Category: Kate’s Reviews

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Oubliette” by L.V. Russell

Publishing Info: Quill & Crow Publishing, October 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Rue knows only bloodshed, longing, and isolation. Born into ancient wealth on the Cornish coast, Rue grows up in the crumbling Folkehaven Manor, steeped in rot and haunted by the dead. Twisted specters trail through the halls, the lords and ladies of high society Rue delivered to her mother. For her mother is hungry for attention…and for flesh. During one blood-soaked feast, Rue is drawn to Oren Pengelly, a quiet gentleman whose sister’s betrothed is consumed. Oren sees past Rue’s sins, beyond all the horrors, and sees someone deserving of love. But Rue struggles to leave her mother, for who will keep her fed?

With blood beneath her nails, and a soul darkening by the day, Rue wonders if there might be something more than violence and decay. Something more than hunger… Or if perhaps hunger is all she was ever made for.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

We are starting to wrap up my Horrorpalooza celebration. October always goes so fast, and I am pleased with the varied books that I was able to tackle this time around. I am once again talking about vampires (ish? I feel like perhaps it could be a ghoul tale), one of my favorite sub-genres of horror, and “Oubliette” by L.V. Russell is on the opposite end of the spectrum that my last vampire read. Instead of a dark academia vampire romance, we are now into Gothic territory, with a dilapidated mansion, a Victorian time setting, and a vampire mother who keeps her daughter close, no matter how much the daugther wants to leave. It had great promise, and for the most part it delivered.

I do love a Gothic horror novel, just as I like complex stories about mothers and daughters no matter what the genre, and “Oubliette” combines the two into a vampire/ghoul story as well as a mother daughter tale where the child craves independence while the parent wants to hold on. Rue is a young woman who feels tethered to her vampire mother Sylvatica, and feels like she cannot leave her behind even though she would love to go live a life for herself and away from the rotting home, as well as the rotting parent. Sylvatica’s appetites and gory and gross, going above and beyond the usual ‘vampires drink blood’ and entering into straight up consuming flesh territory in ways that made my stomach turn, though it never got too be too much as I read. It had the right amount of gross horror without being distracting. We also get another well crafted metaphor of vampires feeding off of people in ways that go beyond just blood to sustain their life, as Sylvatica manipulates and guilts her daughter, feeding off of her innocence and her need to be devoted to her mother, no matter how monstrous she can be, because of the need to feel that maternal love from her. I was less convinced of Rue’s burgeoning relationships with the outside world, whether it was a romance with a young upper class named Oren or a friendship with his sister Anne. In Oren’s case especially it felt a bit rushed and like instalove. I suppose it could have been a commentary about how desperate Rue is to get away, latching onto the first thing that seems like an out, but if that was the intent it wasn’t as clear as I would have liked.

But I also appreciated that we did get some flashback backstory to Sylvatica’s past, from her birth to her childhood and young adulthood to her eventual descent into being a monster. I almost enjoyed her chapters more, watching as she went from powerless peasant girl, with no support at home, on a failing farm, so desperate and lonely, to something terrifying, was really gratifying to read. It doesn’t excuse who she becomes and the kind of mother she is to Rue, her insatiable hunger and refusal to let her child go for her own ends always terrible and tragic. It would have been easy to just see the thing she had become and the violence that she left behind, be it the physical of the people she eats (no matter how some may have deserved it), or the emotional of the daughter she refuses to let go of. It made Sylvatica far more well rounded than I expected and I liked it.

“Oubliette” was a spooky and sometimes heavy tale about independence and codependence, and I liked the complexities of it all, even if there could have been more branching out in other areas beyond the mother and daughter relationship. Overall, it was a good read.

Rating 7: A dark and ultimately bittersweet story about toxic parent child relationships and trying to break free from an abusive cycle.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Oubliette” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but if you enjoyed “Night’s Edge” by Liz Kerin, this would probably be a good fit.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Our Cut of Salt” by Deena Helm

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart.

And, in return, the house did the same for her.

After Nuhad passes away, her granddaughter, Marina, is determined to visit her grandmother’s home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina’s mother, Haifa – named for the city that was lost to their family – reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried.

