Amalia Gkavea

‘’They were at once victims and murderers, companions and enemies, two hybrid beings incapable of giving a name to their loyalties. They were excommunicated; two worshippers who could no longer pray in any church and whose god was a secret god, a private god whose name they didn’t even know.’’

There are different kinds of bravery.

The bravery of soldiers who went to war to liberate the world from oppression. The bravery of revolutionaries who broke the shackles around the wrists of their homeland. And then, the quieter, more perilous bravery of women—women who abandoned everything familiar to follow their heart, to chase a dream rooted in a strange kind of love. A love between strangers, tethered to opposite faiths, opposite worlds, is no romantic walk in the park. It is a war within a war—one that no one speaks of. And that kind of “love” often becomes a form of oppression all its own. When you can’t see it, you’re not brave. You’re either a fool or a willing blind who puts children in danger because you once had an itch to scratch.

When you follow a handsome soldier, when you leave France for Morocco in one of its most volatile moments, when your faith and your sense of self are stripped threadbare—how can you convince any reader that you still have a trace of reason left in your head?

Easily. You are in love. That’s all that matters.

That’s Mathilde’s story.

‘’In the evenings, when she’d been picked up from school, her mother’s car would drive along the country roads, the lights of the city would fade behind them, and they would enter an opaque, dangerous world. The car moved through darkness like someone entering a cave or sinking into quicksand. On moonless nights, they couldn’t even see the thick silhouettes of the cypresses or the haystacks. The blackness swallowed up everything. Aicha held her breath. She muttered Our Fathers, Hail Marys. She thought about Jesus, who had been through such terrible sufferings, and she repeated to herself: I could never do that.’’

From the very first page, the theme of loneliness and isolation becomes evident. Primarily seen through the eyes of the women -since men are the ones who wish to dictate everyone’s fates in the story - the remoteness of Amine’s farm becomes a metaphor for Mathilde’s own isolation. In a crucible of faiths and cultures, you are lonelier than ever. How can you not feel lonely when every circumstance may turn against you? You do good? You are viewed with suspicion. You do nothing? You are reviled, an accomplish, an enemy. How can you play the game when all hands have been dealt?

With isolation comes the question of belonging. An issue that has to be faced by Amine and Mathilde alike. For Amine, belonging is having a land you can call your own. A few acres that cannot be claimed by the colonisers nor by the rebels. But how can she belong? How can her children belong? The offspring of two faiths, two opposing cultures, two opposing nations? The answer may come through Aicha, the brilliant little girl of theirs. She shows that the world may bully you, but God is always there for you. And I find the fact that Amine wished his daughter to be raised as a Christian truly remarkable, despite his occasional tantrums. Aicha shows everyone that it is better to become a ‘fanatic Christian’ than a common whore. She shows that you don’t need to pretend, to become a coward to save your life. You stand by your faith. Yes, you make sacrifices when you follow your heart, but if you end up renouncing your principles, you pay the price. And the price might be your soul. Then you become weak, not brave. Is any man worth such a sacrifice? I can’t give you the answer, I’m afraid, but I KNOW that I would never renounce my faith even for pretention’s sake…

And what about the isolation you feel within your own country? Your land is conquered, divided and sold to the highest bidder, and you need to sweat and bleed for a few meters of soil you can call your own. You are forbidden to speak your own language, you have no right to buy a first-class ticket even if you have the money to because the ‘ladies’ don’t want their space to be contaminated by the natives.

And have you ever wondered why in every case of regimes, the women of the enemy are those who behave in the most oppressive, despicable way towards the other women? So much for female camaraderie, eh? However, the occupied aren’t dissuaded from buying slaves for their estate, so life walks in ever-lasting circles….To the French, you are a traitor. To the Moroccans, you are the enemy, and vice versa. Instead of serving the oath they have given, doctors resent children who are the fruit of the union between a Christian and a Muslim.

‘’So, all this time, they’d just pretended to stop being savages…’’

And this is how violence is bred. Mix it with gender bias, the natural tendency of Muslims to disrespect women (especially Christian women…) because hey, we can’t change what Muhammed decreed, right? You get a nuclear bomb. This is Mathilde’s life, ladies and gentlemen. But in Slimani’s beautiful story, not all Muslim men are pigs like the ones who attack women and children in their cars. Pigs who beat their sisters. She doesn’t shy away from mentioning the infernal treatment of Christians at the hands of Muslims, as she doesn’t shy away from exposing the racism of the Christian French colonialists towards the Muslim locals. In addition, Muslims are murdering Jews, they are attacking Christians. There is a fine line between fighting for freedom and becoming a butcher, and in the story -as in History - the line has been crossed irreversibly. Too many times. And yet, no one speaks. Out of fear? Out of hatred towards the Jews and the Christians? Who knows?

BUT! There are those of us who do speak and who refuse to keep silent. And that’s a story for another time…

‘’She’d have stuffed those words back down her throat. She’d have returned all those blows that she’d received throughout her life. As an insolent little girl, as a lustful teenager, as a disobedient wife, she’d been slapped and bullied many times by angry men who wanted to turn her into a respectable woman. Those two young women would have paid for the life of domestication that Mathilde had endured.’’

