Day after day our narrator searches for meaning beyond her vacuous job at a women’s lifestyle website—entering text into a computer system while she watches their beauty editor unwrap box after box of perfectly packaged bits of happiness. Then, one night at a dive bar, she hears a message in the newest single by international pop star Adriana Argento, and she is struck. Soon she loses herself to the online fandom, a community whose members feverishly track Adriana’s every move.
When a colleague notices her obsession, she’s invited to join an enigmatic group of adult Adriana superfans who call themselves the Ivies and worship her music in witchy candlelit listening parties. As the narrator becomes more entrenched in the group, she gets closer to uncovering the sinister secrets that bind them together—while simultaneously losing her grip on reality.
With caustic wit and hypnotic writing, this unsparingly critical thrill ride through millennial life examines all that is wrong in our celebrity-obsessed internet age, and how easy it is to lose yourself in it.
Grade: B-
Review:
When I first dove into the novel I found the protagonist’s ennui relatable, as we both have boring office jobs that feel limiting to our capacities. And although as an adult I couldn’t relate to her obsession for a pop star, I can understand as a teen when I was so swept up by a certain celebrity that I had to buy any magazine they appeared in or view every single movie they were ever cast in no matter how terrible. The protagonist finds herself getting immersed in the devotion for Adriana Argento (who is a stand-in for Ariana Grande) and soon she finds like-minded stans who will do anything for their idol. I don’t know why this book was marketed as a thriller because we never fear for the protagonist’s life, and the death of a fan happened prior to the protagonist getting involved with the fan club. This isn’t a thriller but more of a women’s lit for disillusioned millennials. It’s not the genre that slowly turned me off of this novel rather the fact that not much happened. During the middle-end portion of the book, the pacing was turtle slow and I truly struggled to complete it. I also wish that the author would’ve written about an original pop star rather than take Ariana Grande’s life details and create a fictional character out of it. Many readers seem to have enjoyed this so if you like celebrity-obsessed groups you may be into this, if you’re looking for a thriller, then you may want to skip it cause this isn’t one.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and MIRA for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Here’s to the lengths one might go to for everything.
With dark fiction from J.A.W. McCarthy, Avra Margariti, Marisca Pichette, Stephanie Ellis, Christina Wilder, Donna Lynch, Katie Young, Scott J. Moses, Angela Sylvaine, tom reed, Cheri Kamei, Shane Douglas Keene, J.V. Gachs, Tim McGregor, Emma E. Murray, Nick Younker, Jennifer Crow, Joanna Koch, Lex Vranick, Laurel Hightower, Eric Raglin, Eric LaRocca, Daniel Barnett, Bob Johnson, Simone le Roux, Hailey Piper, Bryson Richard, Jena Brown, and Christi Nogle.
Grade: A
Review:
This anthology has some really excellent stories that explore the theme of what are the lengths you’d go to for something you really want? Of course with horror, the lengths are very extreme and sometimes very gory. Here are some of my fave stories from this collection (in no particular order):
“Mos Teutonis” by Bryson Richard: A beautiful tale of lust and lunacy, so dark and seductive.
“The Thread That Dreams Are Made Of: by Hailey Piper: I’m a total whore for fairtytales and fairytale retellings so I’m so here for a Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty mashup.
“Silver Dollar Eye” by Laurel Hightower: This story pretty much sums up all the reasons why I’ve never meddled with the afterlife, some things are best left unknown.
“Ella Minnow” by Nick Younker: This story is the brutal tale of the lengths a father will go to in order to find out what happened to his missing daughter. The ending blew me away.
“Blood is Thicker,” by Angela Sylvaine: I’ve had the pleasure of having this author in two of my own anthologies, so I was excited to read a new story from her. I loved this tale of two twin sisters who will go to extreme lengths to succeed as painters.
“The Witch of Flora Pass,” by Scott J. Moses: This was one very creepy and dark story that now left me wary of rivers.
