Tag: NetGalley

I Was a Teenage Slasher – Stephen Graham Jones

I Was a Teenage Slasher cover image, featuring a belt

I will never tire of final girls. Against all odds, they have what it takes to survive. But for every final girl running for their life, there’s a slasher casually walking behind them and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me cheering the slasher on. (Unless the final girl is Jade Daniels. She’s off limits.)

The body count can never be too high. The river of blood should be cascading. The more organs on show, the better.

I love watching slashers follow and, every so often, break the rules. I search every scene for potential weapons. Horror movie soundtracks tend to earworm their way through my life. (My texts tell me Jason is nearby. The Halloween theme is my ringtone.)

I always want to know what makes the slasher tick, though, and it’s not like they’re the chattiest bunch so a lot is usually left to my imagination. I get the flashback scene so I know what those camp counsellors were up to when they should have been making sure Jason’s lungs weren’t filing with water. Jason now? He’s doing some walking and some killing but he’s not exactly inviting me to sit in on his therapy sessions.

What makes him a slasher and not someone else? Someone like me?

Schting!

That’s where Tolly comes in. This is his story.

Places to be, people to eviscerate.

This is also Amber’s story. Tolly is writing this for his best friend, who he hasn’t seen for half a lifetime. While Tolly didn’t even know what a slasher was before all of this started, Amber knows all of the rules.

This time, we get to see insides become outsides from the slasher’s POV and with Tolly talking me through it, I finally got the inside scoop (sorry!) I’ve been waiting for. Tolly isn’t quite who I was expecting, though.

He’s a slasher with heart. No, not one he ripped from the chest of one of his victims. One who has the ability to make me tear up, because he’s just so relatable and I want everything to turn out well for him. (Is there ever going to be a Stephen Graham Jones book that doesn’t make me cry?)

These kids are my kind of outcasts. The fact that they’ve been cast in this genre is just a bonus.

Favourite no context quote:

If she’d had sad eyes earlier, then now what she was about to tell me was that the moon was hurtling toward the Earth, and our only shot at stopping it was to catapult all the Earth’s puppies up at it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A community driven by oil and cotton – a town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. 

Tolly Driver, seventeen, a good kid with more potential than application, exists on the outskirts with his best friend, Amber. They navigate the hellscape of the teenage social scene, sticking together in a place that doesn’t know how to be different.

But when they go to a fateful party at Deek Masterton’s house – a party that ends in a series of gruesome, brutal and extravagant murders – Tolly’s world gets flipped upside-down. Because some slashers are born in violence and retribution, some were born that way – and some were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time…

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These Deathless Shores – P.H. Low

This is Peter Pan, but not as you know it.

Hook is a once upon a time Lost Boy who was unceremoniously exiled (that’s putting it nicely) when she got her first period. Now an addict, she’s coming back to the Island with her ‘Twin’ because the Island has the drug she needs and the villain who’s overdue for some revenge.

The villain of this story is Peter. You know, Peter Pan. With laughter I heard in my head as Michael Jackson’s (yeah, my brain’s weird) and a bloodlust that probably shouldn’t have surprised me, this Peter deserves everything coming to him, and more. He’s an absolute asshole and I wouldn’t have lost any sleep if Jordan had pulled Peter’s skeleton from his body while he watched. I may have helped her.

In case it’s not obvious, this is not Disney, with its cutesy songs and pixie dust. Okay, there is pixie dust but its ingredients were not approved by Walt.

With a backdrop of feminist rage – being relegated to specific roles in society approved by the patriarchy, making yourself small in order to fit the mould – this is oftentimes a painful read. The legacy of childhood trauma, multifaceted and cruel, is at its heart, with battles waged both against others and internally.

“We become what we need to be in order to survive.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Jordan was once a Lost Boy, convinced she would never grow up.

Now, she’s twenty-two and exiled to the real world, still suffering withdrawal from the magic Dust of her childhood – and the drug she’s using to medicate that withdrawal is wreaking its final, fatal effects.

With nothing left to lose, Jordan returns to the Island and its stories – of pirates and war and the cruelty of youth – intent on facing Peter one last time, on her own terms.

But Peter isn’t the only malevolent force moving against her. As Jordan confronts the nature of Dust, first love, and the violent legacy carved into the land itself, she realises the Island may have plans of its own.

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The Wanderlands #1: The Failures – Benjamin Liar

I can’t do this book justice, no matter what I say, but I’m going to try. It’s epic: in scope, in scale and, yes, the slang works, too.

It’s a story of monsters, made by people and circumstance. It’s also about those that life tried to make into monsters but who, against all odds, kept their heart intact.

You’ll meet so many characters: complicated, multifaceted characters. Those who are overwhelmingly good will do bad things; sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. The characters you will love to hate may surprise you with their capacity for good. No one is what they first appear.

You’ll meet Sophie, who saved the world when she just was a kid. She followed this feat with a couple of decades of debauchery with her friends, the Killers. Each Killer is carrying a secret from their past that could change everything.

There are Giants and Behemoths and made things that belong in your nightmares.

It’s dark and there’s the Dark. There are doors and Doors. You’ll encounter magic that creates and magic that destroys. This is a world where you follow your dreams.

You will need to pay attention. The details matter. If the door is red, remember there’s a red door because you may see it again and the fact that you remember it will tell you something the next time you encounter it.

With some characters living for lifetimes, there are plenty of backstories to catch up on. Alliances are formed and broken. Motives change over time. Names no longer fit as well as they once did.

This story is nonlinear. This is also where your attention to detail will be rewarded. Your reactions to reveals will likely run the gamut of “I knew it!’ to ‘Huh?’ to ‘OMG!’ Knowing what you now know, though, you’ll be eager for a reread to pick up clues you missed the first time around.

You will curse the fact that the next book hasn’t been published yet because you need it right now! In fact, you need the whole series, dammit!

But you’ll wait, because you don’t have any other option. There’s no other option, right?

While you wait, you’ll take the time to feel the warmth of the sun on your face. You’ll appreciate trees in a way you didn’t before. When you see a butterfly, a delight may bubble up in you that you haven’t felt in a long time.

You will wait and you will think about these characters who are neither all good or all bad, and you will look forward to the day you get to see them again.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and DAW Books, an imprint of Astra Publishing House, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Welcome to the Wanderlands.

A vast machine made for reasons unknown, the Wanderlands was broken long ago. First went the sky, splintering and cracking, and then very slowly, the whole machine — the whole world — began to go dark. 

Meet the Failures.

Following the summons of a strange dream, a scattering of adventurers, degenerates, and children find themselves drawn toward the same place: the vast underground Keep. They will discover there that they have been called for a purpose — and that purpose could be the destruction of everything they love. 

The end is nigh.

For below the Keep, imprisoned in the greatest cage ever built by magicians and gods, lies the buried Giant. It is the most powerful of its kind, and its purpose is the annihilation of all civilisation. But any kind of power, no matter how terrible, is precious in the dimming Wanderlands, and those that crave it are making their moves. 

All machines can be broken, and the final cracks are spreading. It will take only the careless actions of two cheerful monsters to tip the Wanderlands towards an endless dark … or help it find its way back to the light.

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Bury Your Gays – Chuck Tingle

Being in the splash zone when someone is Wile E. Coyote’d piano style isn’t the strangest thing that’s happened to Misha this week. He’s been nominated for an Oscar and he’s probably about to lose his job. Oh, and a bunch of the characters he’s written are out to get him. If he’d chosen any genre besides horror, this might not be quite as scary, but here we are.

Misha is dealing with the evils of AI in creative spaces and the unscrupulousness of the entertainment industry, with a good dose of past trauma intruding on the present thrown in for good measure.

“It’s no fun when your plotline goes sideways, is it?”

Supporting Misha through the ups, downs and OMG, we’re gonna die! are his boyfriend, Zeke, who’s the kind of too good to be true that you really want to be true, and his aromantic and asexual best friend, Tara.

I loved Zeke and Tara in their supporting roles and spent much of my time with them hoping they wouldn’t be collateral damage. I needed more page time with Tara, though. There aren’t enough asexual characters, especially ones with personalities that bound off the page.

“They’ve got everyone up there besides an ace character,” she observes. “Every fucking time.”

