“The taint is upon you. You can run, but never hide. Evil will find you.”
PLOT SUMMARY:
Aspiring musician Ruby Tucker has had enough of her small rural town and dysfunctional family. But a falling out with her best friend and bandmate has killed her dreams of escaping and making it big in the Atlanta punk scene.
While helping her eccentric neighbor organize his religious artifacts, an ancient ring clamps down on her finger—possessing her with the spirit of a blood-thirsty demon. There’s no exorcizing it unless hundreds of people chant a spell to set Ruby free. And what’s worse, the ring is a beacon for evil, drawing an unimaginably wicked mob straight to Ruby, hungry for her flesh.
If Ruby can get her band back together, she has a shot at salvation. It’s time for her to face the music and put her whole soul into a song—one powerful enough to raise some Hell.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
This was such a fun read! By fun I mean that it was adventurous (there was a road trip) and filled with awesome friendships and some incredibly scary scenes! Ruby is looking after an older gentleman when she gets caught up in the occult. The older gentleman is posed with trying to destroy a ring that causes people to be possessed by an evil entity, but when looking through the old man’s artifacts one day, Ruby becomes intrigued by a ring and the moment she puts it on, she can no longer remove it.
The only person who can help her is in Atlanta, which coincidentally is also where her best friend moved to a year ago – so Ruby decides to go. In between all of this, she is possessed but also trying to not give in to the evil that’s starting to brew in her.
And if that wasn’t enough, a serial killer is also on their trail – wanting to kill Ruby because he’s grown fixated with her.
I loved how the book explored the importance and power of music and how sometimes punk rock can truly save your soul.
This was a fast paced novel told in various POV, but my favorite was Ruby’s. She was the beating heart of this novel and as much as the novel dealt with some truly dark things, I did love the comic reliefs portions of the book too. Read this if you’re into Jewish Mysticism, occult, and a new take on possession.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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The holiday season is coming up and it’s never too early to think about what gifts you’re going to give your loved ones (or if you simply want to indulge in some retail therapy for yourself!). Throughout the month of November & December I will exclusively share Black Women Owned shops – here are three that are bound to become a favorite in no time.
This web shop offers jewelry for all price ranges and tastes. Not to mention that it has very cute home décor such as prints, candles, and soap. The candles come with inspiring quotes on the packaging that is bound to put one in better spirits, while the soaps look incredibly pretty for a very affordable price of $10 and made with natural ingredients such as olive oil, shea butter, and coconut oil.
This Etsy shop is filled with delicious fragrances and body oils for a very affordable price. You can choose from yummy scents like Strawberry Milk, Vanilla Fluff, and Salted Butterscotch. A definite alternative to Bath & Body Works scents that smell just as yummy and made with natural ingredients.
Satisfiction is a bi-monthly book box that includes science fiction and fantasy books written by BIPOC authors paired with pampering items to go along with the reading experience. If you love books or you have a book lover in your life, this is the perfect gift for them!
Instagram: @satisfictionbox
Photos taken from Instagram.
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Ivory’s life changes irrevocably when she discovers the body of Cabrina Brite on the sands of Cape Morning, along with a mysterious poem. How did she die, and why does it seem she was trying to swim to Ghost Cat Island, the center of so many local mysteries?
Desperate to uncover the answers surrounding Cabrina’s death, and haunted by her discovery, Ivory begins to see the pale ghost of Cabrina, only to shake it off as a mere hallucination. But Ivory is not alone. Cabrina’s closest friends have also seen a similar apparition, and as they toy with occult possibilities, they begin to unravel the truth behind Cabrina’s death.
Because Cape Morning isn’t a ghost town, but a town filled with ghosts, and Ivory is about to discover just what happens when you let one in.
GRADE: A-
REVIEW:
This isn’t your typical vampire novel – Piper brings new lore and a fresh take to the undead and I’m here for it. It’s visceral and raw as it explores the theme of identity. Cape Morning is a small island with not many residents. Tourists flock the island during the summer months, but in the winter the island is less populated. Ivory is a trans woman who lives by the sea, and one morning after swimming sees the body of Cabrina Brite. She soon finds herself enthralled by the mystery of what exactly happened to Cabrina and what caused her to die. The mystery is well done and what kept my interest throughout the novel. I really liked the chapters from Cabrina’s diary. Ivory pushes herself to the brink, endangering herself at times in order to seek out the truth. Then there’s Cabrina’s friends, who, grief-stricken will do anything to find out the mystery that surrounds her death too, even if it means tinkering with the occult.