“With Animals,” by J.A.W. McCarthy: This story truly explored the extreme lengths someone would go to for a friend. Very gut-wrenching.
“Moira and Ellie,” by Marisca Pichette: In this story, almost every child has an imaginary friend for a limited amount of time and when you find out how and why these imaginary friends exist, it’s very chilling.
There are many more stories in this anthology that I thoroughly enjoyed, and those above are only a couple that stuck with me long after reading them. It’s a very well put together anthology and I truly recommend it for anyone whose a fan of horror and especially of indie horror.
*Thank you so much to the author for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Short Q & A with Author
What made you select the particular theme you chose for the anthology?
I remember finishing Laurel Hightower’s CROSSROADS, and thinking, “How has no one done an anthology around this topic before?” When I got serious about the idea a couple months later, I already knew I wanted Laurel to introduce What One Wouldn’t Do.
A lot of the short stories selected deal with grief – same as your personal short story collection Hunger Pangs – why do you lean towards grief horror more than other subgenres?
You know, that’s a good question. Why do any of us write what we do? I think it’s just in us and that’s that. That said, I’ve always graduated toward the sadder things in life, and think that they, along with bittersweet endings, can shed the most light and hope on the things we’re afraid of or have yet to face.
Which horror authors have got you really excited about their work right now? Any cool books you’ve read this year that you may want to recommend?
Such a tough question, but here goes. A few authors I think deserve more readership are Eric Raglin, J.A.W McCarthy, Joanna Koch, and Daniel Barnett. They’re all astounding to me, and I highly recommend Raglin’s Nightmare Yearnings, McCarthy’s Sometimes We’re Cruel, Koch’s The Wingspan of Severed Hands, and Barnett’s Nightmareland Chronicles.
What are the pros and cons of being an editor for an anthology?
Pros: Reading tons of great submissions, discovering so many writers I really dig, having complete control of the project, and sending acceptances. And honestly, you learn so much about the submission process when you curate an anthology. Great stories are rejected all the time because they just don’t fit with the flow which forms as you read through the slush, or for example, say two stories have similar themes, monsters, and tone. To have both would be redundant, so one has to go, even if it’s amazing. It taught me a lot about rejections with my own work and that there are far more reasons a story gets rejected than it’s quality. Cons: Sending rejections is the worst. Period. Also, wading through the subs that didn’t bother to follow the guidelines. Quick tip: from my experience on this and the 423 submissions I got for WOWD, those who followed the guidelines we’re already ahead of the 30% that did not. That’s a pretty huge percentage when you think about it, yeah? Another con was that in me self-funding this project in its entirety, I didn’t have the resources to buy all the stories I would’ve liked. The spirit was willing, but the wallet was weak.
Are you currently working on any new projects?
I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from writing these last months, but have stories publishing this year in various venues and more on submission. I’m thinking I’ll either keep adding to my sophomore collection or toss around this idea for a novella I’ve been sitting on. Thanks for having me, Azzurra. As per usual, you rule.
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I’m outside for a cumulative ten minutes each day before work. Five to walk from my apartment building to the subway, another five to go from the subway to the anemic obelisk that houses my office. I try to breathe as deeply as I can in those minutes, because I never know how long it will be until I take fresh air into my lungs again. Not that the city air is all that fresh, tinged with the sharp stench of old garbage, pollution’s metallic swirl. But it beats the stale oxygen of the office, already filtered through distant respiratory systems. Sometimes, during slow moments at my desk, I inhale and try to imagine those other nostrils and lungs that have already processed this same air. I’m not sure how it works in reality, any knowledge I once had of the intricacies of breathing having been long ago discarded by more useful information, but the image comforts me. Usually, I picture a middle-aged man with greying temples, a fringe of visible nose hair, and a coffee stain on the collar of his baby blue button-down. He looks nothing and everything like my father. An every-father, if you will.
