I couldn’t really pick a top five, nor a top ten this year. So you get the fun of a top 15! Like last year then, I’ll just be sharing all of their glorious covers and if I reviewed the book itself I’ll be linking the rambles in their titles so you can see if they are the books for you, at your leisure.
These are all books that kept me up till the very small hours of the night, some even made me see the first inklings of dawn and deprived me of even the little sleep I do get. But! I have no regrets whatsoever and neither would you, I believe, if you gave them a go!
Gothic
Review: Alone in the Dark (2024)
ALONE IN THE DARK (2024) is the latest incarnation of the classic survival horror video game franchise that started before Resident Evil was just a glint in Shinji Mikami’s eye. It has had its ups and downs over the years but never quite managed to bottle lightning the way its first game did with Detective […]
Review: The Haunting of Sorrow’s Leap by Chris Sorensen
Synopsis Ellen Marx used to talk to the dead. Now they’re ghosting her… With her psychic gifts on the fritz, she’s been demoted to hawking discount crystals at third-rate paranormal conventions. But when she inadvertently solves a supernatural challenge at New Jersey’s Hooky Spooky Convention, she catches the eye of the event’s reclusive sponsor: a […]
Review: Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
Synopsis: 2025Lee can’t remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father’s centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother’s disappearance almost a decade ago. 1877A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders […]
Review: House of Beth by Kerry Cullen
Synopsis: After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and […]
Review: Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell
Synopsis In this queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne classic gothic story, Rappaccini’s Daughter, a young woman is lured to a lush estate owned by a botanist who might be hiding dark secrets. Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, […]
Review: Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell
Synopsis: Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow but everyone there claims to have never […]
Review: Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby
Synopsis A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Seoul, present day. Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the final anatomical Venus in a dangerously intertwined trio. Crafted […]
Review: The Scald-Crow by Grace Daly
Synopsis: Brigid—that’s the Irish Breej, not “Bridge-id,” though it’s not like she’d correct you—has had a rough go of it. Her mother abused her when she was little, her best friend (and secret crush) is too busy chasing some blonde to answer Brigid’s calls, and she lost her job thanks to chronic pelvic pain with […]
Review: Reap, Sow by S.H. Cooper
Synopsis The halls are familiar. Lucianne “Lucky” Boyle knows that much. But how she came to be in this strange place that tries to make itself look like home is a mystery. Filled with doors that have no handles, rooms that shift to almost familiar, and faceless people in blue, Lucky is determined to find […]
Review: Demon Song by Kelsea Yu
Synopsis: Places like this have a history. Desires. And this one is famished. Megan and her mom are on the run after narrowly escaping the clutches of an abusive man who dragged them from Portland to Beijing. With few options, Megan’s mom turns to an old friend who offers them room and board in Huihuang […]
Review: The Night Birds by Christopher Golden
Synopsis: Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill have history. After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, they never expected to see each other again. Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, […]