 5 stars
Obsessed with this intricate, odd little sapphic fable. Come for the spiders, stay for the unique elements... From the marketing blurb: The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings... Combining old-school fairytale storytelling with a very intriguing spider motif and a surprisingly sweet/PG romance, But Not Too Bold was basically the perfect little horror novella for me this month. I'm such a sucker for loving things I've never encountered before. It's the newness factor, the "oh I can't quite predict where we're going with this", the utter delight at being surprised in any capacity. The more you read, the less you get this high—unless you continue to ride the waves of the multiple genre/novella/emerging novels landscape. But Not Too Bold is one of those new little babies, and I'm thrilled to report it's worth your time if you're like me and looking for something fresh and fun to devour in one sitting. Some people might not call this a positive thing, but I also loved that this novella felt like a highly structured fairytale—almost like an episodic play?—with its various acts and vignette-like approach to the narrative. I think this element made the relatively simple plot much stronger, and it added to the story's overall sense of timelessness. And also, let's discuss the monster in the room--this novel has a VERY strong spider motif to it, and let's just say I was thrilled to see that in practice and done in a surprisingly unique way. I'll also keep this note vague here... because short novellas are very hard to discuss without spoiling part of the magic... but there's a highly romantic component to this story that honestly made me realize that there's a large demographic of romance/fluffy readers out there who would love this tale if it was described to them. This is a sweet story? And I think there's a group of non-horror readers who would love this one.
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 4.5 stars
The pandemic. Discrimination against Asians. Hungry ghosts. A string of murders. And the death of a sibling. Bat Eater pulls no punches and is happy to do it. It wants you to witness. Full disclosure: I would never have picked up this horror novel if not for the Evernight subscription box. I usually avoid sibling death in all things as it's one of the worst realities I can imagine for myself and, frankly, I don't want to read about it in any context. But this book came to me via a subscription box, and so I felt I needed to give it a go. It would only be polite, right? When I tell you I was hooked by the first few chapters—wow. This author really captured my attention with just a few extremely well-constructed scenes. And then we were off to the races, this book and I, and I finished it in one day. Cora Zeng's entire life changes on one fateful day in the first few weeks of the 2020 COVID pandemic in New York City. Her and her sister traveled far looking for toilet paper—remember the TP panic??—and they finally found some in China Town. They're in the subway waiting alone for the train when the unthinkable happens. A white man in disguise pushes Cora's sister onto the tracks. She's dead. In the aftermath of the unthinkable, Cora weathers the pandemic with poor grace. She's in heavy grief, she's dealing with some severe mental health struggles in the OCD and germophobic vein, and she's almost completely alone and afraid. Oh, and jobless and broke. So she picks a job that makes no sense for her set of personal issues, but a job is a job in this pandemic landscape: she becomes a crime scene cleaner. Cora notices a disturbing pattern: she's cleaning up an inordinate amount of Asian women's gruesome deaths. All of them horrifically involving bats. Bat eater = the derogatory slur toward Asian people that spread around during the pandemic due to the false and bigoted concept that the COVID virus came from bats>Asian people eat bats>Asian people are the source/problem of the pandemic. Between the horrifying deaths, Cora's grief, and the newly emerging sense that some sort of violent ghost is following her—despite her lack of belief in ghosts—Cora's left with no way out but through. She'll get to the bottom of these mysteries before the mysteries come for her. Oof. Bat Eater was gripping... but also heavy. It needed to be, given its heavy topics and the larger conversations that the author wanted to highlight in regard to anti-Asian discrimination, how hate crimes against Asians rose during the pandemic, and how the lingering traumas of that time are still with us as a culture. So much of our media doesn't address or acknowledge the pandemic. Don't you think that's strange? Maybe you don't—maybe you, like me and everyone else, don't like to think about that time period of fear and mass hysteria that dominated our lives for years and really set us back, globally, on a massive scale. We became more animal versions of ourselves, we isolated more than just our bodies, we unlearned our niceties, we stripped our generations of valuable skills and removed a lot of their social protections. It makes so much sense why a horror novel should include the pandemic—what was the pandemic, if not our own global horror story? To combine the pandemic horror + Chinese hungry ghost storyline + a grief narrative was a deftly done, heavyweight punch. Hats off to Kylie Lee Baker for making a novel that is hard to read but very well done. I recommend it to all who can handle the subject matters mentioned.  4 stars
