The Velkwood Vicinity was the topic of occult theorists, tabloid one-hour documentaries, and even some pseudo-scientific investigations as the block of homes disappeared behind a near-impenetrable veil that only three survivors could enter—and only one has in the past twenty years, until now.
Talitha Velkwood has avoided anything to do with the tragedy that took her mother and eight-year-old sister, drifting from one job to another, never settling anywhere or with anyone, feeling as trapped by her past as if she was still there in the small town she so desperately wanted to escape from. When a new researcher tracks her down and offers to pay her to come back to enter the vicinity, Talitha claims she’s just doing it for the money. Of all the crackpot theories over the years, no one has discovered what happened the night Talitha, her estranged, former best friend Brett, and Grace, escaped their homes twenty years ago. Will she finally get the answers she’s been looking for all these years, or is this just another dead end?
GRADE: A+
REVIEW:
I absolutely loved this novel. Usually, reading about hauntings isn’t my thing because books with ghosts tend to be so tropey- however, Kiste’s novel is so intriguing and fresh that it takes haunting to a whole new level. A whole neighborhood disappears with the people that lived there and no one can enter it except for the three friends that used to live there and are the only survivors. I love the idea of childhood friends that return to their original home to try to understand what exactly happened twenty years ago. I love the dynamic that Talitha and Brett had, you couldn’t help but root for these childhood friends that realized years ago that maybe their feelings verged more than friendship but in the world they lived in, their love couldn’t ever be front and center. This is a character driven novel, but the lush, Gothic atmosphere will completely seduce you too. I couldn’t put this book down and read it in two days! That’s to say that I was completely mesmerized by the story and just wanted to bask in it, and I loved that it had The Virgin Suicides vibes but being told from the female perspective instead of the male gaze.
I recommend this book if you love hauntings, ghosts, Gothic feels, queer characters, and mystery soaked in suspense.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Saga Press for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
There is no body. A fact DC Clements finds both a problem and a tremulous, tantalizing possibility. She’s not a woman inclined to irrational hope, or even excessive hope. Any damned hope, really. At least, not usually.
Kylie Gillingham is probably dead.
The forty-three-year-old woman has been missing nearly two weeks. Ninety-seven percent of the 180,000 people a year who are reported missing are found within a week, dead or alive. She hasn’t been spotted by members of the public, or picked up on CCTV; her bank, phone and email accounts haven’t been touched. She has social media registered under her married name, Kai Janssen; they’ve lain dormant. No perky pictures of carefully arranged books, lattes, Negronis or peonies. Kylie Gillingham hasn’t returned to either of her homes. Statistically, it’s looking very bad.
Experience would also suggest this sort of situation has to end terribly. When a wife disappears, all eyes turn on the husband. In this case, there is not one but two raging husbands left behind. Both men once loved the missing woman very much. Love is just a shiver away from hate.
The evidence does not conclusively indicate murder. There is no body. But a violent abduction is a reasonable proposition—police-speak, disciplined by protocol. Kidnap and abuse, possible torture is likely—woman-speak, fired by indignation. They know Kylie Gillingham was kept in a room in an uninhabited apartment just floors below the one she lived in with husband number two, Daan Janssen. That’s not a coincidence. There is a hole in the wall of that room; most likely Kylie punched or kicked it. The debris created was flung through a window into the street, probably in order to attract attention. Her efforts failed. Fingerprints place her in the room; it’s unlikely she was simply hanging out or even hiding out, as there is evidence to suggest she was chained to the radiator.
Yet despite all this, the usually clear, logical, reasonable Clements wants to ignore statistics, experience and even evidence that suggests the abduction ended in fatal violence. She wants to hope.
There just might be some way, somehow, that Kylie—enigma, bigamist—escaped from that sordid room and is alive. She might be in hiding. She is technically a criminal, after all; she might be hiding from the law. She can hardly go home. She will know by now that her life of duplicity is exposed. She will know her husbands are incensed. Baying for blood. She has three largely uninterested half brothers on her father’s side, and a mother who lives in Australia. None of them give Clements a sense that they are helping or protecting Kylie. She will know who abducted her. If alive, she must be terrified.
Clements’ junior partner, Constable Tanner, burly and blunt as usual, scoffs at the idea that she escaped. He’s waiting for a body; he’d settle for a confession. It’s been four days now since Daan Janssen left the country. “Skipped justice,” as Tanner insists on saying. But the constable is wet behind the ears. He still thinks murder is glamorous and career-enhancing. Clements tries to remember: did she ever think that way? She’s been a police officer for nearly fifteen years; she joined the force straight out of university, a few years younger than Tanner is now, but no, she can’t remember a time when she thought murder was glamorous.
“He hasn’t skipped justice. We’re talking to him and his lawyers,” she points out with what feels like the last bit of her taut patience.
“You’re being pedantic.”
“I’m being accurate.”
“But you’re talking to him through bloody Microsoft Teams,” says Tanner dismissively. “What the hell is that?”
“The future.” Clements sighs. She ought to be offended by the uppity tone of the junior police officer. It’s disrespectful. She’s the detective constable. She would be offended if she had the energy, but she doesn’t have any to spare. It’s all focused on the case. On Kylie Gillingham. She needs to remain clear-sighted, analytical. They need to examine the facts, the evidence, over and over again. To be fair, Constable Tanner is focused too, but his focus manifests in frenetic frustration. She tries to keep him on track. “Look, lockdown means Daan Janssen isn’t coming back to the UK for questioning any time soon. Even if there wasn’t a strange new world to negotiate, we couldn’t force him to come to us, not without arresting him, and I can’t do that yet.”
