Category: Kate’s Reviews

Kate’s Review: “I Was A Teenage Slasher”

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Book: “I Was A Teenage Slasher” by Stephen Graham Jones

Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, July 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a hardcover copy from the publisher at ALAAC24.

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

Book Description: From New York Times bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones comes a classic slasher story with a twist—perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Grady Hendrix.

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.

Review: Thank you to Simon and Shuster for giving me a hardcover copy at ALAAC24 and thank you to Stephen Graham Jones for signing it!

I mentioned this in our ALA Annual Conference highlights post, but I’ll bring it up again: one of my favorite moments from the conference this year was getting to see Stephen Graham Jones and getting a copy of his newest novel “I Was A Teenage Slasher”. I hadn’t even realized he was going to be at the conference until a day or two before it started, and then getting a copy of this book was an even BIGGER surprise because it wasn’t listed in the schedule. Since it was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I was absolutely ecstatic, and it was my first ALA read. I gotta say, Jones never disappoints, and this book is, for me, one of his best.

There are so many things I loved about this book I don’t really know where to begin. But I guess the first thing I will talk about is the way it’s another examination of aspects of the slasher genre from Jones, who really REALLY loves his slashers, and knows his slashers front to back. While this is evident in his “Indian Lake Trilogy” with final girl Jade Daniels, it’s approached in a different way in “I Was A Teenage Slasher”, and feels like an inverse. Instead of following a burgeoning Final Girl, we follow a burgeoning slasher killer, and THAT is such an interesting path to take and hasn’t been taken all that many times compared to other storylines in slasher tales. As I was reading I kept thinking about one of my favorite horror movies “Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon”, because in that movie we get a similar angle in that we are getting to know and coming to enjoy a wannabe slasher killer, and in a lot of ways REALLY enjoying him in spite of the fact he’s obviously going to be monstrous by the end. With Tolly Driver we get a lot of that, as Tolly is an awkward misfit in his small town and has had a lot of tragedy happen to him in his life, who is also just kind of a good kid before he is taken over by a drive to be a teenage slasher after a supernatural incident at a teen party. We are solidly in his head, and we get to see all sides of him as he slowly starts his transformation, and as he and his best friend Amber (a fellow outcast in Lamesa, Texas as she is the only Native kid in their school) try to figure out just what is happening to him. I loved this coming of age thread within a slasher story in which the coming of age is that of the killer himself. I also REALLY loved his relationship with Amber, who is so fiercely loyal and whom he really adores, their friendship feeling so real and connected and deep. So much of their connection felt so incredibly genuine that I was just dreading the ultimate heel turn from Tolly, and how much I knew it was going to hurt because of my investment in their friendship. Jones makes them so easy to love, that I ended up gutted in the way only Jones knows how to achieve.

But along with the stellar characters, we also get another fun meta horror romp, with so much self awareness and humor to go with the solidly gory moments that you absolutely need for the slasher sub-genre. Jones cheekily finds ways to show off Tolly’s newfound slasher powers while also poking a little fun at some of the most tried and true tropes in the genre, as once Tolly is on this path, there are certain things that now absolutely happen for him. For example, whenever he picks up a sharp implement like a knife, it makes an over the top SCHING! noise, no matter how gently he does so or how not intimidating the knife is. His speed can vary but his ability to catch up is more about whether he’s being seen or not as opposed to his actual physical abilities (think about the way slashers seem to be able to keep up even when just walking). And so forth. It’s such a fun way to point out the silly things in the sub-genre that are tried and true and don’t REALLY make sense, but no one cares because that’s just how it goes! I loved this and found myself cackling during these moments.

And finally, I love the way that Jones brings the time and place to life in this book. The story as Tolly tells it is in small town West Texas in Lamesa in 1989, and boy did Jones capture all of that to a T. I love 80s nostalgia shit as someone born in the middle of that decade and who has vague pop culture memories of the latter part (and how it bled into the 90s, let’s be real), and the nostalgia is big in this one. As are the realities of growing up in small town Americana for those who are different or don’t fit the mold of what American youth were supposed to be like, as Tolly and Amber both fall into this group and really only have each other through their difficult teenage years even BEFORE Tolly starts to turn into a new Jason Voorhees. And as a bonus to that, Jones even made a Spotify Playlist that is FILLED WITH GLAM METAL, which is a top 3 music genre for me. And not since “Peacemaker” has a glam metal soundtrack felt so, so heartbreaking in certain ways.

Me dancing to “House of Pain” by Faster Pussycat in my spare time. Not pictured, the weeping that almost always comes with it. (source)

“I Was A Teenage Slasher” is probably my favorite Stephen Graham Jones novel yet. We are so blessed to have him in the horror literature community, and his stories continuously blow me away. Horror fans, especially slasher fans, do yourself a favor and go get this book post haste.

Rating 10: So incredibly self aware, meta, and also emotionally charged at times, “I Was A Teenage Slasher” is filled with lots of horror goodness as well as some good old fashioned teenage pathos.

Reader’s Advisory:

“I Was A Teenage Slasher” is included on the Goodreads lists “Slasher Fiction”, and “Indigenous Fiction 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Ladykiller”

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

Book: “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood

Publishing Info: Bantam, July 2024

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

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

Book Description: When an heiress goes missing, her best friend races to unravel the secrets behind her disappearance using clues left behind in an explosive manuscript…

Gia and Abby have been best friends since they were girls, forever bonded by the tragedy that unfolded in Greece when they were eighteen. In the aftermath, bookish Abby threw herself into her studies while heiress Gia chronicled the events of that fateful summer in a salacious memoir.

