The nitty-gritty: A masterfully written and plotted sci-fi horror story, The Sixth Nik combines grotesque imagery and body horror with unexpected depth and emotion. One thing I’ve come to expect with a new Daniel Kraus book is that I never know what to expect, and The Sixth Nik is yet another great example of Kraus’s […]
The nitty-gritty: Despite a fascinating, horrific premise and plenty of emotional hooks, Headlights turned out to be a disappointing reading experience. I am a huge C.J. Leede fan, let’s get that out of the way first. Her last book, American Rapture, made my top five books of 2024, so I was confident I would love Headlights […]
The nitty-gritty: Craig DiLouie twists the traditional camp slasher trope into a story told through the eyes of local law enforcement, without losing any of the thrills and chills that slasher fans expect. The Summer Fun Massacre was not quite what I expected, but I still had a fun time with it. Rather than your […]
The nitty-gritty: Gritty crime drama meets killer teddy bears in this high concept, bloody tale of revenge. Teddy Bears Never Die is probably one of the strangest books I’ve ever read, and the fact that it’s also a translated book (written by a Korean author and translated by a Korean translator), the “strange” factor jumps […]
The nitty-gritty: Nicholas Binge combines cosmic horror with biting commentary on big corporations in this short and entertaining novella. Nicholas Binge is such a good writer, and Abyss was a fun, mind-bending story with some Lovecraftian horror elements, hence the tentacled creature on the cover. It’s also a cautionary tale of corporate greed and how […]
The nitty-gritty: Intricately constructed and full of surprising reveals and connections, The Girl With a Thousand Faces is an epic, emotional journey of revenge, trauma and forgiveness. “Pain and grief are holes that never fill. We just learn to step around them as we walk.” It’s been a four year wait for Sunyi Dean’s follow […]
The nitty-gritty: Full of gorgeous, disturbing imagery and ambitious in scope, Bodies of Work is a unsettling peek into the mind of a killer. Clay McLeod Chapman always comes up with unique ideas, and in Bodies of Work, he’s taken the story of real life artist Henry Darger and built a fictional tale inspired by […]
The nitty-gritty: A mind-bending, bloody mystery, Japanese Gothic blends time travel and folklore into an emotional and heartbreaking story. “Words carried easily through this house—it was a skeleton, and when you slid open enough doors, the whole world passed through it. There was no such thing as a secret in this house.” Japanese Gothic is […]
The nitty-gritty: A promising, fast paced debut, Morsel is big on folk horror atmosphere but tried to do too much to be completely successful. Morsel is a strange little book that started out very strong, but at some point it took a weird turn and ended up in a place I wasn’t expecting. And I’m […]
The nitty-gritty: Mind-bending and menacing, The Caretaker is weird psychological horror at its best. “If you are reading this, it means you have failed the first Rite.” The Caretaker is Marcus Kliewer’s second book, and it’s just as bizarre and unsettling as We Use To Live Here. This is another mind fuck of a story […]