First of all, a lot of this will be published off Beehiiv. I’ll post the links over here, but straight from the horses mouth and all. They just have easier options for sharing to social media, and I’m trying to make less of my life paperwork.
Category: Book Reviews
Short Reviews
Welcome back! For those in the US, I hope you enjoyed the holiday, however you do or don’t celebrate it. Personally, we don’t celebrate the meaning so much as the opportunity to be together.
The household typically gets some additional days off, and we used to host a huge party the weekend after. The pandemic changed a lot of things for us, including our views on family/friendship and my partner’s introversion (he’s a 5-6 guest max person now). The party hasn’t happened in years. He also found his love of cooking during this time. We spend all day cooking with each other and occasionally the housemate and/or teen, invite a friend or two over, and then bemoan the huge amount of food we now have to eat over the next few days. This year was a traditional turkey, but in the past we’ve managed all sorts of experiments and first times. Thankfully, they’ve all turned out okay.
I skipped last week because of Turkey Day, and mulled over how I wanted to handle these shorter reviews in the future. Gods know my punctuation is doing all the heavy lifting to keep most of these to two sentences. They will still be short, but some may go longer or shorter depending on how I felt about the book, editing, or what I remember of it. I really should get to writing these while the memory is fresh, but it would cut into my reading time and that will not do.
Currently Reading: Blackwater by Michael McDowell
Wearing: Fox in the Flowerbed by Imaginary Authors. This is a hothouse floral perfume: overwhelming and heady when you first put it on, like walking into an estate greenhouse as everything is blooming. The jasmine sticks around, but eventually becomes powdery and more acceptable for something like a late night ball and ::gasp:: ankle showing. It’s one of the most traditional perfumes in their collection, which is appropriate for the Regency Era and some rich, catty, New York bitches.
Persuasion by Jane Austen*: 4. Anne Elliot was convinced as a young woman to break off her engagement to Captain Wentworth, and now it’s a decade later and he’s back— romance, shenanigans, misunderstandings! I actually liked this better than Pride and Prejudice, but it could be because the other story has been beaten to death in my mind.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: 4. Fanny is poor with a million brothers and sisters, so her aunt’s family is magnanimous to take her in since they need someone to look down on. As she grows up, she experiences angst over her cousin’s lack of interest in her, despite a rich lothario being so into her he’s willing to redeem his wicked ways. God, I even created a map for this one and I don’t remember much of it. Austen is meant to be read in between other books, so maybe I can remember shit.
Answered Prayers by Truman Capote: 3.5: The narrator, a queer escort who services high society women, reveals information about the social circles he runs in and the women he meets. It’s more than a little based on Capote’s real life relationships with wealthy socialites, and the novel was abandoned after the third chapter made its way to the press, because, man, Capote skewered the women he was benefiting from. Then again, with that kind of money, maybe they could have been pulled back and made 100% bitchy asshole less of their personalities.
*I’m on a bit of a Jane Austen kick and doing some mapping work on the books. I want to map out the locations mentioned, find historical images of different types of dwellings, houses, fashions, etc, and put together a visual guide for each of the books at some point. I brought in things that were adjacent, like Gaskell’s book and other historical romances. You know the plot: plucky heroine, class politics, and steamy hand brushing. Surprisingly enough, this kind of stuff is useful for writing horror.
Two Sentence Reviews
Currently Reading: Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Wearing: Nightflyer by Olympic Orchids Perfume. We’re dealing with a number of corpses this week, and this smells like the “good” dirt after a rainy day: primal, freshly turned, and— just shy of sickly— sweet and floral. It fades into more of the mineral notes, a little salty and musky. I don’t know if I would wear it out and about unless I waited until the initial sweetness faded or layered it something to turn that note a little less… fecund. Still, I love smelling like a bog witch getting a good burial done, and it’s perfect for a fall or spring day layered in-between skin, sweaters, and blankets while reading some PNW murder mystery.
The Return by Rachel Harrison: 3. Elise’s best friend disappears during a hiking trip, and she spends two years wishing for her back; when Julie finally makes her return, something wrong has happened to her, and it’s only exacerbated by the getaway the group of friends has to celebrate the miracle of her survival. I think I would get the hell out of dodge after the first couple of issues, as the book is red flag central and Elise being all “Nah, fam, I got this.” She did not have this.
Bones in the Basement by Joni Mayhan: 3ish. A first hand account of the hauntings at the S.K. Pierce mansion from previous home owners. I’m not even sure how you rate books like these: the writing wasn’t a complete mess, and it’s a decent resource book for writing things that go bump in the night.
An Inquiry into Love and Death by Simone St. James**: 3. A young woman leaves her privileged women’s college and travels to the small town her uncle died in to handle his affairs, chase ghosts and nazis, and bone down detectives. It’s very typical, which means it wasn’t not enjoyable, but it wasn’t anything I would get excited and nerd dump about.
