Sunny Days, Short Nights, and Horror Delights

You know how much I love carnival and circus horror, but be forewarned: Veronica Henry’s June release may be called Bacchanal, but it’s no party. The titular Bacchanal Carnival conceals a terrible evil behind the veneer of a traveling Depression-era carnival, roaming the South. But Eliza Meeks, its newest member, is unaware of the danger. To her, the carnival is her only way out of Baton Rouge, and she quickly finds herself at home among the troupe of performers, carnies, and barkers, many of whom are far stranger than Eliza and her unusual gift of speaking to animals. She has no idea that an ancient demon resides at the heart of Bacchanal, preying on the innocent, or that she may be the only one capable of defeating it.

I don’t even have words for how excited I am about this book. I basically just spend my days refreshing my Barnes & Noble order page, waiting for it to ship… Okay I exaggerate. But seriously this is going to be complete catnip and I’m so ready. I blame Angela Carter for the fact that I’m helpless in the face of any dark fantasy fantasy retelling of Red Riding Hood. She ruined me, and Whitten is going to finish the job. Red is a Second Daughter, the first in centuries, which means that her one purpose in life is to be sacrificed. The Wolf in the Wood holds the world’s gods captive and every second daughter born is sacrificed in hopes that he might release them. But what she finds in the depths of the Wilderwood is a tangle of lies, and everything she thought she knew about her world comes undone.

(Oh. This one is going to hit me right in the obsessed Dragon Age fan feels, I can already tell.)

At this point if V. Castro writes a book I barely stop to read the synopsis before I buy. Her books are just THAT good. This one, in particularly, I’m super excited for! In 2018, Belinda Alvarez returns to south Texas to attend her best friend’s wedding at a picturesque farm that happens to be the site of an eerie urban legend: La Reina de Las Chicharras. The Queen of the Cicadas. A murdered farmworker in the 1950s made a deal with an Aztec goddess of death to live again and take her vengeance on those who hurt her and those who forgot her. Now, as the legend unfolds, Belinda finds that her life – and that of the farmhouse owner, Hector – is entwined with that of the murdered woman, Milagros. As the two become immersed in the past it becomes clear that Milagros’ fate may be theirs as well.

Okay, so, I’m REALLY excited about this book. Playing up the isolation of a world before cellphones, and the vast emptiness of rural highways, Sager sets the stage for what promises to be a heart pounding new thriller guaranteed to keep us guessing! Charlie Jordan is a grief-stricken college student sharing the long ride home to Ohio with another student she barely knows. Josh claims that he’s hurrying home to help care for his sick father, and Charlie is fleeing her survivor guilt after her best friend fell prey to the Campus Killer, a serial offender stalking the college grounds. But trapped in a car with Josh on an empty highway in the middle of the night, Charlie starts to have doubts about her traveling companion. Now Charlie loves movies, she’s even named after a Hitchcock heroine, so it could just be her murder-fueled imagination talking. But there are holes in Josh’s story, and something in the trunk he doesn’t want her to see.