SEE the amazing vintage book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, knife-wielding killer crabs! READ the shocking plots involving devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! LEARN the stories of long-forgotten creators as well as familiar names like V.C. Andrews and Anne Rice. Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. It's an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinching tour through the horror fiction boom of the seventies and eighties, complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles. Plus recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time...and which should stay buried.

From the New York Times best-selling authorof The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a nostalgic and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and '80s.

Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate!

Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who've faded into obscurity.

Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.