50 Book Challenge 2026 - Horror!

January: Old School
Italics = Picture Taken for Instagram

The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton Smith ❤️❤️❤️
The Return: A Supernatural Masterpiece by Walter De la Mare ❤️❤️❤️
In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: And Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Horseman by Christina Henry ❤️❤️❤️ and The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel by Alyssa Palombo ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving ❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Bird's Nest ❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Dismembered by Johnathan Janz ❤️❤️❤️❤️1/2
Gilded Needles by Michael McDowell ❤️❤️❤️❤️1/2
Let Him In by William Friend ❤️❤️❤️

February: Black Horror
When the Reckoning Comes: A Novel by LaTanya McQueen ❤️❤️❤️
Jackal: A Novel Erin E. Adams ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles ❤️❤️ 1/2
This Cursed House by Del Sandeen ❤️❤️❤️1/2
I'll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2

March: Good for Her
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Mary by Nat Cassidy ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward ❤️❤️❤️
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne ❤️❤️❤️
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward ❤️❤️❤️❤️1/2
Sisters of the Crimson Vine by P.L. McMillan ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Conjuring the Witch by Jessica Leonard ❤️❤️❤️
The Mad Wife by Meagan Church ❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
To Offer Her Pleasure by Ali Seay ❤️❤️
Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker by Lauren Johnson ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Hearts Strange and Dreadful by Tim McGregor ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Feral and Hysterical by Sadie Hartmann ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

April: Out of Place and Poetry Month
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Out Behind the Barn by Chad Lutzke and John Boden ❤️❤️❤️❤️ 1/2
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus and From the Belly by Emmett Nahil (Kindle)
Bird Box: A Novel by Josh Malerman ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Complex by Brian Keene ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch❤️❤️❤️❤️
Interview with the Devil by Michael Harbron ❤️❤️❤️
Sign Here by Claudia Lux ❤️❤️❤️1/2
Nana by Brandon Massey - National Nana Day ❤️❤️❤️1/2
The Fisherman by John Langan ❤️❤️❤️❤️

May: Asian Heritage Month
The Fervor ❤️❤️❤️1/2 and The Wehrwolf by Alma Katsu ❤️❤️❤️1/2
Remina ❤️❤️❤️❤️ and Sensor by Junji Ito ❤️❤️❤️1/2
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Vegetarian by Han Kang ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker ❤️❤️❤️1/2
Milkteeth by Caitlin Starling ❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim ❤️❤️❤️1/2
Shiver by Junji Ito

June: Queer Horror and Childhood
1) Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews
2) What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
3) The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo ❤️❤️❤️
4) Antenora by Dori Lumpkin ❤️❤️❤️❤️
5) The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
6) Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
7) The Shards by Brett Easton Ellis
8) Crafting for Sinners by Jenny Kiefer ❤️❤️❤️1/2 and Extasia by Claire Legrand
9) Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock and Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson
Bonus: When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Bonus: Bad Dreams in the Night and Let Me in Your Window by Adam Ellis
Bonus: Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar
Bonus: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Bonus: A History of Fear by Luke Dumas
Bonus: The Troop by Nick Cutter
Bonus: The Intermediaries by Brandy Schillace (netgalley)
Bonus: The Traveler by Andrea Wulf

July: International Horror
1) The Ritual by Adam Nevill and The Reddening by Adam Nevill (Kindle)
2) Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
3) The Night House by Jo Nesbo
4) No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill
5) Suicide Forest by Jeremy Bates
6) Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney
7) The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
8) The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup
Bonus: Cunning Folk and All the Fiends of Hell by Adam Nevill (both Kindle)
Bonus: The Weejee Man by NP Cunniffe (Kindle)
Bonus: Brother by Ania Ahlborn
Bonus: The Haar: A Horror Novel by David Sodergren (Kindle)
Bonus: The Watchers (Kindle) and The Creeper by A.M. Shine (Kindle)
Bonus: Lost Village by Camilla Sten
Bonus: Moths by Rosalind Ashe (Australia)
Bonus:Dark Fairy Tales by Viktor Wynd (netgalley)
Bonus:Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land's End by Joan Passey
Bonus:Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen by Edward Parnell
Bonus: The Escapes of David George by Gregory E. O'Malley (netgalley)
Bonus: Home Sick by Rhiannon Grist

