Category: Kate’s Reviews

Kate’s Review: “Rooted”

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Book: “Rooted” by Leopoldo Goût

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, September 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: Aurora, a successful art lawyer, has returned to Mexico to celebrate a recent campaign for the repatriation of stolen artifacts. In particular a mysterious statue of an Aztec god.

There’s nothing wrong with Aurora. But Mexico City isn’t as she remembered, and as she cares for her ailing mother, home isn’t as she remembered either. Nothing is as she remembered. Elements of her past hint at darkness and power, and reality begins to crack and warp the streets.

There’s nothing wrong with Aurora. But some sicknesses can’t be healed. As Aurora’s sanity unravels, she must pry apart her family’s secrets and accept the simplest of The Flayed One cannot stay buried.

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

I really loved Leopoldo Goût’s previous horror novel “Piñata”, as I found the story, themes, and critique of violent colonialism to be incredibly powerful as well as very creepy. So of course I wanted to read his newest novel “Rooted”. And also, look at that cover. I’m not usually that in tune with the impact of book covers (I know Serena comments on covers a fair amount!), but this one really jumped out at me. Throw in themes of artifact repatriation and the violent history of colonized Mexico (and the wrath of the Old Gods), and I was super pumped to check it out.

Once again Goût centers his story and its themes with a backdrop in Mexico City, and with a huge theme of Mesoamerican mythology and folklore. Our protagonist is Aurora, a lawyer who is returning to her original home of Mexico City as she oversees repatriation of ancient artifacts that had been stolen and sent to other museums. Now that the artifacts are being returned she can celebrate as well as see her mother Maria, who returned to Mexico from Aurora’s childhood in Texas after Aurora grew up. But once she is there she starts having strange visions and hallucinations, as well as memories that don’t make sense, and they seem to have to do with a statue of Xipe Totec, also known as The Flayed One. It’s a great premise, and there are so many questions of what Aurora is seeing, what the statue means, and what the memories and dreams could mean. It’s creepy and at times incredibly gory, with lots of nasty body horror bits as well as commentary about family secrets and familial traumas that are kept from the younger generations out of a misguided attempt to protect them. There were times that I would go from squirming over some of the body horror stuff, and then I would feel a deep melancholy because of the difficulties in the relationship between Aurora and Maria, with Maria hiding things in hopes of protecting Aurora, but only making it worse in trying to keep her safe.

I do think that sometimes the story stalled here and there. It had a true bang of a prologue, and then the set up of Aurora going to Mexico City to work as a lawyer within repatriation deals of Mexican artifacts being brought back to Mexico was incredibly fascinating for me (as I used to work in museums and these questions are always present). And with the set up of the Xipe Totec statue ever present and the weird things that Aurora was seeing made the slow burn of the plot nice and creepy, but I did find myself wanting the plot to move forward a bit faster with repetitive creepy moments weighing it down until we got some answers. We did eventually get there and once some of the pieces fell into place things picked up again, but I think it could have been tightened up without sacrificing a build up of suspense.

But pacing issues aside, I enjoyed the themes and horror elements of “Root”. Leopoldo Goût delivers another satisfying horror tale! I look forward to seeing what more he brings as time goes on.

Rating 7: It was a little slowly paced at times, but the body horror, folklore, and look into family secrets and trauma all worked well for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Rooted” is included on the Goodreads list “All the New Horror Books Arriving in September 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “The Hanged Man”

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

Book: “The Hanged Man” by Jane Brookwood

Publishing Info: Brookwood Publishing, July 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ePub from the publicist

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Gilmore Girls meets Ghost Whisperer in this cozy metaphysical mystery.

Fiona Miller runs a metaphysical gift shop in Pineridge Hollow. She reads tarot, sells crystals, mixes tea and generally minds her own business. Until she can’t.

When the son of her long-lost best friend Maggie turns up dead, Fiona has decided she’s getting to the bottom of it before she’s even aware of the decision. What stops her cold is the timing — moments before the call, she pulls The Hanged Man tarot card on the heels of a monster zoomie rampage by her cat and familiar Rosie.

Maggie’s son, found hanging in an eerie echo of the boy on the card. Accident? Suicide? Murder? The town has already decided. Fiona’s tarot deck isn’t so sure.

In her little corner of nowhere, with only her tarot to guide her through the stickier situations, Fiona is making her way blindly with little or no technology to guide her. The cat though…

Rosie brings some much-needed intuitive skills along with the Chief, who brings something else. With her Pineridge Hollow crew and Rosie at her side, Fiona follows the cards into buried grudges, old money, and secrets the town spent decades hiding.

On top of everything, The Hanged Man keeps making himself known. Flip it on its head, he whispers. Look…really look, and then, be prepared to wait. You just might be surprised…

Review: Thank you to Books Forward for sending me an ePub of this novel!

