The mind of an author is an incredible thing. They can conjure situations from everyday life that move us, challenge our thinking, or scare the heck out of us. I obviously admire that ability. This is a book blog, after all. But I imagine having such a vivid imagination can be a burden, too. What happens when the things you dream up start scaring you?
Jeneva Rose seems to know the feeling. In her new collection, Sometimes I Scare Myself, she lets her imagination run wild across three twisty horror stories that show just how dark her mind can get.
The first, Don't Kill the Medium, starts with something so mundane you'd never expect where it goes. At a thirtieth birthday party, someone hires a medium to perform a séance. Fun, right? Things take a turn when the medium suddenly dies, leaving the panicked guests to cover up the death and move on with their lives. There's just one problem. Whatever opened during the séance is still open, and strange things are beginning to happen to everyone who was there.
The Nightmare House sees the Dalton family move into what they believe will be their forever home. It's the perfect place for their growing family, nestled in a small, quiet town. But Mom Kristin has misgivings from the start. The neighbors are...odd. The walls...whisper. And no one seems to believe her when she insists something isn't right. Soon, they'll see she has plenty of reasons to be worried.
We've all been in one of those off-the-beaten-path roadside shops, the kind with a single gas pump and dusty merchandise on the shelves that weary travelers only choose from out of necessity. That's where the final entry, All Curses Are Final, kicks off. A group of friends traveling to a cabin for a weekend getaway stops at one such shop, where a sign warns, "All items cursed. Curse lifted at time of sale." They laugh it off, but then one of them discovers an item from the shop in her bag that she never paid for. Could the stolen item really be cursed?
In Sometimes I Scare Myself, Jeneva Rose allows her most twisted, terrifying proclivities to run rampant. And it's a blast! Subtitled A Collection of Horror, the book gives Rose the chance to play in a few different corners of the genre. Don't Kill the Medium embraces supernatural chaos, The Nightmare House taps into the unease of a good haunted-house story, and All Curses Are Final, my personal favorite of the three, has fun with that classic horror staple, the cursed object. They're very different from one another, but each takes a fairly ordinary situation and pushes it somewhere increasingly bizarre.
That's where Rose seems to be having the most fun. She doesn't hold back from letting things get brutal, ridiculous, or completely over the top. Is it always believable? Of course not. But that's not what she's going for. Rose commits to the absurdity of each premise, and I was more than happy to go along for the ride.
The shorter format also works well for Rose. There isn't enough room to fully flesh out every character, but she gives us just enough to care about them before everything goes off the rails. More importantly, none of the three overstay their welcome. They get in, establish their own brand of horror, and keep moving.
I opted to listen to the audiobook, which uses a rotating cast of narrators throughout the collection. It's a great fit for a book like this. Each narrator leans into the panic, absurdity, and sheer horror Rose throws at her characters, making some of the collection's wildest moments even more fun to experience.
This may be a bit of a genre departure for Rose, but it's a welcome detour. In the author's note, she teases that this won't be the last we'll hear from one of these stories. I, for one, welcome whatever sequel she comes up with.
For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2026, 76)
I have still not read anything by Rose, but this seems like a great way to try out her work!
ReplyDeleteWow, I think it would be too scary for me! Great review.
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