Tag: Titan Books

A House With Good Bones – T. Kingfisher

“The roses say to say your prayers”

When Sam returns to her childhood home in North Carolina, she’s ready to make her way through some boxed wine and English crime shows with her mother. She’s not expecting the changes her mother has made to their once colourful home.

The walls are now white and an icky racist painting that hasn’t seen the light of day since Gran Mae died eighteen years ago has returned to its previous place over the fireplace. It’s almost as if the house has gone back in time.

Sam is about to learn that your childhood home is not always a welcoming place for adult you. The past is there. And sometimes there are vultures!

“Vultures are extremely sensitive to the dead. Particularly when the dead are doing things they shouldn’t be.”

This was a quick read and I enjoyed trying to figure out what Sam’s mother was so afraid of. While the gist of what was going on seemed obvious fairly early on, Sam, with her scientific background, kept looking for logical explanations so it took her a while to catch up.

My most recent T. Kingfisher read prior to this one was Nettle & Bone, which I absolutely adored. I fell in love with Bonedog and he, if nothing else, gave me unrealistic expectations for this book. After all, Bonedog can’t show up in every T. Kingfisher book just because I miss him, can he? I must say that the vultures definitely gave Bonedog a run for his money, though.

If you enjoy books where returning to your childhood home comes with a tad more horror than you were hoping for, you may also enjoy Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home.

Favourite no context quote:

“I feel like crap and I seem to be wearing a ham.”

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

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In this ordinary North Carolina suburb, family secrets are always in bloom.

Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house.

Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it’s very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won’t hear a word against Sam’s long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small southern town.

The longer Sam stays, the stranger things get. And every day, more vultures circle overhead…

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Alien: Enemy of My Enemy – Mary SanGiovanni

“Are there monsters on this moon?”

A novel based on one of my favourite movie franchises written by one of my favourite authors. What’s not to love?!

There has been a lot of face hugging in my life recently. I gave myself some homework before allowing myself to enjoy this read, binge every Alien movie I own…

“You … BITCH!”

”Get away from her, you bitch!”

”You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else.”

”So, like, what did you do?” “I died.”

”Big things have small beginnings.”

”When one note is off, it eventually destroys the whole symphony, David.”

”What did you say this room was called?” “Sacrificial chamber.”

”See? No monster.”

All eight of them. It was a really entertaining couple of weeks. So, onto the book.

It was so much fun! You’ll meet scientists, researchers and volunteers. The moon they currently call home is on a crash course with a dead planet, but that’s the least of their problems. Some bright spark decided to enhance the traits that make these “remarkable creatures” so deadly, because that’s obviously a great idea.

Once you make it through the bloodbath otherwise known as Chapter One, you’ll begin to wonder if there’s any point trying to remember anyone’s name because it’s fairly certain they’re all doomed.

Blood paints walls, floors and bystanders. The death to page ratio is satisfyingly high. I started a tally of all of the deaths but quickly gave up.

“Now, that’s really not a good sign – for anybody.”

You can look forward to catching up with some of your favourite friends from the Alien movies, including Ovomorphs,

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facehuggers,

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chestbursters

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and Xenomorphs.

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“Did you know, Sergeant, that the Xenomorphs have mouths inside their mouths?”

There are characters you’ll barely meet before their insides become their outsides. Others you’ll get to spend some time with before they inevitably cease breathing.

Kira, whose favourite stuffed animal is a dog called Mr. Bones, was adorable. Even though I’d just finished my Alien movie binge, I initially had high hopes for Kira’s survival. Then I remembered Newt. This franchise doesn’t shy away from killing its young. Regardless, she’s the character I most wanted to survive.

Then there was Dr Martin Fowler. To know him is to eagerly anticipate his demise.

If you like your Xenomorph’s saliva to be glistening and dripping, and you want your humans to be torn apart from the outside in and the inside out, this is your book. If you’ve never been on board the Nostromo, you might want to spend some time with Ripley first.

Favourite no context quote:

Her eyes grew wide with horror as she watched her arm dangling from the claws of the creature above her.

