Category: Kate’s Reviews

Kate’s Review: “Illusions of Isolation”

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Book: “Illusions of Isolation” by Brennan LaFaro

Publishing Info: French Press, March 2023

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

Where You Can Get This Book: Amazon

Book Description: Is anyone ever really alone?

When a young man’s wife goes away for the weekend, he lies awake all night wondering what the otherworldly sound in the attic is and why only he can hear it.

After her husband’s death, a mother who interacts with her son exclusively through stationery notes grapples with the strange ways her lost love seems to be haunting them both.

And inch by inch, room by room, a young girl’s home is overtaken by a savage jungle, even while her parents are being gradually replaced by somewhat…wilder housemates.

In this debut collection Brennan LaFaro, the author of NOOSE and SLATTERY FALLS, brings you these stories of creeping dread and much, much more. Contained within are thirteen tales of horror, humor, and heart, (including nine which have never before seen the light of day) and an introduction by the legendary Jonathan Janz.

Is anyone ever really alone? Or are they merely suffering… ILLUSIONS OF ISOLATION

Review: Thank you to French Press for sending me an eCopy of this short stories collection!

One of my favorite things is when a book shows up in my inbox or comes across my path that is unknown, and it catches my eye even though I’m unfamiliar with the author due to the description and hype work done around it. That is really the situation I had with “Illusions of Isolation” by Brennan LaFaro, a collection of horror short stories that were completely new to me. I’m someone who really likes routine and control over many aspects of my life, so taking chances on books, while novel and fun at times, is also a little stressful for me. But reading the description of this book, I knew that I wanted to give it a chance because it just struck me in the right away. And I ended up really enjoying it.

Before we begin, one of the things that I really REALLY loved about this collection is that each story has an author’s note at the end, which provides some context and insight into the story itself. As someone who likes to write for myself on occasion, I always like seeing the process that other authors use when writing their own stories. I found it very enlightening and interesting in this collection, and seeing where LaFaro gets his inspirations and how he crafted these short stories was such a treat. It also provided some good background or thought process information of some of the more disturbing tales (I really liked having it for “Dressed for Success”, the first story in the bunch that has violence within a school setting. It really contextualizes the content so it doesn’t feel exploitative or distasteful). It feels a bit like the author’s notes behind the stories in the “Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark Books” in a way, and I really enjoyed it.

So I’ll tackle this like I do all short stories collections: I will talk about my favorite three stories, and then talk about the collection as a whole.

“Year of the Black Rainbow”: There were a few stories in this collection that used topical issues to help fuel the horror aspects (given that social anxieties influence horror a lot it’s not shock), and “Year of the Black Rainbow” was one of those and my first favorite of the collection. Alex, a non-binary teen whose parents have kicked them out of their home, has found themself alone and living in an unhoused community in an old abandoned hospital. While others have avoided the basement for its strange happenings, Alex has made it their home. But when intruders threaten them, the basement’s reputation comes to the forefront. I love a haunted house story, I love a story about a marginalized person finding a place to call home, and I love a story that has a nice heaping helping of comeuppance for shit heads. And this story has all of that.

“A Shine in the Woods”: Isolation cabin horror is always going to be top notch for me, and if you bring in some really unique elements and I am totally roped in. A family is having a vacation in a winter cabin setting, but something keeps knocking over their garbage cans and making a mess outside. As the snow comes down harder and the unknown threat becomes more pressing, the family starts to wonder if they are going to leave their vacation alive. I’m not going to say any spoilers here, but I LOVED where LaFarro went with this one! I had an idea as to what was maybe going on, but as the tension built and the stakes were raised he went in a completely different direction and I thought that it was so creative and so out there in the best way.

“The Lights”: Break out the tissues for this one folks. A neighborhood nice guy named Gus, known for his kind disposition and his love of the grill, is suddenly rendered catatonic in his backyard chair with a relaxed smile on his face. His wife has kept it secret until neighbors come by concerned, and he only speaks of ‘the lights’. As Gus remains in this entranced state, his wife, and his neighbors, start to realize the impact this quiet but gentle man had on their lives. This one is probably the least horror-esque story in the collection and a bit more Sci-Fi, but I thought that it was so lovely and a glimpse into the way loved ones impact our lives. It’s a bit ambiguous, but the ending is filled with so much genuine, bittersweet pathos that it brought tears to my eyes.

And truly, I thought that all of the stories in this book were pretty well crafted and well imagined. None of them felt like clunkers to me, and I thought that LaFaro really explored a lot of different sub genres and did them justice for the most part. There was definitely something to like about all these stories, and again, the author’s note for EACH story was so, so awesome. The tone could shift from splatter punk brutality to bittersweet pathos and the shift isn’t jarring or distracting. It’s just nice seeing different themes and tonality flowing well in an anthology, especially when there is such a dichotomy and it’s from a single author.

There is definitely something for everyone in “Illusions of Isolation”. I am going to be keeping an eye on Brennan LaFaro going forward, because this collection is filled with lots of goodies.

Rating 8: A well rounded and very strong collection of horror stories that span a number of sub genres and aesthetics, “Illusions of Isolation” really ought to be on any horror aficionado’s radar!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Illusions of Isolation” isn’t on any Goodreads lists yet, but it would fit in on the list “Short Horror/SciFi Collections”.

Kate’s Review: “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”

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Book: “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality” by Kate Khavari

Publishing Info: Crooked Lane Books, June 2023

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

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

Book Description: 1920s London isn’t the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron’s assistance.

