Rhiannon

A neo-western crime drama that gives off Breaking Bad and Taylor Sheridan vibes, this reads more like a screenplay than a novel – it’s written in these spare, short little vignettes and jump cuts that are a brief, uneasy glance into a family going inextricably off the rails as the secrets of the past catch up with them, blowing up their comfortable lives.

There were some weirdly jarring plot inconsistencies and small details that didn’t make much sense that I found very distracting and troublesome, like this:

“…𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎. 𝑰𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒍.”

And then moments later

“𝑨 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒑 𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒂 𝒈𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆.”

Or later on:

“𝐀𝐛𝐞𝐥 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐳, 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐲”

(my emphasis) Um, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵?

That kind of thing.

And I have to say that the basic underlying ‘mystery’ was kind of obvious to me right from the jump. I stuck around because Cosco does an amazing job of painting a scene and I really did enjoy the quiet menace of the book and was curious to see how it would all play out. All of the characters are morally ambiguous, but I think the female characters were given short shrift and were only there to serve as a sexual foil for the men.

I think it would make an excellent movie, more so than the actual book.

𝙈𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 Booksirens 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙥𝙮. 𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙮; 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙤𝙬𝙣.

When you go into these reimaginings and retellings you really do have to let go of all that has come before in order to buy into the creative changes. And I’m all for it, because really? these old myths and legends are so old that viewing them from our distant 21st century lens means we really can’t know the specifics and quirks of relationships and how people felt and what happened, so these retellings always open the story back up in new and interesting ways.

In this case, the old obscure story of Melantho, a slave girl and minor character in the Odyssey who was essentially raised as a foster child by Penelope, is retold by realigning their relationship (and ages) into one of a romantic nature. Hewlett does a decent job of reconstructing the story in such a way that the bits we know of Melantho from the Odyssey believably take on new meaning with understandable motivations so that she doesn’t come off as quite the ‘betrayer’ she did in the old stories.

The relationship between Penelope and Melantho in this book is one of a long and drawn-out complex affair of master and slave dynamics and childhood friendship morphing into that of a forbidden love affair. Unfortunately, the emotional aspects of it (including the interactions between all the female characters, really) felt forced and flat and draggy and wasn’t very interesting for me. I found the smaller plot points and changes that Hewlett made to the story far more interesting to consider and much more engaging.

My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily; all opinions are my own.

This peculiar collection of weird fiction is that of absurdism and the bizarre. It’s unsettling and disturbing in the vein of Brian Evenson, Thomas Ligotti or Caitlin Kiernan’s existential dread and horror-tinged dark fantasies. I enjoyed this compilation because of it’s experimental and esoteric style, an uncanny valley atmosphere where myth and folklore are juxtaposed in seemingly chaotic modern settings and decorated with twenty-first century objects…

The individual stories in this collection are much more about a feeling, a setting, an atmosphere, than strict plotlines. The stories mix classical elements of fantasy and mythology, unexpectedly injecting modern ideas, devices, speech or behaviours into them. I understand this can be jarring for those expecting a more traditional narrative with a solid conclusion to the stories, but for those looking for something more unpredictable and unconventional you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by the choices the author makes. I know I was.

I found the stories quirky and fascinating and dimensionally out of sync with our known reality but just close enough to be discomfiting and uneasy. A very solid collection.

My thanks to NetGalley and University of Massachusetts Press for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily; all opinions are my own.

A stunning, modern take on the Blodeuwedd myth from the Fourth Branch of the Welsh Mabinogi, this gorgeous debut novel is both heartbreaking and horrifying in equal measure. The story of a boy, Rory, and his friend and playmate, the girl Daye, who his sister created from flowers through a sort of modern green witchcraft. The story is set in an amorphous, contemporary Welsh-like setting where studying this kind of crafting is not entirely unusual. The writing, setting and tone is reminiscent of de Lint’s Newford stories and Crowley’s Little, Big – that being enchanting with an underlying gothic darkness.

As Rory grows older, he discovers that keeping Daye ‘alive’ is a complex endeavour that requires specialized knowledge, and he sets out to learn all he can to keep his most precious friend with him forever. And this is where the quiet horror slowly starts to creep up on you. You’re so engrossed with the beauty of the language and the story of this peculiar flower girl that you become uneasy… you start to realize just how awful this situation is as the pure beauty of their childhood relationship also begins to transform and subtly rot at the edges:

“𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆, 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒂𝒍, 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒑 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒑.”

This is body autonomy horror at its most subtle: skillfully and softly depicted through the beauty of nature and love as it morphs to codependence and ultimately obsession and possession and a fight for true independence and self-determination.

A devastating and haunting debut! I can’t wait to see what this author does next.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Books US for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily; all opinions are my own.

A well written and thoughtful memoir on growing up in Hollywood royalty with all the famous friends and relatives that a young woman could hope for and yet still struggling to find her place in the most understandable of ways.

Candid without being salacious, Skye reveals her emotional loneliness and desperation to be seen in a chaotic and discordant lifestyle where she is invariably surrounded by rich and/or famous friends and family, yet always searching for validation. All of which is obviously the result of her father’s complete absence during her childhood and teenage years, and his irksome aloofness in her 20s and 30s.

Whether she’s shacking up with a serial cheater and heroin addict (Kiedis) or blowing up her fairy tale romance with one of the Beastie Boys (Ad-Rock), discovering her undeniable attraction to women, working through her complex and relatable abandonment issues, and succumbing to the very things that her previous partners were guilty of (infidelity, drug use) her famous lifestyle, glamourous as it was, was still very much emotionally relatable to me. Her honesty about her own role in her life is refreshing and frank – she doesn’t shy away from her culpability in her relationships.

Skye is the same age as me, and her emotional ups and downs as a young girl and young woman trying to find her footing and who she is, her self-sabotaging behaviour, even in this glittery world of privilege and precarious existence, struck a raw, nostalgic nerve.

Come Sing For The Harrowing – Dan Coxon

A very interesting and unsettling collection of short stories from this (new to me) author. I noticed this book has a foreword from the incredible Brian Evenson, and that absolutely tracks, because Coxon writes those kinds of weird, quietly horrific and eerie tales that go in the most unexpected directions and linger on in your hind brain long after it’s over. It’s a solid collection with nary a dud in the bunch.

Exceptional highlights for me were:

• Long Gone (Slight Return) – this one seemed like a definite homage/take on Manic Street Preachers and the real-life great mystery of Richey – it really hit for me, leaving me sad and nostalgic and brought up those 30-year-old memories

• A couple of excellent shorts with heavy cosmic and Lovecraftian overtones in The Wives of Tromisle and London Deep

• Bring Them All Into the Light, Our Sister of Blackthorn, and Come Sing For the Harrowing are folklore horror in the vein of Midsommar and the Wicker Man

• Tales of madness and disconcerting psychological horror in The Darkness Below and Gorphwysfa are the kind where you’re not sure if the characters are losing their minds or are truly haunted by entities, and are done so well you feel haunted yourself just from reading them

A really amazing collection of horror tales that has a little bit of everything and all well written. I need to go get some more Coxon books!

My thanks to NetGalley and CLASH Books for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily; all opinions are my own.

Pub: 04-21-2026