Review: Penance

3 stars. This is a really tough one to rate and review - how much can I attribute to the author, and how much can I attribute to the “author?” Eliza Clark was very obviously trying to say something about reader consumption of true crime stories; about authors and content creators benefiting. As someone who has always been drawn to dark stuff, with what I hope is a handle on properly honoring victims, I’m not sure I totally pulled a clear message. But it’s a cool attempt at something!

This book reads like a nonfiction account of a small town crime - the torture and murder of a teenage girl by three peers. The “author” interviews the victim and the perpetrators’ families, collects their digital footprints, explores local history and folklore, and draws some pretty intense conclusions about how things went down.

There’s no doubt that Eliza Clark captures something here. The age of Tumblr was super specific and any of us who even dipped a toe into the platform will recognize the aesthetics she channels. It’s the weird, broody, stubborn, ferocious sense of teenage entitlement around worship that manifested so potently online back then. It’s the sense of electric possibility you felt - the possibility of acceptance or understanding online where you didn’t get it IRL. The pain when you couldn’t find it. The ick of bending over for it.

The terrible fanfiction she includes stopped me in my tracks - it’s so accurate. But that’s really where the success of this book ended, for me. The opening is terrific, the ending picks up again, but everything in the middle was quite boring. There’s so much detail - am I missing something? It seemed so superfluous. Is that partly the point? I hate to say I was bored, but it fell flat for me. I’m actually not sure if I fully even understand the crime being written about - falsified details or otherwise. I dunno, I’m just… kind of confused.

Still, there are plenty who loved it. It’s worth checking out. Clark is and will continue to be an autobuy for me. I just can’t wrap my head around this one.

Penance on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Lesser Dead

5 stars. By far one of the most refreshing vampire books I’ve ever read. Horrific and bloody but full of style and flair - maybe even a touch of whimsy. This is my third Buehlman and it’s fair to say all of his books are totally and delightfully distinct. His take on vampires, though, is exactly as fresh and scary as you’d expect from a genius.

The Lesser Dead is a dark character study of Joey Hiram Peacock, a vampire who was turned at 14 in the 1930s. Now living in NYC in the 70s, he’s found a sort of group - coven - who live and hunt together out of Subway tunnels. They are strong as a unit, helping and protecting each other from discovery. Until they encounter something stronger.

It did take me longer than normal to get through this, as it is more of a character study than an active narrative - until the action starts, which it does, brutally. Not for the faint of heart. It sort of sneaks up on you… Joey’s voice is charming, and kind of warm, a bit rogue and forgivably superficial. Cute. And the other vampires in his found family - the world building is super amazing, as is the lore, but the characters bring it all together. I would love more from this dark universe!

And then that ending. Holy fuckaroni, I did not see that shit coming. The whole point of the entire book may have been that gut punch of a twist, but I don’t even care. Beautifully done, really chilling, almost playful. Tempted to do a re-read now that I know what I know. There's a lot more brilliance here than I even realized.

Imagine vampires being scary again, like truly not sexy or sparkly at all. Monsters. It’s like that, and you’ll love it.

The Lesser Dead on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Revelator

4 stars. Really strange, and beautiful; this book is many things. I’m still processing. I may have to read it again when I’m out of the newborn phase and a little more clear-eyed. There’s a lot layered in… it’s a dark fable that touches on religion, fanaticism, tradition, power, morality, humanity… Big themes. Deep questions. Ambiguous answers. Or maybe clear answers, with ambiguous consequences. It showcases humans at their very best and very worst. I say this often in reviews - I’d love to read this for a lit class and have some things analyzed and explained to me. It’s worth a close study.

How to explain? Stella Birch is our main character, and she is strong, charming and feisty. The book alternates between her unusual coming-of-age in the 1930s and the aftermath of her guardian’s death in the 1940s. She is a revelator, which means she can take “communion” with her family’s “god,” which lives in a cave on their property. Though it might make her an iconic herald of “god’s” “message,” it is a rough and damaging responsibility, and the more she learns the more she resists. But the cycle continues, and soon another revelator is born to carry on the family’s worship and Stella must choose between embracing her dark heritage or breaking the cycle once and for all.

Or something like that, anyway.

This book is historical horror at its finest and its most unique. The sense of time and place is very strong and very important. The author did his research and the level of detail is admirable. Stella is also a formidably awesome heroine. Her protectiveness and loyalty and determination are the beating heart of the story, as are her relationships with Abby and Alfonse, both of them saviors, sometimes annoyingly.

