en-US Tue, 13 May 2025 06:54:45 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 217388171 From the breakout SFF superstar author of Murderbot comes the remarkable sequel to the USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling novel, Witch King. A fantasy of epic scope, Queen Demon is a story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs' Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there's something he isn't telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself.

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

Follow Kai to the end of the world in this thrilling sequel to the USA Today-bestselling Witch King.]]> 400 Martha Wells 1250826918 Joel 0 to-read 4.36 2025
author: Martha Wells
name: Joel
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220161193 A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nyugen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood, for fans of Jennifer’s Body and Little Fires Everywhere.

It's the summer before high school, and Ronny Nguyen finds herself too young for work, too old for cartoons. Her days are spent in a small backyard, dozing off to trashy magazines on a plastic lawn chair. In stark contrast stands her brother Tommy, the pride and joy of their immigrant parents: a popular honor student destined to be the first in the family to attend college. The thought of Tommy leaving for college fills Ronny with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba.

Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. The family's meals are a tapestry of cultural memory: thick spring rolls with slim and salty nem chua, and steaming bowls of pho tái with thin, delicate slices of blood-red beef. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.

But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.

What Hunger is a visceral, emotional journey through the bursts and pitfalls of female rage. Ronny’s Vietnamese lineage and her mother’s emotional memory play a crucial role in this tender ode to generational trauma and mother-daughter bonding.]]> 288 Catherine Dang 1668065576 Joel 0 to-read 4.50
author: Catherine Dang
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49389282
In Shout Kill Revel Repeat, the debut collection of short fiction from Scott R. Jones, you’ll be introduced to nihilistic shapeshifters, deranged billionaire magicians, surf champions, survivalists, sadists, and soldiers, all of whom learn that to live is to enter into a never-ending cycle of fury and fear, dark revelation and deepest regret.

Shout. Kill. Revel. Repeat.]]> 222 Scott R. Jones 1950305090 Joel 5 Most of the stories here were already published prior to collection, and I *believe* all the original stories have since seen print in other collections as well. Which is not to say you shouldn't pick this up...Its Jones' unique stew of mysticism, science fiction, lovecraftian horror, with social commentary for spice on full display.
There's clearly either some world building going on, or just Jones working out a number of ideas, themes, and story elements that will finally gel together in Stonefish. Whichever of those is true, its a fascinating process to watch, and well re-creates the feeling Lovecraft created that there was something coherent and *bigger* going on, when it fact it is and always was chaos. We even see Jones' much vaunted First Law, Everything Hungry, make appearences throughout. If I have one minor complaint, its that that there are a couple sensory turns of phrase (the calving of an ice shelf) that feel a little repetitive, but only because stories originally written to be read on their own all collected in one place.
Some of these definitely feel like they fall within the Stonefish mythos ('The Amnesiac's Lament', 'The Spike', etc.). Others are squarely in the bounds of Jones' unique take on Lovecraft's universe (the titular 'Shout/Kill/Revel/Repeat', 'Wonder and Glory Forever'), some touch on other classics of weird fiction (I loved the King in Yellow riff of 'Perfect Ten'), and others are something completely separate and different ('The Transition of Toby the Twitch'). If I had to identify a story that didn't really land for me, I'd say it was Abraxas.
If you like a deeply mystic take on weird fiction, that defies easy classification and still moves fast while being thought provoking, please pick up Jones work.]]> 4.13 2019
author: Scott R. Jones
name: Joel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: anthology, short-fiction, short-story, horror, science-fiction, lovecraftian
review:
An outrageously good collection from Scott Jones.
Most of the stories here were already published prior to collection, and I *believe* all the original stories have since seen print in other collections as well. Which is not to say you shouldn't pick this up...Its Jones' unique stew of mysticism, science fiction, lovecraftian horror, with social commentary for spice on full display.
There's clearly either some world building going on, or just Jones working out a number of ideas, themes, and story elements that will finally gel together in Stonefish. Whichever of those is true, its a fascinating process to watch, and well re-creates the feeling Lovecraft created that there was something coherent and *bigger* going on, when it fact it is and always was chaos. We even see Jones' much vaunted First Law, Everything Hungry, make appearences throughout. If I have one minor complaint, its that that there are a couple sensory turns of phrase (the calving of an ice shelf) that feel a little repetitive, but only because stories originally written to be read on their own all collected in one place.
Some of these definitely feel like they fall within the Stonefish mythos ('The Amnesiac's Lament', 'The Spike', etc.). Others are squarely in the bounds of Jones' unique take on Lovecraft's universe (the titular 'Shout/Kill/Revel/Repeat', 'Wonder and Glory Forever'), some touch on other classics of weird fiction (I loved the King in Yellow riff of 'Perfect Ten'), and others are something completely separate and different ('The Transition of Toby the Twitch'). If I had to identify a story that didn't really land for me, I'd say it was Abraxas.
If you like a deeply mystic take on weird fiction, that defies easy classification and still moves fast while being thought provoking, please pick up Jones work.
]]> 51795852
When journalist Den Secord is tasked with locating enigmatic tech guru Gregor Makarios, he soon finds his understanding of reality under threat. At the edge of the world, surrounded by primeval forests, in the paradisical environs of Gregor's hi-tech hermitage, Den learns of the true nature of our Universe.

This is the way the world ends.

Heart of Darkness meets The Magus meets bleeding-edge psychedelic gnosticism in Stonefish, the debut novel from Scott R. Jones (When Stars Are Right, Shout Kill Revel Repeat).]]> 328 Scott R. Jones 1939905575 Joel 5 As one might expect from Scott there are certainly religious and mystical overtones (I particularly enjoy the parallel to Christ carrying his cross upon his back late in the novel) as well. With clever references to the present day, our protagonist (a journalist by trade) goes on the hunt for a missing tech mogul in a world teetering both on the edge of climate collapse and transformative consciousness, in the midst of another mysterious crisis featuring strange phenomena robbing people of their senses.
I would describe or summarize some of what's encountered along the way, but repeatedly the very nature and substance of reality is called into question. As the, intertextually referenced, Matrix advertising campaign told us in the 90s, one can't be told what this story is. Or at least, can't be without robbing you of the journey and experience (unless, like me, you are completely okay with spoilers).
While reading it, I kept thinking something about Stonefish reminded me of Murakam's 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and I've struggled to think of why. Other than some very superficial trappings, they don't on the surface seem similar enough to have evoked that in me. But I can't help feel they share some DNA. Maybe its the birth and death of worlds, questions about the nature of reality, but one entirely internal and one very external.]]> 3.66 2020
author: Scott R. Jones
name: Joel
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/10
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: scifi, cyberpunk, post-apocolyptic, dystopia, weird-fiction, horror, cryptid, bigfoot, lgbtqia
review:
Scott Jones defies genre expectations all the way round. This cyberpunk, dys- or I guess u-topian (depending on how you feel about it), weird fiction, horror, crypto zoological mystery should maybe not work...but it does and beautifully at that.
As one might expect from Scott there are certainly religious and mystical overtones (I particularly enjoy the parallel to Christ carrying his cross upon his back late in the novel) as well. With clever references to the present day, our protagonist (a journalist by trade) goes on the hunt for a missing tech mogul in a world teetering both on the edge of climate collapse and transformative consciousness, in the midst of another mysterious crisis featuring strange phenomena robbing people of their senses.
I would describe or summarize some of what's encountered along the way, but repeatedly the very nature and substance of reality is called into question. As the, intertextually referenced, Matrix advertising campaign told us in the 90s, one can't be told what this story is. Or at least, can't be without robbing you of the journey and experience (unless, like me, you are completely okay with spoilers).
While reading it, I kept thinking something about Stonefish reminded me of Murakam's 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and I've struggled to think of why. Other than some very superficial trappings, they don't on the surface seem similar enough to have evoked that in me. But I can't help feel they share some DNA. Maybe its the birth and death of worlds, questions about the nature of reality, but one entirely internal and one very external.
]]> 217388302 DELUXE EDITION—a gorgeous hardcover edition featuring bright green sprayed edges, a foil stamp on the casing, and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White� steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.]]> 368 T. Kingfisher 1250342031 Joel 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Joel
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216056318
Created by monsters to be destroyed by men.

Jack Serpent is the only person to have survived the Scriver Trials. With that, he became a lore keeper for the origin of monsters, a spy, and hybrid soldier able to withstand crushing magic. Ever since a coven of Strygan murdered his family, he’s set out to discover and record what plagues the continents. It’s the sort of highly valuable knowledge that could change wars and divide kingdoms.

In the dark places of Ocrana, an uprising of Strygan has begun. They use stolen magic to take over the realms. No one knows how to effectively kill the monsters summoned by Strygan, let alone the High Stryga herself. The military general only knows how to kill with bullets and fire, but he’ll need more to challenge the encroaching threat. He’ll need a Scriver’s help. Jack is recruited to kill the High Stryga before she tips the balance of magic and takes the throne. To locate and destroy the High Stryga within a swamp poisoned with corrupted magic, Jack must reluctantly accept the help of others. As a man accustomed to working alone, cooperating with the ragtag group of soldiers, an old nemesis, and a tracker might prove more challenging than the monsters themselves.

When Jack finds more than a kindred spirit in the feisty tracker, he will have to choose between the mission and saving lives. There’s more to the Strygan than they understand. Jack discovers a secret in his past that will either lead to a Stryga on the throne and the enslavement of humans, or the unraveling of his mind.

Sometimes knowledge is worth dying for.]]> 400 E.A. Field 1998076733 Joel 0 to-read 4.00
author: E.A. Field
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223363578 A queer woman must fight her way out of a big-box craft store run by a diabolical religious cult in this gripping survival horror novel by Jenny Kiefer, author of This Wretched Valley

The ratcheting tension and gut-churning terror will appeal to fans of The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay and The Ritual by Adam Nevill

Ruth is trapped. She’s stuck in her small, religious hometown of Kill Devil, Kentucky, stuck in the closet, and stuck living paycheck to paycheck. After her manager finds out that she lives with her girlfriend, Ruth is fired from her job as a cashier at New Creations—a craft store owned by the church that dominates life in the town.Ěý

In an act of revenge, Ruth attempts to shoplift some yarn but is caught red-handed by a New Creations cashier. Instead of calling the police, the employees lock her in the store—and attack her. When Ruth is forced to stab out one of their eyes with a knitting needle, she realizes she's facing far bigger trouble than a simple shoplifting charge. As Ruth fights for her life, she plunges deeper into the tangled web of the New Creationists, who are hiding a terrible secret that threatens not only her, but the entire town.

This relentless horror novel will have youĚýon the edge of your seat as it hurtles towards a breathtaking conclusion. Will Ruth escape? Or will the shocking secret at the heart of the cult die with her?]]> 304 Jenny Kiefer 1683694708 Joel 0 to-read 4.00
author: Jenny Kiefer
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228276415 The most visible threat to humanity isn't always the most dangerous.

Crover Island, a small land mass just past Inverness, is inhabited by toughened Scots who have lived and fished there for generations.

University student Tim Kempson arrives on the island just ahead of Hurricane Nora, green under the gills from his rocky boat ride, but not too seasick to instantly fall for Marie, the strong-willed daughter of the local pub owner.

As a trio of fishermen launch a business to capitalize on the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, and Tim and Marie explore their new relationship, the island is hit by gale force winds and torrential rain. Then a shockwave jolts the northern half of the Great Glen Fault, causing the entire island to shiver.

What’s written off as an insignificant tremor by those above sea level releases an army of horrific underwater creatures far more real than Nessie will ever be.

And they’re hungry.]]> 260 J.M. Kelly Joel 0 to-read 4.00
author: J.M. Kelly
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 31813177 Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Where Am I Going?
Chapter 2: How Am I Doing?
Chapter 3: What Are My Next Steps?
Conclusion
References Books in the Solutions for Creating the Learning Spaces Students Deserve ]]> 80 William M Ferriter 194387414X Joel 2 nonfiction, education 3.69
author: William M Ferriter
name: Joel
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: nonfiction, education
review:
Meh...not badly written per se, but just feels like a reframing of the same business management notions that like to pretend there's problems that have solutions other than just improve conditions for people.
]]> 219278616 The haunting final chapter of the modern classic Vita Nostra trilogy. The Dyachenkos� magical dark academia novel brings the story of Sasha to a revelatory climax as she learns to take control of her powers and reshape the world...or destroy it forever. Beautifully translated from Russian by Julia Meitov Hersey.

The Institute of Special Technologies teaches students just one the magic that allows them to become parts of speech, and in doing so, transforming into a specific piece of grammar (a verb, or an adjective, or an article) so they will be able to shape the world around them. As the new provost, though, Sasha is facing an enormous the students in the world she just created, her “world without fear,� are unable to master the curriculum. Whether it’s the magic or the natural order of things, what they need to learn and become—Speech—is the basis of the material world.

And if she can’t teach it, Sasha knows that matter will soon cease to exist.

To protect the world, Sasha must collect fragments of her former reality. Only three people carry these fragments within her younger brother, Valya, and the Grigoriev twins, Arthur and Pashka, the sons of her former lover, Yaroslav Grigoriev. Sasha must lure these three to the Institute and make them learn—and understand—at any cost.

But she knows how difficult the path is, even more so from the other side of the teacher’s desk. Forced to act ever more ruthlessly, Sasha also notices the faster the world around the Institute changes. It is a vicious circle.

And one she must break.