I love that we are in the Ber months, finally. For those who don’t know, the “Ber” Months are the last four months of the year, September, October, November, and December. It’s my favorite time of year, as we transition from Summer to Autumn and then ease into Winter, and when September hits I start to shift into two distinct moods: spooky, because of course, and cozy, because Autumn is SO cozy to me. And when I started reading “The Hanged Man” by Jane Brookwood, the start to a new cozy mystery series that has TAROT and ESOTERIC STUFF and QUIRKY CHARACTERS and a CAT, I felt it was the perfect transition read into my favorite time of year. And as someone who likes to collect tarot decks, it was all the more of a hook to me. I’m a huge sucker for this stuff.

The vibes in this are very much aligned with my own personal interests. Not only do we have Fiona who owns her own metaphysical shop filled with tarot, tea, and other esoteric goodies, we also have a story that is just brimming with the kind of cozy energy that just feels like it wraps the reader up with a blanket. The small town is filled with quirky characters, Fiona is likable and relatable, she has an ADORABLE cat, and I loved the tarot themes. It hits all of the best things about a cozy mystery to me, with an interesting hook and a charming setting with enjoyable characters. And my GOSH I really want to go to The Raven to get my cards read, or just to chill out with some tea, a book, and Rosie the cat. One of the greatest traits I look for in a cozy mystery is the vibes, and this one definitely has them.

The mystery itself is pretty good too. I feel like we kind of got thrown into the deep end with Fiona and her community of Pineridge Hollow and their backstories, but I caught up pretty well and by the time the mystery of what happened to Henry Jr, the son of her deceased friend Maggie, who perhaps killed himself by hanging (hence the Hanged Man card that keeps popping up), but perhaps had some enemies in town who would have wanted him dead. Fiona is the kind of amateur detective that I enjoy, intrepid and loyal and perhaps a LITTLE impetuous, but who is likable and easy to root for as well. As she gathers clues and butts heads with local authorities a bit we get some good build up, a nice cast of suspects, and the ever present tarot predictions helping drive the investigation. I kind of figured it out pretty early, but the journey was enjoyable and it didn’t really matter that I called the ending.

“The Hanged Man” is a promising start to a new cozy mystery series that will be perfect Fall reading. Get out your tarot deck, a cup of tea, and a blanket, and then just settle in.

Rating 7: A cozy mystery with a unique premise and the exact right vibes for the upcoming Autumn season!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Hanged Man” is included on the Goodreads list “Halloween and Autumn Cozy Mysteries”.

Kate’s Review: “Kiss Slay Replay”

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

Book: “Kiss Slay Replay” by Rachel Harrison

Publishing Info: Berkley, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC2026

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

Book Description: Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.

It’s the picture-perfect wedding The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl, Willa is not.

Or is she? She wakes up and it’s the morning of the wedding. She just had the most intense nightmare of her life. Only as the day unfolds, there are some uncanny coincidences that make her question whether it was really a dream, déjà vu, or something more sinister. After a horrifying turn of events, Willa comes to understand that she’s stuck in a loop of carnage and terror that she must learn how to escape or else suffer a fate worse than death—being an eternal wedding guest.

Review: Thank you to Berkley for giving me an ARC of this novel at ALAAC26!

I am usually not super anxious when I go to ALA every year and I am on the hunt for ARCs. For one, Serena and I have basically perfected the ARC hunt strategy, figuring out where the publisher’s booths are ahead of time, getting there early to get in line for the exhibits hall, and knowing that in all likelihood we will get the books that we want. I had Rachel Harrison’s newest horror novel “Kiss Slay Replay” on my ‘seek out’ list, and on one of the mornings at opening I determinedly but politely and NOT obnoxiously made my way towards the publisher tables in hopes I’d see it. And lo and behold it was there!…. And people were SWARMING for it. I was lucky enough to get a copy, because my inherent need to not be a dick about ARCs meant I was one of the last people to get one before they were gone. It’s admittedly great seeing horror get such an enthusiastic response. And I was very excited to see what Harrison was going to do with it.

And it definitely lived up to what I was expecting, and kind of went a few steps further. The premise is definitely one we’ve seen before, at the very least in films like “Happy Death Day” and “Groundhog Day”, but Harrison takes it a step further and makes it even more fun by altering the threats of the time loop wedding massacre for each time Willa has to go through it. It could be a masked murderer at one loop, but then it could be zombies at another loop, with each scenario being campy and out there but still being grotesque and very horror centric, even with the humor and outlandishness. And while I don’t really like the film “Cabin in the Woods”, I kept thinking about it as I read this and it was in a positive way. Harrison has her tongue planted firmly in cheek in this story and while it sometimes had me squirming, it was a true hoot and felt like a fun horror movie that kept me interested. So much so I read it in one afternoon!