The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers— there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead.

Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought she’d left behind forever.

Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own in Kate Khavari’s second intoxicating installment.

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

It’s about a year since I reviewed the first Saffron Everleigh mystery, “A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons”, and I can tell you that I am still not really a plant person. It took me forever to get my act together this Spring when it comes to clearing my landscaping of refuse, so my bleeding heart wasn’t as, uh, hardy as I had hoped it would be, and the weeds have already taken over. But real life green thumb problems aside, I’m still very much into plant nerd Saffron and her love for various kinds of flora, and therefore I knew that I wanted to read her second adventure, “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”! So back to post WWI England we go, with high hopes of deadly plants and Interwar sensibilities!

I am still really enjoying the time period and societal placement of this book. Post WWI London remains a setting that is rich with possibilities, and this time Khavari has implemented a device that I have a personal connection to: floriography! For those who are unfamiliar, floriography, or language of the flowers, is the Victorian social practice of using flowers to communicate feelings and intentions. When I worked at a Victorian Historic House in St. Paul, one of the tours I gave was all about sexuality and romance during this time period, and I talked about floriography in courtships. In “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”, Saffron is brought into a murder investigation by Detective Inspector Green when bouquets of poisonous flowers are found at all the victims homes. It’s such a great way to make Saffron needed as not only a civilian, but also as a woman, and it’s such a great hook as a puzzle piece to the murder mystery. We also see the way that Saffron has to navigate her role as an amateur detective in this setting, facing a lot of issues not limited to misogyny and expected gender roles, and how she has to utilize her new academic partner, Michael Lee, in her works both at the university (where they are investigating plant poisoning reports throughout the countryside for research) and in the criminal investigation, because him being a man (a very smart and capable man, but no more so than Saffron herself) can open doors a bit easier than she alone can. I really liked Lee as a character, his sarcasm and wit egging Saffron on and leading to some fun moments of banter and sexual tension (we’ll be talking more on that in a bit), and I did like that while being a new member to the story he felt like he fit in almost immediately. His role both at the University parts of the book as well as the criminal parts rounded her out really well and complemented her without constraining her.

The mystery was also pretty well done. I loved seeing Saffron and Lee have to go into unseemly JAZZ CLUBS and have to wrangle with the idle rich and their COCAINE HABITS, and I loved the deadly bouquets and the undercover hijinks they have to get into to get to the truth. Given that this is solidly a cozy mystery series (ha, of the two of us it’s probably surprising that I’m the one covering the two cozy mystery series on the blog), it never goes into very suspenseful territory, as you generally know that Saffron is going to figure it all out and probably come out unscathed, and it’s never TOO gruesome. But that doesn’t mean that Khavari’s mystery is dull by any means, and I thought that there were well done red herrings and well executed ‘ah ha!’ moments.

I will say that there was one aspect that didn’t quite work for me that kind of brought down the rest of the book in some ways: we find ourselves in a bit of a love triangle with Saffron. Our first suitor is Alexander, her partner in detection from the first book, who has gone on the Amazon expedition mentioned in that novel. Saffron has been exchanging letters with him while he’s on the trip. The other, of course, is the aforementioned Lee, her new partner in detection who is pretty much the opposite of Alexander in all ways. Where Alexander is brooding, Lee is extroverted and vivacious. Where Alexander is earnest, Lee is sardonic and a bit of a bad boy. It’s a trope we have seen many times in a love triangle, and I was kind of bummed to see Saffron thrust into this when she is so much more interesting on her own and doesn’t need romantic conflict (some of which, on Alexander’s side, felt very out of character and made him pretty unlikable, at least to me) to buoy up her story.

So, aggravating love triangle aside, I did enjoy “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”. It continues to represent the time and place in an enjoyable way, and Saffron Everleigh is still a fun and engaging heroine!

Rating 7: A fun new adventure for tenacious detective Saffron Burrows, with interesting new characters and deadly flowers abound.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality” is included on the Goodreads lists “Historical Mystery 2023”, and “Cozy Mysteries 2023 New Releases”.

Previously Reviewed:

Kate’s Review: “American Vampire, Vol. 8”

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Book: “American Vampire, Vol. 8” by Scott Snyder & Rafael Albuquerque (Ill.)

Publishing Info: Vertigo, February 2016

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

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

Book Description: Vampires in space? It’s 1965. Pearl and Skinner escaped The Gray Trader with more questions than answers, and their search for clues leads them to … NASA! You’ve never seen vampires like this before!

Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque continue their epic Eisner Award-winning story, as Skinner Sweet and Pearl touch more of the key moments in American history.

Review: It really has been a trip returning to “American Vampire” after I fell off of it a few years ago. And when I was approaching the penultimate volume, “Volume 8”, I was a bit cagey about how I was approaching the end. Partially because I felt like Scott Snyder just introduced a storyline that, to me, seemed like it needs to have perhaps a FEW volumes to wrap it up in a way that didn’t feel rushed. But also because even in the face of this new storyline, there were some hanging threads that we hadn’t addressed (hello James Book as a vampire?). So I was nervous going in, having been burned in the past when a story seems like it had to wrap up really quickly, maybe before it was ready. But I’m happy to report that my hesitance was unfounded, because “American Vampire: Volume 8”, was a stellar entry to the overall mythos!

I remember looking at the cover of this and thinking to myself ‘oh come the fuck on’, but honestly Snyder did a really good job of building up a great narrative to send Skinner Sweet into outer space that I bought hook line and sinker while it mirrors American history. We are now in the mid 1960s, and the Space Race and Cold War is at the forefront. Pearl and Skinner had a nearly deadly run in with the mysterious Gray Trader, a vampire that has power, strength, and influence that neither of them has ever seen, and are now back with the Vassals of the Morning Star, who have tapped them to join up to help try and stop this new foe. This involves satellites, Russian surveillance, and a long sleeping creature called the Tiamat that could awaken at any time and prompt the Russians to send nukes flying to prevent it, even if it means the end of the world, with the Gray Trader actively trying to set the wheels in motion to make it happen. So the VMS, with Felicia Book back in play, want Pearl and Skinner to help prevent nuclear armageddon by keeping the Gray Trader’s movements at bay by working against the satellite surveillance Russia has been using to keep an eye on the Tiamat’s potential reawakening . And it is such a creative way to take on ideas of the Space Race and the Cold War and apply it to this story. It’s really one of the more creative ways that Snyder has approached significant moments in American history and compared and contrasted it within the vampire narrative, and he pulls it off within the story, even if that story ends with sending Skinner freaking Sweet into outer space. I believed the reasoning and I really enjoyed the story arc.

But the most interesting and satisfying aspect of this book is a moment that I have been waiting for since I started “American Vampire” all those years ago: Pearl and Felicia Book finally, finally meet. And not only meet, but are teamed up on their own part of the Gray Trader mission that involves breaking into Area 51. TWO BADASS VAMPIRE LADIES TEAMING UP AT LAST?!?!?!

IT’S ABOUT TIIIIIIIME!!!! (source)

I love Pearl and Felicia as we all know, and I love how their differences and their differing perspectives and experiences both serve to bring out the best of them as a team. Whether it’s company woman with a lot of experience and leadership strength Felicia, or renegade but compassionate Pearl, there is no sexist bullshitting around with them being mistrustful or jealous of each other. They are very different, but their differences make for a fantastic team dynamic and I loved seeing them both come together and have their own mission. Their thread is the moment that shines the most in this volume and it has been a long time coming to see them together.

I know that the next volume of “American Vampire” is the final one. I THINK that we have pulled things together enough that we could be on the verge of sticking the landing. But at the same time, we still haven’t seen Jim Book in vampire form arrive to meet up with everyone else yet, so maybe I am anxious. Regardless, I liked “Volume 8” and what it did for moving the Gray Trader story along! Let’s see how Snyder wraps this all up!

Rating 8: Interstellar vampire horror with a dash of global peril and deepening conspiracy, “American Vampire, Vol. 8” is setting up a finale that has a lot of, uh, stakes in play.

Reader’s Advisory:

“American Vampire, Vol. 8” is included on the Goodreads list “Vertigo Titles: Must Read Comics A-E”.

Previously Reviewed:

Kate’s Review: “Bad Summer People”

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Book: “Bad Summer People” by Emma Rosenblum

Publishing Info: Flatiron Books, May 2023

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

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

Book Description: A whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue, set against an exclusive summer haven on Fire Island. None of them would claim to be a particularly good person. But who among them is actually capable of murder?

Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he’s the tennis pro-or someone else’s husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other.

Until a body is discovered, face down off the side of the boardwalk.

Stylish, subversive and darkly comedic, this is a story of what’s lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.

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

Summer is finally here, and for some people that means getting to the beach and reveling in the sand, sun, and surf. While my summer travels aren’t taking me to such a place, I do know a few people who may be going to Fire Island this summer, though more in the capacity that many people think of Fire Island. Honestly, before “Bad Summer People” by Emma Rosenblum ended up in my hands I, too, thought of Fire Island as predominantly a place for the LGBTQIA+ community to party hard. But apparently it’s also a spot where the wealthy and entitled elites also like to spend the summer months. And in this book, those wealthy and entitled elites might just end up murdered amongst all their secrets and lies. And you know what? SIGN ME UP TO READ ALL ABOUT IT!

The mystery is presented right away at the top of the book. A body is found in the sand in a posh Fire Island community called Salcombe. We don’t know who they are, we don’t know how they got there, and we immediately jump back to the start of summer and start to meet our cast of characters, all of whom could be victims or suspects based on the secrets, backstabbing, and resentment and malice that they all feel towards each other. I liked the set up of having different third person perspective chapters of the various players, as they all have unique insights into not only how the mystery is slowly going to come together, but also into their own parts to play in the overall question as to what happened. Like so many suds filled thrillers before it, we get twists, we get turns, some are revealed more deftly than others, and the red herrings and clues pile up at breakneck pace. You add in a bunch of poisonous people who we could either take or leave in terms of their survivability and it’s the kind of book that reads super fast and keeps the reader mostly engaged. It’s at times a little predictable, and at times it’s pretty familiar with it’s tropes and plot reveals, and that these reveals mean for the identity of the victim found at the top of the narrative.

