Figures of Fear

August 3, 2015
Masterton (Festival of Fear), a stalwart of horror fiction, writes with an easy assurance that makes even the weaker stories in this collection tolerable. The shorter tales are often predictable, with "gotcha" twists: "Ex-Voto" explains the wisdom of listening to spooky native artisans; in "What the Dark Does," fear of objects in the night proves well founded; and there's a whiff of victim-blaming in "The Battered Wife." Writerly craft meets with a raw and occasionally elegiac imagination in longer stories. In "Saint Brónach's Shrift," a man relives the nightmarish event that is the source of his happiness and is offered a solution both sacrificial and improbable. "Spirits of the Age" is a Henry Jamesâflavored ghost story, light on scares and heavy on atmosphere. In "The Night Hider" a woman is haunted by a burnt horror inhabiting a wardrobe that has more than a passing relationship to a children's classic, and "Underbed" is a work of fantastic and terrible invention, as a boy finds the worlds buried beneath his bedclothes. Despite a few near-misses, this collection is a must for Masterson fans. Agent: Wiescka Masterton Literary Agency.

February 1, 2015
It's been a decade since the author's last short story collection in the Of Fear series (Festival of Fear, 2005), but it was worth the wait. Here are 11 more gripping, scary tales from a master of the horror genre. The stories spotlight the power of our imaginations to create our own personal symbols of terror. A boy with a vivid imagination pretends he's leading an underground rescue and discovers the dangerous land of Underbed. But is he imagining it, or is Underbed real? A man who dismisses a woman's prediction of an impending accident meets a horrific fate pinned under the wheel of a truck. A woman believes a man dressed head-to-toe in black is hiding in her bedroom, but is he a manifestation of her own mind? The author expertly blends reality and fantasy, creating characters and stories that feel simultaneously otherworldly and completely believable. The book is further proof, not that any was needed, that Masterton is one of horror's most accomplished practitioners.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)