The horror doesn’t jump. It settles in. And by the time you feel it, it’s already under your skin. Wolf Worm sits comfortably in the top tier of Kingfisher’s work. It shows an author who has refined her craft, who knows exactly what kind of horror she wants to write and … Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher: A Gothic Horror That Crawls Under Your SkinRead more
horror book review
Beyond the Final Girl: 16 New Horror Books by Women Who Refuse to Look Away
Beyond the Final Girl: 16 New Horror Books by Women Who Refuse to Look Away We spend a lot of time talking about who dies in a horror story. The trope list is long: the first to have sex, the one who runs upstairs instead of out the front door, … Beyond the Final Girl: 16 New Horror Books by Women Who Refuse to Look AwayRead more
Drone by Dan Howarth Review: Rural Horror at Its Most Relentless
The sound is driving them mad. The silence is even worse. Dan Howarth writes with a specific kind of fury. It is the sound of a steamroller on asphalt, relentless and flattening. For fans of horror fiction, being caught beneath it is a privilege. His latest novella, Drone, proves he is … Drone by Dan Howarth Review: Rural Horror at Its Most RelentlessRead more
The Brentford Trilogy (All 9 of Them): A Resplendent Robert Rankin Retrospective
Robert Rankin called it a trilogy. He wrote nine books. He was right to do both Robert Rankin’s Brentford is a strange place. On the surface, it’s a quiet West London suburb. Below that surface, it’s a cosmic battlefield where aliens land, popes return from the dead, and the end … The Brentford Trilogy (All 9 of Them): A Resplendent Robert Rankin RetrospectiveRead more
The 2025 YA Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot: Every Book Ranked and Reviewed
The 2025 YA Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot: Every Book Ranked and Reviewed The 2025 YA Bram Stoker Award preliminary ballot is out, and it is a stronger list than most years. Ten books. Four spots on the final ballot already confirmed. And a clear frontrunner that arguably deserves to … The 2025 YA Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot: Every Book Ranked and ReviewedRead more
Unshod Cackling and Naked by Tamika Thompson: 13 Short Stories That Refuse to Behave
Continuing my series of reviews that fell victim to my darkest depression days, today I bring back from the dead Tamika Thompson’s Unshod, Cackling, and Naked. In time for the release of her excellent debut novel, The Curse of Hester Gardens. And on the day we publish a fascinating interview … Unshod Cackling and Naked by Tamika Thompson: 13 Short Stories That Refuse to BehaveRead more
Nowhere Burning Review: Catriona Ward’s Brilliant Premise, But Blurry Execution
The concept burns bright. The novel, unfortunately, smoulders. The prose is beautiful. The thematic ambition is undeniably massive. The execution simply falls flat. Some sanctuaries demand a price in blood, and this one simply asks for too much of your patience. Nowhere Burning Review: Catriona Ward’s Brilliant Premise, But Blurry … Nowhere Burning Review: Catriona Ward’s Brilliant Premise, But Blurry ExecutionRead more
Gothic Shadows and Stolen Voices: The Brides by Charlotte Cross.
A stunning debut of atmosphere and raw empathy. Cross understands that the deepest darkness often isn’t supernatural at all. It’s in the human capacity for cruelty, in the societal cages that predate any castle, and in the fragile, fierce love that fights to glow within them. She has written a … Gothic Shadows and Stolen Voices: The Brides by Charlotte Cross.Read more
The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru: A Novel of Ghosts and Exile in 1920s Paris
A ghost story about exile, family secrets, and the things we leave behind. Olesya Salnikova Gilmore’s third novel, The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru, trades epic mythology for something quieter and more potent: a ghost story about exile, a grandmother’s buried secrets, and a young woman learning that the dead … The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru: A Novel of Ghosts and Exile in 1920s ParisRead more
The Shetland Witch by Kate Macdonald: A Calm, Confident Debut of Myth and Sisterhood
The Shetland Witch by Kate Macdonald: A Calm, Confident Debut of Myth and Sisterhood When a book arrives that promises to mix Shetland folk magic with the Greek Fates and a dash of Norse mythology, you have every right to brace for impact. The Shetland Witch by Kate Macdonald is … The Shetland Witch by Kate Macdonald: A Calm, Confident Debut of Myth and SisterhoodRead more
Bless Your Heart Review: The Cozy Horror Novel That Serves Blood and Sweet Tea in Equal Measure
Forget what you think you know about vampire fiction. The Evans women run a funeral parlor, bury the dead, and handle the ones that won’t stay down. The thing about small towns is that they all have a family people whisper about. The ones who’ve been there forever, who run … Bless Your Heart Review: The Cozy Horror Novel That Serves Blood and Sweet Tea in Equal MeasureRead more
The Memory Shades Review: David Watkins’s Best Yet Blends Ghosts and Worms
What haunts you when you can’t remember what you did? That question drives The Memory Shades, the latest sci-fi horror novel from Devon-based author David Watkins. In this The Memory Shades review, we examine a story that blends creature feature terror with psychological depth. Prisoners on a distant planet, their … The Memory Shades Review: David Watkins’s Best Yet Blends Ghosts and WormsRead more
Cabaret in Flames, Consent, Consumption and Chattering Teeth: Hache Pueyo’s Return to the Monstrous
Some monsters wear sequins. Some wear scalpels. Hache Pueyo writes about both. We carry our childhood horrors in the strangest places. In the hitch of a prosthetic limb. In the way we flinch when someone touches us too fast. In the quiet acceptance that the monsters who broke us might … Cabaret in Flames, Consent, Consumption and Chattering Teeth: Hache Pueyo’s Return to the MonstrousRead more
David Scott Hay on The Butcher of Nazareth: A Biblical Horror Masterpiece
What happens when two righteous men face off? A journey into the heart of biblical horror. It’s a rare and thrilling event when a novel arrives that defies easy categorisation, demanding to be felt as much as read. David Scott Hay’s latest release, The Butcher of Nazareth, is precisely such a … David Scott Hay on The Butcher of Nazareth: A Biblical Horror MasterpieceRead more
A Review of Kirsten Kaschock’s An Impossibility of Crows: Motherhood, Monsters, and the Crows of Letort
What if love, pushed to its limits, creates the very thing it fears most? What does it mean to love someone so completely that you would reshape the natural world for them? And what happens when that reshaping becomes its own kind of violence? These questions sit at the heart … A Review of Kirsten Kaschock’s An Impossibility of Crows: Motherhood, Monsters, and the Crows of LetortRead more