My office is populated by dyed-blonde or pierced brunette women in their mid-to-late twenties and early thirties. The occasional man, just a touch older than most of the women, but still young enough to give off the faint impression that he DJs at Meatpacking nightclubs for extra cash on the weekends.
We are the new corporate Americans, the offspring of the grey-templed men. We wear tastefully ripped jeans and cozy sweaters to the office instead of blazers and trousers. Display a tattoo here and there—our supervisors don’t mind; in fact, they have the most ink. We eat yogurt for breakfast, work through lunch, leave the office at six if we’re lucky, arriving home with just enough time to order dinner from an app and watch two or three hours of Netflix before collapsing into bed from exhaustion we haven’t earned. Exhaustion that lives in the brain, not the body, and cannot be relieved by a mere eight hours of sleep.
Nobody understands exactly what it is we do here, and neither do we. I push through revolving glass door, run my wallet over the card reader, which beeps as my ID scans through the stiff leather, and half-wave in the direction of the uniformed security guard behind the desk, whose face my eyes never quite reach so I can’t tell you what he looks like. He’s just one of the many set-pieces staging the scene of my days.
The elevator ride to the eleventh floor is long enough to skim one-third of a longform article on my phone. I barely register what it’s about, something loosely political, or who is standing next to me in the cramped elevator.
When the doors slide open on eleven, we both get off.
…
In the dim eleventh-floor lobby, a humming neon light shaping the company logo assaults my sleep-swollen eyes like the prick of a dozen tiny needles. Today, a small section has burned out, creating a skip in the letter w. Below the logo is a tufted cerulean velvet couch where guests wait to be welcomed. To the left there’s a mirrored wall reflecting the vestibule; people sometimes pause there to take photos on the way to and from the office, usually on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend. I see the photos later while scrolling through my various feeds at home in bed. They hit me one after another like shots of tequila: See ya Tuesday! *margarita emoji* Peace out for the long weekend! *palm tree emoji* Byeeeeee! *peace sign emoji.*
She steps in front of me, my elevator companion. Black Rag & Bone ankle boots gleaming, blade-tipped pixie cut grazing her ears. Her neck piercing taunts me, those winking silver balls on either side of her spine. She’s Lexi O’ Connell, the website’s senior editor. She walks ahead with her head angled down, thumb working her phone’s keyboard, and doesn’t look up as she shoves the interior door open, palm to the glass.
I trip over the back of one clunky winter boot with the other as I speed up, considering whether to call out for her attention. It’s what a good web producer, one who is eager to move on from the endless drudgery of copy-pasting and resizing and into the slightly more thrilling drudgery of writing and rewriting, would do.
By the time I regain my footing, I come face-to-face with the smear of her handprint as the door glides shut in front of me.
Monday.
…
I work at a website.
It’s like most other websites; we publish content, mostly articles: news stories, essays, interviews, glossed over with the polished opalescent sheen of commercialized feminism. The occasional quiz, video, or photoshoot rounds out our offerings. This is how websites work in the age of ad revenue: Each provides a slightly varied selection of mindless entertainment, news updates, and watered-down hot takes about everything from climate change to plus size fashion, hawking their wares on the digital marketplace, leaving The Reader to wander drunkenly through the bazaar, wielding her cursor like an Amex. You can find everything you’d want to read in one place online, dozens of times over. The algorithms have erased choice. Search engines and social media platforms, they know what you want before you do.
As a web producer, my job is to input article text into the website’s proprietary content management system, or CMS. I’m a digitized high school janitor; I clean up the small messes, the litter that misses the rim of the garbage can. I make sure the links are working and the images are high resolution. When anything bigger comes up, it goes to an editor or IT. I’m an expert in nothing, a master of the miniscule fixes.
There are five of us who produce for the entire website, each handling about 20 articles a day. We sit at a long grey table on display at the very center of the open office, surrounded on all sides by editors and writers.
The web producers’ bullpen, Lexi calls it.
