ash.reads.horror | Come Closer

Come Closer

Sara Gran

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Demonic possession or psychic break? One of Esquire's Top 50 horror novels of all time delves deep into the terrifying consequences of losing control.

A perfect horror novel.—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.

The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. A book on demon possession suggests that the figure on the shore could be the demon Naamah, known to scholars of the Kabbalah as the second wife of Adam, who stole into his dreams and tricked him into fathering her child.

Whatever the case, as the violence of her erratic behavior increases, Amanda knows that she must act to put her life right, or see it destroyed. This new edition of the cult classic features a brand new post-script by the author and an "Are You Possessed?" questionnaire.

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Posts about this title from ash.reads.horror

ash.reads.horror\ \ ash\ \ • Jan 6

\ \ I kicked off this year reading the fantastic Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford.\ \ You can find my review HERE, but I wanted to take this space to dive a little further on my own personal Horror journey.\ \ I'm often asked "What's the scariest book you've ever read?" And this is a very valid question. But it's also a loaded question as well, because what is scary to me may not be scary to you. This is because horror is subjective.\ \ What scares me? I think what gets under my skin the most is bleak horror. When there's no hope. One book that does this well is The Ruins by Scott Smith. It's a survival horror about four friends that take a vacation to Mexico and wind up getting stuck in some ancient ruins. One by one the characters are picked off, with hope dwindling with each life lost. While the characters annoyed me in this book, the hopelessness really got to me.\ \ Where did my love for Horror start? Let's take a journey into the past. As stated in my Instagram post, watching my dad play Resident Evil One really stuck with me as a kid. The scene with the giant snake truly traumatized little me. Looking back on it now, it makes me laugh. Everything was so cringy. The graphics weren't great and the dialogue was corny. But its a classic for a reason and I still love it dearly. "You were almost a Jill Sandwich!"\ \ Another instance was when I was flipping through the channels, looking for something to watch. Stephen King's IT was on television. My young, innocent mind believed that someone would truly make a movie involving kids playing Tag Your It...So you best believe I was in shock when I see a clown holding balloons, inviting children to float. Then blood spewing out of the sink all over Beverly's bathroom. You best believe I hit the guide button on that TV remote and figured out that it was rated R. I ran to my room in terror as my mom laughed at me. And yes Child's Play did the same thing to me too. Who knew a movie involving a doll was actually a slasher in disguise.\ \ So what made me stop being such a scaredy cat? Honestly, I think playing Resident Evil 4 made me start appreciating horror more. I slowly started building myself up, until I could handle movies like Sinister (WHICH PHEW terrified me a lot). Final Destination also terrified me. To think that near death experiences had become a death sentence had me on the edge of my seat. And death definitely gets creative when taking back what it's owed.\ \ I love chasing that rush I feel when watching something scary. I love looking in the background for something subtly creepy (i.e. Haunting of Hill House ghosts in the background). I feeling my heart race as I wait for the jump-scare to pop up on the screen, or the fake out to cue the scare when I least expect it.\ \ So what books got me into reading horror?\ \ Well of course Stephen King kick started me. Now you may think I'm going to mention The Shining. While that is a FANTASTIC book of his and an all time favorite, Misery was one of my first and favorite works.\ \ When I joined bookstagram, my world was opened to all kinds of horror novels. I never knew so many horror books/authors existed.\ \ Some of the wonderful books I've discovered and will forever recommend are as follows:\ \ Come Closer by Sara Gran\ \ The Reformatory by Tananarive Due\ \ Below by Laurel Hightower\ \ I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid\ \ Mary by Nat Cassidy\ \ Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven\ \ Bat Eater and Other Names by Cora Zeng\ \ Night Film by Marisha Pessl\ \ We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer\ \ Slewfoot by Brom\ \ The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher\ \ Eynhallow by Tim McGregor\ \ ...and so many more books!\ \ I love that Horror has a little bit of something for everyone.\ \ Love Romance? How about a gothic horror with a dash of romance on the side?\ \ Love Thrillers? So many horror books toe the line of thrillers.\ \ Love History? There are so many historical horrors out there to try out.\ \ Your favorite genre has a place in horror. There is a horror book out there for everyone! Want a rec to get you kickstarted? As for a rec on my profile page.\ \ Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol.](https://ashreadshorror.binderybooks.com/item/eSRBVSlLmBBDQSFv3TEq/)