August: Collections
1) Fantastic Tales by I. U. Tarchetti
2) Damnable Tales by Richard Wells
3) The Dark Horse Book of Horror by Mike Richardson
4) A Natural History of Hell: Stories by Jeffrey Ford
5) Cold, Black & Infinite by Todd Keisling (Kindle)
6) Charred Remains and Getaway by Evan Bond
7) Before You Wake: Three Horrors by Adam Nevill (Kindle) and Before You Sleep: Three Horrors by Adam Nevill (Kindle)
8) Great Irish Tales of Horror: A Treasury of Fear by Peter Haining
Bonus: This Terrestrial Hell by Kevin Quigley
Bonus: Quarter to Midnight by Darcy Coates (Kindle)
Bonus: Nightmare Flower by Elizabeth Engstrom and The Dead Hours of Night by Lisa Tuttle
Bonus: The Women of Weird Tales by Everil Worrell and The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories by Marjorie Bowen
Bonus: Alphabet of Oddities: A Gothic Bestiary by Ronald Porcelli

September: The King and Latino Heritage Month
1) 1922 by Stephen King and Misery by Stephen King
2) The Root Witch, The Devil's Shallows and The Copper Man by Debra Castaneda
3) It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
4) Gerald's Game by Stephen King
5) Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
6) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
7) Camp Slaughter by Sergio Gómez
8) Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
9) The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
Bonus: Mayra: A Novel by Nicky Gonzalez
Bonus:The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas (netgalley)
Bonus: Observer by Nicholas Russell
Bonus: Bruja’s Nest by Brenda LaTorre
Bonus: In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts by Gwendolyn Kiste
Bonus: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

October: Halloweeny and Folk Horror
1) Autumn Gothic by Brian Bowyer and The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale by Jon Klassen
2) The Plague Stones by James Brogden
3) The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
4) Devil's Day by Andrew Hurley
5) Blood on Satan's Claw by Robert Wynne-Simmons
6) Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
7) Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom and The Book of Witching by C. J. Cooke
8) Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley and The October Book by Corrine Phillips
Bonus: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
Bonus: Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon (Kindle) and Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker (Kindle)
Bonus: I'll Bring You the Birds From out of the Sky by Brian Hodge (Kindle)
Bonus: A God in the Shed by J-F. Dubeau
Bonus: Kosa by John Durgin (Kindle)
Bonus: Scratch Moss by David Barnett (netgalley)
Bonus: A Good Daughter’s Ghost by Sam Wilket (netgalley)

November: Native American Heritage Month
1) My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
2) Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
3) The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones
4) The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
5) Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell(Kindle)
6) Zegaajimo by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories
7) After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones (Kindle)
8) Never Whistle at Night ed by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
9) The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Bonus:I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Bonus: Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina
Bonus: Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian
Bonus: Black Robes Enter Coyote's World by Sally Thompson (netgalley)

December: Winter and The History
1) Krampus by Brom and Evil in Me by Brom
2) Monster She Wrote by Lisa Kröger
3) Breverton's Phantasmagoria by Terry Breverton
4) The Frighteners by Peter Laws
5) All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
6) The Drift by C.J. Tudor
7) The Terror by Dan Simmons
8) Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror by W. Scott Poole
9) The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Bonus: Autumn Bleeds Into Winter by Jeff Strand (Kindle)
Bonus: Behind the Horror by Dr. Lee Mellor (Kindle)
Bonus: Till We Become Monsters by Amanda Headlee (Kindle)
Bonus:One Red Arrow, Part 1 by Caitlyn Grabenstein (Kindle)
Bonus:The Hollows by Daniel Church (Kindle)
Bonus: Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes
Bonus:Polar Horrors: Chilling Tales from the Ends of the Earth by John Miller
Bonus:Chill Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season ed. by Tanya Kirk