The light fixture above the table buzzes loudly like a nest of bees is trapped inside the fluorescent tubing. I drop my bag on the floor and take a seat, shedding my coat like a layer of skin. My chair faces the beauty editor’s desk, the cruelest seat in the house. All day long, I watch Charlotte Miller receive package after package stuffed with pastel tissue paper. Inside those packages: lipstick, foundation, perfume, happiness. A thousand simulacrums of Christmas morning spread across the two-hundred and sixty-one workdays of the year. She has piled the trappings of Brooklyn hipsterdom on top of her blonde, big-toothed, prettiness. Wire-frame glasses, a tattoo of a constellation on her inner left forearm, a rose gold nose ring. She seems Texan, but she’s actually from some wholesome upper Midwestern state, I can never remember which one. Right now, she applies red lipstick from a warm golden tube in the flat gleam of the golden mirror next to her monitor. Everything about her is color-coordinated.
I open my laptop. The screen blinks twice and prompts me for my password. I type it in, and the CMS appears, open to where I left it when I signed off the previous evening. Our CMS is called LIZZIE. There’s a rumor that it was named after Lizzie Borden, christened during the pre-launch party when the tech team pounded too many shots after they finished coding. As in, “Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks.” Lizzie Borden rebranded in the 21st century as a symbol of righteous feminine anger. LIZZIE, my best friend, my closest confidant. She’s an equally comforting and infuriating presence, constant in her bland attention. She gazes at me, always emotionless, saying nothing as she watches me teeter on the edge, fighting tears or trying not to doze at my desk or simply staring, in search of answers she cannot provide.
My eyes droop in their sockets as I scan the articles that were submitted before I arrived this morning. The whites threaten to turn liquid and splash onto my keyboard, pool between the keys and jiggle like eggs minus the yolks. Thinking of this causes a tiny laugh to slip out from between my clenched lips. Charlotte slides the cap onto her lipstick, glares at me over the lip of the mirror.
“Morning.”
That’s Tom, the only male web producer, who sits across and slightly left of me, keeping my view of Charlotte’s towering wonderland of boxes and bags clear. He’s four years older than me, twenty-eight, but the plush chipmunk curve of his cheeks makes him appear much younger, like he’s about to graduate high school. He’s cute, though, in the way of a movie star who always gets cast as the geek in teen comedies. Definitely hot but dress him down in an argyle sweater and glasses and he could be a Hollywood nerd. I’ve always wanted to ask him why he works here, doing this. There isn’t really a web producer archetype. We’re all different, a true island of misfit toys.
But if there is a type, Tom doesn’t fit it. He seems smart and driven. He’s consistently the only person who attends company book club meetings having read that month’s selection from cover to cover. I’ve never asked him why he works here because we don’t talk much. No one in our office talks much. Not out loud, anyway. We communicate through a private Morse code, fingers dancing on keys, expressions scanned and evaluated from a distance.
Sometimes I think about flirting with Tom, for something to do, but he wears a wedding ring. Not that I care about his wife; it’s more the fear of rebuff and rejection, of hearing the low-voiced Sorry, I’m married, that stops me. He usually sails in a few minutes after I do, smelling like his bodega coffee and the egg sandwich he carefully unwraps and eats at his desk. He nods in my direction. Morning is the only word we’ve exchanged the entire time I’ve worked here, which is coming up on a year in January. It’s not even a greeting, merely a statement of fact. It is morning and we’re both here. Again.
Three hundred and sixty-five days lost to the hum and twitch and click. I can’t seem to remember how I got here. It all feels like a dream. The mundane kind, full of banal details, but something slightly off about it all. I don’t remember applying for the job, or interviewing. One day, an offer letter appeared in my inbox and I signed.
