Horror

Book Review: BETWEEN TWO FIRES by Christopher Buehlman

| Jessica Crawford

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman is a 430 page standalone novel, initially published by Ace in 2012, later self-published, and now with a deluxe edition published by Tor Nightfire.

Genre

Horror

Subgenre

Medieval Horror

Description

And Lucifer “Let us rise against Him now in all our numbers, and pull the walls of Heaven down…”

The year is 1348.

Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm―that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has become their battleground. Is it delirium or is it faith?

Now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and give him―blood-stained and wretched as he is―a chance at redemption he long thought lost.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

Opening Line

Now in these days the Lord God had turned His face from the business of men; and the angels who had remained loyal to Him said to one another, we must look after the children of Adam.

My Thoughts

“She’s holy,” he said, the words strange in his mouth. “Goddamn it,” he added, and felt better.

I started seeing this medieval horror novel all over the internet within the past year, and in this handsome edition Joe Hill writes a foreword about its unusual journey from being published in 2012 to becoming a sensation fourteen years later (“…that same pop culture churn that can obliterate a work of art can also resurrect one”).

This book is about a disgraced knight turned brigand who finds himself ushering an orphan girl across the French countryside during The Black Death.

This book is also about an epic battle between God’s angels in Heaven and the fallen ones of Hell that bedevil the world when it seems He has abandoned his post.

These two stories are actually one and the same.

This pestilence cooked away pretense and showed people’s souls, as surely as it eventually showed their bones.

The setting in this book is about as bleak as it gets! The plague in the fourteenth century eradicated somewhere in the ballpark of half of the entire population of Europe. Eventually there were too many dead bodies and not enough living ones to bury them, and those who had managed to survive became increasingly desperate–this is the world Thomas and Delphine are traveling through. Add to that some devils testing the waters by coming to the world of humankind to terrorize God’s favorite creation, and you have a recipe for some pretty gnarly horror! But in the end it’s also a fairly touching story about redemption.

Love means weathering blows for another’s sake and not counting them.

I would love to check out more of this author’s work!

Book Review: THE SHIP OF DEATH by Kyle Winkler

| Jessica Crawford

The Ship of Death by Kyle Winkler is a 256 page standalone novel published by Avon in 2026.

Genre

Horror

Description

The dice roll. Darkness answers.

House of Leaves meets Jumanji in this brilliantly original and twisted novel composed entirely of found documents, following an unwitting couple ensnared by a sinister tabletop role-playing game

Cole and Lorraine playtest board games for some extra cash as they save up to buy a home. But after a series of bizarre coincidences, and signing a strange NDA, the couple finds on their porch a mysterious indie developer’s tabletop role-playing game called The Ship of Death. The game relies heavily on the players’ imaginations, and takes up an ever-growing amount of space: in their kitchen, and in their minds. As its true sinister nature becomes clearer, and its forces capture more in its web, the boundary between the game and reality begins to dissolve. . . and the pair are instructed to possess a stranger’s soul.

Told entirely through game reports, emails, game forum posts, personal journals, and police reports, reading The Ship of Death feels like a dangerous dice roll. It’s a sleep-stealing, possession-inducing work of intense, intelligent found cosmic horror that announces Kyle Winkler as a spectacular voice in the genre.

My Thoughts

The description of this book sounded like it would be right up my alley.

Cole and his wife Lorraine are playtesting a new tabletop roleplaying game called The Ship of Death. The mere scope of the game has them super excited at first, but then the lines between the real world and the one in the game start to blur. The result is cosmic horror. The players meet shady characters that seem to have leapt straight out of their imagined story, and find themselves compelled to carry out horrifying actions from their roleplaying in real life. The entire story is told with a mixed media format—emails, journal entries, forum posts, etc.

So why wasn’t this a home run for me? I like weird books, but this wasn’t my kind of weird, I guess. There are so many things from the game world that have you repeating, “Huh? What does that even mean?” (e.g. The Saltation of Banal Objects, The Curation of Auguries from Flesh, Sustenance and Religio-Social Habitudes, etc). And this is intentional, it adds to the creepy factor and has the characters questioning everything. But it just didn’t hit for me.

I feel like I haven’t said much that wasn’t already in the book description, but the only other information would be unnecessarily going into too much detail of the story. 256 pages presented in mixed media format is actually a fairly short book. It’s a quick read that is mysterious, tense, and dark. As far as characters, I liked the psychic Cole consults, but it’s difficult with all of the others because even if they are essentially good people, they are no longer in control of reality and do some not very good things.

