Top Ten(ish) Tuesday: 10 Favorite Books of 2025

I read 123 books in 2025. Disregarding titles that were re-reads from previous years, here are my Top Ten(ish) favorites, in no particular order, with links to reviews if I posted one.

How To Fake a Haunting by Christa Carmen. I have loved all of Christa Carmen’s “New England Gothic/Spooky” novels to date, so it is probably no surprise that this in on my list of favorites. A woman in an emotionally abusive relationship decides to gaslight her husband into thinking their house is haunted … but what if it really is? Keeps you guessing throughout as to how supernatural it really is and provides more than a few good scares and creepy moments along the way. I interviewed Christa earlier this year about her writing process and this book in particular.

Christmas and Other Horrors, edited by Ellen Datlow. The darkest, shortest days of winter in general, and Christmas in particular, is traditionally a time for ghost stories. Editor par excellence Ellen Datlow once again assembles a great group of writers to spin horror stories around Christmas, Hannukah, Solstice, Yule, and even sometimes your average winter day. Favorites included Mary Robinette Kowal’s “To Speak in Silence,” Benjamin Percy’s “The Ones He Takes,” “Return to Bear Creek Lodge” by Tananarive Due, “Gravé of Small Birds” by Kaaron Warren, and M. Rickert’s “The Lord of Misrule,” but there isn’t a clunker in the group.

The Breathtaker Collection by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel. I didn’t read a lot of graphic novels in 2025, but even if I had this one would stand out. A woman who survives by draining the energy from the men who loves her is pursued by a government super-hero for her perceived crimes. There are so many twists in this one I can’t say much more without giving them away. I interviewed Mark Wheatley earlier this year about his creative process.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated into English by Megan McDowell. In a narrative that spans decades and changes not just character point of view but narrative style multiple times, Enriquez melds almost every sub-genre of horror (cosmic, cult, supernatural, slasher, body, medical, and haunted houses) with generational trauma and the real-world horrors of living under Argentine dictatorship. This is not an easy read, but I stand by my assessment that it is an important, vital, one. I read it for the Stanza Books (Beacon NY) Dark Fiction Book Club and reviewed the book back in February.

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. Noah’s memoir of growing up under Apartheid as a mixed-race child moved me deeply. Highly recommended. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, which just heightened the emotion.

The Front Seat Passenger by Pascal Garnier, translated into English by Jane Aitken. I tripped across this French noir novella at McNally Jackson Books in Rockefeller Center, apparently the only one of Garnier’s books currently in print in English translation. At first it didn’t feel particularly noir, but man does it get there. And when it does, the twists are fast and furious. I loved this one so much I immediately sought out everything of Garnier’s I could find in translation and look forward to doing a deep dive at some point soon.

Saint Death’s Herald by C.S.E. Cooney is a complex fantasy featuring Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, a young necromancer who gets ill at any signs of violence, which makes her job – hunting down the man possessed by the ghost of her evil grandfather – must more difficult. This is the second book about Lanie (the first was Saint Death’s Daughter) and the third volume is coming in 2027. The world-building is wonderful, the characters quirky and relatable, the footnotes hysterical. I reviewed the book earlier this year.

Cheddar Luck Next Time by Beth Cato. The mystery I loved so much, I read it then listened to it on audio, then moderated a Sparta Books (Sparta NJ) book club meeting about it. Set in a small town on the central California coast and featuring an autistic lead character who gets embroiled in a murder investigation while dealing with the recent death of her grandmother, Cheddar Luck is hopefully the start of a new series that is part cozy mystery, part thriller. I reviewed the book earlier this year, and interviewed author Beth Cato as well.

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel. The second non-fiction book on the list. Read this one for the Mystery Book Club at Stanza Books, and I’m so glad we did. The book is a fascinating character study of the most successful art thief in European history – a thief who operated not in the 18th or 19th century, when such thefts would have been easier, but the 1990s!

Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, edited by Lee Mandelo. The second short story anthology on the list, almost every story in this volume blew me away with honest yet still hopefully looks at the future and in particular how LGBTQIA+ people exist in that future. I particularly liked Sarah Gailey’s “Moonwife,” Bendi Barrett’s “Six Days,” “The They Whom We Remember” by Sunny Moraine, and “Sugar, Shadows” by Aysha U. Farah, all of which I talked about in my review back in July.

Sgt. Janus and the House That Loved Death by Jim Beard is the fourth book in his occult detective series starring the mysterious Sgt. Roman Janus. This may or may not be the last book in the series, as it establishes quite a change in the status quo for the main character and his compatriots. The previous three books, which I reviewed in a Series Saturday post in 2020, were purely epistolary in style; this book breaks that mold a bit to great effect. I really need to update the series post to include this latest book.

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner. A fantastic ecological horror novel set in the Pacific Northwest that manages to feel cosmic and claustrophobic at the same time and equally effectively. That’s quite a feat in my opinion. Wendy N. Wagner’s work always excites and intrigues me, and this one was no exception. I reviewed this one back in July.

Dogs Don’t Break Hearts by ‘Nathan Burgoine. Burgoine is another of my “go-to” auto-buy authors. This is his second “HiLo” book (High Interest, Low Readability, aimed at getting kids who struggle with reading to read). Teenager Beck volunteers at a dog rescue to get over being gaslit by who he thought was his boyfriend, and through the dogs finds both healing and a new love interest.