Tanner knocks his knuckles against her desk as though he is rapping on a door, asking to be let in, demanding attention. “But all the evidence—”
“Is circumstantial.” Tanner knows this; he just can’t quite accept it. He feels the finish line is in sight, but he can’t cross it, and it frustrates him. Disappoints him. He wants the world to be clear-cut. He wants crimes to be punished, bad men behind bars, a safer realm. He doesn’t want some posh twat flashing his passport and wallet, hopping on a plane to his family mansion in the Netherlands and getting away with it. Daan Janssen’s good looks and air of entitlement offend Tanner. Clements understands all that. She understands it but has never allowed personal bias and preferences to cloud her investigating procedures.
“We found her phones in his flat!” Tanner insists.
“Kylie could have put them there herself,” counters Clements. “She did live there with him as his wife.”
“And we found the receipt for the cable ties and the bucket from the room she was held in.”
“We found a receipt. The annual number of cable ties produced is about a hundred billion. A lot of people buy cable ties. Very few of them to bind their wives to radiators. Janssen might have wanted to neaten up his computer and charger cords. He lives in a minimalist house. That’s what any lawyer worth their salt will argue.” Clements rolls her head from left to right; her neck clicks like castanets.
“His fingerprints are on the food packets.”
“Which means he touched those protein bars. That’s all they prove. Not that he took them into the room. Not that he was ever in the room.”
Exasperated, Tanner demands, “Well how else did they get there? They didn’t fly in through the bloody window, did they?” Clements understands he’s not just excitable, he cares. He wants this resolved. She likes him for it, even if he’s clumsy in his declarations. It makes her want to soothe him; offer him guarantees and reassurances that she doesn’t even believe in. She doesn’t soothe or reassure, because she has to stay professional, focused. The devil is in the detail. She just has to stay sharp, be smarter than the criminal. That’s what she believes. “She might have brought them in from their home. He might have touched them in their flat. That’s what a lawyer will argue.”
“He did it all right, no doubt about it,” asserts Tanner with a steely certainty.
Clements knows that there is always doubt. A flicker, like a wick almost lit, then instantly snuffed. Nothing is certain in this world. That’s why people like her are so important; people who know about ambiguity yet carry on regardless, carry on asking questions, finding answers. Dig, push, probe. That is her job. For a conviction to be secured in a court of law, things must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It isn’t easy to do. Barristers are brilliant, wily. Jurors can be insecure, overwhelmed. Defendants might lie, cheat. The evidence so far is essentially fragile and hypothetical.
“I said, didn’t I. Right at the beginning, I said it’s always the husband that’s done it,” Tanner continues excitedly. He did say as much, yes. However, he was talking about Husband Number 1, Mark Fletcher, at that point, if Clements’ memory serves her correctly, which it always does. And even if her memory one day fails to be the reliable machine that it currently is, she takes notes—meticulous notes—so she always has those to rely on. Yes, Tanner said it was the husband, but this case has been about which husband. Daan Janssen, married to Kai: dedicated daughter to a sick mother, classy dresser and sexy wife. Or Mark Fletcher, husband to Leigh: devoted stepmother, conscientious management consultant and happy wife? Kai. Leigh. Kylie. Kylie Gillingham, the bigamist, had been hiding in plain sight. But now she is gone. Vanished.
“The case against Janssen is gathering momentum,” says Clements, carefully.
“Because Kylie was held captive in his apartment block.”
“Yes.”
“Which is right on the river, easy way to lose a body.”
She winces at this thought but stays on track. “Obviously Mark Fletcher has motive too. A good lawyer trying to cast doubt on Janssen’s guilt might argue that Fletcher knew about the other husband and followed his wife to her second home.”
Tanner is bright, fast; he chases her line of thought. He knows the way defense lawyers create murky waters. “Fletcher could have confronted Kylie somewhere in the apartment block.”
“A row. A violent moment of fury,” adds Clements. “He knocks her out cold. Then finds an uninhabited apartment and impetuously stashes her there.”
Tanner is determined to stick to his theory that Janssen is the guilty man. “Sounds far-fetched. How did he break in? This thing seems more planned.”
“I agree, but the point is, either husband could have discovered the infidelity, then, furious, humiliated and ruthless, imprisoned her. They’d have wanted to scare and punish, reassert control, show her who was boss.” They know this much, but they do not know what happened next. Was she killed in that room? If so, where is the body hidden? “And you know we can’t limit this investigation to just the two husbands. There are other suspects,” she adds.
Tanner flops into his chair, holds up a hand and starts to count off the suspects on his fingers. “Oli, Kylie’s teen stepson. He has the body and strength of a man…”
Clements finishes his thought. “But the emotions and irrationality of a child. He didn’t know his stepmum was a bigamist, but he did know she was having an affair. It’s possible he did something rash. Something extreme that is hard to come back from.”
“Then there’s the creepy concierge in the swanky apartment block.”
“Alfonzo.”
“Yeah, he might be our culprit.”
Clements considers it. “He has access to all the flats, the back stairs, the CCTV.”
“He’s already admitted that he deleted the CCTV from the day Kylie was abducted. He said that footage isn’t kept more than twenty-four hours unless an incident of some kind is reported. Apparently the residents insist on this for privacy. It might be true. It might be just convenient.”
Clements nods. “And then there’s Fiona Phillipson. The best friend.”
“Bloody hell. We have more suspects than an Agatha Christie novel,” says Tanner with a laugh that is designed to hide how overwhelmed and irritated he feels. His nose squashed up against shadowy injustice, cruel violence and deception.
“Right.”
“I still think the husband did it.”
“Which one?”
“Crap. Round and round in circles we go.” He scratches his head aggressively. “Do you want me to order in pizza? It’s going to be a long night.”
“Is anyone still doing deliveries? I don’t think they are,” points out Clements. “You know, lockdown.”
“Crap,” he says again, and then rallies. “Crisps and chocolate from the vending machine then. We’ll need something to sustain us while we work out where Kylie is.”
Clements smiles to herself. It’s the first time in a long time that Tanner has referred to Kylie by name, not as “her” or “the bigamist” or, worse, “the body.” It feels like an acceptance of a possibility that she might be somewhere. Somewhere other than dead and gone.
Did she somehow, against the odds, escape? Is Kylie Gillingham—the woman who dared to defy convention, the woman who would not accept limits and laughed in the face of conformity—still out there, somehow just being?
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
“When Dad had been sentenced, I had been orphaned, practically and emotionally, at a much younger age than I had anticipated being parentless. I had been thrust into a new phase of life, a lonely phase, an unguided phase, which was both terrifying and oddly liberating.”
PLOT SUMMARY:
Morgan always knew her father, Owen, never murdered her mother, and has spent the last six years campaigning for his release from prison. Finally he is set free, but they can no longer live in the house that was last decorated by her mother’s blood. Salvation comes in the form of a tall, dark and notorious decorative granite tower on the Cornish coastline known only as ‘The Folly’. The owner makes them an offer: take care of the Folly, and you can live there. It’s an offer too good to refuse.
At first the Folly is idyllic, but soon a stranger arrives who acts like Morgan’s mother, talks like her mother, and wears her dead mother’s clothes. Is this stranger hell-bent on vengeance, in touch with her restless mother’s spirit itself, or simply just deranged? And, most importantly, what exactly happened the night Morgan’s mother died?
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
I usually enjoy Amor’s books, and this was no exception. I got invested really fast to the daughter/father relationship, especially since it explored a strained relationship caused by the father having been in jail for the murder of her mother for many years. However, Morgan never believed he was at fault. But once they begin to live at The Folly – a residence near a coastal town, strange things begin to happen. Morgan can’t figure out if her mother is trying to contact her through the possession of a stranger, or if the stranger is simply trying to mess with them. Family secrets left buried come to the surface and it changes everything. I liked this take on possession and I personally love it when someone can make a perfectly “happy-sounding” song creepy such as in the case of Abba’s Waterloo.
This was a fast read (because of impeccable pacing and short nature) so if you’re looking for a novella that explores father/daughter relationships, the meaning of family, grief, and a new take on possession then I recommend you pick this up as it’ll be the perfect read for you!
*Thank you so much to the author for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
SUNDAY, October 15—Multiple people have been reported dead at the Van Ness Winery after an altercation late Saturday night, our Eyewitness Team reports. Police were dispatched around 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning after a 9-1-1 call from the estate’s main house, but they were delayed hours getting to the scene because of the torrential rainstorm that flooded Rte. 8 and many of the small roads leading up to the winery.
Our news team is on-site but has not been able to verify details with officials, who are still investigating the scene. It appears the damaged substation in Parnell affected power to the estate as well as a number of neighboring homes and businesses in the Finger Lakes area.
This tragedy is the latest to befall the Van Ness family, whose matriarch, investor and philanthropist Katrina Van Ness, died earlier this year of pancreatic cancer at the age of sixty-eight.
The Van Ness winery, known for producing high-quality, award-winning wines, has been owned by the Van Ness family for several generations. The family started the business in the 1950s, after selling their Arizona-based copper mining company founded by Benson Van Ness. The 985- acre winery and estate is now managed by the Van Ness siblings, who live full-time in New York City. Their family investment office owns interests in multiple different real estate holdings and industrial and manufacturing enterprises. The siblings are believed to have been visiting the estate for the weekend for a family celebration.
We will report more as details are confirmed.
THURSDAY
Two Days before the Party
LAUREN
Ever since Zach told me about The Weekend, it’s all I’ve been able to focus on. Most people would naturally be at least a little nervous to meet their significant other’s family for the first time.
But most people aren’t dating a Van Ness.
“Earth to Lauren.” Zach snaps his fingers, grinning over at me. He left work early to get on the road sooner and didn’t have time to change, so he’s still wearing his suit, purple tie slightly askew but knotted even after hours of driving.
“Sorry,” I say, tugging the ends of my hair. “Zoning out.”
“You look like I’m driving you to your death,” he says, then grabs my hand and squeezes. “Don’t worry. I promise it’ll be fun. Even if my family’s there.”
All I can see out my window are trees and fields and cows, my cell phone bars ticking steadily down. We must be close. Zach is taking care on the steep, curvy roads. One bad turn could send our car into a deep ditch or crashing into a thick tree trunk.
It’s so beautiful up there, my best friend Maisie said when I told her about the invitation. She had that wicked look in her eye. All the rolling hills. A vineyard. Starry sky. Super romantic. Perfect place to propose. My stomach flips at the thought, and I breathe in deep. This weekend is not about us. It’s a birthday party for Zach’s older siblings, Harper and Richard, the twins, an annual tradition to celebrate at the family’s winery. I can’t get ahead of myself.
We drive up a winding gravel road, through patches of dense trees. Taller ones have already gone barren for the winter, but some of the smaller trees arch over the road, their branches meeting and entangling like fingers, blotting out the remaining light.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching the famous Van Ness estate,” Zach says in a booming voice as the car’s headlights flick on. “Please, no photographs, and keep all hands and feet inside the moving vehicle at all times.”
Zach had told me the estate was large—a thousand acres— but I didn’t grasp what that meant until the tunnel of trees ends and the view opens to a sprawling expanse of green fields and rolling hills, stretching endlessly against the purple-hued sky. We cross a small stone bridge that extends over a stream, then bump along a rocky road. The vineyards creep closer to us now, eerie in their precise organization, each plant in a perfect row. We’re inching toward winter, and all the grapes must have already been picked for the season, pressed and bottled, because the vines are bare and withered.
When I first moved to New York and waited tables at an Italian restaurant, we served the Van Ness wine. I remember those dark purple labels, the name stamped big and bold on the front. A brand that said, We are too good for you. But Zach is nothing like that, like the Van Nesses you read about online. Sometimes I forget he’s part of that family in the day-to-day rhythm of our lives. He doesn’t talk about them much, offers the scantest of information, or cracks a joke, or completely changes the subject when I bring them up. All I know of them is from the press, fleeting and superficial, like the pages of a glossy magazine, but hazy enough that I can imagine slicing open my finger on the sharp edges if I’m not careful.