But there is also an undercurrent of pathos and melancholy in this book as we follow Willa during a particularly hard moment in her life. She is still reeling from a recent breakup of a long term relationship/engagement, and is now going to the wedding of a friend in their circle, and having to face her friends for the first time in a group setting after years apart after this huge change. It fits for a time loop story, as Willa is not only literally trapped in a loop that won’t go forward on her friend’s wedding day, but even before this she feels stagnant and lost, unable to move forward after her monumental break up and wallowing a bit in the aftermath. Much like the aforementioned film “Happy Death Day”, Willa is stuck in grief which has altered her life and relationships, and perhaps to actually be able to move forward literally she will need to start to move forward emotionally. It’s well worn territory, but Harrison makes it feel fresh and it is effective and bittersweet seeing her have to process all of this. I really enjoyed that aspect, and it was very on brand for Harrison’s horror stories that have some pretty relatable womens experiences at their heart.

“Kiss Slay Replay” is another fun and lighter (not light, but lighter) horror story from Rachel Harrison! If you like time loop stories, check this one out!

Rating 8: A fun and heartfelt Sci-Fi horror tale that feels like “Happy Death Day”, “Groundhog Day”, and “Cabin in the Woods” all rolled into one, with some melancholy undercurrents. Quite enjoyable!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Kiss Slay Replay” is included on the Goodreads list “Time Loops”.

Kate’s Review: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up”

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

Book: “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” by Elizabeth Agyemang

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, September 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the author

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

Book Description: TRON meets sixth grade in this heartfelt and fantastical graphic novel where a pixelated quest helps one girl navigate grief, friendship, and the wilds of middle school.

Sixth grade. The game just got real. For Lexie, this year was supposed to be all about joining clubs, claiming the perfect lunch spot, and gaming after school with her best friends. But shifting friendships and the grief of losing her beloved grandfather make middle school feel more like someone switched her life to hard mode.

Then Lexie discovers a mysterious journal tucked inside her grandfather’s things. It’s filled with cryptic notes and cheat codes from an unfinished video game he was Warrior’s Quest. When Lexie and her older sister, Eunice, are suddenly transported into the game’s pixelated world, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur. Can Lexie and her sister level up and face the monsters in the game—and in real life—or is it game over for good?

Review: Thank you to Elizabeth Agyemang for sending me an eARC of this graphic novel!

I have lots of fond memories of playing computer games with my sister and/or the neighbor kids after school when I was a kid. We would play games like “Oregon Trail”, “Are You Afraid of the Dark: Orpheo’s Curse”, “The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain”, and more that I can’t remember the names of. When Elizabeth Agyemang reached out to me with “The Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” these memories definitely bubbled up, and when I read that the premise was not only kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out, but also kids dealing with real life anxieties, I was on board to give it a try.

Taking into account the target audience I found “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” to be a fun fantasy/Sci-Fi tale with a good premise of kids being sucked into a video game and having to find their way out. Our main character is Lexie, who is dealing with starting sixth grade and the stresses that come with that as well as the recent death of her grandfather, a video game designer that she misses very much, and how she and some friends become part of a mysterious game they find in his belongings. The description makes reference to “Tron” and it definitely fits, and made me think a bit about “Jumanji” as well. I enjoyed seeing Lexie and her friends have to solve the game mechanics and how it makes literal villains out of the mean girls that Lexie and her friend Mika have been dealing with while also making an escapist game seem like a way to get away from the real world problems she’s been going through (more on that in a bit). The game itself felt pretty realistic, and this elder Millennial was hit with a full on nostalgia bomb of playing CD ROM games with friends.

The strongest aspect of this book, however, was how Agyemang tackles real life issues that may be relevant to the intended audience, aka middle grade kids who are experiencing life changes as they get older. Whether it is the grief that Lexie and Eunice are experiencing in the aftermath of their grandfather’s death (and their opposite ways of dealing with said grief), or the growing pains of entering a new school environment and how that can cause issues between friends, or the difficulties of dealing with other kids who aren’t so great, or racism, and so forth, we have a story about a girl who is going through a LOT and is having a hard time dealing. It’s presented in an empathetic way without being overly melodramatic, and I definitely think that some of the things Lexie is going through would be relatable to middle grade readers. Lexie herself is an enjoyable protagonist who misses her grandfather so much, and her grief and awkwardness about her new school life are realistic to be sure.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is a cute graphic novel that will be fun for kids who may be navigating some tougher issues and who happen to enjoy a nice video game!

Rating 8: A cute middle grade tale about school growing pains, grief, and teamwork in life and video games.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up” is included on the Goodreads list “Middle Grade Graphic Novels of 2026”.

Kate’s Review: “The Calamities”

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

Book: “The Calamities” by Chuck Wendig

Publishing Info: Del Rey, August 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 heir to one of the world’s most influential families reckons with the demonic secret to their power, in this contemporary dark fantasy that melds occult magic with shocking family drama from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Mourning Mayne knows he’ll one day bear the duty of managing his family’s vast empire of wealth and power. But the feckless Mourning has always struggled to accept this legacy, which is one of cruelty, domination, and exploitation… and something even darker.

