Coleen

 The Fox and the Devil is a wonderful mix of horror, mystery, history, and romance. It was truly delightful.
Anneke Van Helsing is the infamous Abraham Van Helsing's daughter. She wants nothing more than to find the woman whom she is convinced killed her father. When an inexplicable death happens on her doorstep and then another and this mysterious murderess seems responsible she's on a mission to find and stop this “devil”.
The longing in this novel was chef's kiss. Anneke longs for her father's love even though he's dead; she longs to solve these crimes, she longs for love and acceptance of who she is and to be seen. Finally, she longs for Diavola, this woman, or is she a monster?
I really loved the letters Diavola was sending in a provocatively teasing way but with no malice from Diavola. The chase to find the killer was very well done, too. The only disappointment I had was the pacing at some parts. Some of it felt too slow and some of it felt rushed, but overall it was a great book that I would recommend to people who like their romance a little monstrous, mysterious and Sapphic.

Thank you, Del Rey and Kiersten White, and NetGalley, for providing this book for review. All opinions are my own 

This was more slasher less campy than the first Candy Cain but I still liked it. I liked that Candy Cain was an unstoppable killer and totally unhinged in such an over the top way. Of course the evil people who helped make her into this evil person were just evil religious zealots which was sort of fun. I absolutely thought the ending nailed it. loved it more because of it.

This was wonderful Christmasy goodness. Lots of found footage and murderous scenes. When Candy Cain kills she's so creative and diabolical. 
When you find out about the whole history of the legend behind Candy Cain it makes you pause and think, but not long because we have another person to murder in a wonerfully graphic yet still kind of campy way. All in all if you read this you'll be giggling ho ho oh no and enjoying the maynem like I did.

Again Katherine Arden wrote a good spooky book perfect for middle graders or if you're like me and enjoy middle grade fiction too. 
This time the story is centered on a ski vacation gone spooky. Reading this during winter like I did is a good choice. You can sense the foreboding and just imagine being trapped in a snowstorm like Ollie, Coco and Brian are.
The Smiling Man is back and this time he means to catch the trio flat footed this time. I liked how this story focused on how Seth AKA the Smiling Man loves to play games and he doesn't want to play fair. This time he tricks Ollie into making a rash decision and becoming trapped in a haunted wintry world that used to be where the ski lodge that the 3 are staying at. It's up to Coco to be brave, think hard and try to outsmart Seth. I liked the fact that the story highlighted that because she is tiny for her age Coco gets underestimated a lot. She's just a tiny girl what can she do?  Great story and I love the ending solution a lot. The only thing I'd like more of is knowing more about Brian. I do hope that by the end of the series he gets his time to shine. 
Would recommend to anyone looking for some spooky winter chills.

This epistolary movel is a slow burn chiller filled with eerie dread. Jack who wants to better his standing/station in life gets hired on to be the radio man on an arctic expedition to overwinter at a desolate outpost. 
Things build slowly at first and Jack seems to brush off warnings that something may be wrong at the old outpost.  Did he see something? Maybe? Then one by one his companions have to leave him and he is all alone. 
This book definitely builds up to the moment when you don't know what is going to happen next but you know it's going to be dreadful. I would definotely recommend this to those who love ghost stories, especially chilly ones in both writing, atmosphere and setting. This is a perfect winter read. I highly recommend it.

I received an e-arc of Grace from Netgalley for my honest review of Grace.

An isolated island in Ireland filled with secrets and dread. Why are there no children there? Why are the islanders still there so secretive? 
This book starts with a game played by one of the islanders, Declan, against some unknown entity. You can tell the game is for higher stakes than they seem, and the dread starts to build up. Grace comes to the island at the invitation of the local priest because her birth mother has passed away. 
The island is cold and foggy, and it seems getting off the island once you're on it might not be possible.  The folk horror and evil are very built up. You find out more and more about what happened to the islanders 30 years ago, and might have started happening again. The priest Robin AKA “Richard” slowly starts to discover what the islanders are so afraid of when it is obvious that Grace is in trouble. You learn that Robin has secrets, too.
This book just kept cranking up the level of fear and dread. Like a frog put into water to boil, it builds up until it's too late. The only small complaint I have about this book was that I felt like there were areas that could've been shorter, and because of the epilogue, I was confused about the timing of some events. If you like books with atmospheric folk horror with a high dread factor, you'll probably enjoy this book too.

