I love We Sold Our Souls so much that returning it to the library is going to cause me physical pain. Many a shitty day has come and gone, but I have persisted fueled largely by the words, “She didn’t worry, she didn’t smile, she didn’t feel out of place. A girl with a guitar never has to apologize for anything.” Hell yeah. Our story begins with Kris Polaski, who was once the lead guitarist … Continue reading We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix
Halloween is just around the corner and it’s my favorite time of year. I love kids getting to dress up as adorable pumpkins or superheroes, my getting to buy bulk Reese Peanut Butter Cups and pretend like they’re for trick or treaters when the bag is totally going in my freezer, and my reading all of the spooky books and movies that get released. The Witch of Willow Hall immediately caught my eye with its … Continue reading The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox
I have been spending this year giving presentations on, and writing about, Mary Shelley, and when I haven’t been doing that I’ve been giving presentations about Jane Austen. Thus I was thrilled that the book Pride and Prometheus was coming out. I didn’t even read the book description. I just looked at the cover and thought: “This will fix everything.” Frankenstein, the novel by Mary Shelley, does not end well. The estimated body count comes … Continue reading Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel
I’m back with another Keeper Shelf squee! If you missed my first one, I talked about my deep love of Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen and how it tapped into my feelings about how people might view me in relation to both my own and my mother’s mental illness. While Garden Spells has magic, yummy descriptions of food, and small town gossip, we’re about to a one-eighty on this bad boy because my next … Continue reading Keeper Shelf: Feed by Mira Grant
When Elyse and I heard about a horror novel with bloodthirsty mermaids, our wonder twin powers activated like never before. Yes, that’s right: killer mermaids. The majority of the book takes place in the near future in 2022. Seven years prior, Imagine Entertainment (think another Syfy Channel) bankrolled a “mockumentary” out to the Mariana Trench. The ship contained journalists, researchers, and the like to investigate whether mermaids were real. The ship was found abandoned with … Continue reading Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Once again I’ve gotten sucked into a book that, had I known what I was getting into, I never would have read. Nevertheless, I found myself riveted by its offbeat, Weird-Western-Meets-Dickens-Gothic-Horror atmosphere. This is not a romance but may be of interest to those who love the legend behind Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House. For non-fiction about Sarah Winchester, try the biography Captive of the Labyrinth by Mary Jo Ignoffo. Trigger warnings abound, … Continue reading There Is No Lovely End by Patty Templeton
If you are pining for 1980s tribute fare like Stranger Things, and you love books that focus on friendships between women, and you can tolerate some gross content, then I highly recommend My Best Friend’s Exorcism. It is not a romance, but it does have a great, though platonic, love story between two teenage girls who battle occult forces in 1988. And yes, the paperback cover is a perfect facsimile of a beat-up VHS tape. … Continue reading My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
At our podcast live recording at the RT Convention, someone stated that there is a book called Amish Vampires in Space. Clearly, one of us was going to have to read this, and that someone was me. I was fully prepared to mock it to the heavens, but it turned out to be good – in a serious way, not as a parody. I’m very confused by this. My world is rocked. According to the … Continue reading Amish Vampires in Space by Kerry Nietz
Winter Tide is the first novel in the Innsmouth Legacy series (it was preceded by a novella, The Litany of Earth). It’s one of a wave of recent books that re-imagines the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft in a feminist and otherwise inclusive and progressive light. It’s probably possible to enjoy this book without knowing anything about its inspiration, but here’s a refresher on the original Innsmouth story. “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” was written by H.P. … Continue reading Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
Brimstone is a wonderful and scary story from Cherie Priest which combines themes of history, love, and destruction. Alice is a young woman who is a clairvoyant. She travels to the community of Cassadaga in Florida – a real place that was, and remains, a community for spiritualists. Alice has visions of fire and a malevolent force. Meanwhile, Tomás Cordero, a veteran of WWI and resident of Cassadaga, believes that his late wife is leaving messages for … Continue reading Brimstone by Cherie Priest
H.P. Lovecraft was an incredibly influential writer of horror. He’s most famous for creating the Cthulhu Mythos, which involves a network of Gods that are utterly indifferent to the affairs of humanity. And as we’ve mentioned in other reviews, Lovecraft was, alas, incredibly racist even by the standards of his day. Since he lived from 1890 – 1937, that’s really saying something. He wasn’t keen on women either, and they seldom appear in his stories … Continue reading The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