Twelve years later, Gia is back in Greece for the summer with her shiny new husband and a motley crew of glamorous guests, preparing to sell the family estate in the wake of her father’s death. When Abby receives an invitation from Gia to celebrate her birthday in September beneath the Northern Lights, she’s thrilled to be granted the time off from her high-pressure job. But the day of her flight, she receives a mysterious, threatening email in her inbox, and when she and Gia’s brother Benny arrive at the Swedish resort, Gia isn’t there. After days of cryptic messages and unanswered calls, Abby and Benny are worried enough to fly to Greece to check on her.

Only, when they arrive, they find Gia’s beachfront estate eerily deserted, the sole clue to her whereabouts a manuscript she wrote detailing the events leading up to her disappearance. The pages reveal the dark truth about Gia’s provocative new marriage and the dirty secrets of the guests they entertained with fizzy champagne under the hot Mediterranean sun. As tensions rise, Gia feels less and less safe in her own home. But the pages end abruptly, leaving Abby and Benny with more questions than answers.

Where is Gia now? And, more importantly, will they find her before it’s too late?

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

We are now smack dab in the middle of summer now, and I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I have a LOT of pool time coming up as the temps go up and the family wants to cool off. While I spend a fair amount of time at the pool keeping an eye on my kid, if the husband is there too we split the time, which means I get to read when I’m not on swim duty. Which in turn means that I’m looking for good poolside reads that keep me entertained and keep my interest, the more scandalous the better. “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood was one such book. You have a missing woman, a Grecian backdrop, a potentially shady new husband, and some long hidden secrets. All of this is the perfect mix for the kind of thriller I want poolside! And while it definitely scratched some itches, overall, unfortunately, I found this one to be a bit hit or miss.

The story structure of this novel is told from two different perspectives, one from the perspective of Abby and the other from Gia. Abby is Gia’s long time friend, who has worked incredibly hard to become an attorney and who had a falling out with the heiress newlywed Gia due to her not approving of the whirlwind romance and fast marriage. Abby and Gia’s brother Benny are supposed to meet Gia for her birthday, but find her missing and not answering her phone. The other perspective is the manuscript from Gia’s newest memoir, which is a record of what was happening on her estate in Greece with her husband Garrett, two strangers they befriended, and the slow realization that Garrett is perhaps not what he seems. Both perspectives round out the mystery, with the reader being able to follow along and to learn things that perhaps one woman may not know of the other, which I always enjoy. It’s also interesting getting their varying perspectives on some of their shared secrets, as Abby has some guilt for past actions, and Gia’s memoir starts to veer into ‘is this unreliable’ territory. I greatly enjoyed these aspects of this book.

All that said, I think that while it’s entertaining in structure, I wasn’t super invested in any of the characters, and wasn’t terribly surprised by many of the twists and reveals as the mystery went on. It follows a pretty well explored formula, and it doesn’t really go outside the expected norms. I found it entertaining as it was going, and I was interested to see how things were going to shake out, but I wasn’t terribly invested in many of the characters and what their outcomes were going to be. I also found some of the choices made by the characters, Abby in particular, to be a bit galling. It just had a lot of potential to really bowl me over as the recipe for that is there. But it never quite came together. But hey, I did find it to be entertaining for the most part, and one I could easily pick up and put down as needed.

“Ladykiller” is a poolside read through and through and one I would recommend to those who are looking for such a thing. There’s still lots of summer left! Add it to your pile you keep in the swim bag.

Rating 6: It’s entertaining for the most part, but the twists and turns were pretty obvious and I wasn’t interested in many of the characters.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ladykiller” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery and Thriller 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Bury Your Gays”

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

Book: “Bury Your Gays” by Chuck Tingle

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, July 2024

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

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

Book Description: From Chuck Tingle, author of the USA Today bestselling Camp Damascus, comes a new heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale―”for the algorithm”―Misha discovers that it’s not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what’s right―before it’s too late.

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

Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined that Chuck Tingle, the guy who wrote parody monster porn stories with titles like “My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass” and “Bigfoot Sommelier Butt Tasting”, would be a highly anticipated horror author whose titles would make my ‘must read’ list. But joke’s on me and I am more than willing to admit my short sighted and snooty attitude was dead wrong, because Tingle really impressed me with last year’s “Camp Damascus”, and I had high, high hopes for his second horror novel “Bury Your Gays”. I was very lucky to get my hands on an eARC of this book, and I saved it for Pride Month and my trip to ALA, hoping that it would be another hit and a feel good book with some serious horror chops. And I’m so pleased to report that it was exactly that. Chuck Tingle, you are a most impressive buckaroo and this book is a joy.

