A Multifaceted Genre, Haunted Cruise Ship, and Naïve Victim: An Exclusive Guest Post from Amy Goldsmith, Author of Those We Drown, Our July YA Book Club Pick 

As a teen, armed with nothing more than a dog-eared copy of Halliwell’s Film Guide and the TV listings for that week, I made it my mission to see as many highly rated horror movies as I could in the sanctuary of my room, the volume turned down low so my parents didn’t hear.  

One of the movies I’ll never forget seeing for the first time is The Wicker Man. It starts quietly as a police procedural, with Sergeant Howie traveling to a remote Scottish island to investigate reports of a missing girl. From there, the viewer’s expectations are constantly confounded. Am I watching a mystery? Wait, a musical? What do the locals know about this missing girl? Is she even missing? And it isn’t until the final ten minutes when the horrible, almost unbelievable truth is revealed.  

The idea of a naïve victim being pulled into something they don’t understand until it’s far too late, like a fly tentatively exploring a pitcher plant, is deliciously compelling and was part of the inspiration for my YA speculative thriller Those We Drown. Liv is stuck on board a cruise ship, the Eos, halfway across the Atlantic, with no way to disembark, and she uncovers unsettling things that surely can’t be real… until they are.  

The Eos itself was inspired by my love for ghost stories, particularly haunted houses. Like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining or the eponymous Hill House, there is something deeply wrong within every timber, every frame of the cruise liner. Its walls have witnessed unspeakable things, the horror of which is barely suppressed and has undesirable effects on all who travel within her. I love the sinister tease of things half glimpsed, the blurred line between sanity and insanity, of seeing things that shouldn’t be, couldn’t be… but ultimately are. And with that in mind, welcome aboard the Eos.  

My YA horror recommendations:  

My passion for horror is partly due to how gloriously multifaceted a genre it is. Sure, there are killer clowns and long-limbed things that hide under the bed, but there’s also horror that profoundly disturbs, makes you laugh, or even comforts you.