We’re interrupting our previously scheduled horror novel summary to bring you a special weekend series of blogs presenting the 2008 Stoker Award Nominations.
Remember, if you are interested in any of the books below, click the mouse on the book cover to order it from an online bookseller.
The nominations for this year’s Stoker Awards are out and the Active members of the Horror Writers Association are reading the nominated works and considering their votes. The awards are not for “the best of” but for “superior achievement in”. This means two things: 1.) There can be and occasionally are ties in a category. 2.) There can be times when there are no winners in a particular category.
Today we’ll look at the first two category of awards: Novels and First Novels.
Superior Achievement in a Novel
 Coffin County  |
Coffin CountyAuthor: Braunbeck, Gary A. |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel The small town of Cedar Hill is no stranger to tragedy and terror. Nearly two centuries ago, when the area was first settled, a gruesome mass murder baptized the town with blood. More recently there was the Great Fire, the notorious night the casket factory burned down, taking an entire neighborhood with it. But no one in Cedar Hill can be prepared for what is to come — shocking murders that grow more horrendous with each victim, and a trail of taunting clues that point to the past . . . and to an old, abandoned graveyard. |
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 The Reach  |
The ReachAuthor: Kenyon, Nate |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel Young Sarah is no ordinary girl. She’s been diagnosed as schizophrenic and locked away in a children’s psychiatric ward. But that’s not what makes her special. She also has a very strange — and powerful — gift. Scientists have been studying Sarah’s remarkable psychic power for years, enhancing it, manipulating it . . . twisting it into something evil. But their plans have gone horribly wrong. How much longer can they control Sarah? And what will happen if her powers are unleashed? |
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 Duma Key  |
Duma Key: A NovelAuthor: King, Stephen |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through . . . A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle’s right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn’t survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a “geographic cure,” a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. “Edgar, does anything make you happy?” “I used to sketch.” “Take it up again. You need hedges . . . hedges against the night.” Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth’s past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural — Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying. |
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 Johnny Gruesome |
Johnny GruesomeAuthor: Lamberson, Gregory |
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 Johnny Gruesome  |
Johnny GruesomeAuthor: Lamberson, Gregory |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel Johnny Grissom — nicknamed “Johnny Gruesome” by his high school classmates — is a heavy metal hellion who loves to party, watch horror movies, and get into fights. One winter night, Johnny’s car, The Death Mobile, is discovered submerged beneath the icy surface of Willow Creek, with Johnny’s waterlogged corpse inside. The townspeople believe that his death was accidental. But soon the murders begin—horrible acts of violent vengeance that hint at a deepening mystery and terror yet to come. A headless body is discovered at the high school, a priest is forced to confront his own misdeeds, and a mortician encounters the impossible. The sound of a car engine and maniacal laughter fill the night, and one by one, Johnny’s enemies meet a grisly demise. The students at Red Hill High School begin to fear for their lives—especially Johnny’s closest friends, who all harbor a dark secret. |
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Superior Achievement in a First Novel
 Midnight on Mourn Street |
Midnight on Mourn StreetAuthor: Conlon, Christopher |
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Midnight on Mourn Street  |
Midnight on Mourn StreetAuthor: Conlon, Christopher |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Reed Waters is the sort of middle-aged man few people notice. He’s quiet, polite, solitary. He doesn’t call attention to himself. Ever. Reed Waters has a secret. Mauri Dyson is a teenaged runaway, impetuous and explosive. She lies, she steals, she prostitutes herself. Whatever it takes to survive. Mauri Dyson, too, has a secret. When Mauri bursts into Reed’s life one rain-soaked night she sets in motion a series of events that will spiral out of control, taking the two of them through tears and terror to the brink of madness . . . and a confrontation that will change them both forever. |
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 The Gentling Box  |