But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family’s past, the sicker she becomes. Despite Nuhad’s ghostly warnings, Haifa rushes to help her daughter.

As the three women converge in their ancestral home, they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all.

Review: Thank you to Tor Nightfire for sending me an eARC of this novel via NetGalley!

I always find it funny when people have a knee jerk reaction to horror as a genre that is only there to upset and terrify people in a bad way. I grew up in a household where I was the only horror fan, and I definitely had comments from my parents about why I wanted to watch or read this kind of stuff that is so upsetting and, at times, tasteless (my poor mother, having to go up to the Blockbuster counter to rent YET ANOTHER slasher movie gore fest for her teenage Goth daughter). But I find horror to be a genre that has a capacity for so much empathy and connection, and whenever I read a book like “Our Cut of Salt” by Deena Helm I think of the way the genre can be written off when it can have SO MUCH TO SAY.

This is a haunted house story, but it is moreso a family saga involving three generations of Palestinian women who have dealt with immense trauma and grief, starting with the Nakba in 1948 and up to 2002 (the time this book is set). Marina feels disconnected from her Palestinian heritage, living in Chicago with her mother Haifa and wanting to understand her history, and decides to return to the family home in Haifa (it can be hard to keep track with a place and a character sharing a name, just be warned), which has been long lost to the family after her grandmother Nuhad and her family were driven out by Israeli occupation. Haifa doesn’t want Marina to go back, but she does, and discovers a brutal past and a house that seems to be alive, enraged, and hungry. We have multiple perspectives, jumping from Nuhad’s time during the Nakba, to Haifa’s strained relationship with her traumatized mother, to Marina’s return to a homeland that is now overtaken with hostile colonial violence targeted at her people. The historical and social aspects of this book are brutal and incredibly emotional, and while it is set almost twenty five years ago it is a really stark reminder that this violence in Palestine didn’t begin three years ago, and that the occupation has a long and terrible history. It’s a very difficult read at times, but it’s also an important one, and it is once again a horror story that taps into very real horrors and brings out despair and empathy on a deep and visceral level.

In terms of the haunted house bits, I think what I found most creative about this book was that not only do we see perspectives of our three generations of women, but also from the house itself. The house is angry and hungry, feeding upon settlers who attempt to make claim, and waits for its rightful owners to return, unwilling to allow anyone else inside for long. I liked having the house’s perspective a lot, as that is what kept the straight up paranormal horror afloat in a book that could have been enveloped fully by a family saga and real life horrors. This horror choice really worked for me. And the real life horrors, as mentioned above, really make this book the horrifying story that it sets out to be, and Helm doesn’t hold back. Be warned, this doesn’t take place during the current violence, but it goes to show that it has been happening a VERY long time.

I will say that I did have one criticism of this book, and it’s a criticism that I always need to address whenever it comes up in anything I’m reading, and that is the idea of relying too much of telling versus showing. This book has a very passionate and emotionally charged core (understandably so), and in a horror novel that has a lot of metaphors that it wants to convey, there is a trap that can be fallen into of over-explaining the metaphors and broader messages. This book has a lot of that, with a lot of repeated emphasis on what the reader is supposed to be getting from the metaphors or symbolism at hand, and any time we got an over-explanation it really stood out. The messages are important and I don’t even disagree with them and I understand what is being said, but it felt like there wasn’t enough trust in the reader to understand when I think that the messages and themes were powerful enough to stand on their own two feet, as it were.

But outside of that last criticism, I found “Our Cut of Salt” to be deeply emotional and very timely, a family saga with some real and metaphorical hauntings. Recommended for sure.

Rating 8: Timely, haunting, and filled to the brim with grief, “Our Cut of Salt” is about occupation, family, displacement, and home.

Reader’s Advisory

“Our Cut of Salt” is included on the Goodreads lists “2026 Gothic”, and “SWANA Fiction Books – 2026”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “What Feeds Below” by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

Publishing Info: Bindery Books, October 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry.

