Category: Kate’s Reviews

Kate’s Review: “A Haunting on the Hill”

Book: “A Haunting on the Hill” by Elizabeth Hand

Publishing Info: Mulholland Books, October 2023

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

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

Book Description: From three-time Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever authorized novel to return to the world of Shirley Jackson’s  The Haunting of Hill House:  a suspenseful, contemporary, and terrifying story of longing and isolation all its own.
 
Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play, The Witch of Edmonton, she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.
 
Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known: strange creatures stalk the grounds,  disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift.  All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and it no longer intends to walk alone . . . 

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

Happy Halloween, everyone!! This is one of my favorite days of the year, and while I am always sad that the spooky season inevitably comes to an end on this wonderful day, I still look forward to it. Between taking my kid trick or treating and watching the original “Halloween” film, I like making this day special, and this year I have a special final review for Horrorpalooza 2023: “A Haunting on the Hill” by Elizabeth Hand is not only a new haunted house story, it is also an official continuation of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House”, the formative and influential Gothic horror story about four paranormal investigators in the sinister Hill House. When I heard that there was an authorized sequel that takes place decades after the original, I was very, VERY interested to see what exactly the author was going to do with it. We’ve had some really good interpretations of the Hill House lore in the past few years, and an actual novel sounded ambitious and daunting. But I was very, very satisfied with how it all shook out.

“A Haunting on the Hill” brings new inhabitants to Hill House, set in the modern times. Holly, a playwright who is trying to re-craft an old play about a witch, discovers the empty (but still cared for) mansion while on a drive during a vacation with her girlfriend and creative partner Nisa, and is almost immediately drawn to it. After convincing other members of the play, Stevie (an actor and a close friend) and Amanda (the lead), to join, what begins as a creative endeavor slowly turns into a nightmare. So once again we have four people in Hill House who don’t know just how dangerous it is, with locals and caretakers trying to warn them as their warnings fall unto closed ears, and a house that starts to draw them in. I liked watching the slow spin out as Holly, Nisa, Stevie, and Amanda deal with little things (like things being in one place and ending up in another, or lights being on when they were sure they were off), which then turn into big things (black hares falling down chimneys, or seeing cars barreling towards trees only to have them disappear). Hand takes her time in building up the tension, and adds more tension between the actors who are already on edge for other reasons none of them really want to talk about. She makes it so that the dread is fully taut, and then will let it snap to create genuinely scary moments that feel right out of Shirley Jackson’s playbook.

In terms of how well it blends in with the source material, I think that Hand does a really good job of making this story seem original and unique while still holding some of the tone and themes of “The Haunting of Hill House”. Given that through the original and at least two adaptations (NOT the 1999 adaptation, mind you), one of the main points Jackson was making was that yes, Hill House is haunted, but the people who inhabit it are ALSO haunted by things outside of the mansion. And we get that with our characters in this story, whether it’s Holly aching for success, or singer Nisa, who is rife with her own insecurities while trying to put on a show of great confidence and allure, or actress Amanda who is trying to remake her career after an accident in a previous show that she felt blamed for, or actor Stevie who is still feeling the repercussions of horrific abuse he endured as a tween, vulnerable people come to Hill House and have a slowly building dread as strange thing start to happen. Hand never goes outside of the levels of the original book, slowly upping the ante of suspense with general unease to moments of rapt terror, and it just feels like Jackson’s Hill House is bringing in more victims to keep inside so it doesn’t walk alone. She also manages to pay homage and fit in references to the original text, without feeling like she’s leaning upon it too heavily, or just retelling the tale in a new coating. Hell, she even can explore the less obvious themes of queerness that were hinted at in the original, and bringing in the spirit of Nell and Theo and their complicated relationship through Holly and Nisa. It’s believable as a sequel and it’s worthy of it as well.

“A Haunting on the Hill” is an eerie and unsettling follow up to a beloved horror classic. I felt like it hit the right beats, caught the right tone, and ended up fitting in with the story many know and love.

And with that, on this lovely All Hallow’s Eve, Horrorpalooza 2023 has come to an end! I hope that you have all had a fun and deeply spooky Season of the Witch, and I hope that everyone out there has a fun, safe, and creepy crawly Halloween!!!

Rating 8: An eerie and suspenseful revisit to a classic haunted house story, “A Haunting on the Hill” is a worthy follow up to “The Haunting of Hill House”.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Haunting on the Hill” is included on the Goodreads lists “Horror of Halloween 2023”, and “Queer Releases October 2023”.

Kate’s Review: “Green Fuse Burning”

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

Book: “Green Fuse Burning” by Tiffany Morris

Publishing Info: Stelliform Press, October 2023

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

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

Book Description: The debut novella from the Elgin Award winning author of Elegies of Rotting Stars. After the death of her estranged father, artist Rita struggles with grief and regret. There was so much she wanted to ask him-about his childhood, their family, and the Mi’kmaq language and culture from which Rita feels disconnected. But when Rita’s girlfriend Molly forges an artist’s residency application on her behalf, winning Rita a week to paint at an isolated cabin, Rita is both furious and intrigued. The residency is located where her father grew up. On the first night at the cabin, Rita wakes to strange sounds. Was that a body being dragged through the woods?

