Rhiannon

A lovely gothic novel set in 1950s Netherlands complete with a forbidden sapphic romance, a decaying manor house in the country and ghosts that bind themselves to their haunted humans (à la Lasher of Rice’s Mayfair Witches) all strongly in the vein of Poe and du Maurier.

Roos grows up under the abusive, exploitive, and strict rule of her (maybe) mother, performing sham séances for money. But Roos has a real spirit tethered to her, Ruth, who has protected and cared for her since she was a child. When Roos reaches the age of 21 her mother effectively sells her off to a mysterious, wealthy widow, Agnes, who says she only wants to have Roos as a companion and seems to understand that Roos’ claim of the spirit Ruth is, in fact, real. Agnes and Roos have much in common.

Roos happily goes off with Agnes to live in her decrepit home in the country, also inhabited by Agnes’ ailing sister-in-law, the memory of Agnes’ deceased husband, and loads of secrets and inherited familial madness.

A haunting and elegantly written gothic romance with plenty of deep dark secrets, charming and terrifying ghosts and a story that unfolds at a languid pace. The story was intriguing, the setting atmospheric, and the characters complex and morally ambiguous. The structure of the story was done well with short ‘interviews’ Roos has with a doctor, separated by 3-4 chapters of first-person narrative told from her POV, so you’re never really certain just how reliable she is, but I found myself drawn to her eagerness for a normal life and her sweet relationship with her spirit, Ruth. I found myself really rooting for her.

Strongly recommend for that haunting, atmospheric read!

I see why some might say this is extreme horror, and it is! But I thought it was more of a body horror posing as a commentary on horror in ultra-masculinity. Although the violence is incredibly brutal and absolutely ramps into the extreme category, it was also more grounded in gritty reality than mere shock value when compared to traditional extreme or splatterpunk.

The first third is spent setting up the distinct main characters – we have a cop, a mafioso boss, a scientist testing new drugs and an already supremely angry, roided out dude who gets amped to the nth degree by those experimental drugs and is now running loose through the mean streets of Chicago. The characters are all pretty much men with the female roles seemingly secondary and are mentioned tangentially or as victims of the violence inflicted. It feels like this was a deliberate choice made by the author?

Despite this, I thought Wagner’s setup of the main cast was well thought out and gave me enough to be interested in them and how they would all come together in the plot. There’s a lot of commentary on male masculine behaviour and traits, with some developing or ruminating in interesting ways and others maybe not so much?

This will sound odd, but it was almost like reading a classic Greek epic through the lens of our action-packed, ultra-violent modern time. In fact, the main villain of the piece frequently refers to himself as a god. This is also emphasized by the choice of Roberto Ferri’s excellent “Ecate” as the cover. Vengeance and hubris, extreme violence and tragedy abound in both the classical Greek era and our own current age.

An entertaining, fast-moving novel that kept me hooked right to the end.

My thanks to NetGalley and Dead Sky Publishing for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own.

A frantic and hair-raising horror tale of a man tasked with protecting his dead mother's body from the evil that is hunting them.

It’s a last request (more of a directive) from his mother, Maggie, as she lies on her deathbed – instructing him to take her body from Indiana to a town in Maine within two days, with a vague and haunting promise that if it’s not done, an unimaginable evil will be unleashed. Despite his fractured relationship with his inscrutable and prickly mother, Malcolm and Violet, his sister-in-law who has effectively been abandoned by Malcolm’s reprobate brother, Elias, promise to fulfill Maggie’s charge to him.

The action in this horror novel moves along at breakneck speed. Malcolm and Violet have only 2 days to get Maggie’s body to its destination. It’s the 1950s and transportation is restricted to train and automobile, not giving them much time at all to meet their deadline. To further complicate matters they discover they are pursued by terrifying creatures and it’s a literal race as they (and the reader) try to understand what hunts them, what secrets Maggie held, and why it seems that she may not be entirely dead. Along the way Malcolm will come to understand the root of his troubled relationship with his mother.

I enjoyed the framework of this story – it kept the core mystery going without becoming tiresome or irritating – feeding the reader just enough to keep the momentum and interest. The complex relationships between Malcolm and Violet, as well as his absent siblings, and how that has shaped their precarious ties with each other and Maggie, felt real and relatable. The horror of the creatures pursuing them as they cut a literal path of absolute bloody destruction and death was visceral and compelling.

Setting the novel in the 1950s made for a unique setting as well – tech as we know it now isn’t available. Mores and values are very different, adding to some very interesting dynamics and relationships (some of which made my teeth grind in frustration and grateful for progress.) The idea of vampires isn’t a culturally known phenomenon, so it’s fresh and exciting. If you enjoyed the movie Sinners, this novel is similar in setting it an older decade but not so old as to be entirely unfamiliar. Quite enjoyable and striking entry into the vampire subgenre.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Solid and wonderfully varied collection of stories centring on addiction, hunger, desperation, desire and all its various permutations… this offering of quick and dirty short horrors will satisfy that craving and leave you wanting more.

Standouts for me were:

Agreeable Grey by Tyler Downs – he’s fast becoming a favourite for me. I find I’m absolutely mesmerized by his characters, including this one of a quick glimpse into the life of a deteriorating addict and his apathetic existence… but for that one thing…

A Need for Skin by Henry Penrose was just ick and creepy and gruesome and I loved it.

Evergreen Terrace by Mark Towse which took an unexpected and perfectly wild swing that I didn’t see coming.

Inspiration by Matthew Jon Smith is brilliantly meta, clever and hysterical to boot. This one also took some wild turns that I absolutely wasn’t expecting, making it all the better for its surprises.

We Do Without by Judith Sonnet was an emotional tale of two brothers in a post-apocalyptic world and the need for expression, communication and connection… the grounded characters were an emotional gut-punch.

Sunflower by R.S. Mot was equally heartbreaking and horrifying, from the incredibly creative perspective of fauna.

Vitreous Abyssal by M.G. Phillips was absolutely horrifying in how far a son will go to keep his father alive. Also, super ick.

Evans sets the bar high in the quality and creativity of the stories on offer here. This collection will scratch that horror itch.

𝑴𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑹𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝑨𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝑬𝒗𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝑹𝑪. 𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏.

A decent collection of 10 short horror stories. I’d say these lean more to a moderate level of horror, so if you’re not into anything too squeamish then these stories should be right up your alley. A lot of the themes seem to centre around comeuppance and karma. There are a few stories involving animals that might worry you — I’m an animal person and this had me worried a few times but overall, they weren’t over the top or cause for concern. A couple of other stories edging on taboo topics but again, nothing extreme.

There’s some botanical horror in The Sprouting (whose only two characters were horrible so I wasn’t really invested in them as people but karma and all that…), a bit of ancient almost cosmic horror in Dead Trees; some childhood trauma horror (watch your triggers here) in Battel The Monstur with an imaginative and tragic boy who fights back (this one was quite emotional and effective)…

I think it was a respectable mix of horror topics with nothing pushing boundaries 𝙩𝙤𝙤 much – reminding me a bit of the style of Stephen King’s early short collections that edged around horror without overt explicitness while still having characters that were despicable doing despicable things. As a collection of horror, I would have preferred the shorts to have a bit more punch/intensity to them, but I can also see this author probably doing well with a longer form expansion of some of these stories as there are some great, imaginative ideas here that cry out for more exploration.

𝑴𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒐 A.F. Cosentino 𝒂𝒏𝒅 BookSirens 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝑹𝑪. 𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏.