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 […]
Historical Horror
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 […]
Review: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
In short, Isabel Cañas’ Vampire of El Norte is everything you could possibly wish for in a Mexican gothic, with rich folklore, beautiful and atmospheric prose, complex characters, and a forbidden romance rooted in cultural and historical authenticity, to die for. Not to mention how incredibly it shows the “other side” of the Mexican-American war of the late 1840s, in ways you rarely see in mainstream media.
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, […]
Review: From the Belly by Emmett Nahil
Synopsis: The whaling vessel Merciful has just made its strangest catch yet: a massive whale containing a still-living man secreted within its stomach lining. Sailor Isaiah Chase is tasked with keeping the enigmatic man alive. As their relationship grows, a series of accidents, injuries and deaths quickly befall the ship and its crew. Isaiah is […]
Review: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima
Synopsis: At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and writes stories for him about things both impossible and true. Stories I Wrote for the Devil lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil, where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending […]
REVIEW: Undead Samurai by Baptiste Pinson Wu
SYNOPSIS Japan, 1625 A new Drum Master has risen, and soon the nation will fall to the curse of Izanagi. Answering the call of his kotsuzumi, dead warriors abandon their peace to once again roam the land of the living, swinging rusty blades and chattering rotten teeth at his behest. Japan’s last hope lies in […]