Black Hole Heart and Other Stories by K.A. Teryna, translated into English by Alex Shvartsman. The only single-author short story collection on this list, for which I still need to write a review. Teryna’s speculative fiction (mostly science fiction, but not all) is character-based while still exploring larger ideas of how technology improves and disrupts our lives and our greater need for community. I particularly enjoyed “Lajos and His Bees,” “Madame Felides Elopes,” “The Chartreuse Sky,” “Songs of the Snow Whale,” and the title story.

I have to also include Jack of All Comics! A Fan Conversation About the King of Comics, edited by Jim Beard. I had an essay in the book, discussing Jack Kirby’s work on DC’s 1970s Sandman title, so this feels a little like cheating or shameless self-promotion … but the other essays in the book are all great. Each one focuses on a different series Kirby wrote and/or drew for Marvel and DC through the 60s and 70s – from the well-known (Fantastic Four, Thor, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen) to the more obscure (his issues of DC’s First Issue Special, the aforementioned Sandman run and his work on DC’s war comic The Losers).

Top Ten(ish) is a feature where I identify my personal top ten (or so) favorites in a given category. The key words there are “my” and “favorites.” My favorites may not be your favorites, and I’m not claiming that my favorites are necessarily the best in a given category. Everyone’s tastes are different, and “best” is subjective. I welcome polite discussion on these lists.

Interview: Christa Carmen

Today for Writer Wednesday, I chat with author Christa Carmen.

Christa Carmen lives in Rhode Island. She is the Bram Stoker Award-winning and two-time Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Daughters of Block Island, Beneath the Poet's House, and How to Fake a Haunting, as well as the Indie Horror Book Award-winning Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated "Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell" (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror), and co-editor of the Aurealis Award-nominated We Are Providence and the Australiasian Shadow Award-nominated Monsters in the Mills. She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.

When she’s not writing, she keeps chickens; uses a Ouija board to ghost-hug her dear, departed beagle; and sets out on adventures with her husband, daughter, and bloodhound–golden retriever mix. Most of her work comes from gazing upon the ghosts of the past or else into the dark corners of nature, those places where whorls of bark become owl eyes, and deer step through tunnels of hanging leaves and creeping briars only to disappear.

Hi Christa! Thanks for taking some time to chat.

Thank you so much for having me, Anthony!

How To Fake A Haunting, which released on October 7th, is your third book in three years. That’s consistent output! Tell us a bit about the plot.

Lainey Taylor is being pushed to the brink by her alcoholic husband, Callum. However, without any DUIs or missed work days for a judge to point to, Lainey knows she won’t win against Callum–and his influential family–in divorce proceedings or an attempt to gain full custody of their daughter, Beatrix. She’s trapped, angry, and completely helpless. 

Her best friend Adelaide has a wild solution. They’ll stage a haunting so convincing it will drive Callum out of Lainey’s life for good. They start small, with strange smells, noises in the walls, and flies unleashed along the windowsills (I had to insert at least a little Amityville-esque influence!). But with each stage of their plan (and a little help from Callum’s alcohol-induced night terrors), Lainey is closer to seeing the haunting through to its bitter, freeing end.

Without giving anything away, I’ll just say that there’s far too much rage, resentment, and fear for Lainey and Adelaide’s plan not to go horribly wrong. As their fake haunting spirals into something no one can control, Lainey discovers that the only way out is to join forces with Callum, or die trying.

What inspired or influenced How To Fake A Haunting?

There was a very specific moment of inception for this book. My husband and I have been married for nine years this October, and like all married couples (or maybe just like all people once they reach a certain age), we tend to occasionally (ahem, often) spend so much time choosing a movie to watch, that by the time we turn it on, one or both of us falls asleep. On this particular evening, my husband swore he wasn’t tired; we chose a movie, and not five minutes later, I heard heaving breathing coming from the couch. 

Annoyed, I decided to head in and get ready for bed. But before I could, an idea–BAM–hit me like a horror movie jump scare. I grabbed his cell phone, and took a picture of him sleeping on the couch. I think maybe I was planning to show him the picture in the morning, like, “I told you you’d be the one to fall asleep!” Instead, I texted the picture to myself, walked into the kitchen, and then stormed back into the living room loud enough to wake him. “Why did you just text me a picture of yourself sleeping?” I asked. Disoriented, he replied, “What? Why would I text you a picture of myself sleeping?” But I doubled down, narrowed my eyes, and said, really cryptically, “You mean, you didn’t just text me this picture of you sleeping from your phone?” Needless to say, he was suitably freaked out, and eventually, I caved and admitted to the prank. When the time came to get working on a new novel, I thought of the playfulness of scaring your spouse, and how the idea of faking a haunting could be really fun, which morphed into questions of why someone would want to commit to a fake haunting, and then things just took off from there!

It seems like you did quite a bit of research into the paranormal investigation field, and particularly in regards to faking a haunting. Can you tell us a bit about that research?

I think the research for this book might have been some of the most bonkers research I’ve ever conducted. Around two-thirds of the way through the book, in chapter 32, Lainey and Adelaide have returned to Lainey’s house under cover of darkness to orchestrate the mother of all fake hauntings, a terrifying spectacle that will finally send Callum packing for good. In order to pull off what is essentially an elaborate theatrical production, the women dig deep into their arsenal, acquired through extensive horror movie research and a meeting with a husband-wife team of paranormal investigators. Without spoiling anything, I’ll say that, in order to write the scene, I had to rely on my own knowledge of horror films, titles like Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Conjuring, The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist, Carrie, The Changeling, and Malevolent, as well as deep dives into smart speaker and television programming capabilities, magnetized candles, recordable teddy bears, and how much pig’s blood might be required to recreate an abattoir inside a bathroom.