Taking place in the same universe and after the events of Camp Damascus, this book has the body horror, the heart and the WTF that I was looking for.

I didn’t even attempt to try to figure out what was going on when the impossible started showing up. I was happy to sit back and enjoy the ride, and enjoy it I did. This was such a fun blend of what’s going to happen next? and I need to see that movie! I wanted to watch every TV series and movie described, even the crappy sequels. Especially the crappy sequels.

Best lamb ever!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter working in Hollywood, and he’s seen it all. All the toxic personalities and coverups, the structural obstructions to reform, even dead actors brought back to screen by CGI – and finally, maybe, the hint of change.

But having just been nominated for his first Oscar, Misha is pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale — “for the algorithm” — on the same day he witnesses to gruesome death-by-piano of treasured animator (and notorious creep) Raymond Nelson. 

Success, it seems, isn’t the answer to everything. 

With the help of his best friend and paranoid database queen, Tara, and his boyfriend, Zeke, Misha has face down his traumatic childhood and past mistakes. But in a paranoid industry that thinks nothing of killing off talent, it’s not so simple to find a way to do what’s right.

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Freaky Folklore – Carman Carrion

Clearly I can’t get enough cryptids in my life. This is the second book today I’ve read where they’re featured. I was drawn to this one because of its cover.

This book takes you on a whirlwind trip around the world, introducing you to some of the locals. The local monsters, anyway. Sections are divided by geography: Americas, Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia.

For each entry, you’ll learn the name of the cryptid, monster or urban legend, where it’s found, when it was first sighted (usually by a white person) or mentioned in literature, its classification (eg, bogeyman), a few descriptors for its personality and some general information. This is accompanied by an illustration and a short, fictional account of a close encounter.

There were a bunch of familiar faces but also some that were new to me. I’ve chosen to mention three of them.

In Scandinavian folklore, the Myling is considered one of the most disturbing spirits. This legend revolves around children who were either abandoned or murdered. The souls of these unbaptized children are doomed to wander the Earth, seeking someone who can provide them with a proper burial. They are believed to be particularly dangerous, possessing the ability to harm and even kill people.

Drop Bears are carnivorous koalas found all over Australia. They’re bitey and will drop on you from above when you’re out in the bush. They’re also an urban legend but they’re as Aussie as Vegemite and I can’t get enough of them.

Drop Bear

The Manananggal is said to look like a beautiful woman by day but by night, when she feeds on her victims, she transforms into something else entirely.

When night falls, the Manananggal grows bat-like wings, detaches her upper torso from her lower body, and takes flight in search of her next victim. As she soars through the moonlit sky, you may catch a glimpse of her intestines dangling from her split body.

Beware beautiful women, I guess?

I enjoyed a lot of the illustrations but wasn’t as enthusiastic about the text. I would have much preferred to have been given more information about each monster or cryptid, or read an account of someone who swears they have encountered it instead of stories that weren’t based on real people or experiences.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wellfleet Press, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Discover the history and culture of over 50 of the most fearsome mythical creatures to capture the human imagination in this startlingly illustrated compendium.

Accompanied by illustrations of each beast, Freaky Folklore is your guide to the world’s most terrifying beings, from ancient times to today. Hosts from Eeriecast, the leading horror podcast network, present the most frightening — and entertaining — tales of these mysterious creatures, revealing everything you need to know.

This beautifully creepy collection is filled with wicked monsters, including:

  • Chupacabra: A legendary monster that is said to drain the blood of livestock throughout Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the US Southwest. 
  • Jersey Devil: Said to have been created due to a mother’s curse upon her newborn in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, USA. 
  • Kelpie: A shape-shifting water horse told of in Celtic folklore. Whatever form it takes, it is said to lure its victims to their watery graves. 
  • Moehau: A cryptid from Māori mythology, it stands up to 8 feet tall and can be very aggressive when encountered. 
  • Kuchisake-onna: From Japanese folklore, Kuchisake-onna is a yokai with deep gashes that forms a haunting smile across her face. Should you happen to meet her, she will ask you a question – and you had better answer it correctly. 
  • Dogman: A werewolf or werewolf-type creature first reported in 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan, Dogman sightings have been reported in several locations throughout Michigan, primarily in the northwestern quadrant of the Lower Peninsula. 