To do so, she will have to shape reality again, one in which communication doesn’t break down and Speech once again needs to evolve and grow and flourish.

Sasha has already given up so much in pursuit of this dream—often her nightmare—and she might be asked to make one more sacrifice so that the world and Speech might live on.]]> 384 Marina Dyachenko 0063225484 Joel 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: Joel
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220165542
The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save them . . . at terrible cost.]]> 112 Stephen Graham Jones 1250406021 Joel 0 to-read 3.50 2017
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Joel
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227901292 When Theo's parents die, however, he's incapable of letting them go. After all, if he hadn't been shirking his responsibilities, he would've been with them when the fire claimed their lives and their home. Determined to make things right, he vows to resurrect them by following their bodies through the hole, into the underworld - a vast ocean with islands guarded by powerful beings, some friendly and some fiendish.
There he meets Demeres, a ferrywoman who may be his only chance of finding his parents and bringing them safely above ground. But navigating the perilous waters without attracting Death's watchful eye proves more difficult than he imagined, and the longer he takes, the more tenuous the connection between his parents' souls and the world of the living becomes.]]> 326 R.D. Pires 1734749598 Joel 0 to-read 0.0
author: R.D. Pires
name: Joel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30221706 180 Justine Geoffrey 1927673097 Joel 2 2.75 2013
author: Justine Geoffrey
name: Joel
average rating: 2.75
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/04
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: horror, weird-fiction, lovecraftian, erotica, martian-migraine
review:

]]> 18869985 The Birds was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte VeritĂ ' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .]]> 253 Daphne du Maurier 031625360X Joel 5 The titular Birds definitely has some War of the Worlds in its ancestry, and just as clearly seems like it was drawn upon for Matheson's I Am Legend. As for the rest of the stories, there isn't a dud among them. Though I think the only other potentially 'weird' story is Monte Verita. Even there, I think there's a reading that doesn't involve anything beyond mundane drives, desires, and happenings. Which I think is great...while there are readings of it and The Apple Tree that involve the supernatural, they can be read as being the result of nothing more than the mundane horrors of what people due to one another. Given the rest of the stories, I'm inclined to lean into the mundane readings, which make them no less effective. The dysfunctional relationships or individuals, reliable and unreliable narrators, give a fantastic tension and close to home horror.]]> 4.08 1952
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Joel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/03
date added: 2025/05/03
shelves: short-fiction, short-story, classics, horror, murder, weird-fiction, anthology
review:
This is my first Du Maurier, and I'm glad I started here. Even if its just because The Birds has been a favorite Hitchcock since I was a child. Not that the story bears much resemblance to the movie, which isn't surprising given that Hitchcock is well known for not caring to make a movie that closely resembles the source material but rather to just taking 'inspiration' from it.
The titular Birds definitely has some War of the Worlds in its ancestry, and just as clearly seems like it was drawn upon for Matheson's I Am Legend. As for the rest of the stories, there isn't a dud among them. Though I think the only other potentially 'weird' story is Monte Verita. Even there, I think there's a reading that doesn't involve anything beyond mundane drives, desires, and happenings. Which I think is great...while there are readings of it and The Apple Tree that involve the supernatural, they can be read as being the result of nothing more than the mundane horrors of what people due to one another. Given the rest of the stories, I'm inclined to lean into the mundane readings, which make them no less effective. The dysfunctional relationships or individuals, reliable and unreliable narrators, give a fantastic tension and close to home horror.
]]> 222376774 An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world’s leading expert

With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of mammalian species. The most successful and most diverse group of mammals, bats come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, from the tiny bumblebee bat to the giant golden-crowned flying fox. Some bats eat fruit and nectar; others eat frogs, scorpions or fish. Vampire bats feed on blood. Bats are the only mammals that can fly; their fingers have elongated through evolution to become wings with a unique super-flexible skin membrane stretched between them. Their robust immune system is one of the reasons for their extreme longevity. A tiny bat can live for forty years.

Yossi Yovel, an ecologist and a neurobiologist, is passionate about deciphering the secrets of bats, including using AI to decipher their communication. In The Genius Bat he brings to vivid life these amazing creatures as well as the obsessive and sometime eccentric people who study them–bat scientists. From muddy rainforests, to star-covered night deserts, from guest houses in Thailand, to museum drawers full of fossils in New York, this is an eye-opening and entertaining account of a might mammal.]]> 320 Yossi Yovel 1250378443 Joel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Yossi Yovel
name: Joel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205804205 Learn the basics of fungal biology, foraging, and identification in this in-depth illustrated introduction from the beloved scientist, mushroom enthusiast, and social media star behind Fascinated By Fungi.

In Dr. Fun Guy’s Passport to Kingdom Fungi, Dr. Gordon Walker brings his scientific knowledge and love for everything fungi to the page. The first section of this book is written in a comprehensive question-and-answer format. Starting with “What are fungi?� readers will learn about things like mycelium, fungi’s evolution, and biochemistry and how they are classified and impact the world. They will also find information on best foraging practices and culinary techniques.

The second half of this book introduces readers to mushroom-identification skills and profiles various mushrooms and other fungi, from incredible edibles you can find in the wild to the dangerously toxic, medicinal, and just plain weird. Finally, readers will find out about fungal phenomena, showing the amazing breadth and diversity of the fungal kingdom.

With colorful and comprehensive science illustrations, mushroom photography, and QR codes linking to resources to help readers continue their fungal explorations, this is the perfect portal to enter into the world of mushrooms.]]> 320 Gordon Walker 1984861794 Joel 0 to-read 4.50
author: Gordon Walker
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222377143 The incredible untold story of how the world's greatest magician, Harry Houdini, waged war upon Spiritualism, uncovering unknown magic, political conspiracies, and surprising secrets along the way.

You won’t live forever, Houdini. You’ve got to DIE. I put a curse on you . . .

During a séance in 1924, Houdini—the greatest entertainer in the world—was cursed by a vengeful spirit, who said his days were numbered. Houdini laughed. He believed talking to the dead was impossible.

By 1926, Houdini was dead.

This is the untold story of the last performance of Harry Houdini, who after becoming inspired by his hero Abraham Lincoln, devotes himself full-time to a personal crusade against Spiritualism, the practice of speaking to the dead. In a spellbinding journey across Jazz Age America, haunted by the aftermath of the Great War and a deadly pandemic, Houdini encounters all the modern forms of haunted houses, warlocks, and monsters, and uncovers a shocking conspiracy that stretches all the way back to Lincoln himself.

In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Houdini’s 1926 dramatic courtroom testimony before Congress and the last otherworldly cases he takes on that lead him there, Lincoln's Ghost is a powerful examination of deception, love, politics, the afterlife, and the very nature of magic itself.]]> 320 Brad Ricca 1250338905 Joel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Brad Ricca
name: Joel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217535791 Who is Mary Darling? In this subversive take on both Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, a daring mother is the populist hero the Victorian era never knew it needed. In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of women and people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed.


Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds.

After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but perhaps not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. To save her family, Mary must escape London—and an attempt to have her locked away as mad—to travel halfway around the world.

Despite the interference of Holmes, Mary gathers allies in her quest: Sam, a Solomon Islander whose village was destroyed by contact with Western civilization; Ruby, a Malagasy woman on an island that everyone thinks is run by pirates (though it’s actually run by women); Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger; and of course, Nana, the faithful dog and nursemaid.

In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of women and people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed, telling the stories of those who were ignored or misrepresented along the way.]]> 320 Pat Murphy 1616964383 Joel 0 to-read 4.09
author: Pat Murphy
name: Joel
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222399120 From award-winning andĚýUSA TodayĚýbestselling author Kosoko Jackson comes his adult fantasy debut, a stand-alone novel blending of art history, time- and globe-hopping adventure, and dark horror and fantasy about ten cursed paintings and the lengths people will go to collect them, destroy them…or be destroyed.

?A picture is worth a thousand nightmares.

A struggling painter, Lewis Dixon is shocked when the British Museum shows an unusual interest in his art. While he’s always felt there’s something powerful about what he puts on canvas, he also felt there was something disturbing just under the surface—especially as he was compelled to make a painting of a painting—one that he has a connection the object of his art is one of the ten paintings his great-grandfather created over a hundred years ago. Only Lewis’s version is surreal…and maybe just a touch horrific.

Still, he accepts the invitation, only to find not a curated show, but a to see if he not only has the magic necessary to enter the paintings, but also the strength to escape them. Because unbeknownst to Lewis, there is power in his art, just as the ten paintings carry with them both immense eldritch abilities and a terrible curse—making them, perhaps, the most valuable works of art in the world.

And Lewis has been asked to destroy them all.

With orders from a mysterious museum official, Evangeline, and partnered with an alluring agent in her employ, Noah Rao, Lewis must plunge into a world of black markets, gothic magic, ancient history, and unspeakable terror to save those unlucky enough to call any of the paintings their own, and to hopefully locate the tenth painting in the series, long missing, the powers of which are suspected to be most devastating of all…]]> 400 Kosoko Jackson 0063394464 Joel 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Kosoko Jackson
name: Joel
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44453040 From the bestselling author of The Bone Season, an epic high fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons-and the secret society tasked with stopping it.

A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years.

Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to ensure the continuation of her bloodline. But as she clings to her independence, assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has converted to the Six Virtues and risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she will never be truly at home in Inys. As she dutifully goes to the sanctuary each day, Ead keeps a watchful eye on the queen, protecting her with forbidden magic.

Yet even she cannot keep Sabran from harm indefinitely. Dragons are encroaching on Inysh lands for the first time in centuries, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and an age-old force is stirring that no mandate can keep at bay.]]> 831 Samantha Shannon 1635570301 Joel 0 to-read 4.22 2019
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Joel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219236780 Inception meets Indiana Jones in this propulsive fungal science fantasy following a headstrong academic and her equally stubborn bodyguard as they unearth an ancient secret that rocks the foundations of their society—and challenges their unspoken love for one another.

Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key wants to do research for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye.

Valerian IV's twin swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.

But when Key collects a memory that diverges from official history, only Vale sees the fallout. Key’s mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding; her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then days.

As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key’s obsessive drive for answers, the women uncover a shattering discovery—and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit, or they can jeopardize everything for the truth.

Either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.]]> 464 Mia Tsai 164566208X Joel 0 to-read 3.76 2025
author: Mia Tsai
name: Joel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217388015 From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant.

While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone―or something―is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service� reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?]]> 176 Annalee Newitz 1250357462 Joel 0 to-read 4.17 2025
author: Annalee Newitz
name: Joel
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209455847 Amateur sleuth Mallory Viridian has just about got her bearings aboard the space station she calls home, but now the physical embodiment of the Internet is on its way, and it's bringing murder with it.

Mallory Viridian has had a quiet few months. Even with the increased influx of humans visiting Station Eternity, she hasn’t seen so much as a bar brawl. Used to people dying left and right around her, the lack of murders to solve has left her unexpectedly…bored.

But humanity's favorite way to waste time is on its way to her sector of the galaxy. The Alexandria, a giant data ship that contains the entire Internet from Earth, docks outside of Eternity and offers access to the world wide web to anyone on board who's interested.

Which is exactly when another killer decides to strike. When Mallory finds her book agent dead, she knows she has to work fast to find the murderer. What with alien influencers, a lonely living comprehensive Internet, and a deadly crime to solve, Mallory has her work cut out for her . . . .]]> 352 Mur Lafferty 0593098153 Joel 0 to-read 3.56 2025
author: Mur Lafferty
name: Joel
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216594910 For fans of Stephen King's The Mist and the HBO hit show The Last of Us comes a wildly inventive, sinister thriller following an estranged father and daughter who find themselves trapped in a diner by a living body of water.

ĚýDon't let the water drag you downâ€�

ĚýIt's been six years since Glen Masters lost his wife in a tragic accident. In hopes of reconnecting with his grieving teenage daughter, Lauren, he decides to take her on a road trip through the Appalachian mountains, where he has fond memories of their past as a family. But what was supposed to be a quick diner pit stop suddenly transforms into a nightmare when armed men stumble in, ranting about a mysterious and deadly "living water" that attacked several people up the road. The story the men spin seems to be the rantings of drunken lunatics, but soon Glen, his daughter, and the other diners find themselves hostages to both the gunmen and the inexplicably terrifying entity.Ěý

ĚýBecause there's truly something wrong with the water, and it has no mercy.

ĚýPanic grows as the diners play witness to a nature-defying being that seeks only to swallow everything in its path. With help nowhere in sight, the group of strangers must work together to devise an escape, and ultimately, Glen will have to face his worst fears to reconcile with the past or risk losing everything.

ĚýA chilling story from a brand-new voice in fiction, Body of Water explores the complicated nature of grief, terror, and the ghosts we must confront to survive.

Ěý


]]> 400 Adam Godfrey 1464229473 Joel 0 to-read 4.67
author: Adam Godfrey
name: Joel
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
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]]> 222376946 Misery meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this genre-bending, claustrophobic hospital gothic from the bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

Margaret lives with a rare autoimmune condition that has destroyed her life, leaving her isolated. It has no cure, but she’s making do as best she can—until she’s offered a fully paid-for spot in an experimental medical trial at Graceview Memorial.

The conditions are simple, if grueling; she will live at the hospital as a full-time patient, subjecting herself to the near-total destruction of her immune system and its subsequent regeneration. The trial will essentially kill most of, but not all of her. But as the treatment progresses and her body begins to fail, she stumbles upon something sinister living and spreading within the hospital.