When she questions the locals about the cabin’s history, they are suspicious and unhelpful. Ignoring her unease, Rita gives in to dark visions that emanate from the forest’s lake and the surrounding swamp. She feels its pull, channelling that energy into art like she’s never painted before. But the uncanny visions become more insistent, more intrusive, and Rita discovers that in the swamp’s decay the end of one life is sometimes the beginning of another.

Review: Thank you to Stelliform Press and Beverly Bambury for sending me a print copy of this book!

The first thing about “Green Fuse Burning” by Tiffany Morris that caught my eye was the cover. When this showed up in my inbox with the cover attached to the email, I saw the cover and was just under its spell. The vivid colors, the creepy image, it just grabbed me. I also haven’t read much eco-horror, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to give it a go with this novella. I went in expecting one thing, but once I was done I realized that it completely upended all my expectations.

Horror wise, I thought that “Green Fuse Burning” had a lot of really well done imagery, and a lot of unique prose choices that make the macabre at times quite beautiful. This is a horror tale that anchors itself in nature and eco-horror, with references to climate change and an eerie and foreboding swamp that draws protagonist Rita into its spell while she tries to work on her art inside an isolated cabin on a lake that has ties to her now deceased Mi’kmaw father. From strange noises at night to standoffish people in town to images of a woman who seems to be made if fiery vegetation, the scares are both deeply unsettling as well as beautifully written (which isn’t TOO shocking as Morris is an award winning poet). The descriptions of the vegetation, the landscape, the gore, it is absolutely what I expect from horror while also being unexpectedly gorgeous. I also really enjoyed how each chapter opened with a description of the various art pieces that Rita creates while in the cabin, that gives the reader and idea of the escalating horror situations that are to come on her journey in the swamp.

But what I liked most about this book is the way that Morris examines grief and loss, and how that not only applies to losing loved ones, but also losing your connection to your heritage through that initial loss. Rita is an Indigenous woman who has a tenuous relationship with her Mi’kmaw heritage and culture, and when her main link, her estranged father, dies, she now feels adrift and as though a part of herself she never really knew has been taken from her with his death. Rita’s journey in the woods on the lake where he grew up has the expected ‘cabin the woods’ beats, but it goes deeper than that and dives into the horrors of this kind of grief. And I also liked how instead of grief being seen as something to be fought or overcome, as some horror stories have done, you get the sense that Rita’s grief isn’t something to be conquered, but something to be accepted and something to sit with. That, too, ties into the colonized nature of Rita’s grief, as within the Western lens (as seen through her white girlfriend Molly), Rita is sent away to process her grief and to come out more artistic and whole, to hide it away until she is done processing it. But as Rita is isolated in the woods and goes through her journey in the swamps and with the Lichen Woman, grief isn’t seen as something to hide, but to, in some ways, embrace.

“Green Fuse Burning” is a meditative and gorgeously written horror story that has moments of intensity, as well as moments of reflection. It’s one of the more unique horror stories I’ve read this year, and I quite enjoyed it.

Rating 8: An unsettling environmental horror that takes on grief and loss, “Green Fuse Burning” is both intense, but also meditative.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Green Fuse Burning” is included on the Goodreads lists “Queer Releases October 2023”, and “Horror To Look Forward To in 2023”.

Kate’s Review: “Here in the Night”

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

Book: “Here in the Night” by Rebecca Turkewitz

Publishing Info: Black Lawrence Press, July 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a print copy from the author.

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

Book Description: The thirteen stories in Rebecca Turkewitz’s debut collection, Here in the Night , are engrossing, strange, eerie, and emotionally nuanced. With psychological insight and finely crafted prose, Here in the Night investigates the joys and constraints of womanhood, of queerness, and of intimacy. Preoccupied with all manner of hauntings, these stories traverse a boarding school in the Vermont woods, the jagged coast of Maine, an attic in suburban Massachusetts, an elevator stuck between floors, and the side of an unlit highway in rural South Carolina.

At the center of almost every story is the landscape of night, with all its tantalizing and terrifying potential. After dark, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, boundaries loosen, expectations fall away, and even the greatest skeptics believe–at least fleetingly–that anything could happen.

These stories will stay with you.

Review: Thank you to Rebecca Turkewitz for sending me a copy of this book!

We are starting to wind down the Halloween Season, as the holiday is next week and the various creepy plans that I have for the month are coming to a head (“Hocus Pocus” night with ladyfriends? Check. “Practical Magic” night with more different ladyfriends? Check. “Lost Boys” party at the local Alamo? CHECK AND MATE!). And as we continue our horror lit journey for the month, we are now coming to a book that felt a little different than my usual horror fare. “Here in the Night” by Rebecca Turkewitz was sent to me by Turkewitz herself (thank you again!), and I was expecting another short stories horror collection with blatant scares, sub genre jumping, and the usual fare for the horror fan who wants smaller tales to read at their own leisure. But when I sat down and started reading, I realized that “Here in the Night” was something far different from what I was expecting, and that it was something very special because of it.

Like I always do, I will highlight my three favorite stories and then review the collection as a whole.