The Gentling BoxAuthor: Mannetti, Lisa |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel The philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment create sweeping changes throughout 19th Century Europe, but to Hungary’s despised nomads, the gypsies, the world is still a dark and very dangerous landscape. Adversaries both mortal and supernatural lurk in the shadows, waiting to strike without mercy. Imre, a half-gypsy horse trader, understands the danger to his small family all too well. Cursed with a hideously-disfiguring and fatal disease by the vengeful sorceress Anyeta, he watches those around him suffer and fall. Mimi, his wife, who is tricked into cutting off her own arm to create a powerful talisman. His friend Constantin, struck mute by Anyeta’s wrath. And Lenore, his and Mimi’s young daughter, who has been placed in the greatest jeopardy of all. With his health deteriorating and death imminent, his wife possessed by the witch’s ghost and Lenore being groomed for a fate far worse than death, Imre turns to desperate measures — and a hellish memory from his childhood — to still the sorceress and end her reign of bloodshed. A presence even more powerful and terrifying to him than Anyeta: the gentling box. The Gentling Box is the terrifying debut novel of horror writer, Lisa Mannetti. |
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 Monster behind the Wheel |
Monster behind the WheelAuthor: McLaughlin, Mark and McCarty, Michael |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel As a child, young Texan Jeremy Carmichael fell from a Ferris wheel at a carnival. He landed on a beautiful young woman and his fall was broken. Unfortunately, so was the woman’s spine. Years later, Jeremy is injured in a car accident while delivering pizzas. The accident opens the gates between the worlds of the living and the dead, awakening a malevolent supernatural presence — the spirit of cruel Frank Edmonson. Frank had been the policeman who’d arrived at the scene of the carnival accident, years earlier. The woman who’d died had been Frank’s lover. Frank wants revenge on Jeremy and wishes to re-enter the world of the living by taking over the young man’s body. Jeremy finds himself visiting the realm of the dead in dreams and visions. But is that Frank’s doing, or is there another reason . . . ? In his dreams, Jeremy is repeatedly drawn to the River of Time, which flows through the land of the dead. Frank has a cunning master plan which involves a sleek, deadly muscle-car called Monster. Frank uses the car to gain control over Jeremy’s life. But what Frank doesn’t know is that Jeremy isn’t your average pizza delivery boy. . . . Soon all Hell breaks loose — literally. This novel is a surreal helter-skelter ride of thrills, humor, lust, gut-wrenching horror, and cosmic awe. |
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 The Suicide Collectors  |
The Suicide CollectorsAuthor: Oppegaard, David |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel The Despair has plagued the earth for five years. Most of the world’s population has inexplicably died by its own hand, and the few survivors struggle to remain alive. A mysterious, shadowy group called the Collectors has emerged, inevitably appearing to remove the bodies of the dead. But in the crumbling state of Florida, a man named Norman takes an unprecedented stand against the Collectors, propelling him on a journey across North America. It’s rumored a scientist in Seattle is working on a cure for the Despair, but in a world ruled by death, it won’t be easy to get there. |
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 Frozen Blood  |
Frozen BloodAuthor: Sutherland, Joel A. |
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Nominated for the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel As Tara Stewart drives through the dark, winter night, from Charlotte to Ottawa, she’s haunted by ghosts from her past. Summoned to her abusive father’s funeral, she hasn’t been home, or spoken to her family, in years. The last place she wants to be is in the company of her vindictive twin sister, Evelyn, and her brother-in-law, Peter. The hail begins to fall. Thanks to treacherous road conditions, she barely makes it to her destination. Upon arriving, she falls on the icy driveway, slamming her knee into concrete and compact snow. Evelyn and Peter pull her inside, just as she is losing consciousness. Outside, the hailstorm still rages. Reports on the news suggest it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Globally, resulting damage and death is reaching catastrophic levels. Now a prisoner in her father’s old mansion, stuck with her estranged twin and brother-in-law, Tara must try to survive the worst storm in modern history. She soon discovers the storm is not her only enemy. Her family — and the house itself — seem intent on her destruction. Can she survive the undying hailstorm, and whispered threats from her ghosts, who swear the end is near? |
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The 2008 Stoker Nominations Series:
Part 1 — Superior Achievement in a Novel and First Novel
Part 2 — Superior Achievement in Long Fiction and Short Fiction
Part 3 — Superior Achievement in an Anthology and a Collection
Part 4 — Superior Achievement in Nonfiction and Poetry
Part 5 — Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement and other awards
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