**From what I’ve read of Simone St. James, she blends the beats of crime mystery with a supernatural force in every book. Best of both worlds if you’re a true crime lover who just wants a ghost to pop up and testify now and then.
Two Sentence Reviews (sometimes!)
Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale: 3. Suffering from the sting of her husband’s infidelity, their divorce, and his quick remarriage to his mistress, Charlotte runs off to a Jane Austen theme park (just a mansion and grounds with actors, really) to become a regency lady and find some fake love; unfortunately, there is a murder. It was fun, and a break between some longer Austen things I was (and will be reading) even if it wasn’t some funny and poignant regency commentary.
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: 3.5: Billy Dunne and his band The Six really want to make it big, and Daisy is a talented and gorgeous song writer; the story loosely follows the volatile band dynamics as they negotiate love, anger, passion, and attraction. It’s very loosely based on the drama that was Fleetwood Mac and the oral history format makes it like reading an— admittedly long— Rolling Stones story.
Austenland by Shannon Hale: 3. Jane is obsessed with the Regency era and takes a trip to a special theme park where even real life resembles a Jane Austen book, so she gets it on (and on and on). I had read this after the sequel, which was the more interesting book as a murder mystery; it’s a standard romance using the Austen-trappings in a faux fairy-tale setting, but add some illicit and very naughty sex (even ankles were shown) to spice it up.
True Story by Kate Reed Perry: 3. A teenager has a blackout, and the trauma of what did or did not occur in that moment, and what other people make of it, haunts this teenager into adulthood as she tries to navigate how the truth is formed and what it means. I liked the idea of how we can fill in moments with information that’s just as traumatic as the action itself— how lack of knowing means anything can take its place.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*: 4. Lizzy is a firebrand and Mr. Darcy has 10k pounds per year; hilarity ensues. I think we all know most of these stories by now and Austen is nothing if not formulaic, even in one of her most well known novels; it’s funny and what you would expect from regency romance while giving a bird’s eye view into the social politics of the time.
Two Sentence Reviews
River Woman, River Demon by Jennifer Givhan: 3. A traumatized woman must deal with her friend’s murder, her husband’s arrest for said murder, and her ex being back in town while also being magical. I had not remembered much about this book, so had to look it up; I remember having weird plot concerns, but it was a standard horror read.
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott: 4. Siblings inherit two things from their distant relatives: a house on chicken legs and an unrelenting horror created and forged in the fires of past atrocities. I found this entire story to be just the right balance of humor, horror, and charm, and just the perfect fairy tale for a winter night (when is how far behind I am).
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid: 3.5. During a trip to visit her boyfriend’s parents, a woman contemplates ending the relationship, but as her feelings break down about her partner, weird things and coincidences start happening. I liked it, even if it required a lot of going back and rereading things for me, because every detail mattered in this “everything is not as it seems” story; just keep that in mind for your own read through.
Alma Katsu’s The Hunger and The Deep
History is fickle. We all know that, right? That the “facts” in our historical recollections at best belong to survivors of an event, in the middle belong to those relying on recollections and their own perceptions and observations, and at worst to those who achieved victory and rewrite their struggles to turn them into heroes. It’s all got some modicum of storytelling and fiction. Alma Katsu seizes this whole concept and then runs off with it to create some paranormal shenanigans.
To be transparent: I stumbled upon Alma Katsu’s books by accident. I had meant to check out Nick Cutter’s book The Deep, but when you mix the library app with sleep meds, you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. So, I ended up with a book by Katsu.
The Deep is about the Titanic and the Brittannic in two timelines involving, relatively, the same people. The beginning of the book starts with a letter from a father to a sanitorium regarding his missing daughter, Annie Hebley. The doctor, in a rare moment for a physician at the beginning of the century, decides to leave the question unanswered out of respect for the patient’s privacy. Annie has been his patient for years, even though no one thinks anything is wrong with her. Her call to action is a letter from an old friend, one she met on the Titanic, regarding a position of a nurse aboard the once sister of the doomed ship, the Britannic. Encouraged by the hospital, she takes the position.
From there, the timeline switches between the Titanic and the Britannic. Annie, a servant to the first class on the Titanic, integrates herself with the culture and spiritualist conjecture of the rich, becoming entangled within their affairs and fearing their talk of spiritual possession. She also meets the husband of a wealthy woman and creeps on him for a bit, while everything else melts down on the ship and the inevitable happens.
That’s pretty much what happens on the Britannic as well. The man, who Annie was sure died on the Titanic, shows up as a wounded soldier on her new boat and having learned zero manners in the years since the disaster, she creeps on him some more and tells him of all the sexy things they did together. Of course, he remembers none of it. There’s a whole reason for it, and we already know the Britannic sank too. Chick is 0/2.
