Horror

Book Review: SHE’S A DOLL by Barbara Truelove

| Jessica Crawford

She’s a Doll by Barbara Truelove is a 313 page standalone novel coming September 8, 2026 from Ezeekat Press of Bindery Books.

Genre

Horror(ish), Humor(ous)

Description

Lucy isn’t a normal girl. Ghost. Victim. Killer. She’s a doll on a mission—to find the man who killed her and return the favor.

Lucy McQuinn has been murdered, but she’s not about to go quietly.

If she doesn’t get to keep breathing, then neither does Kyle, her killer. Possessing the body of an antique doll, she sets out on a quest for revenge. But it’s hard when you’re eighteen inches tall and made of porcelain.

For help, she turns to Nicola, a human and fellow outsider with her own reasons to hate Kyle. But in their small idyllic town, no one wants to hear the truth, especially not about such a promising young man. If they can’t expose his crimes, Lucy will have to roll up her lacy little sleeves and teach him a lesson the old-fashioned way—as slowly and painfully as possible.

From LA Times bestselling author Barbara Truelove, She’s a Doll is a ghoulish and gleeful tribute to the unstoppable power of female rage and a love letter to the friends who have our back—in this life and the next.

Opening Line

There are a lot of really profound, poetic people who have said a lot of really profound, poetic things about death.

My Thoughts

A wickedly funny wild ride that also hits you right in the feels.

When Lucy McQuinn is murdered, the last thing she lays her eyes on before everything goes dark is an antique doll sitting on a nearby shelf. So focused is she on this item that the moment her soul (or whatever you’d like to call it) leaves her body, she winds up transferring it right over–Lucy is now a vengeful spirit possessing a porcelain doll. And she’s out for blood!

Lu is a book nerd (favoring the classics), gamer (even if her console is three gens ago), and cosplay winner (second place, novice division) at the beginning of what doesn’t seem to be a very promising career when her mortal remains meet their end. Because a revenge killing while stuck in a doll’s body and still learning the ropes of being a ghost seems like a nigh impossible task, she’ll need an (embodied, living) ally. This is where the edgy Nic, whose hearing aid is able to pick up Lu’s projected thoughts, comes into play. Plenty of snarky banter between the two ensues.

…she bought a strawberry milkshake that smelled so sugary I wished I had a stomach so I could hurl. Have you considered eating real food?

“Have you considered that you’re still on thin ice, you porcelain piece of shit?” she said, exhausted and without venom.

What kept this from being a 5 star read for me is the fact that it did take me a good while to really get all in on the story (right around when Lu teams up with Nic is when I became engaged, and I think that’s over 25% in), and that some of it was a bit repetitive (any time the two of them disagree, for instance with the logistics of how to go about enacting revenge, they tend to make the same arguments to one another over and over again). But overall I wound up enjoying this dark, amusing, emotional story with wonderful representation quite a lot!

I actually think I miss spending my time with ride or die gals Lu and Nic already. Sadge.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Ezeekat Press of Bindery Books for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Bookshop.org

Book Review: BLACKTAIL by Scott Hawkins

| Jessica Crawford

Blacktail by Scott Hawkins is a 288 page standalone novel to be published on September 1st, 2026 by Crown Publishing.

Genre

Fantasy, Horror

Description

A wolf sets out on an epic journey of revenge in this one-of-a-kind dark fantasy—the long-awaited second novel from the author of The Library at Mount Char.

The wolf Blacktail is faithful to his Forest God, but in these times, faith is not enough. His world is besieged by men. Soon his territory will be overrun, and then there will be nowhere left to go. When his mate, a house dog, is killed, Blacktail rebels. He invades the house of her owners, seeking vengeance.

Blacktail’s fury catches the notice of an ancient and terrible feline witch, who makes an offer. What if Blacktail could end the human race responsible for the death of his family and for the destruction of the natural world, altogether? To do so, Blacktail must find and wake the Forest God. Only He might stand against the plague of men. Blacktail knows that his north woods are dwindling to nothing. He sees no other choice.

As Blacktail journeys farther from his wild home and deeper into the world of man, he encounters strangers—animal, mortal, and otherworldly—who, for their own reasons, want to help Blacktail rid the world of humans. Along the way, it becomes clear that he is more than just a wolf. The Forest God is sleeping, yes. But what will be the price of waking him?

Opening Line

Guile snapped to her feet at the sound of gunshots.

My Thoughts

The long-awaited second novel from the author of The Library at Mount Char (an all-time favorite of mine) is as brilliant as it is bloody and brutal.

From such a beginning, all things are possible.

This dark fantasy story, featuring only animals POVs, describes one (half)wolf’s epic journey into cosmic horror territory. In these pages, nature craves revenge against humankind for generations of cruelties and abuses that have left the world in an imbalance. The God of Reason may have granted humans dominion over the birds and beasts, but the gods of the natural world that predate Him surely have something to say about that. If only the most powerful among them, the Forest God, god of the hunt, hadn’t been slumbering and unseen for ages.

“When the god of men went forth to slaughter the gods of beasts, was this not a hunt? It is difficult to kill a thing when the very attempt is an act of worship toward it.”

Perhaps Blacktail might be the one to finally find and wake Him.

“But love died in this one long ago. Now all that’s left in him is judgment.”

This emotional and harrowing fable is so good, but also so hard to read. Readers be warned that it contains a whole heck of a lot of violence by and against animals. But if you can stomach that knowing that it’s not gratuitous here, know that those of you who remarked, “Good for her!” at the end of Stephen King’s Carrie will have a similar reaction to this vengeance tale.

“The secret,” she said, “is that there is no secret. Everyone suffers. Some choose to surrender, and some do not. The nature of your courage, the degree of it…these are entirely up to you.”

One criticism I have is that this story did take a while to really get going, but then things escalate REAL quick!

This was not an easy book to read due to the subject matter, but it was so worth it. I imagine I will find myself thinking about it for some time. Should Hawkins write more novels in the future, he has officially become an autobuy author for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Book Review: PORTRAIT OF A WITCH UNDONE by K. S. Shay

| Jessica Crawford

Portrait of a Witch Undone by K.S. Shay is a 368 page debut novel being published by Erewhon Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp., on August 25, 2026.

Genre/Subgenres

Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal

Description

For fans of Starling House and A Discovery of Witches with a Thomas Crown Affair twist: a contemporary New England coven hides the mysteries that lurk in the marshes north of Boston—and how they are connected to the largest unsolved art heist in modern history.

Once, Maeve Ryan was the strongest witch of her generation. But Maeve messed up a spell to contact the Lady of the Fens, an eerie Revenant who lures the unwary to their deaths in the brackish marshlands of the North Shore. Maeve destroyed her reputation, hurt her best friend Ash, and tainted herself with unbound, wild magic that transforms witches into insane Revenants.

With unbound power eating away at Maeve’s mind, all she wants is to get rid of her magic. Forever. But Ash’s research into how the spell went awry leads in an unexpected direction: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and a link between the Lady and a decades-old art theft worth $500 million. When Ash disappears through a stolen painting’s empty frame, Maeve has to follow.

Inside is the Other Marsh, a haunting, deadly realm where only the Lady’s rules apply. Within this half-world lie secrets about North Shore’s history, Maeve’s failure, and the fate of the masterpieces that disappeared over three decades ago. But as Maeve fights toward the truth, she risks her friendship, her coven, and her life against enemies hiding in plain sight

Opening Line

Birds call from dying limbs, a harvest moon rises, and I take the commuter rail home to rob my grandmother.

My Thoughts

❧ A coven of witches
❧ A competent, obstinate, scrappy MC
❧ A spell that turns paintings into a prison
❧ A horrifying Revenant with a tragic backstory…plotting her escape
❧ The importance of positive relationships!

Let me begin with the latter portion of this book, which was really something else! I would actually call this a horror novel with an urban fantasy setting. The creepy veiled Lady of the marsh following our characters from painting to painting, plenty of violence via physical fights against enemies (both human and not), flocks of birds following the characters wherever they go—all very menacing! Some of the characters begin the story as friends, some as strangers, and some as rivals, but in a satisfying plot arc they are forced to accept one another as allies and fight the evil that plagues the North Shore coven of Massachusetts together. And then there is the joy of seeing characters who have struggled stubbornly finally take hold of their own power, on their own terms. Witches be GOATed!

They want to reduce me to a legend? Let them. I will be the worst fable they have ever written.

