Synopsis: Forsake the world that hates you. Embrace its monster. Tresor Institute accepts only the worthy, and Ada Călinescu is anything but. Intractable, mannish, a child of convicted terrorists, she can at best hope to be overlooked. Yet somehow the Institute accepts her application for transfer. Her ticket to the polar town of Heilung, home […]
Fear For All
Review: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Synopsis Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defence of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the […]
Review: Lowland Rider by Chet Williamson
Synopsis: Jesse Gordon, driven to a shocking murder by the killing of his wife and infant daughter, condemns himself to life underground in the New York City subway system. Abandoning the light of day, he finds an evil as old as time, and a redemption which must be bought by a price far greater than […]
Review: Mothtown by Caroline Hardaker
Okay I sat on this review for ages because I thought I was getting a horror story, but in reality I got a stunning story of self-discovery and an exploration of mental health all wrapped up in an addictive horror.
It took me a while to figure out where this was going. I’m going to do my best to avoid spoilers so this review is likely to be pretty vague in most places.
Review: Uncanny Times (Huntsmen #1) by Laura Anne Gilman
I found this first entry in the Huntsmen series an excellent start to a hopefully long saga that promises good times, feels, sibling shenanigans, and lots of action. Also, there’s a molosser dog with one upturned and one downward ear as the animal companion and his name is Botheration. Need I say more?
Review: A Bleak Remedy (Savage Panacea #1) by D.S. LaLonde
Synopsis: On the shores of the St. Lawrence River there lies a secretive biomedical research facility. Within that facility’s deepest recesses are two vampires. One is a ravenous humanoid bat. A true apex predator. The other appears human but is no less dangerous than its monstrous peer. These vampires have amazing regenerative abilities, enabling them […]
Review: Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry
This is my first book by Henry and while maybe this specific one wasn’t entirely it for me, I did like her writing style enough to want to give her other works a go. Her prose flows and adjusts its pace to fit the exact type of situation she wants to carry across in the most efficient manner.
Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Synopsis Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend Tristan, a charming if faded soap opera star, even though she’s been in love with him since childhood. Then […]
Australian & New Zealand Author Showcase No 15 – Alan Baxter
Today I have the honour of hosting the Fifteenth author showcase focusing on the awesome talent originating from Australia and New Zealand. The idea came to me whilst seeing so many of the book community gathering at recent conventions in the US and UK. And once my FOMO had subsided, I got to thinking about […]
Review: Blood Sugar by Daniel Kraus
Synopsis From the co-author of the New York Times–bestselling novelization of The Shape of Water comes the blood-curdling story of a Halloween night where trick-or-treat becomes life-or-death In a ruined house at the end of Yellow Street, an angry outcast hatches a scheme to take revenge for all the wrongs he has suffered. With the help of three alienated […]
Review: The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo
Synopsis Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. Forged in the fires of the Western Front and reborn in the cafes […]
Review: Merciless Waters by Rae Knowles
There’s worse things than drowning, folks… Synopsis The sea never changes. Neither do Lily and Jaq. Aboard the ship Scylla, there is no future or past. Jaq, her fickle lover Lily, and their all-female crew exist in an endless present. It’s better this way. At least it keeps Lily by Jaq’s side, where she belongs. […]