Syndrie

With a powerful mix of horror and social commentary, “Our Sister’s Keeper” is a book that highlights the — very unfair — expectation for Black women to carry other people’s burdens with a smile on their face and without a single word of complaint.

The story takes place in the town of East Cobb, which is an all-Black community where its citizens are able to live free from the fear of white hatred and oppression. It seems like a utopia from the first few glances, but readers will be able to quickly realize that the peaceful living that the men and women of East Cobb get to experience is only possible in exchange for the ongoing suffering of a select few women. As I got further into the story, my main question was really just “are all of these people really free after all, or is this entire town just a different flavor of slavery?”

Holmes’ prose flows smoothly and the entire book really had me captivated from the very first page — she did a fantastic job of crafting a story that’s emotional, haunting, and thought-provoking. There’s also a perfect balance of characters you want to root for as well as characters you’re going to hate, and I’d say they’re all developed pretty well. Even though I definitely didn’t agree with a lot of the choices made by certain characters in this story, I do think their motivations were laid out clearly and their behaviors made sense in context of their beliefs.

This is probably going to be one of those novels that I’ll keep thinking back on for quite some time. It’s a story that is here to tell a message and does a great job at delivering that message. I’ll definitely be putting this one into my list of favorite Southern gothics and I’ll absolutely be keeping an eye out for whatever Jasmine Holmes comes out with next!

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Bindery Books, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

This is a beautiful story that does a fantastic job at telling a family’s story across multiple generations. Interweaving multiple timelines and following many characters, this is a heartfelt tale that’ll give you a great understanding about who the people of the Lamb family truly are — and maybe make you feel a bit like you’re part of the family as well.

Sitting at just over 400 pages, I’m amazed at how much story is packed into this one novel without the plot ever feeling rushed. Even though the majority of the focus really lies across three different timelines, there’s still a good number of looks at some of the in-between timelines as well. So there’s definitely a bunch of characters in this one, but I found that they were all introduced in a way that made it very easy to remember them all distinctly (and I say that as somebody who often gets tripped up when it comes to large casts). It also helps that each of the characters really felt like they stood out as their own person and were both memorable and — for the most part — lovable as well. I found myself really wanting to root for the members of the Lamb family and hoped that they would make the right decisions in the end.

I also really loved having parts of the story come from the perspectives of the family ghosts as well. It really added a unique element to the standard family drama formula and I thought that having the ghosts directly address the reader really gave off a sense of welcoming. This isn’t just a case of a story being told to you, it’s an invitation to join in and really embrace the family as a whole.

Overall I would highly recommend this to readers of family dramas, especially if you love when they span across multiple generations! I don’t want to spoil too much but I will say this one does tackle some heavier topics — racism of course being one of the big ones — but even with the tragic moments that come up, I do feel like the overall story really gave off a more hopeful vibe. I was very satisfied with the ending and feel like it stopped at the perfect spot.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

With a much darker twist on a children's story many of us are already familiar with, "It Came From Neverland" presents a version of Peter Pan that is both haunting and predatory while also exploring the long-term effects of childhood trauma.

I really liked how this one was less of an in-your-face gory horror story and leaned more into psychological horror aspects (although there definitely is some gore in here). The Darling children all managed to escape Neverland as children but now it's twelve years later and weird things are starting to happen around them. It starts out with small things such as the appearance of oddly behaving crows and slowly ramps up into bigger and more threatening scares. I personally enjoyed the slower pace so the tension was given full time to grow throughout the story, although I will admit some parts did get a little bit repetitive at times. I also kind of wish there had been a little more detail about what the siblings experienced back in Neverland, but the flashbacks that we do get were pretty good at painting a picture of a Peter who was cruel and sadistic.

I don't want to give too much away because I think that the sense of creeping dread is the shining star here. In some ways the escalation might seem a tad predictable, but I think that also goes to show that the story develops at a sensible level instead of trying to rely on things like shock value and crazy plot twists in order to keep the reader's attention.

Overall I enjoyed this one a lot and would definitely recommend it to other readers who enjoy stories that portray a darker side of the children's stories and fairy tales we all grew up with!