Because the Maynes are no ordinary family: Hidden in our world are the fiends—half-human, half-demon, and possessed of dark magic born from buying human souls—and the Maynes are one of the oldest and most influential fiendish families.

But when Mourning’s estranged father, the formidable and terrifying Hadrian Mayne, demands that he return to the fold, Mourning has to make a decision whether to accept his legacy and embrace his role in the family, or to forge his own destiny, and with it, change the course of the world.

Because along the way home, he will meet Key, a black-market seller of human souls, and Quinn, an artist who may hold the dark truth behind the fate of the fiends. Alone, they have all struggled with the darkness of their fiendish nature… but together, they might find a path out of the shadows.

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

It’s been a few years since “Succession” ended, and while I don’t particularly MISS it (it was good but it ended well and man they were all just horrible), I was still immediately thinking of it when I read about Chuck Wendig’s new novel “The Calamities”. We all know that I like Wendig as a horror author, and the idea of him writing a book about an uber wealthy and uber powerful family that just so happens to have demon blood and soul snatching powers just tickled me. “Succession” meets cosmic and demon horror? Hell yes! The Roy Family is basically filled with demons anyway, why not do a story that just leans all the way into that?

Only a man who feeds on human souls and misery could come up with boar on the floor as far as I’m concerned. (source)

Off the bat I will admit that the theme of ‘billionaires and billionaire families are soul sucking demons’ is a bit on the nose, but that doesn’t make it any less resonant. Especially these days. And Wendig is always so thorough and deliberate with his world building that even if the theme is obvious, he makes it feel fresh and brings in so much originality, probably because he has built an entire mythos around the idea of ‘Fiend’ families (aka people who have demon blood in them and who take human souls for feeding) gathering wealth, power, and souls for their own devices, hoarding and exploiting power with no care for the consequences. With different families having rivalries and motives to hold on to souls to consume, we have a lot of well done motivations and a tellar history and world of people with demon blood and soul snatching powers. The horror in this book is less ‘demonic’ and definitely more in the realm of body and cosmic horror, with some really nasty moments that had me squirming, while also building up the suspense in a way that kept me reading. Wendig is such a reliable horror writer and while this one did feel a little bit meandering at times, I was generally locked in.

And unsurprisingly so, the characters in this one are a feast, with morally grey ones, traumatized ones, funny ones, and incredibly creepy ones. Wendig has the gross entitlement and cruelty of a wealthy family a la the Sacklers or Du Ponts, but also brings out interesting complex characters who are sometimes infuriating but at other times wholly sympathetic. We also get an interesting examination of the way narcissistic parents can favor some kids while scapegoating others, and how they can pit their children against each other. This dynamic is especially prevalent in the Maynes Family, with our protagonist Mourning being a black sheep to his cruel and megalomaniacal father Hadrian while his twin siblings Lachlan and Lorelei are highly favored and keep him under their boots because of this advantage (this whole family was very Lannister-esque). But we also have characters like Key, who is a black market soul merchant who finds herself teaming up with Mourning when his father (and their fount of souls) disappears, who is also struggling with her own culpability in the business even if she doesn’t have the monetary advantages of the Maynes and other Fiend families (and uses her soul stealing skills in a way that leaves her incredibly conflicted as the story progresses). Other characters include an artist named Quinn who has a part to play in the nefarious plan, and a Fiend named Silas who has a cold and predatory nature, but who has been muzzled. While sometimes the four perspectives felt a little harried, I overall enjoyed them.

“The Calamities” also has set up a clear path to more books about the Fiends, and I would absolutely keep reading about them should this come to pass. I so enjoy Chuck Wendig and his creepy horror tales, and this one is another good time.

Rating 8: The world building is stellar and while the metaphor is kind of obvious Wendig creates a nasty and fun world of demons, billionaires, cosmic horror, and undoing familial trauma and damage.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Calamities” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Peek If You Dare: Our Guide to New Horror Books Coming This Fall”.

Kate’s Review: “Heart of Glass”

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

Book: “Heart of Glass” by Jennifer Hillier

Publishing Info: Minotaur Books, August 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 serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a small-town high school girl―and her then-best friends are forced to confront what really happened that night and what’s happening now.

Seaside is a small coastal town, known originally for the local amusement park. But twenty-five years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Carnival Killer confessed to the murder of a local high school girl. Now, he’s recanted that confession.

Barb, Nicolette, and Lorelei were best friends – then they met “Sam” at Wonderland, the local amusement park. After hanging out with him there, and accompanying him to the drive-in movie, where the twenty-something handsome drifter made out with Lorelei in the backseat. That night was the last time Lorelei was seen alive, her murdered body surfacing a couple of days later in a local cranberry bog.

Barb’s dreams of leaving Seaside and becoming a successful writer never materialized and she is a freelancer for the local newspaper and, secretly, writes anonymously about reality tv stars for a hugely successful gossip web-site called Reality Bitch. Specifically, she writes savagely about a long-running show set in Canada called Trophy Wives.