Again, all of this is a great idea in theory, but in execution left this reader a bit underwhelmed. But your mileage may vary!

Book Review: KISS SLAY REPLAY by Rachel Harrison

| Jessica Crawford

Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison is a 320 page standalone novel published by Berkley in 2026.

Genre

Horror

Description

Every wedding guest’s worst nightmare is on repeat in this wild and twisty new horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of So Thirsty and Play Nice.

It’s the picture-perfect wedding weekend: The venue is dreamy, the weather is beautiful, love is in the air—and Willa Sullivan is having a bad time. She’s excited to celebrate her best friends’ finally having the big wedding they’ve always wanted, but this is the first time she’s seen her ex-fiancé in months, and he brought a date. Everything feels off, like she stumbled into an alternate universe. But things start to look up when Willa meets Danny, the groom’s charming and single childhood best friend. When they sneak off together, their rendezvous is interrupted by a masked killer terrorizing the reception. Willa and Danny fight to save the ones they love and survive the night, but the killer is unrelenting. A final girl Willa is not.

Or is she? She wakes up and it’s the morning of the wedding. She just had the most intense nightmare of her life. Only as the day unfolds, there are some uncanny coincidences that make her question whether it was really a dream, déjà vu, or something more sinister. After a horrifying turn of events, Willa comes to understand that she’s stuck in a loop of carnage and terror that she must learn how to escape or else suffer a fate worse than death—being an eternal wedding guest.

Opening Line

Who knew that time could move so slowly?

My Thoughts

Gosh, Rachel Harrison’s writing just goes down so easy! I pretty much read this entire book in one sitting minus meal and bathroom breaks. And it was an absolute blast!

“…the only thing that will come from constantly looking back is an inability to move forward.”

The author manages to pack so much meaning into this story that’s dressed up in the trappings of horror. Willa is having a really difficult time after breaking up with her fiancé when she realized that their years-long relationship wasn’t working any more. But still she can’t help but ruminate, wondering if she made the right choice, if she was a coward, or selfish. Her friend Cass’s diagnosis is that she is in a hell of her own making, and her prescribed treatment is to watch true crime or horror movies to remind herself that “it could always be worse”.

My priorities are all wrong…My nervous system is on high alert, but it’s been this way long before today.
When everything feels life-or-death, it’s impossible to parse out the actual stakes.

Spending time with her best friends from college for a wedding should be a happy occasion, but Willa is freaked out by the fact that her ex will also be in attendance, with a plus one. She just barely makes it through the cocktail hour and the ceremony and exchange of vows, but before the reception can get started, the murders begin.

Things could always be worse!

And then they are. When Willa wakes up again that same morning and the day of the wedding plays out again, she realizes she is stuck in a grisly and horrifying time loop. What might break her out of the cycle of terror? Changing her patterns of behavior, practicing self-reflection, examining her life’s choices? Can she confront her problems head-on and steel herself to face an unknown future? Is it a matter of accepting that life is imperfect and messy and sad and lonely sometimes, and that’s okay? Or is all of that overthinking something much more straightforward (er, well, maybe more loopy than straight or forward)?

I fell in love and surrendered to its current, and it took me someplace else, and I opened my eyes one day not knowing where I was or who I was or how I got there. And it terrified me. It still terrifies me. Am I doomed to repeat the same patterns of behavior? Delude myself into thinking that love will save me, only to end up right back where I am now, staring into a void, waiting for it to say my name?

I appreciated the characters in this one, as well as the messages about life, love, and happiness. Looking at these through a horror lens made for a very entertaining romp. Harrison is a master at what she does!

Lastly, an example of the amusing interactions that occur amongst the friend group at the wedding before the carnage gets started, providing a bit of levity:

“Why does your foot look like tie-dye?”
My right foot is just a massive bruise from when I dropped my suitcase on it. I popped three Advil and it’s still killing me.
“Ugh!” I sit on the bed, kick my foot up. “Is it super noticeable?”
He shrugs. “No one will be looking at your feet. They’ll be looking at your face. Or your, you know. Assets.”
I laugh. “Thanks, Ev.”
“There could be some people looking at your feet, but you don’t need to concern yourself with those people. Unless you’re interested in a very niche income stream moving forward. Which, no judgment.”

Chapters After Dark: Spice & Scare

| Jessica Crawford

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Chapters After Dark: Spice & Scare, a collaboration between local indie romance bookstore Lit Actually and “haunted scream park” Frightmare Farms. It was a dark romance themed evening with romance authors available to meet and sign books, vendors offering bookish merchandise, masked men prowling about and gifting blood spattered roses to lucky attendees, spooky-themed mocktails, and two haunted house attractions. It was so much fun!

In addition to all of these fun goings-on, I got an extra little thrill that tied in to my most listened to media content, the Currently Reading Podcast. Once a month the podcast hosts, Meredith and Kaytee, highlight an independent bookstore located somewhere in the U.S. In what’s called the Indie Press List, that month’s shop presents five titles they think listeners of the show might enjoy. If any of these tickle your fancy, you are encouraged to purchase them from the indie bookshop, or choose to support them with purchase of the audiobook through Libro.fm, or give them a shoutout on social media if you wind up checking the book out from your library. The stores report that business is extra good for them when they participate in the Currently Reading IPL!

So the IPL bookstore for October of 2026 was Novel Neighbor in St. Louis, Missouri. Most months the five books span a range of genres to appeal to the most podcast listeners, but at certain times of year (like spooky season!) they cleave to a particular theme. This month’s offerings range from horror to dark academia to paranormal romance and more. One of the titles was You’re the One That I Haunt by Katie Jung.

Well you could color me surprised when, the very day this IPL episode dropped, I saw Ms. Jung herself at a table at the Chapters After Dark event promoting that very book! It turns out she is an independent author local to me, and this industrious lady has such a good idea of what the people (i.e. readers) want that her debut novel is a Book of the Month add-on for month of October! She was kind enough to take a photo with me.

All around, this event was an absolute blast, and I sincerely hope it will become an annual tradition. Brava, Lit Actually, Frightmare Farms, and all of the authors and vendors in attendance, as well as the great turnout from the local bookish community!

(You’ll have to forgive me, none of the pictures I got of the vendor tables turned out very well, but trust there were lots of things to get your readerly heart racing.)

Book Review: SOLACE HOUSE by Will Maclean

| Jessica Crawford

Solace House by Will Maclean is a 512 page standalone novel with a U.S. publication date of October 13, 2026.

Genre

Horror (Literary, Psychological, Occult/Supernatural)

Description

In the summer of 1993, broke student Alex Lane joins a team clearing out Solace House, a Victorian mansion bequeathed to the university by a reclusive hoarder called Flayne. The other students are a mixed bunch, but Alex quickly falls into a close friendship with the lively, redheaded Ella.

When the crew begins sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne’s journals, in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a place called Bewise, and – most mysteriously – his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions as to how it might be reached.

As the students delve deeper into the house’s secrets, one of them becomes obsessed with deciphering Flayne’s strange opus and its promise of another world… and they may be willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to get there.

Opening Line

“So, what are you going to do all summer?” said Marcus idly, through half a sandwich.

My Thoughts

This book is being comped as The Secret History (Donna Tartt) meets The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson). I found that description pretty apt—except that as I read on, I decided it was a good part House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski as well.

A group of college students in the UK have a summer job cleaning out buildings their university is hoping to purchase and turn into residence halls. One is a long-defunct mental asylum, the other the Gothic-style private home of a hoarder who died years before. A compellingly spooky atmosphere is spun with details like the muffled ringing of an old-fashioned telephone sounding occasionally from somewhere in the cluttered mess, and the fact that battery-powered items unfailingly die when in the proximity of Solace House. Then you learn the former occupant was mixed up in some sort of occult business, possibly in response to the manifestations of his own madness. Eventually the story reaches even further, into the nature of reality/time/life itself. There was an interesting variety of characters and a good build up of tension as the reader feels ever more invested in puzzling out what’s really going on.

A few quibbles are that I didn’t fully understand the ending, the synopsis states the story takes place in 1993 but this fact doesn’t become evident until more than 50% in and doesn’t really seem to be at all relevant or necessary, the story of the MC’s parents also seems rather pointless, and there is quite a bit of poetry included. I realize this last one is a me problem, as a reader, but I am extremely likely to simply skip over poems and song lyrics (ahem, Tolkein) in a novel, even though in this case I could tell the poems were going to be relevant to figuring out important messages in the story. I also didn’t super love our main character (or feel much of anything for them, really), and there was at least one of the students whose involvement in the story seemed completely pointless.

Despite these things, I definitely recommend giving this one a read for the vibes and the deep philosophical thinking it encourages.

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.

Goodreads