Bram Stoker Award Best Novel Winner
Blood Kin
by Steve Rasnic Tem
Summary
In the Appalachian hills, Michael Gibson returns to care for his dying grandmother and unearths a family history tangled with snake handling religion, witchcraft, and a monstrous legacy passed down through the blood. The novel braids two timelines, the present day and the Great Depression era of his grandmother's youth, to trace how regional poverty and folk belief shaped a generational curse. Tem writes a quiet, atmospheric Southern Gothic that draws its dread from place, memory, and the weight of inheritance.
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Historical Context & Significance
Steve Rasnic Tem set the novel in the Appalachian region of his own upbringing, and it won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.