Midnight showing

Having escaped the fire at Malice House, Haven Marbury and her sister Kylie fled Lundie Bay to find answers to the family curse as well as evade the Lundie Bay police and their questions. Their quest brings them to L.A. and Haven's friend Rob, a movie producer who alerts Haven to a curse that echoes their own, the curse of Sigil Pictures. Sigil Pictures made horror films in the 1940s and 1950s, and those who worked on the films came to bad ends. Urban legends assert that the monsters are not just limited to the screen. These two story lines intersect in a showdown at the scariest hotel this side of the Overlook. In book two of the Malice Compendium (after Malice House, 2022), Shepherd ups the monsters and deepens the relationships between the characters. Once the scares wear off, readers will contemplate the nature of art and creators' responsibility for their work. A winning second book in a series that is highly recommended for public libraries.

In this sequel to Shepherd's adult debut, Malice House, Haven is on the run from her family curse, her personal demons, and literal monsters, accompanied by her half-sister Kylie. Uncle Arnold is their biggest fear, with his uncanny ability to bend others to his terrible will. Determined to use Haven's curse--the ability to create real-life monsters from her drawings on paper--and Kylie's curse--the ability to create reality simply by writing the words--they seek shelter with mysterious producer, hacker, and horror aficionado Donovan Robles, or as his online persona is called, SlasherDasher, in the hills of Hollywood. What follows is a hunt for a killer who seems to be targeting Haven and Kylie's bloodline, complete with monsters of the worst kind. The hunt's conclusion is as gut-wrenching as the horror screenplays sprinkled throughout this joyride of a novel, but Haven's personal journey has an even more heart-wrenching conclusion. VERDICT For fans of horror and Hollywood (and Holly-weird) and for any creative who has contemplated the nature of art, the concept of reality, and a creator's responsibility for their creations.--Alana Quarles

THE DREAMS ALWAYS began with smoke. Restless in a cramped hotel bed, in a hiccup of a town halfway down the jagged Portuguese coastline, my sister stole the sheets and muttered sleep-talk beside me while I dreamed again of smoke. There was a shade of paint called Vantablack that was rumored to be the darkest known pigment, but this smoke was darker yet somehow, drinking in all light. The smoke seeped out from under the hotel bed mattress, devouring the color from the room until it had expunged the sunny yellow from the walls, leaving the space grayscale, like an old movie. A dark promise snapped in the air like lightning. I sat up in bed, sunken-eyed, watching myself from outside my own body. Another hotel room, another town. We'd been traveling so long they all blended together. The smoke from under the bed slowly took shape as it pulled itself into a pillar the size of a person, then inclined over me in wormlike form. Immobile, I could only watch as it hovered, hovered, hovered, and then crashed down into a thunderclap of black soot-- I jerked awake. For real this time. Sitting up with a gasp--touching my face, assuring myself I was awake--I checked for Kylie's slumbering body next to mine. She was there. She was safe. Her chest lifting and falling slowly, her lips silent now. I sagged back against the pillows. How long had it been now--two weeks? Since we'd boarded the plane in Salt Lake City bound for Portugal, hungry to follow the trail of clues my father had left behind, meager crumbs that might lead us to our family, to answers. We hadn't had much to go off: a thirty-year-old Lisbon return address on an envelope and town names mentioned in his short stories. Winemakers, he'd called the Acosta side of the family. Occultists. Artists. As though being an artist was the worst thing a person could be. The thing was, I was starting to believe he was right. Excerpted from Midnight Showing by Megan Shepherd All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.