Horror fiction – Equal Opportunity Reader

[Last While In Books] Short Fiction, Actually

Black and white photograph of a tiny light skinned boy with short dark hair standing between the open pages of a thick book.

Read time: 3 minutes Fellow readers! I had a short story published this week over at Strange Horizons. It’s called Palimpsest, and it’s a look at the silences that cause strain in close relationships and the hidden injustice of women not being deeply known by their own families. There’s also some climate change, (poorly understood)Continue reading “[Last While In Books] Short Fiction, Actually”

[HEAR ME OUT] Season 2 of Interview With The Vampire Gets Everything Perfectly Wrong

The poster for season 2 of Interview With The Vampire shows Louis, Claudia and Armand facing away from each other, while a large shadowy Lestat looms in the background.

Sometime in 2022, I told you all about how much I liked the first three episodes of the series reboot of the Anne Rice classic Interview With The Vampire. I told you how good the acting, the writing, and the thematic choices in the new show seemed to be, fangirled a bit over lead actorsContinue reading “[HEAR ME OUT] Season 2 of Interview With The Vampire Gets Everything Perfectly Wrong”

[REVIEW]Linghun, by Ai Jiang

(BUY THIS BOOK) Linghun is a Mandarin word that can be translated as spirit or soul. It’s also the title of Canadian-Chinese writer Ai Jiang’s new novella. Fittingly, it’s about a place called HOME, where families impoverish themselves in order to call the spirits of their beloved dead back into their lives. Wenqi’s there becauseContinue reading “[REVIEW]Linghun, by Ai Jiang”

[REVIEW] Manhunt, by Gretchen Felker-Martin

the cover of Manhunt, depicting two plums caught in a net, one bitten, is displayed on a tablet lying on a hardwood floor. A can of pepper spray, a pocketknife, and a defense strap can also be seen.

(Buy this book here.) (EDIT: I tend not to read other reviews before I write my own, and it’s come to my attention that there are a lot of trans readers and writers that have very pointed #ownnormal critiques of this book. In the interest of practicing what I preach, before you read this review,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Manhunt, by Gretchen Felker-Martin”

[REVIEW] The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D Jackson

(Buy this book.) The blurbs call this a Black version of Stephen King’s Carrie, and they’re mostly right. The author set out to write this as an homage, only shifting the tone of the main character’s terror, not the source. Instead of sheltered, abused, religiously traumatized Carrie White, this book focuses on biracial (Black andContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D Jackson”

[REVIEW] The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones

My hand holds up a Kindle displaying the cover of The Only Good Indians--a mysterious pair of antlers in the dark. In the background, there is a huge and creepy old house, a condemned sign barely visible.

(Buy this book.) Listen. This horror novel has been out for two years now, so I’m just going to go ahead and start with a spoiler. The monster is an elk. If you’re like me and your initial response to that is to lean back and say “pfffft, LAME!”, then you should also read thisContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones”

[REVIEW]The Dark Side of Seoul: Weird Tales From Korean Lore, by Shawn Morrissey, illustrated by Tim Bauer

(To buy this book, go to the publisher’s website here) I never had the chance to go on a Dark Side of Seoul tour when I lived in Korea, but they had a wide reputation as a scary fun time for English-speaking horror lovers. (In fact, I’m pretty sure one of the readers of thisContinue reading “[REVIEW]The Dark Side of Seoul: Weird Tales From Korean Lore, by Shawn Morrissey, illustrated by Tim Bauer”

[REVIEW] Rootwork, by Tracy Cross

The ebook cover of Rootwork held above a tender new spring garden. The cover depicts a young black girl with soft lush hair, smiling enigmatically at the reader.

(Get more information about this book here.) (Full disclosure: Tracy and I were in the same master class at Under The Volcano this January, and she graciously sent me an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair review.) Something about Rootwork feels like it’s from another era. While I was reading, tendrils of theContinue reading “[REVIEW] Rootwork, by Tracy Cross”

[REVIEW] Forty Acres, by Dwayne Alexander Smith

A Black woman's hand(my hand) holds a Kindle displaying the black and white cover of Forty Acres in front of a freshly chopped woodpile, complete with axe.

(Buy this on Bookshop) I had to think long and hard about what to say about this book and to be honest, I’m still not sure. Let’s start with the premise. (Warning: I’m going all in with the spoilers for this one.) Martin Grey is an up-and-coming, black and bougie New York attorney. When heContinue reading “[REVIEW] Forty Acres, by Dwayne Alexander Smith”

[REVIEW] The Taking of Jake Livingston, by Ryan Douglass

A tablet is held up by a pale, ghostly arm in a dark cityscape. It displays the cover of The Taking Of Jake Livingston, which shows a terrified teenage Black boy in a school uniform staring off into space.

(Buy it from Bookshop) 16 year old Jake Livingston can see ghosts–but that’s not the most interesting thing about this book. Jake is also at the intersection of a lot of difficult life positions, and like most YA protagonists, his main goal is to figure himself out. He’s one of only two Black kids atContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Taking of Jake Livingston, by Ryan Douglass”