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

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

HYGIEIA – AN OUTER RIM COLONY – IS DOOMED

The moon on which it was built hurtles toward an inevitable collision with the dead planet Hephaestus. The clock is ticking, yet when a distress signal arrives from a Weyland-Yutani biowarfare outpost, a desperate plan is launched to evacuate the trapped scientists. Meanwhile, across the galaxy a mysterious black substance rains down on Earth settlements, creating hideous monsters from indigenous creatures … and from human beings. Terran governments point the accusing finger at one another. Thus on LV-846 – a United Americas colony – high-level talks convene to address the galaxy-wide hostilities, but there’s a plot brewing among the participants. One which could plunge the colonies into all-out war. The only hope for peace may lie with the deadliest ally imaginable…

BONUS FEATURE: An exclusive new role playing game scenario based on the massively popular, award-winning Alien RPG from Free League Publishing!

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The Indian Lake Trilogy #2: Don’t Fear the Reaper – Stephen Graham Jones

“You don’t get to pick your genre”

I love Jade Daniels! Not to bits and pieces, as would be Dark Mill South’s preference, but enough. As far as I’m concerned, she was final girl material long before the events of My Heart is a Chainsaw. You don’t survive what she has without being able to think on your feet, trust what your gut is telling you and learning how to outmanoeuvre whoever’s playing the role of Big Bad today.

Jade’s love and extensive knowledge of horror movies helped her make it to the sequel with a heartbeat. While Jade spent her life prior to Jaws Night praying for a slasher to bloody up Proofrock, she’s not actively trying to conjure up a sequel. Having now lived through a reddening, Jade is only too aware of how it feels when fiction becomes reality.

The girl she used to be would have been thrilled about all this, would have had her black pompoms out, to cheer it on.

She’s different now, though. This isn’t exciting to her anymore. It’s exactly as terrifying as it should be.

Despite the absolute kickassness she displayed in her first Proofrock massacre, Jade still doesn’t see herself as a final girl. She probably never will. But I see you, Jade, even when you’re calling yourself Jennifer.

“But you’re still you. Different name, same girl.”

While I really liked Letha in the first book, she ramped up her badassness in this one. I would distract Dark Mill South to give this woman a better chance of surviving the slaughter.

Initially, I only wanted to hear from Jade. And maybe Letha. It wasn’t long, though, before the multiple perspectives won me over.

I missed Jade’s history essays so much! They were entertaining, insightful and obviously well researched. I need every horror movie to come with a Stephen Graham Jones commentary.

I attended some of the most difficult appointments of my life last year and, in preparation, someone suggested I choose a book character I could channel to get me through them. I chose Jade Daniels. Before every appointment I’d reread all of the sentences I highlighted in My Heart is a Chainsaw. I’d think about Jade’s strength as I walked into every appointment and would borrow what I needed.

When I love a book the way I loved My Heart is a Chainsaw, the prospect of a sequel both thrills and terrifies me. I can’t wait to spend more time with the strangers turned kindred spirits I met in the first book. At the same time, I worry that a sequel won’t be able to replicate the magic I found there. Don’t Fear the Reaper exceeded my expectations.

Now I’m worried about the third book, but only because it’s the final book in the series. I never want to say goodbye to Jade Daniels. She’ll always be my final girl.

Quote that hit me the hardest:

“I was a scared little girl, I thought – I thought if I knew all the rules, if I knew all the rules, then that would mean – that would mean nothing would happen to me!”

Come to Proofrock, the town that’s gonna need a bigger morgue. The snow is red this year, the movie references are prolific and your insides can become your outsides, even though it’s slasher off season.

“They’re-they’re all dead, I think. Including … me.”

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

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.

Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.

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Arch-Conspirator – Veronica Roth

Antigone lives in the last city of an irradiated landscape. It’s perpetually dusty, the population is dwindling and if you have a viable uterus you’re going to reproduce, whether you like it or not. Your chances of surviving childbirth are 50-50.

When you die in this world, your ichor is extracted from you and stored in the Archives. Would-be parents wander the Archives and make their choices, the Archivist implants the combined cells (complete with edited genes) and, hey presto, designer babies.

Antigone and her siblings, Polyneikes, Eteocles and Ismene, aren’t like everyone else, having been made the old fashioned way.

We were unique among our people, pieced together from whatever random combination of genes our parents provided. Table-scrap children.

