Reading Curse of the Reaper felt like settling in to binge your favorite slasher movies from the 80s. It was campy, scary, and a little outlandish - and that’s exactly what I wanted from it!

The book follows two POVs. The first is Howard, an older actor whose entire career was devoted to playing cult horror icon, the Reaper. The second is Trevor, a recovering addict and child star who has just been cast in a remake of the Reaper films, essentially replacing Howard. What follows is a deep dive into Howard’s tormented kind of method acting, with Trevor unknowingly along for the ride as he battles his own inner demons. Is it supernatural? Is it a descent into madness? Is it paranoia? Is it demonic possession? Simple answer: yes.

The writing is a little clunky at points, and the dialogue isn’t consistently strong, but once the action started I couldn’t put this down. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys those old school slasher films - that’s exactly what this is, in book form. It’s a fun read if you like light horror.

Curse of the Reaper will be published October 4th of this year, just in time for spooky season!

I have some mixed emotions about this one! I’ll start off with what I loved about it. McAuley is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about horror (which as a fellow fan, I truly appreciate) and the entire book was a homage to the genre. I particularly enjoyed the snippets from the screenplays that opened each section of the book. I liked the serious issues the characters were going through. Slasher is my sub-genre of choice so I knew this would be a win for me when I read the synopsis. Imagine Robert Englund being set to reprise his role as Freddy for the new Nightmare on Elm Street movie, losing the role to a new young hot shot, and now poor old Robert is being influenced by Freddy to do horrible things. That’s basically this book! Fantastic concept but I didn’t love the writing and the dialogue felt unnatural. Overall a very fun read with some technical opportunities. Definitely recommend my slasher loving friends check this out!

I love, love, LOVE this book.

It feels like SCREAM, THE SHINING, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET all wrapped up in one big love letter to the horror genre. And it feels real and lived in. As someone who frequents horror conventions, those scenes are some of the best "convention" related scenes I've ever read.

McAuley is clearly very familiar with the way movies are made and written, and that shines on every page of this book. It's going to be hard to top CURSE OF THE REAPER this year... and I hope this is only the beginning of the Reaper franchise.