The novella and the short stories all seem to have a nod to folklore or urban legends but (mostly) from a slightly different angle than I’ve seen before, and overall some were more my taste than others.

Though it’s a modern gothic (unlike the A.G.Slatter Sourdough books I’ve read), The Cold House has the one thing that keeps me reading her works: a smart, snarky, relatable heroine.

Why did I do this to myself?! Or, more to the point, Gemma Amor, why did you do this to me?! I guess the new way Gemma Amor fans will recognize each other is by the squirming and scratching. I only made it about half a dozen chapters into ITCH! before the creepy-crawlies commenced, and I haven’t stopped itching since. 

Lee wrestles with personal demons - her mother’s drug addiction, how she treated her friends and classmates, and recognizing her own dependence on alcohol - the latter which made for one of the most poignant passages in the book as we see that through her children’s eyes - in order to reestablish her connection to the land so she can harness the power she needs to save herself and those loves from the physical demons that someone has unleashed. 

As someone who also grew up in the South as an “other” (though not in the same ways), a lot of this really resonated with me on a personal level which I did not expect, and I definitely expect to go back over some of these paragraphs and chapters again from a mindset of personal growth vs. entertainment and review purposes.

Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman has the two things  I want from a mystery novel: a snarky narrator and clues that build to an exciting and meaningful conclusion.

Just when I thought I knew what was going on, I did not know what was going on - and I loved it!

Demon Song by Kelsea Yu is a chilling Gothic tale based on Chinese mythology, but it’s also a bittersweet coming of age story of a girl being raised by a single mother who moves her from place to place fleeing a string of abusive relationships.

What makes the book stand out for me is the way Mitchell and Venditozzi balance their respect and reverence for these victims with a sense of humor in the writing. The footnotes, which provide helpful bits of context for the chapter, are also filled with opinions and asides which makes the reading that much more approachable.

There are moments where I felt my stomach drop as I realized what was happening to someone, moments where I felt my stomach tighten in grief as the women lost loved ones, and moments where I felt my stomach heave at the descriptions bordering on body horror of how the ghost/demon manifested.

America’s Most Gothic is a charming blend of storytelling, folklore, and history. After an introduction explaining why the authors, Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes, connect these American ghost and folktales to the Gothic, they share the tales with a wealth of interesting background and related facts, theories, and stories. 

Perfect Happiness by Jeong You-Jeong is dark, tense, sad - and I could not stop reading it. Twelve hours later, and I still have a knot in my stomach thinking about Yuma Shin. 

It’s not as lyrical, but Perfect Happiness could have been called, “It’s Yuma’s World, and We’re All Living In It”. 

Clever, loyal, and (mostly) brave soldier Alex Easton is back in T. Kingfisher’s What Stalks the Deep, and they are bringing all the snark and relatability we’ve come to expect from the Sworn Soldier. 

To put it bluntly, I love this series. I loved the first two, and I’m excited to get to this one. 

Scream with Me by Eleanor Johnson is a must-read for anyone who thinks about or wants to learn about how horror reflects or can impact society - in this case with a focus on feminist issues such as bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.

Textbook-level research has gone into this (which makes sense as the author teaches horror history in her curriculum at Columbia), but Scream with Me is as easy and engaging to read as a novel.

The October Film Haunt by Michael Wehunt is “it’s going right back in my TBR so I can read it again” good. It’s scary, funny, the characters are so real, you feel like you’re right there with them, maybe you were even part of the original October Film Haunt because you, too, always assume that you’re living in a horror movie where you don’t take your eyes off the doll as it could come to life at any moment, you do not say Bloody Mary or Candyman in the mirror because you’re no dummy, and you make a wide berth around that that tree because it could be the Pine Arch Creature.

The Witch of Willow Sound by Vanessa F. Penney is an unexpectedly sad, sweet, and at times funny, feminist gothic novel complete with witches, ghosts, and asylums.

The book opens with a dark, disturbing, almost grotesque prologue involving a nameless ole woman trying to cover up a death (murder?) by destroying a body by fire.

Spit Back the Bones by Teagan Olivia King is an eerie, American gothic horror romance with family curses, bog monsters, passionate love, deep-seated jealously, and hunger for power.

Body of Water by Adam Godfrey brings to mind some of my favorite Stephen King short stories like The Mist, Trucks, and The Raft, as Godfrey’s characters are trapped in a diner by something in or of the water. But there are other “bottle” horror stories out there, so it’s not just this similarity that brings the King to mind. 

Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei is a sci-fi, dystopian, eco-thriller -  and a domestic drama about three sisters with absent fathers raised by their grandmother after their mother commits suicide - and I am here for all of it. 

Some have humorous or nostalgic moments like when John Langan reminded me of how afraid we all were of quicksand when we were kids. And others nearly moved me to tears (“I’m not crying, you’re crying!”) such as when Cynthia Pelayo talked about the importance of breaking cycles of abuse. Others touched on shared experiences like when Clay Chapman mentioned the Challenger explosion; I was already inhaling every Stephen King book I could get my hands on at the time at 12, but that moment of real life horror is an indelible part of my brain chemistry.

Veil by Jonathan Janz is a fast-paced sci-fi action novel about family, what makes a family, and the expectations they have of us and we have of ourselves for them - oh, and about invisible somethings taking people right off the street or out of the park or even right out of their own freakin’ backyard to who knows where for who knows what purpose?