This novella is a dystopian retelling of Sophocles’ play. Because I wasn’t already familiar with the story, I found a summary to read before I started this book. While it helped in comparing the two, it also spoiled the ending for me. I could have easily followed this story, even if I hadn’t done any homework before tackling it.

If you do know anything about Antigone, you’ll know this isn’t a happy book. It’s tragedy, grief and the abuse of power.

Doomed from the start, I found myself thinking. All of us.

I sometimes find multiple perspectives distracting and that was the case here for the first few chapters. However, once I figured out who everyone was, I began to enjoy hearing from the different characters: Antigone, Polyneikes, Eurydice, Ismene, Kreon and Haemon.

I would have liked to have explored this world more. I wanted to meet the Archivist. I wanted to understand why this pocket of land was currently habitable when the rest of the planet wasn’t. I would have liked to have gotten to know the characters better. Realistically, though, achieving the level of detail I craved would have pushed this way outside of novella territory.

The themes explored here lined up well with what I’ve read about the original story. I loved Antigone’s fierce loyalty to her family and her resistance against the status quo. I’m not sure what Sophocles would have made of this book (there’s a spaceship!) but I enjoyed this read.

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

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the Archive, where the genes of the dead are stored, humanity will end.

Antigone’s parents – Oedipus and Jocasta – are dead. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father’s vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage.

When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

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The Fervor – Alma Katsu

Two words: spider demon!

Meiko and her twelve year old daughter, Aiko, have been at Camp Minidoka, an internment camp in Idaho, for two years when an unidentified illness begins to spread through the camp.

Archie is a preacher with a past that haunts him.

He’d thought he’d outrun it, but all this time Hell had been waiting for him with its mouth wide open.

Fran is a journalist who’s on the verge of uncovering the story of her career.

You’d think the spider demon would be the scariest thing about this book, but it’s not. The real monster in this story is fear of the other and the hatred it spawns.

This story is mostly set in the 1940’s and, although I’d love to be able to say otherwise, it could easily have been written about today. The racism and xenophobia are incredibly difficult to read about because, although this book is fiction, the interactions between the characters are all too real, and that’s terrifying.

I loved Aiko, an outcast wherever she goes because her mother is Japanese and her father is white. She’s resilient, she’s resourceful and she spends her free time drawing demons.

The demons, Aiko said, knew everything.

I wish more time had been spent with the jorogumo but Google has answered my outstanding questions and shown me some decidedly creepy artwork so I’m all good. For now. I need more Japanese mythology in my life.

The world is rarely what it shows you.

I definitely want to read more books by this author.

Content warnings include death by suicide, miscarriage, physical abuse, racism and xenophobia.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

As World War II rages, Meiko shares eerie childhood stories, of yokai and malevolent demons, with her daughter, Aiko. These stories hold them together as they must confront the horror of being shipped to an internment camp in the Midwest. Never mind that Aiko is American, that her father is in the US Navy. They are Japanese. 

As Meiko and Aiko learn to live in captivity, a contagion begins to spread in the camp. What starts as a cold quickly becomes fits of violence and aggression, even death, and soon a government medical team arrive, more sinister than the illness itself. 

Meanwhile strange things are happening outside the camp. Wrecked weather balloons and tragic explosions draw Fran, a German expat journalist, and Archie, a widowed minister, into a world of conspiracy and creatures in the shadows. 

As the world tears itself apart, it falls to Meiko, Fran and Archie to lay their country’s demons to rest.

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Such a Pretty Smile – Kristi DeMeester

Lila’s mother, a famous artist, keeps her past a secret from her daughter.

Tell me. Tell me about before.

Thirteen year old Lila wants more freedom but her mother refuses to give it to her.

Caroline is haunted by her past. She’s convinced that The Cur is back and wants to protect her daughter from experiencing what she has.

“There are things that I’ve seen … Things I can’t ever forget.”

Told by Lila in 2019 and Caroline in 2004, this is a story of fear, nightmares and accidental art. It’s the past intruding on the present, it’s patronising men, it’s equating being good with being safe, it’s about what happens when we refuse to be silenced.

I was interested in the relationship between this mother and daughter. I wanted to find out what had happened in Caroline’s past. Some of Caroline’s art fascinated me.

As I read about Caroline’s sculptures, I could see them. There was some repulsion attached to them due to some of their components but I could imagine myself finding treasures from nature, random leaves and branches (not some of the other objects Caroline uses), and attempting to create art from them.