Mathilde and Amine’s relationship is complex, powerful, full of lust and violence, and love. Contradictions? Naturally! They are a couple formed by contradictions. That’s why I love both of them, even though they are actually two weird human beings. In Slimani’s writing, sensuality and sexuality are done right. Mathilde is a woman deeply connected to her sexuality and desires. Amine is a force of nature - in every way, let me tell you…- and it was strange because despite his occasional questionable actions, he is fascinating, intriguing and super sexy (and that’s me NOT being professional now…) However, can the fact that a man makes all hot inside and outside balance the silence? The cultural gap? How can a marriage survive on silence? On ferocity alone and hot sex? The fact that they love each other is undeniable. Theirs is a complex dynamic and the heart of this fascinating novel. Perhaps only two people who love each other with such force and violence can find common ground when they come from two utterly opposing worlds. In the end, when the world burns, they only have each other.

Yes, that’s me being sentimental. I regret nothing.

Slimani’s writing is astonishing. I have read all of her works but Adele and Lullaby, though good and memorable, can’t hold a candle to this novel, the first in a trilogy. Morocco jumps from the pages, the tensions, the cultural implications, the careful dialogue, the lively descriptions. She creates scenes where sensuality and violence mix in the most beautifully twisted kind of antithesis, and tranquil scenes of summer bliss amidst the flames. I can’t find a single, teeny-tiny fault in this novel. It is perfect.

In the end, in the era the story is set - during the 1950s - I felt there are two great questions: We have a land that hasn’t lost connection with its past, where you can relive almost Biblical scenes in every step. But what about the future? And what future can there be for two souls that love each other fiercely, but the gap between them seems like a deep chasm?

‘’That’s how things are.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

There are bad books. There are offensive books. And then there are books so drenched in ignorance, arrogance, and faux spiritualism that they leave you wondering how they were published in the first place.

The Day After His Crucifixion is marketed as a deeply moving spiritual novel, one that gives voice to the women around Christ in the immediate aftermath of His death. What it delivers instead is a theologically void, historically inaccurate, and emotionally tone-deaf mess—wrapped in clumsy dialogue and dressed up as empowerment.

Let’s begin with the most outrageous omission: the complete absence of the Virgin Mary.

In a story set in the wake of the Crucifixion—a moment that shattered her maternal heart and crowned her with the silent dignity of suffering—the fact that she is not even a presence, a shadow, a thought, is not just an oversight. It is spiritual illiteracy.

How can anyone claim to speak of Christ’s final hours and exclude the woman who brought Him into the world? Who stood at the foot of the Cross? Who carried the unbearable weight of grief, faith, and maternal love?

This omission is not artistic—it is disgraceful.

And it doesn’t end there.

The author rewrites Gospel timelines, most egregiously by having Lazarus resurrected before Jairus’s daughter. A careless error—one that no writer dabbling in sacred ground should dare to make.

The women in the novel are not empowered—they are preachy, shallow avatars for the author’s personal ideology. Their frequent snide commentary about the Holy Apostles is disrespectful, not bold. This isn’t reclamation. It’s revisionist posturing with no theological backbone.

The characters speak like they’re moderating a women’s retreat in 2024, not grieving the death of Christ in 1st-century Judea. There’s no reverence, no atmosphere, no spiritual rhythm.

And finally, just when the book couldn’t get more disappointing, I received an unsolicited email from the author herself, asking me to leave “a few good words” or “at least 5 stars” because she “poured her heart into it” and “paid a lot” to make it free on NetGalley.

Let me be absolutely clear:

I do not review with pity. I do not reward theological cosplay. And I certainly do not offer stars in exchange for guilt.

This book is not a tribute to Christ. It’s a vanity project masquerading as devotion.

It offends the faith it pretends to honour.

It silences the most powerful woman in the story.

And it insults the intelligence of every reader who takes Scripture seriously.

I do not recommend it. Not for Christians. Not for historical fiction lovers. Not for anyone who values truth.

Let it be forgotten.

‘’The banshee and the headless coach, phantom dogs and fearsome black cats, shadowy figures flitting alongthe dim corridors of old houses, gentle ladies that glide at midnight down gracious staircases, strange death warnings, unaccounted sounds in the dark in the secret recesses of storied castles…such are the ghosts of Ireland, an integral part of her tradition and her atmosphere.’’

John J. Dunne

A phantom black dog, howling in winter nights. A land cursed by a scorned woman, foxes that mysteriously appear to signal a death in a family, peculiar old men who seem to live in the graveyard. The ghost of a bishop appears in Marsh’s Library, searching for a note, a black cat appears in Hell Fire Club, one of the places where the Devil is sure to reside, waiting for a phantom piper with hooves instead of feet. In Killyleagh, a wealthy lady managed to appease the butcher who answered to the name ‘Oliver Cromwell, and a lovely woman in blue mysteriously haunted what is now a chapel in Ards peninsula.