Bonus:
It Rides a Pale Horse by Andy Marino
Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns
Stirring the Sheets by Chad Lutzke (Kindle)
The Bedmakers by Chad Lutzke (Kindle)
The Pram by Joe Hill (Kindle)
Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix (Kindle)
The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent (Kindle)
Hunted by Darcy Coates
The Exorcist's House by Nick Roberts (Kindle)
The Omen by David Seltzer
The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi
Down Into the Sea by Dan Franklin (Kindle)
Eden by Tony Monchinski
The Resurrection by Mike Duran
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach (Kindle)
The Bayou by Arden Powell (Kindle)
Truth of the Shadows by Slade Templeton
The Demonic by Lee Mountford (Kindle)
Pilgrim: A Medieval Horror by Mitchell Luthi
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi
The Lamb: A Novel by Lucy Rose
The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti
The Sundial and Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
Colonial Horrors ed. by Graeme Davis
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The Good House by Tananarive Due
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Lone Women: A Novel by Victor LaValle
Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond (Kindle)
The Summer I Ate the Rich
Black Soldiers, White Laws by John A. Haymond (netgalley)
Joy Goddess by A'Lelia Bundles (netgalley)
Madame Queen by Mary Kay McBrayer (netgalley)
Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong
The Witch in the Well by Camilla Bruce
The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry
The Rotting Room by Viggy Parr Hampton (Kindle)
The Queen by Nick Cutter
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison (Kindle)
The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi
Horrorstor: A Novel by Grady Hendrix
The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling
Nod by Adrian Barnes (Kindle)
The Devil, the Witch and the Whore by Amy Cross (Kindle)
Dark Resurrection by John A Karr
Gothic by Philip Fracassi (netgalley)
Seven Sisters by Veronica Buckley
Scratch Moss by David Barnett
The Writings of Thomas Smallwood by Thomas Smallwood
Deserter by Junji Ito and Alley by Junji Ito
S by Koji Suzuki and Edge by Koji Suzuki
Tomie by Junji Ito and
Tombs by Junji Ito and Stitches by Hirokatsu Kihara
Valley of Terror by Zhou Haohui(Kindle)
Out by Natsuo Kirino
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Twisted Visions by Junji Ito
Silk & Sinew by Lee Murray
I Know A Place by Nat Cassidy

Autumnal by Daniel Kraus
Below the Grand Hotel by Cat Scully Queer
Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge
Frightful Folklore of North America by Mike Bass
Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths
Grievers by Adrienne Maree Brown Black Horror
Halloween Folklore and Ghost Stories by Brice Stratford
Maldoror and Poems by Comte de Lautréamont
Mere by Danielle Giles - Folk Horror
Mimi's Tales of Terror by Hirokatsu Kihara Asian Horror
Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman ed. by Tony Barnstone
No Longer Human by Junji Ito - Asian Horror
Nowhere: A Novel by Allison Gunn
Poems Dead and Undead ed. by Tony Barnstone Poetry
Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby Good for Her
Tales of the Damned by Matt Ralphs - Collection
Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Halloween Horror Anthology ed. by Stephanie Rose
Uncle Montagues Tales Of Terror by Chris Priestley Collection
The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
What Feeds The Lake by J.C. Hemstreet Queer

Finished reading The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson
Pages: 272
Vocabulary: numismatist, avuncular, aboulia
Rating: 4 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

Finished reading The Return by Walter de la Mare
Pages: 224
Vocabulary: Sabathier
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kept?: No.

Finished reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: And Other Tales of of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson
Pages: 224
Vocabulary: Terpitude
Rating: 5 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

Finished reading In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu
Pages: 288
Vocabulary: Maunder
Rating: 4 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

Finished reading The Dismembered Jonathan Janz
Pages: 174
Vocabulary:
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

Finished reading Let Him In by William Friend
Pages: 228
Vocabulary: leitmotif
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kept?: No

Finished reading The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton Smith
Pages: 337
Vocabulary: adamantine; purpureal; fulvous; perdurable; caryatides; inenarrable; lethiferous; turgescent; adumbration; tenebrific; haliotis
Rating: 3 out of 5
Kept?: No