I expect this will be a polarising read. I finished reading this book over a month ago and still don’t really know how I feel about it. Where this book lost me was the ending. After having me hooked until that point, I just didn’t buy the explanation. Maybe I missed something and a reread will fill in some blanks for me.

Content warnings include mental health, murdered and mutilated children, mutilated dog and sexual assault.

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

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.

2019: Thirteen year old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother – the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorised by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice – until she is punished for using it.

2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape – both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waives her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.

As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.

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How to Sell a Haunted House – Grady Hendrix

When her parents die suddenly, Louise returns to her childhood home in Charleston. She and her brother, Mark, haven’t spoken in three years. Together they’re going to be confronted by the past, along with a house overflowing with their mother’s ‘art’.

“I don’t think we’re weirder than any other family,” she said.

“Trust me,” Constance said. “You guys definitely are.”

With family secrets, the power of belief, creepy dolls and a puppet with abandonment issues, this case would be right up Sam and Dean Winchester’s alley.

I’ve seen every Child’s Play movie and enjoyed watching Ed and Lorraine Warren deal with the carnage Annabelle left in her wake. I was just a tad obsessed with The Final Girl Support Group. With all of that in mind, I was ready to fall in love with this book and was looking forward to being creeped out by it, but unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me.

Despite wanting to believe, I never did, and that took a lot of the fun out of Pupkin’s antics for me. Instead, I found him and his sing songy delight at causing chaos irritating. I liked Mark some of the time but never warmed to Louise. Aunt Honey, who managed to snag most of the good lines early on, didn’t have as much page time as I’d hoped.

I loved the funeral scene. I’m still craving some Pizza Chinese. If I didn’t find Pupkin so annoying I probably would have been able to suspend my disbelief and get caught up in the mayhem, but I couldn’t escape him.

Because my love of The Final Girl Support Group is so big, I’m going to call my experience with this book an aberration and look forward to falling in love with my next Grady Hendrix read.

Favourite no context quote:

“You’re like some kind of emotionally abusive octopus entangling everyone in your word tentacles.”

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

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Mostly, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. But she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

Some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…

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Ghostwritten – Ronald Malfi

In the beginning of The Neverending Story movie, the bookseller tells Bastian that the books he reads are safe. The books you’ll encounter in the four novellas that comprise Ghostwritten are most certainly not safe.

The Skin of Her Teeth

Gloria’s client, Davis McElroy, has been adapting a bestseller into a screenplay. He’s usually reliable but he’s missed his deadline and it’s up to Gloria to salvage the deal. This book doesn’t like change.

“The simplest thing,” Finter said, “is to give it what it wants.”

The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride

Danny and Tommy Drake have been hired to deliver a package. There are specific rules they need to follow:

  • Don’t open the briefcase.
  • Don’t touch the contents of the briefcase.
  • Follow the route that has been mapped out by the client to get to the drop off location.
  • Ignore anyone who asks to see the book.

The rules are very important. This book is out of this world.

“How can a book be dangerous?”

“Because they contain all the powers of the universe.”

This Book Belongs to Olo

Olo is having a birthday. He will be ten years old. At his party there will be cake, games, prizes and surprises. This book has no words.

“Well, everybody knows how to play hide and seek, I think,” said the girl. “It’s just that, it’s kind of a baby game.”

“Not the way I play,” he said, then tugged the clown mask back down over his face.

The Story

Grady is determined to figure out what story Taryn was working on when she died. This book is Choose Your Own Adventure.

You have been approved to read the Story.

The four novellas have common themes but there are other connections to be found between them. Your attention to detail will be rewarded and I expect a reread will help me discover crossovers I missed the first time around.

It’s difficult for me to choose a favourite story but I definitely had a favourite character, chronically lonely but ever enthusiastic Olo. I’m always a sucker for books about books and here I was treated to four compelling reads. This may only be my second read by this author but Ghostwritten has confirmed my suspicions that I’ve been missing out on something special. I have lots of catching up to do.

Content warnings include death by suicide.

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

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

From the bestselling author of Come with Me, four standalone horror novellas set in a shared universe!

In The Skin of Her Teeth, a cursed novel drives people to their deaths. 

