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<\/a><\/div>\nHere’s what I read in September. 11 books total. Of those, one was 5 stars, five were 4 stars, three were 3 stars, and two were 2 stars. Not the best month I’ve had but definitely not the worst.<\/span><\/p>\n Eight of the eleven were review copies, One was audio, Five were print. The longest book was 381 pages. The shortest was 106. A total of 2691 pages read.<\/span><\/p>\n Phantom Limb<\/a> by Brian Evenson<\/span><\/p>\n I literally just finished Last Days, which I friggen adored, and wasted no time diving straight into the sequel the second I swiped that final page.<\/span><\/p>\n Phantom Limb picks up some time after Last Days leaves off, with our guy Kline facing jail time… but not for what he did to The Pauls or The Brotherhood. He assumes he’s incognito, beliving he\u2019s finally crawled out of that amputee\u2011cult horrorshow free and clear, but learns pretty fast that the promises made to him are already being broken. Inside those prison walls, the zealots are still hunting him, still convinced he\u2019s theirs.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s just as grody, just as violent, and maybe even a little weirder than its predecessor, which is saying something. And while it didn\u2019t hit quite as hard for me as Last Days did (sequels rarely do), it\u2019s still a damn solid follow\u2011up and an absolute blast of a return to one of the coolest protagonists out there. Missing limb, missing toes, missing patience \u2014 Kline remains an all\u2011time fave!<\/span><\/p>\n I had a helluva time hanging out with him again.<\/span><\/p>\n Ship of Death<\/a> by Kyle Winkler<\/span><\/p>\n Another highly anticipated release that did not disappoint. I\u2019m honestly so glad I didn\u2019t let my hatred of Grasshands turn me away from this one \u2014 I cannot believe these two books came from the same person.<\/span><\/p>\n The Ship of Death unfolds through non\u2011traditional storytelling: journal entries, after\u2011game reports, forum chats, and excerpts from the rulebooks for the mysterious board\u2011game\/RPG hybrid Cory and his wife are playtesting. From what they can tell, it\u2019s part large\u2011scale board game, part role\u2011playing campaign, and intriguing as hell. So intriguing, in fact, that Cory starts bringing pieces of it to work just to read and obsess over while his wife sets things up at home.<\/span><\/p>\n But then the weirdness starts. Strange things begin happening around (and to) them as they play. It doesn\u2019t take long before the world inside the game starts bleeding into the real one. And when it does, the book shifts from fun and fanciful to totally unhinged and fucked up.<\/span><\/p>\n Something got out that desperately wants back in\u2026 and something inside does not want it to.<\/span><\/p>\n I know I\u2019ve been saying this a lot lately, but The Ship of Death honestly blew me away. I didn\u2019t want to put it down, and the only reason I didn\u2019t finish it in one sitting was because I had to work the next day and needed at least a little sleep. All the stars. All I wanted it to be and more. And I probably owe some of my love for this book to my husband who is an avid board gamer, D&D campaigner, and the reason I understood most of the gameplay unfolding on the page.<\/span><\/p>\n Go. Get it. Read it. Tell me I\u2019m wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n The Flayed Man<\/a> by Chloe Lauter<\/span><\/p>\n Was I sad that I got declined for a NetGalley copy of this book? Yes, totally.<\/span> And did it take forever because none of the bookstores near me were carrying it and I had to stalk PangoBooks until someone finally listed a used copy? It sure did. But once I got my grubby little hands on it, I couldn\u2019t wait to dive in.<\/span><\/p>\n Was it everything I thought it would be? Strangely \u2026 no.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s not like the other vampire books I\u2019ve been reading. Though, that\u2019s kinda been the trend. Every vampire book I\u2019ve picked up this year has brought something new and unique to the table. And honestly, good on all these authors for giving the classic genre a little shakey\u2011shakey, oven\u2011bakey by cooking up fresh additions to the canon.<\/span><\/p>\n By the way, did anyone else think Lauter\u2019s vampires had a little too much werewolf energy? If they didn\u2019t feed regularly, their bodies would morph and shift, and not in the growing vampy teeth way. It felt a bit like the vampire\u2011lycan hybrids from those Kate Beckinsale movies, and once I thought that, I couldn\u2019t stop seeing it.<\/span><\/p>\n Was I totally blown away? No. But don\u2019t get me wrong when I say that. I really enjoyed the book and practically inhaled it in a single day. Ellis and her mother (who\u2019s dealing with early\u2011onset Alzheimer\u2019s) have a compelling dynamic. The concept of a flayed man who will come and take them away if they don’t behave was intriguing as well, but even with that, the vampiric lore and its broader backstory felt a little underdeveloped. And full disclosure… I wasn\u2019t the biggest fan of Ellis\u2019s romantic obsession with Veer. I thought the whole relationship felt forced and cringey. Maybe because I found Veer herself to be really cringey. Give me less \u201cshould I kiss her or should she kiss me\u201d and more gore and chaos any day.