Freaky Folklore has the stories, culture, and illustrations for you to be on the lookout for these beasts. Dive into the world of mythology and find what makes each creature unique.

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Cryptids, Creatures & Critters – Rachel Quinney

I blame Mulder. Sure, I already knew about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster through some sort of cultural osmosis but had no overwhelming urge to learn about creatures I hadn’t met before. Thirty years ago, I found out that the truth was out there and, well, my curiosity never went back in its box.

This book is divided into three sections: cryptids, folklore and mythology. The entries in each section are alphabetised and illustrated. I absolutely loved the illustrations!

If you know me at all, you know it’s not possible for me to overdose on fun facts. I may drown you in them but I’ll be good to keep going. It was so hard to decide which were my favourites. I’ve managed to narrow it down to three from each section.

Cryptids

The hoop snake bites its tail to form a hoop. It gets to its victims by rolling towards them, “reaching speeds of up to 60 mph (97 kmph).” It stabs its victims with sharp prongs at the end of its tail.

The tizzie-whizie loves ginger biscuits and warm milk.

One of the descriptions of the Lusca, a Bahamian cryptid, is half shark and half octopus, which naturally made me think of one of the many Eric Roberts movies I’ve seen too many times, Sharktopus. Come to think of it, I met a lot of these creatures in B grade movies.

Lusca
Image credit: Rachel Quinney

Folklore

Cat sídhes have an interesting collection of stories behind them. Many believe them to be witches who have transformed into cats. Limited to transforming only eight times between human and cat, on the ninth transformation, the witch would be unable to return to their human form and would be thus trapped as a cat. Some believe this to be the origin of the tale that cats have nine lives.

Cat sídhe
Image credit: Hallalaween

With its name translating to “the roaring animal” or “the fetid beast”, the mapinguari isn’t a creature you want to come across. Some descriptions include a “large mouth across its stomach to devour humans who are too slow to escape.”

According to Romani and Slavic folk legends, pumpkins and watermelons are the only two types of vegetation that may become vampiric in nature. If a pumpkin or watermelon is left out under a full moon or kept for ten days after Christmas, it will turn into a vampire. Once transformed, the pumpkin or watermelon will roll around and pester the living with snarls or by knocking into furniture.

You know I’m going to try this one!

Mythology

There is a popular legend of the sazae-oni: A group of wealthy pirates rescue a young maiden, the crew have sex with her (versions vary on whether it was consensual or not), and she cuts or bites off the testicles of every man before returning to the ocean. From the ocean, she taunts the men and demands that they buy back their testicles from her. The pirates trade away all their gold in order to get their testicles. In Japan, testicles are sometimes called “golden balls,” creating the punchline that they paid for gold with gold.

Qilin are said to be so gentle that they walk on clouds because they don’t want to damage a blade of grass. However, they also “protect innocent people by incinerating those who seek to harm them with their fiery breath.” That’s the kind of cognitive dissonance I can get behind.

Rompo sing to themselves as they consume human flesh. If a mythological creature is going to eat my corpse, at least I can be content knowing they enjoyed doing so.

Rompo
Image credit: Rachel Quinney

This is one of the most fun introductions to all things monstrous and maybe mythological that I’ve ever come across. I found out new fun facts about some of my favourites, learned of the existence of myths I’ve never encountered before and have an entire list of cute, creepy and downright diabolical creatures that I need to know more about.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Cryptids, Creatures & Critters: A Manual of Monsters and Mythos from Around the World features 90 different creatures from around the world, each with their own researched description and full-colour illustrations. The book is divided into three sections: cryptids, folklore, and mythology. It features popular cryptid favourites, such as Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster, and some lesser-known cryptids, such as the Enfield Horror and the Montauk Monster. For folklore, there are kelpies, selkies, cat sídhes, and grimalkins, along with the dobarchu and the vampiric pumpkin! In mythology, you’ll find Medusa, sphinx, Pegasus, and the bukavac!

The book is fun for newcomers to cryptozoology, folklore, and mythology but is also fun for those who are well read about the creatures in the book. While written by Rachel Quinney and mainly illustrated by her, there are twelve guest artists featured within the book, too.

