My Heart is a Chainsaw

You won’t find a more hardcore eighties slasher fan than high school senior Jade Daniels. And you won’t find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn t-shirts and too much eyeliner than Proofrock, nestled eight thousand feet up the mountain in Idaho, situated in Pleasant Valley right alongside Indian Lake, home to both Camp Blood — site of a massacre fifty years ago — and Terra Nova, a modern-day American Camelot currently under construction, which is quickly overshadowing Proofrock.

You won’t find a more hardcore eighties slasher fan than high school senior Jade Daniels. And you won’t find a place less supportive of girls who wear torn t-shirts and too much eyeliner than Proofrock, nestled eight thousand feet up the mountain in Idaho, situated in Pleasant Valley right alongside Indian Lake, home to both Camp Blood — site of a massacre fifty years ago — and Terra Nova, a modern-day American Camelot currently under construction, which is quickly overshadowing Proofrock.

If Terra Nova ever gets finished, that is.

Problem is, the bodies are stacking up fast, and Jade might be getting just what she’s been wishing for since junior high: a slasher come to wreak havoc and dispense its violent brand of justice. Was this more fun to dream about than to try to live through, though? And, just who’s wearing that Lake Witch mask, and — more important — why ? Is this a live action, up-close and personal Scream, or is this ripped straight from the grindhouse?

As The Texas Chain Saw Massacre asks: Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

As The Last House on the Left suggests: It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie.

As A Nightmare on Elm Street whispers: Don’t fall asleep.

Or, as Jason Voorhees would say: Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor.

Come over to Jade’s own private Idaho if you dare. Go up the mountain to Proofrock. Step into that canoe, see if you’ve got what it takes, see if your heart, too, might be a chainsaw . . .

Excerpt at CrimeReads

Get it at Saga | Bookshop.org | Boulder Bookstore | Tattered Cover | Powell’s | B&N | Amazon

Lists : Read By Dusk | Let’s Get Galactic | Talking Scared | Books with Chloe | Books in the Freezer | Cultured Vultures | BookPage | Bloody Disgusting | Goodreads | Mocando | Shades of Orange (vid) | Whispers from the Library | Medium |

Reviews: Goodreads | NetGalley | Library Journal | Bloody Disgusting | Nick Cato | BookClubbed (pod) | FanFiAddict | PW | Bookworms | Sarah C. Zarnecki | Violet Prynne (vid) | HorrorBound | Booked with Grace | David Agranoff |

Not every book gets a VHS slipcover:

Kind words from cool people:

A homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre. You don’t have to be a slasher fan to read My Heart is a Chainsaw, but I guarantee that you will be after you read it.

—Alma Katsu

An easy contender for Best of the Year. A love letter to (and an examination of) both the horror genre and the American West, it left me stunned and applauding.

—Brian Keene

(and, if you’re just here for slasher goodness, then click there)