At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants. For orphaned best friends Petra and Jade, guiding treasure-seeking tourists down into the Void is the only way to earn enough to pull themselves up out of the slums for good.

Petra prefers to play it safe and take jobs only in the Void’s upper levels, where the dangers are better understood, while Jade wants to risk a descent to the deepest and most mysterious Sixth Layer. Because the deeper they go, the better the payout, and the sooner their dreams can become reality. Their friendship is Petra’s whole world, and Jade’s approval means everything—so Petra agrees to do it Jade’s way.

When their job goes wrong and Jade is lost in the Void, Petra must plunge deeper than she’s ever dared to save her friend. But she doesn’t know the truth of the Void . . . or what really waits for her in its depths.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I admittedly know nothing about it outside of a number of people in my life who love it, but I have not read “Dungeon Crawler Carl” even though I have been told by said people that I need to read it. Even my Mom sent me a New York Times piece about the books with the message ‘have you read this?’ (just to note, she is always sending me NYT or Guardian articles about pop culture things she thinks I will know things about/like and I really like getting these emails). I haven’t read it, but I will say that when I was reading the description of Tatiana Schlote-Bonne’s newest horror novel “What Feeds Below” I was thinking it sounded like DCC but horror and on PCP to amplify the horror. But I absolutely knew I wanted to read it. The idea of a weird cosmic chasm forming, and then becoming a demented tourist destination for the wealthy in a hugely wealth gapped and stricken society where ‘divers’ take people in on tours (though there’s a good chance they won’t come out) and treasure hunts, is so cool.

The world building in this book is incredibly well done. We follow Petra and Jade, two young women in a place called City of the Void, who as ‘divers’ lead people on the aforementioned tours into the aforementioned Void. We are thrown into The Void and City of the Void well into the setting being established and well known and understood for those who live there, but the framing of Petra and Jade being divers taking tourists down means that we get information in a way that isn’t overwrought or jammed in. And what a world that has been created! The mythology of The Void and the people who love near it/in it is so engrossing, and it is incredibly thought out. It is dungeon exploring Sci-Fi Fantasy with lots of nasty body and cosmic horror bits, and Schlote-Bonne has some REALLY gnarly moments that had me squirming in my seat as I read. The flora and fauna are so creative, and I also liked getting little tidbits about the Void in the chapter headings through diary entries or textbooks from that world. It’s just so fun. The entire race down the levels as Petra hopes to help Jade is just so fast faced and addictive, I couldn’t put it down.

But I also really liked our protagonist Petra, who has been making money with her best friend Jade (whom she credits with saving her life/being the only person who cares about her) as a Void diving team in hopes of making enough money to be able to open a health and healing clinic for the community, which has a lot of poverty and suffering in spite of the tourist dollars that come in. Petra is tenacious and spunky but unsure of herself, and I liked that when faced with the horrible concept of Jade being in danger after a bad dive, she finds strength, courage, and assurance within herself to be able to try and save the one person that she feels she owes everything. I also really enjoyed seeing Petra’s relationships with not just Jade, but also childhood friend turned chilly acquaintance Flint, who Petra feels spurned by and Jade is happy to keep at arm’s length, though he may be the only person who can help her when she needs it most. And as we see these relationships evolve, we also see how Petra may have some preconceived notions that may not be fully correct… I think the only qualm I had with this was a twist that felt like a twist for twist’s sake, but it’s important to remember that that is very much a ‘me’ kind of hang up and doesn’t necessarily say anything about the twist itself. Do with that what you will.

But frustrating twist aside, “What Feeds Below” is another fun horror tale from Tatiana Schlote-Bonne! Her creativity knows no bounds and I definitely recommend it!

Rating 8: Incredibly addictive and creative to boot, “What Feeds Below” is another fun horror novel from Tatiana Schlote-Bonne with some dungeon diving and gnarly body horror.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What Feeds Below” is included on the Goodreads list “Weird Botany”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Off the Reservation” by Stephen Graham Jones

Publishing Info: S&S/Saga Press, October 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A ragtag group of activists sets out to repatriate the bones of a Blackfeet boy taken to the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School in author Stephen Graham Jones’s return to the Blackfeet reservation of his award-winning New York Times bestsellers The Only Good Indians and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.