<\/span><\/p>\n But there\u2019s so much here to love. Even with my quibbles, it\u2019s a fast, weird, bloody ride, and I\u2019m glad I finally got to read it.<\/span><\/p>\n If you liked Night’s Edge, you’ll very likely dig this.<\/span><\/p>\n Crone<\/a> by Keith Rosson<\/span><\/p>\n Keith Rosson has definitely found his audience with Coffin Moon, and as a long\u2011time fan of his work, it\u2019s refreshing to see him continue that high\u2011stakes weirdness with Crone. From vampires to witches, he\u2019s out here capturing and singlehandedly wrecking readers\u2019 hearts, book after book.<\/span><\/p>\n Crone leans hard into grief fiction. Eli\u2019s disabled teenage daughter, Hannah, disappears one night, and his entire world collapses. He spirals into wire… a crystal drug slipped under the nailbed that dissolves reality into a dreamlike haze… gets kicked off the police force, goes on a violent tear trying to track down whoever took his kid, and ends up deeply indebted to local dealer Trying Dave Novak. Truly Olympic\u2011level bad luck.<\/span><\/p>\n Thirteen years later, with no leads and nothing left but guilt, Eli runs into Hannah\u2019s childhood friend Avery \u2014 the last person who saw her step into that blue van. Avery\u2019s return brings a rival drug crew, old wounds, and fresh danger. And when one of Novak\u2019s sons turns up gruesomely dead in the woods, Novak turns to Eli to solve the murder.<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the dead are clawing their way out of graves. Sightings of a pale woman with grey hair and massive wings are increasing. Bodies are piling up. And Eli starts to realize that every strange, witchy, torn\u2011up thing happening around him might be tied to Hannah\u2019s disappearance all those years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a story about shame, loss, and revenge. Crone is slow to start, but once it kicks into gear, nothing stands between these characters and the reckoning coming for them. I\u2019ll be honest, Coffin Moon hit harder for me, but Crone shows Rosson is absolutely onto something with this new lane he\u2019s carving out. Weird, bleak, supernatural, and emotionally raw, he\u2019s building a canon worth paying attention to.<\/span><\/p>\n The Man in the Watch Still Visits Me at Night<\/a> by Joshua Chaplinsky<\/span><\/p>\n Oh man does this book really work your brain, especially if you’re reading it in digital format. It’s a haunted house (origin?) story that is told out of order across three main overlapping timelines. It starts off kind of chill as it sets everything up but whoa nelly when the weird stuff starts creeping in and everyone starts realizing that nothing is what it seems inside the Vogel House.<\/span><\/p>\n If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s like I did, there really wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of adult supervision and you were kind of left to your own devices when it came to keeping yourself occupied. On more than one occassion, my friends and I may have let ourselves in to new homes that were still mid-construction or homes and hotels that were decrepid and abandoned for a change of scenery. Never to vandalize or steal… just to hang. Reading this book brought those memories back full force and had me wondering, what if one of the places I snuck into decided not to allow us to sneak back out? What if I got stuck in there, in an endless fear-inducing loop of attempting to escape…<\/span><\/p>\n Joshua Chaplinsky’s The Man in the Watch Still Visits Me at Night is what you would get if House of Leaves, Monster House, Backrooms, and Groundhogs Day all hooked up and had a freaky ass little baby. Unlike anything you’ve read before, but also so eerily familiar, and I’m not shamed to say that I enjoyed every second of it.<\/span> Strange New Moons <\/a>Anthology<\/span><\/p>\n Man it’s taken me a while to get to this one, and I’m not terribly ashamed to admit it would likely still be sitting in my TBR pile had my husband not wandered into my antilibrary, wanting to choose my next read for me, and randomly snatched it off one of the stacks.<\/span><\/p>\n This was a review copy that was sent to me back in 2024 (see how I’m telling on myself right now… see how far behind I get with arcs?). It’s an anthology of wildly different werewolf stories – werewolves in space, a werewolf apocalypse, an alternate reality where once a month all females turn into ‘bitches’ and the men are trained to stay out of sight out of mind, kidnapped werewolves who are thrown into a concrete arena and made to fight to the death, you name it, it’s in here.<\/span><\/p>\n For a 350 paged chunker, it reads fairly quickly. The stories are entertaining but not amazing. Fun but not fantastic. If you’re looking for a quick, bloodsoaked read to get you closer to your end of year reading goal, you could do worse picking this one up.