In Ireland, ghosts attend Mass in silence. They linger in the Liberties of Dublin. Some are exorcised; others return—brothers crossing back from the veil to visit their sisters. Or to kill them. In Skryne, noble phantoms and Victorian spectres have made their home. In Glencairn, girls’ hearts lie forgotten in caskets tucked away in attic dust. Phantom pigs terrorise weary working girls. In Kilkea Castle, wizards lie in eternal sleep. Haunted colleges. Alleys where the shadow of Jonathan Swift still walks. St. Stephen’s Green plays host to the spirits of long-gone cats and dogs. Heartbroken girls find no rest as their lovers fall—victims of fate, or the cruelty of a father’s hand.

Men in dark cloaks. Shiny boys. The Devil himself, disguised, leaving his mark scorched into the hearthstone. A flighty girl, shamed and guilt-stricken, takes her life and returns as a mourning deer, watching from the woods. Phantom hearses, headless horses, leering faces at the windowpane. Footsteps echo where no one walks. Doors creak open of their own accord. In Ireland, even the gardens and the farmyards are haunted.

The faded photographs of a time long gone and the quiet musings of the writer in the margins make this haunted journey unforgettable. The book itself — written in 1977, passed through an Irish bookshop in Galway, still bearing the Staffordshire County Library stamp dated May 3rd, 1978 — is a ghost in its own right. A fragile portal into the past.

Ireland. A land where even the dead are unlike any others.

‘’The foregoing are merely random examples of the countless ghost stories to be found all around Ireland, in the tall old houses of Dublin’s history-soaked streets, in the rambling, grandiose mansions half lost in ancient walled demesnes that survive still in their hundreds throughout the countryside, in all sorts of odd corners here and there in a land particularly rich in folklore and where passion and emotion have throbbed strongly always.

Strongly enough, few will question, to leave their vibrations.’’

John J. Dunne

‘’The banshee and the headless coach, phantom dogs and fearsome black cats, shadowy figures flitting alongthe dim corridors of old houses, gentle ladies that glide at midnight down gracious staircases, strange death warnings, unaccounted sounds in the dark in the secret recesses of storied castles…such are the ghosts of Ireland, an integral part of her tradition and her atmosphere.’’

John J. Dunne

A phantom black dog, howling in winter nights. A land cursed by a scorned woman, foxes that mysteriously appear to signal a death in a family, peculiar old men who seem to live in the graveyard. The ghost of a bishop appears in Marsh’s Library, searching for a note, a black cat appears in Hell Fire Club, one of the places where the Devil is sure to reside, waiting for a phantom piper with hooves instead of feet. In Killyleagh, a wealthy lady managed to appease the butcher who answered to the name ‘Oliver Cromwell, and a lovely woman in blue mysteriously haunted what is now a chapel in Ards peninsula.

In Ireland, ghosts attend Mass in silence. They linger in the Liberties of Dublin. Some are exorcised; others return—brothers crossing back from the veil to visit their sisters. Or to kill them. In Skryne, noble phantoms and Victorian spectres have made their home. In Glencairn, girls’ hearts lie forgotten in caskets tucked away in attic dust. Phantom pigs terrorise weary working girls. In Kilkea Castle, wizards lie in eternal sleep. Haunted colleges. Alleys where the shadow of Jonathan Swift still walks. St. Stephen’s Green plays host to the spirits of long-gone cats and dogs. Heartbroken girls find no rest as their lovers fall—victims of fate, or the cruelty of a father’s hand.

Men in dark cloaks. Shiny boys. The Devil himself, disguised, leaving his mark scorched into the hearthstone. A flighty girl, shamed and guilt-stricken, takes her life and returns as a mourning deer, watching from the woods. Phantom hearses, headless horses, leering faces at the windowpane. Footsteps echo where no one walks. Doors creak open of their own accord. In Ireland, even the gardens and the farmyards are haunted.

The faded photographs of a time long gone and the quiet musings of the writer in the margins make this haunted journey unforgettable. The book itself — written in 1977, passed through an Irish bookshop in Galway, still bearing the Staffordshire County Library stamp dated May 3rd, 1978 — is a ghost in its own right. A fragile portal into the past.

Ireland. A land where even the dead are unlike any others.

‘’The foregoing are merely random examples of the countless ghost stories to be found all around Ireland, in the tall old houses of Dublin’s history-soaked streets, in the rambling, grandiose mansions half lost in ancient walled demesnes that survive still in their hundreds throughout the countryside, in all sorts of odd corners here and there in a land particularly rich in folklore and where passion and emotion have throbbed strongly always.

Strongly enough, few will question, to leave their vibrations.’’

John J. Dunne

‘’Madness scares you, it distracts you, but you have to look at it closely.’’

