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‘Goosebumps’ Inspired Book Series ‘Frightland’ Features Cover Art from Original ‘Goosebumps’ Illustrator

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Author Rob York (aka R.H. Grimly) is paying tribute to R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series with Frightland, a planned twelve-book middle-grade series that’s now funding on Kickstarter.

Grimly explains to Bloody Disgusting, “I’m a dad and author who grew up (as I’m sure you did) with books like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Goosebumps, and I want to pass my love of reading on to kids in the iPhone era. I have a scary series aimed at readers age 8-11 written as a homage to the books I enjoyed as a kid, which is now on Kickstarter.”

The first four books in the Frightland series have the following titles:

  • The Wildman of Shaggy Creek

Something lives in the woods behind Scott’s new house. It’s big, it’s hairy, and it smells worse than a dead skunk in the rain. When Scott accepts a dare to camp in the woods all night, Hailey is the only friend who will help him. But Scott doesn’t really believe in the creature lurking along Shaggy Creek—it’s just a story, right?

  • Why I Don’t Sleep on Feather Beds

Gavin and his sister Torrie aren’t thrilled to be staying at Great Aunt Ethel’s farm. It’s in the middle of nowhere, Aunt Ethel is a little weird, and Gavin is forced to sleep on an old, lumpy feather bed.  Then Gavin discovers something worse: the lumps are moving. Torrie thinks he’s just crazy—there’s no way something’s alive inside the mattress—until the lumps begin to hatch…

  • The Bones at the Bottom of the Lake

Fiery lights at night and a ghostly figure at the end of the dock are making Jacie’s stay at a summer cabin on the lake eerie enough. But when her younger brother Cal pulls bones from the water with his fishing pole and a strange girl named Chloe warns them to put it all back, Jacie starts to wonder what’s really hidden at the bottom of the lake.

  • Donut Shop of Doom

Something about the new donut shop and its seriously weird baker doesn’t sit right with Bridger.  When people start disappearing and a mysterious green light is seen in the back of the shop at night, it’s up to Bridger and his friend Sage to figure out what’s really going on before everyone is consumed by the deadly donut craze!

Grimly has even enlisted the help of original Goosebumps illustrator Tim Jacobus to draw up the artwork for The Wildman of Shaggy Creek, which you can check out down below.

The Kickstarter campaign is raising the funds for these first four books only at the moment, and the goal amount has already been passed. Head over there to learn more and pitch in!

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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‘The Angel of Indian Lake’ Book Review – Stephen Graham Jones Wraps Horror Lit’s Greatest Slasher Trilogy

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Angel of Indian Lake Slasher novel

With The Angel of Indian Lake, author Stephen Graham Jones tackles one of the most daunting tasks in horror: bringing a trilogy to a satisfying close. Making it even more challenging is that the final entry in Jones’ slasher trilogy endcaps two perfect entries in horror lit, with 2021’s My Heart is a Chainsaw recontextualizing the slasher formula and last year’s Don’t Fear the Reaper appropriately escalating the lore and carnage in a way that only an uber-slasher fan like Jones could.

It’s been four years since Jade Daniels stepped foot in Proofrock, Idaho. After saving the town once again and thwarting another deranged killer, Jade took the fall for her best friend and final girl, Letha. She already has a track record, after all, and Letha’s a family woman. Through Letha, Jade winds up in a place she least expected: teaching high school under the judging eyes of Proofrockers, who still blame Jade for not one but two waves of catastrophic slaughter. It doesn’t help that Jade’s return to town heralds a new reign of terror that threatens to destroy Proofrock for good. Between long-running grudges, serial killer cultists, mysterious disappearances, another wave of bizarre deaths, and that pesky Lake Witch, Jade’s return to Proofrock becomes a final stand for the town’s soul.

When the trilogy began, Jade was a troubled, lonely teen who clung to slashers like a life raft. She wore her encyclopedic knowledge of them like armor. But surviving two slashers herself, followed by two separate stints in prison and the stigma that followed, Jade returns to town a woman still navigating past traumas while trying to outgrow her adolescent defense mechanisms. But this is Proofrock, and that horror knowledge quickly proves to be necessary when one of her students goes missing, and the bodies start piling up from there. It helps that Jade’s best friend Letha won’t let her forget her horror roots or that she’s given Jade something to live for, especially where Letha’s daughter and final-girl-in-the-making Adie is concerned. While Jones’ extensive love of horror infuses every page, his heroine takes a bit to reacclimate, especially thanks to the horror she’s missed while serving time. 

The previous two novels have packed in quite a bit of supernatural and reality-based slasher terror and presented a robust suspect list from the outset. Moreover, two novels deep into Proofrock’s history and present means a lot of loose ends to tie up when it comes to its characters. Jones finds ways to deepen character arcs and flesh out Proofrock’s denizens further through nonstop horror action. Here, the red herrings can be as deadly and unhinged as the actual killer. Rampaging bears, forest fires, and supernatural happenings intercut the slasher carnage, and Jones finds creative ways to carve up an even bigger body count than before, complete with narrative twists and breezy, dialectical prose. It’s nonstop horror. Fans of the previous entries will know that’s saying a lot. Taboos get broken straightaway, and Jones continues his streak of killing his darlings; many of the deaths in this novel are devastating.

It’s impressive how Jones wields the horror as connective tissue, juggling so much Proofrock history and horror at once. But it pales in comparison to his final girl, Jade. Letha remains a force of nature, even more so considering her personal stakes here, but it’s Jade’s story. Now three novels deep, Jade has always struggled to see herself as a final girl. It’s a title she’s eager to bestow on women she deems worthy or more fitting of the archetypical role. As savvy and resilient as she is, Proofrock always had a way of blinding Jade to her own potential. The selfless way she’s saved the town over and over while taking all of the bodily damage and blowback with none of the credit is of course inherent to the final girls Jade loves so much. 

The Angel of Indian Lake’s greatest triumph isn’t its satisfying slasher mayhem but the way it proves that Jade was right all along. She’s a scrappy survivor, which by definition puts her in that coveted category of final girls. But she’s so much more than that. Jones closes the loop on so many facets of Proofrock and its characters, evolving Jade’s penchant to crown those she deems worthy of final girl status, reshaping the concept of a final girl in the process. Jade is more than just a final girl. She’s a symbolic mother of final girls, putting her life and body on the line to support others, arming them with the strength and knowledge to unleash their inner final girls. Proofrock has seen a copious amount of bloodshed over three novels, but thanks to Jade, an unprecedented number of final girls have risen to fight back in various ways. The way that The Angel of Indian Lake closes that loop is masterful, solidifying Jade Daniels’ poignant, profound legacy in the slasher realm.

Through Jade, Stephen Graham Jones delivers horror lit’s greatest slasher trilogy of all time.

The Angel of Indian Lake publishes on March 26, 2024.

4.5 out of 5 skulls

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