Five years have passed since the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation in Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller The Only Good Indians. Nathan Yellow Tail, one of the survivors of the revenge murders, finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend, Sebby, who is hanging on to life in a room a few doors down.

Nate’s life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to reset his life, and maybe save Sebby in the process, Nate steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—where many Indigenous children were abused—and repatriate this boy home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.

By turns terrifying and deeply moving, Off the Reservation is a haunting American Indian novel of survival, reckoning, and redemption, shining light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against a wall.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

I feel like it has been a bit since Stephen Graham Jones released a horror novel in October, which usually means they don’t get covered in my Horrorpalooza festival. So how lucky is it that his newest book, “Off the Reservation”, is finally here, and that it has been released during this most wonderful and holy of months, October! Jones has been a long time favorite of mine, and I’m definitely pleased that I had a new book of his for the Halloween season. And no surprises here, it’s great!

Jones has so much intention and detail to all of his books, and that was incredibly clear here as we start to unwind this new story set within the same storyline as “The Only Good Indians”. It’s referred to as a sequel but I would say that it is more of a companion piece, as while Nate Yellow Tail is definitely in “The Only Good Indians” (as he is present at the climactic scenes/massacre of that book), you need not read it to be able to understand all that is going on. And the story of Nate being recruited to help reclaim and return the remains of a murdered Blackfeet boy from the Carlisle Indian School back to his ancestral home in Montana takes time and details to set up before it goes into full wild out mode with possession horror. Jones wants to make sure that all of the important information is there so that when it all starts to come together, sometimes at breakneck speed, it has all been laid out so the reader can say ‘oh yes!’ as they plunge through the narrative. And it’s a good thing too, because as we get to know Nate’s compatriots, be it nurse Seine Plenty Wolf who met Nate whilst he was in the hospital and then brought him in for this mission, or mysterious driver Christian, or long mourning widow Mooch (who has lost her entire family), their back stories become incredibly important as everything starts to fall apart. The characterizations are well done and the back stories all inform what is to come.

In terms of the horror, we all know I do really like it when authors tweak and mess with the idea of ‘possession’, and Jones brings his own perspectives to the sub-genre that feel unique and pertinent for the themes at hand with Indigenous themes and history. There are a lot of creepy and really intense moments with this, running the gamut of emotions from scary to funny to heart-rendering. And it is once again the realities of the history of the injustices that the United States Government has committed towards Indigenous people that really drive the horror in this book. For God’s sake, the main plot is about repatriating the bones of a murdered child back to their ancestral land from the government institution that caused their death all in the name of ‘assimilation’ (but what was in actuality state sanctioned violent racism as well as cultural genocide ON TOP OF ACTUAL GENOCIDE). It has beats that absolutely devastated me, and between the overt plot points and the references to other historical moments in time (Little Big Horn, DAPL), the horrors do not stay confined to a mere supernatural tether, and that makes it all the more powerful and harrowing.

“Off the Reservation” is another good read from one of the most important horror voices of the present, and it continues a streak of well done stories that will stick with a reader after the last page has been turned.

Rating 9: Another visceral and haunting horror story from Jones, who brings in a unique take on possession and condemns, once again and rightfully, the United States and its treatment of Indigenous people, specifically with the boarding school system.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Off the Reservation” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2026”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Quaint Folk” by Bitterl Karella

Publishing Info: Run For It, October 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC26

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: From the outside, it looks like Jessica has the perfect life. She’s a stay-at-home mom, married to a man with a respectable job, raising a son they adore. Her family is as wholesome as all-American pie. But deep down, Jessica knows there’s something wrong with her; she knows she can’t escape her past.When her husband’s job has them move abroad, Jessica thinks this is her chance for a fresh start. On the remote island of Hasenhurst, the modern world can’t get in. The people there grow their own herbs, make their own jam, and mind their own business. They believe in folk tales and the power of dreams. They tell visitors, we’re a quaint, quiet people.The right sort of family would do well here.Jessica is determined to be the right kind of person for a family―and a life―like this. But as she tries to befriend the townsfolk and learn their ways, she soon realizes that beneath the town’s cozy idyll, something sickly-sweet and rotten lays buried …

Review: Thank you to Run For It for providing me with an ARC at ALAAC26!

