Reviews

Book Response: "The Inconsolables" by Michael Wehunt

June 20th, 2023

"The Inconsolables" by Michael Wehunt Other Books I Enjoyed by This Author: ​Greener Pastures, Everything Is Beautiful and Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen Here, The Tired Sounds, A Wake Release Date: June 20th, 2023 BISAC Categories: Horror - General Occult & Supernatural

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"Howls from the Wreckage" edited by Christopher O'Halloran

June 15th, 2023

Howls From the Wreckage trades in all manner of disaster. One might mainly associate this type of story with movies, from The Towering Inferno to Godzilla and other kaiju films, to Independence Day and even Titanic. This anthology gives such tales the literary treatment, with nearly every story featured having more of a supernatural or science fiction bent (or both), and all stories dealing in the absolutely horrific. As Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and The Deep, states in his foreword:

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Finding One’s Voice Through Grief: A rumination on "My Father’s List" by Laura Carney

June 12th, 2023

Several years ago I was approached by an editor I was friendly with at a national publication who said, “Hey, you’re the dead dad guy and I have an assignment I think is perfect for you.” The project was a piece on the documentary Life In A Walk and its director Yogi Roth.

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"Your Dreams" by Thomas Moore

May 8th, 2023

First things first: Moore writes with a precision that renders the incoherence of the world. Anyone familiar with his work knows he pares language back to the point where it becomes what it is, a toy-like object we gesture at the world with, something incapable of enduring our belief in its powers to communicate. This isn’t a revelation but rather its general state. Language, for Moore, tends to disappoint imagination and constrain reality.

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"Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree

May 1st, 2023

When it comes to reading preferences, my tastes tend to run a little dark. I love to be scared, I enjoy being challenged, and nothing makes me happier than a book that makes me feel uncomfortable, dirty, or even a little off. However, there’s no denying that routine is a tall glass of heavy, so I’ve been trying to encourage myself lately to read some more lighthearted—albeit still spooky!—books to offset the often disturbing and terrifying narratives I’m digesting day-to-day.

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"The Haunting of Alejandra" by V. Castro

April 19th, 2023

For her latest novel, The Haunting of Alejandra (Penguin Random House), author V. Castro creates a beautiful hybrid of Stephen King’s It and the Disney film Encanto, in that the book features an unknowably old, maybe interstellar creature and it explores multi-generational trauma with a compass pointing toward forgiveness and self-actualization.

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"Mothered" by Zoje Stage

April 6th, 2023

Grace never thought she’d say yes to her mother moving in with her. But then again, she never thought the world would be shut down for a global pandemic. And since buying her new house, the only way she can keep making payments is with her mother’s help. Maybe, they’ll have time to bond. Time to really get to know each other. Time to heal from their past wounds. For a while, things are good. Until they’re exposed to the virus and have to quarantine.

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Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell: A Review, a Riff and a Path Forward

March 29th, 2023

Most of us who write and spend time with writers know any number of people we love who just cannot get their books done. They have an idea of what they want to do, they sit down to write, they revise. They’re focused and loyal to their work and yet they never finish. There are myriad reasons for why they feel stuck from bills to family obligations to time, and whatever it is they cannot let go. I have empathy for them, especially as I do not get stuck in these ways, and wish these comments to be as far from judgmental as possible.

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"Lone Women" by Victor LaValle

March 22nd, 2023

There are authors out there who have sprawling bodies of work that can feel intimidating for the uninitiated. Where does a reader start with someone like Stephen King, for instance? (Yes, horror fiction conversations can exist without mentioning King, but this isn’t one of them.) Do you start from the beginning and pick up Carrie first? Clear your entire schedule and dive right into The Stand? Maybe dig into some of the lesser-known titles, if the hits are already familiar to you from the movie adaptations.

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"The Whore" by Márcia Barbieri, translated by Adrian Minckley

March 7th, 2023

Few stories in our contemporary time deal with the bodiliness of the human experience. Call it a casualty of the Enlightenment, a side effect of our virtual experiences online, or just our general disgust with our aging, often sick physicality. Yet, Márcia Barbieri’s, The Whore, is a novel that revels in its flesh, not for its own sake, despite the title, but in order to glean the deeper meanings of human experience.

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