“Warnings”: Members of a school track team run in a desolate area, the warnings of predators and strangers at the back of their minds until something they never thought could happen, happens. This is one of the shorter stories in the collection, more like a flash fiction tale, but I loved the structure, written in a ‘we’ narration, speaking like a chorus and speaking for the track team as a whole and beyond. This story felt like an expanded take on the Calvin and Hobbes quote (which I’m probably butchering) ‘this is one of the things you figure will happen to someone else, but unfortunately we’re ALL someone else to someone else’. It’s scary and sad and sobering, and all achieved in maybe two pages.

“Here in the Night”: On June 12th 2016, Ellie and Jess are returning from a visit to Ellie’s family, and seeking out updates on the Pulse Nightclub massacre as they drive down an isolated country road in rural North Carolina. As their grief and anxiety builds, they question their differences in reactions as well as their differences in upbringings. Almost definitely the most heart wrenching story in the collection, Turkewitz captures the trauma, the grief, and fear, and the questions that were swirling in the queer community after this horrific hate crime happened, examining two women in a relationship who find themselves upset at the world as well as at each other amidst the fear and uncertainty. There’s the slow build of their relationship tension, but then a whole other tension about the potential danger they could be in in the moment, perhaps heightened due to the mass shooting on their minds, which make for some very unnerving beats as well as emotional ones.

“Crybaby Bridge”: Sam is a teenager who has just moved to small town Indiana after an incident in her old community in the big city, and has trouble fitting in with other girls on her basketball team. While at a sleepover they tell her the story of Crybaby Bridge, a haunted spot in town that is supposedly roamed by the ghost of a young woman who drowned her baby and then killed herself, and Sam finds herself drawn to the tale. I love a scary story about urban legends, and “Crybaby Bridge” does a really good job of spinning a familiar tale while subverting it in ways that I didn’t expect. I really loved Sam as a character, as she is so complex and nuanced and could read like a ‘not like other girls’ trope but is so much more. It’s also a great exploration of how urban legends can make villains out of victims and turn them into spectral monsters.

But I had a hard time picking my favorite three stories because I really enjoyed all of them. They are definitely horror stories, but they all flow so smoothly and read like literary ruminations on love, loss, grief, and trauma, and never in a way that felt like it was trying too hard (which can be a big sticking point for me when it comes to the idea of ‘literary’ horror; if you have to hammer home you’re ‘literary’, it just makes you seem like you think you’re more valid than genre horror, and I hate that). Turkewitz can peel back the layers of the human condition and find the scary things, be they real life or supernatural or perhaps ambiguous, usually framed within a female or queer experience. The stories here are effective but never feel over the top, and there were multiple times I said to myself ‘I really like this’ as I finished up one story and moved on to the next. Not a clunker in the bunch, and in my experience that is rare in a short stories collection.

I urge horror fans who are hoping to find something a bit more ruminative to seek out “Here in the Night”. These stories will unsettle you, but they will also bubble up emotions as they tug at your heartstrings. I am spreading the word on Rebecca Turkewitz. Check this book out.

Rating 9: Quite possibly the best short story collection I’ve read this year, “Here in the Night” combines uneasy supernatural horrors with the horrors of the real world, all with a literary flair that makes for an evocative read.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Here in the Night” is included on the Goodreads list “Spooky/Halloween LGBTQ+ Fiction”.

Kate’s Review: “Find Him Where You Left Him Dead”

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

Book: “Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” by Kristen Simmons

Publishing Info: Tor Teen, September 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC at ALAAC23

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

Book Description: Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived.

Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors―Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax―have reunited for one strange and terrible they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead.

Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished―an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.

As soon as they begin, they’re dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen’s grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules: They have one night to complete seven challenges or they’ll all be stuck in this world forever.

Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices―blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse. And once again, not everyone will make it out alive.

Review: Thank you to Tor Teen for providing me with an ARC of this novel at ALAAC23!

After not feeling like there was much programming or promotionals for the horror genre at ALAAC in 2022, the conference in 2023 had a LOT of really great horror centered stuff! There were a good amount of horror ARCs available and multiple panels about the genre with authors of the genre giving their insights. During one of these panels I received a signed ARC of “Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” by Kristen Simmons, and after hearing her talk about the book and the inspiration she took from Japanese mythology I was very much interested to see what she did with it. I had pretty high hopes, and, unfortunately, the book didn’t quite live up to them.

But first what I did like. The comparisons to “Jumanji” are absolutely spot on. As someone who has had a special place in her heart for that movie ever since she saw it in theaters (I’ve dated myself), I really like how “Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” brings in a game element that these teens have to play, while steeped in the dangerous beings from Japanese folklore and mythology. And that is a great segue into the other thing that I really liked about this book: the Japanese folklore and mythology! Simmons finds some of the more disturbing yōkai and oni to showcase, which makes for some solid horror scenes. There was one in particular with a creature that was hoping to make clothing out of a very nasty item that really set me on edge. When the yōkai are placed front and center and are tormenting the friend group, it makes for unique and interesting reading. It’s also always cool seeing non-Western mythologies and folktales serve and inspiration for fantasy or horror or any genre that looks to stories of the past to influence stories of today, and seeing authors from those cultures have the opportunities to tweak and tinker with it to tell a new story.