Nicolette left town shortly after Lorelei’s body surfaced, never to return. Ultimately, she married a very rich man, moved to Toronto and rebranded herself as Cole Lennox, one of the stars of Trophy Wives.

With the amusement park about to reopen, revitalizing the dying town of Seaside, the Carnival Killer recants his confession about killing Lorelei, the dead body of young woman washes ashore, and the truth about what happened that night twenty-five years ago – and what is happening now – threatens not only the carefully constructed lives of Barb and Nicolette, but the very fabric of Seaside itself.

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

It felt like it had been forever since a new Jennifer Hillier book had hit the ground, and I, for one, was really missing her thrillers and mysteries (while wholly respecting her writing on her own timeline and not my insatiable need to read her books, of course!). Basically every book of hers I have read I have enjoyed, and after waiting for about four years I was ever so happy to see that her new book “Heart of Glass” was finally coming out. It felt like the perfect read to start the send off of summer, and as I read it and enjoyed it I told myself that I needed to slow down and savor it…. only to tear through it in a couple days. What can I say? I really missed Hillier’s work!

“Heart of Glass” is another woman centered thriller with complicated protagonists and a dark mystery at its heart, which I have come to expect from Hillier and what I always look forward to most about her books. We are following two women in this story, both from Seaside, a tourist trap town with a defunct but soon to reopen amusement park, who share a dark secret from their past that has a link to a notorious serial killer. The first is Barb, who never left her hometown and is now not only a journalist for the local paper, but who also writes anonymous snark reviews of a popular reality show called “Trophy Wives”. The second is Cole, formerly known as Nicolette, who left Seaside as fast as she could after their friend Lorelei was murdered and reinvented herself into a trophy wife, who happens to be on the show Barb reviews. Both of them are haunted by their friend Lorelei’s murder, which was assumed to be killed by a notorious serial killer, who is now recanting his confession… which means Barb and Cole’s long held secret may be in danger of cracking open. It is SUCH a great hook, and I greatly enjoyed both of their perspectives, as messy, complicated, and traumatized as they were. Both Cole and Barb were such great characters, and I was wholly on their sides and cheering them on even if at times they were making TERRIBLE decisions. There is just enough messiness if them that their storylines were incredibly soapy, but then very upsetting at the same time as we slowly see what they were both going through on the night Lorelei was killed, and how these girls were changed forever into the walking disasters we see in the present day. I just loved them both.

As for the mystery, there are a few going on at the same time, which makes the read both deeply addictive, but also sometimes muddled. But muddled as it was, with some kind of wild reveals and some aspects that felt unexplored, it still reads incredibly fast, and I had a lot of fun with it. I figured out a few of the twists pretty early, but there were also a couple that did legitimately catch my off guard. I also liked the way that we jumped back and forth from the past and present to get a fuller picture, as well as seeing the transcripts from the interview that the Carnival Killer gives as he recants his confession. It has a lot of different storytelling devices and they all worked pretty well.

“Heart of Glass” was a fun breezy thriller that I definitely enjoyed. It was a great end of summer read and thriller fans, rejoice, because Jennifer Hillier is BACK.

Rating 8: Another fun and suspenseful thriller from Jennifer Hillier! “Heart of Glass” has suds, lots of twists, and some flawed but easy to root for heroines.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Heart of Glass” is included on the Goodreads blog post “Readers’ 60 Most Anticipated Fall Books”.

Kate’s Review: “Ghost Wall”

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

Book: “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss

Publishing Info: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 2019

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it

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

Book Description: In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.

For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.

The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.

Review: Every once in awhile I try to do a tidying up on my Kindle and pick a book I haven’t read yet that has been stagnating and read it. It’s probably no surprise that I have a tendency to get books and then kind of forget about them. During my most recent check in, I remembered that I had the book “Ghost Wall” by Sarah Moss, which caught my eye a couple years ago but then I never picked it up. I decided that it was high time to rectify that, and jumped in, devouring it in one sitting.

Now it’s partially true the ‘one sitting’ circumstance was because this is a novella, but “Ghost Wall” also kept me at rapt attention because of the slow burn build up on unease to discomfort to absolute frayed nerves. We follow Silvie, a teenage girl whose father, due to his eccentric and strict need to make his family live the way an Iron Age family would, is accompanying her father, mother, and a group of University students and their professor on an immersive field trip to ‘live like the Iron agers would’. From the very start we know that something is wrong with this family dynamic, as Silvie is always trying to remain small and unobtrusive while her mother is straight up terrified, and as we learn more about their history and her father’s control of his wife and daughter we soon realize that this is a very dangerous situation at hand. Add in academic outsiders who don’t realize the danger and the actual obsession that this man has, ESPECIALLY if they are women, and Silvie becomes more and more on edge as her father pulls more and more men from the expedition under his spell due to his ‘knowledge’ and manipulative prowess. As we charge towards the climax, the reader just feels like something dreadful is going to happen and it pulls itself so tight it could violently snap at any time. I was both scared to see how it would all end, but also needed to know.

