Category: Read This Book

The story is told primarily from two points of view. First is teenage Ivy who at the beginning of the book has just broken up with her boyfriend Nate. They are in his car, leaving a party, and he is driving recklessly. He swerves, crashes, and gets out of the car while telling Ivy he saw something. Specifically, a woman, or at least older teen girl, standing naked in the middle of the road. Nate says she ran into the woods (because of course there’s creepy woods right there) and both Ivy and Nate run in to find her because it was unclear if she was hurt and needs help.

The other point of view is told from Dana, Ivy’s mother. Dana and her best friend, who Ivy refers to as Aunt Fee, are local witchy-types and they run an herb shop that is well-known in town. Dana’s chapters are mostly flashbacks about when she and Fee were teens and getting into witchcraft in troubling ways and definitely deeper than they should have. Ivy knows nothing of this as she and her mother have a very strained, cold, distant relationship that is borderline antagonistic. Dana doesn’t let anyone in, especially her daughter. She has some big secrets and it’s very clear that she is deliberately keeping things from Ivy.

Of course, weird, creepy things start happening. Without spoiling anything, I will say that Ivy is spending the summer grounded. She shouldn’t have been out at that party with Nate so her summer’s gonna be a bummer. On top of that, her mom has gone incommunicado. She’s not home and Ivy’s sure she’s with her Aunt Fee doing stuff for the shop but she doesn’t come home and she’s not responding to texts. Is she missing? Is she just doing the distant and aloof thing she does? Before Dana left, Ivy witnessed her doing some super suspicious things in the garden and wild stuff keeps happening to and around Ivy while her mom is nowhere to be found.

Content warning for violence to animals, namely rabbits.

Cassie is a college senior who has no interest in hanging around campus for Family Weekend, so she finds herself in an off, off campus bar where she flirts with a very beautiful older woman. One thing leads to another, and they have a hot hookup that should be a one and done deal…but the next day Cassie is shocked when she’s invited to breakfast with her new friend, a college freshman…and her mom turns out to be Cassie’s one night stand.

Erin didn’t mean to hookup with a younger woman, and she’s horrified to realize that her daughter is friends with Cassie. She resolves to put the whole situation behind her…but the more she gets to know Cassie, the harder it is to stay away. But how can they have a real relationship after all this clandestine action?

I loved Meryl Wilsner’s debut novel, Something to Talk About, so I was super excited to read their next book and this one surpassed all expectations. Not only is it fun and super sexy, but it is a thoughtful take on relationship age gaps and what society views as permissible. (To be clear, Cassie is 23 while Erin is 39 so nothing is illegal or icky on that count.) Cassie and Erin have an electric connection and it goes beyond the physical element to a deeply emotional connection, which they’re both reluctant to admit and explore, but when they do they find something that shocks them: the chance at a genuine connection and happiness. I loved that this book starts off as a sexy one-night stand and turns into a heartfelt romance about two people learning to take a chance on love and be brave in the face of judgement or others’ opinions. It’s also a great book about found family and learning to embrace those who accept you, even if the relationships might look unconventional. Definitely pick this one up if you want a sapphic romance with heat and heart.

In 7th century Ireland, Artt, a scholar and a priest, arrives at a monastery looking for two monks to join him in a divine mission: Artt believes that God has told him to create a haven on an uninhabited island where he and his two companions can create a place devoted solely to copying manuscripts of the scriptures and focusing on heavenly things.

At the monastery, Artt chooses two monks to accompany him: Trian, a young monk barely into adulthood, and Cormac, an older man who was a builder and converted late in life. The three of them sail down the river and out into the sea, looking for the perfect place to settle. They find an island inhabited solely by nesting puffins and other seabirds. During the spring and summer, the three find ways to survive on the land. But Artt keeps insisting their time should be spent copying scripture, not satisfying their own needs. As winter looms, a very bedraggled Trian and Cormac are forced to wonder if their leader has actually led them to their inevitable demise.

To me, Haven read as if Lauren Groff’s Matrix had paired with Gary Paulsen’s The Hatchet. These three men are forced to make dwellings, find food, and create clothes with very little supplies to speak of, and Donoghue describes how they use the meager resources around them in great detail. I felt endlessly fascinated as they made torches from the oil of water birds and learned to cook the meager food they found on the island.

Donoghue possesses a deep understanding of her characters, each one of the men well-rounded and fleshed out. And as the tension rises between them, Trian and Cormac are forced to make some incredibly difficult decisions.

Sol (short for Solomon) Katz is a Jewish trans man who is also an archivist and also a vampire. Most people don’t know he’s a vampire. Well, human resources at the archives where he works knows but his co-worker, Florence, doesn’t. Florence is really transphobic and every interaction she has with Sol makes me clench my jaw and shout expletives. They work at the Historical Society of Northern California.

The archives are, of course, in a basement devoid of windows so Sol is totally safe from the sun down there. He has been living in/sleeping in his office, which is totally against the rules. He is too terrified of trying and maybe failing to sun-proof an apartment so he just lives and works in the archives and sometimes goes out around town at night. He goes out at least once a week or so to get his blood transfusion. He doesn’t actually attack people. Vampires are a known entity in the world of this book and there are night clinics where they get blood that can’t be given to the living, such as blood that has viral infections.

Our other main character is Elsie. She has decided to donate her deceased wife’s papers, ephemera, etc. to the Historical Society and Sol has accepted. The deceased, Tracy, was the creator of Feet of Clay, a ’90s cult classic show that was kind of a knock-off of the X-Files. Sol was absolutely obsessed with Feet of Clay back in the ’90s and was super into the fandom.

Elsie, it seems, is super into Sol and flirting blooms into a tentative romance. More than once in the book, Sol comes out as transgender. And then as a vampire. And sometimes both at once. The book is not only told through Sol’s point of view, but from bits and pieces of Tracy’s papers that were donated, old emails, fan fiction, and scripts. It’s an intricate story about the histories of the main characters involving meditations on identity, grief, love, and empathy and it is absolutely lovely.

Alex Easton, a sworn soldier now in retirement, has just received word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is gravely ill. They rush to the Usher ancestral home, a forlorn estate crumbling into ruin in rural Ruritania. There, Alex finds that not only is Madeline consumed by some peculiar wasting disease, but her brother Roderick is afflicted with a nervous condition and the local wildlife behaves very strangely. Alex also discovers a redoubtable English mycologist conducting research nearby (yes, there’s creepy mushrooms in this one), and an American doctor who is baffled by the whole situation. Time is not on their side as Alex tries to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.

Alex’s voice is delightful in this book — they’re a bit playful and humorous in how they recount their history and relate details of their world, keeping the book from being overly somber even as some really dark and serious events unfold. I loved their encounters with the various colorful characters, and how Kingfisher situates this novel in European history, giving enough clues to place the book in time while also being vague enough to play fast and loose with some details. The details of the plot and the setting are just peculiar enough to create a sense of unease, but when things take a turn they really get foreboding! This may be a brief book but it’s unforgettable and let’s just say I’ll never look at hares the same way again!

When Leah returns from her expedition to one of the deepest parts of the ocean, she’s different. Miri, Leah’s wife, watches as Leah barely eats and spends far too much time in the bath. Miri can’t put her finger on it, but somehow, Leah has completely changed.

As we learn more about Leah and Miri in the present, we get flashbacks of Leah and her crew getting stuck under the sea for months, unable to resurface due to a malfunction on their submarine. The crew is isolated, and soon, they begin seeing things in the darkness of the ocean. We also get flashbacks of Miri and Leah’s love story, learning about how they met and some of their most intimate moments. It’s a beautiful portrait of a marriage that may not have a happy ending.

It’s difficult to describe the sinister feeling that Armfield evokes with her prose. It’s somehow both creepy and romantic. As we learn more about Miri and Leah’s relationship, we also get moments of bodily horror as Leah’s body changes from her time down in the depths of the ocean. Armfield’s strength is the depth of character she’s able to achieve with both Leah and Miri. They each are such vibrant characters; we, as readers, fall in love with them too.

Armfield’s prose is gorgeous, incredibly intimate. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think about beautiful writing when I think about horror writing. Armfield subverts expectations, turning our expectations on their heads as she gives us glimpses into these characters’ lives.

If you love audiobooks, I have to recommend Annabel Baldwin’s and Robyn Holdaway’s performances on the audio editions. It made me feel like they were doing a two-woman show, taking turns performing monologues from Leah’s and Miri’s perspectives.

Our protagonist is Celeste (aka Cel). Cel has some mental health issues that are unmanaged. She has been prescribed medication that she refuses to take and she gets very sharp when her boyfriend offers any sort of help. Due to a mental health incident, maybe a panic attack, maybe a series of incidents or panic attacks, she has lost the only job she has ever had. She worked at a library and absolutely loved it. She doesn’t have a degree and library jobs are hard to get even with a degree so she worries she won’t find anything else.

Eventually she does find something that looks promising: a position as an archival assistant at the incredibly creepy Logan Museum and Library. It’s one of those places that is full of skulls, maybe some “medical oddities,” and it definitely feels like it is haunted. The museum was founded in 1934 but before that the building had been a variety of things such as a hospital, an orphanage, and a sanitorium, specifically a psychiatric hospital. The thing about such museums and exhibits is that many folks don’t often think too deeply about where the skulls and other bones and specimens come from.

