Don't Look Behind the Bookshelf: Day 7

Don’t Look Behind 

the Bookshelf

Welcome to Day 7 of Don't Look Behind the Bookshelf, you bloody fools. (You can see yesterday's post here.) You've been back here several days, and while it maybe hasn't been too bad, it's about to get a lot more messy. And by that I mean it's about to get bloody. So please don't dump a bucket of blood over someone's head as I present...

KATE KARYUS QUINN

Kate is the author of Another Little Piece and the upcoming (Don't You) Forget About Me. Another Little Piece is a book about a girl who vanished then suddenly appeared a year later, strange happenings, and plenty of blood. Before I introduce you to Kate's post, let me warn you:

There Will Be Blood

Thank you Rachel for asking me to be a part of Don't Look Behind The Bookshelf! I was thrilled when you invited me to your celebration of all things scary...

that is until you gave me my assignment:

BLOOD

Okay, so yes, my book, ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE (if you haven't read it, check out this picture from the amazing Fauxtographer to get a sense of what I'm talking about), has some bloody parts. And you have no idea how badly I want to hang with the cool horror kids and have them be all:

And then I'd be all:

Sadly (perhaps even pathetically), I am squeamish and the sight and sometimes even the thought of blood makes me want to hurl (No animated GIF to go with that one. You're welcome.). 

So my reaction to being given the subject of blood was more like this:

And then when Rachel suggested that I could count down my favorite bloody horror movie scenes, I was like:

You see, not only do I have trouble with the sight of blood, but I am also a total weenie when it comes to watching scary movies. I get scared, like super insanely scared, watching horror movies. Like shaking, screaming, can't sleep at night scared.

And that's not really good for anyone. So I was going to email Rachel and explain how despite having written a book which is bloody and creepy, I am at heart a person who still sleeps with a nightlight. 

But then I remembered, I may be a weenie, but I am no quitter. So, I gave myself a stern talking to.

And reminded myself that despite being scared of, well of pretty much everything, I had survived some pretty scary movies and lived to relive them.

Movies like Psycho

and Scream

and Beauty and The Beast.

Look how scary he is when he yells. And his arm is bleeding! Yuck!

And I'd survived some pretty scary TV shows as well like my beloved Buffy:

This is not Buffy but a bad guy she (spoiler alert) eventually kills.

and True Blood too.

Oops! This one isn't bloody, I should probably remove it. But
don't our eyes deserve a little break from all the horror?

Somewhere along the way of finding all these clips, I realized that I'd seen more scary/bloody stuff than I'd given myself credit for. What's more, it occurred to me that these types of scenes affected, or perhaps infected me with their blood and gore filled images, and maybe that's why or how I ended up writing a book that had its own share of bloody imagery. Without these scary movies and TV blood stains permanently left inside my brain, who knows what kind of book ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE might've been.

And while thinking about all of these influences, I remembered two more films that I had survived and that had such high levels of blood flowing through them, that I should've been horrified, but instead I couldn't look away.

Specifically I'm talking about this:

Yeah that's Carrie. The original girl covered in blood. 

And then there's this: 

The violence in this movie is relentless and yet somehow also strangely beautiful. And it is also totally unafraid to go there, even if "there" is really incredibly icky and gross like this:

And that's the thing about blood that even a weenie like me eventually has to admit:

It's in us all and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Bloody Book

Title: Another Little Piece

Author: Kate Karyus Quinn
Publisher: Harper Teen

Publishing Date: June 11, 2013

Pages: 419
Goodreads | Amazon
| Barnes & Noble

The spine-tingling horror of Stephen King meets an eerie mystery worthy of Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series in Kate Karyus Quinn's haunting debut.

On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.

A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.

Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese's fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.

Another little book...
Title: (Don't You) Forget About Me

Author: Kate Karyus Quinn

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publishing Date: June 10, 2014

Pages: 352

Goodreads | Amazon

| Barnes & Noble

Welcome to Gardnerville.

A place where no one gets sick. And no one ever dies.

Except...

There’s a price to pay for paradise. Every fourth year, the strange power that fuels the town exacts its payment by infecting teens with deadly urges. In a normal year in Gardnerville, teens might stop talking to their best friends. In a fourth year, they’d kill them.

Four years ago, Skylar’s sister, Piper, was locked away after leading sixteen of her classmates to a watery grave. Since then, Skylar has lived in a numb haze, struggling to forget her past and dull the pain of losing her sister. But the secrets and memories Piper left behind keep taunting Skylar—whispering that the only way to get her sister back is to stop Gardnerville’s murderous cycle once and for all.

People are Bleeding About It

“Genuinely spooky, this is also a story about love, without really being a love story. For those who think y.a. is all sexual tension and sparkly vampires, here is your antidote. Highly recommended.” — Literary agent John Cusick via Shells, the blog for ARMCHAIR/SHOTGUN

“A gripping ride. Quinn skillfully occupies the mind of a young woman who turns out to be a monster—yet one who’s not beyond redemption.” — Horn Book Magazine

“Stunning in its raw emotion. A taut, terrifying supernatural thriller.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

The Bearer of Blood
Kate Karyus Quinn is an avid reader and menthol chapstick addict. She has lived in California and Tennessee, but recently made the move back to her hometown of Buffalo, New York, with her husband and two children in tow. She promised them wonderful people, amazing food, and weather that would... build character. Another Little Piece is her first novel.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Had Enough Blood?
Thank you for stopping by for yet another day of Don't Look Behind the Bookshelf! I hope you enjoyed Kate's bloody post and check out her books and sites! Another Little Piece may just be the piece you need to make your Halloween perfect!

Don't forget to return tomorrow for the eighth day of Don't Look Behind the Bookshelf! There will, of course, be another author and another Halloween-tastic book. Though tomorrow's author may be a little hard to catch...