But it’s also an interesting critique on toxic masculinity, power, and how history is held up as a pinnacle of a purer time for incredibly sinister reasons. For the professor and the students all of this is theoretical and they can separate themselves from it to an extent. For Sylvie and her mom they have to live with a man who is violent, especially when he feels disrespected and powerless, and who forced them into this role because he HIMSELF felt powerless and became obsessed with finding it anywhere he could, i.e. through a patriarchal Iron Age family structure (but like so many regressionists who love ‘the good old days’, it is more based on misogyny and racism than anyhting else). As we see more and more people start to become very invested in building a ‘ghost wall’, the academics and the psychopathic family abuser alike start to become more and more unhinged, and while it’s almost certainly a message of ‘in some ways humans aren’t so different from a more ‘primitive’ time’, I also thought it was a message about who gets power and who gets put in positions of power, sometimes to the detriment of others. I quite enjoyed that aspecf of this book.

My only qualm is that the ending feels a little rushed and maybe a little to neat. I didn’t need it to be super complex or muddled, but it did make me go ‘well… that’s pretty convenient’. Not a huge ding, but one I wanted to mention.

Overall I’m glad I finally read “Ghost Wall”! It’s fast and deeply unsettling, so if you are looking for a quick horror novella that will suck you in, give it a whirl!

Rating 7: An unsettling build up of suspense about walls, human nature, and what defines a primitive society (and how perhaps modernity doesn’t preclude us from that).

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ghost Wall” is included on the Goodreads list “Horrortok”.

Kate’s Review: “If We Survive the Night”

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

Book: “If We Survive the Night” by Jo Salazar

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, August 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: It’s kill or be killed in this heart-pounding apocalyptic horror. The first book in a new series, If We Survive the Night combines the ruthless zombie perils of The Last of Us with the every-woman-for-herself angle of Yellowjackets. What type of person does it take to survive the end of the world?

Sixteen-year-old Quinn is used to being told that what she feels inside isn’t quite right. After getting kicked out of multiple foster homes and narrowly escaping juvenile detention, she’s undergoing therapy at a residential treatment center for “troubled” girls. Looking for a night of freedom, Quinn sneaks onto the roof with her best friend Keisha, and what she sees changes everything…

She witnesses the start of the zombie apocalypse.

As zombies, or “carriers” as the news calls them, infiltrate the treatment center, escape becomes crucial. Quinn and Keisha make a pact to leave together, but several unexpected complications screw up their plans.

As the girls battle the carriers and wrestle with their doubts about each other, Quinn realizes she has never felt more alive. Maybe this is exactly the kind of world she was built for. And part of thriving in this cutthroat environment means cutting off the dead weight – even if that means putting other lives at risk…But even if she’s willing to sacrifice everything, can anyone really outlive the apocalypse?

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

It has honestly been a bit since I read a straight up zombie apocalypse story. I think that zombies kind of cooled off after they were basically everywhere, but we are starting to see a bit of a resurgence with “The Last of Us” and the “Walking Dead” spin offs we’ve seen as of late. I enjoy zombies but hadn’t dabbled in a bit, and when Jo Salazar’s book “If We Survive the Night” ended up in my mailbox I was ready to jump back in. I had certain expectations going in, as it’s a zombie story and it’s YA, but this one actually ended up surprising me in mostly good ways.

As a zombie apocalypse novel it hits all of the beats the sub-genre needs to hit, but finds freshness in the perspectives at hand and by focusing on teenage girls who are all suffering from various mental health issues and have been in a treatment facility for them. Having not only girls but teenage girls be the center of the story was a really compelling choice, and all of them having various mental health problems made for other conflicts that complicated the whole situation even more. We have teenagers who are already vulnerable enough by their age and their gender, and then you add in things like impulsivity, dysregulation, rigid thinking, and violent tendencies and that makes them all the more unpredictable in an incredibly dangerous situation, and Salazar isn’t shy to show how these kinds of difficulties can play out. It’s also pretty frank with how difficult it can be for people to interact with people with these kinds of issues, especially when they aren’t receiving the supports and treatments that they need or are being pushed away and silenced.