Having read and loved all three of your novels, I feel like it’s safe to say you have slowly increased the supernatural quotient in each book. Daughters of Block Island was more classically Gothic, with mostly eerie vibes; Beneath the Poet’s House had some moments that could have been supernatural or could have had mundane explanations but were left up to the reader to decide, and now, without spoilers, it appears the fake haunting turns real. Has this slow increase in the supernatural been a conscious decision on your part?

So, short answer… yes? But one that was met with a fair amount of reluctance on my part and lots of encouragement from writer friends and beta readers.

I recently took part in a wonderful event an An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA with fantastic thriller writers Vanessa Lillie and Tracy Sierra, and Tracy said that she thinks one of the most difficult things in writing horror is coming up with a ‘system’ of the supernatural—or monsters, or killers, or whatever frightening thing the author is working with—that is unique but also makes sense in the world of the story, and she stated that she felt I’d done a good job with it in How to Fake a Haunting (for which I’m eternally grateful). She then asked if I had any advice on how to invent a ‘horror world’ that is also logical, and my answer was that I start by getting something onto the page that serves the story, but that ultimately, I don’t want the supernatural in my work to be, as the kids say, “cringe.” 

I think I shied away from the supernatural on the page in the past because I was worried I would do it in a way that would be hokey or take readers out of the story. I should have trusted myself more, however, because I was happy with how the final third of How to Fake a Haunting played out.

I’m always interested to know what an author’s creative process is like. Are you a plotter, a pantser, somewhere in between? Has your process changed over the years you’ve been writing?

I am neither, I suppose. I’m a writer who tends to know where she wants a story to begin, where she wants it to end, and the major beats in between. The details, though, how I get from beginning to beat one, beat one to beat two, etc., those are apt to surprise me. I do tend to—if I stumble on an idea I want to include somewhere in a manuscript—get nervous that I’ll forget it, so I text myself little “breadcrumbs,” as I call them, so I can go back over the text thread at the end of each draft and make sure I’ve incorporated everything I wanted to include. So…I’m a ‘Hansel-and-Greteler?’

I love that term! Let’s make it a thing. You also write short stories and have edited some anthologies of local Rhode Island writers’ work. What do you look for as an editor?

First and foremost, adherence to submission guidelines! It may sound nitpicky, but this shows an editor that you respect their process and their time, and helps you put the right foot forward from first glance. As for content, I look for work that keeps me guessing, keeps me uneasy, has me questioning everything I thought I knew in the world of the story. I love a well-done ambiguous ending, a jump-scare-on-paper, and both quiet and cinematic horror, as long as it’s well done. Most importantly, I want to be thinking about the story long after I read it, turning over lines and plot points in my mind. I’m currently editing an unannounced project right now, and it’s been a delight to discover some new voices and be told some amazing, get-under-your-skin stories from writer’s I’ve come to admire.

I’m already eagerly anticipating your next book, as you probably have guessed. Can you tease us at all about your next project and when we might expect it?

Well, thank you! That’s so nice to hear. I’m indeed hard at work finishing up my fourth novel, as well as putting a second short story collection together. The novel will NOT be set in Rhode Island, which is pretty wild for me, but in London, Geneva, and Rome, and is a sort of body horror/sci-fi/artifact chase mashup. I’m having lots of fun with it and am looking forward to getting back to work on the project post-release of How to Fake a Haunting.

 In the meantime, my short story, “The Clearing,” is part of Lindy Ryan and Stephanie M. Wytovich’s HOWL: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror, out November 4th. I also have a story, “Comeback Kid,” in The Rack II: More Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, edited by Tom Deady, that came out October 14th, and several other stories in anthologies, as well as an editing project, that I can’t announce just yet.  

Anyone interested in updates can find me online, at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christaqua/), Instagram (@christaqua), and Bluesky (‪@christaqua.bsky.social), as well as on my website, www.christacarmen.com.

And my traditional final question: What is your all-time favorite book?

I’m going to be such a downer on this question, because my favorite book is A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara. I’ve never read something beyond this book in which the characters felt realer to me than some of the real people I know. Yanigahara’s ability to immerse you in the story, in the world she’s created, is unparalleled. Jude’s plight also helped me understand more about how trauma can follow and shape a person than some of my experiences working at an actual inpatient psychiatric hospital ward; I worked to get into patients’ heads, to help them, but one can never quite reach through someone’s barriers the way you can into a well-rendered character’s head, and this was Jude St. Francis all the way.

Thanks, Christa!

Thank you, Anthony! This was a blast!

You can find my review of Christa’s second novel, Beneath the Poet’s House HERE.

Sunday Shorts: AMPLITUDES

TITLE: Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity

EDITOR: Lee Mandelo

360 pages, Erewhon Books, ISBN 9781645660866 (paperback, e-book)

MY RATING: Recommended*

REVIEW: In Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, editor Lee Mandelo has brought together a thought-provoking and exciting set or stories that look at what the future (near and further out) might look like for queer people, written by authors whose lived experience falls all along the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Some of these stories are brightly hopeful, some cautiously optimistic. Some tackle the repercussions of today’s backlash against the LGBTQIA+ community (and in particular, the attacks on Trans people). Some few even put the sexual aspect of our sexuality and culture at the forefront. All of the stories focus on characters solving problems – some of those problems being self-made, and some being societal. Many of them also comment on the nature of society to take advantage of the disadvantaged, the grieving, the lonely. As with all multi-author anthologies, not every story will work for every reader. The stories I loved, you may not, and vice versa. But I think there’s something in here to spark the interest and attention of every reader of science fiction.