But I will say that at the start of this book, there were a few things I noted that seemed like they might be debut novel issues. Stylistically it initially read like a YA book even though its characters and themes are not, every character was first introduced by their race (bonus points for the inclusion of a nonbinary character, though), the pacing seemed a bit uneven, the rules about the magic system and the paintings involved in the spellwork were hard to follow, and a great part of the tension in the narrative relied on lack of communication between characters–a pet peeve of mine, although admittedly having a reason to withhold certain information is much preferable to the miscommunication trope.

Even if the execution wasn’t 100% a homerun for this reader, by the end I was “all in” anyway. Full of magic tied to the land, mystery, coven intrigue, desperation, the uncertainty of shifting of alliances, a tangential romance subplot, and monsters created though tragedy, this was an action-packed tale with a touching and very gratifying narrative arc—a powerful story!

“I mean, on a scale of one to an unbound, undead Puritan witch, how bad could family be?”

My thanks to Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Bookshop.org

Book Review: THE CHILDREN by Melissa Albert

| Jessica Crawford
The Children by Melissa Albert is a 416 page standalone novel with a publish date of June 2, 2026

GENRE

Fantasy, Horror

DESCRIPTION

An intoxicating, haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

In one, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. In reality, Guinevere’s childhood isn’t the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and her older brother are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the lichen-clotted woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.

Now an adult coasting on her mother’s name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family’s legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she’s spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s creative genius?

Wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, The Children whispers to you from the hallway outside your bedroom, lights flickering as you turn the pages of a book that didn’t seem so scary a moment ago. It’s a story for anyone who’s ever revisited an old favorite and found it cast in a darker light, the line separating magic and memory blurring as the gap widens between the authors we imagined and the people they turn out to be.

OPENING LINE

Rain lashed the windows.

MY THOUGHTS

Wow, Melissa Albert really writes the most delicious dark fairytales!

This adult novel is fantasy with horror vibes. It alternates between two timelines, one of which is in the 1990s when Guin, her brother Ennis, and their parents lived at the Farmhouse in a rural area of Vermont. Their mother, Edith Sharpe, writes five books in a bestselling children’s fantasy series, using her own children’s names and likenesses as the main characters (without their consent, mind you). The home becomes a sort of bohemian commune where other artists of all stripes and talent levels show up and stay for indefinite lengths of time. Meanwhile, the children are left to their own devices (read as: neglected). There was supposed to be a sixth and final book in the Ninth City series, but a tragedy at the Farmhouse leaves the children orphans, and Edith never writes it.

The creeping dread just beneath the surface in this part of the story is masterful. Because there is something wrong with the Farmhouse. There are all the strange carvings, the poem etched into the wall, the stifling and uneasy room their mother writes in; and while none of the adults in their lives seem to pay the children much attention, it feels like they’re always being watched by…something.

The second timeline is current day, when adult Guin has taken on the mantle of mascot for the Ninth City series, and hasn’t spoken to her brother in years. Ennis has avoided and successfully evaded her ever since the night their parents died. But now it seems he is extending an invitation to Guin to come see his newest art instillation, titled Mother. Will it be a reunion or a reckoning? Will it reveal with any more clarity the events of the night of the fire?

Oh, this was such a fun read (as long as you appreciate talented writing giving you the heebie jeebies)! I confess I didn’t 100% understand all of the particulars revealed at the end, which was a bit unsatisfying, but the vibes were ON POINT and I am so excited to keep reading whatever Albert decides to write.

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Book Review: WOLF WORM by T. Kingfisher

| Jessica Crawford

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher is a 277 page standalone novel published March 24, 2026 by Tor Nightfire.

Genre:

Horror

Description:

Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.

Opening Line:

The rail station was very new, the paint still bright on the lettering that read SILER STATION.

My Thoughts:

She’s done it again, folks!

This book combines two of my very favorite things to read: T. Kingfisher’s writing and parasite horror (especially of the Gothic variety).

This story is full of creepy crawlies that will make your skin shiver, but also the author’s signature strain of human warmth. Sonia Wilson is a thirty year old spinster at the turn of the nineteenth century when she takes on a job as the illustrator for a naturalist’s book cataloguing parasitic insects and their life stages. She lodges at his home in North Carolina, befriends his small staff, and enjoys walking in the woods when not using his library of specimens to make her watercolor renderings. But some of the woodland creatures, sporting botfly larvae warbles, are acting strange. Why does no one want to talk about the illustrator who came before her? And why is the padlock on the shed she stumbles across in the forest on the outside, as if to keep something in rather than out?