And to be fair, this is definitely more focused on the interpersonal drama and backstabbing than it is the mystery. But that didn’t stop me from having a hell of a fun time whilst reading it. I love me soap opera drama nonsense, and “Bad Summer People” delivered a whole lot of it. We get into the minds of a number of people in Salcombe, from the nasty queen bees of the summer community to outsiders desperate to be insiders to more seasoned residents who are more removed from the dramatics, and they all have a nasty bite that reads like guilty pleasure fun. Whether it’s Lauren, the most popular mom in a dying marriage who starts to seek out attention elsewhere, or Jen, the well loved wife of the community’s golden boy who has some darkness she’s always hidden, or Robert, the new tennis instructor who is desperate to be a part of the wealthy elites, all of our characters are kind of assholes, but it’s really entertaining seeing them all spiral as the summer goes on. Sure, there’s the question of whose body is found on the beach at the start and how it got there, but that sometimes feels a bit incidental. Because of that this may not be the BEST fit for people who are in it for the thriller aspects of the mystery. But for people like me, who also love watching people be dicks to each other on the page, it’s a quick, breezy jaunt, and the perfect beach read.

“Bad Summer People” was lots of fun and would be a great book to take on a beachy trip this summer! Hopefully you won’t be getting into the shenanigans that these characters stumble into, however.

Rating 7: Sudsy and indulgent with some good twists and turns, “Bad Summer People” is a fun and wicked whodunnit that revels in its soap and drama.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bad Summer People” is pretty new and not on many Goodreads lists right now, but it would definitely fit in on “Beachy Reads”.

Kate’s Review: “The Quarry Girls”

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Book: “The Quarry Girls” by Jess Lourey

Publishing Info: Thomas & Mercer, November 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games.

Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.

Heather is terrified that the missing girls are connected to what she and Brenda stumbled upon that night. Desperately searching for answers on her own, she learns that no one in her community is who they seem to be. Not the police, not the boys she met at the quarry, not even her parents. But she can’t stop digging because she knows those girls are in danger.

She also knows she’s next.

Review: I had to wait a LONG time to get “The Quarry Girls” by Jess Lourey from my library. I saw it in passing at some point but didn’t look too much into it, but once I realized that it takes place in Minnesota, that explained a few things. Local author, local interest, that always hypes up the library patron community. I had heard some good things, and jumped in expecting a fairly straight forward and run of the mill mystery, so imagine my surprise when it took me totally off guard and really, really got under my skin. This is the kind of thriller that doesn’t just have a good atmosphere and pace, it’s also the kind that feels super, super real in the most upsetting ways. But that’s what makes it stand out so much.

The mystery itself is haunting and suspenseful. Heather is a teenage girl living in St. Cloud, Minnesota in the late 1970s. A local waitress goes missing, her absence first dismissed as a case of a runaway or a flighty girl off on an adventure, and Heather tries not to worry. She runs with her friend group, best friends Maureen and Brenda by her side, and tries not to fret about the cool older man her guy friends have started hanging out with, lest they think she’s a baby. But then her friend Maureen goes missing too, and Heather is convinced that it has to do with something that she and Brenda saw one night shortly before. I loved the slow build up on this mystery, with Heather trying to find clues as to what happened to Maureen (a girl with a ‘reputation’ and therefore dismissed as another runaway, but we are going to get into all THAT in a bit) and has to break out of her anxious, shy self to try and help her friend. I loved watching her find various clues and insights, and how those clues and insights start to point to an even bigger, more encompassing, and more disturbing mystery at hand. As Heather starts to realize that things she thought were true are false, and that there are people she thought she could trust, but actually can’t, it makes for a slow burn and dread building mystery that kept me hooked and terrified for this literal teenager just trying to help her friend.

And that touches on the bigger themes of this book, specifically the fact that in greater society, sometimes women are victims and sometimes men are either enablers and abusers themselves, and we don’t necessarily REALLY know all sides of a person, even when we care about them or trust them. Heather has many men in her life, whether it is her District Attorney father who has been placing a lot of responsibility on Heather after her mother had a mental breakdown (which had devastating effects on Heather, but also has a hidden backstory), or the Sheriff in town who may be hiding his own corruption and culpability when it comes to Maureen, or childhood guy friends that Heather thought she knew, but have started becoming more aggressive, or demanding, or cruel. As Heather starts to learn things about Maureen, things that others deem ‘wild’ or ‘bad girl’, and tries to piece things together, she starts to learn things about all these boys and men, and it’s very hard to watch her have to learn some really difficult truths. That isn’t to say that there isn’t hope here. Because once Heather learns things she never wanted to know, she can start to learn how to fight back. But growing up too fast always has a cost.

And now I need to talk about the setting of this book because as a Minnesotan I am obligated to gush about a well done book that takes place in my home state. And man oh MAN does Lourey hit the nail on the head when it comes to Minnesota culture and location (which makes sense since she spent a good amount of time in St. Cloud and is currently living in Minneapolis). I’ve been to St. Cloud maybe three times in my life, but it’s a bit notorious to those Minnesotans who live outside of it for a number of negative reasons. The first is it has a reputation for being incredibly racist. The second is that various cogs in the Stearns County law enforcement machine have come under fire for corruption and incompetence (the Jacob Wetterling case is one of the most infamous examples. If you want a good resource on how badly Stearns County fucked this case up for twenty plus years, seek out the “In the Dark” Podcast, Season 1. Your blood will boil). When I started reading I wondered if Lourey was going to tap into some nostalgia about 1970s St. Cloud, but it became quite clear quite quickly that nope, this was going to dive head first into the toxicity of the community, and how misogyny of the 1970s (which still permeates today), of small town look away culture, and general ‘not my business’ sensibilities of Minnesota ‘nice’ combined to create a tragic story that felt very, very real. There are also fun moments of Minnesota in here, though, which didn’t make it all about the very true faults of Minnesota culture. Whether it was references to how we love festivals in summer due to long ass winters, or a trip to Valley Fair, or the weird quirk that a Minnesotan canNOT be the last person taking an item of food from a shared plate, these fun bits were VERY on point and very amusing.