Unsure of what's real and what is just medication-induced delusion, Margaret struggles to find a way out as her body and mind succumb further to the darkness lurking throughout Graceview's halls.]]> 304 Caitlin Starling 1250340756 Joel 0 to-read 3.92 2025
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Joel
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228630476 Offering the atmosphere of Twin Peaks and the queer camaraderie of comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, Veal is a thrilling exploration of friendship, fear, and the thin line between justice and vengeance.

Delores “Lawrence� Franklin is a failed capitalist and a runaway headcase. Following a corporate meltdown, she decides to start fresh in Mistaken Point, a small town known for two things � Mistaken Point University, where she and her best friend, Anastasia Lanes, are now enrolled, and the grisly murders of countless young women.

At her new part-time arcade job, Lawrence meets Francesca “Franky� Delores � gritty, off-putting, and chronically serious, as opposite to Lawrence as her name would suggest. Soon, Lawrence discovers Franky is convinced there is a monster on the loose, a patchwork creature born of hatred and responsible for the supposedly solved string of violence haunting the town.

Against the advice of Franky’s closest friend, Pippa, Lawrence and Stasia join Franky in a sticky, summertime search for a yellow-eyed monster between classes, shifts at the arcade, and eating popsicles by the pool. Motivated mostly by her unquenchable attraction to Franky, Lawrence allows herself to be pulled in strange directions, trying to appease Franky’s mania. Through the trials of hunting a monster only some of them believe in, Pippa, Lawrence, Stasia, and Franky discover truths about womanhood, relationships, and the reliability of urban legends.]]> 288 Mackenzie Nolan 1770418067 Joel 0 to-read 4.08
author: Mackenzie Nolan
name: Joel
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
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]]> 218155507 Revolutionary and visionary, these twenty-two speculative stories edited by Lambda, Nebula and Hugo finalist Lee Mandelo explore the vast potentialities of our queer and trans futures.

From self-styled knights fighting in dystopian city streets to conservationists finding loveĚýin theĚýAppalachianĚýforests; from social media posts about domestic “blissâ€� in a lottery-based, state-housing skyscraper to herding feral cats off of one’s scientific equipment; from street drugs that create doppelgangersĚýto dance-club cruising at the edge of the galaxyâ€� Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity interrogates the farthest borders of the sci-fi landscape to imagine how queer life will look centuries in the future—or ten years from now.

Filled with brutal honesty, raw emotions, sexual escapades, andĚýdelightful whimsy, Amplitudes speaks to the longstanding tradition of queer fiction as protest. This essential collection serves as an evolving map of ourĚýcelebrations, anxieties, wishes, pitfalls, and—most of all—our rallying cry that we're here, we're queer—and the future is ours!
Ěý
Inventive, moving, and hopeful, this fresh Ěýanthology contains never before published stories by some of our most prominent and emergingĚýLGBTQIA+Ěýwriters,
Ěý
Esther Alter � Bendi Barrett � Ta-wei Chi, trans. Ariel Chu � Colin Dean � Maya Deane � Dominique Dickey � Katharine Duckett � Meg Elison � Paul Evanby � Aysha U. Farah � Sarah Gailey � Ash Huang � Margaret Killjoy � Wen-yi Lee � Ewen Ma � Jamie McGhee � Sam J. Miller � Aiki Mira, trans. CD Covington � Sunny Moraine � Nat X. Ray � Neon Yang � Ramez Yoakeim]]> 368 Lee Mandelo 1645660869 Joel 0 to-read 3.50 2025
author: Lee Mandelo
name: Joel
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> 219522028 Stephen King’s Under the Dome meets The Last of Us in this harrowing dystopian novel about the downward spiral of a seaside town that becomes infected by a mysterious ocean-borne contagion.

If you want to stay, you have to die.

In a small fishing town known for its aging birding community and the local oyster farm, a hidden evil emerges from the depths of the ocean. It begins with sea snails washing ashore, attacking whatever they cling to. This mysterious infection starts transforming the wildlife, the seascapes, and finally, the people.

Once infected, residents of Baywood start “deading�: collapsing and dying, only to rise again, changed in ways both fanatical and physical. As the government cuts the town off from the rest of the world, the uninfected, including the introverted bird-loving Blas and his jaded older brother Chango, realize their town could be ground zero for a fundamental shift in all living things.

Soon, disturbing beliefs and autocratic rituals emerge, overseen by the death-worshiping Risers. People must choose how to survive, how to find home, and whether or not to betray those closest to them. Stoked by paranoia and isolation, tensions escalate until Blas, Chango, and the survivors of Baywood must make their escape or become subsumed by this terrifying new normal.

At points claustrophobic and haunting, soulful and melancholic, The Deading lyrically explores the disintegration of society, the horror of survival and adaptation, and the unexpected solace found through connections in nature and between humans.]]> 320 Nicholas Belardes 164566130X Joel 0 to-read 4.33 2024
author: Nicholas Belardes
name: Joel
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> 222658325 In this shockingly fun wild ride of horrors, Sam Rebelein takes readers back to Renfield County and tells the story of two Rachels—one who mistakenly starts a cult at her local high school and one who tries to dismantle it ten years later.Ěý

2009:ĚýRachel Galloway is bored in class. She spends the dreary fall days sketching in her notebook—adorable pigs munching on her boring teachers—and imagining a utopia where all the horrors of Burnskidde High School disappear. But when her classmates start to believe this utopia could be real, Galloway finds herself at the center of an elaborate, and quickly spreading, new religion. Before long, the town is split between believers and nonbelievers. As tensions rise and the rituals become more dangerous, Galloway can’t be sure what’s real and what’s not, or who she can trust.

CULTWATCH

2019:ĚýThis is the cryptic message that Renfield County Guard Rachel Durwood receives from her colleague Mark, mere days after he’s disappeared. Mark’s note leads Durwood to the town of Burnskidde, famously sealed off from the rest of the county ten years ago. Now, she discovers a small, insulated community preparing for the rapture and, seemingly, their collective demise. In order to save Burnskidde from itself, she must piece together the fallout from 2009 and avoid being swept up into the monstrous cult herself.

As Rachel Galloway watches her life spiral out of control, Rachel Durwood navigates a world where history, horror, and faith collide. Despite being separated by a decade, Galloway and Durwood may be closer to each other than they realize. But even together, will they be able to stop Burnskidde’s impending doom?]]> 384 Sam Rebelein 0063423952 Joel 0 to-read 5.00
author: Sam Rebelein
name: Joel
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 219522027
Nine rooms. Nine tests. One chance to get out alive.

Bestselling author Jeremy Bates invites you to spend the night in The No-End House. Where the nightmares begin as soon as you enter—and the terror never ends . . .

It’s the ultimate haunted house challenge. A crumbling stone mansion nestled in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, it may be the best-kept secret in Europe—a little-known attraction featuring nine escape rooms to explore, nine puzzles to solve, and a large cash prize for anyone who makes it to the end. There’s just one catch: no one makes it to the end of The No-End House. . . .

When Joe Hadfield hears about the house from a pair of backpackers, he’s intrigued but not interested. He’s trying to escape a nightmare of his own: the trauma of witnessing his wife’s grisly death. Traveling the world to ease his pain and grief, he meets a beautiful stranger named Helen who convinces him to try The No-End challenge together. Joe reluctantly agrees. But as soon as they enter its walls, meet its mysterious host—and sign an ominous contract—Joe begins to understand the seductive power of The No-End House . . .

It knows his darkest secrets. It feeds his greatest fears. It makes him do things he would never do. And there is no end to what he will do . . . to make it out alive.]]> 320 Jeremy Bates 1496755510 Joel 0 to-read 3.45
author: Jeremy Bates
name: Joel
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> 217262686 What if a mystifying revolt precluded the Civil War and changed history as we know it? The vampire origin story is brilliantly reimagined in this terrifying novel of ancient lore, startling revenge, and immortal emancipation in eighteenth-century America.

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim� Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.]]> 400 Markus Redmond 149675316X Joel 0 to-read 4.54 2025
author: Markus Redmond
name: Joel
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> 2522996 456 Edmond Hamilton 0441784224 Joel 4 It was a light, fast, fun action-y collection. Though nestled in there is some surprisingly astute self-reflection and great characterization, some nice thoughts on how you can't ever really 'go home again' for a whole host of reasons and causes.
Worth the read!]]> 4.03 1968
author: Edmond Hamilton
name: Joel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: space-opera, science-fiction, scifi, pulp, adventure
review:
Another rollicking, adventurous good time from the semi-pulp scifi era I hadn't previously read (or anything else by Hamilton for that matter). This omnibus was in the last of the books from my aunt, who loved this sort of thing.
It was a light, fast, fun action-y collection. Though nestled in there is some surprisingly astute self-reflection and great characterization, some nice thoughts on how you can't ever really 'go home again' for a whole host of reasons and causes.
Worth the read!
]]> 221452818 A spiky, edgy collection of five wickedly funny stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult� women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time.

The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In “Naked,� a woman who’s simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a “loser� in the eyes of society. In “Planarian,� a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women—as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work—chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men.

First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic—available for the first time outside Asia and in English—remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.]]> 288 Fumio Yamamoto 0063423588 Joel 0 to-read 3.76 2000
author: Fumio Yamamoto
name: Joel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 200262434 368 Rhett C. Bruno Joel 0 to-read 4.57 2024
author: Rhett C. Bruno
name: Joel
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 205064662
One of the most iconic structures in the Four Lands is Paranor, the fortress home of the Druid Order. Legend holds that it was erected by an Elven leader known as Galaphile Joss. But who was this Galaphile, and how and why did he choose to establish this center of magic and learning?

Within these pages we meet the real Galaphile, following him from a friendless teenage orphan stranded in the Human world to a powerful adult and master mage, studying under the infamous recluse, Cogline. We learn of the forces that shaped him—those he loved, and those he lost; those who aided him, and those who stood against him.

Throughout it all, Galaphile’s goal is a noble one: to bring order to a chaotic world, and to make life better for those trying to survive it. To this end, he commences building the citadel which will one day be known as Paranor with the aid of the King of the Silver River. But there is one other who seeks dominion over the Four Lands—and for far less virtuous ends.

For this foe has been corrupted by an ancient evil—one that will not only reach out and touch Galaphile’s nearest and dearest, but also echo down through the centuries, sowing the seeds for some of the darkest times the Four Lands will ever face.]]> 336 Terry Brooks 0593129806 Joel 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Terry Brooks
name: Joel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 35540247 Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well in London has been her family's specialty for generations.

Greta Helsing inherited the family's highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills - vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood.

Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.]]> 353 Vivian Shaw 0356508870 Joel 0 to-read 3.74 2017
author: Vivian Shaw
name: Joel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221254185
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.

Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?]]> 432 Tashan Mehta 0756420067 Joel 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Tashan Mehta
name: Joel
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 220161572 For fans of The Ministry of Time and The Midnight Library, a sweeping, unforgettable novel moving from pre-WWII Germany to Cold War-era America to the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.

Nuremberg, 1938: On the night of Kristallnacht, eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy is hidden by her father from approaching forces in a mysterious place called the time space, a library where all the memories of the past are stored inside of books. When her father doesn’t return for her, she becomes trapped, spending her adolescence walking through the memories of those who lived before. When she discovers that living timekeepers are entering the time space to destroy memories and maintain their preferred version of history, Lisavet sets about trying to salvage the past, creating her own book of lost memories. Until one day in 1949, when she meets an American timekeeper named Ernest Duquesne, who is intent on keeping her from her task. What ensues sets her on a course to change history and the time space itself forever.

Boston, 1965: Amelia Duquesne is mourning the death of her uncle and guardian, Ernest, when she’s approached by Moira, the enigmatic head of the CIA’s highly secretive Temporal Reconnaissance Program. Moira tells her about the existence of the time space—accessed only by specially designed watches whose intricate mechanisms have been lost to time—and enlists her help in recovering a strange book her uncle had once sought. But Amelia quickly realizes that the past—and the truth—are not as straightforward as Moira would like her to believe.

A sweeping, cinematic love story, this feat of imagination explores memory, time, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect the existence of those we love.]]> 400 Hayley Gelfuso 1668076349 Joel 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Hayley Gelfuso
name: Joel
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 51157109
Join Suzy Spitfire and her friends for another wild ride through the solar system!]]> 342 Joe Canzano 0990636585 Joel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Joe Canzano
name: Joel
average rating: 0.0
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rating: 0
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]]> 51062587
"Ferociously intense, furiously kinetic...The Price Of Safety peers into the future to shed light on the present." —BookViral

"...a story that will leave you completely breathless." —Readers' Favorite

INDIE BOOK AWARD FINALIST - SCIENCE FICTION (2020)
INDIE BOOK AWARD FINALIST � THRILLER (2020)
NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARD FINALIST - NEW ADULT FICTION (2020)
MILLENIUM BOOK AWARD � LONGLISTED FOR BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR (2023)


BY 2047, NO CRIME IN AMERICA GOES UNSOLVED. NO WRONGDOING GOES UNSEEN.

Dray Quintero helped build a perfect society: he designed the government's advanced surveillance technology, ensuring everyone is kept safe and obeys the law. But when his nineteen-year-old daughter Raven commits a capital crime, Dray risks everything to cover up her actions and save her life.