Thank you to A.M. Shine and Bloomsbury USA for allowing me to read this book.

This was absolutely delicious. It was weird but I loved it. I loved Dalia and how she fit into the house of an Archaic One Anathema. Archaic Ones are beings that aren't human more like monstrous demigods. Anathema is most like a GARGANTUAN spider/human hybrid.
The way the house was and the servants and just everything was mysterious and magical. 
This story is fantasy, magical realism, horror, sapphic romance, mystery and a genre that hasn't been named. It's unique and wonderful I HIGHLY recommend it!!

Another great story about Cash and her visions that help her solve crimes with her mentor Wheaton.
This book was about a dead woman who floated into town during a flood from snowmelt. The woman could pass for her sister but no one knows who she is.So Cash starts to investigate. While investigating, she hears rumors that this woman might have attended some unconventional church goings and Cash should be careful. 
Cash just keeps digging and finds out about another woman who died like the first and how she may have gone to that church too. After Cash digs around she finds the church and sees an ominous shadow near two children's graves. 
In this book there is a lot more exploration of Cash's gifts which I really liked. The only thing that I didn't like was how the evil pastor's wife had a split personality and was a murderer. The personality split was really playing into the trope of mental illness and how dissociative identity disorder is looked at by some laypeople. It was kind of over the top and off putting.
I would still highly recommend this series. I really just love Cash and her character and how she is learning more and more about herself.

This story opens with a vision/dream Cash has of someone needing help, which sets the tone for the whole book. It is very well done and definitely gets your attention. Cash is at college now and trying her best to get along, but at the same time, she's already bored because the classes are easy. 
A girl is missing, and Wheaton needs Cash's help again. We also met her long lost older brother, Mo, short for Gernimo, as his buddies called him when he was stationed in Nam. She keeps dreaming about the missing girl, which turns into two missing girls. I did love how she found the girls and how Mo told her some realities that she didn't know.
The only thing that made me not give this a full five stars is the red herring of who is behind the missing girls. It was really obvious but I didn't know who else it would be until the end.

Great second book in this series. I highly recommend it.

 I really liked this story. Cash was just such an interesting character. Taking place in the Dakotas during the Vietnam War. Cash is a young Native woman who drives trucks for the local farms, smokes like nobody's business, drinks a lot and is a pool shark in the local dive. She like many Natives is taken from her mom and her family when she is 3 and put into the foster care system. She says in the book, “Some of their parents drank, some of them were just poor, but the common denominator was they were all Indian. Legal kidnapping. White parents drank. White parents were poor. Heck, some of them beat the crap out of their kids on a weekly basis. No social worker ever drove up and stuffed their kids in a car.”

She is very matter of fact but she also has the soul of a poet and very deep thoughts.
“It was the land, this Valley, she felt the closest to. The land had never hurt her or left her. It fed and supported her in ways that humans never had. She heard the cottonwoods sing. Felt the rain coming before the clouds showed themselves. Smelled the snow before it arrived.”
I loved her to pieces.

When a not so local Native man gets stabbed in a nearby field, she just knows that she has to go and help Wheaton, the local sheriff, and the only person who cares about her and solve his death. Oh by the way she has visions. She feels drawn to the dead man and his family. “She could hear crickets and frogs down by the river. The leaves of the cottonwood trees lining the river bank created music in the wind that stilled her. Soon she was lost in time, her body floating up and out of the truck bed, following the trail of a soul gone northeast to say goodbye to loved ones.”
There are many revelations in the story about Cash and the racism that surrounds her. You root for her, though. You want what Wheaton wants for her to do more than drive a grain truck for a living.
This book is definitely a winner, and I think many people will enjoy it. 

Grief horror that was decent.