Which leads me to the aspect of this book that worked the best for me, which is the fact that our main character Quinn is a complete psychopath who is learning that she can absolutely THRIVE in the zombie apocalypse because of her complete lack of empathy. We meet Quinn with her fellow inpatients at the treatment center, and she is clearly troubled but somewhat held back because of being in the program. But when the ‘carriers’ as they are calling them start to overrun society and end up at the facility (and we have little explanation as to what has caused it to happen, but hey, that’s probably fairly realistic), Quinn starts to calculate who would be a good ally to have and who would be a liability, and starts to cull the herd with glee. It is such a great choice because so often in zombie apocalypse fiction we see good people not only trying to outlast and outrun zombies, but also outrun dangerous people while ALSO trying to hold onto their humanity. But Quinn? Quinn is more than happy to shed that part of her and really lean into her violent and psychopathic tendencies, and that makes the story all the more compelling, even if following her became more and more grating because of how terrible she can be. It is like if instead of following Rick Grimes “The Walking Dead” instead decided to put a spotlight on The Governor and had us follow HIS POV. It’s so daring and unique, and deeply disturbing at times as well. I don’t know how amped I am to keep following Quinn, as this is definitely a set up for a series, but props to Salazar for going there with this character, especially for a YA audience.

“If We Survive The Night” is fun and quick! It’s been a bit since I’ve picked up a zombie story and this one was a nice revisit to the sub-genre!

Rating 7: A fun new zombie apocalypse novel with a protagonist that feels more like a Governor than a Rick (if you know you know), “If We Survive the Night” is unique and gory zombie horror.

Reader’s Advisory:

“If We Survive the Night” would fit in on the Goodreads list “Zombie Apocalypse Books”.

Kate’s Review: “The Night Mother: Volume One”

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

Book: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert & Alexa Sharpe (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Oni Press, October 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a copy at ALAAC26

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

Book Description: Endless night befalls a sleepy seaside town, leaving it to young Madeline Tock to save her community from a threat known only as the Night Mother . . .

The moon is stuck like a broken clock in the midnight sky, the sun a distant memory. No one in this quiet seaside town can remember how long this unnatural darkness has lasted. No one, that is, except for the curious girl who lives in the graveyard, caring for the dead: twelve-year-old Madeline Tock. In gratitude, the departed whisper their worries to her, sounding just like her overprotective but loving father: beware this endless night and she who causes it.

Because there’s someone else who can hear the whispers, too . . . someone whose gown is a map of the cosmos, hair a tangled constellation, eyes like the lights of faraway stars. The Night Mother. Her elemental duty is to gather the souls of the dead in her lantern, then send them to their eternal rest as beautiful moonlight. But when her hunger for power drives her to take souls from the living, Madeline bravely stands up to defend her town and those she loves. Can Madeline help bring back the sun, or will she be lured by the starry promises of this mysterious woman?

Review: Thank you to Oni Press for giving me a copy of this graphic novel at ALAAC26!

My personal goal I made for myself this reading year was trying to do more graphic novels, as I feel like last year I didn’t really do as many as I could have. I made sure to pass by some of my favorite comic publishers while I was at ALA this summer, and a pile of comics caught my eye: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert and Alexa Sharpe (Ill.) had such a captivating cover I had to grab it. It just looked so interesting! And I’m happy to say that when I picked it up, it grabbed my attention almost immediately.

The premise of the story is very unique. In a world where the moon has stopped as it has been taken over by a cruel being called The Night Mother, leaving the world in darkness, a little girl named Madeline Tock can hear the voices of the dead and tries to help them in any way she can. Her adoptive father Barnabus keeps them isolated and keeps her by his side in an overprotective manner, and when a stranger arrives and says that Madeline is the key to stopping The Night Mother, she has to go on a journey to try and save her home and community. For a first volume it has a lot of foundation to lay, and it does so in a very readable manner and in a straight forward way. I got a good sense of the seaside community, of Madeline and her relationship with her father, and the threat that is The Night Mother and how the magical systems in the book work with the moon, the souls of the dead, and the Night Mother herself. The audience of this book is probably on the younger teenage side, so it’s simple, but that simplicity doesn’t take away from the story.

I also liked the characters in this book, from intrepid Madeline to devoted Barnabus to the mysterious newcomer Nura, who has been sent to Madeline to warn her of danger and to help lead her to her destiny. I also have liked what we’ve seen of The Night Mother thus far, as she is scary and ethereal in her darkness and corruption. We haven’t really delved into all of them to much just yet, but I am hoping that now that we have a clear framework of where the story is going to go that in the following volumes we get to really delve into what makes them tick.

And the art in this comic fits the vibe so perfectly. I have seen some works of Alexa Sharpe before, and her style works well with this dreamy and somewhat dark story.

(source)

“The Night Mother: Volume One” is a solid start to a fantasy comic series! I am definitely interested in seeing where it goes from here.

Rating 8: A promising start to a new to me fantasy YA graphic series, “The Night Mother” is dreamy and ethereal with a strong premise and some well done world building.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Night Mother: Volume One” isn’t on many Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Fantasy Comics Books”.

Kate’s Review: “The Devil Knows Her Name”

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

Book: “The Devil Knows Her Name” by C.N. Vair

Publishing Info: Berkley, August 2026

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from PLA 2026

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

Book Description: In the isolated Appalachian town of Burrsville, Tess Wynne lives in precious quiet. Having been left for dead a century earlier, Tess made a deal with the devil to stay in the only home she’s known. Tending to her wildlife sanctuary, she keeps the land and its people safe — pulling on spidering threads of ancient magic, trying to preserve the balance of nature against the encroaching ravages of human influence. But, every autumn, the devil returns, offering Tess more power in exchange for a foothold into the human world. And, every autumn, Tess refuses.

