Literature

Down Came the Spiders (2025)

2025 · Ally Russell · 224 pages · Estados Unidos · Edited by Caedes

Watched: 0
Watchlist: 0
Ratings: 0
Average rating: —
Favorites: 0

¿Puedes correr más rápido que ocho patas? Andi, de doce años, adora todo lo relacionado con las arañas: son criaturas fascinantes. Así que, cuando encuentra una especie que nunca había visto en la fiesta de Halloween de un compañero de clase, se pone contentísima. Hasta que las arañas empiezan a comportarse de forma inusual y amenazante. Se camuflan increíblemente bien, saltan más alto de lo que ella jamás ha visto, y sus redes son fuertes. Quizás incluso lo suficientemente fuertes como para atrapar a una persona... Andi y sus amigos Carly y Devon intentan encontrar a un adulto que los ayude, pero se ponen nerviosos: los padres que los acompañan han sido inmovilizados por las arañas. Como los únicos que saben lo que ocurre, Andi, Carly y Devon tendrán que enfrentarse a las arañas ellos mismos, ¡antes de que sea demasiado tarde!

Ally RussellAuthor

A 2025 title built around Afro-descendant authors and Ficción. Directed by Ally Russell.

You’ll like it if you enjoy

Not ideal if you are looking for

Paranormal
Body horror
Witchcraft
Bestiary

Blacktop WastelandBeauregard "Bug" Montage: esposo, padre, honesto mecánico de coches. Pero una vez fue conocido, desde Carolina del Norte hasta las playas de Florida, como el mejor conductor de escape de la Costa Este. Al igual que su padre, desaparecido hace muchos años. Tras una serie de calamidades financieras (agravadas por los prejuicios raciales del pequeño pueblo donde vive), Bug participa a regañadientes en un audaz robo de diamantes para resolver sus problemas de dinero y enmendarse de una vez por todas. Sin embargo, cuando todo sale terriblemente mal, se ve envuelto en un sórdido submundo que amenaza todo y a todos sus seres queridos...

Where the Dead Brides GatherAmbientado en Nigeria, narra la historia de Bata, una niña de once años atormentada por pesadillas, despierta una noche y se encuentra de pie, de guardia ante la puerta de su prima. Su piel, cabello y ojos se han vuelto de un blanco deslumbrante, que ni siquiera el curandero puede sanar. Su prima se casará a la mañana siguiente, pero solo si logra escapar del ataque asesino de una novia fantasma, que estuvo comprometida con su novio. Durante la noche, Bata lucha contra el vengativo fantasma y finalmente lo vence antes de desplomarse. Al despertar, no recuerda nada de lo sucedido. Y cuando el curandero intenta exorcizar las entidades que se aferran a su cuerpo como resultado de su posesión sobrenatural, Bata muere en la alfombra de exorcismo. Ahí comienza su viaje. Mmuọ-Ka-Mmuọ, el recolector de fantasmas del reino espiritual, la lleva a Ibaja-La, el reino de las novias muertas. Allí se encuentra con los fantasmas de novias de todas las culturas que murieron trágicamente antes de casarse, tanto las bondadosas como las malévolas. Bata recibe poderes secretos para luchar contra las malvadas novias fantasmas antes de ser enviada de vuelta al reino humano, donde deberá aprender a usar sus nuevas habilidades mientras se esfuerza por proteger a sus seres queridos.

White Is for WitchingEn una vasta y misteriosa casa en los acantilados cerca de Dover, la familia Silver se tambalea por el agujero que les han abierto en el corazón. Lily se ha ido y sus gemelos, Miranda y Eliot, y su esposo, el amable Luc, lloran su ausencia con una intensidad tácita. La casa tampoco está bien, cruje, refunfuña y confunde malignamente a los visitantes en sus laberínticas habitaciones, forzando la cosecha de manzanas de invierno en el jardín cuando las ramas deberían estar desnudas. Generaciones de mujeres habitan sus paredes. Y Miranda, con su nuevo gusto por la tiza y su agudo sentido de los espíritus, está más en sintonía con ellas que con su hermano y su padre. Los abandona lentamente, se aleja de ellos, y cuando una noche oscura desaparece por completo, los supervivientes quedan para contar su historia.

I'll Make a Spectacle of YouZora Robinson es una ambiciosa estudiante de posgrado en el programa de sus sueños, Estudios Apalaches en la Universidad de Bricksbury. Cuando su asesor de tesis le sugiere que investigue el folclore local sobre una bestia que deambula por los bosques que rodean el campus, Zora descubre a una población local poco dispuesta a hablar con un forastero. Al profundizar en la historia de la bestia, descubre una supuesta sociedad secreta llamada los Guardianes, que tiene tenues vínculos con la bestia... y con el propio Bricksbury. Zora pronto se ve acosada por visiones, y su conexión con la realidad comienza a flaquear mientras lucha por descubrir qué es real y qué es folclore. Pero cuando un estudiante desaparece, Zora comienza a preguntarse si los Guardianes alguna vez se disolvieron. Hay algo en el bosque y tiene los ojos puestos en Zora.

Beauty in the BloodSarah Toomey is afraid she's losing her mind. Ever since her mother’s death, she's found herself acting upon strange urges, losing track of time, and coming to in odd places. There’s a dark force that seems to be haunting her, and leaving death in its wake. Yvonne Howard has reinvented herself. After years of unhappiness as a guard in a women’s prison she’s finally pursuing her passion for cooking. But when an ex-inmate reaches out and asks her to investigate the inmate’s brother’s death, then ends up killed herself, Yvonne is pulled into the same dangerous world Sarah is inhabiting—a world of chaos, death, and a curse that dates back to the Civil War.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of SalemAt the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her. She was raised from then on by Mama Yaya, a gifted woman who shared with her the secrets of healing and magic. But it was Tituba's love of the slave John Indian that led her from safety into slavery, and the bitter, vengeful religion practiced by the good citizens of Salem, Massachusetts. Though protected by the spirits, Tituba could not escape the lies and accusations of that hysterical time.

Weird Black GirlsA rural town finds itself under the authoritarian sway of a tree that punishes children. A pair of old friends navigate their fraught history as strange happenings escalate in a Mexican restaurant. A pair of narcissistic friends wreak havoc on an activist community. An aloof young man finds himself living through his lover’s memories. And a day of LARPing takes a cosmic turn. In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their obsessions on paths to glory and destruction while around them their worlds twist and warp, oscillating between reality and impossibility. On display throughout is Cotman’s ability to reveal truths about the human experience—about friendship, love, betrayal, bitterness—through whimsy, horror, and fantasy. Elegiac in tone, imaginative and humorous in their execution, the character-driven stories in Weird Black Girls challenge, incite, and entertain.

RootworkSet in a small parish in Louisiana in 1889, Rootwork follows sisters, Betty, Ann and Pee Wee. When school lets out for the summer, the girls head off to stay with their hoodoo-practicing aunt, Theodora, an empowered woman equally feared and revered by the local townspeople. They learn how to make “hot foot powder” and the secrets of a good “black cat bone”. Need to get back at an enemy? A little goofer dust will help that. The girls delight in their new hoodoo adventure, until a tragic event strikes, involving the malicious town sheriff, transforming not only their lives but also the sisters themselves. A story of love, folk magic, redemption and independence, Rootwork explores the strength of family and the darker side of the heart.

When the Beckoning ComesMore than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder. But now Mira is back in Kipsen to attend Celine’s wedding at the plantation, which has been transformed into a lush vacation resort. Mira hopes to reconnect with her friends, and especially, Jesse, to finally tell him the truth about her feelings and the events of that devastating long-ago day. But for all its fancy renovations, the Woodsman remains a monument to its oppressive racist history. The bar serves antebellum drinks, entertainments include horrifying reenactments, and the service staff is nearly all black. Yet the darkest elements of the plantation’s past have been carefully erased—rumors that slaves were tortured mercilessly and that ghosts roam the lands, seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who tormented them, which includes most of the wedding guests. As the weekend unfolds, Mira, Jesse, and Celine are forced to acknowledge their history together, and to save themselves from what is to come.

Listen to your sisterTwenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop. When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.

Down Came the Spiders (2025)

Synopsis

Authors 1

Tags 2

Why watch it?

Who is it for?

Influences

Similar books