 I think  Nowhere Burning might be Catriona Ward's best work yet. Just WOW! 
The story is an eerie combination of Peter Pan and the Lost Children (instead of just boys), dealing with the trauma of abuse, haunted people, and places that can both hurt and protect. 
Nowhere is the charred property in the Colorado Rockies of an infamous celebrity and serial killer. Is Nowhere haunted by his ghost, just the children who stay there now or both? The descriptions of Nowhere get creepier and creepier as it goes along.
Riley, along with her younger brother Oliver (affectionately called Oliver Olive), are staying with an abusive relative, “Cousin”.  She loves her brother very much and wants to protect him from “Cousin”. Then she is offered sanctuary at Nowhere by one of the Nowhere children, Noon. She takes a chance and escapes with her brother. However, Nowhere may not be the sanctuary she believes it might be. Things get more and more unsettling once she gets there. The details are very cinematic, and I could see what Riley was seeing in my head. The children are all disturbing and totally gave me the chills.
There are two more P.O.Vs Adam a young architect who is staying at Nowhere with the celebrity Leaf while working on his house. Also Marc he and his friend Kimble are two documentary filmmakers who are trying to make a film about Nowhere and the “urban legend” of the Nowhere children.  These stories are interconnected and I love how they all come together in the end.

I'd recommend this book for anyone who likes their horror to be more literary and cinematic, or if you just want a disquieting story filled with weird kids.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! A special thanks to Catriona Ward for writing this phenomenal book. 

This book was stunningly just OK. It lives in Mehville.
GOOD 
Serial killer thriller based around the movie industry specifically the horror genre
Horror movie refrences
Tinsel and her sister Pandora and their relationshp and becoming a crime solving duo.
Some of the kill scene descriptions as they were mostly well written and from the victim's POV
The final confrontation between Tinsel and the killer  for the most part.

MEH
Tinsel at times. She read younger than she was supposed to be. Her getting easily bored although she really wanted to be a succesful radio host and move up in her career.
The radio show based on horror movie and spooky songs. Although some of the songs listed were cool and nostalgic
The minuate of how to run a radio show and be a radio host
The killer's crazy reasoning to explain their motive.
Diversity rep. I love diverse rep but this felt like the author was making some characters diverse so they could tick off a box instead of the character being who they are and that includes their diversity
Australia's historic buildings

NOPE
Romance with Vic including sex scenes. 
Sections that just dragged. Oh the romance isn't really happening right now so the killer is just going on a break for a few weeks because Vic left town, but the killer isn't Vic.
The bad former boyfriend drama.
Tinsel's decision to just quit her job because all the sudden it's not her dream anymore. I get that she had a seriously traumatic experience and that can change a person, but up until her final show where she walks off the air it seemed like she was going to follow her dream of being in radio.

This was such a good story!! It was such a good Spooky season read. Ollie was just wonderful and so were Brian and Coco, but this was totally Ollie's story.
Ollie is 11 and she is pushing away everyone in her life because her mom died about a year ago. Then she grabs a book from someone and reads the story. A scary story about a bargain made.Is it a true story or is it just someone's imagination? 
The atmosphere, the scarecrows and the smiling man were just so well written and just the right amount of creepy goodness. 
Ollie and her friends Brian and Coco are a great trio and while Ollie is the main focus both of them get their moments to shine. My absolute favorite part though was when Ollie finallly was talking to the smiling man and figured out what would beat him in the end and didn't make a bargain to get her mom back.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good spooky story with great characters, writing and storyline.

 This was a fun little fantasy. I absolutely loved Xandra from the start. All the discoveries you make about her and why she acts the way she acts were so well written. She is blunt, irritable about people wasting her time and a total bad ass. She has no time for your nonsense. I did like the beginnings of the romance between Xandra and Jasmine the priestess was sweet. I am not sure when I will get to the rest of the books but I am invested now and want Xandra to have a happy ending.

Definitely recommend this book

I decided to give this a try for a prompt in a reading BINGO. 
I admit that this is only my second Judy Blume book but it was a cute little read. Even though I'm the little sister in my family I did feel for Peter and how he had to deal with his annoying little brother Fudge. 
At times I was so frustrated with how mollycoddled Fudge was especially by his mom. I would have felt frustrated with my parents and Fudge too if I was Peter.
I'm sure for many others this book is a trip down memory lane. I was more of a mystery fan who'd steal my older (5 years) brother's books but I can still appreciate it.

This is an exciting fast paced thriller. I liked the podcast idea. I mostly liked Poe but sometimes she was dumb as rocks. For example when she first sees Hindley and thinks he looks familiar and he says he killed her mother. You just know right away he's a relative of the real murderer the one she killed years ago. Also for the love of all that is holy why did you call him back after the first show?
I get the alcohol abuse it's rather common among trauma survivors but I feel it was lingered on too much. 
Overall pretty good book. So good that I plan to pick up more of his backlog books. 

