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October Daye / Inheritance - Essay Series Part Five: Long Series and How to Read Them

Hello Patrons and general audience members! Welcome to another Books That Burn essay by Robin. Thank you to Case Aiken, who receives a monthly Patron shoutout. [Full Audio Available Here] This is the fifth and final entry in a five-part essay series discussing two long-running book series by queer authors: October Daye by Seanan McGuire, and Inheritance by A.K. Faulkner. I chose these series because I love them both, they were intended from the start to be long series, neither of them are finished yet, and the authors have different structural approaches to developing each series across so many volumes. Purely coincidentally, they are both long-running contemporary fantasy series mainly set in California in or near the 2010's, with major characters named Quentin, and whose fast-healing protagonists have a tendency to quasi-adopt a gaggle of magical teenagers. After a brief moment in the 1990's, October Daye begins in earnest in 2009 and has reached 2015 as of the eighteenth boo...
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The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp

When Isabella died, her parents were determined to ensure her education wouldn't suffer.

But Isabella's parents had not informed her new governess of Isabella's... condition, and when Ms Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor.

Or is there...?

TITLE: The Atrocities
AUTHOR: Jeremy C. Shipp
PUBLISHER: St. Martins Press-3PL
YEAR: 2018
LENGTH: 112 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Horror
RECOMMENDED: Highly

Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

THE ATROCITIES is an engrossing bit of horror which deftly blends unreality and/or mental health issues of several characters to create an atmosphere where a supernatural explanation would almost be better than the alternatives. 

Having finished it, I'm now pretty sure I know what happened (and a specific explanation is offered which I found to be satisfying), but there's just enough wiggle room that I could see a very different explanation being true at the end. I especially love how the canonical explanation is more horrifying (and even more plausible) than some of the previously offered theories, that is well done.

The worldbuilding is fantastic, the aesthetics are detailed and creepy, the cast of characters is small and memorable, and I heartily recommend this to anyone who likes horror with creeping dread.

CW for child abuse (backstory), mental illness, medical content, medical trauma, child abuse, emotional abuse, body horror, gore, self harm, animal death, animal cruelty (backstory), child death, death.

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