To survive, Dray must outwit the surveillance system he created and avoid the ever-watchful scrutiny of citizens with microcomputers implanted in their brains and eyes. This places him in the crosshairs of Kieran, a ruthless federal Agent.

To protect his family, Dray turns to a group of rebels who discovered the government's darkest secret: the Agency has been using his technology to manipulate and control everyone.

Despite the rebels' help, his adversaries are closing in. Their control is absolute. No one escapes.

Hunted and betrayed, with time running out, Dray must choose between saving Raven and risking her life to expose the truth.

Check out the next series installment, The Price of Rebellion.]]> 335 Michael C. Bland 1950890805 Joel 0 to-read 4.27
author: Michael C. Bland
name: Joel
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 217388182 A time-traveling, end-of-the-world police procedural, Extremity is True Detective if written by Philip K. Dick.

When once-renowned police detective Julia Torgrimsen is brought out of forced retirement to investigate the murder of Bruno Donaldson, a billionaire she worked with whilst undercover, she doesn't expect to find two bodies. Both are Bruno--identical down to the fingerprints--and both have been shot.

As the investigation sucks her back into the macabre world of London's rich elite, she finds herself on the hunt for a mysterious assassin who has been taking out the wealthy one by one. But when she finally catches up with her quarry, she unveils an entire world of secrets: impossible documents about future stock market crashes, photographs of dead clones, and a clandestine time-travelling conspiracy so insidious it might just mean the extinction of the entire human race.

If Julia is to have any chance of preventing this terrible future, she'll have to revisit her own past, the terrible choices she made undercover, and the brutal act that destroyed her once legendary career.]]> 176 Nicholas Binge 1250373840 Joel 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Nicholas Binge
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 231248170 Civil Watch, an online game-turned-surveillance tool, sweeps the nation. Citizen gamers become virtual patrols, guiding the terrifying machines in the Red Zone while earning money, rank, and a sense of civic pride. But when two young hackers, Aiden and Gabby, uncover a chilling truth—that Draven Labs has begun testing lethal weaponry—they realize the game and Draven’s mission have morphed into something far more sinister. They aim to dismantle Red Draven’s empire before humanity is lost forever.]]> 328 Glenn Somodi Joel 0 to-read 5.00
author: Glenn Somodi
name: Joel
average rating: 5.00
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> 215749454 Did you know that it's considered a sin to harm a robin? Or thatĚýseagulls were once thoughtĚýto be the souls of dead sailors? And do you know whatĚýhappens if you listen to a blackbird’s song on May Day?

With The Folklore of Birds you can discover the fascinating folklore behind nature’s most intriguing animals.

At once familiar and unknowable, birds have for centuries provided a rich source of speculation and myth-making. From the Catholic belief that barnacle geese were actually fish (and could therefore be eaten on the Sabbath) to the Ancient Greek tale of Ceyx and Halcyone who were transformed into kingfishers after death as reward for their fidelity, our feathered friends have given rise to an astonishingly rich body of myth, legend and superstition.

With its interesting titbits and curious facts coupled with breathtakingly beautiful illustrations, The Folklore of BirdsĚýis charming, quirky giftĚýfor the birdwatcher in your life.Ěý]]> 160 Alison Davies 0711298467 Joel 0 to-read 4.00
author: Alison Davies
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214152047 Stranger Things meets The Walking Dead in this shivery novel based on a terrifying urban legend about a small seaside town descending into chaos when an unusual video game is unveiled at the local arcade.

Having recently moved to the gentrifying seaside town of Tasker Bay with her mother, the only thing on high schooler Andi’s mind is saving up enough money for her escape to Silicon Valley. Though it’s owned by the shadiest resident in town, she takes a job at the dingy arcade Home Video World.

Pining over Andi is Ro, the son of Tasker Bay’s sheriff. With his friend’s matchmaking help, he begins spending more time at the arcade and soon, Andi finds herself opening up to Ro. But when the store gets an unusual new game of unknown origin, the floor is suddenly overwhelmed with players fighting to get some time on the machine. Seemingly overnight, a virus-like epidemic sweeps through the town while a major coastal storm rolls in, further isolating them from the outside world. Time is of the essence as residents collectively experience anger, paranoia, hallucinations, and even catatonia. And when one heinous act of violence goes unsolved, the town descends into utter chaos. Realizing no one is coming to their rescue, Andi and Ro take matters into their own hands to get to the bottom of the spiraling madness…until it begins affecting them, too.]]> 352 Collin Armstrong 1668044978 Joel 0 to-read 3.67 2025
author: Collin Armstrong
name: Joel
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221502398 When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust� from bestselling author Isabel Cañas.

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong.

Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them� and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood grows stronger.]]> 384 Isabel Cañas 0593641078 Joel 0 to-read 4.67 2025
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Joel
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387939 The next gripping, atmospheric horror novel from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden, set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, TX.

Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill have history. After their love ended in heartbreak, they never expected to see each other again, but when terror enters Ruby’s life, Charlie Book is the only safe harbor she can believe in.

In his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book has been living aboard and studying the Christabel, a 19th century freighter that lies half-sunken in Gulf waters, just off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, a massive forest of mangrove trees has grown up through the deck of the ship, creating a startlingly beautiful enigma Book calls the Floating Forest, full of birds, crabs, and snakes. Though a powerful storm churns through the Gulf, Book intends to sleep on board as usual.

But when he arrives at the dock, preparing to motor out to the Christabel, he’s stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. And Ruby’s not alone. With her are a mysterious, terrified woman named Johanna and an infant child. They need Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they're on the run, only it isn’t the police who are after them. It’s the coven of witches Johanna has fled, stealing away the helpless infant for whom they had hideous plans…or so Johanna claims.

It’s lunacy. Book wants nothing to do with it. But after the way he and Ruby ended things, and the unspoken pain between them, he can’t refuse. Yet even as he brings them out to the ruined ship and its floating forest, back in Galveston there are shadowed figures out in the storm, sniffing the air like bloodhounds. And despite the worsening wind and rain, the night birds are flying, scouring the coastline as if searching for their prey.]]> 304 Christopher Golden 1250285917 Joel 0 to-read 3.74 2025
author: Christopher Golden
name: Joel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218155602 A New York Times Best Horror Fiction of the Year Selection â€� Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice Award Nominee for Horror â€� A Parade Best Horror Books of the Year Selection

“A gruesome, action-packed monster novel about a mother and daughter with a terrible secret, on the run from an obsessed and crumbling detective . . . Terrific.� �The New York Times Book Review

In Stuart Neville’s horror debut, a mother's undying love and a daughter's insatiable hunger carve a bloody trail across the highways of the Southwest.

On a cold December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a passing stranger. Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Donner of the FBI has been hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains their victims of blood before severing their spinal cords. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer to the Carters, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperiled.

In this riveting, blood-soaked take on the vampire myth, nobody is safe and nothing is certain—not even the line between predator and prey.]]> 400 Stuart Neville 1641297077 Joel 0 to-read 3.50 2024
author: Stuart Neville
name: Joel
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220481352 She has the recipe for the perfect murder...

Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name, an inspiration, an icon. Her dozens of cookbooks and weekly television show, broadcast from her beautiful Italian-style kitchen, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. And of course there's her history. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after Damien's mysterious disappearance twenty years before. An event she's never spoken about publicly until now, when it is announced that she is looking for a publisher for her memoirs.

Why is Maria willing to finally break her silence? Why does she turn down seven-figure offers from large publishing houses and sign up with a small press? And why does she do so on the condition that it is edited by Thea Woods? Thea is a lifelong fan but has never met Maria and can't figure it out, plus she had been planning to hand in her notice that very day. But when she is invited to Maria's remote farm to work on the manuscript, she can't resist. After all, she may finally learn whether the rumours are that Maria killed Damien for his recipes and the legendary 'secret ingredient'...

A deliciously rich thriller, perfect for readers of Bella Mackie's How To Kill Your Family and Alexia Casale's The Best Way to Bury Your Husband]]> 352 Danielle Valentine 1728276918 Joel 0 to-read 4.06 2025
author: Danielle Valentine
name: Joel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230588686
As Margot digs deeper into the manor's history, she finds herself tangled in the chilling legacy of George and Cecilia Hawthorn, a once-beloved couple whose presence still lingers in ways no one dares to explain. Nightmares bleed into reality. Puzzles stretch throughout the sleepy city. And the deeper she searches, the more she realizes the truth—no one is safe here.

Someone is watching—always. As the house's walls close in, Margot must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to answer one "What is the cost of keeping the dead quiet?"

Perfect for fans of psychological thrillers with a haunting twist, The House That Held Her is a gripping tale of obsession, guilt, and the weight of secrets buried just beneath the surface.]]> 312 Ellis Hart Joel 0 to-read 5.00
author: Ellis Hart
name: Joel
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 124490399
Arthur built and operated the Propitius Hotel from 1905 until 1928 when dozens of bodies were found in his hotel, along with countless hidden torture rooms throughout the hotel. Arthur disappeared, seemingly never to be caught. He then returned - nearly 40 years later - under the guise of a priest leading a congregation of 100 people back to his hotel, where he once again committed mass murder.

Enter Tawny Howlett-- a top-tier lifestyle influencer who is in the midst of the crappiest week of her life. Her brand new health drink turned out to be tainted, and now thousands of her followers want nothing more than to see her social media empire crumble. In order to rehabilitate her image, she's agreed to take part in "Slashtag: The Ultimate Horror Experience".

At first it's all fun and games, until the team of seven celebs discover that the ghost is very real, and out for blood. In order to survive the three-day live-streamed event, Tawny and her fellow contestants must band together to try and send the spirit of Arthur Wilson straight to hell.

"I suddenly wish that I were just crazy. A hallucination would mean my brain is broken, which is something I’ve spent my entire adult life attempting to accept. If we’re both seeing this, it means the world is broken in a way my brain is not prepared to confront."

While Tawny has her hands full trying to survive a weekend at the Propitius Hotel, it's up to her younger sister April to work from the outside to try and find a way to save her sister, and uncover the dark truth behind the TV network that continues to air the deaths of some of America's top talent.

Together these seven doomed souls must solve the puzzles hidden within the hotel in order to vanquish the spirit of Arthur Wilson.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From best-selling author Jon Cohn, comes the tale of a social media influencer's attempt to salvage what's left of her dwindling empire, save her sister, and survive the unimaginable in Slashtag, a gripping horror novel with IRL vibes and unexpected twists and turns in the age of social media.

Jon Cohn's best-selling debut novel, "The Island Mother" won Publisher's Weekly's Booklife Prize for Best Indie Horror Novel of 2022.]]> 418 Jon Cohn Joel 0 to-read 4.24
author: Jon Cohn
name: Joel
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 231523813
Forty years after the incident on the ice, Ray, a retired college professor, has moved back into his childhood home. Eddie is a retired homicide detective, and Matthew is a successful investment banker. Bobby, who is on disability from his job as a corrections officer at a juvenile detention center, has a secret: the darkness that found him under the ice when he was a kid has made him do terrible things.

Following a reunion at Ray’s house, Matthew is found murdered in his car beside the old pond. The killer includes a chilling message that only the three remaining friends would recognize. Could one of their own be a murderer?

All the Silent Bones, a tense and disturbing thriller told from alternating perspectives of morally complex characters, explores the lasting impact of childhood trauma and its influence on adult relationships.]]> 344 Gregory Funaro 1958231754 Joel 0 to-read 4.50
author: Gregory Funaro
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227769197 349 Donald K. Hartman 0960082336 Joel 3 As an aside, there's a conan doyle story that I would shocked to learn wasn't in some way an inspiration for Lovecraft's 'Thing on the Doorstep'.]]> 4.14
author: Donald K. Hartman
name: Joel
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: free, literature, short-story, short-fiction, anthology, horror, sherlock-holmes, fantasy, science-fiction, victorian, edwardian
review:
Geared more towards the academic than the casual reader, this is a fantastic collection of stories typical of the genre from authors both well known and obscure. These stories are emblematic of the themes and tropes one would expect, always about and sometimes by women. I think the real gem of the collection is the extensive bibliography, a highly detailed list of additional stories that there was certainly not room for in this particular volume. Much like those actually collected, the bibliography is a comprehensive cross section of the well known (F. Marion Crawford's 'The Witch of Prague') and the obscure. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the genre of the era.
As an aside, there's a conan doyle story that I would shocked to learn wasn't in some way an inspiration for Lovecraft's 'Thing on the Doorstep'.
]]> 1350746 284 William C. Dear 0395355362 Joel 3 What I did not realize in advance was just how outlandish and silly this book about the tragic life of Dallas Egbert was going to be. William Dear seems like...quite a character. Whether its the picture of him posing with his tommy gun on the back cover or the *many* anecdotes about increasingly ludicrous events in his life and 'crime fighting' career...an un-uniformed paid law enforcement official at 16? an official leo at 17? fighting off more than two dozen cultists with his bare hands? these are just a few examples from the text. There's also all the talk of the extremely (for the time) sophisticated and outlandishly expensive equipment from the more 'mundane' things like private planes and helicopters to what would likely have still been spy and leo gear at the time.
This reads a lot less like true crime and a lot more like a mashup of a pulpy detective/p.i. and a bond-esque adventure story. And if you read it as such, instead of as a true crime book, its actually not that bad and probably falls into the realm of all those taught spy thrillers you always see for sale in bookstores that men of a certain age seem to be really into. I found myself telling my partner that, in more modern terms, this wouldn't be out of place as a solid episode of something like a Criminal Minds or CSI.
If you don't read it that way, its going to be rough. Its hard to take Dear seriously (let alone as seriously as he tries to take himself). Sure, the dialogue is pretty terrible, especially considering these are supposed to be quotes from real people and real events...I can't think of a single character that talks the way real people do. However, the pacing and tension is solid. And the clear mythologizing and lore building about himself could be easily excused in fiction. I actually think he could have had a solid career writing these sorts of stories.]]> 3.51 1984
author: William C. Dear
name: Joel
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: nonfiction, true-crime, crime, rpg, mystery, dragons-roost-press
review:
Having lived through at least some of the satanic panic, and in Michigan at that, I was pretty well prepared to discount much of what was in this book.
What I did not realize in advance was just how outlandish and silly this book about the tragic life of Dallas Egbert was going to be. William Dear seems like...quite a character. Whether its the picture of him posing with his tommy gun on the back cover or the *many* anecdotes about increasingly ludicrous events in his life and 'crime fighting' career...an un-uniformed paid law enforcement official at 16? an official leo at 17? fighting off more than two dozen cultists with his bare hands? these are just a few examples from the text. There's also all the talk of the extremely (for the time) sophisticated and outlandishly expensive equipment from the more 'mundane' things like private planes and helicopters to what would likely have still been spy and leo gear at the time.
This reads a lot less like true crime and a lot more like a mashup of a pulpy detective/p.i. and a bond-esque adventure story. And if you read it as such, instead of as a true crime book, its actually not that bad and probably falls into the realm of all those taught spy thrillers you always see for sale in bookstores that men of a certain age seem to be really into. I found myself telling my partner that, in more modern terms, this wouldn't be out of place as a solid episode of something like a Criminal Minds or CSI.
If you don't read it that way, its going to be rough. Its hard to take Dear seriously (let alone as seriously as he tries to take himself). Sure, the dialogue is pretty terrible, especially considering these are supposed to be quotes from real people and real events...I can't think of a single character that talks the way real people do. However, the pacing and tension is solid. And the clear mythologizing and lore building about himself could be easily excused in fiction. I actually think he could have had a solid career writing these sorts of stories.
]]> 217223362 FromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.

Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive!

Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the erstwhile-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory.

With a little help from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Judith recalls being stranded in the arctic one hundred years ago, locked in a crate by a man named Victor Frankenstein, and visiting the Underworld.

So how did she get here? And why are so many people chasing her, including Geoff, the giant croissant-eating devil dog of the North?

Poor Things meets Bride of Frankenstein in Anima Rising, Christopher Moore’s most ingenious (and probably most hilarious) novel yet.


]]> 400 Christopher Moore 0062434152 Joel 0 to-read 3.96
author: Christopher Moore
name: Joel
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220161342 Striking, visceral, and brutally honest, Rose Keating’s Oddbody is a captivating short story collection that delves into the weirdness of bodies and of existence itself through the voices of social outsiders and outcasts.

In her debut collection, Rose Keating takes you on a bold journey through the intricacies of sex, shame, and womanhood. With ten enchanting short stories, she crafts an emotional masterpiece that challenges us to reflect on the movement and needs of our bodies. Strange yet utterly mesmerizing, Oddbody is a provocative exploration that feels both surprising and sincerely authentic.

In “Oddbody,� a woman finds herself navigating a codependent relationship with a ghost, while “Squirm� portrays a daughter tending to her father as he devours himself from the inside out. “Pineapple� introduces us to a woman who opts to have feather wings surgically attached to her back. In “Eggshells,� a waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift. Each narrative in this collection is immersive, bizarre, and deeply empathetic, shining a light on women who dare to defy societal norms and invite you to question the conventions and milestones that determine success.]]> 208 Rose Keating 1668061503 Joel 0 to-read 3.74
author: Rose Keating
name: Joel
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10559622
1 The Bastard Stepchild - George R.R. Martin
2 Death by Dahlia - Charlaine Harris
3 The Bleeding Shadow - Joe R. Lansdale
4 Hungry Heart - Simon R. Green
5 Styx and Stones - Steven Saylor
6 Pain and Suffering - S.M. Stirling
7 It's Still the Same Old Story - Carrie Vaughn
8 The Lady is a Screamer - Conn Iggulden
9 Hellbender - Laurie R. King
10 Shadow Thieves - Glen Cook
11 No Mystery, No Miracle - Melinda M. Snodgrass
12 The Difference Between a Puzzle and a Mystery - M.L.N. Hanover
13 The Curious Affair of the Deodand - Lisa Tuttle
14 Lord John and the Plague of Zombies - Diana Gabaldon
15 Beware the Snake - John Maddox Roberts
16 In Red, with Pearls - Patricia Briggs
17 The Adakian Eagle - Bradley Denton]]> 479 George R.R. Martin 0441020747 Joel 3 I haven't read, nor intended to ever read, any Charlaine Harris and the true blood world story 'Death by Dahlia' definitely didn't change those plans.
Joe Lansdale's 'The Bleeding Shadow' was phenomenal, and quite frankly worth a library check out or a super cheat used copy price all on its own as a weird fiction noir.
As seems usual at this point, Simon R. Green's 'The Hungry Heart' was far more enjoyable than any of his novel length Nightside books. I've yet to try reading anything non-nightside from him, so I'm not sure if its just his writing, or the nature of his nightside setting that seems to make them successful as short stories but fall really flat as novels for me. Probably a combination.
'Styx and Stones' by Steven Saylor was a lot more interesting and fun than I expected, kind of a scooby doo mystery but less silly. Also one of at least three stories set in the ancient world, with a few more historical mysteries chucked in, further kind of muddying up what the overriding theme is supposed to be. Regardless, I'll probably look at some other Saylor stories.
S.M. Stirling's 'Pain and Suffering' was certainly better than probably the last 6 or so ploddingly long Emberverse books I read. Though its set in one of his other series, I recognize some strong similarities in how he writes about his antagonists. If they aren't 900 pages long and I find them cheap it might be enough to make me try one of his books from this world.
'Its Still the same Old Story' is a Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Norville, short story and plugs comfortably into the urban fantasy maybe theme. Better than I would have expected.
I'd never heard of Conn Iggulden before 'The Lady Is a Screamer'...its not much of a detective story/mystery, nor historical, nor really any version of urban fantasy so I'm not 100% sure what its doing here, but it was an interesting change of pace as a ghost hunter story with somewhat of a moral.
'Hellbender' wants to be noir, but overdoes it in parts and fails to achieve it in others. Also sexy salamanders.
I know Glen Cook is supposed to have some great series, and apparently Garrett P.I. is a long running one. But man was 'Shadow Thieves' a rough read. Maybe its because the series is so long and there's too much back story for these seemingly main characters for someone to jump in with a short story this late in the game. But I didn't care about the people, there were lots of references to characters or things that seemed to assume prior knowledge. The dialogue, what wasn't just omitted or hand waived because some characters could read minds, was almost as disjointed as the action scenes.
Snodgrass' 'No Mystery, No Miracle' holds up well enough without knowing anything about her edge of reason series, though again, doesn't feel detective/mystery (though I think the series does focus on a detective). Like others have in the past, I think its trying to shoehorn some of Lovecraft's 'Old Ones' material into a good vs. evil/cosmic battle sort of framework.
Daniel Abraham, writing under his romantasy non de plume M.L.N. Hanover, contributes a piece so interesting I was shocked that was supposed to be part of his romantasy series. One of the better characterization of cops as well.
The last big chunk of the book is equally hit and miss, but Lord John was an interesting historical piece set in Jamaica, an In Red, With Pearls was a Patricia Briggs/Mercy Thompson urban fantasy that was readable.
All in all, I think this is a good example of what angers Martin fans when he does yet another project of dubious quality instead of finishing his own work. Maybe pick it up at the library if there are some stories by folks you already like, or just read a couple of the ones that catch your eye and skip the others.]]> 3.76 2011
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Joel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: fantasy, urban-fantasy, magic, vampire, werewolf, ghost-stories, witch, anthology, short-fiction, short-story, detective
review:
This is, as the name implies, a strange collection. Its a mish-mash of an urban fantasy collection with the detective/mystery collection I think Martin might have really been shooting for. He even tries to address this to some degree in his introduction, which also includes a much appreciated reference to the fact that the often more-romantasy-than-fantasy current urban fantasy is basically a distinct genre from what we called urban fantasy in the 80s and 90s (I think there's some veiled references to Bull and Windling). I think he may have wanted a more detective noir collection that dabbled in some true or not supernatural events, and I don't think it succeeds at that. There's too much wild variation from noir, to current urban fantasy, to romantasy. Just all over the place. Which is not to say there are some good stories here, just that I don't think its successful as a themed anthology (that cover is also not great). A *lot* of these authors also seemed to have worked with or received accolades from Martin in the past, and I wonder how much of the contributors list ended up being chosen not because the stories fit the theme well but because he just likes these *people* and their work more broadly (like, there's I think three WildCards contributors here??).
I haven't read, nor intended to ever read, any Charlaine Harris and the true blood world story 'Death by Dahlia' definitely didn't change those plans.
Joe Lansdale's 'The Bleeding Shadow' was phenomenal, and quite frankly worth a library check out or a super cheat used copy price all on its own as a weird fiction noir.
As seems usual at this point, Simon R. Green's 'The Hungry Heart' was far more enjoyable than any of his novel length Nightside books. I've yet to try reading anything non-nightside from him, so I'm not sure if its just his writing, or the nature of his nightside setting that seems to make them successful as short stories but fall really flat as novels for me. Probably a combination.
'Styx and Stones' by Steven Saylor was a lot more interesting and fun than I expected, kind of a scooby doo mystery but less silly. Also one of at least three stories set in the ancient world, with a few more historical mysteries chucked in, further kind of muddying up what the overriding theme is supposed to be. Regardless, I'll probably look at some other Saylor stories.
S.M. Stirling's 'Pain and Suffering' was certainly better than probably the last 6 or so ploddingly long Emberverse books I read. Though its set in one of his other series, I recognize some strong similarities in how he writes about his antagonists. If they aren't 900 pages long and I find them cheap it might be enough to make me try one of his books from this world.
'Its Still the same Old Story' is a Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Norville, short story and plugs comfortably into the urban fantasy maybe theme. Better than I would have expected.
I'd never heard of Conn Iggulden before 'The Lady Is a Screamer'...its not much of a detective story/mystery, nor historical, nor really any version of urban fantasy so I'm not 100% sure what its doing here, but it was an interesting change of pace as a ghost hunter story with somewhat of a moral.
'Hellbender' wants to be noir, but overdoes it in parts and fails to achieve it in others. Also sexy salamanders.
I know Glen Cook is supposed to have some great series, and apparently Garrett P.I. is a long running one. But man was 'Shadow Thieves' a rough read. Maybe its because the series is so long and there's too much back story for these seemingly main characters for someone to jump in with a short story this late in the game. But I didn't care about the people, there were lots of references to characters or things that seemed to assume prior knowledge. The dialogue, what wasn't just omitted or hand waived because some characters could read minds, was almost as disjointed as the action scenes.
Snodgrass' 'No Mystery, No Miracle' holds up well enough without knowing anything about her edge of reason series, though again, doesn't feel detective/mystery (though I think the series does focus on a detective). Like others have in the past, I think its trying to shoehorn some of Lovecraft's 'Old Ones' material into a good vs. evil/cosmic battle sort of framework.
Daniel Abraham, writing under his romantasy non de plume M.L.N. Hanover, contributes a piece so interesting I was shocked that was supposed to be part of his romantasy series. One of the better characterization of cops as well.
The last big chunk of the book is equally hit and miss, but Lord John was an interesting historical piece set in Jamaica, an In Red, With Pearls was a Patricia Briggs/Mercy Thompson urban fantasy that was readable.
All in all, I think this is a good example of what angers Martin fans when he does yet another project of dubious quality instead of finishing his own work. Maybe pick it up at the library if there are some stories by folks you already like, or just read a couple of the ones that catch your eye and skip the others.
]]> 7090785
Readers will witness the birth of a heroine in Dawn of the Dreadfuls - a thrilling prequel set four years before the horrific events of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As our story opens, the Bennet sisters are enjoying a peaceful life in the English countryside. They idle away the days reading, gardening, and daydreaming about future husbands - until a funeral at the local parish goes strangely and horribly awry.

Suddenly corpses are springing from the soft earth - and only one family can stop them. As the bodies pile up, we watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. Along the way, two men vie for her affections: Master Hawksworth is the powerful warrior who trains her to kill, while thoughtful Dr. Keckilpenny seeks to conquer the walking dead using science instead of strength. Will either man win the prize of Elizabeth's heart? Or will their hearts be feasted upon by hordes of marauding zombies? Complete with romance, action, comedy, and an army of shambling corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will have Jane Austen rolling in her grave - and just might inspire her to crawl out of it!





(Description from back cover of trade paperback edition)]]> 287 Steve Hockensmith Joel 1 3.49 2010
author: Steve Hockensmith
name: Joel
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
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]]> 7108001 Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.]]> 336 Seth Grahame-Smith 0446563080 Joel 1 3.72 2010
author: Seth Grahame-Smith
name: Joel
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 9014 370 Richard Bachman 0451196716 Joel 5 4.11 1978
author: Richard Bachman
name: Joel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 57594256 106 Derek Sotak Joel 5 4.50
author: Derek Sotak
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 212900404 Manhunt author Gretchen Felker-Martin is back with Black Flame, a historical horror about one woman's deadly obsession with a haunted film, perfect for fans of Midsommar and Night Film.

Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in New York City.

When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes over its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.

She’s soon convinced that the acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality. And they’re happening to her…]]> 208 Gretchen Felker-Martin 1250348013 Joel 0 to-read 4.28 2025
author: Gretchen Felker-Martin
name: Joel
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222925690 A young man is haunted by a mythological specter bent on stealing everything he loves in this unsettling horror from the author of Indian Burial Ground and Sisters of the Lost Nation.

For fear of summoning evil spirits, Native superstition says you should never, ever whistle at night.

Henry Hotard was on the verge of fame, gaining a following and traction with his eerie ghost-hunting videos. Then his dreams came to a screeching halt. Now, he's learning to navigate a new life in a wheelchair, back on the reservation where he grew up, relying on his grandparents� care while he recovers.

And he’s being haunted.

His girlfriend, Jade, insists he just needs time to adjust to his new reality as a quadriplegic, that it’s his traumatized mind playing tricks on him, but Henry knows better. As the specter haunting him creeps closer each night, Henry battles to find a way to endure, to rid himself of the horror stalking him. Worried that this dread might plague him forever, he realizes the only way to exile his phantom is by confronting his troubled past and going back to the events that led to his injury.

It all started when he whistled at night....]]> 368 Nick Medina 0593820401 Joel 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Nick Medina
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230821537 How far would you go to get a redo in life?

Everyone knows making a deal with a demon is a bad idea. Everyone but Mark Dillinger, whose life is crumbling to pieces at He’s trapped in a dead-end job and about to pull the plug on his relationship. Worst of all, his mom is dying of a long illness, while his father is remarrying Jess—the twenty-three-year-old little sister of Mark's childhood buddy.

Desperate, he decides to go to his high school reunion, if only to do something different for once. And different he finds. His old guidance counselor, Helga Chapman, offers him the weirdest he can restart his life at any point, keeping all his knowledge—a chance to make better decisions.

Of course, Mark laughs her off and leaves, convinced she’s pranking him. But later that night, he gets a call from his mom’s hospital with disturbing she's taken a turn for the worse. When Mark meets Helga Chapman again, he must choose between his terrible present and the promise of rebuilding his past.

The catch? To save his life, he must take another’s.]]> 174 Ilia Epifanov Joel 0 to-read 4.00
author: Ilia Epifanov
name: Joel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222377146 Horror Movie meets the scope and emotion of Stephen King in this heart-pounding, magnetic tour de force about a woman pulled into a cult horror film that is determined to have a sequel, by critically acclaimed author Michael Wehunt.

Ten years ago, Jorie Stroud was the rising star of the October Film Haunt � a trio of horror enthusiasts who camped out at the filming locations of their favorite scary movies, sharing their love through their popular blog. But after a night in the graveyard from Proof of Demons � perhaps the most chilling cult film ever made, directed by the enigmatic Hélène Enriquez � everything unraveled.

Now, Jorie has built an isolated life with her young son in Vermont. In the devastating wake of her viral, truth-stretching Proof of Demons blog entry � hysteria, internet backlash, and the death of a young woman � Jorie has put it all, along with her intense love for the horror genre, behind her.

Until a videotape arrives in the mail. Jorie fears someone might be filming her. And the “Rickies� � Enriquez obsessives who would do anything for the reclusive director � begin to cross lines in shocking ways. It seems Hélène Enriquez is making a new kind of sequel…and Jorie is her final girl.

As the dangers grow even more unexpected and strange, Jorie must search for answers before the Proof of the movie’s title finds her and takes everything she loves.

This riveting and layered horror novel unleashes supernatural terror in a world where truth can be manipulated, and nothing is as it seems. Beautiful and horrifying, with an unforgettable cast of characters, The October Film Haunt will shock and delight readers all the way to its breathless final page.

"So unique and steeped in 21st century paranoia and dread you won't be able to read this alone at night." - Paul Tremblay

"The horror in here is palpable, but the writing itself is just as How can one pen have this many good lines in it?" - Stephen Graham Jones]]> 336 Michael Wehunt 1250333695 Joel 0 to-read 3.49 2025
author: Michael Wehunt
name: Joel
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57100102 324 J.R. Hamantaschen Joel 4 I do think the opening story, involving a suicide pact, and the closing story involving a sexual super power, are probably both the most Hamentaschen-y of the included stories particularly due to their protagonists and I think will feel the most comfortable and expected by fans. Post-first story the pacing is a bit slow, but certainly picks up with 'Grab More Knives' and I don't feel it slows down after that.
I know there's been a vocalized desire by Hamentashen to maybe work on something longer, and the final story here is a novella. However, a number of these feel as though they could easily be expanded into something longer, possibly even novel length. ]]> 4.31 2021
author: J.R. Hamantaschen
name: Joel
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: horror, weird-fiction, anthology, short-fiction, short-story
review:
In what is supposedly his final short story collection, J.R. Hamantaschen holds true to form with this twelve stories in some ways, though to a long time reader shows some divergence from what one might have come to expect. The characteristic deep reflection an navel gazing either done by or about his characters, especially those displaying his characteristic depression and anxiety, is as always present. The, for me at least, expected dread and discomfort surrounding relationships which may or may not be functioning well (mostly romantic, but also between friends) is present in most of these stories as well. 'No Hole in a Small World Can Truly Be a Small Hole' is a great example and one of my favorites. One thing that I think is new, or newly prominent, maybe do to changes in Hamantashen's own life, is horror surrounding kids. While the Birds/Covid send-up, 'House of Katz' was not my favorite story in the collection, the several times near the end where the protagonist is internally encouraging the dog to tear up and throw the 'cats/katz' around was particularly effective. 'May As Well Blame it on the Heat' mixes the author's frequent themes of relationships either gone/going wrong or the participants feeling like they are (arguably maybe the same thing?) with the loss of an expected child and the desire to have one being the linchpin in that dysfunction. And while 'Grab More Knives' ultimately causes no harm to a little tyke, the threat to a child is ever looming, and the compulsion to protect drives much of the action. Children, of a sort, are the center of the story in 'Its Always Time to Go', which I particularly enjoyed.
I do think the opening story, involving a suicide pact, and the closing story involving a sexual super power, are probably both the most Hamentaschen-y of the included stories particularly due to their protagonists and I think will feel the most comfortable and expected by fans. Post-first story the pacing is a bit slow, but certainly picks up with 'Grab More Knives' and I don't feel it slows down after that.
I know there's been a vocalized desire by Hamentashen to maybe work on something longer, and the final story here is a novella. However, a number of these feel as though they could easily be expanded into something longer, possibly even novel length.
]]> 2195880 92 Anne McCaffrey 0941826171 Joel 4 4.30 1985
author: Anne McCaffrey
name: Joel
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 223362068 WARNING! Under no circumstances must employees strike a deal with unauthorized personnel on Dark Enterprises property. Such behavior could result in death…or the end of the world.

Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he's ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he's never had.

The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That's tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he's a little too great. And asks a lot of questions...

When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising him his heart’s deepest desire, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. In return for a small, unspecified favor, he asks for the one thing that will improve his life: a promotion.

But that small favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing, the worldĚýmightĚýbe ending, and Management is starting to notice. Getting to the top is never easy, and now it’s up to Colin to save the world. It's the ultimate power move, after all.]]> 384 Mark Waddell 0593818407 Joel 0 to-read 4.36
author: Mark Waddell
name: Joel
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230225527 440 Seth Hilami Joel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Seth Hilami
name: Joel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217247900 National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with a short story collection that explores the surreal situation of parents and children separating at different ages through a realistic and speculative lens––from adolescence to empty nest to caring for an aging parent

The Words of Dr. L is National Book Award Finalist’s Karen E. Bender’s third story collection. Bender uses both a realistic and a speculative lens to explore a universal situation—the ways parents and children separate at different times of life. Grounded in both contemporary America and a variety of dystopias, the stories look at adolescence, motherhood, the empty nest, and caring for the aging parent. From a young woman who wants to learn secret words to prevent a pregnancy, to a mother who discovers an extra child in her home she has forgotten about, to a couple separated from their son in globes orbiting the Earth, the stories honor the emotional force of these situations by grappling with the themes of freedom, self-definition, youth, aging, control, and power. Bender’s work explores the ordinary in the extraordinary, using settings both familiar and speculative to discover new truths in the lifelong connection between parents and their children.]]> 304 Karen Bender 1640095705 Joel 0 to-read 4.71
author: Karen Bender
name: Joel
average rating: 4.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211004045 The next high concept horror novel from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden.

Across Italy, there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild—selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years. It’s a no-brainer for American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi. Both work remotely, and Becchina is the home of Tommy’s grandparents, his closest living relatives.

It feels like a romantic adventure, an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they both feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought.

There are rooms in an annex at the back of the house that they didn’t know were there. The place makes strange noises at night, locked doors are suddenly open, and when they go to a family gathering, they’re certain people are whispering about them, and about their house, which one neighbor refers to as The House of Last Resort. Soon, they learn that the home was owned for generations by the Church, but the real secret, and the true dread, is unlocked when they finally learn what the priests were doing in this house for all those long years…and how many people died in the strange chapel inside.

While down in the catacombs beneath Becchina…something stirs.]]> 320 Christopher Golden 1250879418 Joel 0 to-read 3.30 2024
author: Christopher Golden
name: Joel
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222683966 A haunting, unforgettable collection of tales from the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature winner and three-time Booker finalist, Samanta Schweblin.

Once a decade a story collection rips a hole in the sky and we remember how it feels to have a spell cast upon us. From Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River to Denis Johnson’s Jesus’s Son to the earthquake stories of Haruki Murakami, these books are often short, but unforgettable. Samanta Schweblin’s Good and Evil is such a book. Sculpted and lucid, strange and uncanny, here is a masterpiece of suggestiveness. Step by step these six stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life—ourselves.

In one tale, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring, to go home to her family, only to wish she could go back. In another, a sorrowful father finds himself unable to communicate with his son after a life-changing misfortune occurs under his supervision. In yet another, a dying woman calls a friend she hasn’t spoken to in thirty years—not since an accident which forever changed them both.

Guilt, grief, and relationships severed permeate this collection—but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love, and longing, each sinister and beautiful. When something seismic happens in our lives, the waves keep coming for years after, with warning or without. Sometimes, all we can do is wait around the corner, ear pressed to the phone receiver, for them to arrive.

Fantastical and subtly terrifying, these stories draw on magical realism, psychological fiction, and the dark side of fairy tales inherited from literary predecessors like the Brothers Grimm and Jorge Luis Borges. Yet, far from antiquated or closed off, Schweblin’s worlds invite us in, like quicksand or a strong river’s current. These stories will insinuate themselves into your heart, and your bloodstream.]]> 192 Samanta Schweblin 0593803108 Joel 0 to-read 4.32 2025
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Joel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224046283 America’s venture capitalist werewolves meet their match in USA Today bestseller Emily Jane’s third rollicking, genre-defying novel.

“It takes aliens (or an Emily Jane) to help us see our society for the bizarre, sugary, microplastic-poisoned dream it is.� —Edgar Cantero

"Emily Jane is a storyteller unbound by genre" � Rebekah Bergman

From the author of On Earth as It Is on Television and Here Beside the Rising Tide�

Many full moons ago, a young American boy with ambition in his belly and the moon in his veins followed his destiny west, determined to carve a path to success no matter the carnage.

Two centuries later, a city is captivated by the strange and savage murder of a young woman. No longer able to afford their apartment alone, her roommate Natasha, hounded by rumors of wolves, sensational headlines, and one pop-star’s angry fan-swarm, has resorted to living in her car. There’s nothing left for her…except vengeance.

Across town, Shane LaSalle is about to see his wildest dreams come true. He already has a gorgeous apartment and a high paying job in venture capital. Now the partners of Barrington Equity have invited him to board the company’s private jet for an exclusive retreat. But with partnership finally in his reach, Shane realizes he’s losing his taste for just how ruthless and all-consuming the firm is.

Epic and electric, American Werewolves brings readers from the wilds of the New World to the opulent board rooms and golf courses of the twenty-first century, where devouring the weak is an American birthright as old as the country itself.]]> 436 Emily Jane 1368116035 Joel 0 to-read 4.55
author: Emily Jane
name: Joel
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222925674 A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them

Seoul, present day. Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the third and final Anatomical Venus. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students, these eerie wax figures, known as slashed beauties, carry unsavory lore. Legend has it that the figures are bewitched, and come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Now Alys embarks for England, where she knows what she must sever her cursed connection to the Venuses once and for all.

London, 1763. Abandoned and penniless in Covent Garden, wide-eyed Eleanor and another young woman, Emily, are taken under the wing of beautiful and beguiling Elizabeth, one of the city’s most highly desired courtesans among the rich and powerful. But as Eleanor is seduced deeper into a web of money, materialism, and men, it seems that Elizabeth may not be the savior she appears to be.

As the timelines begin to intersect, it becomes clear that the women’s stories are linked in deeper, darker ways than it initially seems. And that the only method for Alys to end the witchcraft that binds her legacy is to gather all three models in one place and destroy them.

