Spooky Season Reading

Book Review: WAYWARD SOULS (HARKER & MORIARTY #2) by Susan J. Morris

| Jessica Crawford

Wayward Souls by Susan J. Morris is the second book in the Harker & Moriarty series, with a publish date by Inky Phoenix Press of Bindery Books of March 17, 2026.

Genre:

Historical Fantasy, Paranormal Mystery

Blurb:

The delightfully dark sequel to the gothic supernatural mystery Strange Beasts.

Six days before Samhain—the night when the veil between worlds is thinnest—Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, and Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the famed criminal mastermind, are thrown into their next the mysterious disappearance of two Society field agents in Ireland. Only this time, the Royal Society is sending Jakob Van Helsing to keep an eye on them.

Sam and Hel may have solved the Paris case, but that doesn’t mean the Society trusts them. Sam has the power to slip into the minds of monsters, and Van Helsing has sworn to kill her at the first sign of corruption. And if Hel can’t prove her father’s existence, she’ll soon go down for his crimes.

Their investigation takes them from the crumbling ruins of Ireland’s untamed wilds to the occult societies of the rich and powerful. The connection between the Sam and Hel is electric, but as they fall deeper into each other’s orbit, their secrets only multiply. For Hel, it’s the sins she committed when she was her father’s pawn. For Sam, it’s a plague of death omens, mysterious black feathers, and a siren song no one else can hear. And then comes a chilling revelation that is poised to shatter The agents who disappeared were each haunted by a ghost. And so, it seems, is Sam.

With characters drawn from the worlds of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, Wayward Souls is a twisty puzzle box of a historical fantasy—perfect for fans of Genevieve Cogman, Theodora Goss, Freya Marske, T. Kingfisher, and Gail Carriger.

Opening Line:

Samantha Harker folded her hands on the scarred mahogany table, grateful her emerald-green riding habit would disguise any hint of sweat.

My Thoughts:

Sam and Hel (the daughters of Jonathan and Mina Harker from Dracula and Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, respectively) are off on another adventure in this sequel to Strange Beasts. This time London’s Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena have sent them to Ireland with Jakob Van Helsing accompanying to keep an eye on things, as they don’t quite trust Hel’s loyalties or Sam’s abilities.

Like its predecessor, the vibes in this book are perfectly on point! Steeped in the darker aspects of Celtic mythology and folklore, this story was perfect for my spooky season reading (but with the Irish setting being such a large part of the story, St. Patty’s Day would be a fine time to pick it up as well!) People in Ireland are disappearing in ways that smack of the supernatural and it’s up to our team of field agents to figure out who or what is behind it all, preferably before the night of Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thinnest and dangers from the Otherworld are at their peak.

A theme of this installment is that no one is only one thing – all good or all bad. Characters who were midlevel villains of the last book have the opportunity here to show that they have another side. Our heroines have to learn to allow themselves as much grace as they do the monsters they confront in their line of work, who are sometimes made the way they are by monstrous acts committed against them.

I hadn’t recalled from the first book that the story is all told with third person POV through Sam’s perspective, so readers can only really get an idea of Hel and Van Helsing’s thoughts and feelings through their interactions with her. I do think a reread of that one would have been beneficial, as I couldn’t recall much about the situation with Sam’s grandfather, which comes into play as a fairly major plot thread here.

One complaint I have with this book is the same one I had for the first in the series – I couldn’t always follow the characters’ reasoning when they came to conclusions about things in their investigation. The answers and explanations here were a bit convoluted, with a lot going on. I kind of had to just enjoy the ride and accept the characters’ determinations without fully appreciating how they arrived at them.

Still, this was overall a fun story and perfect fit for my October reading, and I am grateful to NetGalley, Bindery Books, and Inky Phoenix Press for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

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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.

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Book Review: THE BOG WIFE by Kay Chronister

| Jessica Crawford

The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is a 336 page standalone novel published by Counterpoint in 2024.

Genre/Subgenres:

Gothic, Contemporary Magical Realism, Mystery

Blurb:

In this atmospheric Appalachian gothic, the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia must unearth long-buried secrets to carve out a future when the supernatural bargain entwining their fate with their ancestral land is suddenly ruptured

Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.

Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself.

Brimming with aching loss and the universal struggle between honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one’s own, The Bog Wife is a haunting invocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bound us.

Opening Line:

On winter nights, they burned heavy bundles of dried peat in the hearth and inhaled the scent of sacred ground burning while their father paced the length of the room, reciting the history of the Haddesley compact.

My Thoughts:

Anything that lives and does not live alone makes compacts.

This book is not horror, per se, but it’s still a great fit for spooky season! Described as “Appalachian Gothic”, it’s basically a family drama/saga about a group of adult siblings who struggle to know what to do when the compact between their family and the bog on their land doesn’t play out the way their father always instructed them it would when he died (to borrow words from another Goodreads review I got a real kick out of, the promised swamp tart is a no-show!) Have they failed as custodians of the bog? Did they perform the rituals wrong? Is the whole thing just totally insane…or a lie passed down through the generations?