Sometimes when I’m at ALA’s Annual Conference I stumble upon a book that I have never heard of, but am then incredibly intrigued by when it crosses my path. This year that honor went to “Quaint Folk” by Bitter Karella. I had never heard of it. But when I saw this amazing cover with so many folk horror and “Wicker Man” visuals all with neon coloring, I HAD to have it. May as well be catnip to me! Well, “Quaint Folk” wasn’t a one to one (but queer!) “Wicker Man” homage, but it’s still very much in the tradition of other folk horror classics.

I will admit that the comparisons to “The Wicker Man” really roped me in, but I definitely think the foundation and homage is there (the cover alone with the Green Man imagery REALLY stood out to me). This book is self aware and tongue in cheek with its folk horror elements, and sometimes it felt a little TOO twee for this reader, and some of the folk horrorness of it all got bogged down because of it. But it is clear that Karella loves the folk horror genre, and it all works as a folk horror tale (an outsider family, a seemingly perfect but perhaps sinister community pulling them in). I also enjoyed the framing of each chapter with ‘quotes’ about Hasenhurst, the traditions that are found there (Tigglestide Eve, and the entity Round Robin), which helps slowly set up the reveal and build the tension as the story goes on and Jessica, Sandy, and Greg are becoming more entangled.

But I also liked the way that “Quaint Folk” works in themes of queerness and identity into this book, mostly explored through Jessica herself as well as her nonbinary child Sandy. For Sandy it’s a bit more staightforward, as they are very self assured in their identity and have very supportive parents in Jessica and Greg. Sandy has a harder time fitting in in the new community, though they do make a connection with a girl named Georgette, who hates having to conform to female gender norms and insists that people call her George, even though she is constantly warned that the mysterious Round Robin doesn’t like people moving outside their gender. Not that she cares. I really enjoyed seeing both of these characters exploring their gender expressions, and their interactions are pretty funny with the more subdued Sandy and the WHOLLY unhinged George playing off each other. Jessica’s own journey of identity is a bit more difficult. She has religious trauma from her adolescence, as she had romantic feelings for another girl and her parents were furious. She has since rejected religion, but has still felt a need to conform with a perfect husband and perfect wife role, though when she gets to Havenhurst old temptations start to bubble up. It adds another layer of tension as the story goes on.

“Quaint Folk” is a unique folk horror tale that had themes I wasn’t expecting! While the comparisons to “The Wicker Man” didn’t really ring as true as I had hoped, I still had fun with it.

Rating 7: A witty satire on folk horror that also frames the sub genre through a queer lens, “Quaint Folk” has fun with a long loved trope and brings new perspectives to it.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Quaint Folk” is included in the Goodreads blog post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Sisters of Crimson House” by Melissa Anderson Sweazy

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Every house has its secrets.

Charley Bryde is miserable in a house filled with magic. The only woman in a long line of famous psychics to not inherit the family gift, she spends her days inside Crimson House, the coveted family mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, living in the shadows of her talented older sister, Miranda. But when a shocking tragedy scatters the Brydes across the globe, Charley is forced to grow up on her own, and fast. As the money runs dry and Charley’s ownership of Crimson House is put at risk, she’s left with no other option; turn the manor into a haunted attraction and start representing the family brand with lies, cons, and expertly read tarot cards to make ends meet.

When a skeptic starts targeting Charley for the fraud that she is, she’ll stop at nothing to save the family legacy. But the skeptics’ arrival cracks something open in Charley that the Brydes wanted to remain buried. Deep. And when Miranda shows up unannounced after eight years away, the two will come to realize that Crimson House, and their own family, hold secrets even the greatest psychics couldn’t foresee. Secrets that will threaten to destroy them.

