Weird and wild, this story is like no other I've read before. Historical fiction melds with horror in what may feel like a combo of Black magical realism and women's suffrage. The 1915 world of women struggling out on the range alone, trying to survive in a world that wants to kill them, is spot on. You can feel the desolation of their environment, along with the desire to survive. The book meanders just a bit toward the end, but the deeper meaning does come through. What is locked inside the trunk? You will have to read this book to find out!

I picked the third book in the Greatcoats series as it contains the fight sequence I remember the most, but every entry in this series has some incredible swordplay and memorable action. The Greatcoats take all the swashbuckling bravado of the Three Musketeers but thrown into a far more dangerous world with black magic and angry deities. There’s a cavalier joy to every sword fight, which often details the specific strategies to the point where you feel like you’re learning how to fight for yourself. There’s tons of honor and bravery in the face of a brutal, bleak world, and worth every page.

I loved the Nevernight books because the main character is not necessarily always a hero. Mia is an assassin and cares only about killing. This means it can be uncomfortable to support her decisions and actions when they involve so much death and bloodshed.

She kills for reasons that she thinks are justified, but that isn’t always right, and it is great to see her grow and become something more than just a killing machine. She has a great personality and endures many hardships through the series but I loved reading along and seeing how she overcame everything she faced.

This is another one is by Erin Morgenstern, who wrote The Night Circus, my other favorite from 2023. As you can imagine, Morgenstern conjures up more magic and mystery! In this one, a university student named Zachary finds his way through a magical door and into a world somewhere deep within the earth (or so I imagined) full of books, strange people, and the pieces of a puzzle that tie him to the Starless Sea. Zachary takes us on his journey as he tries to find answers, and Morgenstern again dazzles readers with her crazy-wild imagination.

I was sucked into this book, just as I was with The Night Circus. It is pure escapism with lots of nods to literature that readers will appreciate. I felt like I was at a masked ball with mysterious strangers and suddenly fell down Alice’s rabbit hole into a place that defied time… show more.

Be prepared. If you want a good cry, this book is for you, as it has one of the saddest endings of any novel I have read.

The Green Mile is the riveting and tragic story of John Coffee, a giant, gentle inmate with supernatural powers, condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin nine-year-old girls.

Coffee is a simple and kind man with a deathly fear of the dark. Your heart will break. Mine did. 

Azalea Ellis puts her own spin on portal fantasy with A Conjuring of Ravens. Rather than being transported into another world, Siobhan finds herself in a different body in the same world with its own trials, troubles, and dangers. Balancing secrecy against her burgeoning powers and talents to keep her out of harm's way rapidly becomes vital to not only her survival but to the survival of those she comes to care about as well.

The tremendously rich world building and motley collection of characters kept me turning pages late into the night.

Meet dashing Jesamiah Acorne, pirate extraordinaire. This cocky, handsome young man proves to have as many layers as an onion, and right at the center lies the traumatic experiences at the hand of his much older brother. Jesamiah has become a pirate to escape—but also because of his love of the sea. Never will he love anyone as much as he loves the sea and his ships—well, until Tiola enters his life under relatively dramatic circumstances. 

This is a book firmly grounded in research, be it of the historical context or of 18th-century ships. It is because of that foundation that Ms. Hollick’s pirate yarn grows into something utterly addictive. How fortunate that this is only the first book in the series!

Hodgson's sea-based stories, drawing on his experience as a sailor, have a plausibility that draws me in. The vast emptiness of the ocean is depicted vividly, creating a sense of isolation that adds to the terror of his work. Add to this some of the most bizarre creatures in literature and we have a bleak, enchanting atmosphere. I find the sense of brooding horror really puts me in the scene.

I know I'm unfashionably late to the party on this story, but I haven't seen anyone saying exactly this about it: Mexican Gothic makes an incredible amount of sense in its own context. That's rare and fun in a horror story, especially one in the gothic subgenre. NOTHING happens arbitrarily in Mexican Gothic! That makes the whole plot worse/better in the best of ways.

And now, the part you've doubtless already heard about this novel. The characters are engaging and deeply human (yes, even that guy, unfortunately). I especially love that in their own ways, all the characters are a little greedy about something. Greed instigates many entertaining interactions among the characters, and with their deliciously creepy world.

Okay, I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian lore, but who needs me to recommend Lovecraft? I might as well recommend White Castle to stoners.

While this book (which was also an HBO series) isn’t as funny as Ruff’s Sewer, Gas, and Electric (a wonderful spoof of Atlas Shrugged), I reread it after watching the series and found it as thrilling and exciting as the first read. It plays on science fiction as well as horror, and the chapter depicting Hypolita Freeman’s discovery of a portal to other universes in an observatory has haunted me since I first read it.

I’ve never read a book that weaves horror and science fiction so seamlessly. (Note: I love the irony of writing a book about a closely-knit black family tackling the horrors inspired by the openly racist Lovecraft.)