I have read Samanta Schweblin’s work extensively, and each time, I’m struck anew by the power of her writing. In just ten to twenty pages, she constructs riddles—quiet, contained, yet charged with emotional and psychological weight—that can spark hours of discussion. She transforms the mundane into the disturbing, turning everyday encounters into moments of quiet terror. If Fernanda Melchor tests the limits of your sanity with supernatural dread bleeding into reality, Schweblin does the opposite: she takes familiar relationships and recognisable emotions and quietly corrupts them. She invites you to reconsider what it means to age, to belong, to parent, to survive in a world where madness spreads silently, like an infection you didn’t know you were carrying.

The new collection, Good and Evil and Other Stories, published in 2025, continues her exploration of psychological fragility with chilling precision. The stories are brief but relentless. They don’t rely on overt horror or shock—they work like whispers at the edge of your mind, asking unsettling questions in deceptively ordinary settings.

‘’Mommy, are you happy?’’

Welcome to the Club: The story opens with a woman’s failed suicide attempt. What becomes immediately clear is that she is deeply depressed—but why? What has driven her to make a decision that would leave her two daughters without a mother? And who is the strange neighbour, the Hunter, who seems to know everything about her?

A story that raises a million questions and deliberately leaves the answers to the reader.

A Fabulous Animal: Two old friends talk on the phone. One of them is always on the run. The other is dying. After so many years, the only thing that unites them is the death of a boy and a horse…

William in the Window: In a writer’s retreat, two women become friends, sharing their worries about the ones they have left at home. One is afraid her husband will die without her. The other is afraid for her cat and gives little thought to her husband. How do you accept that kind of distance when your own partner is dying of cancer? And what does it mean when a dead animal appears to be watching you?

A quiet tale about the companionship of marriage—or the absence of it—and the human need to cling to whatever anchor life offers

‘’But at night, if the phone rings and my father picks up, no one answers.’’

An Eye in the Throat: Narrated by a precociously bright two-year-old, this is the story of a single moment that leads to the collapse of a family. As is often the case in Schweblin’s fiction, every page holds layers of secrets, instincts, confessions, and quiet mysteries.

One of the saddest stories I’ve ever read—deeply memorable and quietly haunting. A poignant study of a fractured bond between father and son.

‘’And you two?’’, he asked. ‘’What do you do to keep from getting bored?’’

My sister said, ‘’We sneak into other people’s houses.’’

The Woman from Atlantida: The visit of a client takes the narrator back to a summer of her childhood when she and her sister encountered mysterious characters such as a woman poet who seems to be coming from a different time. The story of an unsettling summer, of sisterhood, loneliness and addictions, of the kindness of children, the isolation that comes with age, and the moments of disaster that always find us unaware.

A Visit from the Chief: Unfortunately, this story fell flat for me and made little sense. It follows a troubled 60-year-old woman who can’t seem to decide whether she loves her daughter or resents her, while her mother and another elderly woman engage in bizarre antics at a hospice. Add a repulsive male character to the mix, and you’re left with a disappointing, disjointed narrative.

A weak and confusing ending to an otherwise haunting and incisive collection.

Despite its uneven conclusion, Good and Evil and Other Stories confirms once again Samanta Schweblin’s mastery of the short story form. Her writing is precise, eerie, and emotionally complex—never offering easy answers, but always provoking thought. These stories linger long after the last page, unsettling in the best possible way. For readers drawn to quiet horror, psychological unease, and the emotional fissures of ordinary life, this collection is well worth reading.

‘’Why don’t you talk to me?’’, asked the woman. ‘’Why don’t you ask me things?’’

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

‘’Madness scares you, it distracts you, but you have to look at it closely.’’

I have read Samanta Schweblin’s work extensively, and each time, I’m struck anew by the power of her writing. In just ten to twenty pages, she constructs riddles—quiet, contained, yet charged with emotional and psychological weight—that can spark hours of discussion. She transforms the mundane into the disturbing, turning everyday encounters into moments of quiet terror. If Fernanda Melchor tests the limits of your sanity with supernatural dread bleeding into reality, Schweblin does the opposite: she takes familiar relationships and recognisable emotions and quietly corrupts them. She invites you to reconsider what it means to age, to belong, to parent, to survive in a world where madness spreads silently, like an infection you didn’t know you were carrying.

The new collection, Good and Evil and Other Stories, published in 2025, continues her exploration of psychological fragility with chilling precision. The stories are brief but relentless. They don’t rely on overt horror or shock—they work like whispers at the edge of your mind, asking unsettling questions in deceptively ordinary settings.

‘’Mommy, are you happy?’’

Welcome to the Club: The story opens with a woman’s failed suicide attempt. What becomes immediately clear is that she is deeply depressed—but why? What has driven her to make a decision that would leave her two daughters without a mother? And who is the strange neighbour, the Hunter, who seems to know everything about her?

A story that raises a million questions and deliberately leaves the answers to the reader.

A Fabulous Animal: Two old friends talk on the phone. One of them is always on the run. The other is dying. After so many years, the only thing that unites them is the death of a boy and a horse…

William in the Window: In a writer’s retreat, two women become friends, sharing their worries about the ones they have left at home. One is afraid her husband will die without her. The other is afraid for her cat and gives little thought to her husband. How do you accept that kind of distance when your own partner is dying of cancer? And what does it mean when a dead animal appears to be watching you?