I thought the depiction of different types of goodness and different types of evil was very interesting. I don’t know how metaphorical or allegorical the author meant to be, but I frequently found myself considering cults, especially religious ones, and the way cult leaders apply the concept of “chosen ones.” The complex sense of obligation and pride and gratitude and special-ness that creates. The difficulty to resist. Especially when it’s family. This book wrestles with all of that and more.

Anyway. I wouldn’t describe Revelator as particularly scary. But it is captivating and intense and unique. I saw it described somewhere as a book that is more about the journey than the destination and I think that’s true. It will probably haunt - and inspire - me for a long time.

Revelator on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Lighthouse Witches

3 stars. This is a fun one - mystery, thriller, horror all wrapped up in an easy box with a supernatural bow. While I think maybe there were too many threads woven into the tapestry, it still illustrates a pretty entertaining picture at the end of the day. I loved the folklore angle and the setting, and the twists and turns kept me paying attention.

The core of it involves Liv Stay and her three daughters, who arrive in a small
Scottish town in 1998 so Liv can paint a mural in the local historical lighthouse. The town is welcoming enough and strongly superstitious - which makes sense considering all the strange events involving missing and reappearing children that happen there. In 2021, one of the daughters is forced to reconcile with her past and is drawn back to try to sort through it all. There’s also a grimoire, witchy neighbors, dodgy locals, a cave, a shark. runes, a cute plasterer with hunches, and a mysterious lighthouse owner. And pop tarts.

I don’t know quite how to explain this, but I wish it went darker. There are some really dark elements but they don’t really land in a disturbing way… like, it tries to be dark, and there are some graphic moments, but I just wanted to pat the book on its head and say that’s adorable, bless your heart. Which is saying something, because the Scottish witch trials exemplify the darkest, blackest, most awful damage humanity can inflict upon itself. I dunno, the stakes just never felt super high, and there were so many things going on.

So many things: a lot of characters, and subplots, and entanglements; relationships to remember and interactions to keep track of. Some of the details were great, some of them felt superfluous. I’m not convinced the teenagers were written realistically (a very hard thing to be fair), but the kids were pretty cute.

Overall, I liked it. I enjoyed the mystery aspect the most, and I’d love to check out more by this author, who clearly knows her way around an intriguing premise / puzzle. This would make a great beach read.

The Lighthouse Witches on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: We Used to Live Here

5 stars. Wow - 10/10 reading experience. Did not expect to end up down a whole ass rabbit hole, but I’m so happy to be here. I got this book at the library but I will ask Santa for a hard copy because I am dying to re-read with a pen and highlighter!! Perfect? Of course not! But wow - creepy, mind-bending, eerie, haunting, unsettling, confusing in the best way.

It’s best to go in blind, but the basics: Eve and her girlfriend Charlie buy an isolated old house intending to fix it up. One night a family shows up, led by a man who claims to have grown up there. Eve lets them in to look around, against her better judgment, and… things get weird, and strange, very fast.

The comparisons to House of Leaves are inevitable. Love it or hate it, this book does take you down some similar paths. Many other reviewers have noted that you won’t get all the answers, which might be frustrating to some readers. I’ve seen it called pretentious, gimmicky, too conceptual, tricky… I don’t know, I loved it even if it is all of those things. The loose ends / ambiguous ending didn’t bother me at all - it’s certainly a choice and one I respect a lot!

If I had any little quibbles, I’d say that Eve’s character needed a lot of set-up to justify the narrative. Her quirks and anxieties drove me nuts (and I noticed a lot of mid-book exposition, which seems common in nosleep stories for some reason). But then again, if she hadn’t been such a people-pleasing dumbass, would the story have taken the turns it needed to for the thrills? My annoyance abated super quickly as events unfolded.

I highly, highly recommend this book for horror fans. Embrace the chaos. Jump down the rabbit hole. Read all the theories and Reddit posts and translate the clues. Life with a newborn is fucking ridiculously challenging, and this provided a very suitable and vivid distraction. I don’t think I’ll ever forget reading chapters on my phone in the dark during night feedings, not minding the misery of sleep deprivation with such a captivating book to read.

I WANT MORE!!! GIVE ME MORE!!! AND, I didn’t have to dock a star for a UDD!!