<\/span><\/p>\n The Unknown<\/a> by Riley Sager<\/span><\/p>\n This was an ALC, and I nearly DNF\u2019d it because of the narrator\u2019s relentless talk\u2011whispering. She\u2019d start a sentence at a normal volume and end it like she was confessing a secret in a church pew. I already have trouble hearing, so this audiobook had me feral.<\/span><\/p>\n The setup is solid but it took a while to pull me in. Five women shipped to a haunted island to \u201clive\u201d as the characters they\u2019ll portray in a film, all of whom mysteriously disappeared a century ago. And wouldn\u2019t you know it\u2026 history is determined to repeat itself.<\/span><\/p>\n The story spins its wheels for a while. Repetitive, slow, not quite gripping. But as we get closer to the end, we’re hit with twist after twist and I was like, okay Riley, NOW we\u2019re cooking, keep those coming.<\/span><\/p>\n When all was said and done?<\/span> But good lord, girl\u2026 please stop whisper\u2011speaking.<\/span><\/p>\n Rooted<\/a> by Leopoldo Gout<\/span><\/p>\n Do all of Leopoldo\u2019s books start painfully slow and then unleash all the chaos in the final act? Because at this point, Pi\u00f1ata and Rooted are making a very compelling case. It’s good to lead with the weird… but not when it\u2019s only in the prologue, which he seems to love to do.<\/span><\/p>\n And the prologue here is suuuuuch a tease. You rub your palms together thinking, okay, yaaaaas, this is gonna be good. And then the main timeline kicks in and you\u2019re like\u2026 wait\u2026 is this the same book? When do we get back to the weird stuff? Soon? No? Oh, you\u2019re going to make us wait a painfully long time, huh? Sigh.<\/span><\/p>\n In Rooted, we meet Aurora, returning home after many years away. She\u2019s excited to see her mother again, and she\u2019s coordinating the return of stolen ancient artifacts to her hometown museum. As with any homecoming story worth its weight, we know there\u2019s a reason she left, even though the reason might not be clear yet… and now that she\u2019s back, the memories and nightmares start rushing in, surfacing right as they unbox a creepy statue of Xipe Totec, The Flayed One, an old god who does not exactly bring comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s another \u201cthat\u2019s what you get for going home again\u201d novel, this time filtered through Aztec mythology, Mexican folklore, a touch of body and eco horror, a generous scoop of mental instability, and a very\u2026 uhm\u2026 painful reconciliation? Or maybe it’s more like a reckoning? Fuck it, it’s kind of a bit of both.<\/span><\/p>\n When the ending finally brings the action, we remember the slow build up and the not\u2011quite\u2011horror vibe, so the book’s imbalance kept this one from fully landing for me. Not bad enough to DNF, but not a book you’ll see me raving about either. Which is shameful because hello, have you seen the cover? It’s stunning.<\/span><\/p>\n The Sea Hides Its Dead <\/a>by Megan Bontrager<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah… this was a no for me. I thought about DNFing it multiple times but I paid full price for it and wasn’t allowing myself to just chuck it. But man I definitely should have. I had no idea it was going to be sooo long and painful and repetitive.<\/span><\/p>\n For those of you who haven’t read it yet, it’s basically a cosmic horror about a weird cave system that just suddenly appears out in the middle of the ocean one day. A professor of anthropology and his little side-piece research assistant immediately head out there with a small group of specialists to see what’s what. Once they get there though, the front of the cave system collapses, locking them in, kickstarting a claustrophobic and torturous series of “tests” meant to appease the Leviathan that calls that place home.<\/span><\/p>\n I eyerolled. I sighed a lot. I counted the characters and realized Megan was going to keep us here for a while. Everytime I put it down, I was almost loathe to pick it back up.<\/span><\/p>\n And what’s most disappointing… the first chapter contained two major no-fly-zone triggers for me – infidelity and an animal death. When the books goes all in right up front with both of those things, I mean… shame on me. I should have known better.<\/span><\/p>\n The writing was weird for me too and I had a hard time jiving with it. I don’t know why, but I had a really hard time visualizing where they were and what was going on, even after going back and re-reading the descriptions. I felt like the author knew what she was writing but forgot that she needed to take the readers along and make it make sense for them.<\/span><\/p>\n I dunno. I see a lot of you loved it and I’m ok with being in the minority. It’s a position I find myself in pretty frequently when reading the big five buzzy books…<\/span><\/p>\n Shrugs.<\/span><\/p>\n Glad it’s behind me and that I can move on to the next.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n
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Did that stop me from trying to get my hands on it the second it released? Absolutely not.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n
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Not horrible. Not great. A decent companion for a work commute.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n