However, these haunted, murderous dolls might not be ready to burn.]]> 384 A. Rushby 0593954645 Joel 0 to-read 4.18
author: A. Rushby
name: Joel
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222419303 A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.]]> 336 Rachel Harrison 0593642570 Joel 0 to-read 4.38 2025
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Joel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221251788 In this electric horror novel from the author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster. She’s right.

Thea’s third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn’t consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn’t convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine.Ěý

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she’s always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, “I eat.�

Thea doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface--flashes from Thea’s childhood that won’t release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her.

Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.]]> 192 Rachel Eve Moulton 0593854608 Joel 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: Rachel Eve Moulton
name: Joel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230383093
44 years ago, a small group of miners went missing in Maryland’s Aragain Mountains. Twin sisters Leslie and Luann Montrose travel to Atlas at the foothills of Aragain Mountain to unravel the mystery and find themselves in the middle of a police investigation. Two missing hikers, a missing town resident, and four dead in the span of four days. Is there a connection? What the twins find in the woods could make a chilling addition to their Delmarva folklore podcast—if they make it out alive!]]> Claudine Marcin Joel 0 to-read 4.86
author: Claudine Marcin
name: Joel
average rating: 4.86
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 477801 were nice children � didn't hold an adult captive.

But what Barbara didn't count on was the heady effect their new-found freedom would have on the children. Their wealthy parents were away in Europe, and in this rural area of Maryland, the next house was easily a quarter of a mile away. The power of adults was in their hands, and they were tempted by it. They tasted it and toyed with it -- their only aim was to test its limits. Each child was consumed by his own individual lust and caught up with the others in sadistic manipulation and passion, until finally, step by step, their grim game strips away the layers of childishness to reveal the vicious psyche, conceived in evil and educated in society's sophisticated violence, that lies always within civilized men.

More than a terrifying horror story, Let's Go Play at the Adams' is a compelling psychological exercise of brooding insights and deadly implications.]]> 282 Mendal W. Johnson 0553141392 Joel 2 It was okay, but not amazing. In terms of the events themselves, its not nearly as shocking as its billed as. I'd like that say that's thanks to decades of horror porn movies and splatterpunk writing shifting the needle, but then I think about Last House of the Left and Deliverance and think its not necessarily that. I think, along the lines of a banned book, the very unavailability of Johnson's book for so long until Valancourt re-issued it is what gave it this mystique.
The writing itself, much like its shock value, clocks in at the moderately okay. It seems to be struggling, reaching, for something greater, but never really gets there. Johnson clearly wanted to say *something*, buts its always muddy what exactly that message is. Is it about capitalism? About the politically and socially left and right? If its just a simple commentary on human nature writ broad that doesn't feel successful either. I think this lack of clarity and focus, when he's clearly struggling to communicate something beyond the shocking nature of the story itself, ends up really detracting from the overall believability of the characters as well. Its difficult to accept them as written as believable people, which would be excusable if they were clearly metaphors, but it just doesn't work.
Sadly, Let's Go Play doesn't live up to the hype, and Valancourt likely could have found something much more worthwhile (or enjoyable) to reprint.]]> 3.43 1974
author: Mendal W. Johnson
name: Joel
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1974
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: horror, thriller, slasher, paperbacks-from-hell, children
review:
I did the thing, read this classic shocker.
It was okay, but not amazing. In terms of the events themselves, its not nearly as shocking as its billed as. I'd like that say that's thanks to decades of horror porn movies and splatterpunk writing shifting the needle, but then I think about Last House of the Left and Deliverance and think its not necessarily that. I think, along the lines of a banned book, the very unavailability of Johnson's book for so long until Valancourt re-issued it is what gave it this mystique.
The writing itself, much like its shock value, clocks in at the moderately okay. It seems to be struggling, reaching, for something greater, but never really gets there. Johnson clearly wanted to say *something*, buts its always muddy what exactly that message is. Is it about capitalism? About the politically and socially left and right? If its just a simple commentary on human nature writ broad that doesn't feel successful either. I think this lack of clarity and focus, when he's clearly struggling to communicate something beyond the shocking nature of the story itself, ends up really detracting from the overall believability of the characters as well. Its difficult to accept them as written as believable people, which would be excusable if they were clearly metaphors, but it just doesn't work.
Sadly, Let's Go Play doesn't live up to the hype, and Valancourt likely could have found something much more worthwhile (or enjoyable) to reprint.
]]> 716175 never feed them after midnight.

He ignored the warnings...]]> 278 George Gipe 0380865610 Joel 3 While that is all true to a degree, there is certainly not nearly as much of that as I was led to believe, nor hoped was there. It is a pretty interesting take though. There's also a scene with the cops later on poking holes in the three rules that reminded me a lot of a scene from the Masters of Horror entry, 'Deer Woman' many many years later.
Besides the alien origins and off the wall background, the main differences between this and the movie we hopefully all love is one of tone. Its darker and more serious than the film, with Gipes' style feeling a little like the pulp detective noir. The characters are less wholesome and lovable than in the movie, the romantic subplot is a lot more subdued, and there's another subplot involving Mrs. Deagle trying to sell off most of town to a chemical company that ends up being kind of unimportant and unrelated to anything else. I did really like the additional background and lost militaristic dreams of Billy's mother, and the bit of a payoff for the bathroom buddy near the end.
I would likely have given this an even higher rating if there was more gonzo mogwai/gremlin/mogturmen background. Worth a read if you find it cheap, don't go out of your way for a collector's priced copy though.]]> 3.94 1984
author: George Gipe
name: Joel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: fantasy, horror, film, science-fiction, aliens
review:
I picked up these novelizations because I had heard that the author, writing directly from the screenplays without seeing the movie, just made up and filled a lot of details regarding the mogwai, gremlins, their dialogue and thoughts, and their background. And that it was absolutely bonkers.
While that is all true to a degree, there is certainly not nearly as much of that as I was led to believe, nor hoped was there. It is a pretty interesting take though. There's also a scene with the cops later on poking holes in the three rules that reminded me a lot of a scene from the Masters of Horror entry, 'Deer Woman' many many years later.
Besides the alien origins and off the wall background, the main differences between this and the movie we hopefully all love is one of tone. Its darker and more serious than the film, with Gipes' style feeling a little like the pulp detective noir. The characters are less wholesome and lovable than in the movie, the romantic subplot is a lot more subdued, and there's another subplot involving Mrs. Deagle trying to sell off most of town to a chemical company that ends up being kind of unimportant and unrelated to anything else. I did really like the additional background and lost militaristic dreams of Billy's mother, and the bit of a payoff for the bathroom buddy near the end.
I would likely have given this an even higher rating if there was more gonzo mogwai/gremlin/mogturmen background. Worth a read if you find it cheap, don't go out of your way for a collector's priced copy though.
]]> 220430227 A cheerful innocent confronts the harsh reality of the world and is forever changed by the experience.
A struggling author begins receiving strange messages on the paper he uses to write.
A bullied, brilliant teen is put through the wringer of his high school and comes out the other side insane.
A detective of the future discovers he may be investigating his own untimely demise—and that of the world’s.

These and one more dark fable await you from the imaginative mind of the award-winning author Michael Thomas Perone. Part fractured fairy tales, part nightmare fuel, The Electric God and Other Shorts follows characters who struggle to remain sane in an insane world and features stories that will keep you up at night, wondering what might be lurking in the shadows.]]> 253 Michael Thomas Perone Joel 0 to-read 4.50
author: Michael Thomas Perone
name: Joel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216526719 In this military SF thriller, a colony on one of Jupiter’s moons will either be the last bastion of human civilization . . . or ground zero for its extinction.

At long last, humanity has moved beyond Earth and begun seeding new worlds. Colonies extend across the solar system, from Luna to Mars to Saturn’s satellite Titan. Even Jupiter’s moon Europa has become home to a couple thousand brave souls willing to risk their lives adapting to its frozen and deadly landscape.

After his previous mission in Africa ended in a violent uprising in which he lost every man under his command, Lt. Ryan Braeder’s posting to Europa is his last chance to salvage a military career that’s in tatters. Here on Jupiter’s moon, he’s been tasked with easing tensions between the military and an unruly civilian board.

It seems the governor and his cronies are attempting to usurp military command in a play for control. But Braeder’s diplomatic efforts are met with defiance as mistrust grows on both sides, threatening the colony’s safety. And that’s before events Earthside turn his world upside down.

Braeder can only watch helplessly as war erupts on his home planet, releasing a biological plague that sweeps the globe. Supply transports to the colonies are canceled. In a few short months, Braeder’s friends, his family—everyone he has ever known—are dead. The human race hovers on the brink of extinction.

Now, Braeder’s got one chance to save the colony on Europa. Can he implement a ration plan that borders on starvation, avoid a full-blown mutiny, and prevent Earth’s survivors from bringing the deadly plague? One thing’s for the future of his species depends on it.]]> 408 Michael Simon 1039475663 Joel 0 to-read 4.43
author: Michael Simon
name: Joel
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216881365 Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception.

Demeter just wants to do her shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans.

To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.

The queer love child of pulp horror and ​classic ​sci-fi, Of Monsters and ​Mainframes ​is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society’s monsters—and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.]]> 416 Barbara Truelove 196472113X Joel 0 to-read 4.38 2025
author: Barbara Truelove
name: Joel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220772912
It is bedlam on the eighth floor.
As management reels from the unexpected conclusion of the seventh level, the surviving crawlers stumble onto the eighth and find themselves scattered. It’s a map based on Earth’s final days before the collapse, where ethereal, intangible ghosts of humanity go about their lives, oblivious of the impending doom. Living amongst these ghosts are monsters based in Earth lore. “Legendary� creatures tied to the geographical location they inhabit.

Each team of crawlers is given a task: find and capture six of these beasts. The captured monsters will be turned into cards. Cards that can be summoned into battle again and again. The stronger, the deadlier, the better.

At the end of the floor, the bad guys will also have decks, and they will have some of the most powerful cards available. So it’s crucial to assemble the toughest squad possible.

But, like always, there is a catch. There’s always a catch.

As Carl and Donut know all too well, just because someone is captured, it doesn’t mean they have been tamed.

Her name is Shi Maria. She’s easily the most powerful monster in their area. If they want to survive, they must capture her. But she is no ordinary beast. She’s intelligent. She was once married to a god, a god who is now missing. Her special attack is known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride.

“Beware, beware. Beware the Eye of the Bedlam Bride”]]> 832 Matt Dinniman 059395601X Joel 0 to-read 4.55 2023
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Joel
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63132313 Welcome to Scion. No safer place.

The year is 2059. For two centuries, the Republic of Scion has led an oppressive campaign against unnaturalness in Europe.

In London, Paige Mahoney holds a high rank in the criminal underworld. The right hand of the ruthless White Binder, Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare and formidable kind of clairvoyant. Under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.

When Paige is arrested for murder, she meets the mysterious founders of Scion, who have designs on her uncommon abilities. If she is to survive and escape, Paige must use every skill at her disposal � and put her trust in someone who ought to be her enemy.]]> 560 Samantha Shannon 1639732233 Joel 0 to-read 4.23 2013
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Joel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217182392 From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.]]> 672 Antonia Hodgson 0316577227 Joel 0 to-read 4.60 2025
author: Antonia Hodgson
name: Joel
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220999791 As spiritualism reaches its fevered pitch at the dawn of the 20th century, a Scottish girl crosses the veil to unlock a powerful connection within an infamous asylum in this thrillingly atmospheric, exquisitely evocative exploration of feminine rage and agency for readers of Sarah Penner, Alice Hoffman, and Hester Fox.

Leaving behind a quiet life of simple comforts, Nairna Liath traverses the Scottish countryside with her charlatan father, Tavish. From remote cottages to rural fairs, the duo scrapes by on paltry coins as Tavish orchestrates “encounters� with the departed, while Nairna interprets tarot cards for those willing to pay for what they wish to hear.

But beyond her father’s trickery, Nairna possesses a genuine gift for communicating with the spirit world, one that could get an impoverished country girl branded a witch. A talent inherited from her grandmother, Lottie Liath, widow of a Welsh coalminer, whose story of imprisonment and exploitation in a notorious asylum is calling out to Nairna from four decades past—a warning to break free from the manipulations, greed, and betrayals of others.

What do the cards hold for Nairna’s future?

Rescued from homelessness by a well-connected stranger, Nairna is whisked into a new life among Edinburgh’s elite Spiritualist circle, including visiting American star Dorothy Kellings. Researchers, doctors, psychics, and thrill-seekers clamor for the rising young medium.ĚýBut after a sĂ©ance with blood-chilling results, a shocking scandal ensues, and Nairna flees to a secluded community near Boston, where she assumes a new ĚýNora Grey.

But Nora can’t stay hidden when Dorothy Kellings offers her the chance to face all comers and silence skeptics at a spectacular séance at Boston’s Old South Meeting Hall, where Nora will come face to face at last with her spiritual the courageous Lottie Liath, whose heart-wrenching story and profound messages are indelibly tied to Nora’s destiny.]]> 448 Kathleen Kaufman 1496753909 Joel 0 to-read 4.16
author: Kathleen Kaufman
name: Joel
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 226747693 An alchemist and his young nephew hunt down a legend in this profound and unsettling speculative Western, for fans of Karen Russell and Victor LaValle.

Alone in a frontier town in the nineteenth-century Northwest, Gentle Montgomery is grieving his best friend. Liam was an alchemist, killed when he tried to capture a creature that shouldn’t a giant salamander that drives men mad. When Gentle’s teenage nephew Kitt arrives at his doorstep, the two set out together to track the monster down, so they can use its blood in an alchemical formula that will bring Liam back to life.