The Hunger also deals with a historical event, the Donner Party. I don’t think I have to rehash 90% of that. People go west. Rich people make poor leadership decisions. They get caught in the snow and start eating each other because long pork is better than dying of starvation. Except this time, the party is being pursued by something that likes eating everything below the skull of little kids, some people are acting bizarre and attacking others, and some of the more prominent historical figures (Tamsen Donner) may be witches or psychics or mediums or whatever.
I feel like I should like these books. I like history. I like ghosts. Hell, I even like the whole mysterious, possible-cryptid eating people. And yet, there’s something a little too precious for me in her writing, even as she describes cannibalism and vengeful spirits. And maybe I’ll still read her other stuff, because I have a morbid fascination with confirmation of trends and an abiding love of being happily surprised. It’s why I did a deepdive into Hester Fox, and despite never finding a deep appreciation for Fox’s work, I at least settled into a familiarity with it. I know I’ll pick up her newish one about the internment camps, even if her romantic-specific historic peeps-paranormal is kind of a little too…prissy? For me, at least, though I recognize that it’s a viable style and format for a lot of other readers so I still want to support the work.
Would I Read it Again?: No. The style isn’t my jam. I (probably) keep throwing myself at whatever else she publishes, but I don’t think I’ll be doing any rereads of old material.
Rating: A solid 3, and The Hunger pulled The Deep kicking and screaming there. Like I said, this is definitely for somebody, and it’s okay for whoever that person is. I have some weird issues around rewriting actual events, especially when they were such awful tragedies for those involved, but that’s my spider-filled brain trying to wrap itself around historical theory and how malleable it can be in fiction.
Two Sentence Reviews
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers: 4.5. Dex, a tea monk, seeks meaning and purpose from a life that always seems slightly off; they leave their known world, meet up with a robot, and make you ask more existential questions than such a quaint feeling novella should. I didn’t think I would like this book when I first started reading it, but I absolutely loved it in the end.
Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo: 3.5. Galaxy Stern can see and speak to the dead, and managed to send her would-be boyfriend to hell; now, she has a gentleman demon, a plot against her beloved Yale secret society, and an open portal to hell somewhere, OMG. I enjoyed The Ninth House, despite some concerns about a few of the plot points, and this hits the same spot of being entertaining while not dragging itself down in complicated side quest prose.
Fairy Tale by Stephen King: 1. Boy meets old man and dog, old man has lots of gold from a secret kingdom under his shed, boy enters kingdom, and boy saves it. Man, I couldn’t even dedicate a long entry to this since I hated it so much; it’s tropey BS with a white, male saviour, and I hoped it was satire when he only became whiter and more saviour-y, but I’m just not sure about anything anymore in this upside down world.
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
There’s nothing quite like the bitter cold and pitch-black nights to really set the horror at a 10, is there? For me, the first introduction was “The Thing” followed by the X-files episode “Ice.” The frozen parts of our world hide a multitude of mysteries and more than a few sins, and desolation is nearly as terrifying as the things that make use of such isolated places and people. Dark Matter plays on all of that: the desires we hide, the darkness that threatens us with oblivion, and the things that lurch and crawl when the night never ends and secrets are easily hidden beneath the ice.
It’s almost 1940, and Jack Miller is seeking a change. He’s been through it in the past couple of years, and all he wants is a place where he feels he’ll be useful and appreciated. Fortunately, he’s not terrible at being a wireless operator. Unfortunately, his pick for an arctic expedition to study weather patterns might be his reach exceeding his grasp, because holy shit, does that expedition break him in every possible way.
His first issue is the class divide between him and his comrades. Adventuring then (and now) is a rich man’s hobby, and Jack is far from the moneyed aristocracy who can typically afford all the things a team needs to luxuriate in an environment otherwise whole-ass in on the scarcity. He lets these differences pass when it comes to his friend Gus, but finds them pompous when handled in almost the exact same way by another adventurer. Part of that pass he gives Gus is he’s got it pretty bad for the golden boy of the expedition and the lack of such things for Albie (not his favourite) is how the richer man hinders said affections from developing naturally.
His second issue is that the Arctic is not a fucking playground. It’s the kind of cold that kills an unprepared man before they even know they’re dead. The ice in the bay keeps people from going in and out, and an accident when it’s frozen over means death. The days are short, then non-existent, submerging Jack in an intense darkness where time and space lose all meaning to him. The old money he travels with might find all of this some sort of bonanza of scientific exploration, but even they are brought back to reality when Gus suffers an infection that forces him and Albie back to the known world, leaving Jack by himself to develop unchecked mental health issues.