Junior was an interesting character. He doesn't really remember his dad who died when he was 4 but he's heard stories. 
When he thinks he sees his ghost he is hopeful that his dad is trying to come back to the land of the living. However things don't always happen the way you expect them to and Junior learns that.
A great paranormal coming of age story. 

WOW! I hadn't read Chevy Stevens in a bit and this book made me remember why I love a lot of her works. 
Alice was just KICK ASS. She is so strong and so smart in trying to escape from Simon and Jenny. I was cheering her on the whole time. She was also caring even when she didn't want to be which made her more complex and made me love her more.
The buildup in this book is top-notch! I constantly wanted to reach into the book and throttle Simon. 
I suspected something about Jenny's backstory early on, but even though it's a trigger for me pedophilia/incest, I continued reading.  There was a reveal about what happened in Jenny and Simon's backstory was a twist for me and I LOVED it.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Especially if you love thrillers.

Interstate Love Affair- 2 stars- This was a bizarre story and there were things I didn't like about it.  I don't mind serial killer POVs most of the time, but this one fell short for me. At first I thought William might be the cryptid because of his quirks. The dog thing was off-putting, too. The climaxing after looking at the dead dog's tongue because he'd fed his victim to it, and the thought of the women having puppies, I think, is sort of confusing at that point. My advice skip this one.

No Takebacks: 4 stars- This was really good. I liked the concept of developing an app that gets out of your control. It was creepy and very engaging. Loved the main character. The paranoia that he has, the investigation into what his friend did to make the pictures change, and the pictures changing in a very creepy and unsettling way. The ending was a little weird, but overall a good story that I think was worth my time. 

The Coming of Night: 3 stars- This is a better killer P.O.V. story than the other one. The main character reminded me of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho in some ways, without being a knock-off at all. It was his dispassion that I thought was similar. The parasite/pod thing was interesting. Although his feverish obsession with the pods was disturbing, it also dragged on a little. The ending was interesting and I wondered what the long-term results of what emerged from the pods would be. 

While the subject matter was VERY interesting to me I did find somewhat of a disconnect with this author's writing style. It wasn't as engaging as say something like Stiff by Mary Roach which also covers death. 
She seemed to be distancing herself from the death she was investigating until she saw the dead baby sink into a small bathtub full of water. She was still curious, though, and I understand why she may have felt she had to distance herself from the deaths and the death industry. Her curiosity did win me over in the end because I'm curious about death and all the things that surround it. 
Overall a decent book and if you're looking to get more information about how we deal with our dead, I'd recommend it. 

This story just hits you like a ton of bricks. In a good way though. The ending was like a punch to the gut. I have so many questions. What were the Blanks really? Why did they do those things? Why do people come to the island and even stay after all that has happened? GREAT story! 

While I mostly liked this it was disjointed in a slightly bothersome way. I was trying to  to figure out what was causing Jennifer's visions during the meeting in the titular Indigo Room. Was she going crazy, being possessed by ancient alien gods, was Gracie just trying to feck with her and put something in her coffee? 
When things transpired that related to the visions during the meetimg it made more sense.Although I was wondering if my ancient alien god theory was correct.
Ok story but not SGJ's best.

3.75 stars rounded up. This book was interesting. I learned about many women who I'd never heard about and their accomplishments. It didn't shy away from facts about these women's lives. The artwork was not my style personally but I did still appreciate it. The wording choices used reminded me that I wasn't necessarily the target audience for this book.

This was a fun little book. This was my first Carl Hiaasen book and it was a pretty good read. I liked Wahoo, who has the coolest name ever IMO, Mickey Cray and Tuna were great too.
As someone who grew up around scientists who worked with everything from ants to mammals I knew more about the kind of things that happen behind the scenes at least when it comes to nature documentaries. This book just pointed out to readers don't always believe what you see when it comes to reality shows.
I absolutely adored the relationships between Wahoo and his dad and Wahoo and Tuna AKA Lance and Lucille. Also Derek Beaver I mean Badger was so obnoxious but in a funny way which I also liked.
If you want a great little humorous romp through the Everglades with some great characters try this one out.