Wednesday, February 12, 2025

A Wolf Steps in Blood by Tamara Jerée

There is something so old-fashioned about this book that makes me think of the 90s grunge horror novels I used to love, by authors like Annette Curtis Klause and Kathe Koja and Tanith Lee. A WOLF STEPS IN BLOOD is a queer werewolf romance between a wolf and the blood witch who loves her. I loved the mythology, and the way that Black identity was interwoven into the story, as well as the way that sex was portrayed as this beautiful, primeval thing. Shiloh Sloane did the same thing with THEN, EARTH SWALLOWED OCEAN, and I think readers who loved the feral violence of that book will love this.

This book was more character-driven than it was focused on plot, which is not my personal preference, but works here because the characters are both interesting and complex and it's fun to see them falling in love. I was kind of hoping for more of the lore, or a twist involving the witch's blessing that made the wolves shape-changers in the first place, and also maybe reasons about why some of the wolves choose to live as wolves rather than humans. The ending was also a little abrupt and left me wanting more. I hope this author explores more of this world they built. They're very talented. 

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Gothictown by Emily Carpenter

Emily Carpenter is an auto-buy author for me. At this point, I've read almost all of her books, but my favorites are EVERY SINGLE SECRET and THE WEIGHT OF LIES. Probably because they both have a distinctly gothic flavor and gothic is literally my favorite subgenre of mystery/thriller fiction. When I found out she was writing a new book called GOTHICTOWN, I was so excited. And I didn't find out through an announcement like a normal person, mind. I was going through her Goodreads bio like a total stalker, asking myself, "What's Emily up to, these days?" 

I have been tracking this book before it even had a cover.

When my begging and pleading for an ARC was rewarded, I started reading this book IMMEDIATELY. And I loved it so much because it was a laundry list of all my favorite tropes: folk horror, is the house haunted or are we actually going mad?, sinister founding families, dark legacies, hot bad guys, cursed towns, and murrrrdurrrr. I also really liked the heroine, Billie. The author struck a nice balance between showing her as a mom but also as a messy whole-ass person who sometimes messes up because she's only human. 

Also the ending? *chef's kiss* satisfying (pun intended)

I would recommend this to readers who really enjoyed the two other Emily Carpenter books I've read, as well as Starlings by Amanda Linsmeier, Roanoke Girls and The Familiar Dark by Amy Engle, and Watch the Girls by Jennifer Wolfe. The creepy small town vibes were IMMACULATE and so was the flawed FMC. If this book is indicative of the direction of Carpenter's future projects, I want on this ride.

One reading note: the prologue does kind of give you a heavy hint about what's really going on, so if you're one of those readers who prefers NO SPOILERS of ANY KIND because you prefer to guess yourself, skip the prologue and read it as an epilogue instead. You'll be more surprised.

Thanks to the publisher/author for sending me a copy!

5 out of 5 stars

Thursday, January 30, 2025

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

I have never watched The Silver Linings Playbook and had no idea what it was about, except that it was a sort of romance between two mentally ill people who are more than they appear, and that there's a very popular clip from the movie of Pat throwing a book out the window. So with those two pieces of knowledge, I dove in.

Pat is from a New Jersey town with a working class father and a stay-at-home mother. He has just returned from The Bad Place, or a psychiatric facility, and he is not 100% sure why he was sent there or how long that it's been. He thinks that his life is a movie being produced by God (a romance, specifically, it seems) and he seems to feel that it's high time he got the happy ending that is his due, specifically being reunited with his estranged wife, Nikki.

This book kind of reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in the sense that the hero's mental illness makes him an unreliable narrator in his own story and you kind of have to sift through the pieces to figure out the reality of what's really going on. I also feel like it takes a very sensationalized look at mental illness and there's an almost childlike element to the narration, which often makes the hero feel closer to a teenager than his actual age (thirty-five).