There’s brutal violence, but told in a way that almost comes across as poetic. I loved how the vampires in this novel were linked to cats and the island Ghost Cat Island. This is a new vibrant take on the vampire lore, and if you love Gothic literature, the gothic vibes are at an all time high in this one. The pages are filled with a brimming rage – but will also break your heart in unexpected ways. A must-read if you love well-rounded characters, diverse horror, atmospheric horror, and can’t get enough of vampires.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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THE NIGHT OF KAMILAH VEGA AND LIAM KANE’S FIRST ENGAGEMENT PARTY
LEO VEGA ALREADY KNEW WHAT WAS IN STORE FOR HIM WHEN HE knocked on the door in front of him, but he did it anyway. The situation was too important for him to ignore.
“What?” the grumpy voice said from the other side.
“It’s me,” he said.
“I know who it is. I have a camera doorbell.” Leo could practically hear the eye roll. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m not really in the mood to talk.”
Leo knew that he had two options if he wanted to be let in: be annoying or be cajoling. There was a fifty-fifty chance with either option. It all depended on whether the person on the other side of the door was more pissed or more hurt. His best guess was pissed because of the hurt. He went for cajoling, praying it worked. “Come on. Open the door. I just want to check on you.”
There was noticeably less anger when the voice responded, “I’m fine.”
“I need to see you with my own eyes.”
A snort slash growl. He moved close and put his forehead against the door. “Please, bombón,” he said in a deep murmur. “Let me see you.”
A hiss of annoyed breath filtered through the door, but it had obviously worked.
He heard the locks being disengaged and he stepped back when the door swung open. There she stood, still in the body-hugging dress she’d worn to his sister’s disastrous engagement party. She looked almost as perfect as she had when she’d first walked in and nearly caused him to stroke out on the floor, except for one thing. All the immaculate makeup on her face was gone and her eyes were swollen and red rimmed.
He knew there was a good chance she’d push him away, but he couldn’t stop his response. He stepped into the apartment and palmed her damp cheek. “Come here.” He pulled her into a hug and was mildly surprised when she let him. “Ay, mi Sofi.”
Sofi didn’t respond, she just buried her face in his neck and squeezed him.
He tightened his hold on her and firmly told himself to ignore the way her body felt against his, but it was impossible. It always was. It had been since they were teens. Sofia Santana just did something to him on every single level. To attempt to ignore her was like trying to ignore being tased. Even if he managed to shut his thoughts down, his body wasn’t going to let him not react to the inundation of sensation.
“What happened?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. “All I could understand from a blubbering Kamilah is that you left because you’re mad at her.”
Sofi pulled back. A scowl appeared on her face. “Of course it’s all because of me, right?”
Leo frowned. “I didn’t say that. I’m just trying to understand what happened.” It was hard for him to believe that she hadn’t known about this whole fake engagement stunt either. He’d figured that she had to be in on it too. Kamilah and Sofi did everything together from the moment they met. It was often annoying to him just how close they were.
“She lied to me,” Sofi said.
“She lied to all of us,” he pointed out. He was angry about that too, but Sofi wasn’t the type to get so upset about something like this. At the end of the day Kamilah and Liam faking an engagement to keep their grandpas from selling the family businesses they wanted to run didn’t really affect Sofi that much. It wasn’t like she had a stake in either business, not like Leo did.
Sofi pushed away from him. “Not about that,” she scoffed. “I knew about that stupid shit with Liam. I warned her about that blowing up in her face, but she did it anyway.” Leo suddenly remembered something else that had come up. Something that had affected Sofi. “You didn’t know she’d turned down the scholarship in Paris,” he concluded. Kamilah and Sofi had planned to move to Paris together after high school, but when their abuela got sick, Kamilah lied to everyone and told them she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that would have made the move possible.
Sofi actually growled in anger. “Can you believe that bullshit?” She stalked down the short hallway into her living room. “Not only did we say we were going to do that since middle school, but we had plans. Firm plans. I had a school lined up! We were looking at apartments!”
Leo could understand how that would be frustrating at the very least, more likely heartbreaking. “Why didn’t you just go anyway?”
Sofi let out a bark of unamused laughter. “Have you met my mother? You think she was going to be okay with me going to Europe by myself? She didn’t want me to go even with Kamilah, but once Kamilah wasn’t an option…”
Leo knew Sofi’s mother pretty well and Alicia Santana was not someone you ignored when she put her foot down. However, she wasn’t an unreasonable person and she trusted her daughter. “I don’t know, bombón. I think she would’ve come around eventually.”
“You don’t get it, Leo. Once Kamilah said she wasn’t accepted, everything changed for me. I had to—” She cut herself off. “Forget it. That’s not the point. The point is that not only did she lie to me, she kept this a secret for twelve years.”
Leo wasn’t exactly as upset about the situation as he could be. The truth was that he’d been keeping a secret from his sister for longer than that. So had Sofi. “I understand how learning all this would upset you, but Sofi, come on.”
She spun on her heel and gave him a look that said, You’d better not be saying what I think you’re saying, while her mouth said, “Come on, what?”