It's a hard and haunted journey. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it—and the terrifying visions it causes—before it’s too late. And as Gentle struggles to comprehend the creature, his lost friend, his nephew, and his fellow seekers, it becomes clear that the Great Work of the alchemists may pale in comparison to the small work of human connection.

Sheldon Costa’s dark, vivid, and strangely hopeful debut novel is a supernatural adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.]]> 336 Sheldon Costa 1683695054 Joel 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Sheldon Costa
name: Joel
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220458596 An eerie, hypnotic debut about friendship, desire, and memory set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands

It's been years since Ingrid has heard from her childhood best friend, Mayra, a fearless rebel who fled their hometown of Hialeah, a Cuban neighborhood just west of Miami, for college in the Northeast. But when Mayra calls out of the blue to invite Ingrid to a weekend getaway at a house in the Everglades, she impulsively accepts.

From the moment Ingrid sets out for the house, danger looms: The directions are difficult, she’s out of reach of cell service, and as she drives deeper into the Everglades, the wet maw of the swamp threatens to swallow her whole. But once Ingrid arrives, Mayra is, in many ways, just as she remembers—with her sharp tongue and effortless, seductive beauty, still thumbing her nose at the world.

Before they can fully settle into the familiar intimacy of each other's company, their reunion is spoiled by the reemergence of past disagreements and the unexpected presence of Mayra's new boyfriend, Benji. The trio spend their hours eating lavish meals and exploring the labyrinthine house, which holds as much mystery and danger as the swamp itself. Indoors and on the grounds, time itself seems to expand, and Ingrid begins to lose a sense of the outside world, and herself.

Against this disquieting setting, where lizards dart in and out of porches and alligators peek up from dark waters, Gonzalez weaves a surreal, unforgettable story about the dizzying power of early friendship and the lengths we'll go to earn love and acceptance—even at the risk of losing ourselves entirely.]]> 240 Nicky Gonzalez 0593731557 Joel 0 to-read 3.59 2025
author: Nicky Gonzalez
name: Joel
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223420465
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.]]> 896 Joe Hill 0062200607 Joel 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Joe Hill
name: Joel
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221490948 It's a Midsommar night's Scream in this blood-soaked thriller set at a remote healing retreat from horror author Brian McAuley.

Hannah has been running from her demons ever since she emerged from a harrowing wilderness trip without her fiancé. No one knows exactly what happened the day Ben died, and Hannah would like to keep it that way... even if his ghost still haunts her with vivid waking nightmares that are ruining her life. So when her friend group gets an exclusive invitation to a restorative spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree, Hannah reluctantly agrees in search of a fresh start.

Despite her skepticism of the strange Guru Pax and his belief in the supernatural world, Hannah soon finds healing through all the yoga, sound baths, and hot springs offered at the tech-free haven. But this peaceful journey of self-discovery quickly descends into a violent fight for self-preservation when a mysterious killer starts picking off retreat attendees in increasingly gruesome ways. As the body count rises and Hannah’s sanity frays, she’ll have to confront her dark past and uncover the true nature of a ruthless monster hellbent on killing her vibe for good.]]> 304 Brian McAuley 1464238200 Joel 0 to-read 4.49
author: Brian McAuley
name: Joel
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387838 The latest gripping serial killer thriller from the New York Times bestselling author Alex North.

Dan Garvie’s life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child—narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer. He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, eager to seek justice for innocent victims. So when his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small island community, determined to uncover the truth about his death. Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmares has returned after all these years?

With his signature shock and suspense, Alex North brings us The Man Made of Smoke. In turn emotional, introspective, and utterly terrifying, this is a story of fathers and sons, shadows and secrets, and the fight we all face to escape the trauma of the past.]]> 320 Alex North Joel 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Alex North
name: Joel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63369200 Tales From the Strange Cafe as a debating club ponders the secrets of mind control and whether the most famous tower in Texas is truly haunted. It's all there, hidden deep in the pages of Darker Secrets.]]> 230 Lynn Woolley 1088055516 Joel 0 to-read 5.00
author: Lynn Woolley
name: Joel
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216512938
Seph is hoping for a fresh start after serving five long years in prison. Stuck in a halfway house, he divides his time between a dead end job, visits with his son, and mandatory NA meetings and church services.

Ezra Solomon, the senior pastor of Living Way Tabernacle, is reeling from loss and tragedy, and looking for answers that aren't coming.

Both men are on a collision course that will leave them questioning everything they know.

"BROOD OF VIPERS delivers an unsettling horror that’s as much about human psychology as it is mysticism. A promising horror debut with plenty to keep you up at night thinking about what evil lives in the hearts of your neighbors."Ěý—ĚýJessica Leonard, author of ANTIOCH and CONJURING THE WITCH

�

“Laced with poetic brutality and gripping from the get-go, Joseph Fulkerson takes a deep dive into the realms of faith, addiction and religion and what happens when those worlds collide with each other, culminating in a climax of biblical proportion which will leave you craving more.”Ěýâ€� Bam Barrow, author of CVLT OF CTHXS

�

"Fulkerson delivers a chaotic, violent ride, twisting the strings of Christian mythology like a sadistic puppeteer."
—Eddie Generous, author of What He Became and Rawr]]> 181 Joseph Fulkerson Joel 0 to-read 3.34
author: Joseph Fulkerson
name: Joel
average rating: 3.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7743175
When Robert Jordan died in 2007, all feared that these concluding scenes would never be written. But working from notes and partials left by Jordan, established fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the masterwork. With The Gathering Storm (Book 12) and Towers of Midnight (Book 13) behind him, Sanderson now re-creates the vision that Robert Jordan left behind.

Edited by Jordan's widow, who edited all of Jordan's books, A Memory of Light will delight, enthrall, and deeply satisfy all of Jordan's legions of readers.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass.
What was, what will be, and what is,
may yet fall under the Shadow.
Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.]]> 912 Robert Jordan 0765325950 Joel 3 Finishing my re-read 4.56 2013
author: Robert Jordan
name: Joel
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: fantasy, high-fantasy, epic-fantasy, magic
review:
Finishing my re-read
]]> 42479227 360 Duane Pesice Joel 5 The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.
]]> 4.38 2018
author: Duane Pesice
name: Joel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: weird-fiction, horror, short-fiction, short-story, anthology, monsters, planet-x-publications
review:
I believe this is the last of Planet X publications books on my shelf to read, and may in fact be the last one of their physical books put out period that I hadn't read. I'm pleased to say that it can end on a high note.
The presentation, the blurb, even the title of 'Creature Features' might make one believe they're in for a collection of monster tales of various but semi-traditional kinds. There is maybe one werewolf story, a few Frankenstein's Monster/created adjacent stories, but by and large these are truly tales of 'creatures': monsters, aliens, gods that defy ready classification.
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, the first couple of stories were a little rough. But by the time we hit Cody Goodfellow's weird western, 'The Greedy Grave' the collection fully hits it stride as weird fiction for weird times, with unnameable creatures. Other entries like Farah Rose Smith's 'In The Room of Red Night' play in genre bending spaces more akin to William Hope Hodgson's The Night Lands. Kurt Fawver's 'Extinction in Green' is a fantastic epistolary piece, and Natasha Bennett's 'Underground Rose' is a surprisingly sweet story about finding acceptance in a small town. Orrin Grey, ever the master of monsters, is of course present with a story that could easily by an X-File, 'The Pepys Lake Monster.'
Some of these really stretch beyond the genre and simply frame much more real world and psychological terrors within a 'horror story.' Erica Ruppert's 'Pretty In The Dark' doesn't ever let us know if something truly supernatural has occurred, but we can all sit with the shared horrors of loneliness, of places and memories that have the world has moved on from and abandoned, of lost youth. Robert Guffey's 'The Eye Doctor' can be read as a terrifying and action packed otherworldly adventure, but the fear of a child that thinks its been abandoned by its parents, that they cannot help it, and are in fact fallible human beings is something far more relatable and likely to hit home. James Fallweather also deals with childhood traumas and the scars war leaves on the families of those hurt or left behind in "A Little House In The Suburbs." "Aphantasia" by Robert S. Wilson again has some superlative monster fighting action, but underlying that are some really poignant ideas about love beyond and not including the physical or sexual, and the transcendence of being seen for what we are rather than what others would want us to be. And in James Russell's 'Spirit of the Place' we get some very straightforward commentary on the consequences of colonialism.
John Paul Fitch's 'Signals', S.L. Edwards 'With All Her Troubles Behind Her', John Linwood Grant's '/For Whom There is no Journey', 'Mrs. Doogan' by Lana Cooper, and Aaron J. French's 'Chosen' are all super fun, action heavy, stories ranging across subgenres.
We also have some humor mixed in, with Buzz Dixon's 'The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster' and the very self aware 'Bride of Castle Frankenstein' by Jill Hand as well as the Outer Limits or Twilight zone-esque 'Normal' by John Claude Smith.

]]> 6294549
The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening's dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening's killer.]]> 346 Seanan McGuire 0756405718 Joel 2 Maybe its suffering from being the first in a series. I believe the library has the rest of them, and they're fast reads, so I may give another 2-3 of them a shot to see if it improves, but I'm not sold on them at present.
Seeing that the author writes a lot of spider gwen comics also goes a long way to helping me understand where the pacing and type of storytelling might be coming from as well.]]> 3.76 2009
author: Seanan McGuire
name: Joel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: urban-fantasy, fae, fantasy, magic
review:
This was...alright? Not great, not unreadable. Its supposed to be a mystery, our protagonist is a magic using PI like in many other series riding the urban fantasy wave of the aughts, except there's not really any investigation going on? We have a mystery (a murder!), but its mostly action and the main character running around asking people for help rather than doing any actual sleuthing, magical or otherwise. The twist and the murderer are also telegraphed pretty clearly pretty early on.
Maybe its suffering from being the first in a series. I believe the library has the rest of them, and they're fast reads, so I may give another 2-3 of them a shot to see if it improves, but I'm not sold on them at present.
Seeing that the author writes a lot of spider gwen comics also goes a long way to helping me understand where the pacing and type of storytelling might be coming from as well.
]]> 221473207 From Dead Eleven author Jimmy Juliano, a twisty, edge-of-your-seat novel about a unique haunting in the early 2000s

Piper Lowery, a public library clerk in charge of liaising with the local middle school, can tell right away there’s something strange about the new girl in eighth grade. Avery Wallace won’t touch any kind of technology, not even the computers at the library, and her mother comes to school with her every day, refusing to leave her side—not even when Avery uses the restroom.

And then there are the rumors, the whispers Piper hears from kids in the hallway and parents around Avery’s mother is a witch. Her sister and father were killed by something supernatural. A strange virus killed them.

Seeing how isolated and lonely Avery is, Piper befriends her but quickly realizes it might just be the worst decision she’s ever made. Because there’s something dark inside Avery Wallace, and it’s spreading . . .]]> 384 Jimmy Juliano 0593475895 Joel 0 to-read 4.06 2025
author: Jimmy Juliano
name: Joel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 449343 320 Robert Silverberg 0743444973 Joel 3 Think Heinlein-esque (but again, raunchier) 60s free love romp, without all the heavy political commentary. Instead we get a pretty decent time travel as corrupt capitalism story that's not half bad. The future world, culture, and subcultures are believable and I think at least at the time it was written most of the historical bits were at least semi-accurate (obviously some literary license is taken). The twist ending was unexpected and fun. It was, overall, a little heavy in parts on the history lesson, but at least it works within the framework of the time traveler as travel guide structure.
If you like Heinlein and his ilk, you'll like this. If, for various reasons, you find the house of Heinlein distasteful, you'll definitely want to skip this one.]]> 3.69 1969
author: Robert Silverberg
name: Joel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: 60s, science-fiction, time-travel
review:
I thought I had read some Silverberg before, I may have been mistaken. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but this was a lot more raunchy (Heinlein and then some) than I was expecting, and there's definitely some racist language to get over.
Think Heinlein-esque (but again, raunchier) 60s free love romp, without all the heavy political commentary. Instead we get a pretty decent time travel as corrupt capitalism story that's not half bad. The future world, culture, and subcultures are believable and I think at least at the time it was written most of the historical bits were at least semi-accurate (obviously some literary license is taken). The twist ending was unexpected and fun. It was, overall, a little heavy in parts on the history lesson, but at least it works within the framework of the time traveler as travel guide structure.
If you like Heinlein and his ilk, you'll like this. If, for various reasons, you find the house of Heinlein distasteful, you'll definitely want to skip this one.
]]> 210864316 560 Homer 022660442X Joel 0 to-read 4.32 -800
author: Homer
name: Joel
average rating: 4.32
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]]> 215750336 Hark! What's that bird on the horizon? Well, with this handy guide, you can find out!

Sea Bird pairs vibrant illustrations with scientific insight on the attributes of North American birds inhabiting marine areas. The lighthearted tone reflects the personality and characteristics of fishers, pirates, and other sea-faring folk who might regularly encounter these birds. Birders of all stripes will be able to identify their feathered friends and jot down thoughts and observations in the notes section.]]> 128 Angela Harrison Vinet 0760393575 Joel 0 to-read 4.67
author: Angela Harrison Vinet
name: Joel
average rating: 4.67
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]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Joel 0 to-read 4.49 2025
author: John Green
name: Joel
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
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