Here are my thoughts on just a few of the stories contained in Amplititudes:

Sarah Gailey’s “Moonwife” explores what happens to our digital existence after we die. Our lives have already become increasingly digital, every aspect of our personalities online someplace. That digital footprint doesn’t just disappear when we die. Gailey posits a world where the seances and mediums of the past do their work digitally as well; it’s almost the same as contacting an actual spirit. And as there always is when technology and grieving people are concerned, there’s always someone willing and able to use the former to take advantage of the latter. As always with what I’ve read of Gailey’s work, there is a huge emotional punch at the center of the story, and a catharsis.

“Six Days” by Bendi Barrett is a more dystopian tale of community surviving the fall of civilization, in which even the smallest actions and absences have consequences. “There’s no better world that we don’t make ourselves,” one of the characters says in a contemplative moment. While the setting is dystopian, the mood of the story is quiet even in the moments fraught with danger. I was surprised at how the emotional underpinnings of the story snuck up on me. This may have been the first story by Barrett I’ve read; I sincerely hope it won’t be the last.

It took me a little while to really understand what was happening in Sunny Moraine’s “The They Whom We Remember,” and that appears to be by design of the author. Moraine is very effective at throwing the reader into the middle of a character’s dilemma and then mixing the character’s past and present together to fully reveal how that dilemma came about and how it is resolved. The story has a lot to say about internal identity and kept me guessing, in a good way, about what is going on with the main character and the world they live in.

“Sugar, Shadows” by Aysha U. Farah melds science fiction with classic private eye tropes. The narrator is tasked with finding a missing young man for his rich parents. Which proves to be easy enough – and then becomes increasingly complicated. I loved the way the story spooled out, both the mystery and the world-building. I also found what the story has to say about addiction (both the disease itself and those who prey on and take advantage of the addicted) thought-provoking.

Meg Elison’s “Bang Bang” is part tribute to the B-52s’s “Love Shack,” part dissection of club culture. It’s fast and punchy and hopeful without being trite. I had to reread it several times just to make sure I got all of the nods to one of the most infectious songs ever written, and to wring every bit of emotional nuance out of the text. It’s one of the shorter stories in the collection, but as the final entry, it encompasses so much of what the anthology is trying (and succeeding) at doing.

Anthologies like this, presenting a mix of established and emerging LGBTQIA+ writers looking to our future while acknowledging our present, are so vital. And as I said, there’s surely something (and more than one something) for everyone in the community, and for our allies.

 I’ve previously reviewed Lee Mandeo’s novel Summer Sons and novella Feed Them Silence.

*I have moved away from a star-based rating system here on the blog (I can’t avoid using stars on Goodreads, NetGalley, and the various bookseller sites). Instead I am switching to ranking books as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” “satisfactory” and “not right for me.” I may add other levels as I refine this concept.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I received and read the book before the publication date but fell behind on positing reviews. Amplitudes was released on May 27, 2025, and is available now wherever books are sold.

I love short fiction in all its forms: from novellas to novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it.

Book Review: THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER

MY RATING: Recommended*

REVIEW: Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a moody, often fever-dream-like, occasionally brutal vampire novel set against some of the bloodiest moments of Montana history. It is part vampire memoir, part family drama, and part mystery, takes a number of surreal turns, and plays with modern expectations of vampire lore – all of which adds up to a thrilling, engrossing, and thought-provoking novel.

The set-up: Etsy Beaucairne is informed of the discovery of a journal written by her great-grandfather Arthur, a Lutheran priest in Miles City Montana in the early 1900s. The journal is not only a link to lost family history, it may also provide Etsy with a way to move her stalled life forward. What she discovers in the journal is the confession of a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab, who professes to be a vampire. Good Stab also appears to be behind a string of deaths and disappearances in both San Francisco and Miles City. The book alternates between Etsy’s 2020’s present, Arthur’s journal entries in the 1910s as he's taking the confession, and Good Stab’s recounting of his existence through the 1800s.

Good Stab’s memoir is the most surreal, fever-dream like part of the book (at least until near the end), especially in his early days as a vampire coming to understand what he has become, what he can do, and the limitations he is faced with. It is here that Jones plays most with genre expectations of a vampire’s existence and abilities, as the blood Good Stab consumes affects not only his physical appearance but his cognitive abilities. (If there are other vampire novels that touch on this the way Jones does, I haven’t come across them yet.) Good Stab is not the sparkly teen or brooding aristocrat of so much modern vampire fiction, but he has more character depth than the vampires of fiction from the Gothic era. There is also no romance in his story – but there are moments of unexpected beauty in his connection to the natural world and to his people.

There is also a lot of mystery connected to the telling of Good Stab’s story. Why has he chosen Arthur to tell his story to, and why now? What is Good Stab’s connection – if any – to the spate of dead bodies showing up on the outskirts of Miles City? Arthur’s personal history has some mystery as well, alluded to and hinted at in his self-observations throughout the journal: how did he come to be a pastor in this frontier town? How did he get the injury that affects his ability to walk? I would describe this mystery element of the book as “fair play:” in that the answers to all of these questions are embedded, some subtly, in the narrative and after the reveals the reader can go back and string those hints together.

