Traci Ashbe Dark Epic Fantasy Author

I’m back, back, back again with spooky girls and serious spoilers, but you should journey forward anyway, I promise.

If there is one disturbing thing in Steve Vance’s Spook, it’s on the front cover. Right between the title and the dayglo skull, some overeager marketer decided to add the line, “A Novel of Psychological Suspense.”

I’ve been looking at that line for a week now, and I just don’t understand.

What does “psychological suspense” even mean? Aren’t all horror books psychologically suspenseful? What’s the opposite of “psychological suspense?” Physical suspense? For whom? The characters? The reader? Are they hanging from the ceiling? Or is the opposite emotional suspense? Where the characters don’t know how they feel about anything throughout the whole story until the very end.

Better stop thinking about it. It gets really messy.

Spook begins by introducing us to MaryAnn Nelson, who wears a hood to cover…