Category: Book Reviews

2024: A Year of Writing

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2024 has been a funny old year for my writing. In fact, it’s been a year of so much upheaval and change that, looking back from the tail-end, I can’t believe it’s all happened in the space of twelve months. I look at my reading list and can’t believe I read The Goldfinch and books by Merisha Pessl and Katherine Min so recently. They feel like they belong to another chapter in my life. As does so much of my writing. Let me walk you through my 2024.

New Digs 2024

The Lady K and I made the decision to relocate early in 2024 and things moved at record speed – we moved from Brighton to Salisbury in April. I love Salisbury. I grew up on Salisbury Plain and I’m thrilled to be back. But there was a complication. We moved in April and the academic year finishes in July. I chose to teach at my Sussex-based school until the academic year was done. There were a few reasons. I didn’t want to have the extra pressure of joining a new school in the final term and I didn’t want extra change at a time of so much upheaval. Mostly, I really enjoyed my school and wanted to finish up properly with a class I’d really bonded with. Of course, for twelve weeks, I’d be living and working two hours apart.

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The Best Children’s Horror Books: Ten Chilling Reads for Young Readers

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Being both a teacher and a horrorhead, I was thrilled when my Year 5 class asked if I could recommend any children’s horror books to them. Well, these books from my personal collection offer just the right amount of creepiness to keep kids engaged. Let’s take a look at ten of the best horror books for children. Prepare to capture imaginations, send chills down spines and maybe even keep your kids up a little later than usual.

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Saltburn and the Gothic Tradition

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Okay, so Saltburn might not be as hot on everyone’s lips as it was when it dropped on Amazon just before Christmas, but I only just got to watching it because nobody told me it was a gothic film. A gothic film? If I’d known that, it would have earned an immediate Go-Straight-to-the-Top-of-my-Watchlist ticket without passing go. Unconvinced? Do the neon club scenes of the first five minutes have no place in the gothic canon? The almost-contemporary mid-00s setting? Ah, but what about the references to Shelley and Byron? What about that bloody scene on the garden bench, or that, ahem, penetrating scene on the fresh grave?

Let’s take a scalpel to Saltburn and see what tropes of the gothic tradition we can lay out on the slab.

Saltburn

In naming itself after an ancestral home, Saltburn joins itself with some familiar titles in the gothic tradition: Northanger Abbey, Gormenghast, Rawblood, Crimson Peak… It’s a kissing cousin to even more – The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udulpho, The Fall of the House of Usher – and joins Manderley and Bly Manor as the seat of a rich family and a corporeal symbol of their legacy. Like the aforementioned piles, naming the house makes Saltburn is a character in its own right: a warren of wealth standing above and untouched by the seductions and Machiavellian plots within it. It stands like a stone in a blood and tear-stained river.

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The 50 Best Horror Novels Ever

Liam Smith 1 Comment

Back in 2019, I assembled a list of the best horror novels ever. This was no mere copy-and-paste job from another website. I trawled all manner of sites and surveys, harvesting the names of those novels which kept on appearing. There were 42 novels on my conglomerate list and, three years later, I have read every one of them.

42 is such an awkward number, though (unless you’re a Douglas Adams fan). Wouldn’t it be great if there had been 50 novels that had kept appearing? 50 must-read horror novels. The 50 best horror novels ever. Well, having read the whole original list, and more besides, I feel qualified to fill in the gaps. Here are the real 50 best horror novels ever – 42 recommended by online horror communities and 8 of my personal recommendations.

Grab your cushions and steel your nerves. These really are the 50 best horror novels… ever.

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Reading and Writing Challenges in 2021

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We all know what kind of a year 2021 has been. And while 2020 was a tough one, we all felt like 2021 would be the light after that dark night. For many, it was just as rough, but I’m proud of holding my head above water and for achieving what I did this year. Now that I’m done mixing metaphors, I’ll give you the lowdown. Some of it’s personal stuff, but I beg your indulgence. – here’s a bit about my new novel too. Reading and writing challenges in 2021.

New Careers

In January of this year, I decided I wanted a career change. Not just any change either – I wanted to become a teacher. And the first time I said it aloud, I wondered why it had taken me this long to work it out. It was inevitable. In all my jobs, I’ve loved mentoring my colleagues. I’ve loved being part of training. And I’d never really gotten to grips with not having six weeks off in the summer.

I have the most supportive family in the world, and with their help and support (emotional, professional and financial) I went through all the applications and interviews required to start my PGCE. I’m now three months deep into my placement at primary school, and loving every minute. It’s hard work but I think I might have found the vocation that has eluded me thus far in my professional life. And speaking of family…

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