I did ultimately like this book. I especially liked Tiffany, the love interest, who has her own problems. She's a difficult heroine and at times she almost but not quite feels like a manic pixie dreamgirl. I like that the author sidestepped this too-easy trope by giving her agency and her own backstory and some, honestly heartbreaking, motivations for behaving the way she does. That said, I'm not sure this is a book I'd recommend to everyone, as the hero is "unlikable" and does some things that are very uncomfortable and sometimes pretty cruel, even though the book provides context for why he does them. It's not a particularly happy book but it does have a happy ending and by the end, I cared about these characters a lot.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

The Ideal Countess by Katherine Grant

I got this during a SYKD event and I am so glad I did because I've been seeing Katherine Grant advertising her books in my feed for ages but hadn't taken the time to pick one up. I love her writing style, it's so accessible and very Bridgerton-coded, with difficult heroines and swoon-worthy heroes. I loved that Hugh was neurodivergent coded and that Alice was kind of flighty. Even though it frustrated me how she didn't fall for the hero right away like I did, I understood that she was young and vulnerable-- who hasn't made mistakes in youth?

Definitely recommend this for readers who are looking for charming historical romances by underrated authors that have plenty of drama to keep you turning pages but not so many stakes that it becomes stressful.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Tenderly, I Am Devoured by Lyndall Clipstone

This book has elements of The Six Swans, Hades x Persephone, and The Secret History, which a dash of co-dependent queer relationships and culty chthonic hijinks. The writing itself feels very 2000s fantasy, reminiscent of authors like Sherwood Smith, Maria V. Snyder, Patricia McKillip, and Juliet Marillier, so even though it's a recent work, something about it feels very wistful and nostalgic, kind of like a Hayao Miyazaki movie or an old-fashioned British boarding school.

I don't want to say too much since this book is not out yet, but the heroine, Lark, comes from a poor salt-mining family and after witnessing a ritual that she shouldn't, she ends up bargaining herself as a bride to the local swan god of the underworld. We also learn that she's been booted from her boarding school for reasons that aren't quite clear, and for also unclear reasons, she's at odds with the two beautiful rich children that her family is semi-indentured to even though they used to be childhood friends.

TENDERLY, I AM DEVOURED is a short gothic masterpiece that manages to accomplish a lot of story and depth of feeling in a limited page time. It never fully went where I expected it to go, and usually that was a good thing. There were a few characters I personally felt needed to be stabbed who were not stabbed, but hey, you win some, you lose some. At the very least, this book lived up to his coming-of-age promises and obsessive throuple.

Cut to me chasing down everything this author has written because I love the vibe.

Thanks to the author/publisher for sending me a copy! 

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

This was like a YA version of The Walking Dead and I thought it was brilliantly done. The way the community was portrayed, the rules they had to follow for safety, and the economy that revolved around trading and bounty hunting was a really creative and interesting take on the zombie dystopian formula. Especially since, like a lot of zombie horror media, we find out that humans can be the worst monsters.

Brothers Benny and Tom really stole the show, and I liked Benny's character arc as he went from unlikable and petty boy to a teenager who was starting to become more like the adult he would one day be. His grown brother, Tom, was probably my favorite character, and like a lot of the female characters, I kind of had a bit of a crush on him.

The female characters on this book were less interesting and less fleshed out. They weren't bad, exactly, but none of them were particularly interesting and they tended to either fawn over the male characters or end up as collateral. Even The Lost Girl, the female bounty hunter, often ends up a casualty to the male gaze.

That said, this was entertaining from start to finish and I was excited to see how it would go down. Jonathan Maberry is a very talented story teller and I'm excited to read further into this series.

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

I got KNOCK KNOCK, OPEN WIDE off of the suggested reading list on Amazon for a sapphic horror novel I had really enjoyed. And I really enjoyed this one, too. I should have reviewed it when I finished it two days ago, but to be honest, I kind of wanted to dwell on it for a while because the vibes were so immaculate. This blends together Satanic horror, Irish folklore, and the creepiness of children's television shows perfectly, and it's set primarily in the 90s and 2000s, and honestly feels like it could have been written then, too. There's a major Clive Barker/Kathe Koja feel to this book that I loved.

I honestly don't want to say too much more because I don't want to spoil the book, but if you like difficult heroines, sapphic horror, creepy Celtic folklore, and dual timeline thrillers, you'll probably enjoy KNOCK KNOCK, OPEN WIDE. It was brilliantly done and I was never fully sure where it was going to go or how all of the pieces were going to connect. I was not disappointed in the slightest by the answer.

4.5 out of 5 stars