And here I am. Day after day, I wait for someone to need me. I open articles. I tweak the formatting, check the links, correct the occasional typo that catches my eye. It isn’t really my job to copy edit, or even to read closely, but sometimes I notice things, grammatical errors or awkward phrasing, and I then can’t not notice them; I have to put them right or else they nag like a papercut on the soft webbing connecting two fingers. The brain wants to be useful. It craves activity, even after almost three hundred and sixty-five days of operating at its lowest frequency.
I open emails. I download attachments. I insert numbers into spreadsheets. I email those spreadsheets to Lexi and my direct boss, Ashley, who manages the homepage.
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The excerpt below is from the short story, “Comets Tear the Skies.”
PROLOGUE
When I open my eyes, I have legs.
“The operation was successful,” the doctor beams.
I lift the white sheet with tentative fingers, and peek at my new set of legs. I had seen them in photos and in movies, prior, but on me they look foreign, almost hideous. I try to raise one but am unable to.
“Don’t,” the doctor says. “You’ll have time to learn how to use them before your mission begins.”
“I leave in two months. Is that enough time?”
“Yes, we’ve had some patients running within a month!”
I’m impressed. Maybe it won’t be so difficult after all. If I can manage the pain. I take another look beneath the sheet. They’re there, two perfectly toned pair of legs with a little drawing of a daisy chain circling around my right ankle.
“You couldn’t get rid of that?”
“Unfortunately, no, we were unable to remove that. But it won’t interfere with anything. It’s just a feeble embellishment.”
And also a constant reminder of the former owner of these legs.
But I don’t say that to the doctor. He seems so pleased with himself and the result of my operation. I don’t want to burst his bubble.
“Don’t worry about it, besides you can cover it up with clothes afterwards,” he says to me as though he’s read my mind. “Have you decided what name you’ll use during your mission?”
I manage a tiny smile and nod.
“Brenda,” I say. “My name is Brenda.” The name sounds foreign to me, much like my legs, but it reminds me of a character from the TV series I’ve been watching with the other missionaries to learn the new language. A name that will help me fit in.
“Your new life starts now, Brenda,” the doctor says. “We’re all aware of the great sacrifice you had to make in order to be chosen for this mission. Don’t think that our community isn’t humbled by your courage. You’re strong. You should be honored that you passed the selection process. Not many do.”
I sigh, thinking about the abomination below the sheet. What may seem like an honor to some, feels more like a curse to me.
But I can’t think like that.
No.
I’m a new person now.
And in a couple of months I’ll be bound for Earth.
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Between the ages of 11-14 I readily devoured all things R.L. Stine at a speed that would make anyone’s head spin like Regan’s in The Exorcist. I was also very lucky to have a dad that didn’t mind shelling out hundreds of dollars a year to sustain my R.L. Stine book addiction. And although many people loved Goosebumps, I was always a Fear Street stan and out of all the stories within that series my absolute favorite was what I dubbed as the “Fear Street Cheerleaders.” meaning “The First Evil,” “The Second Evil,” and “The Third Evil.”
Maybe it was nostalgia sparked by the recent viewing of Netflix’s Fear Street films, but I found myself compelled to reread the first book of a series that I so dearly loved and whose creepiness has followed throughout the years.
“The First Evil,” is about the Corcoran sisters, Corky and Bobbi are newly transplants from Missouri to Shadyside and live on the unfortunate street called Fear Street. The two sisters were cheerleading sensations at their former high school and hope to recreate their past success at their new school, only the cheerleaders at Shadyside aren’t so easily won over by the charming Corcoran sisters, especially Kimmy (second in line to becoming Cheerleader captain). Thankfully, they manage to win over the coach’s and Cheerleading Captain Jennifer’s hearts and secure themselves a spot on the team.
Things take an ugly turn when Jennifer becomes paralyzed after a bus accident and Bobbi takes over as the Cheerleading Captain which enrages Kimmy even more. Soon, sinister things begin to happen and the reader isn’t sure if it’s teenage bullying or an evil entity (cause ya know, teenage girls can be as cruel as a demon).
