Can you believe it’s only 3 weeks until Halloween? As a Samhain fan, I certainly can (erm, the rhyme there was unintentional). In the library where I work, I decided to do a spookometer rating system to let readers know what to expect with the horror books. For fun, I put my own books to the test. So, how do the books in my Belfast Ghosts trilogy rank?
Based on reader reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, here’s the order of scariness:
The Fairy Lights – not so scary
It seems that readers don’t find The Fairy Lights scary at all. One review mentioned that it was a bit creepy at the start, but that’s not the same thing as scary. The story takes a more psychedelic turn later in the book, and apparently is more fantastical to readers than frightening. As the author, I can live with that. It is, after all, a Yuletide paranormal romance as much as a ghost story.
Matthew’s Twin – kind of scary
The overall impression I get from reviews of Matthew’s Twin is that it is, by far, the goriest of my books, but maybe in terms of the sheer psychological threat, not the scariest. There’s a lot of graphic medieval fighting, and there is a lot of supernatural body horror, but I’ve been told it isn’t the scariest of my Belfast Ghosts trilogy. It is, however, my personal favourite of the series.
The Blue Man – quite scary
I’ll admit that re-reading The Blue Man leaves me on a psychological downer, lol. It’s very sinister and I’ve been told that it’s not only the scariest of my Belfast Ghosts trilogy, but actually my overall scariest book so far in my back catalogue. Is that because it’s the most realistic? That what happens to Megan and Sabrina in the story could, potentially, happen to any of us? Maybe.
Read it if you dare.
By the way…
On a final note, as an author, of course I want people to be reading my books. But displaying my own books in the display as pictured above was just for my promo pics and videos for online marketing. My actual library display included all of the recent scary books I’ve been reading with my son, who like me is a horror fan. We’ve been making our way through the Goosebumps series and also been reading a few other spooky books by Mary Hooper. Here’s a pic of the final library display with my spookometer ratings that my son helped jointly devise.
Enjoy reading them at your peril…
Leilanie Stewart 
I don’t do horror, and even scary of the spooky sort isn’t really me; however, I enjoyed ‘The Blue Man.’ 🙂
I’ve been told it’s my most intense book, so I’m glad you braved it! The rest aren’t as scary, apparently. 🙂
That’s good to know! 🙂