But on the flip side, I had a really hard time investing in and getting into the characters. We have multiple POVs in this book, focusing on the friend group of Madeline, Emerson, Owen, and Dax, who played a strange game with their friend Ian four years prior and then left him behind in a cave and no one has seen him since. Now they join back together to play again after Ian’s ghost visits them all, and they know that they have to finish it or they will be trapped forever. It’s a solid build up, but their voices are pretty flat and not very distinct. Sure, all of them are dealing with their trauma in their own ways, but I never really got invested in any of them, which made the stakes of getting out of this alternate world not very high for me. There were also a lot of times they spoke less like teenagers in conversation and more like lessons the audience is meant to learn, and while I agreed with what they were trying to say, it could come off as stilted and throw off the pace of the book. I think that had we had fewer POVs to jump between and had we really gotten to know them better, they probably would have been more interesting to me, but as they were they were just kind of there. Which was a shame because it made the read not as entertaining as I had hoped it would be.

“Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” was a bit of a letdown. The folklore inspiration was spot on, but the rest of the book was pretty run of the mill.

Rating 6: I really loved the Japanese folklore elements of this horror tale, but the characters in “Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” were a bit flat and made it hard to invest in their fates.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Find Him Where You Left Him Dead” is included on the Goodreads lists “YA Asian Horror”, and “A 2023 Halloween Spooky Reads List”.

Kate’s Review: “Edenville”

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

Book: “Edenville” by Sam Rebelein

Publishing Info: William Morrow, October 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC23.

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

Book Description: An unsettling, immersive, and wildly entertaining debut novel from an exciting new voice in horror for fans of Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones.

After publishing his debut novel, The Shattered Man, to disappointing sales and reviews, Campbell P. Marion is struggling to find inspiration for a follow-up. When Edenville College invites him to join as a writer-in-residence, he’s convinced that his bad luck has finally taken a turn.

His girlfriend Quinn isn’t so sure—she grew up near Edenville and has good reasons for not wanting to move back. Cam disregards her skepticism and accepts the job, with Quinn reluctantly following along. But there’s something wrong in Edenville. Despite the charming old ladies milling about Main Street and picturesque sunflowers dotting the sidewalks, poison lurks beneath the surface. As a series of strange and ominous events escalate among Edenville and its residents, Cam and Quinn find themselves entangled in a dark and disturbing history. Told with equal parts horror and humor,  Edenville  explores the urban legends that fuel our nightmares and the ways in which ambition can overshadow our best instincts. Sam Rebelein is an exciting, sharp new voice, sure to terrify readers for years to come.

Review: Thank you to William Morrow for providing me with an ARC of this novel at ALAAC23!

One of the books I was on the look out for at ALAAC23 was “Edenville” by Sam Rebelein. It had been showing up in the various horror lit social media circles I like to frequent, and was getting a fair amount of hype. So I was very happy when they did, in fact, have ARCs available, and made sure to get my hands on one (shout out to Serena for snagging it for me). I saved it for October, as it was a highly anticipated horror read and great for a Horrorpalooza review, and when I did finally sit down with it, it was… not what I expected? But not in a bad way!

As someone who isn’t as into Cosmic Horror as a sub genre, I was a little wary going into this one even though I was anticipating it due to the hype. But I thought that “Edenville” was pretty fun as well as SUPER weird, particularly for our protagonists Cam and Quinn, a couple who have moved to Edenville to pursue Cam’s career as an author as a new writer in residence at the local university. Cam’s debut novel was an overall flop, and feeling stung in his failure this opportunity is too good to pass up, even though girlfriend Quinn is quite nervous about it. I always like small towns with sinister secrets, and I felt that Rebelein really captured that aspect of Edenville itself as well as the surrounding area of Renfield County and the urban legends it harbors. The eerie sense that something isn’t quite right in the town, whether it’s the strange residents themselves who are just a little off, or the fact that new writer in residence Cam is seemingly connected to the history of the town in spite of never having been there before, or Quinn having grown up close by and having her own weird previous experiences and knowledge of urban legends that may have some truth, Rebelein makes the unease and uncanniness build up in a well paced way and then completely yanks the rug out from under the reader. Both Cam and Quinn are enjoyable in the parts that they play, with Cam being slowly taken in by his perceived importance and Quinn knowing that something is really wrong, and it makes for high stakes as we barrel towards the climax. There is a lot of pretty gnarly body horror in this book as well, whether it’s Cam’s eyes leaking a viscous goo that sounds suspiciously like it has a semen-like consistency, or some of the moments later in the book that I don’t really want to spoil here because MAN are they gross but kinda fun at the same time. And yes, while this sometimes did go a little far into cosmic horror for my own personal tastes, there was always something to kind of bring me back and ground me.

But what bumped my reading experience up a notch was just how funny this book could be at times. The town of Edenville is definitely sinister and creepy, but there were also a lot of moments that had me cackling, whether it’s snark from the weirdo townspeople, or just off the cuff observations, or even just the satirical look at the pretentiousness of academia and those who strive to excel within that community. This is especially evident with Cam as he aches to fit in within his new academic setting, and deals with other faculty who are less than welcoming (and not just inside the context of this being a horror story; some of the interactions feel VERY real and especially biting), and brushes off things that are VERY wrong in this desperation to be important in the community after feeling like a failure in the past. There were so many things in this book that had me thinking back to the podcast “Welcome to Nightvale”, but if Nightvale was less of a quirky town with supernatural charm and more if it was a deeply menacing community with ill intent. But it had that kind of tone at times that really grabbed the humor amidst all the gore and scares.