YA has come a long way since R.L. Stine was penning his chilling stories, so I quickly realized how very “dumbed down” the writing was in regards to today’s YA selections (I also believe that nowadays, YA is simply a genre that has a teen protagonist but many times the writing level in the novel is on par with that of adult fiction). Despite the simple writing and one dimensional characters, Stine excels when it comes to painting a sinister picture, and he’s the master of the innovative causes of death (and the reason why all of my phobias have originated from his books).
The Fear Street Cheerleaders is a series that has heavily influenced my writing especially my most recent completed manuscript, “Girl that You Fear,” where Spencer Torres (also a cheerleader) becomes possessed by an ancient demon (and in honor of Corky and Bobbi, beautiful girls with seemingly masculine names, is why Spencer was my only choice when it came to naming my protagonist).
I only read “The First Evil,” one time when I was 12, but re-reading it now almost twenty years later, I recalled many of the events that occurred (especially a particular death in a locker room shower). Overall, “The First Evil,” continued to be a thrilling ride and I noticed that two more books have been added to the series since the last time I read it, so I’m eager to find out what else lies in store for Cory Corcoran and her hapless group of cheerleaders.
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Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especiallythe ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actuallystarts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsawis her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
Grade: A+
Review:
The book opens with a very dark and creepy prologue – but I’ll admit that I wasn’t crazy about the two foreign tourists and was happy to meet the actual protagonist, Jade Daniels. Now Jade is everything a horror lover as myself loves, in fact had we been in high school together we would’ve had slasher sleepover parties. Jade is cool in the way that girls that love gore are – meaning her styling choices are questionable, her social skills nonexistent except when she’s spouting slasher speak and slasher trivia – and honestly I ADORE HER FOR IT.
We follow Jade – a recent high school graduate as she slowly begins to believe that a slasher film is unfolding in her very town. This convinces her to see beautiful rich girl Letha Mondragon as a potential final girl – and ultimate savior. For a slasher fan as myself I reveled in the slasher speak and pop culture references. I know many have mentioned this in other reviews, but the only fault this novel has is that it’s a slow burn.
Honestly, if Jade weren’t such a compelling character I don’t know if I would’ve enjoyed the journey so much but Jade is a total badass and I know that Jones’ delivers when it comes to horror and gore – so I patiently waited for the bloodbath. To say that Jones’ doesn’t disappoint is an understatement – if this were a movie, Jones’ budget would’ve blown just on the fake blood expense because there is SO MUCH OF IT & I AM HERE FOR IT. I mean, I directed a short where we used almost ten gallons of corn syrup, because I literally wanted to be drenched in it. And by the time you’re finished reading the gory, batshit crazy final pages you’re going to feel like you just waded in ten gallons of blood too.
Don’t walk but RUN to buy this book if you’re a fan of all 70’s & 80’s slasher flicks, cause you will LOVE this. Also, have I mentioned how awesomely badass Jade is? Go on, you know you want to get to know her! This book is fucking brutal and a wild ride.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.
What have you done today to deserve your eyes?
Grade: A-
Review:
This dark tale begins with Agnes looking to sell an antique apple peeler and Zoe contacting her to buy said peeler. I know, I found the way the two protagonists virtually met strange for a horror novella, but it was very intriguing how their bond slowly grows. As the days go by the two women forge a tight relationship which slowly descends to sadomasochism and careens to absolute horrific madness.
The writing is very engaging and very vivid, creating a visceral rollercoaster that will leave you wondering WTF did you experience. It’s told in epistolary format of email exchanges and IM’s, making the reader feel that extra layer of voyeurism that ramps up the creepiness factor. I recommend reading this book in one sitting – it’s much more impactful that way as the tension and dread increases with each passing page.
The ending is a masterclass of true horror and one that readers won’t easily forget. Read this novella for a violent, wild ride full of debauchery and horror.
*Thank you so much to the author for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
SHORT Q & A WITH AUTHOR
What inspired you to write the novella in the format that you did?
