Published September 30, 2025 by Tor Nightfire

The next installment in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America.

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...

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The third installment in T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier series sends Alex Easton somewhere they emphatically do not want to go: America. More specifically, an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a unsavory reputation. When their old friend Dr. Denton calls in a favor to help locate his missing cousin, who was last seen heading into that very mine, well, a sworn soldier answers the call.

I've loved following Alex Easton through the crumbling Usher estate and the fog-draped forests of Gallacia, so naturally I was eager to see where Kingfisher would take them next. And I have to say, the setting of What Stalks the Deep is its strongest asset. The darkness is absolute, the walls press in from every direction, and the silence of the mine is almost intolerable. Imagine being underground with tons of rocks between you and the surface. Kingfisher leans into the claustrophobia beautifully, and we experience it alongside Easton.

Kingfisher has always excelled at writing characters who feel lived-in and real, and that hasn't changed. Alex's particular brand of practicality bumping up against the inexplicable never gets old, and watching them navigate the landscape of rural West Virginia with acerbic bewilderment is funny. Angus remains a steadfast, grounding presence, and there's something quietly satisfying about the way these three have settled into each other. If you've come to love these characters across the earlier books, revisiting them is still a joy, even if the horror is light. 

Where What Stalks the Deep loses a little steam, unfortunately, is in the horror itself. The monster at the center of this story never quite reached the level of wrongness that Kingfisher achieved with her possessed hares in What Moves the Dead — that specific, skin-crawling sensation of something familiar twisted just slightly out of true. Once the monster is revealed, it's almost...cute? 

What Stalks the Deep is by no means a bad book. Kingfisher is too skilled a writer for that, and I'll pick up whatever Alex Easton adventure comes next without hesitation. But for me, the Sworn Soldier series has yet to top What Moves The Dead. 

Published April 15, 2025 by Quill & Crow Publishing House

Carve the bones. One for the gate, one for the door, two for the mantel, and three for the floor… Hyacinth Turning knows the terrors beyond her village, the insatiable hunger of the Teeth. She listens to the sermons given by the Elders in their hare-skin masks. She watches as the heathens hang and the witches burn. They tell her to be good and quiet. But Hyacinth is neither good nor quiet. After a series of tragic events, Hyacinth finds herself hastily wedded and sent far away from all she has ever known to a settlement at the edge of the sea. Where more than just the Teeth are hungry. Another horror swims below, leviathan shadows kept at bay by offerings of flesh and bone.

But no sooner does Hyacinth take root in her new home do the Teeth and the Deep come to feed. Suspicion soon falls upon the outspoken Hyacinth, who spends more time with the outcasted Morgan Carroway than her own husband. The Elders want her burned, her husband wants her hanged, and a long-lost love claws at her dreams, but Hyacinth only wants one thing. A life and death of her choosing.

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Hyacinth Turning is sent away to a remote village near the forest and sea, where ancient horrors like the Teeth and the Deep are kept at bay through sacrifices. She’s reeling from personal tragedy, isolated in a new marriage to a man she doesn't like, and immediately flung into a new claustrophobic community ruled by folklore, fear, and blood rituals...exactly like the one she left. She’s not just unwelcome, she’s disposable. Her body, her grief, and her silence are all things to be used, suppressed, or sacrificed for the “greater good.”

Hyacinth is constantly acted upon rather than acting. She’s shipped off, married off, silenced, accused, watched, threatened… and she endures all of it, often with the emotional affect of a ghost—just a resigned shuffle through escalating misery. She’s worn down by it until she’s just absorbed into the horror. I'm sure that's the point but it doesn’t make for satisfying character development. It makes for bleak existential rot. No sharp turns. No big “aha” moment. Just damp misery, sprinkled with vague dread.

Folk horror ofttimes tries to fake the ancient, the ritualistic, the uncanny, but The Bone Drenched Woods feels authentic. The bone offerings, the hare-masked Elders, the silent submission to the Deep? It all feels like it could have grown out of some obscure corner of real folklore. It’s primal and unnerving.