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The ANNEthology – Robin Sutherland (editor)

Anne (with an e), one of my very favourite kindred spirits, has been reimagined by ten authors. Having known Anne Shirley Cuthbert for over three decades, she’s become part of my story and I was keen to see what she’s been up to in other people’s imaginations.

There are some stories where Anne is clearly the passionate, feisty girl who took up residence in my heart. At times, though, she’s not as easily recognisable. Anne is a boy. Anne is trafficked. Anne comes with a serial number.

My favourite stories were:

Anne and the Bloody Book by Susie Moloney

Anne discovers that appetite for reading can be life changing.

“What a mysterious book…”

In Search of Kindred Spirits by Hope Dalvay

Anne and Gilbert are assigned to work on an art project together.

“A kindred spirit is someone with similar interests to yours. No, it’s more than that. It’s someone you have a deep connection with. That’s why I read so many books. I’m looking for kindred spirits in the pages. Some of my best friends are book characters.”

4624463 by Natasha Deen

Anne lives in a world where you’re punished for having emotions and books are dangerous.

“Something bad is going to happen.”

Anne of the Silver Trail by Shari Green

Anne is absolutely certain she’s about to be un-adopted in this story in verse.

If we’re lucky in life, we come across

someone who challenges

the lies we tell ourselves, someone

who who sits us down and tell us

a different story.

While there wasn’t a bad story in the bunch, I found I enjoyed them more when they included at least one of my other favourite characters, like Diana, Matthew and Marilla.

What I found even more important than the cast of characters, though, was Anne herself. No matter what setting she was placed in, I wanted to be able to connect with her spirit. I needed to be able to identify parts of her personality that made me love her in the first place.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Acorn Press for the opportunity to read this anthology.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Who is YOUR Anne?

Join ten of Canada’s top young adult fiction writers as they set Canada’s favourite red-haired orphan, Anne Shirley, on brand new adventures. With its futuristic settings, cybernetic beings, ghosts, mysterious books and boxes, and racial and sexual diversity in its cast of characters, The ANNEthology offers serious “scope for the imagination” for all readers.

2024 marks the 150th anniversary of L.M. Montgomery’s birth and the 30th anniversary of Acorn Press, Prince Edward Island’s longest-running traditional publishing house. What better way to celebrate these milestones than publishing a collection of stories inspired by the Island’s (and one of Canada’s) most beloved authors?

Sure to include something for everyone, this is a must-have collection for Anne of Green Gables fans.

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Cuckoo – Gretchen Felker-Martin

You’re forcibly removed from your home by strangers, shoved in the back of a van and driven into the desert. Your destination? Camp Resolution. Welcome to conversion therapy.

The people who signed you up for this horror show? Your family. This is what nightmares are made of.

“There’s something wrong with her.”

I was really looking forward to this read but unfortunately it ended up not being the book for me. While I loved the body horror, I wasn’t a fan of the sex scenes.

This isn’t something that generally happens for me but I got to the stage where I wasn’t always sure which character was which. The initial introductions made me think I was going to connect with at least a few of the teens but there were so many points of view and they switched so frequently that I ended up losing the thread of who was who and what their backstory was.

I usually try to avoid comparing books but one of the reasons I was so keen to read this book was because of how much I loved Chuck Tingle’s Camp Damascus. This inadvertently led to unrealistic expectations and disappointment because I set the bar too high.

Reading other reviews, it seems like views are divided. Some absolutely adore this book. Others seemed to struggle even more than I did. I’d encourage you to read some of the five star reviews so you have a better idea of whether this is the book for you.

“Has anyone else been having nightmares?”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Something evil is buried deep in the desert.

It wants your body.

It wears your skin.

In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived — but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person.

Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it’s too late.

The fate of the world depends on it.

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Small Town Horror – Ronald Malfi

We were doomed from the beginning.

A group of adults reunite in the town they all grew up in. The secret they’ve been hiding since they were kids is about to be exposed. I’ve read so many books with variations of this theme but I keep going back for more.

There’s something about nostalgia, even when it’s someone else’s, that draws me in. Nostalgia contaminated by unspoken trauma that’s been dragged into adulthood is intoxicating.