I’ve always been fascinated by books with unconventional formatting. I admire any opportunity to tell a story in a way that might be unique for the reader. The reason I chose this particular format for the novella was because I wanted the reader to feel voyeuristic in their reading, as if they were reading something they knew they shouldn’t be reading. That’s profoundly unsettling to me as a highly desensitized lover of horror. I shudder when I think of accidentally stumbling upon something that wasn’t meant for me to see—something horrible, something truly disturbing. I’ve been dabbling in unconventional formatting for many years now and this novella seemed like a natural progression for me and my work.
The novella establishes that the two protagonists are women – but the internet being the internet I was suspicious whether one of them or both were being truthful about their identities and their genders since it was commonplace in the 2000s to find men trying to pass off as women in lesbian chatrooms. The fact that the two protagonists never see each other through webcam nor exchange photos kind of makes you wonder if one of them is being catfished. Was it a conscious decision to create that suspicion in the reader?
That’s a fascinating reaction to the work. I actually had never considered that before and I’m quite disappointed in myself for not thinking of it first. I approached this concept quite literally when I first wrote it. In my head, they were always two women interacting with one another across the infinite gulf of the internet. As I was working on this piece, I definitely wanted there to be a sense of suspicion—a sense of distrust in the reader when considering the two main characters. Who can you trust? Who is telling the truth? Which one of them is the real monster? Of course, Zoe is less than savory for asking Agnes to perform such horrible acts. However, is Agnes a monster as well for being so agreeable?
What are your current fave horror books that you recommend?
Oh, so many to list. I’ll try to be brief. Lately I’ve been recommending Hauntedby Chuck Palahniuk quite a bit to fellow readers. I’ve read that book several times and it always unsettles me. I also heartily recommend Gwendolyn Kiste’s phenomenal The Rust Maidensif you’re looking for truly poignant body horror. Lastly, I usually recommend I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reid. Such an inspiring tale of existential dread.
Do you have any other projects that you’re currently working on and are going to be released soon?
I’m currently at work on a bunch of different writing projects. Most of them involve contracts, so unfortunately I’m unable to share full details until the publisher makes the official announcement on social media. I’m so happy to report that I’ll have work being consistently published over the course of the next few years and I certainly hope my readers stick with me as I continue to release new material.
Honestly, this is too good not to ask but what have you done today to deserve your eyes?
Nice try, Zoe . . . Just kidding. But seriously. Kindness. The answer is always kindness. Whether it’s showing kindness to another living thing or receiving kindness gracefully, that should be our priority as human beings every day we’re on this planet.
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Tress Montor’s family used to mean something—until she didn’t have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. The entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the “White Trash Zoo.”
Felicity Turnado has it all: looks, money, and a secret. One misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she’s worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can’t even remember what it is . . . only that she can’t look at Tress without feeling shame and guilt.
But Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity—brick by brick—as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. Tress will have her answers—or settle for revenge.
Grade: A
Review:
Ever since I read The Female of the Species years ago, Mindy McGinnis has easily become an auto-buy for me whenever she drops a novel. It doesn’t matter what genre or subject she tries to tackle, I know that it’s going to be one wild ride, as McGinnis has this unique way of creating crazy plots where it’s impossible to truly know where the story is going to go. And I think it’s probably because McGinnis may be more of a pantser author as myself than one who outlines the whole plot.
The Initial Insult sees McGinnis exploring Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado with a Tiger King twist. Two ex-bestfriends Tress and Felicity find themselves at the same party their senior year. Years ago, when the two were younger, the girls were inseparable, then one night whilst Tress’s parents were driving Felicity back home, something occurred. Tress’s parents mysteriously disappeared whilst Felicity was found on the riverbanks alone with no knowledge of what happened that night. Tress has lost everything because of her parents’ disappearance, and she’s convinced that Felicity knows the truth of what happened that night and she’s going to do anything to get her to speak, even if it means slowly walling her alive, brick by brick.