In the acknowledgments, Kingfisher explains she used to live near a population of squirrels that were infested with botflies, and the idea for this novel was born when she thought, “Huh. What would happen if one of those latched onto [redacted]?” And reader, the resulting story did not disappoint!

You’ll need a fairly strong stomach (or barf bucket on hand) to read this book, but I cannot recommend it enough. All the wriggling, necrophagic stars for this one!

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Book Review: THE RED WINTER by Cameron Sullivan

| Jessica Crawford

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan is a 535 page novel published by Tor Books in 2025.

Genre

Historical Fantasy

My Thoughts

What do I think? Let’s see. In less than a minute on the job, you’ve fallen foul of the bishop, got involved with some fancy twit and attracted the attention of a man with the biggest gun I’ve ever seen…Even for you, this is remarkable! That’s what I think.

I loved a lot about this historical fantasy imagining of the real story behind the Beast of Gévaudan, the man-eating animal that terrorized a region of France over a period of years in the late eighteenth century (there are several other works of fiction based off of this part of history, and the one that comes to mind foremost for me is the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf). It’s dark and bloody, it’s got elements of mythology and the paranormal, and it features a doomed queer romance.

The main character, Professor Sebastian Grave, has lived for centuries hosting a Spirit (it’s considered uncouth to use the phrase “possessed by”) called Sarmodel. This book is Sebastian relaying the story of the time a young nobleman called him back to Gévaudan for a contract unfulfilled. As the two travel there together, Sebastian in turn tells him the story of when he first signed the contract some twenty years before. He, among many others, had answered the call of the king of France to hunt down the Beast that had been slaughtering livestock and citizens alike. During this time, Sebastian had carried on a love affair with the nobleman’s father, and shared some of the secrets of his true nature with the man. A couple of decades later, the slaughter has begun anew; it seems the Beast may be back, and the professor practiced in the Arcane arts may be their best hope.

If you’re on board so far for the grisly werewolf origin story, know that this is the kind of novel that involves footnotes – I understand this is a big turn off for some readers, but it tends to really work for me. Here the footnotes are not overused, are often employed to explain some Arcane aspect of the book’s universe, and are occasionally laugh out loud funny. Some of the inner-dialogue between Sebastian and Sarmodel also provide moments of humor, as do the interspersed addendums written by Livia, the succubus bound to Sebastian’s service. (These portions of story reflect back on a period in fifteenth century France, when our protagonist first finds himself up against the figure behind the Beast – and so another thing to know before deciding if this book is right for you is that it does alternate among multiple timelines.)

I do think this story crammed in an awful lot: demons, Archangels, Greek mythology, sorcery, werewolves, Joan of Arc, romance, the French Revolution. I personally enjoyed each of these aspects, but I do feel that the book failed to fully manage to pull it all together into a cohesive whole that 100% satisfied me. Between that and the fact that it felt a bit overly long, I would rate this 4.5 stars in a system that allows for half stars (or even 4.75 if we were going with quarter stars). That’s still fabulous, of course!

In the Acknowledgments section, the author implies that this might in fact be only one book in a potential series of adventures had by Sebastian, Sarmodel and Livia. Considering they’ve had centuries of them, I am curious to see what the next story will be about!

Book Review: THE FOX AND THE DEVIL by Kiersten White

| Jessica Crawford
Image created using Canva’s generative AI

The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White is a 368 page standalone novel from Del Rey with a publish date of March 10, 2026.

Genre/Subgenres:

Horror, Paranormal, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic

Blurb:

An obsession with a beautiful serial killer entangles a vampire hunter’s daughter in an immortal sapphic romance in this enthralling gothic fantasy from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy Undying.

Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing—doctor, scientist, and madman devoted to studying vampires—up until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body. A woman who leaves no trace behind, other than the dreams and nightmares that plague Anneke every night.

Spurred by her desire for vengeance and armed with the latest in forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch her mysterious serial killer. Because her father isn’t the only inexplicably dead body. There’s a trail of victims across Europe and Anneke is certain they’re all connected.