L.V. Russell absolutely nails that oppressive, damp, rot-soaked feeling of being somewhere ancient and uncaring. This book is all aesthetic. The prose is undeniably pretty, damp and bloody and yet frustratingly vague. Atmosphere can only carry you so far when the plot is doing the slowest, saddest shuffle toward nowhere. If you enjoy slow-burn folk horror where nothing is explained, and everyone is miserable, this one is for you.

Published February 13th 2024 by Tor Nightfire

The follow-up to T. Kingfisher’s bestselling gothic novella, What Moves the Dead .

Retired soldier Alex Easton returns in a horrifying new adventure.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.

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T. Kingfisher returns to the eerie world of gothic horror with What Feasts at Night, the second novella in her Sworn Soldier series following the acclaimed What Moves the Dead. This novella once again follows Alex Easton, a gender non-binary former soldier with a dry sense of humor, a haunted past, and a knack for running into things that go bump in the night.

This time, Easton heads to their family's old hunting lodge in Gallacia in search of some rest. Naturally,  rest is the one thing they don’t get. The lodge is falling apart, the caretaker has died under bizarre circumstances, and the quiet feels wrong. The longer they stay, the more the atmosphere closes in: disturbing dreams, strange local legends, and plenty of superstition. Familiar faces return, including the ever-delightful Miss Potter, a no-nonsense mycologist who continues to steal every scene with her fungal fanaticism. New faces charm as well, like the sharp-eyed Widow Botezatu with her baleful looks and no-nonsense ways.

While What Feasts at Night trades some of the first book’s energy for a slower, more reflective pace, it still delivers plenty of dread. The horror here is quieter, more psychological, and steeped in folklore and PTSD. Kingfisher’s uniquely dry humor is still present, with sharp, witty banter and Easton's internal dialogue. Easton’s internal battle adds emotional depth to the creeping horror, and the camaraderie between characters brings just enough warmth to offset the gloom. 

While it’s not as fast-paced as What Moves the Dead, What Feasts at Night is haunting in its own way: moody, thoughtful, and quietly chilling. It’s another strong entry in Kingfisher’s growing collection of uniquely strange horror stories.

Published October 15, 2024 by Titan Books

A grieving mother and son hope to survive Christmas in a remote mountain cabin, in this chilling novella of dread, isolation and demons lurking in the frozen woods. Perfect for fans of The Only Good Indians, The Shining and The Babadook.

Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire's husband slipped off the roof while hanging Christmas lights and fell to his death on the front lawn. Desperate to escape her guilt and her grief, Christine packs up her fifteen-year-old son and the family cat and flees to the cabin they'd reserved deep in the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to wait out the holidays.

It isn't long before Christine begins to hear strange noises coming from the forest. When she spots a horned figure watching from between frozen branches, Christine assumes it's just a forest animal—a moose, maybe, since the property manager warned her about them, said they'd stomp a body so deep into the snow nobody'd find it 'til spring. But moose don't walk upright like the shadowy figure does. They don't call Christine's name with her dead husband's voice.

A haunting examination of the horrors of grief and the hunger of guilt, perfect for readers of Stephen King, Christina Henry, and Chuck Wendig.

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I went into Cold Snap expecting a chilling, atmospheric horror story with strong emotional distress — and for the first little bit, that’s what it seemed to be. Set against the icy backdrop of a small Appalachian town, the setup is familiar but effective: people with emotional baggage retreat to a remote cabin in the woods, and weird things begin to happen. To quote Dora the Explorer: "¡Vámonos!"

Unfortunately, what begin as isolation horror deeply embedded with grief (the husband died hanging Christmas lights), the story quickly took a turn into surreal territory, and I found myself more confused than captivated. Her dead husband is talking to her, or is it the moose, and events start to feel disjointed — almost dreamlike, but not in a way that ever fully clicks.

What really pulled me out of the story, though, was the cat death — which is not only graphic and disturbing but referenced multiple times throughout the book. I understand horror can be visceral and I don't shy from gore, but the way this was handled felt excessive and deeply unpleasant. And the only person traumatized by it was the kid! Mom was just like "Darn, the cat got stomped to death in the snow by a maybe-moose". If animal harm is a deal-breaker for you, I strongly recommend skipping this one.