We Used to Live Here on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Books of Blood: Volumes 1-3

5 stars. As expected, this was excellent. Foundational. Really fun, and funny, and full of writing that is original and captivating. It’s like a box of wonders - each story is distinctively Barker but totally unique. I didn’t expect to close it feeling like I’d read the mothertext for so many horror stories that have come along since. The influence of this one is strong!!

Leaning towards dark fantasy at times, and with what now feels like classic eighties flair, Volume 1 explores themes of death, desire, sin, darkness, art, and more. “The Book of Blood” (admittedly not my fave) sets us up nicely, followed by:

• “The Midnight Meat Train” (a more New Yorkish horror story does not exist)

• “The Yattering and Jack” (superb, satisfying)

• “Pig Blood Blues” (dark, surprising, scary)

• “Sex, Death and Starshine” (cutting but very warm)

• “In the Hills, the Cities” (famous for a reason - the hype is real, very strange but mind blowing)

I’ve only read the Abarat books by Clive Barker, but I’ve been obsessed with them my whole life, so I guess it makes sense this would click with me. But it clicks with a lot of readers, and if you enjoy horror that drives a sense of gleeful fun alongside the scares, it will click with you too. Barker definitely has his… kinks, for lack of a better word (actually that might be the perfect word for it), but they come across beautifully here. There’s some really lovely writing, for a book so brutal and gory and disturbing.

From saviors to “villains” to every unfathomable creature in between that tries to deal with things like betrayal, true nature, injustice, evil, death itself, there really is only one path: madness. I really enjoyed this journey and can’t wait to continue it in the next book of volumes.

Books of Blood: Volumes 1-3 on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Anomaly

4 stars. This was a really, really good time. Pure adventure archaeology horror, which is apparently a genre I can’t turn down. Honestly, what in the world was that premise?? Like, what even happened here? And do I care, when the journey was so fucking fun? This is a campy, blockbuster beach read of a book and I would love it if everyone lightened up a bit and went for it.

The story follows Nolan Moore, archaeologist-turned-web series host, and his team as they investigate a sort of unsolved mystery / conspiracy theory about a hidden cave of wonders in the Grand Canyon. Having thus far in his content career focused on the journey, rather than the destination, no one is more surprised when they actually find it. But the deeper they venture into caves, the darker and more dangerous things get, and the quest becomes about way more than the truth: it becomes about their survival.

And there you have it - it’s REALLY awesome! At first I was kind of put off by the rogue lads and their sometimes cringey banter, and it took me a minute to wrap my head around Nolan as a character. But once things got rolling (ahem), I was hooked. And I fully embraced the cheesiness of it all. (I loved Ken. Loved him. Is that basic? Don’t care.) Throw in a couple of good twists, some heart pounding action, and genuine souls to root for and you’ve got a great reading experience.

But seriously though - what exactly happened, like, plot-wise? I think I get what they discovered and all of its crazy implications, but… I’m a little fuzzy on the specifics. You can tell the author is a screenwriter - it’s a cinematic book - but I question whether this could actually be adapted because… yikes, the antagonistic situation our heroes stumble into is… unique. (Whispers: silly.) I’ll take a page from Nolan and say it’s more about the journey here. The moments that entertain us along the way. It gets a lot of points for being unique, I’ll say that.

For further reading, I highly recommend The Ruins (much darker - bleak survival horror at its best) and Thunderhead (an adventure masterpiece that combines a lot of similar aspects). The Anomaly is like their wacky, ridiculous younger brother. Still, I would call this the trifecta of dark archaeology books, among those I’ve read so far. I look forward to reading more.

The Anomaly on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Moriah

3 stars. This was really breathtaking; haunting in every sense of the word. I love stories like this, that wear a lot of hats: a historical snapshot, a study of grief as singular driving force, a tapestry that unfolds very slowly, a bleak tangled knot of characters that orbit each other over the course of one week.

Former Rev. Silas Flood travels to a family home called the Yellow House in Moriah, Vermont as a journalist investigating the family’s alleged ability to conjure spirits during nightly seances. This is in the 1870s, and the whole country is deeply spiritually curious as it processes the traumas of the Civil War. There he encounters medium brothers Thaddeus and Ambrose Lynch, their sister Sally, the various guests drawn to their conjuring skills, and the spirits they call from the afterlife. Flood, walking around with his own personal tragedies, becomes swept up in the questions around belief, desire, memory, guilt, and fear that haunt the entire group - as well as family secrets.

