Conversations - Bad Taste Books

Bryan from Bad Taste Books joins to discuss 90s young adult horror paperbacks, focusing on imprints like Point Horror and Avon Flare. The chat includes mentions of Goosebumps, The Final Cruise, Christopher Pike, and reviews of two books by Nicole Davidson, along with a showcase of nostalgic book covers. View below or on YouTube HERE.

Crash Landing

Kathryn Johnson wrote over 40 published novels in her career, most under pseudonyms like Nicole Davidson. She actively contributed to young-adult horror and suspense published under Avon's Avon Flare paperback imprint. That's where I initially discovered her book Winterkill, published by the company in 1991. I later read her 1995 novel Crash Course and discovered there was a sequel published a year later titled Crash Landing.

Crash Landing picks up the action just a few months after the events from Crash Course. Protagonist Kelly and her friends Isobel, Angel, Chris, Jeff, and Nathan have all returned to Deep Creek Lake, the location of the first book, for a ski trip hosted by their high school. But, Kelly keeps remembering the events that caused the drowning death of her best friend Brian.

In this book, readers learn that Paula, the “killer” from the first book, was sentenced to a long-term psychiatric hospital stemming from her involvement in Brian's drowning and the attempted murder of Nathan and Kelly. But, oddly enough, Kelly runs into Paula on the ski slopes. Paula offers a sincere reproach to Brian's death and says the doctors rehabilitated her and she's out now and ready to move on with her life. Kelly believes her and welcomes the girl back into the group.

Later, Paula is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant. This kicks off a chain of events involving two police officers investigating Paula's murder. The investigation then connects to a drug-running investigation involving several of the high school kids on the ski trip. Kelly is arrested, but it's a ploy to get the real killer out in the open.

Crash Landing is a bit of a mess in terms of disjointed plot, but it does offer plenty of red herrings and an interesting central mystery that affects Kelly. I was often contemplating something from the first book and how the significance may play a role in this novel. Unfortunately, there aren't many things connecting the two books, which led me to suspend disbelief that these unfortunate, nearly fatal incidents, could all happen to the same people again. However, at just shy of 200-pages, the book breezes by and is fairly enjoyable. A very mild recommendation if you enjoy young-adult suspense.

Get the book HERE.

Winterkill

Kathryn Johnson is a bestselling author of over 40 published novels. She was nominated for the Agatha Award and earned the Heart of Excellence and Bookseller's Best Awards. Her most well known work is The Gentlemen Poet, a novel that has Shakespeare escape to the New World. What drew me to her writing was the young-adult novels she wrote in the 1990s using the pseudonym Nicole Davidson. These were published by Avon under their young-adult imprint Avon Flare. I wanted to read her first novel, Winterkill. It was published in 1991.

Winterkill was written for young adults, however, after reading it, I can honestly say this is no different than any mystery from the early to mid 20th century. The narrative would also please horror readers - which is probably the young audience the cover catered to. I would imagine if you enjoy the childhood perspectives in books by the likes of John Saul, Dan Simmons, or even Stephen King, then that element is strongly used by Johnson - a vulnerable teen placed into extreme situations. 

The book stars Karen, a high school student that is forced to move with her parents to a small town in Vermont. This little town, which features a ski resort, is far different than Karen's New York City roots. There's a fish-out-of-water scenario with Karen initially becoming shy, self-sheltered, and protective in terms of negotiating her emotions at a new school with new people. Thankfully, Karen loosens up and befriends a fellow student named Matt and his popular friends. Matt and Karen begin dating.

Karen also befriends a less popular girl and develops a little rivalry with a local girl named Jerrie. One night at a party Matt tells Karen he has to leave for just a little bit but he will return. Karen gets worried and follows Matt only to see him run over in a hit and run. She can't make out the car through the snow and fog. Later, she discovers that her own car was used in the hit and run. But who would want to kill Matt? Why use her car to do it? Karen then sets out to solve the mystery by eliminating her fellow students as suspects. The finale of the book takes place on the ski slopes as Karen tries to outfox the killer. 

This book was a lot of fun and contained an absorbing mystery. In terms of young-adult novels, this one has some profanity, talk about sex, and of course at least one murder. Again, in comparison to early 20th century mystery fiction, there isn't anything too far out of bounds from just a straight up traditional mystery novel. There is a hint of the supernatural, but it is subjective. Karen's necklace was handed down to her from her grandmother. The necklace has opals that change color depending on how much danger Karen is in. Now, it could just be the lighting or some type of scientific explanation of the weather affecting the stones. There's no clear answer on this, so it is up to the reader to determine if there was something supernatural involved. Personally, I don't think so.

Winterkill was a lot of fun and I have a few other books by this same author I'm willing to read now. If they are as good as this then I'd be very pleased. Recommended. Get the book HERE.

Crash Course

I initially discovered Kathryn Johnson earlier this year when I read her young-adult thriller Winterkill, originally published by Avon in 1991. I enjoyed the novel, leading me to place the author on my radar to find more of her works. Johnson, who used the pseudonym Nicole Davidson, wrote over 40 published novels and was nominated for the Agatha Award. I located plenty of her books and chose her 1995 book Crash Course to read along with a fellow Booktuber named Bryan from Bad Taste Books. 

The plot is rather elementary, leaving the focus to be more of a character study. Eight Maryland high school students are forced to participate in a group SAT study with a teacher named Porter. But, this isn't any normal scholastic study group. Instead, Porter, with parental consent, takes these eight kids to a rural house miles from civilization. The house, sitting on the shore of Deep Creek Lake, will be the students' home for a few nights over Thanksgiving break. Here's the personalities that clash on this mandatory meeting of the minds:

Kelly – protagonist, in love with a student athlete named Jeff and best friend to her neighbor Brian.
Paula – Kelly's rival, the girlfriend to Brian, jealous rager.
Chris – jock and bully, homicidal.
Jeff – secretly loves Kelly, goes with the flow.
Nathan – motorhead biker and food junkie.
Isabel – Native-American mystic and all-around introvert.
Angel – the group's goth witch.
Brian – pal to Kelly, hardworking student, bound for college.

As the kids arrive and settle in, small alliances begin to form. But, the mystery begins when Brian disappears in the lake. The kids begin to question each other on where Brian is, who may have had a hand in his demise, and what to do next. These suspicious increase once Porter leaves to find help. But, when another student is found stabbed, the need to survive the coming days becomes the most prevalent plot point.

By 1991, the slasher film market had reached a pinnacle of success. Johnson hones in on some of the genre's most intriguing tropes – a camp killer, teens in peril, the clashing of raging personalities, and the ultimate guessing game of the murderer's identity. While the third-person narration consistently flips among the characters, the most dominant is Kelly. She's mature, daring, and makes good decisions when facing adversity. She's also the one with the most motivation to discover the whereabouts of Brian's body. It was fun to join her on the search for motives.

Kelly and two other characters from this book appear in the sequel, Crash Landing. 

Get Crash Course HERE.