Jack’s third issue is the haints. Maybe Jack would have paid attention to the red flag from the captain of the ship that escorts them to Gruhuken— it’s a cursed place with a dark history— if he weren’t so mad about the sled dogs or Albie. Miners used to inhabit the location, and something dark lingered long after they left. Jack first starts encountering this “memory” while there is still daylight to be had, but it starts pursuing him more wholeheartedly when Jack is left alone due to the medical emergency. Then the daylight gives out to 24 hours of dark and darker.
I loved this book. Despite Jack telling us the story through his journal entries, atmosphere becomes another narrator, and the Arctic is fucking terrifying. These men framed it as an adventure, but really it’s worse than any of the ghosts that might remain. It tells its own blood-soaked stories in the extremes it forces humans to endure and enact. For every bit I thought Wakenhyrst was a bit droll with its exposition, the slow burn of this was like freezing to death under the eyes of past horrors, and that is such a beautiful kind of dawning horror to feel as a reader.
Would I Read it Again?: Gods yes. I’ve recommended it to several people, but trying to get my family to read my recommendations is like pulling teeth, especially since my tastes are super weird. This feels like a book where you pick up more context each and every time, where the reveal doesn’t spoil anything because it’s not the horror part of the story.
Rating: 4.5. It is a slow burn, and I think a lot of people might get turned off based on that, especially if they are looking for high drama all of the time. However, that burn is built into the narrative, and it’s appropriate here. If it were faster paced, it would lose some of the “chipping away at your sanity” that’s the point of the whole thing.
Two Sentence Book Reviews
The TL;DR for the past two weeks:
Respiratory Infection: 1
Me: 0
Road of Bones by Christopher Golden: 3.5. While making a documentary about ghosts on the Kolyma Highway— a Siberian highway built by people whose same bones form its foundation the process of creating it— Teig and his filmographer buddy travel to the northernmost point and spend the rest of the book running away from what they find there and its manifestations within their immediate circle. The middle part, the part that’s supposed to be the exciting chase, drags on a bit since there’s only so much of “bad shit is coming for us right now” a person can take before you want an actual climax; however, it’s an interesting take with a basis in folklore rather than a haunting.
No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill: 3.5. Our heroine is down on her luck, especially when it comes to boarding houses with more than one murder, a crazy god in the basement, and her male neighbours just being utter creepers. I had watched the movie, which does hit differently due to its focus on the diaspora of immigrants, the themes of old gods doing brutal shit holds true; the ending on this was on par with The Reddening for me and the building tension of random weird shit happening fit Nevill’s slapdashing-creepy-shit-everywhere style more than a lot of his stories do.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean: 4. Devon is a rarity in her world, a female book eater— a species that absorbs knowledge through eating books— and she’s passed around accordingly as a broodmare, at least until she gives birth to a son who doesn’t consume pages, but brains, memories, and personalities; past trauma leads her on a quest to save her tiny serial killer child from the rest of her “family.” This wasn’t a super complicated story in terms of language, but it’s a novel approach on vampirism and the obtainment of knowledge, whether humane or brutal; man, though, it gets an extra point just for world building as that’s where it really shined.
Duma Key by Stephen King
Duma Key is one of my favorite books from Stephen King. I’m not sure why, since much of the wooj is in the background and back loaded in the last chapters of the book, which typically means he relies heavily on the characterization and description. Which, one he does well even if it’s not exactly terse and the latter… I don’t need that kind of in-depth information about anyone’s nipples, IT.
Duma Key is about Edgar Freemantle, a man left broken physically, mentally, and spiritually by an accident at his construction business. To begin his second life, he travels to stay in Florida, at the old beachfront property known as “Big Pink.” There, he returns the hobby of painting, and that renewed passion for art brings him in contact with Sarasota’s elite; a illness-stricken old woman and her damaged carekeeper, both also in their second life; and a terribly, old consciousness hungry for death. Edgar also receives some supernatural side effects that leave him curious for what the island’s capabilities.
I, obviously, love this book. Though a slow build to the end, it’s one of those times when Stephen King’s love of description really works: he creates a claustrophobic, almost jungle-like atmosphere filled with strange ghosts and stranger history for the new artist seeing all of it for the first time. In a book about art, it doesn’t seem like a sometimes inappropriate drag. On the other hand, if you’re reading a book like this for frequent scares that keep your heart pounding, it’s not going to work. This one takes its time wrapping you strangle fig.
Would I Read it Again?: I’ve read this book numerous times. I’m even working on some art for it, if I ever manage to do more than sleep for days on end.
Rating: 4. Maybe a 4.5. I’ve got to be real here, despite my love of this book. Sometimes it dwells too long on the atmosphere, even for someone used to Stephen King. Despite how much I love something, I try to insert some objectiveness into things.
The Wuthering Cephalopod 