We see this story unfold while following each of the Haddesley siblings: Eda, who has dedicated her life to making sure her family maintains the compact through ritual; Charlie, the eldest son who was always a disappointment as the one set to inherit the family legacy as patriarch; Wenna, the one who tried to escape it all and lived in the “real world” for ten years before returning for her father’s burial; Percy, the custodian of the bog; and Nora, who just wants the whole family to get along and to feel accepted as one part of the whole. Then there is the matter of their mother, the last bog wife, who disappeared over a decade ago…

The occult parts of the story were really interesting, and the tension was ratcheted up by discord among the siblings and their plight to understand what went wrong and how to fix it. I do have to admit that I felt let down by the last 50 pages–the resolution just had a very different feel from the rest of the book, which was a 5 star read for me. So altogether I’d probably call it 4.75 stars.

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Book Review: THE HOUNDING by Xenobe Purvis

| Jessica Crawford

The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis is a 240 page debut novel published in 2025 by Henry Holt and Co.

Genre:

Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

The Blurb

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

As relevant today as any time before, The Hounding celebrates the wild breaks from convention we’re all sometimes pulled toward, and wonders if, in a world like this one, it isn’t safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.

Opening Line:

The girls, the infernal heat, the fresh-dead body.

My Thoughts:

“Wherever we go, however we behave, there’ll always be something to drive us inside. That’s where people want us to be.”

The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in eighteenth-century England whose neighbors are convinced they’re turning into dogs. — For once I think the comp offered by the publisher is an apt one and not just marketing nonsense.

The atmosphere in this book is set perfectly, with the people of Little Nettlebed set on edge by the hot baking sun and the drought negatively impacting livelihoods. The five Mansfield sisters are unconventional, and a delusionally arrogant neighbor becomes obsessed with putting them in their place. Mob mentality takes over the villagers, even affecting those who try their hardest to resist.

I think the themes of this story are explored wonderfully. I also think the characterization is well done, it’s just that the manner of storytelling doesn’t allow the reader to delve too deeply into any single character. Third person POVs shift among five different villagers throughout the book, and we get a good sense of each of them. But the story revolves around their interactions with and feelings about the Mansfield sisters, whose own POVs we do not get directly. I thought this was the perfect way to tell their story.

He searched within his soul and saw a terrible truth: that he’d rather they were dogs than damaged girls…He’d rather they were free than confined…

I included this book in my spooky season reading not because it’s horror (it’s not) or brings autumn feels to life on the page (nope), but for the witch hunt vibes, and in this it did not disappoint!

Disclaimer: Maine Coon cat Freya does not approve of any hounding whatsoever

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Book Review: WHAT STALKS THE DEEP by T. Kingfisher

| Jessica Crawford

What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher is a 179 page novella, the third in the Sworn Soldier series, published by Tor Nightfire in 2025.

Genre

Horror

The Blurb

The next installment in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America.

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do…

Opening Line

So this is America.

My Thoughts

“That is horrifying and I want to go home,” I said, although I pronounced it, “Ah, I see.”

Another absolutely delightful entry in the Sworn Soldier series!

As usual, Alex Easton finds themself enmeshed in the investigation of truly creepy happenings. This time, they’ve traveled to America at the request for help from their old friend, Denton. The doctor’s cousin has gone missing while exploring an old abandoned mine, where he wrote about hearing strange sounds and seeing the ominous glow of a red light deep underground, a light that winked out when he tried to approach it to investigate. Can Alex, Angus, Denton, and a couple of fresh faces find out what happened to the missing man before yet another nightmarish being finds them?

This third novella in the series is still creepy, hilarious, heartwarming in equal measure. You don’t necessarily have to read them in order to enjoy them, but this installment does reference things that happened in the first book, including spoilers. The Big Bad in this one relates to something relatively obscure I had been thinking about recently, which only further cements for me the conviction that Kingfisher writes these books specifically for me. I love them so much!

“Most of your muscles have to have your bones to anchor them and push against. Imagine…oh…trying to punch someone with your tongue…”

There was a pause while we gave this particularly vivid mental image the credit it deserved. I opened my mouth to mention a young lady of my acquaintance in Paris, but caught a glimpse of Denton’s expression and closed it again.

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Book Review: WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME by Nat Cassidy

| Jessica Crawford

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy is a 304 page novel published in 2025 by Tor Nightfire.

Genre:

Horror, Paranormal

Blurb:

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy’s father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.

As they attempt to evade the boy’s increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they’re up against, but she’s about to learn there’s more to these surreal and grisly events than she could’ve ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.

Opening Line:

Daddy is roaring.

My Thoughts:

What a wild ride!

Nat Cassidy’s horror pulls no punches, so make sure to read the content warnings at the beginning of the book, but honestly I thought they made it sound way worse than it actually was. His writing is as entertaining and humorous as it is gory (…well, maybe not quite – it’s pretty gory!) This time around, it’s also really touching.

Jess finds herself in charge of a terrified young boy on the run from his father, and neither might be quite what they seem (if you prefer stories rooted firmly in reality without any speculative/fantastical elements, look elsewhere). This is a road trip adventure that will keep readers on the edge of their seats while also pulling on their heart strings. A theme of this book is the old FDR quote about the only thing to fear being fear itself. I was riveted, amused, and loving the journey…

BUT THEN.

This was a 5 star read for me right up until a resolution I was deeply unhappy with. I suppose it was an ending that made a good deal of sense, but certainly it could have gone another way.

Despite how upset I was with how the author chose to conclude this book, it’s still true that I loved the experience of reading it overall, and so 5 stars it is–but just know I am currently not speaking to Nat Cassidy (but will continue reading anything he writes)!

P.S. As an 80s kid myself, I can confirm Who Framed Roger Rabbit was terrifying

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