“Tell me about them,” I say now, when there’s no evading the topic.
He glances over at me. “My family? What more do you need to know?”
“I don’t know. How can I win them over so they all love me forever and ever?” I say, trying to hide my nerves.
He laughs. “They’re impossible to win over.”
“Oh perfect,” I say. “That makes it easy then.”
“Nah, they aren’t that bad. They’re…particular is all.”
We head up a slight incline. To the right, there’s a gravel path marked Private—Staff Only. We pass it and stop in front of a large metal gate. Zach rolls down his window, fetches a key card from the glove compartment. “We had this installed years ago for extra security,” he says. Once the machine reads his card, the gates swing open soundlessly. I turn to watch them rotate back and slam into place.
As we round a corner, I finally catch a glimpse of the house, a stone mansion, stoic on the hill. The long driveway curves up to an overhang in front, flanked by a series of round potted trees.
“Here we are,” says Zach as we pull up. He shuts off the car, taps the digital clock on the dashboard. “And on time for dinner, too. Elle will be pleased.”
My stomach does another flip.
Breathe deep.
Project confidence.
They’re going to love you.
I get out. The air is chilly—it’s dropped at least ten degrees since we left the city. I wrap my arms across my body.
The massive wooden front door opens, and an older man walks out, gray hair and beard, a deep purple polo shirt with the Van Ness logo stitched on the pocket, two flutes of sparkling wine in his hands.
“Bill! You are the man.” Zach trades him the keys to the car for the glasses. “Lauren, Bill and his wife Linnet have been taking care of the estate—and us—since I was a snotty-nosed kid.”
As Bill heads for the trunk to unload our baggage, I survey the house. My eyes follow the three short steps up to a wide entryway with pillars, to the archway above the door, and then outward to the wings on either side. Greenery climbs up the stonework between the windows, and I imagine Bill must trim it often to keep it so nice. I touch a pillar next to me and feel its cool smoothness.
“Where’s everyone else?” Zach asks Bill. For him, this is business as usual. I doubt he even notices the grandness anymore.
“Oh, they’re around,” he says. “Miss Elle says dinner at 6:30, and you can all meet in the library.”
I smooth down the gold silk top Zach picked out for me, hugging and hiding in all the right places, like expensive clothes do. What would my parents say if they saw me? They would never guess I’d be weekending with a famous family like this. They never thought I’d make it in New York, thought I’d come crawling back begging to return to my night shift writing obituaries at our small-town paper.
But I’m never going back.
I take a sip of the sparkling wine. The bubbles pop, cold and hard against the back of my throat.
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
“That’s her,” the driver yelled to the three men waiting in the rear of the transit van.
He pointed a gloved finger in the direction of a slender woman walking along the sidewalk up ahead.
“You sure?” a gruff voice asked. “It’s pretty dark out there.”
The driver was very sure. He’d watched carefully as his target walked with purpose in her high heels. He recalled her appearance an hour earlier as she made her way up a stainless-steel pole before slowly, seductively descending.
“Yeah, man,” he replied. “You don’t forget a pretty little ass like that in a hurry, even from this distance.”
He was confident their mark was completely oblivious to her impending fate. She stopped suddenly, searching for something that was seemingly wedged in her clutch bag; the streetlamps and neon shop signs illuminated the glitter in her hair. The driver lifted his foot slightly from the accelerator and dipped the headlights as he continued to stalk his prey. Meanwhile, his colleagues slipped black balaclavas over their heads and adjusted their bodies into position—one knelt with his hand gripping the door lever, ready to open it on command; another held plastic restraints, and the third clasped a hunting knife with a serrated blade.
“Ready?” the driver asked. They grunted in unison.
The van sped up, but not so fast as to throw the hunters from the positions they’d rehearsed earlier that day. Then, as it pulled up alongside the woman, the door flew open and the first of her assailants sprang out.
The man with the restraints was the first to reel backward into the vehicle as a bullet from her revolver tore its way through his shoulder blade, taking fragments of collarbone with it.
For a split second, the flash from the gun’s muzzle illuminated the van’s interior as she pinpointed two more would-be assailants poised to drag her inside. Twice more she pulled the trigger; twice more she heard the men screaming. The driver remained rooted to his seat, baffled by how off-kilter their mission had suddenly gone. They had been so confident of its success that there was no Plan B.
“Go, man, go!” yelled a desperate voice as another bullet found its target.
Tires squealed as the van lurched forward, veering across the median and then crisscrossing back toward the sidewalk.
A combination of adrenaline and fury propelled the woman to kick off her heels and run after it, firing twice more and shattering its rear windshield. The vehicle clipped an LA Times newsstand, hurling newspapers into the air; they fell like large chunks of confetti.
She fired one last time, but the van had already corrected itself and sped off out of range. Then she watched in horror as that final shot sent a stranger up ahead, carrying a backpack, sprawling face forward onto the pavement.
Time froze as the consequences of her last reckless bullet resonated.
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.
PLOT SUMMARY:
It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone―including her blandly docile husband and two kids―falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.
The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails―the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.