The mystery also ties into the family drama, as Etsy tries to understand her great-grandfather’s journal in the context of what her family knew and didn’t know about his life and disappearance. Etsy and Arthur both encounter crossroads at which revealed knowledge forces a decision that will change the course of their lives.

Throughout the book Jones deals straightforwardly with how colonialism and American westward expansion affected the native population, and how steeped in blood the history of Montana (and by extension, all of the American West) is – a history many of us did not learn about in school, a history we should know about and learn from.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is not an easy read, but it is an engrossing and thought-provoking one. I recommend it.

*I have moved away from a star-based rating system here on the blog (I can’t avoid using stars on Goodreads, NetGalley, and the various bookseller sites). Instead I am switching to ranking books as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” “satisfactory” and “not right for me.” I may add other levels as I refine this concept. I’ll be including this note in all of my reviews for the next several weeks.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I finished the book well before the release date but fell behind posting reviews. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is available now wherever books are sold.

Book Review: CHEDDAR LUCK NEXT TIME

TITLE: Cheddar Luck Next Time

AUTHOR: Beth Cato

272 pages, Datura Books, ISBN 9781915523471 (softcover, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: Highly Recommended*

REVIEW: In Beth Cato’s Cheddar Luck Next Time, artisanal cheese board creator and event caterer Bird Nichols find herself embroiled in a murder investigation and possibly in danger of her life while trying to meet catering deadlines and establishing her business in a new location: the small Central California Coast town property she’s just inherited from her recently-deceased grandmother.

Her grandmother’s unexpected death is not the one under investigation, although Bird does question how a woman who was such a strong swimmer misread ocean conditions and drowned practically in her backyard. No, the murder investigation revolves around a local town ne’er-do-well whom Bird and her grandmother’s best friend were the last to see alive following an angry confrontation about his trespassing on Bird’s (formerly her grandmother’s) property.

This has all the makings of a cozy mystery: Bird is an accidental detective, the small town setting is almost a character in itself (quaint but with a bit of a dark side), replete with colorful locals including the local power broker, the victim’s family, a detective who brooks no interference from amateurs, and the owner of a local gourmet grilled cheese food truck. There’s also the almost requisite adorable pet (in this case, a chonky cat). I enjoy mysteries that keep me guessing as to whodunnit and whydunit but whose reveals do not come out of left field – and Cato’s mystery fits that bill. It’s entirely fair play; all the hints are there to be recognized after the fact but still managed to surprise me on my first read.

There is also a nice sort of thriller subtext to the book, as we learn more about Bird’s grandmother, who seems to have been the town’s Jessica Fletcher, getting involved in local mysteries (not all of them murders) but perhaps also in political intrigue both in town and out of it. Cato grants us just enough information, gleaned partly through Bird’s memories but more so through the eyes of the locals who knew her (and either loved her or were annoyed by her) for us to understand that she may not have been entirely what she seemed, or what Bird thought she was. Bird’s own recollections also show us how much her grandmother both supported her and influenced her.

Bird’s personality has been shaped by the accidental deaths of her parents and her grandmother (if a grandfather or another set of grandparents were mentioned, I’ve forgotten it) prior to the start of the book. But it is also significant that she, like the author, is autistic. Her autism is portrayed authentically and not at all as a detriment or hindrance to leading a full and productive life. I am a firm believer that representation in fiction matters. Having a main character whose autism is not played for laughs or just to provide a series character with “quirky charm” is so vital, a welcome break from the way autistic characters have been portrayed (especially as the leads on certain recent television shows). Bird is not just a collection of quirks that suddenly make her a great detective; she is a fully realized autistic adult who finds her way as an amateur detective.

She is surrounded by a group of colorful locals who get varying degrees of character development based largely on their roles related to the murder victim and investigation. I found myself wanting to know more about all of them.

And let’s not ignore the cheese! The author is a cheese lover and has infused her main character with that same love. The passages where Bird is just doing her job – creating cheese boards for birthday parties and weddings and baby showers and discussing cheese/wine pairings – are perfectly timed breaks from the on-going mystery and are just enough to make the reader’s mouth water and at the same time illustrate Bird’s hyper-focus.

Fair play mystery with thriller elements, a colorful cast, a cute cat, and delectable food descriptions surrounding a relatable main character …  I really hope Cheddar Luck Next Time sells well enough to result in a series that continues for a long time!

Cheddar Luck Next Time may be Beth Cato’s first mystery but it’s not her first novel. I’ve previously reviewed her Chefs of the Five Gods fantasy duology and her Blood of Earth alternate history/fantasy trilogy.

*I have moved away from a star-based rating system here on the blog (I can’t avoid using stars on Goodreads, NetGalley, and the various bookseller sites). Instead I am switching to ranking books as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” “satisfactory” and “not right for me.” I may add other levels as I refine this concept.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I read Cheddar Luck Next Time before the release date but have been slow in posting book reviews. The book is now available wherever books are sold. If you’re in northwest New Jersey, Cheddar Luck Next Time will be the August Sparta Books Book Club pick. Join us at the store on Thursday August 21 at 7:00 pm for a lively discussion!

Book Review: GIRL IN THE CREEK

TITLE: Girl in the Creek

AUTHOR: Wendy N. Wagner

262 pages, Tor Nightfire, ISBN 9781250908643 (hardcover, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

REVIEW: Girl in the Creek, Wendy N. Wagner’s new ecohorror novel from Tor Nightfire, manages to be claustrophobic and expansive at the same time, masterfully using beautiful descriptions of the Mount Hood region of the Pacific Northwest to make the reader feel trapped with the main character as things spiral out of control.