Cel takes the job anyway. The job requires that she actually live on the premises in a little apartment that has no internet or cellular signal. She has to live there because she does her work of scanning and digitizing images from the archives after the museum closes and before it opens. Cel is also occasionally experiencing blackouts, which add to the creep factor when they happen at her new job because strange things are also happening. Cel doesn’t know if these strange things are actually happening or if it is because of the state of her mental health.

Maeve is an Irish teenager going to a Catholic school, and she’s not the best at school. One day, during detention, she finds a deck of tarot cards and teaches herself how to give readings. Finally, this is something she’s good at, and she even comes up with a nice little side hustle giving readings to her classmates. But when she reads the cards for her ex-best friend Lily, she draws a terrifying card she’s never seen before: the Housekeeper. Then, Lily disappears the next day. Maeve is alarmed, and she can’t help but feel guilty and somehow responsible when she learns that Lily was last seen with a tall, dark-haired woman bearing a striking resemblance to the Housekeeper card. Maeve teams up with Lily’s sibling and a new friend to get down to the bottom of this magical mystery, and get Lily back.

I loved the creepy vibes of this book, which has a light mystery element to it, but is mostly a witchy read about realizing the extent of your power and wielding it responsibly. I loved that Maeve is a teenager who isn’t conventionally good at school and often feels out of place as the youngest child of a big family with siblings who are all a lot older than her. She has insecurities and doubts, and those feed into her budding powers. Her journey is all about learning to come into her own powers, owning up to her actions, and facing her mistakes. There is also a delightful queer romance at the heart of this book, and some really interesting local history, with an all-too-real villain in the form of a far-right Christian conservative group. All of the elements came together really well, and while this book is set in spring and not in fall, it feels like a perfectly atmospheric and witchy book for October. Bonus: The sequel is excellent, too!

A man named Al-Jahiz forever changed the world 50 years ago when he opened the world up to the fantastical. Once the Djinn came through with their magic and engineering, Egypt was able to become equals with European world powers, changing not only the country, but the entire world order. But it’s been years since Al-Jahiz was seen…

This book starts with a meeting being held by a secret society of mostly wealthy white men in Cairo who are dedicated to Al-Jahiz. A man claiming to be the legendary figure appears and everyone in the meeting is brutally killed. That’s where the main character, Fatma el-Sha’arawi, comes in. She’s the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities — which are basically like the magic police — and she’s been called in to investigate the murders. Despite hearing and seeing the murderer achieve incredible acts of magic — including controlling powerful djinn — she believes the man to be an imposter instead of the famed man come back to the public eye.

In order to prove her theory and simultaneously solve the murder case, she enlists the help of her stunning girlfriend Siti, other Ministry of Alchemy officers, and a few interesting and magical supporting characters. But the imposter seems so skilled in magic and has such a way with words — as shown in how he manipulates crowds and brings about social unrest — that it does increasingly seem like he is who he says he is…

This is part alternate history fantasy, science fiction, and mystery all rolled up into one. I mainly listened to it on audiobook, and P. Djèlí Clark’s excellent world building coupled with the lilting accent and skill with which Suehyla El-Attar narrated made the experience immersive. Each time I started listening again, I felt Clark’s magical Cairo unfurl around me. He also interweaves sociopolitical issues throughout that are multilayered and complex, true to how they are in our own timeline. And then there are the many awards this book has won or been nominated for.

Wendy Darling lives in a small coastal town in Oregon at the edge of the woods. She is terrified of the woods and with good reason. At the start of the book it is her 18th birthday and around five years since she was found alone in the woods. Six months prior to that she and her two younger brothers had gone missing and only she turned back up. She remembers nothing, except that the woods terrify her.

On her 18th birthday another child went missing. Any time a child goes missing in the town, the cops want to interrogate Wendy, who clearly already has a lot of trauma. This recent abduction makes two kids currently missing (aside from her brothers lost years ago).

Wendy’s best friend Jordan is a constant support in her life and the only one that Wendy can share things with. Lately, Wendy has been unintentionally drawing things. For example, if she has a pen in her hand to make a list or sign a receipt or take notes she suddenly spaces out and when she gets her attention back, she sees that she has drawn a tree. A big, gnarly tree that she doesn’t recognize. Or that she has drawn a boy. The same boy, each time. An imaginary boy who ends up being Peter Pan.

Peter shows up, which is already a problem because he’s not supposed to be real and asks Wendy to once again help him find and reattach his shadow. The shadow has grown beyond only mischievous and is straight up evil. Peter believes the shadow has to do with the missing children.

This book is incredibly creepy and really, really good. Content warnings for child abduction and violence against children including gun violence.