A quiet tale about the companionship of marriage—or the absence of it—and the human need to cling to whatever anchor life offers

‘’But at night, if the phone rings and my father picks up, no one answers.’’

An Eye in the Throat: Narrated by a precociously bright two-year-old, this is the story of a single moment that leads to the collapse of a family. As is often the case in Schweblin’s fiction, every page holds layers of secrets, instincts, confessions, and quiet mysteries.

One of the saddest stories I’ve ever read—deeply memorable and quietly haunting. A poignant study of a fractured bond between father and son.

‘’And you two?’’, he asked. ‘’What do you do to keep from getting bored?’’

My sister said, ‘’We sneak into other people’s houses.’’

The Woman from Atlantida: The visit of a client takes the narrator back to a summer of her childhood when she and her sister encountered mysterious characters such as a woman poet who seems to be coming from a different time. The story of an unsettling summer, of sisterhood, loneliness and addictions, of the kindness of children, the isolation that comes with age, and the moments of disaster that always find us unaware.

A Visit from the Chief: Unfortunately, this story fell flat for me and made little sense. It follows a troubled 60-year-old woman who can’t seem to decide whether she loves her daughter or resents her, while her mother and another elderly woman engage in bizarre antics at a hospice. Add a repulsive male character to the mix, and you’re left with a disappointing, disjointed narrative.

A weak and confusing ending to an otherwise haunting and incisive collection.

Despite its uneven conclusion, Good and Evil and Other Stories confirms once again Samanta Schweblin’s mastery of the short story form. Her writing is precise, eerie, and emotionally complex—never offering easy answers, but always provoking thought. These stories linger long after the last page, unsettling in the best possible way. For readers drawn to quiet horror, psychological unease, and the emotional fissures of ordinary life, this collection is well worth reading.

‘’Why don’t you talk to me?’’, asked the woman. ‘’Why don’t you ask me things?’’

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

Strange House by Uketsu opens with a compelling setup: a writer interested in the occult is invited by a friend—an architect named Kurihara—to investigate a strangely constructed home in Tokyo. The house is full of oddities: dead space, unnerving layouts, and a past that refuses to stay buried. As they explore its design and history, they encounter unsettling documents, cryptic floorplans, and a widow whose story deepens the mystery.

The novel’s strength lies in its atmosphere. The writing is eerie and disorienting by design, and the shifting timelines and layered perspectives create a sense of constant unease. It kept my interest throughout, especially during my long commutes—there’s something deeply engaging about the way the story slowly reveals itself, piece by piece.

Where it fell short for me was in the resolution. While the buildup is intriguing and the premise original, some of the final turns didn’t deliver the impact I was hoping for. The novel leans heavily into ambiguity, and though that will appeal to some readers, I found certain plot threads less satisfying than expected.

Still, Strange House is a distinctive and original work of psychological horror. Readers who appreciate open-ended narratives, experimental structure, and stories that blur the line between memory and reality will likely find it rewarding.

Many thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

‘’Twilight, meanwhile, gave place to the first gathering night-the glow worms began to twinkle amid the darkness, and over a high cliff covered with fir trees, that rises out of the lake, gleamed the slender solitary crescent of the new moon. The time had passed away unobserved; but now the owls began to shriek, and the night-hawks burst, flapping their wings, from the covert.

Winter’s long darkness may be mystical and imposing, but summer is equally unsettling. Beneath its dazzling light lie long shadows and sultry evenings that coax even the cautious to lower their guard. Across Europe and beyond, folk calendars confirm this: on Walpurgisnacht, bonfires flare across Germanic hills to keep witches at bay; on Saint John’s Eve, Spaniards leap flames to ward off evil; Scandinavian Midsummer crowns lovers with flowers yet insists a maiden sleeping with seven wild herbs beneath her pillow will dream of her future husband; British folklore warns that foxgloves ring for fairies and that Stonehenge still hums with old blood-rites; and even Obon in Japan welcomes ancestral ghosts with lanterns floating down summer rivers. Such rituals remind us that the sunlit half of the year is as haunted as the dark.

Nothing underscores this better than actress Dulcie Gray’s tart reply to the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley: when he suggested sacrificing her at dawn in a Midsummer rite at Stonehenge, she dismissed him curtly, “I absolutely cannot—I don’t like getting up early.” In short, beneath the laughter and bright garlands, summer remains rich with unease, superstition, and the persistent whisper of things that stir in the light.

The First of May or Walburga’s Night (Caroline Pichler translated by R.P.Gillies):

An undoubtedly atmospheric tale of love, jealousy, obsession and witchcraft, set in a mystical spot of the Swiss Alps. Unfortunately, the language of the story has not aged well; the occasion of Walpurgisnacht wasn’t utilised, and the antagonist of the tale is much more interesting than the anaemic Alice.