What really stood out to me in “Bury Your Gays” is the very effective and cutting commentary about the way that pop culture, corporate culture, and capitalism can pretend to uplift queer characters and voices, while actually working against the interests of queer people once it no longer is making them the capital and money they desire. Our protagonist is Misha, a successful and closeted queer screenwriter who is getting a lot of attention for an Oscar nomination for a short film, but who has also been told by the suits of his successful TV show that he has to kill off the two gay characters in the season finale, or else face professional repercussions. And when he balks and pushes back, he suddenly finds himself stalked by people (or perhaps not people) who are dressed up like the villains in the horror movies that gave him his start, and have a lot of queer subtext to them. This is an incredible hook on its own, and Tingle manages to bring lots of symbolism, real life anxieties, and lots of heart to this tale. I love seeing Misha try to navigate his life as a successful writer, but who still feels a need to hide who he is. I loved the way this book portrays Rainbow Capitalism and how it is more than happy to make money off of LGBTQIA+ people but doesn’t actually have any interest in representing or catering to them in an authentic or responsible way. I loved exploring Misha’s backstory as a closeted gay kid in a hostile community, and how the traumas that come with that have informed and influenced his writing, and how that in turn comes back to continuously haunt him both metaphorically and literally. I also love how this story ALSO pushes back against the idea that LGBTQIA+ stories can only be extremes, with one extreme being the tragic ‘bury your gays’ story, and another being ‘this needs to only be joyful because there can be NO sadness’. Tingle pushes past all these things and creates a story that imagines a better scenario for queer stories and queer creators, and critiques how Hollywood suits can’t think outside the bottom line. It’s so effective.

But on top of all that, this book is also LEGITIMATELY SCARY! Tingle has this knack for really evoking the creepiest and most distressing imagery, and there were multiple moments in “Bury Your Gays” that set me wholly on edge. The Smoker? Mrs. Why? Are you kidding me!? Tingle always knows how to really draw out some scary beats, and I was definitely on edge during a few of the scenes where Misha was being stalked by his former creations. It’s also an interesting take on the way that a creator’s work can still follow them well beyond the point of creation, which ties back into the other metaphors that this book is rife with which I talked about above. Tingle really knows how to bring out the depth as well as the really scary shit, and that’s something that truly good horror can do. “Bury Your Gays” is good horror, and Mrs. Why is perhaps on the same level as “Smile” and “It Follows” when it comes to unsettling fucked up-ness and she is going to stay with me awhile. So that’s great.

She has haunted my dreams a bit as of late (source).

Overall, “Bury Your Gays” has cemented Chuck Tingle’s prowess as a horror author, and one who has so much to say and with such earnest conviction. I am so glad that we are seeing this new era for this incredibly compelling author.

Rating 9: Another fantastic horror novel with a lot of relevant commentary about being a queer creator in modern pop culture society by Chuck Tingle. LOVE IS REAL!!!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bury Your Gays” is included on the Goodreads lists “Queer Horror” and “Queer Books Set in Los Angeles”.

Kate’s Review: “The Ones Who Come Back Hungry”


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

Book: “The Ones Who Come Back Hungry” by Amelinda Bérubé

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, July 2024

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

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

Book Description: From the author of Here There Are Monsters comes a chilling supernatural horror that is part terrifying vampire legend and part modern exploration of toxic relationships wrapped up in a novel about hunger, yearning, and loss.

After the sudden death of her perfect, popular older sister, Jo and her family feel empty. But days after crying at Audrey’s graveside, Jo stumbles on the impossible: Audrey, standing barefoot in the snowy backyard. But Audrey isn’t breathing. She’s still marred with the evidence of an autopsy. She’s decaying. And worst of all, Audrey is hungry, and only human blood can curb her relentless appetite.

Jo knows she can put her family back together; she just has to figure out how to fix Audrey. She hides her sister and sustains her with her own blood, determined to figure out how to keep Audrey with them. When her search takes her to her sister’s grieving inner circle of friends, Jo finds herself drawn into their fold―and to Audrey’s boyfriend, Sam.

As Jo slips further into her sister’s old life, Audrey’s hunger and jealousy grow more insatiable. She’s not going to sit back and let Jo replace her or, worse, discover the secrets hidden beneath her golden girl facade. As Jo struggles to juggle everything she will be forced to decide which of her loved ones needs her the most ―and who she’s willing to sacrifice to save them.

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

It’s been awhile since “Twilight” made vampires the hot paranormal love interest, which in turn made vampires so passé due to the over saturation of the sub-genre. But lo and behold, I am confident in saying that vampires have made their way back into the forefront of horror fiction, with MANY vampire stories coming out lately. But this time around we don’t see nearly as much romance as we did back when Edward Cullen was bringing in the readers, and while I am no longer as staunchly critical of “Twilight” as I was back when it was a phenomenon, I do have to say that I really love that vampires are a little bit wicked again. Mostly because authors are finding ways to explore that wickedness and make it feel fresh, while also being willing to explore the tragedy that can come along with it. And with that we come to “The Ones Who Come Back Hungry” by Amelinda Bérubé, a new YA vampire novel about a younger sister named Jo whose older, popular sister Audrey died… and then came back as something hungry for blood. Blood that Jo is willing to provide, and Audrey is more than willing to take.

Her name is even Audrey, that’s so fun (source)

It’s a great premise, and I really enjoyed the ‘vampire mother and teenage daughter’ theme in “Night’s Edge”, so why not a vampire and her sister?

Overall this one worked really well for me. I already like a vampire as manipulative predator story, and when you make the manipulator a formerly popular older sister and the manipulated an always waiting in the wings younger sister, it has SO much room to explore and devastate. Jo is our protagonist, who is absolutely floored and devastated by the sudden death of her ambitious and driven older sister Audrey. Jo is left adrift, her mother is so bereft she shuts herself away from the world, and her father is trying to keep things together in the family but doesn’t know how to verbalize his grief. I thought that the portrayals of grief and how many forms it can come in was well done and at times quite heart wrenching, and it makes all the more sense when Audrey suddenly shows up at the house in the middle of the night, much to Jo’s horror. Jo has always been in Audrey’s shadow, and hoping to piece their family back together and to bring back the golden child she, of course, wants to help Audrey and try to ‘cure her’, as she is very clearly not alive, but not quite dead (even though she very much looks and smells like she is). If this means she’s going to do some bloodletting, and Audrey is going to keep begging her, and badgering her, for more, so be it. It’s a return to the ‘vampire as a manipulative abuser’ trope, and while it doesn’t explore the intricacies of Audrey herself beyond selfishness (that may have even been apparent when she was alive), it’s an interesting character study of Jo and how far she would go to help Audrey, the sister who always outshined her. Things get all the more complicated when Jo starts spending time with Audrey’s friends, especially her boyfriend Sam, and Jo starts to relish filling a void left behind. Jo’s arc adds a very human element to a supernatural horror story, and it was pretty effective.