This novel is told in the dual points of views of both Tress and Felicity, which helps amp up the tension and build the thrills. This is a crazy ride and as always, McGinnis’ characters are gritty and strong even at their most vulnerable. Sadly, this novel is only Part I, and seeing how it ended, it’s going to be so hard to have to wait one year to read the sequel!
I recommend this book if you’re a fan of McGinnis and Poe (you’ll love all the references).
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Inspired by the McMartin preschool trials and the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s, the critically acclaimed author of The Remaking delivers another pulse pounding, true-crime-based horror novel.
Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, a first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and a quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday—but Sean does . . .
Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table . . . and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation—and Sean and his mother are left holding the match.
Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies.
Grade: B
Review:
This is my second sampling of Clay’s writing and I must say that I really enjoy how strong his novels begin. This novel is steeped in reality as it’s based off of the 80’s Satanic Panic that made people suspect of anyone in getting caught up with witchcraft. In the 80’s a California preschool was in the news for the teachers were accused of being Satanists. Obviously, it all ended up being one big lie, and this book explores what happens when a little boy delivers a lie that changes not only his life but that of many people. Sean is five years old when he accuses his kindergarten teacher of worshiping the devil. Years later, we see how that lie comes back to haunt him.
Some parts of the book were creepy (I really enjoyed the Gray Boy) and some of them were kinda slow. I liked how it explored the Satanic Panic craze as I was too little to recall any of it when it was happening, not to mention that since my parents weren’t the crazy types, they never thought that Cabbage Patch Kids or The Smurfs were “Satanic.”
I did enjoy the dual narratives between Sean in 1983 and Richard in 2013 as it amped up the mystery of what happened and trying to figure out what exactly what went on. The imagery was dark and creepy and I was compelled to keep on reading as more and more of the mystery began to unravel. I liked how the book ended but it felt like the novel began to drag towards the end, so I would’ve preferred a more tightened end, but I did like how we were left with a question rather than all answers.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Quirk Books for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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Each summer the girls of Deck Five come back to Marshall Naval School. They sail on jewel-blue waters; they march on green drill-fields; they earn sunburns and honors. They push until they break apart and heal again, stronger.
Each summer Margaret and Rose and Flor and Nisreen come back to the place where they are girls, safe away from the world: sisters bound by something more than blood.
But this summer everything has changed. Girls are missing and a boy is dead. It’s because of Margaret Moore, the boys say. It’s because of what happened that night in the storm.
Margaret’s friends vanish one by one, swallowed up into the lies she has told about what happened between her and a boy with the world at his feet. Can she unravel the secrets of this summer and last, or will she be pulled under by the place she once called home?
Grade: B-
Review:
Margaret Moore loves her Deck Five girls – every summer she goes to Marshall Naval School and the summer is the only time she feels alive. But something happened the year before with a boy and that has changed the dynamics of the new year. The writing is a lyrical punch in the gut – and ever since I read Foul Is Fair last year I fell instantly in love with Capin’s writing style. However, this novel didn’t keep me as engaged as her previous one. Not because I didn’t enjoy the story or the protagonist, because I did. And there’s a huge twist towards the middle of the novel, and maybe it’s because I anticipated the twist or maybe because the ending happened way too long after the twist that the novel began to feel a tad repetitive.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because once you know the twist, you’ll understand why there’s the repetitiveness to it. And yes, this novel too is filled with ferocious friendships and violent revenge, but I suppose since reading her previous novel that was far bloodier, I was expecting a bit more?
If this is your first time reading Capin, you may love this book more because it’s got a group of friends you will root for, a protagonist that is both relateable and someone you can feel empathy for, and again, the writing is both razor sharp and poetically beautiful. So there is much to love in this novel if you’re a new reader.
I recommend this book if you love feminist revenge stories with strong female friendships.
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