not to like?
But it goes deeper than that. Two years ago, I was looking for fun time horror specifically. I blasted it out on twitter, and lucky me NYT Bestselling author of Blood Debts Terry J. Benton-Walker recommended I read Devolution by Max Brooks. Personalized recommendation by The Moment?
Me being me, immediately I did not read it (#wastehistime2022andbeyond).
I’ve got this chronic condition where I ask you what book I should read and then I ignore that suggestion for as long as I can.
However, one year later, I had this intense reading streak.
I was reading books left and right! I think that I was finally returning to that monster that I once was, that little girl that pulled into the Bladensburg Library parking lot and had the librarians closing the shutters and hitting the panic button. I ripped through 10 books in two weeks, and couldn’t get enough. And because I’d developed a catastrophic TBR from years of NOT reading, I knew just what to read each time. One of those books was…
Near the Bone by Christina Henry. I really wanted to get into Christina Henry’s recent releases, and I chose a great one to start on. Immediately, this book FUCKS. Intrigue, fear, characters you can get behind and tension that had me at the edge of my seat. It was one of the best reading experiences I’d had so far, and I was on a roll.
Five stars, easy.
I wanted to keep riding that high, and as luck would have it I had been avoiding my recommendation from The Moment. It almost seemed too perfect that Devolution by Max Brooks fit the vibe I was riding, a whole year later. At least by the cover, which had me “hmm”-ing about how it just might be my next read.
It was a coincidence that changed me.
I love novels with letters and excerpts and journal entries, I love a Bad Bitch at the helm, and I was fresh off a book hangover with Near the Bone so it felt like I’d given myself another puff of the stuff. This was life.
I started to wonder what other books would evoke this feeling. An aftershock of story, like if addiction was strictly for absolute dorks. There’s no turning back from that experience.
And now that I’m addicted, I’ve made it my life’s mission to convert others.
So, thank you for accepting my invitation to this introductory dinner. I know we haven’t talked since high school, but I’m different now and I think you can be different, too. Let me take you through the menu of horror double features that pair so well together you’ll add them to your charcuterie board.
Let’s dig in.
NEAR THE BONE BY CHRISTINA HENRY & DEVOLUTION BY MAX BROOKS
NATURE FUCKS BUT GIRLS GET IT DONE
Bigfoot. Women. Snow. That’s what this double feature is made of. While you can see the resemblance just from the pitches (adult horror Bigfoot creature features, duh), there are also thematic consistencies that really make the experience feel full and satisfying when you finish. Compassion between strangers, which you often find in survival stories. Strength in womanhood, not to be confused with Girls Can Do Anything. There’s also one of my favorite themes: these big dumb animals are not fucking around.
The only thing I’m not sure of at this moment is if order matters here – is it better to read the stress of Mattie’s life early in Near the Bone so that you can feel the release of Kate’s growth in Devolution afterward? Or feel the dread of Devolution ratchet up from one book to the next, like a frog in a gumbo pot?
Either way, choose this double feature on a day when you’re stir-crazy from a blizzard and need a thrill to get through the slog.
THE SCOURGE BETWEEN THE STARS BY NESS BROWN & DEAD SILENCE BY S.A. BARNES
YOU ARE NOT ALONE AND NOT IN A MICHAEL JACKSON WAY
This is another pair of books you can see relate in their pitches – two space horrors about something going wrong on an isolated ship. However, once again, it’s the themes that carry throughout that make this much more enjoyable. Leadership and meeting expectations, even when you don’t want to and protagonists that feel fear but tell that fear to kiss their ass.
I would recommend Scourge Between the Stars first. It’s a little bit denser than Dead Silence, much more rooted in Sci-Fi – but it’s shorter. It’s like an umami-bomb appetizer that balances out Dead Silence‘s horror-focused romp.
When you want nothing more than to relax underneath the stars with your definitely-charged Kindle and a campfire, this is the exact perfect pair for you.
BAD WITCH BURNING BY JESSICA LEWIS & DELICIOUS MONSTERS BY LISELLE SAMBURY
BAD BITCHES HAVE BAD DAYS TOO
Peace and love makes the world go round, but summa these bitches out here need to be put in their place. Bad Witch Burning and Delicious Monsters are both about teenaged Black girls with a lot to be mad about. And as the president of A Hateful Bitch fanclub, them my girls and I’mma stick beside them.
