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 […]
Gothic
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, […]
Review: Liminal Monster by Luke Tarzian
Synopsis IN THE CENTER OF THE FOREST SITS A HOUSE OF LEAVES AND ASH. INSIDE THE HOUSE, HIS HEART AND LIES. Inside the house called Sempiternity there is a lake, at the center of which an island sits. Upon the island, a spire of stone. Surrounding the spire, an orchard of dreams. Beneath an apple […]
Review: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
Synopsis: Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite […]
Review: Fiend by Alma Katsu
Synopsis: Some families have skeletons in their closets. This one has a demon in its boardroom. When Maris Berisha was nine years old, she heard something scratching at the walls of her family’s penthouse. It felt like something malevolent was there, watching them. The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the […]
Review: Their Monstrous Hearts by Yiğit Turhan
Synopsis: A mysterious stranger shows up at Riccardo’s apartment with some news: his grandmother Perihan has died, and Riccardo has inherited her villa in Milan along with her famed butterfly collection. The struggling writer is out of options. He’s hoping the change of scenery in Milan will inspire him, and maybe there will be some […]
Review: The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock
Synopsis: Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer […]
Review: From Daylight to Madness (The Hotel #1) by Jennifer Anne Gordon
Synopsis: On an almost uninhabitable rocky island off the coast of Maine, a Hotel looms over the shore, an ever-present gray lady that stands strong like a guard, keeping watch. For many who come here, this island is a sanctuary and a betrayal. This is a place where memories linger like ghosts, and the ephemeral […]
Review: This House Isn’t Haunted But We Are by Stephen Howard
Synopsis: Simon and Priya’s young daughter has died in a tragic accident. Determined to heal their fracturing marriage, the couple move to the North Yorkshire Moors to renovate a dilapidated rural cottage. However, they just can’t process their grief as increasingly eerie events unfold. A child’s ghostly figure appears on the moors, doors lock themselves, […]
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: The Staircase In The Woods by Chuck Wendig
Synopsis: ive high school friends, bonded by an oath to protect each other no matter what. On a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere One friend walks up – but never comes back down. Now twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared, and the […]
Review: Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen
Not for the faint of heart, Blood on Her Tongue claws its way into you and doesn’t let go till the extremely satisfying ending, because I support women’s rights but boy do I support women’s wrongs in such contexts. You might feel like you should be looking away at times while being utterly unable to do so.