GRADE: C-
REVIEW:
This book had a thrilling premise, a haunted villa in Tuscany and being trapped with family members who dislike you. That already sounded like a horror story ready to happen. I didn’t mind the first 20% of this book, but being Italian, there were many inaccuracies that I couldn’t overlook. I didn’t mind when Anna, the American protagonist spoke Italian like Google Translate, however, when the author had a two hundred year Florentine ghost speak Italian in the same way, I simply couldn’t stay focused on the story. Not to mention that the author doesn’t realize that Italy is culturally vastly different between the northern and southern regions. What this means is that there’s no way someone in Florence is using cornicelli amulets to ward off the evil eye when that is a very Southern Italian superstition that you won’t see past Rome. Not to mention that I disliked most of the characters in this book, including the protagonist (what annoyed me about her is that she returns to New York with the ghost following her home and she doesn’t act scared shitless as any normal person would be, but rather is cracking jokes at it). I really couldn’t enjoy this book for all of those reasons, and maybe if you’re not Italian, you won’t pick up all the inaccuracies that I did and might like this better, but for me, this was a complete pass. The author can write, but clearly, she or Tor Nightfire were sleeping at the wheel when it came to backing up her research.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
On Asher Lane, some secrets are worth killing for……
CHAPTER 1
A fat, heavy tear trickles down my cheek when I yank the final hair from my left areola, and it’s not even twelve seconds after I exchange my tweezer for the disposable razor I grifted from Reggie’s top drawer that blood is gushing down the inside of my thigh. I pause at the shocking appearance of crimson and immediately wonder if this laceration is punishment for being impatient or an indictment of my anti-feminism. Part of me thinks hustling to shave the stray hairs that still stubbornly sprout along my bikini line, despite the six agonizing laser removal sessions I’ve suffered through, is a reflection of how deeply I’ve internalized the particular brand of misogyny that says any hair below the brows on a woman is gross and revolting, and the fact that I’m doing this for a man, not myself, is in itself gross and revolting. I’ve also already chugged sixteen ounces of pineapple juice this morning, for obvious reasons.
The other part of me thinks it’s complete bullshit, that being hyper hygienic and having a general disdain for visible body hair is simply considerate, because feminism and a preference for hairlessness shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. I don’t actually think Reggie has ever noticed the hairs on my tits, or even the splattering on my toes that I compulsively remove once a week,
so in a way maybe I am actually plucking the hair from my nipples for my own aesthetic appreciation, not because of the patriarchy, and my feminism is not actually in jeopardy at all.
My dad used to get on me all the time for fixating on tiny, inconsequential details, a habit I no doubt inherited from my mom. But I really am torn about whether I should be judging myself or just owning the part of my personality that is unapologetically vain as I glance at my phone again to see if Reggie has gotten back to my three where r u and did u leave yet and you’re still coming, right? texts, which is what I was doing when I slashed myself in the first place.
There is no reply.
No ellipsis to show he’s typing.
I sigh because I can’t remember the last time my thigh has felt even a trickle. Granted, the deep red liquid heading toward the marble tile is vastly less pleasant than the warm ropes that Reggie sometimes sends down my adductor, or wherever I request, but it’s warm and sticky just like it, and in the most bizarre way, watching it drizzle down my skin turns me on a little. After checking my phone again to no avail, I bandage the nick on my leg and toss the razor, assuming Reggie is already packed in a subway car like a sardine. He is not ghosting me. He is not cheating on me. He just doesn’t have reception and can’t write back yet.
Another thing my dad is constantly grumbling about, usually while he scans the days’ headlines in the Star-Ledger I bring him every Sunday, is how highly intelligent people can convince themselves of really dumb shit. So there’s that.
I look myself over, naked except for the fresh bandage and the glint of gold around my neck, and wish I could see myself the way Reggie sees me. I notice the flaws first. The blemishes. The discoloration. The faded scars I still have from childhood. He notices everything he likes and never has time to consider that I could even potentially see a single flaw in my own body because his hands and mouth are always busy pawing and sucking before he has the chance. Well, that’s how it used to be. Before Goldstein & Wagner claimed his soul. Now I think his perpetual delirium from the lack of sleep gives him a soft-focus gaze and that’s why he thinks I’m so hot.
Most of my dresses are of the silky, shapeless variety, but the one I pick for tonight is also obscenely short, more reminiscent of a chemise than a dinner garment, something I would never wear out alone. But whatever I wear has to pull its weight tonight. My period is two days away and Reggie squirms even at the idea of a speck of blood. I’m virtually celibate five days every month because even bloody hand jobs freak him out, but he does run to Duane Reade without complaint whenever I’m almost out of tampons and always grabs the right box depending on my flow, so it balances out. He’s put in at least ten hours at the firm today, but I’m totally down for doing all the work to get us both off, so yes, this is the dress, and I’m going to make sure he orders something light with plenty of green on his plate so he doesn’t get the itis on the ride back to my place.
Still, as much as I am craving tongue and hands and a long, indulgent dicking down to sustain me while my ovaries wreak havoc, I would happily handle it myself once he’s asleep and take a couple hours of slow, deep conversation instead. A little shit talking, but mostly watching him eat, and laughing the way we used to back when we first met, when he was finishing the last leg of law school and had a fraction of the responsibilities he does now. I try not to romanticize the days when we were fresh and new, because it was fresh and new and so of course it was fucking romantic, but I’m human and can only look back on the inception of our relationship through a halcyon lens.
My apartment is a microscopic studio in a freshly gentrified Bed-Stuy, all I can afford on my own with my salary, which, five hundred miles toward the center of the continent, could get me a mortgage on a cute starter home. It can feel claustrophobic with more than two people inside it at once, but when it’s just me here, it’s perfect. The galley kitchen is at the front and my bed is made semiprivate by the two white open-shelf bookcases I have packed with too many books, some vintage with gorgeous, battered spines, most pre-loved before I got my hands on them. Reggie thinks I have a problem since I’ve lost count of how many I have and because I have dozens more books littered around the four-hundred-square-foot place. He had the nerve to toss around the h word once. I deadfished him that night, and he never used it again. Though if I’m being objective, there is barely a flat space that isn’t occupied by at least one paperback, but that’s only because I am an actual slut for an aesthetic floppy copy of almost anything. Reggie doesn’t get it. He thinks hardbacks are supreme, and I think it’s tied to the fragility of his masculinity somehow, especially since he’s barely a recreational reader, which makes his opinion hardly justified. Then again, I’m a fiend for his dick when it’s floppy too, so maybe I’m the one with a complex.
I run through my standard series of poses using my floor-length mirror to check how far I can lean over without flashing my nipples or my ass, and frown at my visible panty line. They’re seamless, allegedly, but I can see the faint indent where they grip my skin beneath the delicate fabric of my dress. I step out of them and shuffle through my top drawer for a much less conspicuous thong, but then shut it empty-handed and decide that it’s fine, Reggie has had a long week and it’s only Tuesday. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the surprise.
