A Magnificently Macabre March

The first of our March releases is a book that I had the opportunity to read back in February, so I can tell you with complete honestly that I loved this weird, creepy, queer Lovecraft-inspired YA horror. Adelle and Connie are best friends and co-super fans of an obscure gothic romance novel called Moira. So much so that, when offered the opportunity to be transported into the novel and experience the world of Moira for themselves, they decide to take the chance. But inside the pages of Moira, things have gone terribly wrong. Instead of a lush Gothic setting, dripping with romance and velvet, the two girls find themselves surrounded by horrors, entangled with the book’s characters in a desperate bid to save the World of Moira and themselves.

I finished The Shadow Glass a few days ago and I’m still riding that sweet sweet emotional high. If you are a fan of 80’s fantasy films (think The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, Willow, etc.) you’re going to love The Shadow Glass. Yes it’s probably a bit more fantasy than horror, but it’s dark and delightfully gory. There were times I definitely was like “oooooh that’s not right”, which is always a good sign. It’s a fondly nostalgic riff on a familiar story, exploring the necessity of growing up in a world that isn’t kind to dreamers. It’s about grief, and loss, forgiveness and finding yourself – and I know that sounds a bit heavy but I promise there’s also plenty of killer puppets and humor to keep the story balanced. Jack grew up enraptured by his father Bob Corman’s critical flop turned cult puppet fantasy film: The Shadow Glass. Estranged from his father, it’s only after Bob’s death that Jack, reluctantly, returns to his strange, mouldering childhood home and the memories he buried there. When the creatures that populated his father’s film and Jack’s childhood adventures suddenly come to life and insist that they need Jack’s help in saving their world, he finds himself catapulted into an impossible adventure to save both the fictional world of Iri and the modern world from certain destruction.

Okay, so like The Shadow Glass, The City of Dusk leans more on the dark fantasy side of things than the horror side of things. But you know I can’t say no to creepy bone magic. I’m weak for a hint of necromancy. I see bones, my brain says “horror”. Thrown in some vengeful gods, some body horror, and honestly I’m not going to scrutinize the genre lines too closely. Be forewarned, The City of Dusk is definitely a work of epic fantasy, and there is going to be a lot going on in this first book of the trilogy. Lots of realms (four technically) lots of divinely gifted heirs (also four, actually) and a whole lot of uneasy teamwork trust as they join together to keep their kingdom from being consumed by war. Add into that mess the fact that each heir is also tied to the god of their realm, and attempting to save a world the gods have abandoned is tantamount to apostasy, and it seems unlikely things will end well for our would-be apostates. But the grim portents are half the fun, right?

Survive the Dome is a sci-fi thriller with a healthy dose of dark dystopia thrown in for good measure. It’s about a young, aspiring journalist, Jamal Lawson, who travels to Baltimore to document a protest against police brutality. But before the protest can begin, the city is encased in something that authorities are calling the Dome: a brutal countermeasure meant to suppress civil unrest, basically forcing the entire city into lockdown under police control. As the lockdown drags on, and tensions inside the dome rise, Jamal finds himself making unlikely allies with a secretive hacker and an AWOL military recruit in a bid to bring down the corrupt forces controlling Baltimore and free the city.

It’s never easy to be the new student, but when you’re recovering from a near-death experience that orphaned you just months before, transferring to an ultra-competitive boarding school on an isolated island can make adjusting even more of a challenge. Finch Chamberlin has been through something unspeakable. Unknowable. As in she literally doesn’t know why she’s not dead like her parents, or what the terrible, ancient being was that kept her alive. But ever since waking up, she’s been drawn to Ulalume Academy. There she meets Selena St. Clair, who feels drawn to Finch even though she doesn’t quite trust her. But no matter Selena’s suspicions, when the two girls and their group of friends accidentally raise a horrible monster whose existence threatens not just their lives but the safety of the whole island, Finch and Selena must work together to defeat the creature before it’s too late.