The Suitable Surroundings (Ambrose Bierce): In an extremely cryptic story set in Cincinnati, a boy witnesses a man’s distress in the middle of a midsummer’s night, and we are offered a glimpse into the publishing industry and its hunger for horror stories. The ending is outrageously open for interpretation.

A Midsummer Night’s Marriage (J.Meade Falkner): Rich in Gothic atmosphere, this is a tale of travelling back in time in the haunting night of St. John’s Eve, of a doomed love and a broken man. It reminded me of an adult version of The Corpse Bride, a dance macabre between the land of the living and the realm of the dead and Protestant cruelty.

‘’The Spirit is me; I haunt this place!’’

The Looking Glass (Walter de la Mare): A garden that may be haunted becomes the meeting place of Alice and a strange elderly woman who seems to wait for her every afternoon. A very unsettling truth with a touch of Folk Horror and a moving closure…

Midsummer At Stonehenge (F.Britten Austin):

Arguably, the most common image associated with Midsummer’s Day is Stonehenge, one of the most mysterious and enticing wonders made by humans. This tale takes us back to the times of the Children of the Sun. A husband and a wife stand among the crowd that eagerly awaits the sun, enjoying the pleasures of early married life. A beautiful tale that pays homage to the people of the past who shaped History, some of them lost in the mists of time. A story rich in elegance, sensuality and spiritualism.

‘’For Hell has long claimed their hideous god. Long, long he dwelt among the hills, a brain-shattering vestige of an outworn age, but no longer his obscene talons clutch for the souls of living men, and his kingdom is a dead kingdom, peopled only by the ghosts of those who served him in his lifetimes and theirs.’’

The Black Stone (Robert E.Howard): Set in Hungary, this is the tale of an educated, inquisitive man who wants to verify the legends that surround a monolith taking place in Midsummer Night. Magyar Folklore is rather unique in Europe, and the monoliths are universally considered charged constructions. Here, its shadow speaks of barbarism and cruelty, and pure evil with one of the most hair-rising scenes of pagan orgies I have ever read.

‘’The dead may not - must not return!’’

The Withered Heart (G.G.Pendarves): This story paints not a warm, boisterous May but a May night of rain and cold and dark intentions. It is a dark tale of inherited malice and sin, of fighting against the corruption of your soul, of necromancy and pure evil, of the attraction between a spoiled woman and the intellectual who tries to resist his desire. A story that would give Poe a run for his money.

‘’It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said - for it was a night of divination, a night of lovers.’’

May Day Eve (Nick Joaquin): It is May Eve - a seductive, mystic night in which girls perform divinations in front of mirrors to see their future husbands. It is a night of saints and sinners, a night when instead of your husband, you see the Deceiver right behind you…What starts as a sultry Gothic love story acquires a bitter, even tragic aura in the end. Some people are better off away from each other…

The Sale of Midsummer (Joan Aiken): According to a legend, such is the beauty of Midsummer Village that it exists for just three days each year. Two young men set out to find the truth, but each villager provides their own version of the story.

As these tales unfold, each offers a glimpse into the long shadows cast by Midsummer’s light: some rich in folklore and dread, others burdened by dated prose or aimless eclecticism. Taken together, they reveal a landscape of rituals, fears, and desires that stretch across centuries and cultures — proof that under the summer sun, darkness finds countless ways to speak. Yet even as the stories vary in power, one constant remains: the heavy hand of the editor, eager to remind us of his supposed daring and broad-minded curation, while often revealing only his shallow contempt for faith and tradition.

Johnny Mains boasts of being “eclectic to a fault,” but what shines through instead is smugness and the hollow superiority of yet another patronizing atheist who uses his platform to cheapen and sneer at Christianity while hiding behind the guise of inclusive curation. His editorial comments reek of self-congratulation and a fundamental contempt for the intelligence of readers, as if we should applaud every hackneyed line simply because he declares himself a champion of the obscure. Let us be clear: reading thousands of books does not make you a better editor—it makes you an efficient consumer. True discernment comes from respecting your audience and knowing when to shut up about your own tired ideology.

‘’Below him shadows were lengthening second by second, creeping across moor and marsh and up the sides of hills like vast grey ghosts. Standing on the brow overlooking the precipitous south end, he could see vague stone pillars set in a circle immediately beneath. In daylight, no doubt they would look mundane enough, but here in twilight their very vagueness seemed to promise life: at any moment they might begin to shuffle and dance. A half-forgotten tale about madens changed into stones for dancing on the Sabbath came back to him.’’

Night on Roughtor (Donald R. Rawe): A Cornish tale of will o’the wisps, moaning winds in the moors, ghosts, enchanted hills, piskies, spriggans, and three very foolish young men.

‘’He didn’t finish. The words were torn away from him on the rising wind which moaned now with a harsh eerie voice of its own…sighing and creaking through furze, stunted bushes and round the monolith shapes emerging beast -like through the thick air.’’