I really loved “The Quarry Girls”. It broke my heart many times but also gave me a little hope beyond the darkness. I need to go back and read more stuff by Jess Lourey, this was just great.

Rating 9: A searing, heartbreaking thriller about small town secrets, violent misogyny, and having to grow up too fast under horrible circumstances while trying to persevere, “The Quarry Girls” is emotional, raw, and yet somehow hopeful.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Quarry Girls” is included on the Goodreads lists “Best Modern Mystery, Crime Fiction”.

Kate’s Review: “The Salt Grows Heavy”

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

Book: “The Salt Grows Heavy” by Cassandra Khaw

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, May 2023

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

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

Book Description: From USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.

On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three ‘saints’ who control them.

The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

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

I know that my Dad took my preschool self to see Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” in the theater, and while it’s not a top tier Disney film for me, I enjoy it enough (fun fact: it’s my Dad’s favorite Disney movie). I never sought out the original Hans Christian Andersen story, but I am kind of familiar with the general concept and how different and how much bleaker it is than the more palatable for children Disney version. I never really thought about what it would be like to make it even bleaker, but author Cassandra Khaw apparently did, because “The Salt Grows Heavy” takes “The Little Mermaid” and turns it into a full on balls to the wall body horror novella. Like, FULL ON BODY HORROR GORE AND VISCERA. WORK, ARIEL.

Pretend that the water is blood and guts and you aren’t even halfway there. (source)

Now this all sounds super promising, and between that and the cover (I LOVE THE COVER) I had high hopes for this novella. Unfortunately it was a bit of a mixed bag.

But first, what I liked! WHAT AN OUT THERE AND FREAKY CONCEPT! I love the way that Khaw has taken the story of “The Little Mermaid” and twisted it into something so visceral, so splatterpunk, so disturbing and gory. Our protagonist mermaid has fled the kingdom she married into with a mysterious Plague Doctor after her children with the prince have destroyed the city and all who live there. The original tale makes a victimized mermaid a lovelorn waif, while Khaw makes her into a vengeful, held against her will and now broken free with much blood behind her heroine. This story is one of the goriest I have ever read, so graphic that when I was reading it in a public place I had to set it down a few times just to swallow back disgust. In a good way! Body horror gets under my skin, and sometimes it puts me off, but even though this was so gross and nasty and relentless, it really worked well for me.

But what didn’t work as well was how flowery and overwrought the language felt at times. It’s a creative choice and I have to respect it, and I do admit that sometimes there were moments where I really did love the beauty of the language and descriptors that were used. But I have always had a very difficult time with very flowery and complex and ornate language in the stories I read for whatever reason. It makes it easier for me to get lost, and easier for me to find my eyes glazing over. I also think that we jumped in at a point that felt a bit more like the middle of a story versus a clear beginning, and because it’s a novella we had to speed through the place where we were at to resolve everything, which meant that there could have been more world building and more detail. And I do wish that we had spent some time with the mermaid and the horrible prince, to really see a full subversion of “The Little Mermaid” instead of a subversion of what felt more like a sequel to the tale that we know.

So while I was a bit disappointed in “The Salt Grows Heavy”, I had a fun time being absolutely disgusted with some of the body horror stuff in this book. If you don’t have the same hang ups with flowery writing styles that I do and love body horror, this book would probably be a good fit!

Rating 6: I loved the concept, and I really liked some of the creative aspects of twisting “The Little Mermaid” into a body horror gore fest. But the purple prose is a bit much, which is, admittedly, more reflective of my personal preferences.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Salt Grows Heavy” is included on the Goodreads lists “Queer Horror”, and “Horror to Look Forward To In 2023”.

Kate’s Review: “The Only Survivors”

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Book: “The Only Survivors” by Megan Miranda

Publishing Info: Scribner, April 2023

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

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

Book Description: Seven hours in the past. Seven days in the present. Seven survivors remaining. Who would you save?

A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night.

To keep one another safe. To hold one another accountable. Or both.

Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge. But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Bent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy, and from the other survivors. She’s changed her mobile number. She’s blocked the others’ email addresses. This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all. But on the day of the reunion, she receives a text with an obituary attached: another survivor is gone. Now they are seven—and Cassidy finds herself hurling back toward the group, wild with grief—and suspicion.

Almost immediately, something feels off this year. Cassidy is the first to notice when Amaya, annual organizer, slips away, overwhelmed. This wouldn’t raise alarm except for the impending storm. Suddenly, they’re facing the threat of closed roads and surging waters…again. Then Amaya stops responding to her phone. After all they’ve been through, she wouldn’t willfully make them worry. Would she?

And—as they promised long ago—each survivor will do whatever he or she can do to save one another. Won’t they?

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

It’s mid May, with Summer hurtling towards us ever faster, and I, for one, am looking forward to a couple travel moments coming up with the season and the reading opportunities that generally come with a vacation. I’m not sure I’ll be making it to a beach before Fall sets in (Lake Superior in Fall really is just the best), but I can at least dream of beach houses with friends and relaxation and maybe get my act together to make it happen. I was thinking about the joys of a beach house getaway as I read “The Only Survivors”, Megan Miranda’s newest thriller. While it’s true that a beach house vacation like this one, what with an uneasy group of people who trauma bonded after a terrible accident in high school, and who go to a beach house every year to commemorate the anniversary, isn’t ideal, the house did sound nice. And admittedly, a slow building thriller on a precarious beach in a familiar but uncomfortable house is a GREAT set up for a mystery. I’m also happy to revisit Megan Miranda, because she’s usually doing interesting things with her thrillers.