Overall, “Edenville” was enjoyable. It could get a little weird for me, but I think that if you want a horror novel that goes places that we don’t see that often, and one that will almost assuredly make you laugh, this could be a good choice!

Rating 7: Supremely weird, sometimes gross, and a lot of the time funny, “Edenville” is an ambitious and wild ride about small town secrets, cosmic horror, and the pitfalls of Academia.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Edenville” is included on the Goodreads lists “Horror to Look Forward to in 2023”, and “2023 Dark Academia Releases”.

Kate’s Review: “Black River Orchard”

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

Book: “Black River Orchard” by Chuck Wendig

Publishing Info: Del Rey, September 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley and an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC23.

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

Book Description: It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something else is changing in the town besides the season. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: Strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.

Take a bite of one of these apples and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples… and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful? And even if buried in the orchard is something else besides the seeds of this extraordinary tree: a bloody history whose roots reach back the very origins of the town.

But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. And a stranger has come to town, a stranger who knows Harrow’s secrets. Because it’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with my eARC and ARC!

One of my favorite things to do in Autumn is going to an apple orchard. There are some good ones outside of the Twin Cities if you are willing to drive a bit, and some of my favorite places have not just apples but also Halloween themed attractions and apple themed baked goods. I mean, what’s not to love? I’m also an alum of the U of MN, which is known for apples given that it created species like the Zestar and the Honeycrisp. We know apples here. And I was thinking about all of these things as I read Chuck Wendig’s newest horror novel “Black River Orchard”, which takes the idea of apples and makes them downright evil. So obviously it is the PERFECT read for the Halloween season!!

So yes, this is a big book, like many of Wendig’s books are, but like his previous novels “Black River Orchard” is paced so well and is so addictive that it reads very, very fast. This nearly 700 page books took me maybe four days to finish because if I wasn’t dealing with the day to day responsibilities of my life, I was reading. We have multiple character perspectives and multiple interludes that add context to a complex but well thought out story, and I felt like it all came together really well even though there were so many threads that needed to interlock. I loved the variation in voices that our characters got, whether it’s Dan, the ambitious and increasingly sinister orchard owner, or his daughter Calla who can see him changing after his new Ruby Slipper apple hypnotizes the community, or newcomer Emily whose marriage is teetering on the brink, or John, a mysterious apple enthusiast who has reason to try and find out as much as he can about these mysterious and heavily sought out new apples. All of their perspectives (and more) were well fleshed out and I never found myself bored with a character chapter because they were all interesting to me.

And in terms of the horror elements of this story, Wendig really does earn the comparisons he gets to the likes of Stephen King, in that the horror is creepy and immersive, but there is almost always some hope and humanity there. Seeing the frog in the pot of boiling water scenario as Dan’s new Ruby Slippers start taking over the town, and turning those who eat them into fanatical and sinister shells of their former selves slowly but surely, is deeply unsettling and pulls the tension tight. Wendig takes his time to show how these apples are affecting people, sort of similar to “The Fly” in that it first seems all positive, with ailments being healed and confidence being boosted, but then we start to realize with a few other characters that no, things are going very, very wrong. We get hints of the strangeness in between chunks of the story at hand, whether it’s flashbacks to the town history or weird perspectives from animals on the property, and by the time we get to the big reveal and crux of what is at stake the body horror, groupthink violence, and psychological terror is all there and it is thriving. I was a tension filled mess in the last chapters, worried about how it was all going to shake out. Hell, even in some of the earlier chapters with moments of mere high strangeness I was in need of setting the book down for a bit. There is just something about the description of an apple skin mask that really, really gets under my skin. Wendig can make things like this seem absolutely terrifying!

“Black River Orchard” is another horror triumph from Chuck Wendig! I am always eager to see where his twisty but optimistic mind is going to go next, and this is a must read for the season. Maybe not if you plan to go to an apple orchard. Or maybe especially if you plan to go to an apple orchard!

Rating 9: Creepy as hell with many well conceived plot points that thread together, “Black River Orchard” is another winner from Chuck Wendig!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Black River Orchard” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2023”!

Kate’s Review: “Pre-Approved for Haunting”

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

Book: “Pre-Approved for Haunting: And Other Stories” by Patrick Barb

Publishing Info: Keylight Books, September 2023

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: A collection of weird, dark stories and millennial anxieties. In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term. From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb’s characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

Review: Thank you to Turner Publishing and Keylight Books for sending me an ARC of this collection!

Though I do see myself as an avid horror fan (probably more than avid if we are encompassing all of my pastimes and interests), I am always discovering creators that are new to me, either because they are also new, or more likely because I just haven’t tuned into them yet. It’s always fun to have a new horror author end up in my path, and “Pre-Approved for Haunting: And Other Stories” by Patrick Barb (who is also a local author for us Minnesota people!) is the newest example of that. I had never heard of Barb before, but the description of his works in this collection definitely had my attention from the jump. A short story collection is a great way to get a feel for a new to me author, and I can definitely say that this book is a good example of that. Holy varied works, Batman!