A delivery job turns deadly in The Dark Brothers’ Last Ride. 

This Book Belongs to Olo sees a child wielding dangerous control over an unusual pop-up book. 

A choose your own adventure game spirals into an uncanny reality in The Story. 

Full of creepy, page-turning suspense, these collected novellas are all about books, stories, and manuscripts. The written word has never had sharper teeth…

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Cackle – Rachel Harrison

WELCOME TO ROWAN, AMERICA’S BEST-KEPT SECRET.

Annie is newly thirty and newly single when she moves to Rowan. Recently dumped by her long term boyfriend/best friend, Annie is on her own for the first time and she’s not a fan. When she’s not teaching “hormone-addled, angst-driven evil meat sticks”, she’s hitting the bottle.

It isn’t long before Annie meets Sophie, who’s beautiful and self-assured. The people of Rowan behave differently when Sophie is around, though. It’s almost as if they’re scared of her.

“Want me to curse them for you?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Done.”

Annie loves the attention and care that Sophie lavishes on her but it made me feel claustrophobic. The relationships in this book (Annie and Sam, Annie and Sophie) are all kinds of messed up. It’s no coincidence that the first movie Sophie watches with Annie is Gaslight.

I wanted Sophie’s wardrobe and wouldn’t have said no to her home cooking but wasn’t a fan of her. To be fair, she does want Bruce to win in Jaws so she can’t be all bad, but I don’t know if I can trust someone who hates unicorns. I’m all for having the confidence to be who you truly are but if claiming your power results in an entire township being terrified of you, then that cheapens it for me.

My favourite character, Ralph, had no lines but he made up for it in personality. I’m a sucker for spiders who can pull off wearing a top hat, especially when they also have a great smile.

Overall, this was a lighter read than I was expecting but that’s not to say there weren’t some memorable lines:

My insecurity returns like a villain in a sequel. The same but worse.

I embrace the next morning with all the enthusiasm of a goat entering Jurassic Park.

Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

NOW LEAVING ROWAN. KEEP OUR SECRET.

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

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her long-time boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching job that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. Her new home is picturesque and perfect. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is lovely too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation.

Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend. More importantly, she wants Annie to stop apologising and start living for herself. That’s how Sophie lives. Annie can’t help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the town seems… a little afraid of her. And, okay. Sophie’s appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power… but she couldn’t be… could she?

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Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes – Eric LaRocca

Julia Lloyd’s cover art might have been what brought me here in the first place but I was sucked in by each of the three stories included in this collection.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Over the course of three months, Agnes and Zoe exchanged a series of emails and instant messages. This redacted communication give you unprecedented access to their relationship, which continually ups the ante in its toxicity. It’s compelling and cringey and unsettling, and I couldn’t look away. And to think, this all happened because of an apple peeler.

“What have you done today to deserve your eyes?”

The Enchantment

Parents grieving the loss of their son become winter caretakers on an island. A knock at the door changes everything.

“I’m here to share a message”

You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over

Mr. Fowler finds something in his backyard that shouldn’t be there. His discovery leads him to his neighbour’s home, where the stakes are raised.

“But I bet you’d fancy another bet.”

I flew through this book. While I wish there were more stories included, I enjoyed all three. There’s a common theme of connection and some very memorable scenes of body horror.

The son’s manner of death in The Enchantment didn’t seem physically possible but, because it fit with one of the themes of the story, I wasn’t overly concerned about the question marks that popped up over my head when I read about it.

The story that’s going to stay with me the longest is Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, especially the scene describing Agnes’ dinner. I definitely want to read more books by this author.

Content warnings include mention of child abuse, death by suicide, death of animals, homophobia, miscarriage, racism and suicidal ideation. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

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

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Three dark and disturbing horror stories from an astonishing new voice, including the viral-sensation tale of obsession, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. For fans of Kathe Koja, Clive Barker and Stephen Graham Jones.

A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s – a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. 

A couple isolate themselves on a remote island in an attempt to recover from their teenage son’s death, when a mysterious young man knocks on their door during a storm…

And a man confronts his neighbour when he discovers a strange object in his back yard, only to be drawn into an ever-more dangerous game.

From Bram Stoker Award finalist Eric LaRocca, this is devastating, beautifully written horror from one of the genre’s most cutting-edge voices.

What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

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