Synopsis: Who will cast the first stone?1915, the Cabrach, Aberdeenshire. An isolated Scottish community is disturbed by a strange discovery: a body in a peat bog, perfectly preserved. Two people haul the body from the ground: Lizzie, the wife of a wealthy local landowner, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farm hand. At hearthside and […]
Historical Horror
Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
I can confidently say that this is the first book I’ve read where I’ve felt physically unwell reading a birth scene. There’s one in particular where the girl is referred to as a ‘patient’ and it’s meant to feel detached from reality, but the body horror and detail Hendrix included made me flush hot and cold. I genuinely felt like I was going to pass out. And I think that’s a sign of some truly incredible writing.
Review: Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
In just one novel, Christopher Buehlman cements himself as an author that I’d consider to be of exceptional talent… riveting, visceral and, ultimately, hopeful!
Review: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Synopsis: A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over […]
Review: Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian
Synopsis: Something wicked is going on in the village of Ascension. A mother wasting away from cancer is suddenly up and about. A boy trampled by a milk cart walks away from the accident. A hanged man can still speak, broken neck and all. The dead are not dying. When Rabbit and Sadie Grace accompany […]
Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Synopsis: They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever […]
Review: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Synopsis: Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess―she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds […]
Review: The Incubations by Ramsey Campbell
Synopsis: When a weight landed on his legs he raised his head from the violently crumpled pillow. The bed already had another occupant, and as Leo flung the quilt back so that it wouldn’t hinder his escape the creature scurried up his body to squat on his chest, clutching him with all its limbs like […]
Review: Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg
Synopsis: Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But […]
Review: The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Synopsis: January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, Laura receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura […]
Review: Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum
Synopsis: It’s 1900, and Louise Wilk is taking her dying husband home to Buffalo where he grew up. Dr. Edward Wilk is wasting away from an aggressive and debilitating malady. But it’s becoming clearer that his condition isn’t exactly a disease, but a phase of existence that seeks to transform and ultimately possess him. Review: […]
Review: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Synopsis: An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets… After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she […]