As always with short stories collections, I shall focus on my favorite three stories and then review the collection as a whole.

“Casual”: This was a story pretty early in the collection, and it was the first one to make me say ‘okay, this guy knows what he’s doing’. Talk about a twisted take on a pretty well worn concept! Jack and Lizzie are meeting for the first time in person after meeting online, choosing a quiet bar to get to know each other a little bit… and to do their first dual murder together. From the jump you know that these two young people are here to do something terrible, but it’s written in a way that feels like a cozy meet cute between two people who have similar interests and sparkling chemistry. I really liked the subversion, and how even though you know how it’s going to go you can’t help but kind of like the banter and flirtation as they get to know each other, and feel the poignancy of the end.

“I Will Not Read Your Haunted Script”: As a person who enjoys an urban legend, especially ones that involve haunted Hollywood and cursed movies, this one had a lot going for it out the gate. A screenwriter is sick of people approaching them with supposedly haunted and cursed screenplays, as their own notorious script may or may not have cursed an entire production, leaving them the last person involved alive. But this newest one may be the exception, and not because the writer has any say. I love the construction of this one, being somewhat second person from the screenwriter’s POV, and how it vacillates between a rant with exposition, and bits from a screenplay. I loved the frenzied build up and the absolute bonkers unraveling of it all.

“Iggy Crane and the Headless Horse Girl”: I’m pretty certain this was my favorite in the book, as I love anything related to “Sleepy Hollow” and I REALLY loved the way that Barb updated it and made it fit into a modern framework. Iggy Crane is the new riding instructor at the prestigious Sleepy Hollow Girls’ Preparatory Academy. She is drawn to headmistress Cat Van Tussel, but finds some of her students, specifically the Bones Girls Clique, difficult. And when she sees a viral video involving a girl who pretends to be a horse, things get all the stranger. I really, really loved this story, and how Barb takes the ideas of superstition and lore and translates it into viral videos and idle gossip. It feels like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” without trying too hard, and I adored how it all lines up with the original tale while still being pretty novel and unique.

As for the collection as a whole, it was probably pretty evenly distributed between the three I loved, then the ones that were pretty good, okay, and not really for me. I did like the overall unease of these tales, and I definitely see the tweaked and twisted take on certain aspects of Millennial nostalgia in a good number of them (I’m specifically thinking of “The Other Half of the Battle”, which, without giving too much away, was making me flashback to both the ‘Pork Chop Sandwiches!’ meme and my G.I. Joe sleeping bag from when I was but a child. MAN did that tap into multiple layers of nostalgia memories). A few were a little much for my triggers and horror boundaries, so it’s probably a good idea to know what your triggers are and know that there will probably be a few content warnings that would be good to be aware of (child harm, some body horror aspects, some gendered horror but not in an exploitative way). At the end of the day there is variety here and it touches upon multiple genres, multiple tones, and multiple entry points for horror fans of all types.

“Pre-Approved for Haunting” is a weird and sometimes nasty collection that is a good introduction to an author I was unfamiliar with. I will be looking for more from Patrick Barb in the future.

Rating 7: A varied and macabre collection of horror stories for many different horror tastes, “Pre-Approved for Haunting: And Other Stories” is a spooky and at times terrifying treat.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Pre-Approved for Haunting: And Other Stories” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of yet, but it would fit in on “Best Dark Fiction Short Story Collections”.

Kate’s Review: “The Court of Shadows”


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Book: “The Court of Shadows” by Victor Dixen and Francoise Bui (translator)

Publishing Info: Amazon Crossing, September 2023

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: A fiery heroine seeks vengeance against a royal court of deadly vampires in this epic alternate history set in lavish Versailles.

Louis XIV transformed from the Sun King into the King of Shadows when he embraced immortality and became the world’s first vampire. For the last three centuries, he has been ruling the kingdom from the decadent Court of Shadows in Versailles, demanding the blood of his subjects to sate his nobles’ thirst and maintain their loyalty.

In the heart of rural France, commoner Jeanne Froidelac witnesses the king’s soldiers murder her family and learns of her parents’ role in a brewing rebellion involving the forbidden secrets of alchemy. To seek her revenge, Jeanne disguises herself as an aristocrat and enrolls in a prestigious school for aspiring courtiers. She soon finds herself at the doors of the palace of Versailles.

But Jeanne, of course, is no aristocrat. She dreams not of court but of blood. The blood of a king.

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

It’s early in the Halloween season (well…. okay it’s early in October, as for me the Halloween season starts the day after Labor Day), and you know that I just had to have a vampire story in my Horrorpalooza line up somewhere. So here we have “The Court of Shadows”, a historical fiction/alternate timeline/ vampire horror tale by Victor Dixen. Originally published in France, it has been translated into multiple languages and now it is hitting the United States. When it ended up in my mailbox I was wholly, wholly interested, and knew that it was going to be perfect to showcase during Horrorpalooza. Vampires in Versailles is just ingenius. And “The Court of Shadows” really sucked me in.