I really, really enjoyed this one. Bit of an abrupt ending, but honestly that can be mostly forgiven because of the excellent creeping tension. I've had Dead Water on my radar for quite some time. When it came out, I saw quite a few mutuals online who hyped it up—the title, the cover, the description—and I was so excited. It sounded gothic adjacent, paranormal in a way I always love, and just plain atmospheric. But then the reviews trickled in, and I let them sway me. (Don't let them do that! Learn from me, another random reviewer trying to sway you! Lol.) People said this was boring, too long, not exciting, not horror enough, not interesting enough, not "enough" enough. I'm kind of at the point in my reading lifecycle where those kinds of negative reviews are almost like a siren call to me now. Usually, in my experience this means that a genre purist has found a book to be multi/hybrid genre and boyyy do they not like that. As a multi-genre person myself, I usually go OOooooo, alright, it's time for me. Dead Water is one of those multi-genre feeling stories. A little bit literary, a little bit gothic, a little bit horror, a little bit small-town isolated community diary, and a little bit fable. If you like book journeys where the point of the thing is to get a bone-deep sense of an entire community, this is the novel for you. The multiple POVs, the unflinching depictions of a large handful of flawed characters, their issues and wants and hates convalescing into one tangle with the backdrop of a creeping horror.... Yeah. That's the stuff. This literary-dominant atmospheric neo-Gothic northern island story is delicious if you're in it for the unfolding experience.  3.5 stars
Divorce yourself from the idea that this author is the same one who wrote If We Were Villains—the writing feels like her, but that constant comparison is going to make you dislike this slim novella. I enjoyed this micro slice-of-life into 5 interesting peoples’ lives and their weird crossed paths. Extremely well written, wry, and emotionally complex while maintaining a distanced third person POV in a way that I always personally appreciate. It was with less enjoyment that I came to terms with the fact that we’re still, for some reason, culturally stuck on the mycelium horror landscape that has been so thoroughly covered by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, T Kingfisher, and others. I am tired of that concept and wish it was done with more nuance / new elements. Already anticipating the next from ML Rio. (But please, let’s retire the fungus for a bit.)  4 stars
A bit long, but what a tale. Enter the woods, dark and deep, but watch out for the one who lurks in the shadows... And make sure the beacons are always lit. Don't go into Mockbeggar woods, they say. There's something in there that's not quite right. On the outskirts of a small English town, the Gonne family has stood apart for generations. The Gonnes keep odd customs and they take care of the abandoned Small Angels church down the road. They light beacons every night on the four corners of their property. And they hold vigil over the Mockbeggar woods. Lucia Gonne grew up as the youngest of four sisters on the Gonne family farm at the edge of the woods. The woods call to her in strange ways, and she finds herself constantly in trouble with her family as she breaks and bends their strict rules. Lucia doesn't understand what all the fuss is about—the woods like her, she's one of them, and her friend in the trees understands her when no one else does. Decades later, Chloe is preparing for her upcoming wedding at Small Angels, the abandoned church in her fiance's small English town. Everyone is shocked that she's getting married on that property, but no one will quite tell her why. No one meets her gaze, no one wants to talk about it, and when Chloe starts her wedding preparations at Small Angels, she feels something...off. As Lucia's timeline entwines with Chloe's, the tale of Mockbeggar woods and its secrets come into the light. For the first time, the townspeople and the Gonne family will need to talk about the secrets they've held for decades--and realize that the thing they thought had ended forever one fateful night might just be awakening again. What a glorious gothic tale for the fall season. I read this curled up in a blanket with a warm cup of tea, and that's my official recommendation for new readers. This book screams to be read in the autumn. Small Angels is a modern take on the ghost story, and one of those speculative, almost gothic tales that bridge the gap between mystery, horror, speculative, and literary. It's a multi-layered cake best left viewed as a whole and not quartered down into genre parts. I love these kinds of stories. I thought Small Angels was fabulous. My only critique is that it was too long—maybe not by much, but enough that I definitely had a hard time both getting into the story and maintaining my momentum in the middle portion. A tighter introduction with a streamlined middle would have easily catapulted this tale from a 4 star recommendation to a 5 star favorite novel without losing any of the punchy portions that made this story sing. In particular, I thought the storytelling element was superb. Telling ghost tales and fairytales around a fireplace, whispering about past legends... that kind of atmosphere is what Small Angels is about. And it nails this energy. It's one of those storylines that feels like its own tale from the fireside, fleshed out into a full novel with side characters and modern-day quests. Come for the small town, creepy elements. Stay for the storytelling core and the sense of triumph over evil.  4.5 stars