Travel reporter Erin comes to the small former mining town of Faraday with four friends (podcaster Hari, tech-savvy Matt, shelter for endangered women runner Kaylee, and Kaylee’s sister Madison) ostensibly to write an article about Faraday’s charm and eco-tourist-friendly attitude. She is really there to investigate a spate of missing persons cases, both for a possible book and episode of Hari’s podcast and to find emotional closure for the disappearance of her brother Bryan, which has been ruled by local police as a suicide with no body found. Erin and her gang immediately encounter locals both nice (hiking enthusiast Jared, river tour guide Dahlia), not nice (the Steadman brothers) and indeterminate (landlord Olivia Vanderpoel, deputy sheriff Duvall, local mushroom expert Ray). In the hands of some writers, juggling this many characters would be unwieldy at best, or they would mostly be played at stereotype level, filling their narrative roles without much depth. But Wagner has a wonderful knack for imbuing characters with depth in just a handful of sentences, forcing the reader to see beyond the “types” and come to care about them, which I happen to thin is a key component of effective horror fiction. I love slasher films as much as the next horror aficionado, but I never feel emotionally connected to most of the victims in such a film. Wagner made me care, so almost every death (and there are deaths, oh boy are there deaths) has emotional impact, even the ones that occur chronologically before the events of the book.

Wagner is also adept at establishing and maintaining mood. Despite being set largely outdoors, there is a pervading sense of claustrophobia that anyone who has ever been lost in the woods or crawling through a cave or stumbled through a dark house will recognize. Hours after finishing the book I still can’t quite shake the feeling. There is an undercurrent of looming danger that permeates every page and grows more distinct and precise as the threat becomes more apparent to the characters.

I have a love/hate relationship with mushrooms. Seen out in the wild, I find their variety of shapes and colors fascinating (sometimes morbidly so) and often can’t look away from them. But I also have a strict “no fungus” rule when it comes to what I eat (don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise. It’s been attempted. It won’t work). Wagner perfectly captured everything that fascinates me about wild fungi while also increasing my commitment to never eating any … thus perhaps proving why I would be one of the first victims if I existed in this book (or in any other fungi-based horror or SF story). I shall be looking even more askance at mushrooms, mycelium, mold, and mildew going forward.

I have not yet read any of the other recently released entries in what seems to be a trend of fungi-based horror, but I can highly recommend Girl in the Creek, Wendy N. Wagner’s entry into the genre.

I have previously reviewed some of Wendy N. Wagner’s short stories here and here, and plan to post reviews of her other novels soon.

*Starting now, I’ve decided to move away from a star-based rating system here on the blog (I can’t avoid using stars on Goodreads, NetGalley, and the various bookseller sites). Instead I am switching to ranking books as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” “satisfactory” and “not right for me.” I may add other levels as I refine this concept.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Sunday Shorts: The Shivers

TITLE: The Shivers

AUTHORS: various

194 pages, Amazon Originals, (e-book and audiobook)

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

REVIEW: The five short stories in Amazon’s The Shivers collection all capably fulfill the promise of the collection’s title: they all made me shiver at least once, and most more than that. While they all have some supernatural element (some slowly revealed, some blatant from the start, and mostly all in the form of ghostly presences of some kind), they are mostly absent of jump scares and gore. They are more on the suspenseful side of horror, an interesting blend of the psychological and the supernatural. All of the stories have a grounding in the everyday that is slowly (or, as slowly as one can in a short story) infused with dread and then outright horror.

In Joe Hill’s “Jackknife,” a disgraced college professor at loose ends slowly realizes there is something not right about the tree from which he recently removed a rusted old jackknife. In Stephen Graham Jones’ “The Indigo Room,” a dramatic office presentation turns dark, eerie, and prophetic. Grady Hendrix’s “The Blanks” takes place in an almost too idyllic island summer community whose secrets are hinted at before being revealed, while Catriona Ward’s “Day and Night in Misery” tweaks the haunted hotel room trope in a most moving way. The collection concludes with “Letter Slot” by Owen King, focused on a teen boy living in poverty on the same road as an abandoned McMansion to which he is inexorably drawn.

While I’ve read stories or novels by Joe Hill, Owen King, Stephen Graham Jones, and Grady Hendrix (but only one short story in Hendrix’s case), this was my first exposure to Catriona Ward’s work, and her story (like the others) definitely made me want to read more (readers, feel free to recommend what Ward book I should read next!). All five authors understood the assignment here and delivered on it. Hill’s story is probably the most outright horror/least suspenseful. Jones’s is absolutely the most surreal and otherworldly. Hendrix’s is the creepiest. Ward’s and King’s tie for the title of “most tugged at my heart.” I enjoyed all five stories and can’t stress enough how much each creeped me out.

For four of these stories, the sense of dread works so well because the authors make you care about the main characters through personal moments or traits or reminiscences that resonate. Suspense is more suspenseful, horror is more horrific, when you care about the characters who are in danger. I found the main character of the Hill story to be thoroughly unlikeable and thus less sympathetic but found the other protagonists to be relatable. Interestingly, three of those main characters are mothers of young children who are in some sort of danger, while the fourth is a teenage boy with a sick mother (a natural reversal of the caregiver/cared-for roles).

Fair warning for those who might need it: both the Ward and Hendrix stories involve child death. Both happen “off screen” but are recounted in enough detail that it may upset some people.

I received an advance electronic reading copy of this book for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Shivers is available now in e-book and audiobook format only from Amazon, and can be purchased as individual titles or as a bundle.