I also really enjoyed the vampire world building in this book. Bérubé has a really great author’s note in the back talking about the inspiration of New England ‘true’ vampire stories, and how she referenced and researched and pulled tidbits from that folk lore. She also goes a bit further and expands upon the vampire lore and makes for some creative, and actually pretty well thought out, additions to how vampires in her story work. The biggest one was the way that Audrey has kept all of her wounds and seems to be decaying before Jo’s eyes, with blood being the only thing to tenuously bring her back from a rotting brink. There’s even the fact that any kind of warm air make Audrey’s skin start to bloat and change, the way that heat would affect a rotting corpse (with some pretty nasty imagery involved). It’s a real change from how so many vampires are portrayed as beautiful and seductive antagonists, and I really appreciated the way she takes it a few steps further into grossness while still working within a wholly believable range (of COURSE a corpse would start to bloat in heat, and what are vampires but sentient and immortal corpses?). I love that vampires get to be gross as well as creepy and unsettling in this book.

“The Ones Who Come Back Hungry” is an entertaining vampire novel for a YA audience with some serious crossover potential for adult horror fans. I definitely enjoyed it.

Rating 8: A dark and at times quite sad book about loss, sibling dynamics, tricky familial relationships, and vampires.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ones Who Come Back Hungry” is included on the Goodreads list “YA Novels of 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Such a Bad Influence”

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

Book: “Such a Bad Influence” by Olivia Muenter

Publishing Info: Quirk Books, June 2024

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

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

Book Description: For fans of Ashley Winstead, a razor-sharp debut about what happens when one of the first child stars of the social media age grows up . . . and goes missing.

Hazel Davis is drifting: she’s stalled in her career, living in a city she hates, and less successful than her younger sister @evelyn, a lifestyle influencer. Evie came of age on the family YouTube channel after a viral video when she was five. Ten years older and spotlight-averse, Hazel managed to dodge the family business—so although she can barely afford her apartment, at least she made her own way.

Evie is eighteen now, with a multimillion-dollar career, but Hazel is still protective of her little sister and skeptical of the way everyone seems to want a piece of her: Evie’s followers, her YouTuber boyfriend and influencer frenemies, and their opportunistic mother. So when Evie disappears one day during an unsettling live stream that cuts out midsentence, Hazel is horrified to have her worst instincts proven right.

As theories about Evie’s disappearance tear through the internet, inspiring hashtags, Reddit threads, and podcast episodes, Hazel throws herself into the darkest parts of her sister’s world to untangle the truth. After all, Hazel knows Evie better than anyone else . . . doesn’t she?

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

Back at the end of last summer a particularly disturbing crime story dropped, in which Youtube Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke and her business associate Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested for six counts of aggravated child abuse against Franke’s two youngest children. Franke and her family rose to fame through her now defunct 8 Passengers YouTube channel, where she would document and monetize family life and wholesome conservative/Mormon values. So it was a shock to many when she was arrested for starving, beating, maiming, and abusing two of the kids that had once been on the channel and in so many people’s lives through a computer screen. It wasn’t a shock for me, though, having been tuned in to the whole swamp that is child influencers on social media for awhile. So it’s no surprise that “Such a Bad Influence” by Oliva Muenter caught my attention, as it’s a thriller that has that very idea as a hook. I had such high expectations for this book, and was very excited to read it. So it’s not too dramatic to say that after riding a high on it for a good three fourths of the novel, the last fourth knocked me back to Earth in a frustrating way.

Firstly though I’m going to talk about the things that I did like about this book, because for the great majority of it I was very, very pleased with what I was reading. For one, I am a huge sucker for missing person books, and “Such a Bad Influence” has a great hook of a very popular influencer named Evie Davis going radio silent mid livestream, and as her silence continues people start speculating she’s actually missing. This is already a winning aspect for me, and you add in a protagonist in the form of her older sister Hazel, who has shunned the spotlight and has worried over Evie even before this moment in time. Hazel’s motivation is totally believable, and while she’s prickly and difficult in some ways I liked her tenacity and her drive to find the younger sister she feels she has failed in many ways. I also really, really liked the themes of the ethics of children being shown online for profit, usually by their parents, and using them as money makers by exploiting their time, image, and very existence when they can’t REALLY consent. And along with that come the strangers who seek out these accounts of underage children who have disgusting ulterior motives, and how the full access to these accounts can enable predation. This is all through the role of Evie and Hazel’s mother Erin, who once posted a tragic video that went viral and rocketed Evie to fame, and with that came her ambitions to become a momager to her now incredibly popular daughter. And all the shady choices that come with a fortune from business ventures, sponsorships, and clicks constant content churning. I’ve been tapped into this ethical debate for almost two years now, when the podcast “Someplace Under Neith” did a whole series on exploitation of children on social media vis a vis influencer accounts, but it has come more to the forefront in society’s eyes due to the aforementioned Ruby Franke/Jodi Hildebrandt case and a long investigative article by the New York Times (which my husband was texting me about the day it dropped, in full horror, and I was like ‘yep, I know all this, why do you think all my social media accounts where I have images of our kid are private/highly vetted?’). There were also some good points about how true crime exploits people as well, but I won’t go into that as much because eh, that’s pretty well worn territory these days as it seems EVERYONE needs to be pointing that out in any story that involves a true crime community angle. We get it, we’re creeps. But I did like the way this story addressed it as it wasn’t as hamfisted as it could have been. All of this was fantastic, and I was really loving this book and the issues that Muenter was touching upon.