Where Phantoms Stir (Mary Williams): I won’t forget this story soon. Starting with a haunting encounter of a troubled man and a strange young woman as the wind rises through the mist, it soon becomes a terrifying symphony of unholy contact between this world and the next, the innocent sacrifice and the works of the Evil One and its horrendous crowd. Atmospheric and tragic, and my favourite story in the collection.

Foxgloves (Susan Price): There is nothing more frightening than walking alone at night, especially on certain nights of the year. Even the streetlights seem to hide dark corners in an area steeped in legends told to you by your grandmother. A sinister take on the urban legend of the Vanishing Hitchhiker and the myth of Rusalka. This story is full of haunting nocturnal descriptions of nature and the neighbourhood streets that urge you to both be alert and let yourself become absorbed by the beauty in this darkness.

The Midsummer Emissary (Minagawa Hiroko, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori): The story starts with a mysterious female voice whispering a message that makes no sense. Our young protagonist has visions of a mysterious dark haired woman and seems to be followed by an elderly lady. Each page gives birth to more and more questions in a very strange tale of omens, male prostitutes, sexuality and past secrets. I still can’t say I have fully grasped the purpose of the story, but it is weird. Essentially Japanese.

Heaven on Earth (Jenn Ashworth): A newly-married couple finds itself trapped in a tropical resort during the first wave of COVID. They are now the only guests, and their efforts to contact the British Embassy are to no avail. Despite the fact that they have one of the earthly paradises at their disposal, they become prey to forced inertia and the strange proximity that comes with quarantine, while the man is a typical example of the entitled British upper class. And when you realise what has actually happened, you stare speechless.

In the end, The Dead of Summer is a varied but often rewarding collection. Some stories shine with genuine atmosphere, strong folkloric roots, and unsettling imagery that lingers long after the last page. Others feel outdated or thin, but even then, they add texture to the broader picture of how humanity has wrestled with the long, haunted light of summer nights. For readers who appreciate folklore, ghost stories, and the lingering echo of the past in the present, this collection offers enough moments of true unease and subtle beauty to make it worth their time.

‘’ Midsummer's Eve too- an unlucky night to be out. It was one of the turning days of the year, according to his granny, like Halloween, Christmas Eve and May Day. They were the days when the year turned from winter to spring, from spring to summer, from summer to autumn and then to winter again. They were different from other days… more open. The nights were even more so. Ghosts walked on those nights that couldn't walk other nights. Things were seen on those nights that couldn't be seen on other nights. On those nights, magic worked. According to Granny.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

The writing is elegant, yes—but the whole thing felt like it was trying too hard to be clever, moody, and highbrow without ever giving me something real to hold on to. Caroline is obsessed with a man who’s clearly not worth it (and honestly, neither of them are saints—so no sympathy there). I could understand her longing, her spiral, her need to live in the past. But it never went anywhere. Just pages and pages of her drifting.

Stream of consciousness has never worked for me, and this book reminded me why. It’s detached, self-indulgent, and way too in love with its own voice. Even the Italian setting and New York references couldn’t save it. And that whole bit about Italian cinema? Pure gimmick to make the blurb sound sexier than the actual story is.

I kept hoping it would become something darker, deeper, a love story that fights and bleeds. But it just stayed flat.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The writing is elegant, yes—but the whole thing felt like it was trying too hard to be clever, moody, and highbrow without ever giving me something real to hold on to. Caroline is obsessed with a man who’s clearly not worth it (and honestly, neither of them are saints—so no sympathy there). I could understand her longing, her spiral, her need to live in the past. But it never went anywhere. Just pages and pages of her drifting.

Stream of consciousness has never worked for me, and this book reminded me why. It’s detached, self-indulgent, and way too in love with its own voice. Even the Italian setting and New York references couldn’t save it. And that whole bit about Italian cinema? Pure gimmick to make the blurb sound sexier than the actual story is.

I kept hoping it would become something darker, deeper, a love story that fights and bleeds. But it just stayed flat.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“It was a wonderful night, the kind of night which is only possible when we are young.”

I approached White Nights with curiosity and an open mind, aware of its reputation as a delicate, melancholic tale of youthful longing and the human need for connection. Yet, despite its many admirers and the recent surge in popularity—fueled largely by BookTok influencers and endless tea reels—I found myself frustrated, detached, and frankly unimpressed.

The young man is dreamy to a fault—too naïve, too desperate, and far too ethereal to feel like a real person. He “protests too much,” as if clinging to an ideal of love rather than experiencing it. Nastenka, on the other hand, isn’t just a fragile, weeping girl—she’s a calculated manipulator wrapped in a pretty sob story. Her tears aren’t signs of weakness but weapons aimed to entangle the dreamer in her self-centred drama. She knew exactly what she was doing all along: milking his desperation for attention and comfort, then dropping him without a second thought. No innocence here—just cold, strategic emotional theatre. Together, they form one of the most exasperating “couples” in literature—two lonely souls wrapped up in their own emotional whirlwinds but lacking genuine chemistry or empathy.