“The Only Survivors” has a pretty solid cast of characters, most notably Cassidy, our protagonist who has forced herself to attend the annual reunion of fellow high school tragedy survivors at a beach house on the Outer Banks. The reunion is always tense and tenuous, with the friends vis a vis a horrible traumatic event not totally willing to trust each other but also unable to blow it off completely. Cassidy is the one we get to know the best, as it is from her POV for the most part (outside of the flashback moments where each survivor gets a snippet perspective of what happened the night of the accident), and I did like getting into her head and slowly understanding her turmoil. The other characters were a bit of a mixed bag. I was genuinely intrigued by Grace, a therapist who is very serious and a bit removed, and Hollis, a wellness influencer who just seems put together on the outside, but there were others who were kind of broadly brushed. I was invested enough in all of them to be really curious as to what they are being to cagey about, and I thought that when we did get moments of their personas in the flashbacks that we got to see a bit more depth. Characters play such an important role in this kind of thriller that it’s important to make them engaging, and most of them were engaging enough.

In terms of the mystery itself, I thought that it had some well done elements and some elements we’ve seen before. Or at least I have, as I’ve been reading thrillers for so long I am sometimes more likely to be privy to the ins and outs of various reveals and twists. I really liked the slow burn reveal of what exactly it is these survivors are hiding, and what brings them all together each year over everything else in their lives, including significant life changes (it’s mentioned one character almost missed the birth of his child for this reunion one year, and the way I would have dumped his ass so hard, but I digress). I also liked that we slowly get the clues to what Cassidy and the others had to go through in the immediate aftermath of the accident, and how their situation went from dire to more dire to something that needed to be kept close to the vest, through flashbacks to the accident itself. On the other hand, I also was able to find myself a few steps ahead of a couple of the reveals and twists, and there was once again a last moments twist that I felt was a little ‘eh’, but I CAN say that it wasn’t the kind that felt unearned or out of nowhere. So in the end the mystery itself was pretty serviceable and altogether entertaining.

“The Only Survivors” is the kind of thriller that would be the perfect read for the beach this summer. I just hope that it’s the kind of beach vacation that is not with a group of people that you trauma bonded with, but with those that aren’t potentially going to spill some dark secrets.

Rating 7: Entertaining, suspenseful, “The Only Survivors” is a serviceable thriller that’s the perfect read for the beach.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Only Survivors” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery & Thriller 2023”.

Kate’s Review: “We’ll Never Tell”

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

Book: “We’ll Never Tell” by Wendy Heard

Publishing Info: Little, Brown/Ottaviano, May 2023

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

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

Book Description: An ambitious and juicy whodunit doused in Hollywood lore, perfect for readers of sexy summer thrillers like The Twin by Natasha Preston and The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson.

No one at Hollywood High knows who’s behind We’ll Never Tell—a viral YouTube channel where the anonymous creators trespass behind the scenes of LA’s most intriguing locales. The team includes CASEY, quiet researcher and trivia champ; JACOB, voice narrator and video editor, who is secretly dating EDDIE, aspiring filmmaker; and ZOE, coder and breaking-and-entering extraordinaire.

Now senior year is winding down, and with their lives heading in different directions, the YouTubers vow to go out with a bang. Their last episode will be filmed at the infamous Valentini “murder house,” which has been left abandoned, bloodstained, and untouched since a shocking murder/suicide in 1972. When the teens break in, they capture epic footage. But someone trips an alarm, and it’s a mad dash to get out before the police arrive—at which point they realize only three of them escaped instead of four. Jacob is still inside, slain and bleeding out. Is his attack connected to the historic murder, or is one of their crew responsible?

A week of suspicions and cover-ups unfolds as Casey and her remaining friends try to stay alive long enough to solve murder mysteries past and present. If they do, their friendship may not survive. If they don’t, the house will claim more victims.

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

I had been waiting for a bit (it wasn’t really that long, but anticipation can make things feel long) for a new Wendy Heard book. I had enjoyed “She’s Too Pretty To Burn” so much for it’s weirdness, it’s sapphic love story, and the satire of art as ethos and the ramifications of that. When I read that she had a new YA thriller coming out called “We’ll Never Tell” I was excited, and when I read that the premise involved an abandoned notorious crime scene and four teens caught up in something far more dangerous than they realized, I was practically vibrating with glee. And while there are a lot of great ideas with this book, and while it was a quick read that kept me going, the anticipation leading up to it kind of slammed the breaks with what we got.

But first the good. Wendy Heard is an author I have really enjoyed in the past, and I think that part of it is that she really knows how to bring seedy and shiny aspects of Los Angeles to life. There is so much potential in this story, and I loved seeing four teens with a YouTube channel focus in on what is clearly an homage to the Los Feliz Murder Mansion, a piece of Los Angeles true crime lore as the basis for a book. I also liked that we could get a few different ways to tell the story. These include protagonist Casey, some flashbacks from Jacob leading up to the night he is attacked, and some epistolary pieces of newspaper articles involving the Valentini murder, the fallout, and some other things that involve the family and the victims. I am a huge sucker for books that use newspaper articles or other found footage or information devices. And mystery wise, I did like the twists and turns of the story, as well as the mystery of who attacked Jacob in the house. Heard does a pretty okay job of laying out clues and bringing in various potential motives and means. It’s ultimately a pretty straight forward thriller, and while I didn’t totally guess what was going on, I wasn’t totally blown away by various solutions as the puzzle pieces all started falling into place.