Finished reading Gilded Needles by Michael McDowell
Pages: 284
Vocabulary: "shooting the elephant"; torpidity
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

Finished reading Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles
Pages: 325
Vocabulary: None.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5
Kept?: No

Finished reading Jackal: A Novel by Erin E. Adams
Pages: 336
Vocabulary: None.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5
Kept?: No

Finished reading Out Behind the Barn by Chad Lutzke and John Boden
Pages: 127
Vocabulary: None.
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5
Kept?: Yes

"Hello, Miss Rose," the two said in almost unison. There was no reply. Her lips seemed to try to make a smile, or a grimace. The line of her mouth became a wavy one.

...wooden figures Maggie had made especially for them. The boys had given each a name and with each name a super power. Then they'd painted them to reflect their powers...black and purple for Owlman, the ruler of the night whose wings swept villains off their feet, crushing their spines against the desk and chair legs which acted as trees in a dense forest.

"Where's the kitty?" Rose asked. She looked all around the open space of the barn. "She needs to get used to us, I think...work things out. Like you, she'll be ready when she's ready." Miss Rose tried to smile back but it was a broken thing that cowered away and went to her brow, where it furrowed and lay confused.

She had gotten married right out of high school. Leonard had...kindly waited until she graduated to start with the stealthy anchors. The first was a ring and the second a baby in her belly...She never finished the paperwork and the classes fluttered away. She stayed at the house all day, every day and cleaned and cooked and tried to be invisible. Len came home angrier and angrier, and the night she decided to say what was on her mind was the night he kicked their child out of existence.

Rose just nodded and went back to raking, her lips never stopped moving but neither boy could make out what she was saying....The one whose eyes were rolled up white in her head. The one whose lips were moving like a preacher on Sunday morning when taken by the Spirit.

Davey woke to Miss Rose standing over him. She was naked and the room smelled of feces. In her hand was Maggie's apron, and she was humming a song that sounded familiar but he couldn't place it.

Davey had been out on his own the morning he found Gentilbelle, her spine bent wrong and bloated with water in the barrel against the barn.

"Did you need me?" Rose asked. "Funny thing. I thought that I did. But it seems I was mistaken."...Abruptly, Maggie stood and took the younger woman's hand in her own, ran a bony finger along the bright red wounds on her arm. Crimson lightning in an ivory sky. "Let's go out to the barn, I have a present for you."

A simple tree, gouged into wood, three old fingerprints the color of fallen leaves, then the fresh one near a bottom branch. Sam. "What is this?" Ronny's mouth agape, fish eyes filled with wonder. "Our family tree." Davey smiled and pointed to the bloody swirls that marred it. "That's Rick. Remember Rick? And that one is old Milford. I didn't really like him...always wanted me to sit on his lap." "What are the two branches at the top, the ones without fruit?" Ronny seemed to be unable to generate enough spit to properly wet his throat. "That's your branch and Miss Maggie's. I love you best so you're at the top."

Lou got under the hood, opened the valve on the carburetor with his finger. "I'm no mechanic, but it may do you good to keep some carb cleaner in the truck...hell, even a stick to prop the valve if it happens often enough." "I find this works best," the woman said, then raised a hammer and brought it down on the back of Lou's head.

Too much loss that summer. Miss Rose, like Ronny had said, was something special...The boys sat in silence as Maggie unloaded the truck. She couldn't carry this one.. "He's a big one," is all that was said.

Maggie smoked more than her usual share on the porch that night, damning the man in the barn to hell if he didn't go above and beyond. And by God leave the barnyard critters alone should one want to friend her boys. And to hell with him if he couldn't father these boys like they needed. Because she decided right then under the moon and its glow that maybe it's what they needed all along. A father.

He then turned and walked to the corner of the kitchen where he stood with his face toward the cupboards like a child in trouble. He stood that way until Maggie rose and laid a small hand on his arm and led him down the hallway and to his room.

Words were hard it seemed. They took their time coming out as he plucked the letters from a foggy mind, stringing them together in a sensible fashion.