It’s a fascinating moment in time wrapped in a very captivating delivery. These characters are super broken - it’s a bleak, disturbing book - but I couldn’t look away as they churned in turmoil. The spirit aspect is very unique and probably not what makes this book horror… I think that would be the deep dive into the horror that is the human experience. Like I said, bleak.

So why 3 stars? 3 stars means I liked it. I have read books of a similar tone (sort of an… exercise-y, literary, biblical allusion-infused, words-at-the-forefront tone with heavy themes - reminds me of something I’d read in school, begging to be inspected and called clever) and they all land around 3 stars for me. I wouldn’t touch this is you’re in a grim mood unless you want to wallow in it. But again, I liked it. I like horror in all its flavors, even its most melancholic.

Moriah on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Dead House

5 stars. Wrestled with the rating for this one, because I think it should maybe really only be 4, but I did establish that a book will get an extra star automatically if it scares me or creeps me out. Also, I was reading this (literally) when I went into labor and had a whole baby, so I think The Dead House will always have a special place in my heart. 

Mike is an established artist’s agent living in the hustle and bustle of London when he encounters the art of young Maggie Turner. Talented and somewhat troubled, Maggie and Mike form a close friendship and he helps her escape an abusive situation; she lands in an isolated old cottage in Ireland. When he visits her, he sees why the change of pace is healthy: the Irish countryside is beautiful and inspiring as the cottage is quaint. Like everywhere, though, the area is absolutely soaked in bad history, and when an ouija board is broken out, someone - or something - really malevolent emerges.

I was fond of this immediately because it utilizes one of my favorite tropes: the ghost story being told as a story after the fact. In this way plus a few others did The Dead House remind me of two bangers: The Fisherman and The Woman in Black. I also find Irish horror specifically - and this as an excellent example - to be really folkloric and beautiful and punctuated by moments of dark brutality. 

Not everyone will find it so satisfying. This is a quieter piece of horror that is a bit light on scares. The author - or the narrator, I can’t tell because it’s my first of his that I’ve read - is quite wordy, and at many points I wondered if leaving in all the extra exposition was intentional or meant to be quirky or lend an extra layer of realism to the narrative. At the end of the day I didn’t mind it. And yes, reading this late at night / early in the morning in the darkness of the nursery during feedings did manage to spook me - the séance scene is super well-done. So, extra star.

I’m really glad I took a chance on this one. It was really interesting to explore how horror reflects Irish culture and generational trauma and the power of the landscape. And to my newborn: happy birthday and welcome to the world, where there are so many wonderful books out there waiting to entertain you, believe it or not, more than my boobs ever will.

I insist you read this on a cabin trip, by the fire, during a thunderstorm or a snowstorm or under a blanket, with a glass of whiskey and somewhere to tuck your toes.

The Dead House on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lector #2)

5 stars. Oh my gahh this was so good. Something about Thomas Harris' writing - it's so crunchy and attention-grabbing and attention-keeping, which is a huge deal in this day and age. Just like with the first one, all I wanted to do was sink into this disturbing world and immerse myself in the dark chase. I get the hype, I really do. I could not put this down.

The FBI is hunting for a new serial killer in this one, dubbed Buffalo Bill by the scrutinizing media. Jack Crawford, dealing with a devastating situation in his personal life, taps Quantico trainee Clarice Starling to interview Hannibal Lecter for his criminal and psychiatric insights. This sounds so cheesy, but a truly thrilling investigation follows, and Clarice and Hannibal get to know one another. There are all the iconic elements we've come to recognize: moths, skin suits, lambs. You know it by now. 

This Clarice is indeed a bit different from Jodie's, but I really loved her. The problematic aspects (of which there are so many) are somewhat balanced by Harris' depiction of Starling's experiences in the field. Her grief, the sharp chip on her shoulder, her willingness to jump down the rabbit hole, her awakening to the reality of her job, of her colleagues, of the system... it's all very well-written. 

Increased awareness is worth celebrating. It's a good book. It's not perfect. The gender issues are handled much better than in the movie, but the body shaming is out of control. Many reviewers have detailed it and reacted accordingly. Just check the TWs and make your own open-eyed choices.

I've heard some interesting things about the rest of the books in the series, but I think I'm going to read anyway. Thomas Harris creates such intense and captivating moments, it just might be worth any mediocre twists or out-of-character decision-making. We'll see. 

The Silence of the Lambs on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads