Synopsis: Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway―not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic […]
Review: Bone White by Ronald Malfi
Synopsis: Paul Gallo saw the report on the news: a mass murderer leading police to his victims’ graves, in remote Dread’s Hand, Alaska. It’s not even a town; more like the bad memory of a town. The same bit of wilderness where his twin brother went missing a year ago. As the bodies are exhumed, Paul […]
Creepypastor: 20 Tales of Priests, Pastors and Parsons that are definitely going to Hell
The sub-genre of religious horror just so happens to be one of my favourites, and I have read lots of it. In doing so, I have found there’s a rather saturated sub-sub-genre (if you will) of reverends, vicars and nuns (so on and so forth) written in an adversarial role, and the sub-sub-genre in question… […]
Review: Brat by Gabriel Smith
Synopsis: Gabriel’s skin is falling off. His dad is dead. He owes his editor a novel. His girlfriend won’t answer his calls. Tasked by his horribly well-adjusted brother with clearing out the family home for sale, Gabriel’s sanity quickly begins to unravel. His parents’ old manuscripts appear to change each time he reads them. A […]
Review: Crypt of The Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud
Synopsis: Years ago, in a cave beneath the dense forests and streams on the surface of the moon, a gargantuan spider once lived. Its silk granted its first worshippers immense faculties of power and awe. It’s now 1923 and Veronica Brinkley is touching down on the moon for her intake at the Barrowfield Home for […]
Review: Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson
Synopsis: From the “master of literary horror” (GQ) comes a collection of new stories tracing the limits and consequences of artificial intelligence and “post-human” relationships. Populated by twins stepping into worlds of absence, bears who lick their cubs into creation, and artificial beings haunted by their less-than-human nature, each page sketches a world where our […]
Review: The Dissonance by Shaun Hamill
Synopsis: “You can never go home again,” the saying goes—but Hal, Athena, and Erin have to. In high school, the three were students of the eccentric Professor Marsh, trained in a secret system of magic known as the Dissonance, which is built around harnessing negative emotions: alienation, anger, pain. Then, twenty years ago, something happened […]
Review: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Synopsis: Misha is a jaded scriptwriter working in Hollywood, and he’s seen it all. All the toxic personalities and coverups, the structural obstructions to reform, even dead actors brought back to screen by CGI – and finally, maybe, the hint of change. But having just been nominated for his first Oscar, Misha is pressured by […]
Review: The Night Church by Whitley Strieber
Synopsis: Two congregations worship at the Holy Spirit Church. By day Catholics kneel at the altar of the tiny chapel in Kew Gardens, Queens. But at night the rafters echo with Satan’s music. Feared by the Vatican and as old as Christianity itself, a terrifying alternate religion has flourished in the darkness for two millennia, […]
Review: A Child Alone With Strangers by Philip Fracassi
Synopsis: When young Henry Thorne is kidnapped and held prisoner in a remote farmhouse surrounded by miles of forest, he finds himself connecting with a strange force living in the woods—using that bond to wreak havoc against his captors. Unknown to the boy, however, is that this ancient being has its own reasons for wanting […]
The Summer I Turned Gritty
10 Scorching Must Reads For Your TBR This Summer Us horror fans call ourselves “The Halloween people,” but, to the best of my knowledge, we exist all year round: and so does great horror. For too many years, whilst by the poolside, I begrudgingly downgraded from what I actually wanted to read, forcing myself through […]
Review: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen
Synopsis: Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears. Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth―strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries―is the light of Roos’ life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos’ backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection. Soon, […]