BUT. ONCE AGAIN, a really fun and engaging thriller/mystery was, for me, completely derailed by a wholly unnecessary twist ending.

THIS JUST KEEPS HAPPENING LATELY. (source)

Okay, look. I’m not so naive to believe that these kinds of rug yanked out from under you twists aren’t popular with the thriller fanbase. I would probably even be willing to concede that for a lot of people the big surprising twist is a good part of the fun of a thriller, to see how creative an author can be and how their misdirection can surprise a reader. But I am getting sick of it. Nay, I’ve BEEN sick of it. It always feels like it negates everything that came before, especially when there was an already in place solid first ending that was upended with a few paragraphs after a time jump of all things, which just felt like a yadda yadda yadda of a significant plot point. And honestly I didn’t really like that one so much either because it wasn’t super fleshed out to begin with, but at least it felt earned and like everything was building up to it. This damn twist had a couple of hints towards it too I suppose, but it still felt like a cheap final ‘gotcha’ that I really didn’t have the patience for this time around. That’s probably not the fault of the book, but man, I’m just so over this kind of device.

I was bummed that “Such a Bad Influence” had a thud of an ending after a solid and enjoyable rise before the fall. If you like shocking final act game changers by all means check it out for yourself. Far be it from me to ruin that kind of fun for those who enjoy it.

Rating 6: What started as a twisted and entertaining thriller eventually ended with a clunk and an unnecessary twist.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Such a Bad Influence” is included in the Goodreads article/list “Readers’ 54 Most Anticipated Summer Mysteries & Thrillers”.

Kate’s Review: “You Like It Darker”

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

Book: “You Like It Darker” by Stephen King

Publishing Info: Scribner, May 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

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

Book Description: “You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.

Review: Stephen King is a favorite of mine as we all know, and I’m just happy getting even one story out of him a year. But this year along with “Holly” (which I loved), we also get a new short story collection! “You Like It Darker” is that collection, and I absolutely pre-ordered it in high anticipation. While some of these stories have been published in other capacities before, it was my first experience with all of them, and I was very excited to read it. And no surprises here, I was very satisfied with it.

As I always do with a short story collection, I’m going to review my favorite three stories in full, and then review the collection as a whole.

“The Fifth Step”: This story was, to me, the most ‘classic King’ in tone and storytelling. A man sitting in a park is approached by a stranger who asks if he can try and complete his Fifth Step for his AA program with him, as he feels more comfortable approaching a stranger to express ‘the exact nature of his wrongs’ as opposed to someone he knows, as suggested by his sponsor. As he confesses for his program, things take a very personal turn. I loved the build of this one, as the intensity ratchets up and the story starts to twist the reader in the wind. As I said, Classic King right here, with a folksy twang and a creepy air about it.

“Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream”: Sometimes the scariest things are rooted in a very dark reality, and “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” was very much that. It was also my favorite story in the collection because of how goddamn scary it was. Danny Coughlin is an average working man who is just trying to live his life. But when he has a vivid psychic vision about finding a dead body in an abandoned lot, he is afraid to say anything due to the nature of his knowledge. but does the right thing…. only for the police to decide that HE is the perpetrator, and will stop at nothing to put him behind bars. This one really, really freaked me out because it’s a damning indictment of the corruptions and rot in law enforcement circles, and how some investigators are less interested in making a suspect fit evidence and more interested in making evidence fit a suspect. It was definitely the most suspenseful of the collection.

“Laurie”: This story is one of the more poignant and quieter tales in the book, and while it has some creepy aspects, there is such a tenderness about it. A widower living in Florida has become depressed and listless after losing his wife of decades, and is gifted a puppy that he doesn’t really want from his sister, who thinks he could use the company. While he’s reluctant at first, he starts to take a liking to Laurie the puppy. As he starts to shift his life to fit his new puppy, he starts to build a bond with her, and to find a purpose again. I loved thi story because of how it so compassionately examines grief and loss and how important reconnecting to your life can be. But don’t worry, there are still some scary and nasty King things to be found here.

But there were lots of great stories in this book. King has become such a chameleon with his stories, I wouldn’t classify any of the ones in this collection PURE horror, because even the ones that were definitely horror stories had so many moments of grounded humanity and emotion and literary exploration that it just felt like that much more. They also felt generally introspective in many ways, with lots of meditations on life and death and destiny and the human condition. It’s so frustrating that there are still people that kind of dismiss King because he is such a prolific and talented genre author (but that’s just the reflection of people looking down on genre fiction as a whole, which is another thing that grinds my gears), because man, he is so talented and shows no signs of stopping.

I thoroughly enjoyed “You Like It Darker”. There’s a story for everyone in here, with so many themes and tones and moods that they run a whole gamut. Highly recommended.