I’m ten pages away from knocking another contrived, predictable thriller written by a man that swears the narrative is feminist but comes off glaringly misogynistic off my TBR by the time I hear the jingle of Reggie’s keys outside the door to my unit. I toss the book aside without dog-earing my current page, though I feel an instant pang of regret and swing my legs off the arm of my couch as I reach for my phone to see what time it is. It’s been two hours since I gashed my leg. I wait for the door to fly open and brace myself to be seen, for his jaw to drop when he sees me.
But nothing happens.
Reggie doesn’t push in. I don’t hear that jingle anymore.
Before I fully convince myself that I’m suffering from hallucinations courtesy of my surge of pre-menstruation hormones, I straighten out my dress and cross the space to glance through the peephole and be sure. Reggie is on the other side, head bent over, his thumbs beating away at his phone’s screen, whatever email he’s writing taking precedence over our date. Envy erupts like a geyser inside me.
It’s hard to stay pissed at him once I swing the door open and look him over without the distorting view of the peephole. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing his forearms that are corded with thick veins, the left one covered in a massive tribal tattoo I still don’t know the meaning of. So slutty of him. His tie is loosened around his neck, but not all the way undone, and I can still smell the remnants of whatever soap he showered with this morning.
“Hey.” He hasn’t looked up yet. “Sorry I didn’t hit you back. I was swamped.”
I don’t reply, will not dignify anything he says with a response until he properly acknowledges me and all the work I put in to look edible for him tonight. He finally hits send and lifts his chin, a guilty smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. I don’t know why, with all this pent-up anticipation, his double take at my dress still makes me blush, and I sort of resent that part of me. Though, at the same time, it feels good to be taken in like this.
“Thought you said seven thirty,” I say, fighting to not sound too accusatory, but it’s not much of a battle since the way he’s checking me out is softening me right up like a stick of butter in a microwave.
His eyes are moving quickly, like they are being pulled downward by some invisible force. “This new?”
He reaches for my amorphous dress, his touch rough enough for me to worry about the preservation of its barely-there straps.
“Figured you’d like it,” I say.
I would have much preferred an immediate and sincere apology for keeping me waiting, but I relinquish my simmering irritation and let him feel me up as I lean in to give him a kiss. He settles a hand on the small of my back, definitely wanting me closer, wanting more, but I pull away before he gets too distracted by the dessert and no longer has an appetite for the meal.
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
Can she rewrite the fate of women who came before her?
Prologue
Last night I dreamt I went to Malibu again.
I stood barefoot on the sand, the cool water nipping at my ankles. And there, high above me, perched on the edge of that magnificent cliff, his stunning house sat as it once had, alive, whole. It had ten bedrooms and was on three private cliffside acres, with a lap pool, a tennis court, and a garden blooming flush with pink and white bougainvillea. But from the beach down below all I could see was its long wall of privacy-tinted glass windows, slanting out toward the sea.
He could see me here, out on the beach. I was certain he could, even in my dream.
He was still behind those windows, watching my every step. Though I couldn’t see him. The glass was one-way. But I imagined him there behind the glass so vividly, it had to be real.
Until it wasn’t. Until the heat from the flames would shatter all the windows, break them apart, send smoke spewing from the piano room, down the cliff, evaporating in wisps into the lonely Pacific.
But in my dream, the flames hadn’t existed yet. Or, maybe they never would. He and his house were there, watching me. Wanting me. Haunting me.
“Come back!” His voice was a desperate echo, my undoing. The smoke was so thick, even out on the beach I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t breathe.
So that’s why I did it, in my dream. I turned away from the house, and I walked into the bone-chilling water. It was so cold, it numbed me, but I walked into the sea, up to my shoulders, my neck, my chin. Until I could no longer smell the smoke or hear his voice.
And then my entire head was underwater, and the tide was strong. It sucked me in, held me there.
But I wasn’t trying to drown. I really wasn’t. I was merely trying to escape the fire.
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
Ana and Reid need a break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling―with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia, but he can’t explain the needle-like bite marks on their baby.
GRADE: B+
REVIEW:
Right off the bat, you get Rosemary’s Baby vibes from the very first chapter – but if you have read Riley Sager’s Lock Every Door, then you’ll also feel like the gargoyles are vaguely familiar (although here they have a bigger role).
Ana and Reid with their baby Charlie, win some kind of apartment lottery and happen to get one at one of the most luxurious buildings in Manhattan – however there’s a catch 22, as the building is rumored to have brought upon much bad luck to the tenants that live there. The building is wrapped in mystery as not many books are written about it, safe for one that Reid finds in a used book store that he quickly becomes obsessed with.
The novel is gripping, chilling, and with a very unexpected ending (although I do love that Cassidy went down the route he did). Nestlings captures you with a claustrophobic clutch and doesn’t let go until you reach the very end. My only tiny gripe with the novel is that between the major reveal and the end, it kinda began to move slower, but I kept on reading because I wanted to know how it would end for these characters.
This a must-read if you love creepy horror, verging on the terrifying. The images are really dark, and at times downright sickening – which I loved, so if you’re into that sort of horror you will love this too.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
More specifically, she’d had one (or three) too many the night before. So instead of falling asleep on her bed, she was lying on the couch with a paperback book as a makeshift pillow. Her legs were tucked up in the fetal position inside her billowy dress. And as she licked her lips, she tasted vodka and fried chicken, which she didn’t remember drinking or eating.
She attempted to open her eyes, but her lashes stuck together from the makeup she’d forgotten to remove the night before. With the help of her index finger and thumb, she managed to peel one lid open. White-hot summer light poured in through the arched living-room window and her mint green walls, a color she’d specifically chosen for its soothing properties, were mockingly chipper.
But even more unsettling was the book on the coffee table directly in front of her, Whisked Away. Sophie’s first published book. She closed her one good eye and wished she’d never opened it.
Her mom had always dreamed about Sophie filling an entire bookshelf with all her titles, the years of working multiple day jobs while tinkering on romance books finally worth the struggle. But, as it turned out, Whisked Away would be Sophie’s one and only book. Had she known she’d be a one-hit wonder, she wouldn’t have ordered the little placard for her writing desk: Ask Me about My Tropes.
The worst part was that she had sold a follow-up book—or, at least, a pitch plus the first three chapters—but she hadn’t been able to finish The Love Drought (a title so tragically similar to her own personal problems that it made her cringe). She’d been given multiple extensions but missed all of them. And, per her contract, her publisher had the right to terminate their deal if those deadlines weren’t met. But no matter how many drafts she started, Sophie couldn’t find her way to the happily ever after that all romance books promised and that she loved.
The phone call with her agent started with We need to talk… and ended with You have six weeks to finish this book or your contract, plus the advance, will be taken back.
She’d spent most of that advance, though, along with the royalty checks that grew smaller and smaller as interest in her last book waned. She needed money from turning in the next book if she wanted to continue paying for things like food or a place to stay.
She should’ve seen the implosion coming. Her horoscope had warned that the entire month of June would be bad for important communication. But the damage was done: Sophie was a romance author with writer’s block, and in six weeks’ time, she’d lose her publishing deal.
So she’d done the only thing she knew would make her feel better: called Poppy. And her best friend had suggested a night out at their favorite downtown karaoke bar to drown away the loud whir of failure.
She cautiously sat up, then settled her feet into the woven jute rug. Her legs were as firm as Jell-O when she stood. Still, she managed to make it to the hallway mirror, where she saw that her normally side-swept curtain bangs had morphed into Medusa, snakelike tendrils across her forehead, and she had more flakes on her face than her pet goldfish had in his bowl.
She cringed. Rain Boots. Her goldfish was twelve years old and the longest relationship she’d ever had. She planted her hand on the wall for support and shuffled over to her bedroom where a large glass fishbowl sat on her bedside table. Rain Boots swam in the exact middle and blinked at Sophie with large accusatory eyes.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Sophie croaked out. “I know we have our bedtime routine, but Mommy got horribly drunk.”
She tapped the glass with her index finger and waited for a response, but none came. Eventually the silence broke when her doorbell loudly ding-donged and caused her to jump in surprise. The next, and bigger, surprise came when she made her way to the front door and saw her landlord waiting on the porch.
Dash Montrose wasn’t a tall man, but he had presence. Part of that was because he always seemed to be fidgeting—tapping his fingers, shifting his feet, or pacing slightly—but also, he had thick arms with swirling, inky-black tattoos.
It’s not that Sophie had stared at those arms in prior instances but…well, yeah, she probably had.
Still, her first instinct was to hide behind the couch because what the hell was Dash doing there? She and Dash lived next door to each other, but they were not close. In fact, Dash hardly ever acknowledged her existence. He lived in the large house tucked behind her bungalow, but he was always walking away in some kind of a hurry. If she waved, he only ever nodded back. She didn’t think he was intentionally being a jerk, but he clearly had no interest in interacting with her. They hadn’t spoken actual words to each other in at least a few months. She Venmoed him the rent, and sometimes he left a thumbs-up in response. That was the extent of it.
But there he was, in jeans and a T-shirt. What could he want? Did he somehow know her funds were about to run out and he was preemptively evicting her? Sophie avoided confrontation at all costs, but she couldn’t run away from him, not when his face was pressed against the window of her door and he was peering directly at her. She clutched her arms across her chest, extremely aware that she was still dressed in her clothes from the night before, as she made her way to him.
When she opened the door, she was hit not only with the heat from the high sun above but by the sight of Dash’s wet hair slicked around his face. Water trickled down his neck and splotched his faded shirt, like he’d come straight over from a shower. Which meant a few minutes prior he’d been totally naked, covered in soap and water and…
“Hey, uh, whoa.” His voice cut through Sophie’s thoughts. When she glanced up, Dash gave her an uneasy expression, then gestured down the length of her. “What happened…”
She never left the house without a minimum of tinted moisturizer, but of course Dash came on the one day where she closely resembled a Madame Tussauds wax statue melting in the sun. Sophie gently swiped her index finger under her eye, and it came back coated in black liner. Excellent.
“Vodka happened,” she muttered.
She rubbed the liner between her fingers. Something was wrong. Mercury must’ve been in retrograde. If thirteen-year old Sophie had known that she would be renting a place from Dash Montrose—former teen heartthrob movie star turned still hunky landlord—and he was seeing her hungover…she’d be even more embarrassed than she already was. And she’d probably also be delighted. Because Sophie had maaaybe had a photo of him from a magazine cover on her wall when she was growing up. His film Happy Now? was her all-time favorite movie.
She absolutely did not have a crush on adult Dash, though. Well, he was undeniably hot. No point in glossing over that thick, dirty-blond hair, the dimple in his chin, or any of the other tatted-up details. But he was Poppy’s brother and so off-limits that Sophie had built a wall around Dash in her mind. Though bits of the wall appeared to crumble at the sight of his strong jaw and the dark circles under his eyes that made him all the more mysterious to her.
“Poppy asked me to come check on you. She said you weren’t answering your phone.” He glanced behind her, as if searching for a potential thief holding her cell hostage.
“My Poppy?” Sophie had worked at Poppy’s spa, Glow, for years—one of the many day jobs she’d had before quitting to write full-time. Though, now that she had endless writer’s block, she might have to beg for her old job back.
“She’s my sister, so she’s technically our Poppy.” His hands landed in the pockets of his jeans.
Sophie looked behind her to where the phone usually was, and blessedly, while she’d been drunk enough to use a book as a pillow, she’d been just sober enough to plug in her phone. She rubbed at one of her throbbing temples and walked over to her desk, grabbed her phone, then held down the power button and watched the white icon flash back.
