"Cornell brilliantly delineates not only the insular milieu of rural England but the brutal materialism of Thatcher’s Britain, in a slow-building novel of retribution and cycles of abuse. Superb." —The Guardian
"This is what horror ought to be: primal, personal, and powerful. Gloriously gutting. Chalk is like nothing I've ever read before, or am ever likely to read again. Well, you can just come over here and rock me to sleep tonight."—New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire
"Excellent, petrifying and awful in all the right ways... Hand over mouth in parts. Strongly recommended." —Kieron Gillen, author of The Wicked & The Divine and Phonogram
"Raw and dark... powerful and inventive. Terrific." —Kurt Busiek, Harvey and Eisner Award winning creator of Astro City
"Holy Shit! I love this fucking book! This book kept me up way too late reading it, and then I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. OMG what a book. Intense and horrific and gorgeous. Damn, dude. I mean… damn."
— Diana Rowland, author of the White Trash Zombie series.
"Chalk is a raw, blistering, horror-ride through the hell of adolescence and the despair of abuse. It is honest and hard-hitting, often uncomfortable to read, yet wonderfully crafted. Gritty realism rubs up against dark folk horror, and the result is a unique literary experience you won't forget in a hurry." — Gary McMahon, author of The Concrete Grove and The Grieving Stones
"Chalk is a chilling, compelling tale of youthful violence and ancient evil." —Lucy A. Snyder, author of While the Black Stars Burn
"Harrowing, astonishing and beautiful. Read it instantly." — Laurie Penny, author of Everything Belongs to the Future
"A pitch-perfect blend of familiar cruelties, pop culture and otherworldly horror, Cornell's stand-alone novel has a power all its own." —RT Top Pick, 4 1/2 Stars
"Chalk bleeds atmosphere... the type that gets under your skin... a creeping horror, the ancient meshing with the modern, a sickening sense of dread cresting like a dark wave that, sooner or later, must hit the shore…" —Forbidden Planet International
"Chalk is a hugely evocative novel... one of the books of the year. Highly recommended." —Ginger Nuts of Horror
"Cornell weaves human and supernatural horror together in powerful and disturbing ways." —Publishers Weekly
Another year has passed, delivering us a terrible bounty of new horror books to terrify us on quiet nights. Taken together, 2017’s best horror books were a little more introspective than last year’s, striking at the heart and bringing us visceral scares, from Scott Thomas’s psychologically affecting house of horrors in Kill Creek, to the raw […]
2017 was a great time to be a fan of sci-fi and fantasy. Pop culture has become a veritable geek feast, with comic book adaptations riding high at the box office, prestige SF films getting respect from the Oscars, and, of course, the books, which only seemed to get better with each passing week. Here’s what […]
We made it through 2017, a tumultuous year for the world, but not a bad one at all in the sci-fi and fantasy section of the bookstore. If you need proof (well, more proof), we offer the new books the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog staff loved in 2017.
As six-month periods go, the first half of 2017 has certainly been, shall we say, interesting. But even as the real world works ever harder to convince us that we’re all living inside a genre novel (though what kind will depend on your particular point of view: sci-fi? Alt-history? Dystopian thriller? Grimdark fantasy?), the authors […]
Growing up is difficult enough. The body changes in odd ways; social dynamics rapidly shift, pulling former best friends in different directions; a new struggle with identity pops up by the day. Naturally, this period existential angst and physical oddity is a goldmine for horror writers, from the trauma inflicted by bullying, to the loss […]