Rating 8: A solid, at times unsettling, and bittersweet collection of short stories from my favorite author, “You Like It Darker” is a King that feels introspective and melancholy, but also tentatively hopeful.

Reader’s Advisory:

“You Like It Darker” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “The Eyes Are the Best Part”

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Book: “The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim

Publishing Info: Erewhon Books, June 2024

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

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

Book Description: Feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.

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

Most every night when I have no plans, around 9 or so I retreat to bed to read until I turn out the light. My husband’s routine is to stay up playing video games until around the time I’m turning out the light. One such night he came into our room as I was reading “The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim. He asked “Ah, what are you reading tonight?” And I cheerfully said “I’m reading a book about a woman who is slowly descending into madness and is fantasizing about eating eyeballs”. To which he said, rather despondently, “I wish I could go into the way back machine and not ask that question”. Which, hey, I get it. It does sound pretty gross, and that’s something that a reader tends to want in a body horror tale. But I also told him that it’s actually an interesting satire and social exploration while also being about eating eyeballs. He wasn’t convinced, but let me tell you, I stand by this assessment and it’s also what makes “The Eyes Are the Best Part” more than just a shocking splatterfest.

I’ll lead off with the splatterfest, however, because man, Kim isn’t afraid to be gross and disturbing. There are many descriptions in this book about cannibalism, and mutilation, and general violence, and they don’t hold back. I definitely found myself wincing and having to skim every once in awhile when I am usually a fairly seasoned horror reader, but it never felt like it was in bad taste, somehow, and that’s probably because Kim’s story has a deeper point (we’ll get to that in a bit) as well as some really effective devices to anchor the violence within a very sympathetic protagonist in Ji-won. It’s from her perspective and we get to see in real time how she is slipping more and more into obsession, rage, and perhaps madness, and it’s a really well done spin on the unreliable narrator. It utilizes this well in the body horror tale, and it’s SO gross at times but always kept me compelled. It’s a fine line for me, because a lot of the time once you get too gross and in your face I’m turned off because it just feels like it’s trying to shock for shock’s sake. “The Eyes Are the Best Part” never took it that far. But trust, it’s still gross. So don’t worry, those who like that kind of thing. I think it will still work for you.

What really stood out to me, though, is how Kim has taken Ji-won and her circumstances and has managed to make her a multi-faceted and nuanced protagonist, even if she is a budding serial killer who has become obsessed with eating other people’s eyes, specifically the eyes of her mother’s new boyfriend George, a white man who is clearly fetishizing this family of Korean-American women based on their race. I found Ji-won’s arc incredibly compelling as she is slowly descending into her madness and instability, and how Kim weaves some great social commentary into the story and the foundation of it. Whether it’s having to hold her mother and sister together after her father abandoned them for a younger woman, or having to maneuver through her own discomfort and the microaggressions she experiences as an Asian woman in modern America, or having to deal with an overt misogynistic racist like George or a covert one like a classmate that she, at first, enjoys the company of (THIS was the most interesting thread in the story for me, as the overt creeps like George can pale in comparison to the creeps who hide behind empty allyship and hollow/self serving white progressivism), or just having to deal with her own traumas and losses, Ji-won’s ultimate path is a dark one, but it’s one that does have reason, and does evoke sympathy. And hey, if there can be stories about sympathetic white men murderers, there should be room for others that don’t fit that mold as far as I’m concerned.

I quite enjoyed “The Eyes Are the Best Part”. Monika Kim is a debut author to watch, because this is a STRONG debut and I have high hopes that it’s going to lead to a great horror career.

Rating 8: Twisted and gross at times, but also a cutting insight into living in America as a Korean American woman, “The Eyes Are the Best Part” is a nasty horror novel with some serious teeth.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Eyes Are the Best Part” is included on the Goodreads list “Books With Names That Slap”.

Kate’s Review: “Feeding Ghosts”

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Book: “Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir” by Tessa Hulls

Publishing Info: MCD, March 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the stories of her grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.

Sun Yi was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with her daughter. Upon arrival, Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, used the proceeds to put Rose in an elite boarding school―and promptly had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her.

Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi’s unexamined trauma and mental illness. Vowing to escape her mother’s smothering fear, Tessa left home and traveled to the farthest-flung corners of the globe (Antarctica). But at the age of thirty, it starts to feel less like freedom and more like running away, and she returns to face the history that shaped her.

Gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls’ homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, it exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.

Review: I sometimes find a book that doesn’t exactly fit the expectations I have based upon the circumstances in which I found it. “Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir” by Tessa Hulls is a great example of that, as I saw it for the first time on the social media feed of horror influencer Sadie Hartmann, aka Mother Horror. Since she is such a huge presence in the horror lit community I assumed that it was a horror graphic novel (and I mean, the word ‘ghosts’ in the title added to that). But when I did research on it, I realized that it wasn’t a horror story, but a story about three generations of Chinese and Chinese American women, and the trauma that is passed down between the three of them. Sure it wasn’t a horror novel, but the premise still very much intrigued me. So I got it from the library, thinking I’d work through it pretty fast. Little did I know that it would be one of the harder reads of 2024. But not in a bad way by any means.