There are interesting ideas here — grief, guilt, isolation — but they get buried under so much weirdness and emotional chaos that they never fully land. Cold Snap might resonate with readers who enjoy abstract, metaphor-heavy horror, but for me, it was more frustrating than frightening.  I kept waiting for it all to come together or for the deeper meaning to reveal itself, but by the end, I was wondering WTH just happened.

Having loved Bless Your Heart and Throw Me to The Wolves, I was excited to venture into this one, but it missed its mark with me. 

Published December 11, 2023 by Fractured Mirror Publishing

No full moon. No silver bullets. No chance.

A young man named Tom Daniels is kidnapped by a local family and is dropped on Loughby Island in an attempt to 'clean up their streets'.

When the family that dropped Tom off is slaughtered by a werewolf-like creature, he soon finds himself banding together with a small group of the island's residents in a fight for their lives against an otherworldly monster.

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Matt Doyle is a pansexual/non-binary speculative fiction author, voice actor, and pop culture blogger from the UK. Matt specializes in fiction with a horror or sci-fi grounding and diverse characters.

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Published July 12, 2022 by Tor Nightfire

What Moves the Dead is Kingfisher's retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher.”

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

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T. Kingfisher could write an encyclopedia that I'd want to read, so when I saw that What Moves The Dead was a revamping of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", I was giddy with excitement. Yes, giddy. I said what I said. Instead of a regurgitated version, Kingfisher has added her own reconception to Poe's short story and it's a doozy.

As with Poe, Kingfisher begins her tale with a first-person narrative. However, unlike Poe and his exceptionally vague male protagonist, Lieutenant Alex Easton is a genderqueer retired soldier friend of the female Usher—a deviation from Poe's who is a friend of the male sibling. Kingfisher has also made the addition of a female mycologist, an American doctor, as well as various townspeople, to complete the cast. Though I have to admit Angus, the Scottish personal assistant of Lt. Easton, was a personal favorite. 

Kingfisher always crafts her stories with creeping dread and from the beginning pages, she molds (pun not intended but in this case, highly appropriate) this inspired tale with care. The Usher property is blooming with nasty, foul-smelling mushrooms, the manor house is crumbling and filled with mildew and decay,  and the Ushers themselves are pallid skeletal things. None of that is anything new.  Oh, but the hares. If nothing else will give you the heebie-jeebies in this story, the hares will. You know that feeling you get while watching horror movies, where a person skitters around on all fours or jerkily ambulates—familiar but thoroughly alien? Kingfisher must dream of that feeling because she excels at writing the wrongness of things. 

It's like Kingfisher took a look at Poe's narrative and decided to complete all of the gaps, mapping out the dark corners and watery lake depths. She scaffolded onto the original with a light touch, melding some gratifying humor and wit with the expected gothic conventions. However, if you were a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic and Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, you'll be over the moon to know that this is also a fungal horror. Undeniably, Kingfisher gives us the answers to the questions that plagued us after finishing the original.  Poe's version left the reader with so many interpretations and very little solid evidence. Kingfisher doesn't wait for the House of Usher to break atwain; She lights it on fire and watches it burn. 

Published October 12th 2021 by Hold My Beer Publishing

A MAIDEN VOYAGE…

The Pepper Kay is no stranger to the open seas, but now she has a new captain: God. His maiden voyage aboard the newly-acquired vessel will be operated by a crew greener than seaweed. With a reputation like God’s, they were all he could find.

NO MAN’S WATER…

The Pepper Kay and her greenhorn crew, captained by God and his shady deckboss Nash, voyage into the brutal unknown of the Bering Strait in search of Dungeness crab. But, when a storm rolls in and the crew hauls from the depths an impossibility, something ripped from the pages of nautical folklore, tensions mount and the crew separates into factions: good versus evil.

THOSE WHO DWELL IN DARKNESS…

Nash has plans for their newest catch, plans God is not a part of, and the deckboss will wade through blood and chum before he allows his goal to be blocked. As the crew dwindles, laid low one by one, the remaining shipmates must faceoff against not only the human evil of Nash, but something much, much older. 

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On board of the Pepper Kay, an unskilled crew directed by God (no, not that God) is on its way to the Bering Strait for crabbing. From God's, the captain, point of view, this is a ragtag group: Sam, "tall and rangy", Jordan, "dark of skin but bright of gaze", Charlie, a "no-nonsense woman", and Nash, "mean and unshaven", it's an odd group for sure even for God. God has three commandments for his crew. They need to do what he says, work hard, and work together.  

Nash is nasty. He's an absolutely vulgar, abhorrent sack of testosterone that deserves to be castrated and then quartered by horses. He's such a piece of excrement that it's honestly difficult to read the scenes that he is in. He's exactly the kind of character that you wish the deepest, darkest corners of the earth to swallow him down and torture daily without remorse. I've read some atrocious characters before but I can honestly say Nash is by far, the most deplorable. There are no redeemable traits about him whatsoever. None. He's disgusting, perverse...there truly aren't enough words in the English language for Nash. 

While the focus is on the clashing personalities aboard the Pepper Kay, we mustn't count out the danger of what they have drug up from the deep. This mermaid is ugly, superficially human, but with a mouth and teeth more like a dolphin, green tangled hair, blue skin, and the tail of something that resembles a whale.  It's a tight, dreadful atmosphere aboard the Pepper Kay with the so-called mermaid in the hold. As the story progresses, the crew is stuck desolately in the middle of the ocean with danger both on board and off, we are then left to decide who the true monster is. (Hint: only one is pure evil.) 

The pacing was brilliant but I found myself wanting more mayhem by mermaid. Oh, there is carnage galore, but it went way too fast and skipped to the end. I highly enjoyed the perspective of the Pepper Kay itself, with its almost all-knowing compassion and empathy. There are many triggers in the book and the authors give a list of them, so I highly recommend reading those first. Maiden is a hard story to swallow, getting stuck in your throat as you try to gulp air past the blockage. 

Today's mini-reviews are anthologies Chlorophobia and Wild Violence and collection The Corpse Garden by S.H. Cooper.

A group of explorers stumble upon a new species of plant in the depths of the rainforest. A novel virus drives humankind to flee the Earth. A killer fog rolls in off the sea, decimating everything in its path. Eco-horror is one of the hottest and most relevant subgenres around in 2021, and inside this anthology you'll find punchy, eye-catching flash fiction and poetry by no fewer than fifty talented authors. Plants, animals, weather phenomena… It’s time for Mother Nature to fight back.

Contributors:

Allison Floyd, Armand Rosamilia, Ashley Van Elswyk, Birgit K. Gaiser, Charlotte Reynolds, Chloe Spencer, Clay F. Johnson, Clint White, Corey Farrenkopf, Corey Niles, Cormack Baldwin, D.R. Roberts, Danielle Davis, Elecia Page, Freydís Moon, G.B. Lindsey, Hannah Hulbert, Hazel Ragaire, Ian A. Bain, Isaac Menuza, J.R. Handfield, Jameson Grey, Jasmine Arch, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Jennifer Shneiderman, Katherine Silva, Keely O'Shaughnessy, Lerah Mae Barcenilla, Lindsay King-Miller, Lucas Carroll-Garrett, Maggie D. Brace, Marisca Pichette, Micah Castle, Michael Bettendorf, Nico Bell, Nikki R. Leigh, Philine Schiller, Rose Taylor, Sally Hughes, Sam Lesek, Samuel Best, Sanaya Deas, Sara Crocoll Smith, SJ Townend, Sonora Taylor, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Steven Lombardi, Tonya Walter, Victoria Audley, Zé Burns 

Publication date: November 24th 2021 by Ghost Orchid Press

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My Thoughts...

Eco-horror has quickly become one of my favorite subgenres of horror. There's something about the earth fighting back against what humanity has wrought that cheers my horror-loving heart. This anthology contains 37 short stories and 13 poems of all kinds of plant life, floral and fauna, insects, sea creatures and more. Some standouts from the collection:

In Sonora Taylor's "Farm-to-Table", a couple on a terrible first date experience a botanical takeover. There's some great body horror imagery to make you squirm. 

"Chrysanthemum" by Victoria Audley tells us of the secret darkness the language of flowers can reveal. 

"Imitation of Life" by J.R. Handfield teaches us the lesson the narrator had yet to comprehend—the invasiveness of the water hyacinth. 

Sanaya Deas gives us an unyielding voraciousness in the form of seemingly innocuous red berries in "The Hunger".

In spite of an unfulfilled expectation of the protagonist to be a Snow White or a Briar Rose, "The Heartwood" by Sally Hughes ends up sounding like the darkest of fairytales. This one was a favorite with its Perrault-like feel. 

 

Chlorophobia is more than a pretty cover. It's a scary good collection of stories ranging from surreal to dreadful. While there were some stories that didn't work so well for me, most were a lot of fun.

Wild Violence is the third anthology from Blood Rites Horror, and with a theme of nature and wildlife, this time we're bringing you eleven bursts of gut-wrenching, pulse-shredding horror from twelve fantastic authors. From big cats to poisonous plants, forests harbouring dark secrets to bloodthirsty insects acting on instinct, lovers of violent, descriptive horror will find something to chew on here. 

Publication date:  April 11th 2021  by Blood Rite horror

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My Thoughts...

Blood Rite Horror has released a trilogy of anthologies: Bitter Chills, a composition of winter themed horror; Parasite Gods, tales of gods and monsters; and now Wild Violence with its nature and wildlife motif. Of course, in all anthologies there are stories that resonate more than others with certain readers. My favorites:

Spencer Hamilton's "The Overnight Forest" was a brutal way of kicking off this anthology with its censure of the Catholic Church's sins. 

"Islands of Trees" by Aiden Merchant follows a man and his dog through a post-apocalyptical landscape of monstrous plants and animals. I'm always a sucker for a dog but the world building was so intriguing I wanted more. 

In "Furry Skins" by L. Pine, hunter Jack Shaw is up against an unknown creature. Jack's a stereotypical macho type so I was rooting for the beast from the start.

 

Carla Eliot's "In the Beginning" tackled religion as well, in the form of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. 

Bloody and ferocious, this was a solid anthology with a great range of topics and themes. 

 

A collection of fourteen short horror stories that chronicle obsession, loss, and why you should be afraid of things that go bump in the night. From a young boy with with an unhealthy fixation on what could go wrong to a man who can't accept that his wife wants to leave him, traipsing through The Corpse Garden certainly isn't for the faint of heart.

Author S.H. Cooper presents a combination of works popularized on Reddit's NoSleep and four, previously unreleased stories for brand new thrills and chills that are best read with the lights on.

Publication date: December 17th 2016

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My Thoughts...

This collection of 14 short stories by S. H. Cooper was a treat. There's no hesitation or false starts as the author places the reader directly into the meat of the story. Her narrative is deliberate and eerie as she weaves her characters in dark and twisty ways, bestowing an almost campfire tale feel on all her stories. Her narrators are varied and distinct from each other. l enjoyed all the stories but the extra shivery ones were:

In "The Way The Shadows Whisper" a little girl tells her new psychiatrist about the Shadows. Little kids are always creepy so this one was chilling. 

A new house comes with an odd visitor in the form of a crow in “Murder In My Backyard”. I love how the Crow (named Poe of course) helps to solve a mystery. It's clever and sinister all at the same time.

“I Buried My Fiancé On Our Wedding Day” has a unexpected but extremely satisfying ending. 

A grandson inherits an inn in “Whitemoore House” that comes with a long list of rules that must be obeyed. Haunting and bleak, this one was easy to imagine. 

I haven't read such a singular compilations of short stories in a long time. There wasn't a single dud in the bunch. 

Hey guys and welcome to 2022 on CLC!  

I am making some resolutions for the New Year but not in the way you might think.  Bookish resolutions only so here we go! 

1. I want to read more and stay off social media. Last year, I did a lot of hiking so that cut into my reading time—which is great since I lost 30 pounds—but also bad since I didn't read as much. This year, I'm going to try for more audiobooks or KU books that I can have Alexa read to me while I walk. 

2. I'm going to be better about getting reviews written. It takes me a long time to format posts and write the review—sometimes hours. I procrastinate a lot as well because it is such a big undertaking. 

That leads me to this post. In order to get more done this year, I'm going to start doing mini-reviews. I have some guilt about not giving all the books equal treatment but I believe that a short review is better than no review. 

These are primarily reads picked up from KU and a few from Netgalley here and there. Any direct requests will not be a part of the mini-reviews series.

Today's mini-reviews are 3 horror novellas that I read late last year: Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan, The House of Little Bones by Beverly Lee, and Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman. 

Mourning the sudden loss of her sister, Callie Danoff wants nothing more than to embrace a fresh start in a new town, leaving the haunting memories of her sister’s death behind. But when her brother Ramsay drags her to a spooky boardwalk, the two become entangled with a local vampire gang and its enigmatic leader, Elijah. Callie refuses to accept their existence... until she and her brother unknowingly ingest vampire blood. Now, they only have three days before they turn into vampires themselves.

With her carefree summer thwarted, Callie must trust a group she barely knows in order to save her family. 

Publication date: October 4th, 2021

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

My Thoughts...

Mouth Full of Ashes is my first foray into Briana Morgan's writing and I couldn't start with a better novella than this nod to the 80s' The Lost Boys vampire film. This tale of two siblings trying to make a fresh start in a new town and finding only trouble at the local boardwalk was full of nostalgia. The brother and sister duo get wrapped up in the local vampire clan and mom is even being pursued by the vampire master. 

While it is essentially a reimagining of The Lost Boys, Morgan has a fun carnival/boardwalk setting, believable characters with a heartbreaking past, fun banter and wit, and even a little romance with queer rep thrown in for good measure. The relationship between the siblings is truly the backbone of the story. There's lots of young adult angst and the need to "find yourself" without coming across as too cheesy. While the pacing seemed a bit rushed at the end, there's plenty that makes this fun vampire novella worth reading. 

He thought he was untouchable...

David Lansdown, esteemed British horror writer and supernatural sceptic, is used to basking in the glow of the press. Until a hastily snapped photo hits the headlines and makes his affair with his publisher’s son public.

When David finds himself at Bone Hollow, a house with a glass wall overlooking a wild and desolate moor, his only concern is writing his next best seller to bury his misdeeds in the past.

But something stirs beneath the earth. Something bound to the land. Something determined to take everything from him.

Luca Fox-Waite is still in love with the man who cast him aside, but his own childhood demons lurk in his shadow. As he discovers more about Bone Hollow’s history, he finds himself ensnared in its story—a story steeped in time and tragedy.

Because curses lie in bones, and they do not die.

The House of Little Bones is a tale of avarice, adoration, and of how the sins of the past cling to the living as well as the dead.

Publication date: September 21st, 2021

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

My Thoughts...

The House of Little Bones follows two main characters: best-selling author David and Luca, the 19-year-old son of his childhood friend and publisher. They've had a covert age-gap romantic relationship that has now exploded in the tabloids. At the behest of his agent, David takes a writing sabbatical far away from London. David intends on hiding out in a recently built rental house in the sparsely populated moors to let things die down and refocus on his writing. Strange things start happening to David at the house, which as a skeptic, he dismisses as a prank. Luca is in the background as well, researching the moor that David is living on and trying to keep him safe from harm. 

Lee does an amazing job at writing a character driven narrative. David and Luca's relationship is at the center of this mess and Luca's heartbreak is evident while David's self-centeredness is its own form of misery. It's the ideal backdrop to the folklore-based haunting that is transpiring right under David's nose. The fog and rain-drenched moor setting is perfectly ominous and when the tension crescendos into the most perfect juncture of grief and retaliation, it's exquisite. Horrifying and devastating, this eerie novella sucked me in and left its mark. 

Sabrina Haskins and her family have just moved into their dream home, a gorgeous Craftsman in the rapidly-growing Southwestern city of Jackson Hill. Sabrina’s a bored and disillusioned homemaker, Hal a reverse mortgage salesman with a penchant for ill-timed sports analogies. Their two children, Damien and Michaela, are bright and precocious.

At first glance, the house is perfect. But things aren’t what they seem.

Sabrina’s hearing odd noises, seeing strange visions. Their neighbors are odd or absent. And Sabrina’s already-fraught relationship with her son is about to be tested in a way no parent could ever imagine.

Because while the Haskins family might be the newest owners of 4596 James Circle, they’re far from its only residents…

Publication date: October  19th, 2021

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

This haunted house story focuses on a family moving into a new home that doesn't exactly have the Home-Sweet-Home vibe they were looking for.  Right from the beginning, this novella had me laughing out loud as the family is getting their first glimpse of the house. Mom, Sabrina, turns to the kids in the backseat and immediately delivers an internal soliloquy about her 10-year-old Damien who had "eaten his own twin in the womb" and her ensuing nightmares of him pickaxing his way out of her with his dead brother's bones. Weird? Yes. Hilarious? Also yes but I'm twisted that way. It's just the start of the dark humor that you can expect from this novella, especially where Damien— who really, really likes to mess with his mom by living up to the name and freaking her out on purpose— is concerned.

Don't think it's all fun and games. When the haunting starts with a giant man jovially carrying a box to the basement and then climbing into the tiny crawlspace to disappear, it's creepy. Only Sabrina sees what is happening and as it gets weirder, everyone thinks she's losing it. While the haunting is at first benign, it's no less perplexing and overwhelming for poor Sabrina. The more answers she gets, the more questions she has. 

I love when stories manage to bring something fresh into a typical trope and boy, this novella crushes it. It takes a lot to throw me but I didn't see this one coming at all. It's wonderfully weird. It's irreverently funny. Man, Fuck This House. Come for the title, stay for the exceptional twist on the haunted house story. 

Publication date: November 13th, 2020

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

Sebastian “Seb” McAlister has run out of luck in Vegas. Cornered by a trigger-happy gang and shot through the stomach, he makes a desperate escape in his supercharged Hellcat. Fate guides Seb safely out of Sin City and into the desert, but as his wheels fade into the horizon, he fades into darkness.

He awakes among a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. A mountain range circles the hodgepodge of shacks like prison walls looming high. And the warden that resides in those mountains is big, ugly, and deadly—a creature straight out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.

If Seb hopes to escape that wayward way station, he’ll need enough cunning to outwit a force beyond comprehension… and a fast car. With a little luck and a ragtag group of would-be monster mashers racing alongside him, Seb just might have a shot of making it through the mountains alive.

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What happens when you combine fast cars, Las Vegas gang shootouts, and Lovecraft? You get this weird but fun acerbic romp with Jason Parent! Eight Cylinders is the love child of cosmic horror and Fast and the Furious. 

The story opens with Sebastian “Seb” McAlister in the middle of an abandoned department store parking lot shoot out with the local Chinese drug lord questioning the mini Magic 8 ball he'd taken from said drug lord's eye socket. Yes, you read that right. First, someone was using it as a fake eye. Second, Seb took it and pocketed it. Third, he's actually asking it for advice. When his partner in crime is killed and Seb is wounded, he takes off in his stolen SRT Hellcat with no destination except the advice of his mini Magic 8 ball. He passes out from blood loss and wakes up trapped in the mountains of the desert with strange companions and surrounded by a giant tentacle monster that won't let them leave.

Seb is an interesting character. He's a criminal with a conscience and an erstwhile crime noir internal dialogue. He cares about three things: his partner, his girlfriend, and his new boosted hot rod, so let's not give him too much credit, shall we? Admittedly selfish, reckless, and maybe a bit crazy, he's still the perfect anti-hero to band together this merry bunch of weirdos, uniting them under a common cause and possibly leading them to freedom. 

Is this sci-fi? Action? Horror? Who knows and who really cares? This novella isn't going to strain your brain. It's meant to be fast and dirty like Saturday nights drifting at the track.  It starts with a bang and ends with a movie-style ending—unfinished but satisfying. It's action-adventure storytelling at its best. Lots of guns and fast cars and regular guys turned badass. Don't expect things to make sense because they won't. Don't expect answers that you couldn't get from a Magic 8 ball. Things just are and they don't always fit within the range of what is possible. Eight Cylinders is just an entertaining read that puts the pedal to the metal and rides hell for leather for the hills.  

 

Publication: November 30th 2020 

by Beneath Hell Publishing

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

"

We’d been in the house two weeks when Tommy pulled the first bones from the garden.”

When Cassie Baker buys the house on Cedar Street, it’s partly because it reminds her of the house she grew up in in the ‘80s. It reminds her of happier times, when her Mom was still alive, before the cancer had taken her. It seems like the perfect place to raise her baby boy, Sam.

That is, until a friend unearths the remains of a dog, buried in a shallow grave in the backyard.

After the bones come the cockroaches…

The Cockroach King is a new novella written by Andrew Cull, the award-winning author of Remains and Bones.

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Cockroaches are one of those bugs that most people hate and of which even more have a phobia, with good reason. They hide in the walls proliferating unseen, scattering when exposed to the light, invading our spaces. The Cockroach King not only plays with our innate revulsion of these scuttling six-legged pests, it quickly escalates it. At only 65 pages, this is one novella that excels at tending a feeling of dread and then coaxing it into an inferno of unease. 

Cassie is a single mother, intent on raising her little boy Sam and creating a life. Told from the first-person view, we quickly feel for her. She's just poured everything she has into their very first home after the death of her mother. She's so well written. She's relatable and her grief is familiar. There's a strength to her that you find yourself quickly cheering for. You want her to succeed and something is standing in the way of her hopes and dreams as Cassie soon finds that their house isn't quite the home-sweet-home that she'd hoped it would be. 

From the very first line—“We’d been in the house two weeks when Tommy pulled the first bones from the garden.”—Cull sets the scene for something foreboding and insidious. This is such a creepy little read. The characters are intimate and the pacing is excellent. The writing is deliberate and invokes such great visceral reactions while reading. The tension builds as the reader is given more questions than answers until it all comes down in a culmination of exposed horrific secrets. 

Interestingly enough, while I was writing this review, my husband came in from outside with an odd discovery: a tiny skull in his hand that he found lying next to the driveway.  We've had numerous pet rats throughout the years and they are all buried in the flower garden. I went outside expecting to find the rock pile set on top disturbed and the burial hole open; It was not. I don't know how the skull got where it was but I find any roaches in my house, you can bet I will bug-bomb this sucker to kingdom come. 

I have never been happier to see a year end. 2020 was just TOUGH, ya'll. Life in the pandemic hasn't been fun. It definitely threw a lot of challenges my way and I know I'm not alone in that. I'm hoping 2021 is a gentler year for everyone. One great thing about being a reader is being able to escape into a new book but I'll tell you—even that has been a challenge this year! I did NOT complete my Goodreads challenge goal of 130 this year though my final total of 124 was close. Last year I completed 131 so at least it wasn't a huge change. *shrugs* I still read 24,500 pages and there were some incredible books along the way.

A horror tale about the Witch Bride, second wife of a King, and the discord between her and her young stepson.

New York City, 1990: When you slip through the cracks, no one is there to catch you. Monique learns that the hard way after her girlfriend Donna vanishes without a trace.

Only after the disappearances of several other impoverished women does Monique hear the rumors. A taloned monster stalks the city’s underground and snatches victims into the dark.

Donna isn’t missing. She was taken.

To save the woman she loves, Monique must descend deeper than the known underground, into a subterranean world of enigmatic cultists and shadowy creatures. But what she finds looms beyond her wildest fears—a darkness that stretches from the dawn of time and across the stars.

Both seventeen. Both afraid. But both saying yes. It sounded like the perfect first date: canoeing across a chain of lakes, sandwiches and beer in the cooler. But teenagers Amelia and James discover something below the water’s surface that changes their lives forever.

It’s got two stories.
It’s got a garden.

And the front door is open.
It’s a house at the bottom of a lake.

For the teens, there is only one rule: no questions. And yet, how could a place so spectacular come with no price tag? While the duo plays house beneath the waves, one reality remains:

Just because a house is empty, doesn’t mean nobody’s home.

Mr. Nelson Pugh suffers from crippling anxiety, which is only exacerbated when he travels. So when on his latest business trip he receives an unusual series of calls from his wife, Eleanor, his anxiety gets the best of him. At first, giving in to his own self-doubt, he attempts to cast aside his growing fears as another episode of paranoid delusion. As the calls continue, however, Nelson can no longer be sure.

Is he suffering from a panic attack or is his family in terrible danger? And if the danger is real, will anyone believe him when he can barely trust himself?

Hundreds of miles away and with no hope of reaching his family, Mr. Nelson Pugh must uncover the truth before the mystery reveals itself with potentially horrific consequences.