I love short fiction in all its forms: from novellas to novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it.

Book Review: SAINT DEATH'S HERALD

TITLE: Saint Death’s Herald (Book Two of the Saint Death Trilogy)

AUTHOR: C.S.E. Cooney

430 pages, Solaris Books, ISBN 9781837864492 (paperback, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

C.S.E. Cooney’s Saint Death’s Herald, the sequel to her 2023 World Fantasy Award winning novel Saint Death’s Daughter, is an action-packed, fast-paced, often dark but always hopeful, fantasy adventure. Despite the difference in focus from its predecessor (Saint Death’s Daughter is more coming-of-age novel than adventure story, but no less exciting for that), the tone of the first book carries over. No matter the pace of the story, Cooney’s prose is always lushly gorgeous, her wordplay intricate yet accessible, poetic phrases side by side with everyday speech. Cooney is one of those writers who make me want to linger over individual sentences, to reread aloud, to feel the words physically and emotionally. Even her character names are joys to speak aloud (Cracchen Skrathmandan! Ynyssyll Brackenwild! Tanaliin idden Fa’nim’wai! Duantri! Makkovian! Sacred Datura Stones!). Cooney makes me laugh, cry, and gasp in equal measure. Saint Death’s Herald had me doing all of those. Repeatedly.

This is a story of possession and possessiveness, of control and of giving up control (willingly and unwillingly), of understanding history (both the personal and the societal) and breaking the cycles of trauma that are caused by both. It starts with a man possessed by a ghost being run to ruin, the ghost intentionally heedless of the cost inflicted on the still-living man he’s taken over. And throughout the book, Cooney revisits this concept of the powerful ignoring the cost to the powerless. We see it at the personal level (with the man and the ghost), we see it at a governmental level (in the past history of Skakmaht). And we also see what it costs someone like Miscellaneous Stones, our main character, to care enough to try to make a change.

Miscellaneous Stones, as established in Saint Death’s Daughter, is the latest in a lengthy line of necromancers who have served the rulers of Liriat for generations. But Lanie is also unlike her familial predecessors, in that she is allergic to violence; she literally cannot cause injury without experiencing it herself. This makes her mission (tracking down the ghost of her genocidal great-grandfather Radamanthes Stones and preventing him from further genocide) all the harder. Watching the creative (and sometimes whimsical) ways she finds to defend herself is one of the great joys of the book, along with how she willingly puts herself in harm’s way to do battle when she absolutely must, regardless of the cost. Lanie, as her friends call her, has come a long way since the start of the first book in understanding just how far she can push herself in these situations as well as how far she’s willing to go to protect others.

I would be remiss if I did not mention just how chock-full this book is of representation: queer characters from across the spectrum abound, as do characters with pretty much every skin tone imaginable. Cooney’s fantasy world, Ayth, which appears not just in these two books but in almost everything she’s written (see: my reviews of Dark Breakers; Desdemona and the Deep; The Twice-Drowned Saint, and more), is one of the most diverse and enjoyable fantasy worlds I’ve ever been immersed in. (I would also be remiss if I did not mention that I have an especial fictional character crush on the aforementioned Makkovian. My Catastrophic Attraction Complex to redheads strikes again!)

Final thoughts: Saint Death’s Herald is certainly a complete novel unto itself. You could jump right in without having read Saint Death’s Daughter and you’d be able to follow along pretty easily. But reading the books in order will absolutely enhance your understanding of not just Lanie, Cracchen, Grandpa Rad, and Duantri, but also Makkovian, Datu, and a host of other characters who were vital to book one but play a more supporting role in book two. And here’s hoping we don’t have to wait too long for the final book in the trilogy (Please, Solaris, make it happen!).

NOTE: C.S.E. Cooney will be appearing at Kew & Willow Books on July 12th, to discuss the Saint Death’s books, and other interesting topics, in conversation with author Mike Allen. I’ll be there as well!

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley well before publication date in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The book released in April 2025.

Book Review: A WEB OF OBSIDIAN

TITLE: A Web of Obsidian (Obsidian Sisterhood #1)

AUTHOR: Lydia M. Hawke

231 pages, Michem Publishing, ISBN 9781989457290 (print, also e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

I have been a fan of Lydia M. Hawke since the first book in the Grigori Legacy series (when it was originally published under the author’s real name, Linda Poitevin*), so it’s probably not a surprise that I quite enjoyed A Web of Obsidian, her newest urban fantasy series. Although I’m not sure that “urban fantasy” is the totally correct genre label for this series, as the magic the main character encounters turns out to be the result of an ancient alien visitor to Earth … but “urban science fiction” doesn’t have the same ring, and didn’t Arthur C. Clarke say that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? So maybe I’m overthinking the label …

Web is narrated in the first person by Sister Monica Barrett, sixty-nine years old and the holder of two black belts (continuing from the Crone Wars books Hawke’s penchant for centering older women as series leads). Well, former Sister -- Monica left the church years ago but still lives with a group of nuns while running a shelter for women (abused, abandoned, in need of support). Monica is always ready to stand up for her convictions and for the rights of the women she has decided to protect – including an emaciated, nearly dead woman who shows up on the shelter’s front porch pursued by a mysterious man. Sister Monica is beaten almost to death by the man before the nearly dead woman tosses her a smooth, flat stone that reinvigorates Monica and allows her to defeat the woman’s would-be assailant. This plunges Sister Monica into a world of secret societies at odds with each other.