What a neat concept for a horror (speculative?) novel centered on the deep, dark woods. Come for the split-timeline horror pitch—stay for the creeping tension and seriously trippy finale. Concept: ★★★★★ Pacing: ★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★★ The Dark Between the Trees is a novel I've put off reading for quite a long time. I'm not completely sure why, but the core idea is that I thought I knew what this novel was about. Let's clear that assumption right away: I did not. This is one of those nebulous stories that sounds really vague and predictable from the synopsis. A group of people disappeared into a supposedly haunted woods in the long-ago past. Today, a group of people head into that same woods to see if they can discover what happened to that lost group. Dun dun dun, it's about to get dark real fast. (And we don't think that present-day timeline group of people are going to have a good time.) On the surface, that IS what this novel is about. Two timelines, two groups of people, two ventures into the deep dark with unexpected trials awaiting them. But let me be both vague and yet, hopefully, more interesting—this novel takes us to some interesting places. I found myself captivated by the tension and anxiously eager to see where this plot was heading. It's a taut, bare-bones plot with a great sense of ominous atmosphere. And its ending is truly quite cool—can't say it's something I've read before and it's very unique in its particular level of execution (or at least, it was new to this reader). Is it a mystery/thriller? A horror novel? An unexpectedly speculative/magical adventure? All of the above? ...Yes and no. This hybrid beast is all of the above, and I think that's partially why the ratings for The Dark Between the Trees are so lukewarm. It's not enough of a mystery, not enough of a horror, not enough of a resolution. It just is. It's a lingering, half-formed, folkloric kind of thing. If you like weird little tales of the dark woods, check this one out with an open mind. It's pretty cool.  4 stars
Very interesting read. One of those "it's an underlying message" tales that usually drives me nuts—but this one? It worked. And it worked WELL, and it managed to keep the enjoyment factor at the same time. Concept: ★★★★★ Pacing: ★★★ Characters: ★★★★ Humor: ★★★★ I totally can see why The September House made it on to so many of my mutuals' lists... and after reading it, I now understand the really polarizing reactions to this read. Ranging from lukewarm "whatever, it was fine" to oh-my-god-this-was-so-freaking-cool to "what are people on about, this was dull and preachy"—yeah, it seems like this story incites a reaction. I had no idea where I'd fall, and the blurb from Grady Hendrix saying "just when you thought you'd seen everything there was to see about the haunted house story, there's this surprise" practically made me do it for that alone. As someone who loves haunted house stories, what do you MEAN this was something...new? I love new. So with my curiosity piqued, I dove in. When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings that happen every September. Most people would flee. Margaret is NOT most people. The blurb sets us right off: there's a house, it's a nightmare to live in each September, and most owners don't make it to the next autumn before they flee into the night. But then, there's Margaret. Margaret has nerves of steel and an unwavering will to resolve all solutions through adaptability and compromise. She's had a lifetime of experience navigating challenges and she knows the truth: as long as one follows the Rules, any problem can be navigated. So Margaret deals with the walls dripping blood. The screaming and moaning. The dead children all pointing to the basement door saying "he's down there." She doesn't mind the housekeeper with the axed forehead who serves her tea. And she's even cool with the screaming demon boy with the biting habit. All things, after all, can be managed if done properly. But when Margaret's husband, Hal, runs off into the night and disappears... Margaret runs into problems. Her daughter, Katherine, wants answers. Where is Hal? Why did he leave? Why does Margaret want her to stay away? Margaret doesn't want to tell Katherine about the hauntings. Especially not in September. Katherine—like father, like daughter—doesn't listen. She arrives, and she's here for answers. In September. Margaret's going to have quite a time. (And she does.) This was a really, really cool horror novel. I think this is the kind of story I was expecting out of Sarah Gailey's Just Like Home, which disappointed me more than expected a few years ago. The September House has some layered family secrets and traumas that are boldly, and yet subtly, conveyed in this story. Margaret as a main character was such a clever choice. Her wry humor, her acceptance of all truths (no matter how dark), and her resolute will to continue on at all costs was so...singular. And I loved unpacking all of that over the course of the novel.  4.5 stars
Well then. I haven’t felt that level of creeping, utter dread in quite some time—and certainly not while bathed in the surface level story of a sunshine cottage core sapphic love story. This story isn’t about the shock of a reveal. It’s about the never-ending ceaseless anxiety of the trap closing softly around you. Too gentle to identify as a danger. Too inexorable to escape. I'm not even going to describe this story, because I think it works best when you can experience the inescapable dread in real time. Stunning novella. Polarizing if you think the “reveal” is meant to be the draw of the tale. Recommended highly to my other short/weird/queer horror fans.  3.5 stars
A haunted film reel, a dark occultist history, and two friends caught in the crossfire. The latest from Silvia Moreno-Garcia explores the world of filmmakers and blood magic. Silver Nitrate follows the story of Montserrat, a sharp-edged loner who works as a sound editor for an ailing independent movie editing house in Mexico City. It's the 1990s, women in film are even more rare than they are in the present day, and Montserrat's acerbic personality doesn't win her any favors in the buddy-buddy man's world of the studio. (All of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's main female characters are prickly in their own kind of way, and I love that as it's still rare in genre fiction today.) Montserrat does have one person in her relatively lonely life, however: her hot-mess friend, Tristán. Tristán is a self-absorbed former has-been soap opera actor whose good looks and charm are cracking at the edges as he eeks a life out as a voice dubber. His career imploded in a spectacularly tragic way 10 years earlier and he's been doing his best ever since. Tristán and Montserrat make an odd pair, but they are each other's oldest friend and their bond has outlasted individual relationships and family—they're it for each other. So the last thing these two struggling friends need is a drama. (Naturally, they get a drama.) Tristán's elderly neighbor in his apartment complex is a retired film director with a backlist of cult-classic horror flicks. And he had one horror movie that was never finished and doesn't exist... except for one single canister of silver nitrate film in his freezer. The silver nitrate itself is dangerous and possibly an explosive in the right conditions—and when the former director explains what is ON the film, the contents themselves prove dangerous too. Montserrat and Tristán find themselves embroiled in a decades-old blood magic plot involving a dangerous occultist, Nazi histories, and deadly bonds. They'll have to band together in order to make it to the other side... Silver Nitrate is a film that was both very dear to my heart and also a personal struggle to read. Let me explain. Moreno-Garcia's unique edge is that she's always trying new genres, new concepts, new ideas. As a reader of multiple genres, I love this about her. For this particular novel, she chose a topic very close to my heart: film. I went to school for film, both practical production and classical film studies. So I surprisingly found myself an existing expert in the subject matter of this novel. Which was my problem? Silver Nitrate turned out to be a little too big on the info-dump portion of the film industry/film studies elements and lacking in the actual action/interest plot. I already knew a lot of the context they were covering as exposition throughout this entire story... so I found it quite boring to listen to near-endless conversations about it. That combination of already knowing the film side of the conversation + a lack of engagement in the very "talking first, action not preferred" style to the story made it a more difficult one for me to love. However, those negative soundbites aside, I did find the creeping horror of racism + the buildup of the occult reveals to be stellar in their payoffs. Which I was expecting, as Moreno-Garcia nails that kind of thing. Eagerly looking forward to her next novel! And don't sleep on this one if you're new to classic films and cult topics—what was a negative for me is likely a huge positive for new readers. Thank you to NetGalley and Libro.fm for my copies in exchange for an honest review.  5 stars
I loved everything about this debut. Generational bonds between the women in one family line tied into one horror-tinged speculative debut with Cree Canadian roots. Bad Cree snuck up on me. I saw the cover a few times in the store and it caught my eye. But I kept passing it by, until eventually I heard someone mention that it was a story about sisters and horror-based dreaming. Those two hooks grabbed me and i knew I needed to read this story. Mackenzie keeps waking up from the same dream. This in itself isn't that odd—but the fact that she wakes up with pieces of that dream in her hand, in the real world, is odd. From twigs to the decapitated head of a crow, Mackenzie knows that a) this isn't normal and b) things are getting worse. And she's getting scared. Her Cree family, with its deep roots to the Alberta land, are far away from Mackenzie's sad apartment in Vancouver. And Mackenzie realizes that maybe its time to face the sadness and secrets awaiting her in her hometown... Combining family secrets, Cree stories, and a persistent thread of endurance and love throughout, Bad Cree was a perfect read for me. I loved Mackenzie's journey. I was here for her pain, her grief, and her family's close bonds yet tangled relationships. Having such a strong novel about sisterhood tied to a speculative horror novel was a huge win for me. Bad Cree's accessible writing and creeping sense of atmospheric dread catapulted this immediately into a new favorite read. Come for the intrigue of the "real" dreams, stay for the tension and family story. This isn't a slasher horror, or even a big bang reveal—it's a small story with deep roots. |
Amy Imogene ReadsJust someone looking for her own door into Wonderland. Categories
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All reviews posted are my own and do not reflect the opinions of any other individual or entity. When applicable, reviewed titles sent to me by the publisher are noted at the bottom of each review.
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