Dixen has created a familiar and yet foreign alternative timeline, in which much of the world has had vampires insert themselves into seats of power to govern countries and to feed upon the lower classes while they use the upper classes to keep them in line. In France King Louis the Sun King has been ruling as a vampire for 300+ years, and has established a court of aristocrats to keep the common folk in line while they are taxed of their blood. It’s such a unique vampire mythos that uses themes of the aristocracy and a parasitic nature (in multiple ways) that works SO WELL in vampire tales and makes them feel fresh. You add in a competition at a prestigious school that creates protectors and right hand men/women for the vampires, all potentially ending with a granted chance at vampirism for the winners, and I was completely enthralled. It makes for some engaging political intrigue as people plot and scheme, and try to make their ambitions bear fruit by any means necessary, all while they are pitted against each other for darker ends. I also highly enjoyed the concept of the Vampyria rule essentially stalling society in time, technology and culture wise, as it reads like France is still very much existing during the reign of the Sun King even though it is three hundred years later (aka, modern day). As a vampire tale, it works very well.

I also really liked Jeanne’s story arc as she goes from rural ‘commoner’ to vengeful imposter with a mission to kill the vampiric King Louis, and where that drive and ambition and journey takes her characterization. When we first meet her she is a bit in the dark about her family’s involvement in a potential rebellion against Vampyria, and in a moment of panic and self preservation she passes herself off as an aristocrat and ends up at a school where she will be trained to protect the vampires from any threats. From there she decides to win the favor and the training competition they are holding, as it will get her close to those who had her family killed, including Louis himself. It harkens back to dystopia tales like “The Hunger Games” or “The Belles”, but what I liked about Jeanne is that her rage and need for vengeance starts to transform her into a calculating, and in some ways merciless and brutal, competitor. I liked the complexity and how at times she was downright vicious, and walking towards the precipice of becoming a villain in her own way. It makes me all the more excited for the next book in the series, “The Court of Miracles”.

I enjoyed “The Court of Shadows”. The intrigue, the competition, the vampires, it all worked for me. I am very interested in seeing where we go from here in the next one.

Rating 9: Filled with political intrigue, complex characters, and a dark fantasy vision of a vampire run world, “The Court of Shadows” is entertaining and a Gothic delight.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Court of Shadows” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but I think that if you enjoyed “The Belles” and general vampire fiction, this could be a good match.

Kate’s Review: “Let Him In”

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Book: “Let Him In” by William Friend

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, October 2023

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: William Friend’s haunting debut Let Him In is a creeping, gothic psychological suspense about a young, newly widowed father struggling to raise twin daughters obsessed with an imaginary friend.

“Daddy, there’s a man in our room…”

Alfie wakes one night to find his twin daughters at the foot of his bed, claiming there’s a shadowy figure in their bedroom. When no such thing can be found, he assumes the girls had a nightmare.

He isn’t surprised that they’re troubled. Grief has made its home at Hart House: nine months ago, the twins’ mother Pippa died unexpectedly, leaving Alfie to raise them alone. And now, when the girls mention a new imaginary friend, it seems like a harmless coping mechanism. But the situation quickly develops into something more insidious. The girls set an extra place for him at the table. They whisper to him. They say he’s going to take them away…

Alfie calls upon Julia—Pippa’s sister and a psychiatrist—to oust the malignant tenant from their lives. But as Alfie himself is haunted by visions and someone watches him at night, he begins to question the true character of the force that has poisoned his daughters’ minds, with dark and violent consequences.

Whatever this “friend” is, he doesn’t want to leave. Alfie will have to confront his own shameful secrets, the dark past of Hart House, and even the bounds of reality—or risk taking part in an unspeakable tragedy.

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

It’s that time of year again!! It’s finally October, my very favorite month, and being the month of Halloween that means it is time for my annual Horrorpalooza celebration here on the blog! For those unfamiliar, in honor of my favorite holiday and favorite genre I am dedicating all of my reviews to horror related books and stories. I hope we have a very creepy and macabre month ahead of us, reading wise, and we are going to start with “Let Him In” by William Friend, a book that has been on my pile for awhile and has now made its debut, just in time for the season of the witch.

It wasn’t the stellar start to the season that I was hoping for, honestly, but I will start with what I did like about “Let Him In”. Friend does know how to write in a way that is both evocative and eerie, his turns of phrase lyrical at times and his motivations of his characters really clear and well thought out. We alternate between two perspectives. The first is Alfie, a recent widower who is grieving and raising his twin daughters Sylvie and Cassia now that his wife Pippa has died in a freak accident in her childhood home, where they had all been living. The other is Julia, Pippa’s twin sister who is also grieving, but is also nursing old wounds from her childhood. When Sylvie and Cassia start talking about an imaginary friend name Black Mamba, and their behavior goes from strange to concerning, Alfie calls Julia in as she is a psychiatrist. I liked the way we got to see both Alfie’s and Julia’s perspectives on Black Mamba, and the things that they are hiding from each other and the reader until the escalating situation with the twins and their own past demons start seeping in because of this ‘imaginary friend’, who may be a sign of a serious behavioral problem, or may be a supernatural force that has been lurking and waiting. There were a number of moments in which I was left ill at ease, and I think that it had a lot to do with the descriptions of the strange house, what may lurk in the dark there, and the damaged people within.

