The State Of My Bingo Card

It’s the start of Week Seven of Halloween Bingo and I’m beginning to fall behind on my Blackout Bingo target.

So far, I’ve read books for 16 of the 25 squares, including 11 of the 14 Called squares on my card. I have four complete lines (one row, one column and both diagonals) but, in each case, I’m at least one call away from a bingo.

This week’s books

I’ve only completed one of last week’s books, Black Water Sister, which was excellent. I’m part way through the other two, which are also excellent, but they’re long and I don’t want to rush them. So this week I’m only adding two books to my list to give me time to catch up.

We’re in October now, so it feels appropriate that both my choices are horror books at heart: zombie horror and abandoned spaceship horror – what a combination.

‘Rot & Ruin’ by Jonathan Maberry (2010)

This will be my first Jonathan Maberry novel. I picked this up because I recently enjoyed listening to his Audible Original novella The Werewolf’s 15 Minutes and, when I looked through his back-catalogue, Rot & Ruin kept coming up. And how am I supposed to resist a cover like that.

My only concern going in to this is that it may be too young adult for me. It’s such a good fit for the Deadlands square that I’m going to give it a shot.

‘Dead Silence’ by S. A. Barnes (2022)

As soon as I read the publisher’s summary, I knew I had to have ‘Dead Silence’. I saw ‘Alien’ at the cinema when it came out in 1979 ( can ‘Alien‘ really be 43 years old? When did that happen?) and thought it was one of the best horror movies I’d ever seen. It still is. So, a salvage crew on a spooky abandoned spaceship with “As soon as I read the publisher’s summary, I knew I had to have ‘Dead Silence’. I saw ‘Alien’ at the cinema when it came out in 1979 ( can ‘Alien‘ really be 43 years old? When did that happen?) and thought it was one of the best horror movies I’d ever seen. It still is. So, a salvage crew on a spooky abandoned spaceship with “Whispers in the dark.Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood.” is a Must-Read for me.

Then I saw that, although this is her ninth novel, it’s the first one published under her own name. I figure this means that ‘Dead Silence’ is a book S. A. Barnes is invested in.

I’m hoping for something really tense and creepy with some strong characters in it.