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Grim & Ashe’s Creepy Scary Book Club: A Guest Post from Chuck Wendig, Author of Dust & Grim, Our October Young Reader Pick

By Chuck Wendig is the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers, The Book of Accidents, Wayward, and more than two dozen other books for adults and young adults. A finalist for the Astounding Award / October 12, 2022 at 4:17 am

Paperback $7.99

Dust & Grim

By Chuck Wendig

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Paperback $7.99

What’s spookier than a mortuary? A mortuary for monsters, of course. When 13-year-old Molly moves in with her estranged older brother, Dustin, she learns that the family business she’s set to inherit may be more monstrous than she could have ever imagined. Keep reading for to sit in on the inaugural Grim and Ashe’s (ahem or Ashe and Grim’s depending on who you ask) Creepy Scary Book Club featuring Molly and Dustin and their favorite monstrous and spooky books.

MOLLY GRIM: Okay, so, thus begins the inorganal – uhh, unarganal –

DUSTIN ASHE: The word is inaugural, my dear sister.

MOLLY: Pssh that’s what I said, dear brother. The inaugural GRIM AND ASHE SOLEMNITIES CREEPY SPOOKY SCARY BOOK CLUB begins right now —

DUSTIN: It’s ASHE and GRIM, to remind you. And I don’t think this is how book clubs work.

MOLLY: It works however we want it to work. We’ll share books we like, read them, then come back together and decide which person had the best books, which will be me. I mean, obviously.

DUSTIN: Highly unlikely, but very well. Shall I begin?

MOLLY: Yes, I will begin! My first book is The Clackity by Lora Senf. Is there a haunted slaughterhouse? A series of hexed houses? Dead parents? A serial killer? Library witches? A nasty creature called the Clackity that Evie must make a deal with? Bird specters? Yes to all of that. It’s spooky. It’s amazing. It even has awesome pictures.

DUSTIN: Ahem. My first book is The Atlas of Monsters by Sandra Lawrence and Stuart Hill.

MOLLY: Ooh what’s the story about?

DUSTIN: It’s not a story. It’s a comprehensive, well-organized and impeccably illustrated guide to areas around the world and the folkloric creatures that inhabit those spaces. It’s been quite useful to me in our, ahem, line of work, and though it purports to be fictional I’ve found that it lines up somewhat nicely with the reality of the supernatural denizens we work with to help them pass to, well, whatever passes for the other side. Plus, there are maps. And I love maps.

MOLLY: I’m sure you do.

DUSTIN: That felt barbed.

MOLLY: I got an email the other day that told me to read maps backward.

DUSTIN: That’d be quite foolish.

MOLLY: Yeah, turns out, it was just spam.

DUSTIN: Oh, I see.

MOLLY: …

DUSTIN: What? Why are you looking at me like that?

MOLLY: Maps. Spam.

DUSTIN: Yes. Fine. So?

MOLLY: Dude. Spam is maps backward.

DUSTIN: I don’t get it. Is this a joke?

MOLLY: Oh my cats. Whaaaatever. Onto the next book! The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf. Set in Malaysia, a lonely girl meets a trickster-ghosty-crickety-creature —

DUSTIN: Oh! Is it a pelesit?

MOLLY: Ugh yes, Mister Knows-It-All, a pelesit. But it turns out to be a bit complicated having a supernatural friend, as we well know, and so when the girl, Suraya, finds that the spirit hurt some bullies to protect her, and that it’s grown jealous of her new human friend, hijinks ensue! Chaos reigns! You’ll like it — it has some chef’s kiss descriptions of food.

DUSTIN: In that vein, I recommend Monstrous Tales by Sija Hong. Strange creatures and fearsome beasts from around the world. Again, lovingly illustrated, in this case by Hong. From Japan to Scotland, from Guyana to Syria, it tells a great many tales born of the world’s folklore — ogres and monkey spirits and oh, a disobedient girl who marries a skull.

MOLLY: I’d marry a skull. Sounds cool.

DUSTIN: Yes, I thought you’d enjoy that particular, peculiar detail.

MOLLY: You know what else is cool? Ghost Squad by Claribel Ortega. A cat named Chunk, a rad grandma, and two best friends trying to save a family of ghosts! This one is a little less scary and more just a li’l bit spooky. It’s sad and sweet and considerate toward those who have, erm, passed on, which I can see by your intense stare is you telepathically trying to say that I should apply the book’s lessons to our own work of helping the non-standard paranormal denizens of the world pass on with dignity.

DUSTIN: You really have learned a thing or two.

MOLLY: Yes, but I’ll probably forget it all.

DUSTIN: Indeed. This next one is a bit of a departure, perhaps a bit old for your age range, but I think you’ll find something here for you in particular: The Lady of the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara about the “lost legacy” of Millicent Patrick, who was an artist and ultimately a visual effects artist who created the cinematic creature of the Black Lagoon — but who was written out of that history. This book writes her back in. I thought you might find something to like about Millicent Patrick.

MOLLY: I definitely want to rename myself Millicent, that’s for sure.

DUSTIN: Sigh.

MOLLY: Did you just say “sigh” instead of actually sighing?

DUSTIN: I did. Anyway. So ends the inaugural Ashe and Grim book club—

MOLLY: Whoa whoa whoa, what? I wasn’t done! I have so many books. Mean girls at a creepy summer camp? Camp Scare by Delilah Dawson! Trauma and a mysterious house that wasn’t there before? This Appearing House by Ally Malinenko! A qu…quadrilogy? Of scary stories about the threats and promises of “the smiling man? Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces books! If you like vampires—

DUSTIN: Molly, I think we’re good here. We have work to do, after all.

MOLLY: Fine. Fine. Hey, maybe someone will write a novel about us someday.

DUSTIN: About siblings who inherited a funeral home for monsters? I doubt it, dear sister. It’s not very believable, is it?

MOLLY: Never say never, bro.

DUSTIN: I’ll never say never, as long as you never again call me “bro.”

MOLLY: Deal.

MOLLY: …

MOLLY: Bro.