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Gather round everyone, for it is October 1st, and that means that not only is my very favorite month of the year, but that it is time for my annual Horrorpalooza celebration! For those unaware, during the entire month of October and in honor of my favorite holiday, Halloween, I will be reviewing horror and horror adjacent books, saving all other genres for after the holiday has passed. It’s always a fun endeavor for the Season of the Witch, and it’s fun to start things off with a bit of a bang. And therefore I am starting with Melissa Anderson Sweazy’s horror novel “The Sisters of Crimson House”! A Southern Gothic horror/family drama about a family of psychics, the one without any powers, and a reunion between estranged sisters who need to come together to save their loved ones and their legacy against a malicious entity. Like I said, starting off with a bang.

I love stories about psychics and I love family dramas, so there is a lot to like about “The Sisters of Crimson House”. I enjoyed the idea of a faux psychic who comes from an actual line of psychics having to hold a run down house together after tragedy has pulled the family apart. Charley feels a bit like Mirabel in “Encanto”, if Mirabel decided to pull cons on tourists by doing cold readings and tarot cards under guise of her very truly psychic family lineage that she herself never grew into. When actual psychic/sister Miranda returns after running away after their parents deaths (and most of the rest of the family has scattered to the wind), a malicious presence starts to threaten the estranged sisters, and they have to put aside their differences to try and save each other and the Bryde family legacy. I liked the psychic elements of this book, and how Charley is doing her best while powerless, though she too is starting to see things as an entity grows stronger and stronger. Is it particularly scary? I didn’t think it was, though I did like the world building and the magic system at hand. The vibe is also SO Southern Gothic, with family conflicts, a heady Memphis setting, and ghosts galore.

But it’s the relationship between Charley and Miranda as well as the other family members that really bolsters this story. We see their story through both the past and the present, seeing the Bryde women at their most powerful and sought after, as well as seeing Charley as she tries to keep the house and her life afloat after they have lost almost everything and she is the only one left, and has turned to faux psychic readings and parlor tricks to keep the lights on. When the gifted Miranda returns, resentments, secrets, and trauma brim up and the two sisters have to work together through all of the baggage in hopes of saving their home and their legacy (as well as themselves). There is a clear tension between the two, with Charley resentful that Miranda was so loved and then ditched out leaving her to pick up the pieces, while Miranda seems resentful of her gifts that made her a golden child, and they have to overcome their mutual frustrations with each other. It’s a sister story at the heart of it, and found that to be the strongest piece of it. I really liked Charley and found her to be very easy to root for and connect with, and while I didn’t really like Miranda as much I definitely understood her. They were well developed and had clear motivations. I also enjoyed thorn in the side skeptic Sy, who has a bone to pick with the family that may go beyond wanting to expose frauds, but who also has some interesting chemistry with Charley. Can you tell I really liked Charley?

“The Sisters of Crimson House” might not have been as spooky as I had hoped for, but it is still a great way to kick off Horrorpalooza because of the very human aspects of the story of two sisters finding each other again. With some spooky psychic energy to boot!

Rating 7: A sister story with psychic powers, a Southern Gothic flair, and a few menacing spirits, “The Sisters of Crimson House” is perfect for the start of Halloween Season!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Sisters of Crimson House” is included in the Goodreads article “A Coven of Beloved, New, and Upcoming Witch Books”.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Trad Wife” by Sarah Langan

Publishing Info: Atria Books, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: From the three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Good Neighbors comes a chilling tale of a journalist’s descent into horror as she uncovers the dark secrets behind a trad wife influencer, blending suspense with a critique of modern femininity and the manipulative forces of social media.

Every day, millions watch Mia Wright, the “trad wife” queen, on her idyllic 300-acre farm. With her handsome husband, seven perfect children, and a life of from-scratch meals and pastoral bliss, she’s an icon of modern femininity. But behind every perfect image is a secret. And in this case, the secret is a horror.

Desperate to save her tarnished career, journalist Jenny Kaplan arrives at Black Swan Farm to profile Mia. Jenny is ready to write a scathing exposé, determined to expose the deception behind Mia’s curated life. But soon, Jenny has more to contend with than staged videos and picture-perfect poses. There’s something wrong at the farmhouse. Something slithers through Jenny’s dreams, and at night, the children sing strange nursery rhymes.