As she waited for the phone to boot up, she walked back toward Dash.
“Okay, she wants me to tell you that there’s a video of you going viral?” Dash gestured to his phone, which made his forearm flex and Sophie’s eyes widen in response.
She tried to process what he’d said. She needed an intense boost of caffeine—maybe a matcha—to be able to comprehend the words coming out of his mouth. “A video?”
“I don’t know, she said you needed to see it. And that I needed to make sure you saw it.” He shrugged, but the small motion lifted the edge of his shirt up just enough for Sophie to catch a glimpse of his boxers.
Sophie didn’t want to be impolite—Dash was Poppy’s older brother, after all—but what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t so much as look at a candle shop without rushing in to buy one. Dash was the male equivalent of fresh beeswax. She was definitely staring.
Just then, her phone erupted in a series of pings, vibrations, and what sounded like one deafening goose honk. If she owned pearls, she’d be clutching the hell out of them. The screen filled with notifications—emails, texts, missed calls, and push notifications from Instagram—but she pulled up Poppy’s text conversation first.
Soph, are you up?
It’s 10. You never sleep this late.
I’m at work, ARE YOU OK
I’m sending Dash over.
YOU’RE NOT DEAD! YIPPEE!
OK, here’s the vid. Don’t freak out!
Dash’s phone pinged too, he looked down, then sighed. “Did you get it?” He sounded a little irritated.
Sophie frowned at the blurry thumbnail of a woman, but clicked the link, which sent her to the TikTok app. Then, almost immediately, she saw herself reflected on the screen. The video was taken at the karaoke bar, and Sophie was the main event. She stood onstage as the undeniable background music to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” played. She had requested that song, hadn’t she? The small pieces of her lost-memory puzzle began to click into place.
Only, in the video, she was sobbing, with tears running down her cheeks, as she gazed wild-eyed into the crowd. Poppy ran onto the stage and attempted to coax Sophie off, but Sophie grabbed the mic and shouted, “I’ve never been in love, okay?!” Her voice so angry and vehement that she appeared to be deranged. The person holding the phone zoomed in at that exact moment to capture Sophie’s grimace as she shrieked out, “Love isn’t real!” Then Poppy yanked the mic out of Sophie’s hand and dropped it for her. End of video.
“Stop, stop, stop!” The words screeched out of her as she furiously poked the screen to try and delete the video. Then she remembered this was not her video—someone else had uploaded it. Eventually, her eyes drifted down to the caption, which read Relatable! The video had over two hundred thousand views and thirty thousand likes.
“Oh my holy hot hell.” She was a writer but could not think of any other words in that moment. Her mind raced at the thought of hundreds of thousands of people watching her have a public meltdown and liking it.
Normally, Sophie was an optimist, but after the last twenty-four hours, she was beginning to understand the appeal of pessimism. Her hand instinctively went to her chest and her fingers tap-tap-tapped at her pacemaker—something she always did to steady herself—as she scrolled through the comments and saw that not one but multiple people had recognized her.
Sophie Lyon is FUN
Sophie Lyon is secretly unhinged and it’s sending me
I hated her book, but I like this?
“Just breathe.” Then Dash’s hand was on her back, steady and warm, which momentarily distracted her, but not for long.
The heat outside had intensified to Palm Springs–level boiling and caused Sophie to break out in either hives or a rash. She furiously clawed at her throat with her free hand. She walked away from Dash and down the porch steps. Her bare feet hit the cool blades of grass in her yard, and when she looked up, the iconic Hollywood sign perched in the Santa Monica Mountains shined pearly white in the distance. Seeing those letters from her yard every morning used to make her feel closer to the success she so deeply craved, but now she felt buried under the weight of its implied expectations.
She stumbled, and Dash was next to her within seconds, holding her steady. He grabbed her elbow with one hand, and the other wrapped around her waist to cup her hip. His skin was warm against her, even through her dress. Her stomach flipped, probably from the lingering alcohol. “Sophie, you really need to sit. You look like you’re about to faint—”
The sound of her phone pinging cut him off. And when she looked down, a familiar name flashed across the screen. Carla. Sophie stopped scratching her throat. Her ex. The woman who had single-handedly led her on for close to a year. A year in which Sophie could feel herself beginning to fall head over heels, and then… Carla had ended it and dragged their relationship to the trash. Sophie stared at Carla’s name, and the text underneath, which read Saw the video… As in her ex had seen the video of Sophie having a full-on meltdown.
It was at this moment that she tilted her head back, let the punishing sun burn her eyes, and shouted as loudly as she physically could. When she eventually stopped screaming, her head felt light. The edges of her vision blurred with the realization that she had nothing left, her life was over, and she was completely mortified.
“Seriously, Sophie? My ears are ringing.”
Sophie was so focused on her own humiliation that she must’ve forgotten that Dash was right there.
“Are you on something?” Dash asked.
Sophie frowned. No, she was not on something. She may have been braless, hungover, and hanging by a thread emotionally, but what kind of an accusation was that?
And even if she were on ayahuasca and beginning to see rainbow caticorns encircling her feet—which sounded great, actually—what she did with her body was absolutely none of his business. She paid her rent on time. This was her place. He was the one who’d come bounding over, all wet and wearing a too-tight shirt, and now he had the nerve to suggest she was the one out of line?
She would tell Dash that he needed to leave. But when she opened her mouth to say as much, she felt the bile rise in her throat. Her eyes bulged wide as she closed her mouth and held back something akin to a burp. Dash clocked her panic, and his eyes narrowed. She shook her head, but there was no use. She was definitely going to hurl all over her high-school celebrity crush. And without even being able to call out a warning, she projectile-vomited all over Dash.
DID YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU JUST READ? IF YES, THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, GIVE THE POST A LIKE, OR LEAVE A COMMENT! NEW POSTS ARE UP EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY!
The Inkblotters 