But on the other hand, I think that for me this book almost takes a little too much time to build up the tension, and is a little more ambiguous than I would have liked. Is Black Mamba a folie à deux between the grieving Sylvie and Cassia, or is it a demonic force? I like it when there is some sense of not really knowing what’s going on to a point, as I do think that it adds to the tension and it adds to the overall unease of a novel. But the problem with “Let Him In” is that it made it hard for me to engage and invest because it was ambiguous and moving a little slower than I would have liked. And by the time we got to the end and SOME answers were revealed, there was still a bit that was left unresolved, enough so that I was left fairly unsatisfied by the time I was finished with the story as a whole. This probably shouldn’t stop others from reading this book, especially if ambiguity is your cup of tea when it comes to horror or thriller novels.

So it was a little bit of a mixed bag for me. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations and hopes, but I do see how other horror fans would probably find a lot to like in it. Regardless, I will be curious to see what Friend does in the future. Horrorpalooza is here, folks. I’m so excited to talk about so many scary stories this month!

Rating 6: There are many eerie moments and I liked the writing style, but I think that there’s a little too much ambiguity when some answers may have been more satisfying.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Let Him In” is included on the list “Horror to Look Forward to in 2023”.

Kate’s Review: “Murder and Mamon”

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Book: “Murder and Mamon” (Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries #4) by Mia P. Manansala

Publishing Info: Berkley, September 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: When murder mars the grand opening for Lila Macapagal’s aunties’ new laundromat, she will have to air out all the dirty laundry in Shady Palms to catch a killer…

Lila Macapagal’s godmothers April, Mae, and June—AKA the Calendar Crew—are celebrating the opening of their latest joint business venture, a new laundromat, to much fanfare (and controversy). However, what should’ve been a joyous occasion quickly turns into a tragedy when they discover the building has been vandalized—and the body of Ninang April’s niece, recently arrived from the Philippines, next to a chilling message painted on the floor. The question is, was the message aimed at the victim or Lila’s gossipy godmothers, who have not-so-squeaky-clean reputations?

With Ninang April falling apart from grief and little progress from the Shady Palms Police Department in this slippery case, it’s up to Lila and her network to find justice for the young woman.

The Calendar Crew have stuck their noses into everybody’s business for years, but now the tables are turned as Lila must pry into the Calendar Crew’s lives to figure out who has a vendetta against the (extremely opinionated yet loving) aunties and stop them before they strike again.

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

We are so close to Autumn, or at least to that point in Autumn when you feel a chill in the air and smell leaves and woodsmoke. For horror fans like me that means I immediately think of scary stories, but I also kind of associate Autumn and Fall aesthetic with cozier literature. So it’s appropriate that one of the cozy mystery series I follow has a new book out, and it’s the one with recipes I can experiment with as the weather starts to cool down! That’s right, the next book in Mia P. Manansala’s “Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries” series, “Murder and Mamon”, has arrived! And I was super glad to have it on my Kindle for the first chillier days of Fall.

We are still following the pretty familiar formula of the other “Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries” books, but when it comes to a cozy mystery series that’s usually what’s to be expected. Lila is still in Shady Palms, running her coffee shop with her friends, and dealing with the kooky ins and outs of her family and extended family, all while a murder takes place and she finds herself in need of solving it. It’s still pretty enjoyable and engaging, as Lila is a fun protagonist and amateur sleuth who has fallen into the role pretty comfortably over the past few books. I like that she has found her footing, and that we are no longer dealing with love triangles for her or other pot stirring just to have some personal drama along with the crime she is after, and I like seeing her interact with our cast of characters whether they are good friends, frenemies, or people we have seen before in other cases but have fallen to the wayside in favor of newer plots. It really makes you feel like you are getting to know the small town and the people who live there.

That said, I do think that the mysteries are starting to get a little bit repetitive. This time the central mystery involves a close family member of Lila’s, as it’s now her godmothers, The Calendar Crew as they are known, that are connected to the crime, as their laundromat is the crime scene and Ninang April’s niece is the victim. It definitely makes sense for Lila to have investments in the cases when it’s people close to her that are involved, but we are running low on family members who are at stake, and I’m hoping Manansala starts to branch out a bit as the series goes on. It also probably didn’t help me that I don’t particularly care for the Calendar Crew in general, as it feels to me like their catty and gossipy behavior is always written off as more endearing than toxic. So that may be more reflective of my own preferences. But I will say that there has been a perfect set up to get Lila to perhaps have an in to becoming more of a sleuth when her immediate family isn’t involved, so I have hope that there will be a bit of that in future books.

And once again: we have recipes!! I know that it’s expected now that cozy mysteries centering around food have recipes, but I am always going to highlight this part of these books because WOW do they still sound amazing. Hell, all of the food parts of this book sound amazing, and Manansala really knows how to describe food and beverage in ways that make me very, very hungry.

“Murder and Mamon” continues the adventures of Lila Macapagal and the eccentric town of Shady Palms. The territory feels a bit well worn now in some regards, but I still enjoyed this new entry in this cozy mystery series.

Rating 6: This series remains charming and entertaining, with another engaging mystery with kooky and fun characters. I’m hoping the next outing branches out from the formula a bit next time, however.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Murder and Mamon” is included on the Goodreads list “Cozy Mysteries 2023 New Releases”.

Previously Reviewed: