Book Review: Urban Legends by Yawatta Hosby

You know you’ve taken your novel research too far when you start murdering people.

Students at Independence University start dying in the exact order of Urban Legends covered in Professor Stevens’ class, but who could be the killer?

This is a fun horror novel for fans of slasher fiction. If you like the teen horror movies such as Scream, and Urban Legend, you will love this book.

The kills are gory and described well. None of the characters are safe, and there is some mystery around the identity of the killer.

One of the characters has written a horror novel that pays homage to a book from the 1930s, but he is accused of plagiarism. I interpreted this as a nice meta reference comparing the book to the movie, Urban Legend, with which it shares some similarities.

I follow the author’s blog, and I enjoyed reading the snippets she posted every weekend while writing this book. It was great to read the finished novel and see how the excerpts fitted in.

One of the things I liked about Hosby’s novel, Perfect Little Murder, was the in-depth characterization. Unfortunately, Urban Legends is weakest when it comes to the characters. I would have preferred if they were a little more complex.