Why I Love Horror

15 books

ash.reads.horror\ \ ash\ \ • Oct 25 2025

\ \ Hi everyone and welcome to the first author interview featured on my Bindery!\ \ Happy Halloween!\ \ I had a fantastic time talking with Stephanie. She's been a friend of mine for a long time and I knew she would be the best VICTIM--I mean candidate for my first interview.\ \ Before I dive into our interview, I just wanted to highlight a few things about Stephanie!\ \ She's the proud owner of an online indie bookstore that you've probably seen me rave about time and time again-- DeathByTBRBooks.com . I do a huge amount of my book shopping on there.\ \ \ \ She's also a published author! Hiding Lies was her debut book. A fast-paced cat and mouse horror/thriller following a forensic photographer and the serial killer she's hunting. Her next novel Small Town Slasher debuts in March of '26! Her press Death By TBR Press released a fun Halloween Horror Anthology: Twisted Tales To Tell In The Night that she edited along with William Sterling. She also has a huge year coming up in 2026, which we will talk about in our interview!\ \ \ \ Now, let's dive into this FANGtastic interview!\ \

Use this first question as an introduction! Tell us your name and a little bit about yourself, your bookstore, etc...\ \ Here's my bio. :)\ \ Stephanie Rose is a disabled, neurodivergent, and queer horror writer and editor who finds comfort in the dark corners of storytelling. She is the author of Hiding Lies, Small Town Slasher, and Plastic Fangs: Essays, and serves as editor of the Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night anthology series. A lifelong Halloween devotee and unapologetic house goblin, she thrives on horror, true crime, and the delicious unease of the macabre. Music, especially dance and karaoke, keeps her heart beating just long enough to write another story. She lives in Washington with her partner and four cats.\ \ 2026 looks like a huge year for you and your publishing company with Small Town Slasher, Twisted Tales To Tell In The Night (part 2), and Plastic Fangs. Not to mention you just announced Road Kill Revolution with TruBorn Press! Which book are you most excited to release?\ \ It really has been and I really can't believe all of this has happened. Last year at this time I was a debut author and expanding Death by TBR Books into a press as well as it being an indie bookshop for almost seven years is wild. I refuse to pick favorites. \ \ \ \ What I will say is that Small Town Slasher is the novel I've completed the longest ago so that makes it exciting to me because it feels the most tangible. I don't have a cover yet for TT2 and I haven't finished Roadkill Revolution Tour. \ \ What was your favorite short story from the Twisted Tales To Tell in the Night Halloween Horror Anthology? Mine was the Elvira inspired one Morgana Macabre's Halloween Special by Wendy Dalrymple.\ \ I loved the nostalgia of her story. Again I can't pick a favorite. I will say that I've had the most fun reading Booger Sugar by Clay McLeod Chapman aloud to my friends and family and my cats and Best Friends Forever b y Renee Thomasin has stayed with me the longest. Again though I love all of them for different reasons but if you threatened to take away Halloweens I'd say BFF is my favorite.\ \ Do you have a writing process? Any tips for any aspiring writers?\ \ I'm still figuring it out. I wrote Hiding Lies eight years ago and Small Town Slasher not even a year ago. Now that I write every day I'd say it depends on the project. I randomly outline some of the book and other times I write out scenes I definitely want in the book as I think of them. When I was writing STS I read and watched so many slashers because I wanted my writing to be cinematic. \ \ What or Who has been your biggest inspiration?\ \ Surviving my trauma. It wasn't one writer or person that inspired me. I was having a really rough time when I first moved to the PNW and no, not due to the rain. I actually have reverse seasonal affective disorder. It was all of the people and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I suffer from a number of disabilities and agoraphobia, social phobia, anxiety, and CPTSD are a few of them. I wanted to write a novel as a bucket list item. I submitted it to a lot of agents and after the rejections reached the 100s I pursued my second Master's Degree in Information and Library Sciences. After the election I was getting bad again and I channeled all of my intrusive thoughts and rage into murdering a lot of people on the page. It was then I realized I had to write to live. \ \ What can you tell us about Roadkill Revolution Tour?\ \ It's about a trio of pop icons combine a setlist of their club classics for an electrifying U.S. tour that doubles as an underground resistance dismantling a fascist regime one hard hitting mayhem filled performance at a time, think KPop Demonhunters meets Manhunt.There are three Easter eggs in the previous sentence to identify the three singers influenced the fictional characters in the book. I'm writing it now. A lot of the book is current and past research on the current administration and working in real events that have happened. I'm no Atwood but I'd like to hope this story will give people an idea of how bad things are and how bad they can or will get by the time this book is released.\ \ Are you working on any other projects at the moment?