Yet, I can’t deny that Dostoevsky’s novella strips the human soul bare in its reflections on loneliness, silence, and the pain of unfulfilled dreams. His insights into how deeply we understand others’ unhappiness when we ourselves are hurt are thoughtful and timeless. But these moments are few and far between, scattered amid dialogue that often feels juvenile and melodramatic, and a narrative tone that rarely sustains a believable atmosphere.

It’s no secret that White Nights has recently become a darling of social media, especially BookTok, where emotional intensity is sometimes mistaken for literary depth. I am sceptical of the frenzy—and honestly, it feels more like romanticising a lost innocence than engaging with a fully realized story. Who am I to judge Dostoyevsky, or the legions of wannabe influencers who have likely never read another book but flood the internet with vapid tea reels? But my frustration stands: this novella didn’t move me in the way so many claim.

Let’s be real. These two characters? They don’t need to be adored; they need a reality check. The dreamer is a pathetic mess—clinging to an idea of love like a drowning man to driftwood. He’s more a ghost than a person, lost in his own desperate fantasy, incapable of genuine connection.

Nastenka? She’s a minx of the highest order—a self-serving drama queen who weaponises her tears and vulnerability like a pro. She knows exactly what she’s doing: playing the dreamer for all he’s worth, soaking up attention and comfort without giving a damn in return. She treats him like a consolation prize, a warm body to fill the void while waiting for the “real” love to come back.

Their so-called “love story” is nothing more than a masterclass in emotional manipulation and self-absorption. They’re two lonely people caught in a circle of neediness and theatrical sadness, with zero chemistry and zero growth.

And yet, thanks to social media hype and BookTok’s obsession with manufactured emotional intensity, this tired, overwrought novella has been elevated to some kind of romantic ideal.

Here’s the truth: White Nights isn’t the soaring ode to love and loneliness it’s cracked up to be. It’s a theatrical farce dressed in the guise of a poignant tale, and if you want to read something genuinely moving, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

“And you regret that the momentary beauty faded so quickly, so irretrievably, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain — you regret this because there was not time for you even to fall in love with her…”

In the end, White Nights is like watching a beautiful painting from a distance—there is technique and occasional tenderness, but the emotional pull never quite reaches me. It remains an important literary piece with meaningful themes, but for me, it was more an exercise in observation than immersion. I can appreciate its place in literature without sharing the hype that currently surrounds it.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

From Madagascar, Nubia, Egypt, Algeria, and beyond, this isn’t history wrapped in dry academia—it pulses with life, with setting, and with complexity.

The women portrayed here are not polished icons—they’re leaders. Some inspire awe, others provoke horror. I found myself deeply disturbed by the portrayal of the queen of Madagascar (Ranavalona I), whose reign was soaked in blood and torture, particularly in her persecution of Christians. Yet the narrative hesitates, offering lines like “whether she was right or wrong,” as if such barbarity lives in a grey zone. It doesn’t. And moral flexibility in the face of religious slaughter is something I find impossible to accept. You know, that moral flexibility that appears only when Christians are persecuted and slaughtered.

In contrast, Dahia al-Kahina, the Jewish queen of Algeria, stood out as a revelation. Her strength, intelligence, and resistance against Arab conquest stayed with me long after I finished the book. I could easily imagine her as the centre of a sweeping historical novel—and someone should definitely write it. It just shows how fierce Jewish women are when faced with the horror of Muslim barbarians.

Above all, I appreciated that Clark, for the most part, avoided the trend of turning these women into modern ideological symbols. She presents their triumphs, flaws, and legacies with elegance and restraint, allowing readers to think, react, and—importantly—judge.

A challenging, often powerful read that doesn’t always get it right—but never stops being compelling.

Many thanks to Pen & Sword History and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book hit me right where I live—the relentless, gnawing anxiety I’ve carried since I was a child. Gary Zimak doesn’t just offer prayers; he reaches deep into those dark places of hopelessness, despair, weariness, and fear that feel all too familiar. What moved me most was how he weaves Scripture through every page, linking God’s Word directly to those raw emotions that can otherwise feel so overwhelming and lonely.

For years, anxiety has been a shadow I couldn’t shake. But lately, with the help of my Bible study and devotional books like this one, I’ve started to reclaim my peace. Lord, Save Me! became a powerful companion on that journey—not because it promises quick fixes, but because it meets you exactly where you are, even in the middle of the storm.

I will be honest: a few devotionals felt a little light on faith—maybe because they’re written for those whose faith is fragile or distant. That’s not my place. My faith is strong, growing every day. And for me, this book reinforced that strength, reminding me again and again that Jesus is real, present, and ready to carry me through when the weight feels too heavy.

If you’re struggling with fear or anxiety, whether your faith is shaky or solid, Lord, Save Me! offers prayers and reflections that feel like a hand reaching out—steady, warm, and unwavering. It’s not just a book; it’s a lifeline. For me, it’s a reminder that even in the darkest moments, I’m not alone, and that peace is waiting when I lean into Jesus with everything I have.

Many thanks to Ave Maria Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.