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Peaflower by Jessica Tanner is one of the novellas in a series of retellings of fairy tales. This time, it’s The Princess and the Pea, or is it? This offering not only retells The Princess and the Pea in a new and refreshing way, but incorporates other fairy tales into […]
In the introduction to Beka Gremikova’s The Edge of a Knife and other Stories, the author states the stories presented within this collection are more on the darker side. They also reflect the triumph one has after walking on the edge of a knife. With this in mind, I gave […]
Simone St. James’ novel of murdered girls and cheap motels, The Sun Down Motel, is both a crime and a speculative thriller, similar to The Lovely Bones. The book is told from two perspectives across two time periods. In 1982, Vivian Delaney, or Viv, leaves home to make it big […]
Once Bitten is an anthology centering on the character of Dracula. Full disclosure that I was included in this anthology, so this is more of a reflection on the other stories than a typical review. The editors challenged the authors to be creative when writing their short stories. No retellings […]
Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 isn’t getting great reviews, unfortunately. The book has been highly recommended to me, so I won’t be watching until I read it. The Ware adaption makes me pause, however, I still have recommendations to the streaming services to produce other thrillers. Quite frankly, […]
This debut novel by Rikki Goodwin features few characters, an atmospheric setting, and enough haunted house techniques to rattle a ouija board. Hazel and her boyfriend Dimitri are invited for a weekend to a bed and breakfast by their friends Finn and Lucy. Finn and Lucy are checking out the […]
The October Society concludes in this trilogy of spooky campfire tales (are there any other kinds of spooky tales?) told by mysterious children. All the books in this series are styled after a television show, complete with commercial interruptions. Each child tells a scary story to the others. In the […]
Stefanie Gilmour’s Cage the Wolf is the second in the Alex Steward series of a young woman dealing with the duality of lycanthropy. In this world, the transformation isn’t automatic or strictly based on a moon phase. The afflicted person has some measure of control, even more with practice. Alex […]
We’ve all heard the legends of the extreme-horror ten-level house, if you make it to the end, you’ll receive a cash bonus. When we look for such a house, we find it’s an urban legend. Legend Has It by D. J. Slater is a horror novel that explores the age-old […]
Nearly every new fiction writer has a writing hook, something about the way they tell this story that will draw the reader in. In this blog, instead of focusing on plot or characters, let’s examine the way the words unravel to the reader. Some of these writing styles are creatively […]