While I want to run in the opposite direction when drama threatens to knock on my door, I can’t get enough of it where fictional characters are involved. I blame a steady diet of shows like Days of Our Lives during my formative years. I mean, who can watch Marlena get possessed and not become a drama junkie?! But I digress…

Even though I was fairly convinced I’d been there, done that, I still wanted to read this book. It was in part because I’ve yet to meet a Ronald Malfi book I haven’t enjoyed. However, I also needed to know what the secret was and watch it bring together or destroy the friendship of the people who’d been living with it for so many years.

Andrew has secrets. There’s the big one from his past but there’s also the fact that he owns a house his wife doesn’t know about because … reasons. At least it gives him somewhere to stay when he takes an unwanted trip down memory lane.

“The five of us are cursed, man.”

I love so many of the books I read but, for whatever reason, they rarely surprise me these days. This one did. I was blindsided more than once and it absolutely delighted me when my assumptions kept being proved wrong.

I’d argue that every horror story needs a lighthouse. This one also has turkey vultures and itchy eyes. Counting has never been so creepy. This was such a fun read!

“You shouldn’t have come back here.”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Maybe this is a ghost story…

Andrew Larimer has left his past behind. Rising up the ranks in a New York law firm, and with a heavily pregnant wife, he is settling into a new life far from Kingsport, the town in which he grew up. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he has no choice but to return home.

Coming home means returning to his late father’s house, which has seen better days. It means lying to his wife. But it also means reuniting with his friends: Eric, now the town’s deputy sheriff; Dale, a real-estate mogul living in the shadow of a failed career; his childhood sweetheart Tig who never could escape town; and poor Meach, whose ravings about a curse upon the group have driven him to drugs and alcohol. 

Together, the five friends will have to confront the memories — and the horror — of a night, years ago, that changed everything for them. 

Because Andrew and his friends have a secret. A thing they have kept to themselves for twenty years. Something no one else should know. But the past is not dead, and Kingsport is a town with secrets of its own.

One dark secret…

One small-town horror…

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Dreadful – Caitlin Rozakis

Amnesia’s never fun but it’s even worse when you come to in the lab of a Dread Lord sans eyebrows and there’s someone at the door. Imagine your horror when you discover that the Big Bad is you!

“It’s a pleasure to watch you work, my lord. The way you have of targeting someone’s deepest insecurities and just … eviscerating them. Verbally. Before you eviscerate them. It’s masterful.”

Gavrax has interesting taste in decor, questionable fashion choices and a princess locked in the dungeon. Every Dread Lord’s castle needs a dungeon, after all.

Gav has questions. Like, why is there a princess locked in the dungeon? Who chose these horrendous clothes? What happened to his eyebrows? And who is he if he doesn’t have his memories?

This is one of those books I knew I’d love. I was so convinced that I preordered a signed special edition when I’d only read a chapter.

The struggle of trying to figure out who you are when you’re weighed down by other people’s expectations has a whole other layer when you’re the villain.

“Do you think there’s a point where someone is just … irredeemably evil?”

I loved watching Gav navigate this for himself while encountering huggable squid, goblins that would prefer not to be BBQ’ed –

How did he possibly keep the castle running if he kept executing the staff?

– and the ever present threat of garlic breath.

Gav may have had a complexity I wasn’t expecting (and loved – I loved this about him) but it was the princess who stole the show for me. I’m not usually one for damsels in distress but it turns out I absolutely adore damsels who aren’t quite as distressed as advertised.

Which reminds me. Not that I ever planned on being all ‘yay, false advertising!’ but yay, false advertising! This book is not Dreadful after all. There are characters of the mwa-ha-ha variety planning deeds most dastardly. There are some ‘did you choose that outfit with your eyes closed?’ moments. The dreadfulness, though? It’s fairly limited to the menu. Sorry, Orla. You know I love you.

Bonus content: If you sign up to the author’s newsletter, you’ll get a copy of Here Comes the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss, a story that’s a prequel to Dreadful. It contains some spoilery bits so it’s probably best if you read the book first.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.

It’s a lot worse when you realise that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.

Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. 

But as he realises that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?

A high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, an evil wizard convocation, and a garlic festival. All at once. Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.

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