Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my lovelies. One of my recent, major favourite ways to be hooked into a story is when it’s told from two or more perspectives. When done for specific reasons, I find this not only effective but highly entertaining, and it always makes books harder to put down. In no particular order, here are some of my favourites that use this narrative style (and they’re also great books in general).

This is told (mostly) through the perspectives of Myrrh and Cayenne, both of whom have their own issues, but they don’t seem connected to each other at all. Myrrh is on a quest of sorts, and is simultaneously battling her inner demons (or a goblin, as she thinks of it). Cayenne longs for a child but is stuck in a loveless marriage. Why and how will these stories converge? You’ll have to read to find out!

I love this book so much. A coven of witches realise they’re in trouble when a spell wanes, and their numbers seem to be up. In the same town, a group of teenage girls interested in the occult are haphazardly forming their own little coven. Naturally, but quite unfortunately for one group in particular, the two covens meet. We bounce between Courtney and Loretta through this story of deception, lies, and lots and lots of blood. Like way more brutality than I was expecting, honestly. It’s so good!

Another book I haven’t stopped being obsessed with since I read it, not least because it’s simply not fair for a debut to be this awesome. A stag party try to “be good” by going to a small, quaint village, rather than to a big city full of strip clubs, but get into a totally different type of debauchery than expected. There’s a local stag party you see, and our unsuspecting group have no idea what they’ve walked into. We go between the perspectives of all members of our main group, plus a couple of antagonist viewpoints. Brilliant way to tell this story, and very enlightening about what else might be lurking in this town.

Seth is a night time security guard at an apartment block, and Apryl goes there because a mysterious relative who died somewhat weirdly has an apartment there that needs to be taken care of. We alternate between these characters as Apryl initially sets about cleaning out the apartment, but finds herself drawn into her Great Aunt’s weird and scary world. One of the most “just one more chapter!” books I’ve ever read.

Chris returns home from a run one day to find his family missing, and there’s a stranger in his kitchen that informs him that he’s to be hunted, and his active participation in this hunt is the only thing standing between his wife and children and their untimely deaths. We also have Rose, someone who survived this very same thing before, who wants to help Chris, but also wants to take down this heinous organisation. Fast paced, nail-bitingly tense, and all around fantastic.

I will never stop finding excuses to promote this, the best book that none of you seem aware of! I can’t stand it, I tell you! We alternate between sisters Annie and Ruth, and most of the story takes part in the wake of a shared tragedy. Is one of them an unreliable narrator? Are both? There are problems here, and that’s before we even get to the truly scary stuff….

Alrighty, so this isn’t a perspective-jumping book as we’re always with our one protagonist, but I’ve included it because we’re jumping between Now and Then, and I can confidently say that this is right up there almost on par with IT in terms of how this function is used. A woman and her teenage son get lost hiking, and happen upon what can only be described as a common. Meanwhile, we’re jumping into her past, and it’s a head-scratcher about why this particular part of her past is relevant to the Now. But ohhhhh boy, when you find out…

Phenomenal book.

This one also follows and alternates between sisters. Angela is a spirit painter, meaning that she channels memories from spirits to create her art. Her sister, Becky, plays along with this but believes Angela is making this up as part of a relatively harmless sales gimmick. She thinks that…until she doesn’t! Things get a bit…firey.

Can you recommend more like this? As I said, I love this type of story telling so I’m all ears if you can point me towards more!

Bleeeeat!