So I’m immediately going to clarify what I mean by ‘harder’, because I know that it makes it sound like a chore to read. And it is by no means that. When I say harder I am more talking about two things. The first is that this is a VERY dense book. Like on the page, there are SO MANY WORDS for a graphic novel. The most recent graphic memoir I read before this was “Worm” and I was able to read that in one night. That was NOT the case for “Feeding Ghosts”, as Hulls wants to tell three individual stories of herself, her mother Rose, and her grandmother Sun Yi, as well as the story of their relationships due to the trauma that is passed down through them, AS WELL AS a compact history of China in the 20th Century and how that influenced Sun Yi and Rose. The other is that the subject material is very, VERY heavy, with lots of themes that are very difficult, and Hulls approaches them with a matter of fact cadence and tone. Sun Yi was living as a reporter in Shanghai when the Communist Party took over, and after giving birth to Rose out of wedlock (and with a foreigner, as Rose’s father was a Swiss diplomat), and being an undesirable person for other reasons on top fo that, the new government spied on, intimidated, harangued, and harassed her until she and Rose could escape to Hong Kong. Shortly thereafter Sun Yi wrote a memoir speaking out against the Communists, and then had a severe mental breakdown that left Rose to her own devices in a boarding school, and then as a caregiver after they moved to America. In turn, Rose raised her own daughter Tessa with a lot of fear, anxiety, and a clinging fear of losing her to mental illness, which in turn pushed Tessa away and gave her her own set of traumas. Tessa writes this memoir with lots of honesty as to all the things that all of them went through, and how trauma and mental illness can keep reverberating through generations and progeny. With the combination of the jam packed pages and some VERY heavy themes, it took me longer to get through this than I anticipated. But again, that’s not a bad thing. I appreciated the care and context that Hulls wanted to give her family, as well as herself, and I thought that she did a really good job of pulling it all together, as well as allowing herself vulnerability to open up about some very tragic truths about her family history that is still present to this day. It’s quite the achievement, and I found it to be deeply fascinating and moving.

I also quite enjoyed the way that Hulls weaves in the history of 20th Century China into this tale, as so much of that time period had an effect on Sun Yi, and in turn Rose and Tessa down the line. She does a good job of laying out the timeline from the jump as almost an outline, and then diving deeper into the various parts of it, including the invasion of Japan to the Communist Revolution to the Great Leap Forward, and showing how these events shaped Sun Yi’s life, and the repeated traumas in all probability led to her complete mental breakdown that she never recovered from. It’s by no means a deep dive into this time period or the events, but she does make them very accessible and takes some pretty complex moments and parses them out without disrupting the flow of the story of her family. Lord knows I don’t know that much about this time period outside of learning about it for a unit when I was in high school, and I liked having the basics laid out. It’s also so important to the overall story I really like how she made sure it was all there, even if it did contribute to the aforementioned denseness.

All in all, “Feeding Ghosts” is a deeply personal and moving memoir, a magnum opus for an author who was trying to untangle some complicated histories in her family. If you like memoirs, this is absolutely one to check out.

Rating 8: An emotional memoir about cycles of trauma that went through three generations of women, “Feeding Ghosts” is dense, deeply personal, and very well done.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Feeding Ghosts” is included on the Goodreads list “Memoirs Published in Year: 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “Middle of the Night”

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Book: “Middle of the Night” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 2024

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

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

Book Description: In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.

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

It’s fully summer now, and along with the promises of pool days, barbecuing, river tubing, and melting in the heat and therefore hiding in an air conditioned home as much as I can, I also have the promise of a new Riley Sager novel every year. And this year we have “Middle of the Night”, a new thriller about a long missing boy, the man who was the one left behind and facing survivor guilt, and a neighborhood that has had this case haunting them for decades… oh, and also a spectral person lurking in the neighborhood in the dead of night. Oh yes. This has potential for sure.

Like most of Sager’s books before it, I was entertained by the mystery and the twists and turns of “Middle of the Night”. The initial mystery is already a solid premise: thirty years ago, Ethan Marsh and his neighborhood best friend Billy were camping in his backyard on a sleepover, only for their tent to be cut into and Billy to go missing, with Ethan clueless as to what happened outside of shoddy flashes of memories that don’t make much sense. In the present Ethan has returned to the old neighborhood to sell his parents house after their retirement, and has started noticing weird things, like a mysterious shadow person creeping through the neighborhood at night, or signs of life that only Billy could have done back in the day. You already have me with the questions of what happened to Billy, and who (or what) is now sending Ethan messages thirty years later, but then Sager adds MORE to it by bringing in a mysterious local institution with connections to the Ivy League that may or may not have been doing some odd things they hoped to keep hidden. The weirdness and the slow reveals of how THAT plays into the story, as well as more evidence, motives, suspects, and, yes, red herrings, makes for a suspenseful read as we jump from Ethan’s perspective in the present to other people’s perspectives in the past, and even though it could have been a lot of narrative shifting, it worked well for me. I was genuinely surprised by a lot of the reveals, and even those that weren’t as shocking to me still felt executed tightly and properly. I know that Sager can be polarizing to thriller fans, but I always buy into his books because it’s just fun to experience the ride.

Sager is usually a good bet if you want an entertaining read for the fun summer months, and “Middle of the Night” once again delivers on that. But what I also liked about this book is how Sager explores the themes of survivor guilt and collective trauma for those who live in a tight knit community when a person, especially a young person, goes missing. My mind kept wandering back to a notorious and long lingering Minnesota case, that of Jacob Wetterling, who was kidnapped by a masked man in 1989 and was missing for decades until they got a confession and found his body in 2016. Ethan has come back to the place where his best friend vanished, and has to face how that has shaped his life up until now, and how that has reverberated through his relationships, actions, and experiences, usually with tragic elements as he hasn’t fully reconciled all of his guilt and fear and heartbreak. I found Ethan to be a very easy to follow main character, and I thought that Sager really dug into his psyche. It’s also a change to have a male protagonist in a Sager book (I suppose “Survive the Night” had a dual POV with a male protagonist, but it was split), so that was a breath of fresh air. And hell, we even get a little bit into the minds of all the people in the neighborhood around the time Billy disappears, which gave more complicated layers to a supposedly perfect suburban setting. I always enjoy a dressing down of the facade of a perfect Americana community, and “Middle of the Night” peels back some layers and exposes the cracks that were there even before Billy disappeared. It makes for some added pathos to an already emotional premise.