Curl up with some fucking revenge after your enemies spark your rage. Sometimes the bad guys are the shit that should get blown up, and these two books are not sorry about it.
I would read Delicious Monsters first with this one, as it’s a very slow start that ramps up to three-hundred whereas Bad Witch Burning slams its foot on the gas and keeps it there like it’s an unofficial sequel to Speed (Speed VI: Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems).
WHEN THE RECKONING COMES BY LATANYA MCQUEEN & RING SHOUT BY P. DJÈLÍ CLARK
BLAXPLOITATION BUT MAKE IT SPLATTERPUNK-LITE
Okay, I don’t like calling these two “splatterpunk-lite” because they’re both metal as fuck gore-fests, but I don’t want any genre purists to hate me for invoking the name of splatterpunk in vain. These two stories are toted around as Southern gothic, Southern horror, Southern etc., and I feel like those descriptors – while accurate – do not even begin to address where the story takes you.
Calling When the Reckoning Comes “Southern Gothic” is like saying Nightmare on Elm Street is Magical Realism.
“…okay,” Nene Leakes says.
Even though When the Reckoning Comes is a novel versus Ring Shout‘s novella, I think it should be read first. It’s just a taste of lore before you truly jump off the cliff into the deep end of Ring Shout. Both books toe the gore line harder than a lot of present-day horror (traditionally published, let’s be clear – indie and self-published horror has never met a disembowelment they didn’t want to include), and are the perfect duo to read for any of my people who were scheduled to work on Juneteenth.
THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD BY TIFFANY D. JACKSON & THE HONEYS BY RYAN LA SALA
HORROR FOR THE GIRLS THAT AREN’T GIRL’S GIRLS
Horror is no stranger to femme friendships, but rarely does genre fiction deeply engage with it. The idea that saying the wrong or right thing, being the wrong or right person, is a tightrope to walk even in the midst of the unspeakable happening around you. Themes of anger, acceptance are explored from intersectional lens while still delivering on the creepy, gory, and outrageous.
While these two are very alike, and almost obvious, this recommendation is specifically for their audiobooks. Listening to The Weight of Blood‘s full cast first, then ending on the atmospheric sounds of The Honeys is the perfect way to spend a cinematic Saturday – at 3x speed because we’re all gonna die someday. You get to feel the rage of Jackson’s Carrie-toned ending and then dive headfirst into the quiet rage of The Honey‘s opener.
Only the girl’s girls know that girls getting mad is a beautiful thing to witness.
YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE TONIGHT BY KALYNN BAYRON & DEAD GIRLS WALKING BY SAMI ELLIS with THE BLACKENING PLAYING IN THE DISTANCE
HORROR LOVING UNSERIOUSNESS FOR BLACK HORROR LOVERS
I have to end on myself – it’s, like, contractual (editor’s note: it is not). And while it’s hard for me to see myself objectively, I read a LOT of Black horror. There are quite a few of them I thought matched Dead Girls Walking‘s energy – one of glee in the gore and delight in the death.
There’s No Way I’d Die First, for example, is an exhilarating take on a horror lovers’ weekend gone wrong story. The Taking of Jake Livingston may be beautiful (and thus def not like me lmao), but it weaves themes of otherness with horror so intentionally much like Temple’s story in Dead Girls Walking.
If I just chose by theme, I’d never choose right.
So I went with tone.
You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight is witty, full of banter and teeming with heightened tense scenarios, gleefully horrific set-pieces, and splashy scenes of gore you can FEEL a smile behind. Both YA Horror novels are more than horror stories – they are horror odes, explicitly inspired by pioneers of the genre while also injecting a much needed dose of Black culture, Black conversations, and just plain stannage.
These books are written for a Brenda and a Preacher.
It’s for anyone who remembers the moment Bone Thugs N’ Harmony started playing in Fear Street 1666. For the ones who watched The Blackening and got exactly what they wanted. For any Black readers that finish a scene and go—“That was a good kill.” And I think, when read back-to-back, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight and Dead Girls Walking absolutely serve Mo’ Murder beat drop.
(author’s note: I, Sami Ellis, was in fact the editor that said it was not contractual to end on myself. I am sorry for the deception.)
