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.
Western
Review: His Ragged Company by Rance D. Denton (The Testimonies of Elias Faust #1)
His Ragged Company gives us the chance to splatter and swear our way through a kooky western with all the obscene violence of a Tarantino flick. Seriously, what’s not to like about that?
Review: Death Aesthetic by Josh Rountree
Synopsis: “This whole collection is obsessed with death.” Josh Rountree makes no bones about the mood in Death Aesthetic, his third collection of short fiction. Rountree explores the boundaries set by grief and guilt. He cracks open all manner of skeletons to peer inside the chest cavity, wondering what remains after everything else has left. He […]
Review: The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree
Synopisis: As always, Floyd Betts rides into town alone. He arrives for his father’s funeral, but he is returning to Galveston, Texas, with two orphaned siblings he has rescued. Nellie, who is descended from a long line of witches, has visions from other people’s minds. Hank, her impulsive younger brother, just wants to break out […]
Review: The Light of a Black Star by C.S. Humble
Synopsis It is 1872. Annie Miller and the valiant members of the Peregrine Estate did all they could in Chicago to try and stop the Society of Prometheus from unleashing their terrible gods—The Nine—into our world. While they managed to save Carson Ptolemy from the occult society’s ritualistic sacrifice, they failed to stop the ritual […]
Review: Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian
Synopsis A folk horror epic about a ragtag posse that must track down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts―and where death is always just around the bend. Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her […]
Review: The Woodcutters by Josh Hanson
Rarely have the Cosmic and the Western been so well matched… Synopsis A dark, dramatic story of the supernatural inspired by the Wagon Box Fight of 1867 in the Wyoming Territory. Lewis Tanner has run from his home in Tennessee and, after a series of crimes and misadventures, finds himself on a woodcutting crew at […]
Review: When the Night Bells Ring by Jo Kaplan
Summary In a future ravaged by fire and drought, two climate refugees ride their motorcycles across the wasteland of the western US, and stumble upon an old silver mine. Descending into the cool darkness of the caved-in tunnels in desperate search of water, the two women find Lavinia Cain’s diary, a settler in search of […]
Review: Cruel Angels Past Sundown by Hailey Piper
Synopsis New Mexico Territory, 1882: She comes to the Klein ranch at sunset, a strange naked pregnant woman dragging a cavalry saber. Annette Klein and her husband have built peace between their marriage and secret relations beyond, but their serenity dies in bloodshed tonight through a cannibalistic demon and a mad preacher. Annette barely escapes […]
Review: That Light Sublime – The Massacre at Yellow Hill and A Red Winter in the West – by C.S. Humble
A woman mourns after the death of her husband in the mines at Yellow Hill, Texas. She wonders how she will feed her children. A freed slave wanders the Texas planes with his adopted son, a teenager with a colorful family history. Either of these might be the set up for a John Ford western, […]