Episode 54: Best of 2019 with Rachel

It’s already the end of the year, and that means it’s time to reflect on what our favorites. I couldn’t think of a better person to have on this episode than our old co-host Rachel. We talk about not only our favorites, but what you the listeners have said were your standout books of the year.

“She reminded herself that she was wicked and depraved, and this allowed her to stomach her cruelty more easily.”

Christa Carmen, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked

Books Mentioned

Favorite Short Story Collection

• Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked by Christa Carmen
• Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters
• Dead of Winter by Kealan Patrick Burke

Favorite Anthology

• The Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror edited by Steven Toase and Coy Hall
• Fright Into Flight Edited by Amber Fallon
• Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery by Kelley Armstrong
• More Deadly Than the Male: Masterpieces from the Queens of Horror edited by Graeme Davis
• Haunted Nights edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton

Favorite 2019 Release

• The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz
• Osgood As Gone by Cooper S. Beckett
• Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
• Twelve Nights At Rotter House by J.W. Ocker
• The Institute by Stephen King
• Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
• The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo 
• Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill

Favorite Novella

• Rites of Extinction by Matt Serafini
• Stirring the Sheets by Chad Lutzke
• Come Closer by Sara Gran
• Gwendy’s Button Box by Richard Chizmar
• Husk by Rachel Autumn Deering
• Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke
• Jack and Jill by Kealan Patrick Burke
• The Pale White by Chad Lutzke
• I Call Upon Thee by Ania Ahlborn

Favorite Young Adult Novel

• The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White
• Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell

Favorite Non-Fiction

• Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession by Rachel Monroe
• Chase the Darkness with Me by Billy Jensen

Favorite Novel

• The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
• Pet Sematary by Stephen King
• Under the Skin by Michel Faber
• Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
• The Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
• A Place for Sinners by Aaron Dries
• Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
• Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Brother by Ania Ahlborn
• A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay