Synopsis: What would guilt make you do? Hadleigh Keene died on the road leading away from Hollyhock Asylum. The reasons are unknown. Her sister Morgan blames herself. A year later with the case still unsolved, Morgan creates a false identity, that of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner, and goes inside. Morgan quickly discovers that […]
Review: Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
Synopsis: Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive. It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her […]
Review: Murder Road by Simone St. James
Synopsis: July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see […]
Review: A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock
Synopsis: It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement […]
A Beginner’s Guide to Stephen King
Today is World Book Day here in the UK and personally I cannot think of a better way to celebrate! The age-old question. Countless times friends have asked me, and strangers have asked online: ‘What Stephen King book would you recommend for a beginner?’ Few authors are as prolific when it comes to publishing books […]
Review: This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
Synopsis: Four ambitious climbers hike into the Kentucky wilderness. Seven months later, three mangled bodies are discovered. Were their deaths simple accidents or the result of something more sinister? This is going to be Dylan’s big break. Her friend Clay, a geology student, has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness, and she […]
Review: Full Immersion by Gemma Amor
Synopsis: When Magpie discovers her own dead body one misty morning in Bristol, it prompts her to uncover the truth of her untimely demise. Her investigations take her on a terrifying journey through multiple realities, experimental treatments, technological innovations, and half-memories in a race against time and sanity. Accompanied by a new friend who is […]
Review: What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman
Synopsis: After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school […]
Review: Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes
Synopsis: William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace. Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation […]
Review: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
Synopsis: Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out. Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of […]
Review: The Fisherman by John Langan
Synopsis: In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman’s Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other’s company and a shared […]
Charlie Battison’s Best Horror of 2023
And just like that another year goes by! To be selfish for just a second, 2023 has been a great year for me and my reading. I finally feel like my university hangover has come to an end and so I have read more than ever before! At the time of writing, that is 50 […]