3/5 stars Tantrum, by Rachel Eve Moulton (2025) TW: Violence, cannibalism, child abuse Part I is called Temper, and introduces the main character, Thea, who is a wife, mother of two boys - 5 and 3-years old - and of an infant girl, Lucia. They live off the grid in the New Mexico desert. She loves her husband and kids, but is beginning to feel trapped in her life, particularly because she just knows that something is not right with Lucia, and hasn't shared this with anyone els

5/5 stars The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey (2014) You really need to go into this not knowing much, so this will be short. Melanie is a 10-year old girl who lives in a small cell underground, and is collected each day to be taken to class, strapped into a wheelchair at ankles, wrists and neck. Sergeant Parks and his men do the collecting - one or more strapping her in, while another keeps a gun aimed at her until she's completely immobilized. They all seem to truly

3/5 stars Play Nice , by Rachel Harrison (2025) I think I really like books about haunted houses - but I don't mean, like, a house that is haunted by a ghost. I mean like the house is haunted. The house wants things and does things and may hurt you. Play Nice is horror-lite, with a haunting and, even more so, a very dysfunctional family. Clio is a social media influencer living in NYC. Her two older sisters, Leda and Daphne, are also off living their lives, and they all h

3/5 stars My Best Friend's Exorcism , by Grady Hendrix (2016) TW: The one part I actually had to skip was the torture of a dog. You can fully skip over those pages and not miss anything. The second there's a dog in a bathroom - flip forward a few pages! "Like Beaches meets The Exorcist , only it's set in the Eighties." This book was recommended to me by a local librarian, and I had a lot of fun reading it. It's a quick read. Kind of spoofy and silly with a dark sense of hum

3/5 stars Model Home , by Rivers Solomon (2024) TW: Racism, homophobia & transphobia, child sexual abuse, emotional abuse, parent death,...

5/5 stars The Girl in Red (2019), and Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook (2017) , by Christina Henry Trigger Warnings (both...

3/5 stars Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery , by Brom (2021) A fun read for lovers of witch &/or Puritanical witch-hunt era stories. Abitha...

4 & 3 out of 5 stars What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night , by T. Kingfisher (2022 & 2024) 4/5 stars What Moves the Dead A...

3/5 stars Graveyard Shift , by M.L. Rio (2024) I absolutely loved Rio's If We Were Villains , which I have read twice. So I was excited...

4/5 stars Woodworm , by Layla Martínez (2021) Translated by Sophie Hughes & Annie McDermott I got this in a book swap at my book club's...

5/5 stars A House With Good Bones , by T. Kingfisher (2023) To me this was reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the...

4/5 stars The Salt Grows Heavy, by Cassandra Khaw (2023) A mermaid with no tongue, who's run away from her prince husband, leaving behind...

4/5 stars The Parliament, by Aimee Pokwatka (2024) "First it was one girl, then a second joined in. It felt good to scream - little girls...

3/5 stars (ish) Our Hideous Progeny, by C.E. McGill (2023) If I did half stars this would be a 2.5, but I'm rounding up to 3 because this...

2/5 stars Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020) TW: Allusions to sexual assault, incest, suicide, cannibalism, murder...

3/5 stars The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling (2021) First 3/4 of the book - 5 stars. The final 1/4 of the book lost its way....

5/5 stars The Book Eaters, by Sunyi Dean (2022) Vampires for book lovers! (with zombies too, kind of). I was planning to wait until next...

3/5 stars A Cosmology of Monsters, by Shaun Hamill (2019) TW: mental illness, suicide, cancer, sexual assault "Noah Turner sees monsters....

3/5 stars Sorrowland, by Rivers Solomon (2021) The first 3/4 of this book were pretty masterful, in my opinion. The final 1/4 -...

1/5 stars The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021) Y I K E S. Huh. That was unexpected and not... umm... yeah, just not...