But during the years spent relentlessly hunting the killer, Anneke keeps some crucial evidence to infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to Anneke, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola. Devil. The obsession is mutual, and all the more dangerous for it.

The closer Anneke gets to her devil, though, the less sense the world makes. Maybe her father wasn’t a madman, after all. Diavola might be something much worse than a serial killer . . . and much harder to destroy. Because as Anneke unearths more of Diavola’s tragic past, she suspects there’s still a heart somewhere in that undead body.

A heart that beats for Anneke alone.

Opening Line:

As the crowd screams, all Henri thinks is that he’s going to be in so much trouble when his parents find out.

My Thoughts:

☠ Nineteenth century Europe
☠ Van Helsing’s daughter
☠ Murder investigations
☠ Found family
☠ Sapphic yearning
☠ Vampires!

It’s so easy to think yourself hunter only to discover you’ve always been prey.

In late nineteenth century Amsterdam, a young Anneke Van Helsing spies a creature of unnatural beauty standing over the prone and bleeding form of her father. The rest of the world believes Abraham Van Helsing took his own life, but Anneke knows better. She devotes the next several years of her life to training in forensic detective work. When a spree of bizarre deaths begin cropping up all over Europe, she alone makes the connection with her own father’s end. Finally she has caught scent of the mysterious woman, and the hunt she has long fixated on begins in earnest.

Have you been hunting me all this time? That makes me sad. He doesn’t deserve your devotion.

Our main character teams up with a lovely crew who together investigate the trail of bodies, becoming like family to one another as they devote themselves to Anneke’s search for her Diavola and vengeance for her father. Anneke spends just as much time pining for the beautiful woman she is pursuing across the continent as she does fantasizing about killing her. When Diavola begins sending her taunting letters, one wonders who is tracking whom? And as she learns more about her quarry, the question arises: have they been hunting the wrong monster all along?

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he whispered. “Men always do.”

The setting in this book is quite fetching–canal houses in Amsterdam, cafes in Budapest, an abandoned village of the Greek islands, and finally to the Paris world’s fair, l’Exposition Universelle, for ultimate added flavor. Cinematographs, magnetic audio recorders, and the advent of the use of fingerprints in crime scene analysis further cement the reader in Anneke’s world.

The characters are easy to root for. Anneke is a competent (albeit obsessed) woman in a male-dominated field, and her companions, though we don’t dive too deep beneath the surface with them (the story is told almost entirely from Anneke’s first person POV), are quite likable. There is romance, but mostly consisting of yearning and with no explicit spicy scenes. On the other hand, LOTS of horrifying murder and corpse examination scenes (the deaths mostly relayed after the fact during the investigation phase rather than on the page).

There was a little while in the middle of this book when I wondered if it really needed to be as long as it is, but that isn’t to say the plot dragged for me at any point. In the end, I was most definitely satisfied with the story that had unfolded. Each of Kiersten White’s books that I read I enjoy even more than the one before, but I’m not sure how long that trend can continue as her work at this point is pretty fantastic! I am intrigued to see where she’ll go from here.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Del Rey for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

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Book Review: SNAKE-EATER by T. Kingfisher

| Jessica Crawford

Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher is a 271 page standalone novel published in 2025 by 47North.

Genre:

Horror(-adjacent), Urban Fantasy (but in a small desert town)

The Blurb:

In an isolated desert town, a young woman seeking a fresh start is confronted by ancient gods, malevolent supernatural forces, and eccentric neighbours. A witty horror-tinged fantasy, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chuck Tingle, and Rachel Harrison.

When Selena travels to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek in search of her estranged Aunt Amelia, she is desperate and short of options. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she has exactly twenty-seven dollars to her name, and her only friend in the world is her dog, Copper.

On arrival, Selena learns Amelia is dead. But the inhabitants of Quartz Creek are only too happy to have a new resident. Out of money and ideas, Selena sees no harm staying in her aunt’s lovely house for a few weeks, tending to her garden and enjoying the strange, desolate beauty of the desert. The people are odd, but friendly, and eager to help Selena settle into her new home.

But Quartz Creek’s inhabitants share their town with others, old gods and spirits whose claim to the land long predates their human neighbours. Selena finds herself pursued by disturbing apparitions, visitations that come in the night and seem to want something from her.