Ultimately I found “Middle of the Night” to be another serviceable thriller, and one perfect for summer vacations. It’s speedy and fun and I continue to hold Riley Sager in high regard when it comes to genuinely enjoyable thrillers.

Rating 8: Tense and at times incredibly sad, “Middle of the Night” is about going home in the face of unresolved trauma, and a neighborhood haunted (perhaps literally) by a long lost child.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Middle of the Night” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Dark Fiction of 2024”.

Kate’s Review: “The Pecan Children”

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Book: “The Pecan Children” by Quinn Connor

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, June 2024

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: For fans of The Midnight Library and Demon Copperhead comes a breathtaking story of magical realism about two sisters, deeply tied to their small Southern town, fighting to break free of the darkness swallowing the land—and its endless cycle of pecan harvests—whole.

How long will you hold on when your world is gone?

In a small southern pecan town, the annual harvest is a time of both celebration and heartbreak. Even as families are forced to sell their orchards and move away, Lil Clearwater, keeper of a secret covenant with her land, swears she never will. When her twin Sasha returns to the dwindling town in hopes of reconnecting with the girl her heart never forgot, the sisters struggle to bridge their differences and share the immense burden of protecting their home from hungry forces intent on uprooting everything they love.

But there is rot hiding deep beneath the surface. Ghostly fires light up the night, and troubling local folklore is revealed to be all too true. Confronted with the phantoms of their pasts and the devastating threat to their future, the sisters come to the stark realization that in the kudzu-choked South, nothing is ever as it appears.

A story of the love between sisters, and an allegory of decay in small-town America, The Pecan Children walks the line between beauty and horror.

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

We are about half way through Pride Month, and I’m happy to be able to say that today I have a horror-esque novel that will be a great choice if you are wanting to read LGBTQIA+ books through the end of June. Sourcebooks Landmark reached out to me with “The Pecan Children” by Quinn Connor (the pen name of writing duo Robyn Barrow and Alex Cronin), and touted it as a Southern Gothic story that has a lovely sapphic romance at the center of it. All of this caught my eye, and I was eager to jump into it leading up to Pride. And I think that it did make good on the majority of the promises it made in the description.

In terms of a genre I would PROBABLY classify this as more of a dark fantasy than a horror novel (which was what I thought I was getting into), but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be scary at times or definitely have horror elements that shine through. There are so many moments of dread, even if it’s just through the description of invasive kudzu, or strange children encountered in the wilderness, or strange fires that flicker to life only to abruptly disappear like they never started in the first place. We are mostly following twin sisters Lil and Sasha, who have grown up in a small town in Arkansas that has relied on pecan harvests and local community to survive, only for land to suddenly stop producing and predatory land grabs snatching up and threatening the town. But this is not the case on Lil and Sasha’s farm, the one that Lil has tended to ever since her other passed, and the one Sasha has returned to after being away. The slow building suspense of what is happening around them as they reconnect with old loves, the first being Lil’s ex boyfriend Jason who has also returned and the second being Autumn, an old friend of Sasha, makes for an eerie and creepy read as things just seem off. And by the time we find out just what IS going on (and I’m not going to spoil anything), the tension snaps back and reverberates as the story hurtles towards its end. I think that I was hoping for more straight up horror beats, but when I started approaching it as a dark fantasy it worked really well for me.

But like so many tales, “The Pecan Children” is rife with real world obstacles and societal commentary. The first is that Lil and Sasha’s hometown is in stasis and slowly succumbing to a rot and decay of an outside force that is sucking it dry. It works well for the horror elements and reveals that are in place (no spoilers here, again), but it’s also a pretty poignant way to talk about the way that many small towns in poorer rural areas are really struggling for many reasons, and how in turn many of the people who do stay cling to aspects of the past. But along with that is the fact that I also loved the dichotomy of the twin sisters, as Lil has stayed to continue the pecan farm as her mother had put that mantle on her, and Sasha left for a time, only to return and to reconnect with her sister, in spite of the resentment between both of them for different reasons. It’s a heartfelt thread that crosses throughout the dark fantasy elements and eerie scares of the greater story, and it has siblings that clearly loves each other while having to overcome bitterness and familial heartaches. It was the very human and realistic moments that worked best for me in this novel, whether it’s the love between the twins, or the romance between Sasha and Autumn, or the reconnection between Lil and Jason. I REALLY liked the relationship between Sasha and Autumn, as I love seeing two old friends reconnect and realizing that there was always something more there, and finally being willing to explore it more than they had in the past.

With a strange and dreamy aura about it and some easy to root for relationships, romantic and sisterly, “The Pecan Children” is a dark fantasy read that would be a great choice for Pride month, and a solid read for dark fantasy readers who like a Southern Gothic twist.

Rating 7: A creepy and dreamy dark fantasy tale that is also about sisters, lost loves, and decaying small town identity, “The Pecan Children” is an eerie read for summer.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Pecan Children” is included on the Goodreads list “Queer Books Set in Arkansas”.