For Moon Boy, adulthood is coming no matter what. Even if he spends most nights drinking forties in the cemetery with his band, even if he drops out of community college to pursue multiple women for different reasons, and even if he can still see the ghost house rise from the quarry at midnight, he can’t stop the inevitable. When his sister goes missing on opening night at Kip Creeker’s Trail of Terror, Moon Boy’s already overcomplicated life takes a frightening turn, and his grasp on reality starts to slip.
Haunted Hearts is a coming-of-age horror tale about those who fight growing up and the ghosts that haunt them.
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ABOUT LUCAS MANGUM
Lucas Mangum is a Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Snow Angels, Saint Sadist, Pandemonium (with Ryan Harding), and Gods of the Dark Web. San Diego-born and Philly-raised, he now lives in Austin with his family. For more info, head to LMHorror.com.
Lisa Lee –
Lucas Mangum’s Haunted Hearts transcends the coming of age label with a darkness and poignancy and consuming aspect of horror that I found chillingly impactful. Woven into this compelling tale of college-age teens, suspense, and intense terrors are threads of horrific real-life complexities that quietly ruin lives every day.
This story is an exquisite read comprised of evocative prose, gut-clenching actions, and chilling terrors both supernatural and real-life. The use of classic settings (cemetery, abandoned quarry, ominous woods, a Halloween trail attraction) creates a comfortably familiar atmosphere that draws you in and starkly contrasts the contemporary storyline. And, of course, Lucas’s characters are engaging and knowable, relatable and provocative, sometimes downright infuriating.
But baseline, it’s a great book, a fantastic story. I love it because of and in spite of how deeply it made me feel, how many times I gasped out loud and laughed out loud, how I felt the pervasive dread and persistent tension in my guts and muscles. It’s a story of ghosts and monsters, within and without, human and not, and a young man’s fight against it all.
Haunted Hearts is a chilling, phenomenal, and highly recommended read. The cover is fantastic and intriguing, but the story is horrifying on many levels.