As Tess prepares her wildlife sanctuary for the winter, an unexpected addition to Burrsville catches the locals’ attention. Freshly arrived Zeke Abdee, the town’s new pastor, begins to sinisterly mold the townspeople to his will.

With everyone slowly turning on Tess, Pastor Zeke is determined to stake his claim on the very land where Tess keeps her sanctuary. Cornered, a desperate Tess pushes her magic to the darkest edges. All the while, the devil bides his time, waiting for Tess to decide if she will be prey — or predator…

Review: Thank you to Berkley for providing me with an ARC at PLA 2026!

It is still so darn hot in Minnesota. Granted, I consider anything above 72 degrees Fahrenheit hot, but I assure you it’s hotter than that lately! I am now at the point in the Summer where I am just done and ready for Fall. The good news is that hopefully, HOPEFULLY, the seasons will start to mellow and shift in a month or so, and I am also starting to get my book choices ready for my favorite time of year. So it was the perfect time to pick up “The Devil Knows Her Name” by C.N. Vair, a debut horror story about a witch in Appalachia who takes care of animals, the town that is starting to turn on her, and a potentially nefarious (but also charming and maybe sexy?) ally who offers her help…. Though he is THE DEVIL.

You have my attention OFFICIALLY. (source)

This was almost guaranteed to be a win for me content wise because god DAMN do I love a witch story, especially one where a witch is not only teaming up with the literal DEVIL to do some shenanigans, but when said shenanigans involve having to deal with a zealous force and a fickle community coming to oppress her. I’m already inclined to be Team Witch and Tess and her story make it super easy, at least for this reader. Vair has created a character that has made a pact with The Devil in a moment of true powerlessness (Tess is nearly murdered by her lover after he blames her for his adultery and tries to drown her), and Tess asks the Devil to save her and to give her magic powers to keep herself and her land/animal sanctuary safe, as well as the community at large. As time passes Tess does not age, but she binds magic and her very body to the town and community over the years to keep everyone out of danger, people and animals alike, while also trying to fend The Devil off as he tempts her with more power every year, perhaps to his advantage. But of course, as the small Appalachian town starts to run stagnate and a charismatic Pastor named Zeke comes to town with promises, things start to get dangerous for Tess. Especially since Zeke is trying to turn the town against her to get her land, and because a strange fawn with strange appetites ends up on her nature preserve. Oh, and her magic is fading more and more as more people turn against her. It’s a classic ‘outsider being oppressed by those who claim to be pious’ tale, and I LOVE that stuff. Vair shows us how Tess has made a place for herself, but how suspicion, desperation, and a slow moving decay of the community threatens that because of her differences and a need for a scapegoat. It’s a tale as old as time, but Vair still manages to make it fresh, as I felt the exact indignation that I imagine I was supposed to feel as Tess has to start protecting herself against people she thought she knew, all while The Devil offers help she isn’t comfortable taking lest he use it against her.

I also liked that Tess is actually a pretty morally grey character as the story unfolds. I am one hundred percent on her side in all of this, and I completely understand why she makes the choices that she does (being a victim of misogynistic violence, valuing the sanctuary and the animals she has bound to protect, having the community slowly turn on her due to Pastor Zeke’s influence when she has done nothing but be helpful both overtly and covertly), but sometimes I was like ‘damn, girl, that’s cold’. I also really loved her relationship with The Devil. I was worried that it would go one of two ways; either it would be a romance that didn’t really examine the power that he has over her as the being that has granted her her protection but for a price, or it would be a completely moralistic ‘she cannot be with him because ultimately she is GOOD and The Devil is BAD’ scold of a story. But Vair manages to find a happy medium where Tess isn’t wholly willing to trust him or give him any more power over her than he already has thanks to the bargain, while also showing that hey, just because he’s THE DEVIL it doesn’t mean that he has to be wholly terrible or in it for selfish reasons. Their back and forth was always fun, and their chemistry crackles. We all know I’m a bit of a sucker for a story with a witch and a demon/The Devil finding a connection (hello “The Witch” and “Slewfoot”), and I can now add “The Devil Knows Her Name” to that list of go to tales that fit the bill.

“The Devil Knows Her Name” is a cathartic horror novel that I definitely recommend for anyone who loves a witch story. Summer is waning, and as my favorite time of year creeps up upon us I urge people to add this book to their lists for the upcoming spooky season!

Rating 8: A dark and mesmerizing witch story about power and zealotry, “The Devil Knows Her Name” is a dreamy and unsettling read just in time for Fall.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Devil Knows Her Name” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror Releases Coming in 2026”.