He gestured between the two of them.
Sofi arched a brow.
“Are you really going to make me say it?”
She crossed her arms and looked him up and down. “I guess you’d better because I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gave her a look. She couldn’t be serious.
“Sofi…” She pursed her lips. Leo sucked his teeth. “Sofi, we’ve been together on and off for how long now? Since you were like fifteen?”
“First of all, we kissed once when I was fifteen and then nothing happened again until much later. Second of all, we have never been together, we have sex when we are both single, bored, and horny, which is not the same thing.”
Leo didn’t let the hurt that statement caused distract him. “Yet, never once did you mention it to Kamilah and you forbid me from telling anyone about it, because you don’t want it to get back to her.”
“I don’t want you telling everyone and their momma about it, because who I sleep with is nobody’s fucking business but mine.”
Leo had to roll his eyes at that. She was so weird about people “knowing her business.” She tended to think that her life was so interesting that it was some sort of gossip fodder. It was ridiculous. She worked at her father’s company, went grocery shopping with her mom every week, and liked to go dancing with her friends on the weekend. Her life was not that different from plenty of women he knew. Shit, their secret relationship (because it was a fucking relationship) was probably the most interesting thing about her life. “You never want her to find out, because you know she’ll be upset about you lying to her. Sort of how you’re mad now.”
“Are you really throwing this in my face right now?”
“All I’m saying is that it’s not easy to tell people stuff you know will hurt them, so maybe you should give her a break.”
Her eyes widened. “Give her a break,” she murmured to herself. When she looked at him, there was anger and shock in her expression. “You really are standing in front of me not only defending her, but trying to guilt me out of feeling my own emotions right now.”
“I just think given the circumstances we both owe her—” “I. Don’t. Owe. Her. Shit.” She accentuated each word with a clap of her hands then paused, screwed up her face, and shook her head as if disgusted. “I don’t owe you shit either. Why am I even having this conversation with you?”
“Sof—” “I should’ve known that at the end of the day you were going to pick her side over mine.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because, Leo, that’s how your family operates. Y’all are all open and friendly and welcoming until something happens. Then you close rank like a bunch of elephants circling around the weakest members of the herd. It happens every time Big Sam and your tía Iris break up. It happened when Chase left Kamilah. Y’all still barely talk to your tía Alba’s husband after he said Puerto Rico should become a state.”
“Not true,” Leo argued. “He said that Puerto Ricans on the island wouldn’t be able to run a country without the US, so they needed to be a state which is different than just saying that Puerto Rico should be a state. And we hardly liked his conceited and low-key racist ass before that. Plus, you were just as mad about that as the rest of us were!”
“That’s not the point, Leo!” she yelled at him. “Then what is your point,” he yelled back. “Because you aren’t making any fucking sense.”
“My point is that I’m done. I have no interest in doing this with you, your sister, or anyone else in your family.”
Leo froze. His body going cold. “What does that mean?”
“That means that I’m not making up with Kamilah. I’m not coming around El Coquí anymore.” She paused and looked him right in the eyes. “I don’t want you coming here anymore either.”
Leo scoffed. “You always say that and then you text to ask me what I’m doing and tell me to come over.”
She passed by him to open her door. “Yeah well, why don’t you go home and wait for that message?”
“Sofi,” he began.
“Bye, Leo. Have a nice life.” Leo growled. He hated when she pulled that dismissive shit with him and she knew it. “You have to be the most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” he called.
“Didn’t I already tell you goodbye?”
“One of these days, you’re going to push me too far and I’m not going to come back.”
“Maybe I’ll be lucky and today will be the day.”
Annoyed that she was being so stubborn and unreasonable, Leo stormed out the door. It closed with a snick behind him and Leo fought the urge to flip it off. Instead he stomped down the stairs to the front door of the building. He hated that Sofi did this to him. She’d push him away just to prove that she could. But she didn’t actually want him to go anywhere, which was why she always called him back. She’d do it again this time too. He knew she would, because—no matter how much they fought—they couldn’t live without each other.
This was not an ending. It was only an intermission.
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It started with the cheerleaders. It ends with the football team.
PLOT SUMMARY:
It was the deaths of five cheerleaders that made the town of Sunnybrook infamous. Eleven years later, the girls’ killer has been brought to justice, and the town just wants to move on. By the time Hadley moves to Sunnybrook, though, the locals are more interested in the Tigers, the high school’s championship-winning football team. The Tigers are Sunnybrook’s homegrown heroes–something positive in a town with so much darkness in its past.
Hadley could care less about football, but shortly after she gets assigned to cover the team’s latest championship bid for the school newspaper, one of the Tigers is poisoned at a party, and almost immediately after, Hadley starts getting strange emails warning her to stay far away from the football team.