\ \ I'm currently doing my final round of edits on Small Town Slasher, editing and formatting TT2 and will be going through submissions for T wisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Yuletide Horror Anthology by the end of December. After that it's getting back to a few projects. I have a lot of ideas but will also be working on essays for my first essay collection at that time. I have no idea which project I will pick back up or start fresh with in January. Also, working on a few flash fiction stories for one of my Patreon Vampire Tier.\ \ What is your favorite scary movie? What's a horror movie that scared you the most? Your go to Halloween movie?\ \ Scream or more like the Scream franchise will always be my favorite. When I first watched it I was babysitting home alone. By the end of the movie I had checked the locks of the doors and windows and had a butcher knife next to me. The horror movie that scared me the most was The Blair Witch Project because when I went to go see it I was part of the advanced screening group that didn't know all of the footage was filmed not found. More recently I'd say the film Civil War because we're living in it now and it's terrifying. My go to Halloween movie is probably a double feature of Halloween H20 and Hubie Halloween. I can't choose even two without also stating that I watch a Halloween film or themed episode every day of October. \ \ Do you have any fun Halloween traditions?\ \ I watch something Halloween themed every day of October. On the actual day I usually have mac and cheese or pizza and go trick-or-treating. I go for about an hour and then head home. I watch the Bob's Burgers "Full Bars" episode and either Halloween, Halloween H20, or Halloween Kills, and do a Samhain ritual.\ \ What is your favorite horror book? Scariest?\ \ SOME of my favorites are Maeve Fly by CJ Leede, So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison, Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, and Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. SOME of the scariest are Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy (gave me one of my only jump scares from a book), House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (after I read it I refused to own it for a few years), and Come Closer by Sara Gran.\ \ Any Halloween-themed books you want to recommend to our readers?\ \ Well obviously I have to recommend Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: A Halloween Horror Anthology AND the next installment Twisted Tales to Tell in the Night: Another Halloween Horror Anthology. The Halloween Store by Ronald Kelly, The Haunted Mask by R.L. Stine, and We Bleed Orange and Black by Jeff C. Carter. \ \ Favorite Halloween song?\ \ Here's my Tidal playlist: https://tidal.com/playlist/0d5a5fa2-b946-43ae-80a5-fcb31df3196e \ \ And ending on an unlucky thirteen, what is your favorite Halloween candy?\ \ Unlucky? You mean my favorite number. ;) It really is my favorite. I am mostly doing "top" instead of "favorite" in general because it's too damn hard to choose. I'd say Snickers Peanut Butter, Almond Joy, and Butterfinger.\ \ Again I want to thank Stephanie for agreeing to do this interview!\ \ If anyone has questions they would like to ask Stephanie, drop them down below! I'll be sure she sees them!\ \ Remember, if you're needing a indie bookstore to support, Deathbytbrbooks.com is a fantastic option! Other ways to support Stephanie includes: \ \ -Choosing Death By Tbr Books on your Librofm account as your indie bookstore\ \ -Choosing Death By Tbr Books on your Bookshop.org as your indie bookstore\ \ -Supporting her Patreon.\ \ -Buying her books\ \ You can find/connect with Stephanie on Instagram and Tiktok\ \ Next week join me as we talk with author Julia Jackson!](https://ashreadshorror.binderybooks.com/item/EMN88bholRdSkeaTxyos/)

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Stephanie Rose

13 books

Posts about this book from across Bindery

Books Right Now\ \ Rashi Dembi\ \ • Jun 28

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[There's something very satisfying about spending the summer reading horror! Here are the books that I recommend for your Summerween reading list!\ \

The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman - In G.G. Silverman’s debut fairytale-horror collection The Blood Year Daughter, a woman builds husbands out of gravel and slaughterhouse feathers, two sisters eat cinnamon-scented pieces of their mother, and a charming doctor’s murdered brides whisper warnings to his newest wife.\ \
Kill Your Darlings by Yuvashri Harish - A fun, fast-paced YA horror about a teen girl facing the horrors of misogyny, racism, an evil witch, and her horde of monsters.\ \
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer - A haunting debut about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit.\ \
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica - Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.\ \
What Feeds Below by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne - The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry. At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants. For orphaned best friends Petra and Jade, guiding treasure-seeking tourists down into the Void is the only way to earn enough to pull themselves up out of the slums for good.\ \
Come Closer by Sara Gran - The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?](https://booksrightnow.binderybooks.com/item/LHDngdmY0PUV7iLalxuQ/)

Summerween Book Recs ✨

6 books

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