She’s losing time. She’s losing her hair. She starts to worry that she’s losing her mind.

There is a horror at the heart of Black Swan, and it’s waiting just for Jenny. Trad Wife will make you question what’s real and what’s just a perfectly curated deception…

Review: Thank you to Atria for sending me an ARC of this novel!

2026 has been a stand out year for trad wife thrillers and horror. The books “Trad Wife” by Saratoga Schaefer and “Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke were both reviewed by me on the blog, and even though now some of the most visible trad wife influencers like Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith are insisting that they AREN’T trying to promote a trad wife lifestyle (I scoff at this recent walking back from these women because you ABSOLUTELY WERE, I SAW THOSE VIDEOS!) it’s still a popular topic (and there will be more in the next couple of months). And the newest horror novel with a trad wife theme is “Trad Wife” by Sarah Langan, which is my third trad wife horror/thriller book I’ve read this year. And it is also the darkest one yet.

As a horror novel, “Trad Wife” has beats that I would expect from the set up. We have Jenny, a floundering journalist who is desperate to get a big story to save her career, who gets an invite from Mia Wright, a well known and well loved trad wife influencer, to write a large profile piece on her life on her property Black Swan Farm. Since this could be a lifeline, she agrees to meet with her, even though she doesn’t agree with her submissive wife and God first lifestyle she’s peddling to millions of followers. Jenny and Mia meet, and Jenny can tell that SOMETHING is off due to the way Mia behaves and the weird quirks in her videos, but agrees to stay the week to get the ins and outs of Black Swam Farm. As the week goes on, Jenny loses time, loses her hair, and has weird dreams and visions of a creeping doom. The dread takes its time, as Jenny sees more strange things, and learns more about the community and the connection to a string of murders of women that happened centuries before. Langan drops hints throughout the narrative and as things get stranger and stranger for Jenny, the tension tightens and tightens until it lets go in a crazy manner at the end. It’s mostly satisfying, though it will probably be pretty bleak for a lot of readers if they are expecting something more akin to “Yesteryear”.

But it is Jenny that really made this one stand out for me. In the aforementioned books I referenced in this review, the perspectives are from that of the trad wives themselves. But in this one we are following Jenny, a journalist who wrote a break out personal piece that made her a target for right wing violent misogynists, and who is flailing to find her feet again as the publication she writes for starts to crumble and want to cut her to try and appease angry right wingers and mens activists. Jenny is a very complicated and compelling character to follow, as she clearly carries a lot of trauma with her from multiple angles, struggling to keep her job and struggling to keep her life together. Whether it’s being parentified by a negligent mother in her childhood, having to play as on demand support system for the younger sister she raised (with little appreciation or understanding from said sister), or living with a man who became unstable and abusive during a mental health crisis which led to the end of their relationship, she’s been through it. And in a way, she is the exact audience that influencers like Mia hope to rope in because of the idealized life that is being pedaled, if only you submit to God and husband and patriarchy. For someone like Jenny, whose trauma has made her anxious about child rearing and family life, she is both someone you would think would be a terrible choice to do a retrospective on someone like Mia due to her incredibly different ideals and values, and yet a woman like her (who is ambitious, who rejects gender roles of being a mother and submissive wife) would almost be an exotic bird to cage for a far right movement and to use as an example. As Jenny is pulled more into the web of Mia and the forces behind her power, the more horrifying things get because we SEE her being taken in by a being that tries to convince its victims that this situation is, in fact, empowering, when it’s not. And if that doesn’t just sum up the veneer of the trad wife movement, I don’t know what does. It’s difficult and dark and it is incredibly unnerving, and it is a great metaphor for the insidiousness of the trad wife movement and who is pushing it.

On the whole I enjoyed “Trad Wife”! The trad wife themes continue on and they continue to be fresh and interesting in this novel.

Rating 8: The darkest trad wife themed horror/thriller book I’ve read yet, with a slow burn of dread and a searing point to make.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Trad Wife” is included on the Goodreads list “Tradwife Thrillers”.