Sarah Maria Griffin turns a childhood game into cosmic horror in Strange Is the Light, set on Valentia Island. A five-star Irish gothic about friendship, betrayal, and a turn left unfinished for twenty years.
Book Review
Corpse Creek and Fear Farm by Vincent Ralph: Two Frights, One Cursed Town
Vincent Ralph closes the Bleak Haven series with a matched pair that shares only a cursed town. Corpse Creek is a supernatural grief-horror; Fear Farm is a haunted-attraction slasher. We review both YA horror titles side by side, and both earn four stars for opposite reasons.
Crone by Keith Rosson: Folk Horror Noir That Bites Back
In Crone, Keith Rosson binds a Pacific Northwest crime noir to a folk horror ghost story, following a grieving ex-detective through a corrupt town toward a witch who has been keeping his missing daughter for thirteen years. It is body-horror addiction, biker-gang rot, and generational violence, held together by prose of frightening control
We Are For The Dark by Gretchen McNeil: Religious Folk Horror That Never Once Flinches
Gretchen McNeil’s second adult novel drops a former-FBI priest and a stubborn constable on a boat-less Newfoundland island where the locals crave daily Mass. Our five-star review reads We Are For The Dark as religious folk horror that fuses detective fiction, Catholic dread, and a love story into one merciless question.
Washed Up on Dark Shores by Jonathan Wood: Greed Given a Body
Jonathan Wood’s Washed Up on Dark Shores literalises greed as a god called Mammon and lets it eat the world one savage sentence at a time. Our five-star review digs into the corporate cosmic horror, the ferocious prose style, and how it connects to his work as Jon Hollins and J.P. Oakes.
Lionhearts by Dan Howarth Review: Horror With an Axe to Grind
Dan Howarth follows Last Night of Freedom with Lionhearts, a political horror novel about grief curdling into hate somewhere Northern and thoroughly let down. Our Lionhearts book review looks at Henry Oswald, the staccato prose, and an ending that turns a depressed landscape florid, charged and brutal. Bring paracetamol.
Summer Coven Review: A Queer Cosy Mystery With a Corpse in It
Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor return to Trident Falls in Summer Coven, the second Dead & Breakfast paranormal cozy mystery. Two married vampire innkeepers investigate a poisoned pet psychic, a coven of witches, and a missing person. A queer, funny, warm-hearted whodunit for anyone who wants their vampires kind.
WordPress Article Tags
The Minimalist by Kailee Pedersen – A Masterclass in Artistic Horror
Kailee Pedersen’s The Minimalist is a gruelling, unflinching psychological horror novel about a composer’s descent into madness. Published by St. Martin’s Press, it follows Mia Voss as she returns to her mentor’s Santa Fe mansion to complete his unfinished masterpiece, only to find the manuscript exerting a disturbing hold over her. Drawing from Pedersen’s own experiences as an adoptee and classical musician, this is body horror at its most intelligent—a meditation on artistic obsession, adoption trauma, and the sacrifices we make in pursuit of creative perfection.
In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts by Gwendolyn Kiste: Gatsby’s Ghosts Won’t Let Go
Bram Stoker winner Gwendolyn Kiste delivers a haunting queer horror retelling of The Great Gatsby in In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, following Daisy Buchanan’s daughter as she confronts her mother’s ghost and the still-grasping fingers of Jay Gatsby. This sapphic Gothic novella explores grief, legacy, and the hunger of a house that feeds on unfulfilled love.
Humanity in the Face of Horror: The Undiscovered Country by Teel James Glenn
The Undiscovered Country delivers horror noir thrills as Adam Paradise, Frankenstein’s creature turned PI, battles Ku Klux Klan necromancy in 1930s New Orleans. Teel James Glenn crafts a supernatural thriller that examines humanity’s capacity for organised hatred while celebrating compassion as the ultimate act of heroism.