However, I think that one of the things that didn’t quite connect for me was our protagonist, Casey. To me it felt like there were so many things about her that weren’t quite fully explored or elaborated upon. We have her as the cynical, sullen girl with the tragic past, given that her mother was murdered and it went unsolved, and she has been living with her grandmother and they have been barely holding on financially. She has a chip on her shoulder about some of her friends (mostly Zoe; Zoe is wealthy and, while well meaning, is sometimes clueless about her financial situation versus Casey’s), she really hates ‘true crime’, and she doesn’t always feel like she totally fits in with her peer group. It tended to creep a bit towards ‘not like other girls’, as there were a lot of first person perspective reminders about how no one else GETS it. I wasn’t super invested in her as a character, nor was I interested in the potential relationship she has with Dallas, a descendent of the Valentini family whose mother is owner of the Murder House property. I also didn’t quite understand what the purpose of her tragic background was, as it’s there to make her tragic but doesn’t really apply to the plot as a whole. It felt a lot like backstory was trying to do a lot of character development heavy lifting, and that just doesn’t quite work in this book.

I had higher hopes for “We’ll Never Tell”. The set up was pretty great, but the execution didn’t really reinvent any wheels. Certainly not something I regret reading, but I wanted more.

Rating 6: Lots of potential and a great set up, but ultimately it’s pretty run of the mill with a bland main character.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We’ll Never Tell” is included on the Goodreads list “Most Anticipated May 2023 Young Adult Releases”.

Kate’s Review: “Warrior Girl Unearthed”

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

Book: “Warrior Girl Unearthed” by Angeline Boulley

Publishing Info: Henry Holt 7 Co. (BYR), May 2023

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

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

Book Description: Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.

Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.

But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.

Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.

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

One evening I was perusing NetGalley, looking to see what new books were going to be coming out across my various favorite genres, when I saw something that made me gasp. Like full on gasp. I stumbled upon “Warrior Girl Unearthed”, the new YA thriller from Angeline Boulley. I loved Boulley’s debut “Firekeeper’s Daughter”, naming it my favorite read of 2021, and when I read the description of “Warrior Girl Unearthed” I gasped again. We were going back to Sugar Island, and were going to revisit some of the characters from that book, including main character Daunis. Elation. Pure elation. While I was worried that this follow up may have a lot to live up to, I’m happy to report that overall it was (mostly) everything I hoped it would be!

Given how much I connected to Daunis in “Firekeeper’s Daughter”, I was hopeful that we would have another layered and easy to root for main character, and we absolutely got that with Perry. When we first met Perry and her twin Pauline in “Firekeeper’s Daughter” they were young girls, and now they are two teenagers with very different personalities. Perry is our protagonist, who goes from chill and laid back ‘slacker’ to teen activist who wants to bring Indigenous artifacts and remains back to her community. Perry is both hilarious and brash as well as very vulnerable and passionate, and watching her find her purpose through connection to her culture and identity is a wonderful character arc. Boulley once again brings a lot of aspects of Ojibwe/Anishinaabe culture, be it language, history, or practices, into the story with ease. As Perry digs deeper and gets more invested in bringing these things home, we learn so much about her as a person on an individual level and on a cultural level. She had big shoes to fill with Daunis in the first book, but she fills them with ease.

I also loved how Boulley took a topic like NAGPRA and how it has good intentions but doesn’t go far enough/is too easy to find loopholes within and made it the foundation of the main theme of her novel. As someone who used to work in museums I had a general knowledge of NAGRPA going into this book, but I loved how Boulley explained it in this book in an easily understandable and digestible way for her audience. It also sets the scene for high tension stakes with a very slow build up. I loved seeing Perry reluctantly familiarize herself with the concept of artifacts and museum work with her mentor/boss Cooper, and then become fired up about the injustice of Indigenous artifacts and human remains and sacred objects being held onto by non-Indigenous institutions and people. Repatriation of Indigenous remains and sacred objects is a very important subject when it comes to Indigenous rights and issues, and I loved how Boulley contextualized it in a way that shows the violence inherent in the ways these things were stolen to be put on display, and how there is so much pushback to return them to their descendants. I also thought it was a clever dichotomy to present that along with the subplot of Indigenous women who have been going missing in the community and surrounding communities, as we have overt violence and cultural violence on display as Perry tries to figure out how to bring justice to her community.

I do have vaguely mixed feelings about coming back to see what Daunis is up to. Which is CRAZY because I LOVE DAUNIS. Just LOVE her. On one hand, she is such a formidable character, and having that connection to “Firekeeper’s Daughter” and seeing how her life has progressed and changed since that story (becoming more immersed in her healing skills, raising a son, serving as a mentor to her cousins) is mostly pretty enjoyable and rewarding (I have one qualm but I’m not going to list it here because it’s spoilery, but when it happened I was like ‘wait…. WHAT?’). But on the other hand, while Perry does shine on her own (see above, look at how much I enjoyed her), there was one minor subplot involving Daunis that felt rushed and a bit slapdash. It kind of took away from Perry’s story at hand for a bit and felt like it was a forced wrap up for the sake of wrapping something up. All that said, I do hope that if Boulley keeps writing about the Sugar Island Ojibwe community we get to see how these characters keep progressing as time goes on.

“Warrior Girl Unearthed” is another successful and enjoyable thriller from Angeline Boulley. Her voice is so strong, her characters are so well developed, and her deep dive into Ojibwe culture is detailed and accessible. It all comes together to make a highly enjoyable read and a successful follow up to a game changing young adult novel.

Rating 8: An engaging and important thriller/mystery that not only takes on issues of physical violence in the Indigenous community, but also the cultural violence of artifact theft and struggles over repatriation.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Warrior Girl Unearthed” is included on the Goodreads lists “All Indigenous Peoples List 3”, and “2023 Mystery Thrillers Crime To Be Excited For”.

Kate’s Review: “Graveyard of Lost Children”

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

Book: “Graveyard of Lost Children” by Katrina Monroe

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, May 2023

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

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

Book Description: Once she has her grip on you, she’ll never let you go.

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the “dead women” living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.

Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia’s body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn’t her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.

Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia’s nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.

Baby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting story of the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman’s sense of self and what it means to be a “good” mother.

Review: Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for sending me an ARC of this novel!

The second night in the hospital after my daughter was born, I have a stark memory of calling the nurse in the middle of the night because the kid just wouldn’t stop crying. I wasn’t having any luck with breastfeeding so we were relying on formula to be brought to the room, and they were taking their sweet time while my daughter was in hysterics. Eventually they showed up with formula, and then after she was fed and still screaming they swaddled her up nice and tight, and put on a lullaby, and she was quiet again. Both my husband and myself burst into tears, and this was our WHAT HAVE WE FUCKING DONE? moment of early parenthood. Luckily, it basically only went up from there, as we had an awesome support system in place from our family, friends, and various supportive and affirming medical professionals (never mind that four months later COVID hit and the world shut down, at least it waited until after the fourth trimester was over!). I was having flashbacks to this one vividly awful night as I was reading “Graveyard of Lost Children” by Katrina Monroe, a horror story so evocative and unrelenting and in some ways SO REAL that it overtook me and really, really unnerved me while also breaking my heart. Sure, there are definitely supernatural elements in this book. But it’s also about the horrors of early motherhood and postpartum depression/anxiety/psychosis, which are all too real horrors.

The narrative is told through two different perspectives. The first is that of Olivia, a brand new mother to a baby named Flora, whose own family history involved her teen mother Shannon trying to kill her at four months by throwing her down a well. While Olivia had no contact with Shannon and has found herself in a loving marriage to her wife Kris, Flora’s birth kickstarts a lot of fears and anxieties. The second is the first person perspective of Shannon herself, and follows her pregnancy and the months leading up to Olivia’s attempted murder. Throughout these timelines both women are seeing and hearing visions of a Black Haired Woman, which leads them to self loathing, paranoia, and delusions about their respective babies. I loved seeing both perspectives, and felt like I got to know both women very, very well as their stories went on, so by the time the two storylines were coming together they melded well and I fully believed how they were shaking out. The slow burn of suspense involving the Black Haired Woman, starting with whispers and intuition and evolving into something more visceral and terrifying, was so well done and so effective that it can stand with any of the ghost story titans while being a well done metaphor for postpartum mental illness. There are so many moments that freaked me out, and so many reveals that genuinely surprised me, and Monroe really knows how to create not only a very unsettling ghost/supernatural being, but also how to create very real human characters who have edges, baggage, and many complex sides to them. Every beat hits effectively and perfectly.

But it’s the little things that turn into big things and the cultural and misogynistic things that really set me on edge as I read this book. We see the new mother experiences of Olivia and Shannon as the story goes on, and see the ways that they are chipped away at and torn to shreds even when it ISN’T the Black Haired Woman doing the damage. For Olivia, it’s the constant comparison between her experience and the experiences of other new mothers, as the transition for her is difficult and exhausting when it seems seamless and easy for others. Or it’s the fact that her wife Kris is loving and tries to be supportive, but still has to prioritize work due to a crappy family leave policy and is gone a lot and just doesn’t GET it. Or it’s that breastfeeding for Olivia is awful and painful, but the narrative is ‘breast is best’ makes her feel like a failure and pushes her to push through the pain, even when it’s too much. Or it’s medical professionals who are dismissive and flippant when she raises concerns. And seeing Shannon’s experience as a teen mother in a conservative household in the 1980s, which has her met with outright hostility from her community and even her own mother, and sees the way that OTHER young unwed mothers were treated when she is made to work in a home for unwed mothers, well….. It really shows that this whole idea of ‘motherhood is a blessing’ can be absolute poison to struggling women who aren’t experiencing it as the miracle it is supposed to be. Or, even worse, are punished for it because they did it outside of an acceptable circumstance. The Black Haired Woman is definitely a villainess in this story, but the other villain is the unsupportive culture our society has towards mothers, and how mothers are supposed to just grin and bear it because the baby is more important. And that’s only compounded further if a mother has mental health issues to boot (Andrea Yates comes to mind). The Black Haired Woman is a metaphor for PPD/PPA/PPP, but she thrives in environments that Olivia and Shannon had to live within. And that is what really got to me.

“Graveyard of Lost Children” is outstanding and gut wrenching horror. I absolutely loved it, even as it tore my heart out of my chest. DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS BOOK. Get it, even if the topics are hard to handle.

Rating 10: Searing, devastating, harrowing and scary as hell. “Graveyard of Lost Children” is magnificent.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Graveyard of Lost Children” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2023”.

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