Last year I began cutting back the amount of Review copies I was reading, and read more books from my backlog. I started thinking a bit about what horror books mean to me, and how my love of them began. Salem's Lot, of course is where I got my start on adult horror (I had been reading kids and YA horror already). I read that bad boy for the first time sometime around 1997. I wanted more horror, so I devoured every Stephen King novel I could. Why King? Simply put, most bookstores near me had nothing but King on their shelves. I don't remember a dedicated horror section, although there may have been one. I discovered Bentley Little from my brother shortly after that Salem's Lot read through, and I have been a fan ever since. The thing about his books is that I read them all so long ago, even my favorites I hardly remember. So, with that in mind, I envisioned a plan for 2021. I would read every Bentley Little novel, in publication order leading up to the release of his latest, Gloria. #BingeingBentley was born.
It was a huge failure.
Around the time I started it, I had been tapering of Bookstagram. My account was failing to pick up new followers, interactions were dwindling aside from close friend's I had made in the bookstagram community, and frankly, I was burnt out on trying to take awesome pictures. It's not as easy as you might think. I would say it's actually fairly stressful to put a great effort into a successful bookstagram account. Not only that, but I had just moved into a new apartment in August, I was spending my free days off with my 3 year old, and just found myself not having the time or money to buying all of the books again. I had this grand plan that I was going to get people involved in rediscovering a late 80's and 1990's horror powerhouse and having almost no interaction or involvement also led to me abandoning the read through.
Until today. Brian Keen posted on his website today linking a readthrough of his works by Jay Wilburn entitled #BrianKeeneRevisited and that was all it took for me to get the drive back. So, without further ado, I bring you #BingeingBently Newly reborn on my new website. Bookmark this space here, as this will be the link hub for my chronological readthrough of Bentley Little. I hope you will join me.
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