Book #201 of 2021: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon This is a strange narrative that changes shape at multiple junctures, so I’m loath to give too much away for prospective readers. But it begins with its fifteen-year-old heroine, the black albino intersex bride of the local reverend, fleeing from their fundamentalist cult compound to deliver her …
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Book #128 of 2021: Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant (Rolling in the Deep #1) A short but effective creature feature, following a deep-sea expedition looking to capture or manufacture footage of mermaids for a schlocky TV production. The last thing they expect is to find the real animals who inspired the myths, nor …
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Book #119 of 2021: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (Danielle Cain #1) The setting to this supernatural horror novella is a lot of fun, offering a sort of queer punk commune made up of squatters and/or idealistic radical leftists who are noticeably less common in fiction than in real life. I …
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Book #197 of 2020: Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix This story of a haunted IKEA-type store plays out about as expected, but I think it’s my least favorite of the four Grady Hendrix novels I’ve read so far. Too much in the early chapters seems like a cartoonish satire on corporate retail culture, so when the …
Book #192 of 2020: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones There’s a real visceral horror to this new 2020 release, in which a group of adult friends are revisited by a supernatural manifestation from their youth. I was expecting the book to be structured something like Stephen King’s It, but it plays out …
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Book #159 of 2020: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks This latest novel from author Max Brooks is structured somewhat like his fictitious oral history World War Z, but it’s much narrower in scope, consisting mainly of one protagonist’s diary entries and a few supporting interviews. The basic premise …
Book #158 of 2020: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia An eerie suspense novel that more than lives up to its title, Mexican Gothic follows a 1950s socialite as she is summoned from Mexico City to the countryside home of a cousin beset by disturbing visions amid her new husband’s uncaring family. The protagonist finds her …
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Book #136 of 2020: We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix Another great horror vehicle from author Grady Hendrix, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites in that genre. He excels at finding the dark supernatural underbelly of the mundane, this time in a musical group trading in their artistic integrity for the payout …
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Book #96 of 2020: My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix This 80s horror pastiche doesn’t win me over as early or as completely as author Grady Hendrix’s later effort The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires — set in the same town but otherwise unrelated — but it’s effective at balancing its various …
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Book #197 of 2019: His Hideous Heart: 13 of Edgar Allan Poe’s Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler I’m rounding up my rating for this collection a little bit on the strength of the original Edgar Allan Poe stories (many of which I’d never read before) that have been included along with their …
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