Top Ten Tuesday-Summer Vibes

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

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This week-it's all about books with summer vibes but I'm not a happy summer beach kind of person so I'm going with a bit of a summer horror and disaster theme.

Rick and Corinne Scully and their kids have visited Florida's Captiva Island many times. This year, they've brought along their best friends, who can't wait to finally experience the place the Scullys call Paradise on Earth. But this vacation is turning out to be a lot different than planned. The Scullys never expected the rowdy college spring-breakers renting the house next door, or a hurricane that would sweep through the Gulf Coast, or the century-old shipwreck that washed up on the shore. They never knew about the military research being done at a nearby marine institute--and the test subjects that escaped during the hurricane. In the aftermath of the storm, the Scullys and their friends will try to salvage what's left of their time at the beach. They believe it's safe to go back in the water. . .but they're dead wrong.

Nothing says summer like being trapped on a holiday island, trying to survive an invasion of test sharks that escaped during a hurricane. Everyone is scrambling to salvage the end of the holiday with various watersports, unaware that the sharks are closing in on them!

At Camp Blaze—a camp with a history of tragedy and murder—a group of counselors are stalked and slaughtered by a masked killer. Due to the missing bodies, the murders are brushed off as 'disappearances.' Lead senior counselor Regina Park, however, begins to suspect foul play. As the body count rises, Regina and her peers begin to suspect everyone in their fight for survival... 

What says summer quite like summer camp eh? Groups of kids getting to hang out all summer and play games and sports, learn new skills and make new friends. Camp assistants are there to help you get settled and teach you...unless of course you pick a camp with a bloody history and a serial killer running around the place! I did go on trips with the Brownies, and one was a weird place that was rumoured to be haunted-strange things happened there but thankfully no serial killers!

September. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River—off season—awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall...And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

One thing people do like about the summer is the chance to meet up with friends or family for a fun vacation and some peace and quiet. A cabin in the woods is the perfect place for this kind of reunion to take place, where there is nobody around to disturb you. Unless of course you pick somewhere that has a group of psycho cannibals living nearby who decide you are on the buffet menu that night! Oh dear not quite the relaxing reunion that you were expecting...

The rules are simple: Seven contestants will enter, only one will leave. The New York Public Library. A silent sanctuary of knowledge; a 100-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and long marble hallways. For Doctor Stephen Swain and his daughter, Holly, it is the site of a nightmare. Because for one night this historic building is to be the venue for a contest. A contest in which Swain is to compete - whether he likes it or not.With his daughter in his arms, Stephen Swain is plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. The stakes are high, the odds brutal. He can choose to run, to hide or to fight - but if he wants to live, he has to win. For in this contest, unless you leave as the victor, you do not leave at all.

How many of us waited for that first day of the summer holidays to go rushing to the library to get our first books to read? As a kid I was never out the library, grabbing my three books and coming back days later to get more. Of course my local library never had space creatures battling in a deadly game to kill each other...

In a dystopian future, a self-contained valley in Argentina serves as the 'far arena' for those convicted of a crime. Inside the Valley: carnivorous dinosaurs generated from preserved DNA. The goal: cross the Valley to get to the Gates of Freedom. The chance of survival: no one has ever completed the journey. Convicted of crimes with little or no merit, Ben Peyton and others must battle their way across fields filled with the world's deadliest apex predators in order to reach salvation. All the while the journey is caught on cameras and broadcast to the world as a reality show, the deaths and killings real, the macabre appetite of the audience needing to be satiated as Ben Peyton leads his team to escape not only from a legal system that's more interested in entertainment than in justice, but also from the predators of the Valley.

A hot and humid environment filled with rampaging dinosaurs just makes me think of summer days pretending to be dinosaurs with my friends, and that hot tropical environment in warmer countries, as well as the chance to watch more TV without homework distractions! 

Who Murdered Dracula? Many had tried to kill the Count over the centuries. All had failed. Until now...Eight vampires gather at their maker's castle to solve the mystery of who killed Dracula. But as the sun rises outside the chateau, a voice cries out and another vampire is slain. Trapped inside their master's lair, the sun burning bright outside, Dracula's children realize that they have met their match - a formidable killer who plans on picking them off one by one! As the daylight reigns and their numbers dwindle, a dark suspicion grows - could the killer be hiding in plain sight?

As a redheaded child I sometimes had to stay inside on the warmest days when the sun might burn me so that leads nicely to a book about vampires trapped inside a house where one killer is executing them in twisted ways while the sun prevents them from making an escape.  The summer sun is much more deadly for these vampires!
 

Welcome to Derry, Maine ...It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real ...They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

Nothing is more summery than a nice dose of a killer clown murdering children in a small town. Pennywise takes the face of everything that scares kids and a group of seven who have evaded his clutches join together to defeat him. This book screams summer as the 1958 parts of the story take place in the summer holidays. The kids are roaming about exploring, evading school bullies and monsters. I can at least relate to trying to fill my days with exploring old buildings and hanging about with my friends...

The swamp belongs to them. Humans are only prey. Deep in the overgrown swamps of Florida, where humans rarely dare to enter, lives a race of creatures long thought to be only the stuff of legend. They walk upright but are stronger, taller and more brutal than any man. And when a small boat of tourists, held captive by a fleeing criminal, accidentally kills one of the swamp dwellers' young, the creatures are filled with a terrifyingly human emotion-a merciless lust for vengeance that will paint the trees red with blood.  

Florida for me conjures up the image of hot summer days, warm nights, beaches, theme parks, humidity...and of course the sticky heat of the Everglades with an army of psycho Sasquatches chasing a bunch of hapless swamp boat tourists. This is one of my favourite monster books and it has a summer vibe to it because of the location, the tourists and the swampy elements. This was my first book by the author and is probably my favourite. Summer boat trips for tourists don't usually end up like this!

For two families, it was supposed to be a relaxing camping trip in the California mountains. They thought it would be fun to get away from everything for a while. But they're not alone. The woods are also home to two terrifying residents who don't take kindly to strangers - an old hag with unholy powers, and her hulking son, a half-wild brute with uncontrollable, violent urges. The campers still need to get away - but now their lives depend on it!  

Ah, camping! There is nothing like strolling out into the wilderness with your tent and a pile of provisions if you like that kind of thing! Camping trips make me think of summer, though I've never camped out further than my back garden for a few hours as I have a thing about cannibals, spiders, bugs and serial killers! This book certainly has the angry witch and her pervert son who bring terror to two families on a camping trip. This book was one of the best Laymon books I read and it is long overdue for a re-read!

No Goodreads blurb available. 

A carnival is coming to town and the locals watch in anticipation as it is constructed. It soon becomes clear that there is something very wrong with the carnival. A young child vanishes and his frantic mother will go to any lengths to find her offspring including a deal with something nasty. If you get into the wrong car on the Ghost Train you vanish and die.

I read this years ago and loved it. My summer holidays as a kid were trips down to the seaside resort of Blackpool in England. Donkey rides on the crowded beaches, boat trips to see a school of porpoises, the smells of cotton candy, toffee apples and junk food, creamy ice cream cones...and of course Blackpool Pleasure Beach theme park with rollercoasters and water rides! I'm glad to say that Blackpool was never as scary as this...