Aunt Amelia owed a debt. Now her god has come to collect.

The Opening Line:

Selena picked her new home for no better reason than the dog laid down on the porch.

My Thoughts:

“Meep meep, motherfucker.”

Oh, how I love Kingfisher’s writing! Especially in her horror stories (although this one I would argue is only “horror-adjacent”.) Of the many books of hers that I’ve read (she is an autobuy/preorder author for me), I have awarded all but one 4 or 5 stars (usually 4 stars to her fairytale retellings and 5 to her horror novels). Snake-Eater continues that streak!

The main character in this one is Selena, a thirty-year old neurodivergent woman. When she realizes her relationship long ago reached the point where her partner was tearing her down instead of bolstering her up, she makes the decision to leave behind her life as she knows it with only $27 to her name and her loyal pooch by her side. She makes for the desert town of Quartz Creek, where her aunt lives. Unfortunately, it turns out Aunt Amelia passed away the year before. Selena finds herself at loose ends, but Amelia’s house in the historic zone is sitting empty, and the welcoming townspeople assure Selena she can stay as long as she needs to while she figures out her next move.

Over time, her lovely new neighbors begin to convince Selena that she is not as terrible at peopling as her ex always told her she was. She and her dog Copper could really get used to life in Quartz Creek, growing squash and selling corn smut, helping to craft authentic folk art for sale, sharing biweekly potluck meals at the church with her new friends.

That is, if it weren’t for the vengeful personified spirit deity of roadrunners who seems to be holding a grudge…

Kingfisher’s afterwords often make me laugh out loud just as much as her stories do. In this one she explains that when she told people she was writing a story with a roadrunner villain, they pictured the comedic cartoon bird instead of what she describes as a cross between a velociraptor and a chicken with a shiv. Seriously, these guys kill and eat rattlesnakes for breakfast!

The magical realism in this book, manifested via the mythology and folklore of the American Southwest, successfully sets a tone both whimsical and spooky as Selena works to understand the startling things going on and why she seems to be their target. As usual for a Kingfisher novel, this story features an inclusive cast of absolutely delightful characters. There is healing, growth, and a message that forging connections with people is its own act of courage.

And when Snake-Eater comes to collect, it might just be these bonds that save the day.

Disclaimer: The woman in the image looks nothing like how I pictured Selena, but this is what I wound up with while trying out Canva’s generative image feature (AI) when asking for an American Southwest desert background template.

Book Review: WE LIVE HERE NOW by Sarah Pinborough

| Jessica Crawford

We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinboroguh is 291 page standalone novel published by Flatiron Books: Pine & Cedar in 2025.

Genre:

Horror

Blurb:

After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move from London to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous, striking—and to Emily, something about it feels deeply wrong. Old boards creak at night; fires extinguish; and books fall from the shelves—all of it stemming from the terrible presence she feels in the third-floor room.

But these things happen only when Emily is alone, so are they happening at all? She is still medically fragile. Her post-sepsis condition can cause hallucinatory side effects, which means she cannot fully trust her senses. Freddie does not notice anything odd and is happy with their chance at a fresh start. She, however, starts to believe the house is haunted by someone who had been murdered in it even though she can find no evidence of a wrongful death. As bizarre events pile up and her marriage starts to crumble, Emily becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Larkin Lodge. But just as the house has secrets so do Emily and her husband.

Opening Line:

The raven watches the stone house on the crossroads through the long year.

My Thoughts:

This horror novel skews more thriller than the spooky kind I usually prefer, but once I got into it I tore through it in one day!

It’s got short chapters from two POVs–most from the wife but some from the husband, both in first person present tense. Is it a tad silly at times? Sure (oh, these four specific books fell off the shelf in the study inside the house? Must have been the “breeze”!) Was the “post-sepsis syndrome” question overused? Kinda. By the end, does it offer full explanations as to why things are the way they are with the house? No. But it was definitely interesting and I was hooked while I followed along on Emily and Freddie’s journey. And the ending was just right!

Of note: if you require an irreproachable, fully good character to root for in your stories, this book might not be your cup of tea. Also, if you’re marriage is currently struggling, maybe don’t pick this one up just now. But otherwise, I recommend this as a great choice for spooky season reading.

Goodreads