GRADE: C
REVIEW:
I was very excited to read a sequel to The Cheerleaders because at the time that I read it, I absolutely loved it and was so invested in the book. The Champions didn’t live up to the hype. I think the main issue was that there was no thriller aspect to it, but was more of a mystery and the mystery wasn’t that interesting. Not to mention that a murder didn’t even occur until 70% in the novel and by then all the football players have the same personalities that you really don’t care what would happen to them. That’s another issue with this book, is that the cast is very large and you can’t tell them apart aside from the major characters. And speaking of the main character, Hadley was the least interesting MC there could be, not to mention that she had a crush on one of the football players and when he went into a coma she had no real reaction to it (you’d think she would’ve been sorry about it). She was more interested in who was going to get editor in chief at her school newspaper than her crush being in the hospital. It was very odd. The chapters were also incredibly loooong.
The whole book just reinforced stereotypes of football players being awful people to young teens and how they can get away with anything because the whole town worships them. I was really hoping the novel would’ve gotten better at some point, but it never did.
This book can be read as a standalone novel so if you’ve read The Cheerleaders, you really don’t need to read this sequel, as it doesn’t add much to the first book’s plot, other than having cameos from some of their characters.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Hanna is no stranger to dark thoughts: as a young child, she tried to murder her own mother. But that was more than sixteen years ago. And extensive therapy—and writing letters to her younger brother—has since curbed those nasty tendencies.
Now twenty-four, Hanna is living an outwardly normal life of domestic content. Married to real estate agent Jacob, she’s also stepmother to his teenage daughter Joelle. They live in a beautiful home, and Hanna loves her career as a phlebotomist—a job perfectly suited to her occasional need to hurt people.
But when Joelle begins to change in ways that don’t suit Hanna’s purposes, her carefully planned existence threatens to come apart. With life slipping out of her control, Hanna reverts to old habits, determined to manipulate the events and people around her. And the only thing worse than a baby sociopath is a fully grown one.
GRADE: B-
REVIEW:
This novel is the highly anticipated sequel to Baby Teeth. When we left Hanna at the end of the first book, she was sent to an institution for troubled girls – when we meet Hanna as an adult she’s a phlebtomist, where she uses her job as a means to exact pain whenever she feels stressed on her patients. One day she meets a widowed father with a young girl and soon she marries him and becomes a stepmother. Hanna lives a very structured and mundane life, but she’s happy, until her stepdaughter becomes pregnant. This event triggers her to the point that her past sociopathic tendencies reemerge. While I found this novel very fast paced and I did like adult Hanna a lot, I kind of expected more. What I mean is that child Hanna was way more deranged than adult Hanna, and I know that adult Hanna was trying to avoid ever having to go to prison, but I kind of wished that she would’ve been more dangerous if that makes sense? I did like how the novel ended – Hanna deserved to get rid of all those terrible people in her life.
If you read the first book you might like this sequel, although this book can be read as a standalone. I don’t know if this book was much of a thriller, so if you’re into thrillers where you’re worried about any of the characters dying, this isn’t that sort of thriller. I do enjoy Stage’s novels overall, but do feel that she fills her novels with too many mundane events and details that don’t really add to the story.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Set during the early years of Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war, We Walked On immerses readers
in the landscape of war, weaving political unrest into everyday life. With Hisham, a thirty-year-
old Arabic teacher, and Rita, his fourteen-year-old student, Chehade has created two richly
drawn characters who counter violence with the redemptive power of books and human
connection and find authentic hope in untenable circumstances. We Walked On is a timely
novel that examines the power of war to pervert our moral sense and asks if peace is ever
possible in an unjust world.
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Four friends. A campus reunion. A dark new way to relive the past.
It’s been twenty-five years since The Midnight Club last convened. A tight-knit group of college
friends bonded by late nights at the campus literary magazine, they’re also bonded by
something darker: the death of their brilliant friend Jennet junior year. But now, decades later, a
mysterious invitation has pulled them back to the pine-shrouded Vermont town where it all
began.
As the estranged friends gather for a weeklong campus reunion, they soon learn that their host
has an ulterior motive: she wants them to uncover the truth about the night Jennet died, and
she’s provided them with an extraordinary method—a secret substance that helps them not only
remember but relive the past.
But each one of the friends has something to hide. And the more they question each other, the
deeper they dive into their own memories, the more they understand that nothing they thought
they knew about their college years, and that fateful night, is true.
Twisty, nostalgic, and emotionally thrilling, The Midnight Club explores that innate desire to
revisit our first loves, our biggest mistakes, and the gulf between who we are and who we hoped
we’d be.
About the Author: MARGOT HARRISON is the author of four young adult novels, including
an Indies Introduce Pick, Junior Library Guild Selections, and Vermont Book Award Finalists.
She grew up in New York and now lives in Vermont. The Midnight Club is her debut adult novel.
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The Inkblotters 