To clear: Sister Monica kicks ass even before she gains mystical abilities she doesn’t understand. She is a psychologically and physically strong female protagonist. While she shares two traits with Claire Emerson, the lead character in Hawke’s Crone Wars series (both are retirement-age women who are at first overwhelmed by the revelation that magic is real and that they have been chosen to wield it), the two are very different in personality and in non-magical physical ability. I mention this because I would hate anyone to think that Web of Obsidian is just a retread of Becoming Crone. The main character, the way the magic system works, the way the story beats play out as Monica slowly discovers what she’s been drawn into, are all quite different. I liked Claire … I would hang out with Sister Monica.

Bear in mind that this is the first book in a new series, so not every question introduced is answered. There are enough reveals to feel satisfied at the end, and enough lingering questions to leave a reader intrigued to read book two. And a couple of twists along the way to keep things interesting. There are also several supporting characters that I’m interested in seeing developed as the series progresses.

*A few years ago, Poitevin decided to start publishing her urban fantasy series under a different name from her romance and romantic suspense books, hence the Grigori Legacy, Crone Wars, and Obsidian Sisterhood series now being issued under the “Lydia M. Hawke” name.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Web of Obsidian releases in print and e-book form on February 25, 2025.

Book Review: OUR SHARE OF NIGHT

TITLE: Our Share of Night

AUTHOR: Mariana Enriquez   TRANSLATOR: Megan McDowell

588 pages, Hogarth Books, ISBN 9780451495150 (paperback; also hardcover, e-book, audio)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night, translated into English by Megan McDowell, is not an easy book to read. It is close to 600 pages of dense emotive language, shifts in point-of-view, jumps in time, forays into multiple horror sub-genres, history lessons, and a pervading sense of doomed inevitability. But it is a book worth reading and contemplating. I might not have read the book, or at least not now, if it hadn’t been chosen as the January selection for Stanza Books’ Horror Book Club. Weeks after finishing it, scenes are still popping unbidden into my head and the urge to research the 1980s history of Argentina in more detail keeps growing.

Our Share of Night is primarily the story of Juan Peterson and his son Gaspar, who one morning in January 1981 set out on a road trip that will eventually take them to the remote family estate of Juan’s recently deceased wife, Rosario. Rosario’s family is part of a worldwide cult called The Order, and Juan is the Order’s unwilling medium, keeping them in contact with the Darkness they worship and which they believe has promised them immortality of a sort. Juan will do anything to protect his son from being used by the Order – even if it means putting himself, his brother Lius, his best friend Stephen, and his wife’s half-sister Tali in danger. The aftereffects of that initial road trip play out years later, as Juan’s health continues to fail and Gaspar ages into adulthood.

 I say ‘primarily’ because in addition to the large sections of the book told in close third-person from Juan’s and then Gaspar’s POV (with occasional forays into close third from the POVs of various friends and loved ones), there are shorter sections told from other people’s POV: a stream-of-consciousness section from the POV of Juan’s adoptive “father” Doctor Bradford; a short first-person section narrated by a journalist; and a long flashback narrated by the late Rosario. The Doctor Bradford section was the toughest part of the book for me, as stream-of-consciousness is not a form I enjoy, and also one of the more horrific passages as well.

Enriquez smoothly intermixes supernatural/cosmic horror (the scenes with the unknowable Darkness and the way it manifests through Juan),cult horror (The history and machinations of The Order), body horror (very much not easy to read are the passages describing what one of the Order members has done to deform young children), slasher horror (people in a house with a deranged killer), houses that are haunted or connected to supernatural realms (several), medical horror (the AIDS Crisis), generational trauma, and the very real horrors of living under a dictatorship that caused the disappearance of thousands of citizens. I’m hard pressed to think of a sub-genre of horror that isn’t represented in one form or another. There’s even a bit of erotic horror.

The true core of the book is the characters. I can’t say that I particularly like Juan, but I believed, and even admired, his need to protect his son from the horrors that have been inflicted on him. I believed in his need to somehow revenge himself on those who have abused him. I felt for Gaspar even as I yelled at him (yes, I yelled – I didn’t throw the book across the room, but I yelled) for falling into some of the same negative behaviors his exhibited. Enriquez’s handling of this generational inheritance of anger and propensity for physical violence is nuanced and oh so very realistic, as is Gaspar’s awareness that he needs to break the cycle and his struggle to do so. Rosario is equally complex in her love for Juan and her drive to take over (and theoretically change) the Order but at what cost? What, if anything, does she consider unacceptable?

Enriquez also has a lot to say about the perseverance of organizations and orders. She never directly references the legend of the Hydra (cut off one head, and two more grow back) but like that creature, despite generational bulldozing (for lack of a better term), the Order keeps coming back – much like the dictatorships of Argentina (the faces may change; the methodologies of control don’t). And so the horror continues even as the book ends.

As stated earlier, this is not an easy book to read for many reasons. But what it has to say about the history of Argentina, of colonialism, of fanaticism, is too important not to make the effort. It’s not a polemic; it’s not a lecture. It is a fantastic, character driven novel that also holds a mirror up to systems of control (organizational and interpersonal) while also touching on pretty much every type of horror story you can think of.

I’ve had Enriquez’s 2021 short story collection, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, on my To Be Read bookcase pretty much since it was published, and bought her 2024 collection, A Sunny Place for Shady People, as soon as it came out – both at the recommendation of Mark at Stanza Books in Beacon NY. This novel has convinced me to move both collections up closer to the top of my To Be Read stacks.