How much do you know about botflies? If you’ve got a squeamish stomach about bugs and body horror, don’t look them up. These creepy parasites—which are horrifying enough in real life—become true fodder for nightmares in the hands of one of my favorite horror writers, T. Kingfisher. I’ve often admired the way Kingfisher brings out the horror in the natural world, from infectious fungi in What Moves the Dead to unexpectedly alarming ladybugs in A House with Good Bones. In her latest book, Wolf Worm, which came out last month, she takes it a step further by diving deep into the world of parasitic insects. In the end, though, it is human cruelty more than nature’s parasites that represents the true horror of this story. Continue reading Review of Wolf Worm—Entomological Horror
Review of Nobody’s Baby—An Anti-Murder Mystery
What’s the opposite of a murder mystery? If murder is the criminal and unexpected loss of life, then the inverse must be the criminal and unexpected creation of life. Detective Dorothy Gentleman investigates just that in the form of a surprise baby among the strictly sterile population of a generation ship in the second installment of Olivia Waite’s new cozy sci-fi mystery series. I reviewed the first book Murder by Memory when it came out last spring. Now Dorothy returns to take on an even stranger case in Nobody’s Baby, which came out last month. Continue reading Review of Nobody’s Baby—An Anti-Murder Mystery
Review of Night of the Mannequins—Slashers vs Superheroes
“We thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all…” Stephen Graham Jones writes some killer opening lines. If you’ve been following this blog lately, you’ll know that Jones is swiftly becoming one of my favorite horror writers, especially with his recent masterpiece The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. But Jones is a prolific writer who had published over a dozen books before his star really started to rise. Now that his writing is getting the attention it deserves, his publisher is very cleverly re-releasing some of his earlier books that flew under the radar. One of those is the novella Night of the Mannequins, which initially came out in 2020 amidst the chaos of the pandemic, but got a second chance with a new release this past February. And I’m glad it did! Reading this fun little slasher tale now, you can see Stephen Graham Jones playing around with ideas that he would explore more deeply in later books like My Heart Is a Chainsaw and I Was a Teenage Slasher. Continue reading Review of Night of the Mannequins—Slashers vs Superheroes
Review of A Dark and Drowning Tide—Jewish Romantasy
Looking for some sapphic Jewish romantasy with a historical- and folklore-inspired setting and an edge of dark academia? A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft has it all! Somehow I missed reading this one back when it first came out in 2024, but a friend recommended that I bump it up my TBR pile and I’m very glad I did. A Dark and Drowning Tide scratched an itch that no book has since I last read some Naomi Novik. Continue reading Review of A Dark and Drowning Tide—Jewish Romantasy
Review of The Red Winter—Werewolves in Revolutionary France
A man-eating beast stalks the impoverished countryside of Gévaudan, France. Only Professor Sebastian Grave, who defeated it once before, knows the beast’s true nature and why it seems to have returned. Cameron Sullivan crafts a brilliant reimagining of the historical legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, inspiration for many a modern werewolf tale, in his impressive debut fantasy, The Red Winter, out tomorrow from Tor! Continue reading Review of The Red Winter—Werewolves in Revolutionary France
Review of The Villa, Once Beloved—Filipino Gothic
“The villa, once beloved, was better left behind in all its tragedies.” You can try to escape a family curse, but in the end the sins of your past will always find you. A young woman named Sophie becomes a reluctant witness to just this sort of Gothic reckoning in The Villa, Once Beloved by Victor Manibo, which came out back in November. I loved Victor’s debut sci-fi thriller The Sleepless, so when I heard he was writing a Gothic novel set in his homeland of the Philippines, I knew I had to check it out! The Villa, Once Beloved does a beautiful job of blending classic Gothic tropes with Filipino folklore, a suffocating tropical setting, and the region’s dark history of colonialism and political corruption. Continue reading Review of The Villa, Once Beloved—Filipino Gothic
Review of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter—Vampires in the Wild West
“What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.” Much blood was spilled forming the American West into what it is today, so perhaps it should be no surprise this setting would make such fertile ground for a vampire tale. When I heard that Stephen Graham Jones—who has quickly become one of my favorite horror authors (check out my reviews of The Only Good Indians, My Heart Is a Chainsaw, and I Was a Teenage Slasher)—was coming out with a historical vampire novel, I knew it would be right up my alley. When The Buffalo Hunter Hunter came out last March, I went to a release event at The Strand in New York City and got a signed copy of the special edition with red sprayed edges. I savored the book slowly all through the fall until last week when I got to the point where I had to stay up until 1:00am to see how it would end. Though this is my very first book review of 2026, I can already tell that The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is going to end up on my favorites of the year list. Continue reading Review of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter—Vampires in the Wild West
Books I’m Excited for in 2026
The new year is already well under way, but there’s still plenty of time to add to your 2026 TBR! As I like to do every year, I have combed through book announcements and publishers’ lists to bring you ten of my most anticipated releases for the year. The titles below range from pure horror to fantasy to cozy sci-fi, with some dashes of mystery and romance.
But before I dive into my list, I first want to note that January has been dubbed International Gothic Reading Month by the Society for the Study of the American Gothic. A committee of Gothic fiction authors have put together an extensive reading list and are spending the month encouraging more people to experience the somber joys of Gothic literature. Check out their home page here, and peruse their suggested readings while you wait for the books below to be released. Here at The Gothic Library, every month is Gothic Reading Month, but I’d love to see IGRM get more people into the genre! And now, onto this year’s new releases that I am most excited for: Continue reading Books I’m Excited for in 2026
My 2025 Reading Recap
It’s been a weird year, both in my reading life and in the world beyond. I felt pulled in too many directions at once, and wound up feeling less productive than usual—both in terms of how many books I read and in general. That said, I still had some good times and some great reads. And I’m aiming to be more intentional and more focused in 2026.
As of this writing, I have read 43 books out of my stated goal of 50 books for the year, with maybe time to squeeze one or two more in before the year ends. This will be the first time since 2022 that I haven’t met my numerical goal—though if we were counting books I started rather than books I finished, I’d have hit the mark! Aside from one or two that I intentionally DNFed (did not finish), there are at least five books that I got partway through and was enjoying but wound up inadvertently abandoning. This happened largely because I’ve been reading to a lot of deadlines—either book club meetings or something work-related—and not giving myself enough time. Then when those deadlines passed, I set the half-finished book down in favor of something else that felt urgent. This also happened with books that I was excited to read and brought on vacation with me, but then felt that I had to return to my obligation-books when my trip was over. I’ve been trying to finish as many of these as I can before the end of the year, but I definitely want to try to avoid ending up in this situation in the future. To do that, I think I need to give myself more time to start a book ahead of book club meetings and also try to avoid spreading myself too thin. Continue reading My 2025 Reading Recap
Review of Spread Me—Erotic Horror
They say that fear and arousal are remarkably similar sensations. Sarah Gailey, the multi-talented author of alt-history adventure books like River of Teeth and more traditional horror such as Just Like Home, exploits this overlap in their recent erotic horror novella Spread Me, which came out back in September. Part re-imagining of John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film The Thing, part post-Pandemic fever dream, Spread Me is guaranteed to be quite unlike anything you’ve ever read. Continue reading Review of Spread Me—Erotic Horror