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

This is being marketed as a "'Sleeping Beauty' retelling about escapism, grief, and dreaming of a better world" and I'd have to say it definitely does deliver on that promise. The story is filled with characters who are suffering from loss, depression, and just feeling like they don't fit into the world they were born into and who desire to have a better/happier life — even if that other life happens to exist only in a dream world.

I think Cindy did a great job with presenting really accurate portrayals of depression and I think many readers who have also experienced depression in their own lives will find some very relatable thoughts and behaviors in here. But even though a lot of the story is focusing on the characters having to fight their demons — whether mental or physical — there's still a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel here. I wasn't too sure about the ending at first, but after sitting with it for a bit I have to say I'm rather pleased with how it was wrapped up and what the underlying message seems to be here.

The writing style tends to lean a bit more to the side of purple prose here with some really beautiful lush descriptions, but sometimes it does get a bit awkward. I think jumping between timelines where we're in the dream world in one POV and suddenly jumping to another POV taking place 100 years in the past in the real world throws things off a bit. You start to get used to reading about all the beautiful scenery and magic in the dream world before suddenly get thrown back to reality where things just aren't as beautiful. I do like the idea of that dichotomy in theory, but in this case it felt more like the story's momentum was being reset every new chapter.

I'd also say that the character development is lacking, but moreso in the sense that the buildup just wasn't there for me. The characters definitely do have some development but it didn't really feel very impactful overall and it their relationships with each other seemed to develop way too fast — most especially between Briar Rose and Corin. It definitely felt like way more telling was going on rather than showing. That said, I was interested in Amelia and Malicine's stories in particular and found that their POV chapters kept my attention way more than Corin's chapters.

Overall I think this story had some really solid ideas behind it, but it just didn't hit the execution as strongly as I hoped it would.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Kokila, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

Usually I'm rather good at picking up on foreshadowing and being able to correctly guess the answers behind mysteries in thriller novels but "An Immaculate Deception" was one of the few that has managed to blindside me, and I'm glad that it did!

This is a rather fast paced novel that definitely leans more to the sides of psychological or domestic thriller, and I'd have to say it's a pretty strong debut! Although some parts of the prose did feel a bit lackluster to me, I think Livino did a great job at portraying the character's emotions and that helped make up for the more lackluster areas. You could definitely feel Madalena's fear growing day by day alongside Leandro's increasing inner turmoil. The rather quick plot development made this into a real page-turner for me and I just wanted to keep reading so I could figure out exactly what was going on between Madalena, Leandro, and the mysterious Doctor Lobo.

The novel is split into two different parts with the first being in Madalena's POV and the second in Leandro's and I think this was the perfect layout for this particular story. Having both of their perspectives really added an additional layer of depth to the story and made the reveals much more satisfying in the end. This is definitely one of those novels where you'll be able to appreciate the first half way more after finishing the whole thing.

I'd definitely recommend this to fans of gothic thrillers who are looking for a quick, entertaining read! There are some horror elements but it's not overly grotesque or frightening, so it might be a good pick for readers who aren't too good with horror but want to take a chance on a darker story.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Dutton, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

In some ways this is a story about found family and connecting with others, but in others it’s about escapism and survival. On one side we have a girl who has not felt connected to her family in a very long time and is currently struggling to find her place in life, and on the other side we have the same girl finding a place she’d like to call home — but that place is tinged with horror and governed by rules and beings that she is not fully knowledgeable of. It’s a story that has both realistic family drama as well as life-threatening adventures (for lack of a better word) in a fantasy world where few actually care about the safety of human lives.

I really enjoyed the pacing here and found the story really easy to fall into. This is definitely one of those novels that grabbed my attention from the very beginning! The prose flowed well and the alternating timelines were presented in a way that made sense and was easy to follow. I’d say that the present day timeline being sprinkled in throughout the novel really helped build up some tension and curiosity that made me want to keep on reading so I could figure out exactly what happened next in Moth’s backstory.

I also have to say that Jen Julian did a fantastic job of introducing the world around Deerhaven and the enigmatic guests that resided there — the worldbuilding felt very natural and never felt like a big infodump that I needed to take time to sit back and process. As the reader I felt like I was discovering everything I really needed to know alongside Moth, who was also entering the world of Deerhaven completely blind. The atmosphere crafted here manages to be eerie but also comforting at times, which sounds like an odd paradox but it definitely works in this case. There’s also a rather unique cast of characters here with the majority of them really managing to stand out and be memorable, despite some of them only getting a handful of mentions throughout.