"It's different here. She takes good care of you boys, me as well. But underneath that there's something not right." Ben stole another look to the house, at the screen door to make sure the old woman wasn't watching. "I been reading."

They found their way out behind the barn, something of a secret place now, what with the tree etching and now the taboo conversations. "Okay. I'm just gonna spill it. For starters. I think we're dead. I am, so is Ronny and you are too." ...Miss Maggie, I'm thinkin' she's like a witch. Kinda. Maybe not even...how they bring back the dead. She maybe got the how from them..."I think I've known some of this for a long time." Davey spoke the words very calmly..."She killed me, like she killed him and like she killed you...We're like jars that have to be emptied and cleaned out before she can fill us with what she wants us to know."...I don't know what that is, she never says so, then I woke up. I was back again. I don't know nothing much about before.

After a few minutes, Ben asked "Why don't you run away?" "We can't. Look here," Davey said. The boys took Ben by the hands and led him to the fence line. Little Ronny looked up at the haggard man and smiled, "She's a nice lady, Mister Benjamin. She sings to me at bedtime, she makes cakes and pies and the best cookies I ever did eat!" His little round face seemingly cherubic in the light of a dying sun. "But you can't even taste them, son."

"That's our fence. A real fence is nothing to us, so she went and built us one from scraps of our clothes and the clothes of the ones that aren't with us anymore. Dead can't cross the dead, I think is the thing she said. Which didn't mean a thing to me until you told me of your findings. It's like I knew, but I didn't. Something in me did but left well enough alone.

This was concernin' mountain folks. Appalachians, they was called...Anyway, in a lot of these things, they can bring the dead to life again, and they have all sortsa ways they do it. But they all had one thing in common. The person what raised the dead had to excise the heart.".."I'm thinking this ain't right. She's a nice lady and she ain't hurtin' us or really no one else. Not now, anyway. But what if we had families before? I mean, you did, I may have. What about Ronny? He's a good little boy. She didn't have no right to steal someone else's family and make 'em hers. And on top of that, she killed us. We're supposed to be dead, Davey. Even if it was murderous dead, dead is what we're meant to be."

Across a thick plank inside the wall were several small objects spaced evenly apart that upon first glance resembled apples that'd seen too much sun, all held in place by long nails. Above each was a small fat candle melted and leaning. Red wax hardened over the wood beneath like petrified tears. Four of the objects were shriveled and dried like prunes, but the one to the far right, was much larger, still red enough to identify and oddly almost fresh enough to beat. Davey stared, and though he wasn't aware he did it, gasped the name "Rose."

Upstairs in the living room, as the cartoon rabbit outwitted the stammering hunter, Ronny gasped and shivered. In his chest something began to buzz. The rabbit kissed the hunter and ran away and Ronny giggled, but his eyes stayed wide and fearful.

It took them less than an hour and a half to dig the three holes, and they spoke very little while doing so...The words were too profound to speak. Neither of them wanted to talk on it or hear about it. It just needed done. "So we just put them back in and that'll break it? The spell or whatever?" Davey asked. "That's how I read it. Then I figure we'll just die. Then and there."

"Ronny. You just be still now. This ain't gonna hurt you, and God, boy, you've earned it. You deserve to be at peace and Davey and I are going too, right behind you. So we'll be together, I swear to ya. This here is what's meant to be."..."I'm Stephen Bates. I have a Mom and Dad. I got a little sister who picks her nose and eats it and a dog named Luker." He began to talk slower and his speech slurred. "I was born in July 1977. We have a pool at our house. My Dad has a motorcycle..." With that, he slumped on his side and was still...He pushed his hardened heart home, with a sharp inhale..."My name is Christopher," the boy whispered.

Ben walked into the house and let the door bang closed behind him. He stomped up the stairs and gathered all the books he could carry from Maggie's shelves and threw them onto her bed. He grabbed armfuls of shirts and sweaters from her small closet and added them to the pile. He took a lighter from her night table, one with a large-mouth bass jumping out of the water, free from any hook, and set the bedding on fire.

Finished reading Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Pages: 260
Vocabulary: None.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Kept?: Yes