If you’re a fan of atmospheric stories that blend reality with fantasy, and don’t mind having some gothic horror elements thrown into the mix, then I highly recommend you pick this one up! It really was a story that managed to feel both unique and familiar at the same time and I’m very glad I took a chance on it.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Run For It, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

This is a collection of ten stories that I have to admit I did not fully appreciate until hitting the final three stories. The first seven stories were mostly all just okay for me — not bad by any means but nothing that really wowed me either. If anything, these first seven just felt like they only skimmed the surface of what they could offer and really left me wanting more. (However the fourth story, “What We Look Like Together,” was an outlier here because I did enjoy that one quite a lot.)

So as I was reading through the first chunk of stories I was fully prepared to settle on an average three star rating and call it a day, but then the final three stories came into play and they completely changed my mind about the entire collection. “No Future” and “Going Up” both had some interesting ideas that grabbed my attention quickly while being just long enough to pull off what felt like a proper full story arc. Although out of these two, I’d have to say “Going Up” manages to be a bit more of a standout and even though I was perfectly satisfied with the length and the ending of the story, I kind of want a full book in this particular universe as well. The idea of The Speaker, who is an unknown entity that randomly calls people and begs them to take ownership of a still beating heart, is perfectly creepy and mysterious and the world seems to have no idea why this phenomenon is actually happening.

But the final, and longest, story is the absolute standout of this collection. Spanning the final 35% of the book, “Heaven is Fine for Girls Who Miss Their Mothers” managed to be a moving and powerful story that also made me sit back and reflect on some of the earlier stories as well. It really re-framed the collection as a whole for me and I definitely gained a new appreciation for those stories that I had originally been writing off as just okay. I don’t want to give too much away here because I really think going into “Heaven…” blind will offer the best reading experience, so I’ll just say that reading it really made pushing through the beginning half of the book absolutely worth it for me.

I’d definitely recommend this to readers who are interested in speculative fiction and aren’t afraid to just sit back and trust the process. I may be rating this as a four overall due to some of the less interesting stories, but I’d argue that sitting through all of them is definitely worth it for those final three — which I would individually rate at a 4, 4.5 and 5 respectively.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, William Morrow, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)

I’d say this is really a story about broken and dysfunctional families that keep a few too many secrets, and the children that have to suffer because of it.

All of the characters here are absolutely flawed, but unfortunately they’re also quite realistic. This story really nails how cycles of abuse come to happen — especially when the abuse is more emotional than physical. Neither Chuck nor Lettie grew up with the best of role models to look up to and it definitely shows in their actions. Most of my time spent reading through Chuck and Lettie’s POV chapters I was just left feeling frustrated by their poor choices. And although it was clearly obvious that they truly wanted to do better for their own children, the reality is that it’s not always easy to do so. I was much more invested in Baby’s POV and was rooting for her to break the cycle of bad behavior and be able to really succeed in life. So overall, even though I felt frustrated a lot, I’d say the fact that the story was able to bring up any emotions at all is a testament to it having been well-written enough to cause an impact.

I went back and forth on rating this as a 3 or 4 star, but I’ve settled on 3 for two main reasons: firstly, I just had a hard time keeping track of all the characters names and exactly what their relations to each other were. There are a bunch of nicknames to remember as well as the family trees being confusing due to both confirmed and implied infidelity, with a lot of divorces and breakups leading to the introduction of stepparents that muddy the waters even more. (But I’ll fully admit that I do have a tendency to struggle with larger casts of characters, so there’s probably plenty of other readers that won’t have any problem at all keeping up with all of the names!) My second critique is that the “curse” really wasn’t that prominent in the story at all, and that’s the biggest selling point that had me wanting to pick the book up. The curse definitely has some meaningful mental and emotional effects on the characters that are able to see those premonitions, but overall it kind of felt like a tool of convenience instead of a fully integrated plot piece.

I definitely see this book resonating much harder with readers who grew up in similar situations or who were close with another person that had to face them. Those who have pretty much only seen more happy nuclear families may struggle to really identify with the story being told here, but it might still be a good read if only for the sake of opening your eyes to a different life experience.

(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Tiny Reparations Books, via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)