4 Stars

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IN A DARK, DARK ROOM by Alvin Schwartz and Dirk Zimmer (Illustrator)

Publisher’s Synopsis:

IN A DARK, DARK ROOM is a Level Two I Can Read book, geared for kids who read on their own but still need a little help.

Creak…
Crash…
BOO!

Shivering skeletons, ghostly pirates, chattering corpses, and haunted graveyards…all to chill your bones! Share these seven spine-tingling stories in a dark, dark room.

Alvin Schwartz is known for a body of work of more than two dozen books of folklore for young readers that explore everything from wordplay and humor to tales and legends of all kinds. His collections of scary stories — Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Scary Stories 3, and two I Can Read Books, In A Dark, Dark Room and Ghosts! — are just one part of his matchless folklore collection.

Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: January 1, 1984
Source: Library Loan
Rating: 4 Stars

My Thoughts:

I missed reading this book when I was younger. It was published in 1984, and by then I was a young teen, and not interested in I Can Read books. I saw a clip on TikTok about this collection of stories recently and had to check it out. If only it had come out a few years earlier. My creepy little soul would have loved it.

I checked out the original 1984 edition from the library, though there is also an updated edition with new artwork. My favorite stories are: “The Teeth” (mainly for the creepy artwork); “The Green Ribbon” (ominous and scary); and “The Night It Rained” (sad, unsettling, spooky). “The Pirate” was pretty good too. The other three stories were fine, but could have used a little something more. All of them had great pictures.

Are there any books you wish you’d read as a child that weren’t published yet? A series I really wish had been published earlier is Dear America. I absolutely loved the Little House books, and I know I would have devoured an entire historical fiction series about girls in different time periods.

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Blog Tour Review and Excerpt: GOOD GIRLS DON’T DIE by Christina Henry

Synopsis from the Publisher:

A sharp-edged, supremely twisty thriller about three women who find themselves trapped inside stories they know aren’t their own, from the author of Alice and Near the Bone.

Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family — and this life — is not hers…

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip — but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…

Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: November 14, 2023
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: 4 Stars

My Thoughts:

In Christina Henry’s latest thriller, three different women find themselves precariously trapped and living inside their favorite genres — mystery, horror, and dystopian — but how, and by whom? I enjoyed this original and exciting twist on the thriller novel. I went into this book not knowing much about the plot, and that’s the best way to enjoy it.

I greatly admired the bravery and smarts of the heroines. I would have been freaking out had I been in any one of their situations, but they showed great resolve. I was on pins and needles waiting to see how their stories fit together. My one complaint had to do with the ending. I felt like it was abrupt and didn’t answer nearly enough questions about the wildness I had just experienced! An epilogue would have been a nice addition. Still, I found this thriller to be refreshingly original and well written.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

GOOD GIRLS DON’T DIE Excerpt:

Allie realized she should never have agreed to this trip. Once Cam and Madison backed out on their deal and showed up with the Wonder Twins in tow, she should have said she felt sick, had to study for a test, anything to stay back in the dorm for the weekend. But she’d felt boxed in by Cam and Madison’s pleading faces, by the mocking way Brad had looked at her as she hesitated before picking up her backpack and climbing into the car.

He’d looked like he could read her mind, could see right through to her reluctance (and, if she was honest with herself, anger), like he was daring her to come anyway.

Allie knew it was stupid, knew it was childish, but she could never back down from a dare.

Besides, she was the reason for this weekend in the first place. If she had decided to stay back at school, she’d never hear the end of it.

They’d all shown up in Brad’s car — a BMW, of course, which Allie was sure his parents had bought for him. Cam and Madison had moved off campus that semester, and Cam was supposed to be driving her old Toyota. It was going to be Allie and Cam and Madison, the Three Musketeers back together again, off to a beach cottage that Cam’s parents’ friends owned and said they could use for the weekend.

Instead, there was Brad, driving his stupid rich boy car and watching her with those eyes that told Allie never to be caught alone with him. Cam and Madison had yelled from the backseat, and Allie had swallowed her annoyance and climbed in, crammed in the middle seat because “you’re the smallest and legroom doesn’t matter for you.”

Cam and Madison had whooped and shouted, slapping a paper “Birthday Girl” crown on her head and dropping a package of Hostess Cupcakes in her lap.

“Let’s get this twenty-first-birthday party started!” Cam had shouted, her arm around Allie’s shoulders.

Allie had smiled, the way she was supposed to, but she didn’t miss the look Brad had given her in the mirror. Something sneaky, something snakey, something that didn’t bode well at all for the weekend.

They’d driven away from the campus, and almost immediately Steve had handed a thermos to Madison, shaking it meaningfully.

“A little juice for the party,” he’d said.

Madison had immediately opened it and guzzled a bunch, and then passed it to Allie, who didn’t want to drink alcohol at ten in the morning, and especially did not want to drink some mystery cocktail prepared by Steve. But everyone had been watching her and waiting, so she’d taken a sip and made herself not wrinkle her nose, because whatever was in there tasted like gasoline. Cam had shouted, “Yeah, girl!” and grabbed the thermos, downing a fair amount herself.

They’d passed the bottle back and forth, Allie taking only small sips, but Cam and Madison hadn’t seemed to notice. Despite limiting her intake, Allie had still dropped off to sleep in the backseat, only waking when they had pulled up in front of the cabin.

“Where the hell are we?” she’d asked, sitting up straight. Cam and Madison were out cold on either side of her. Whatever Steve had put in that bottle had packed a punch. “This is not the beach.”

“‘This is not the beach,’” Brad had said, his voice high and mocking. “I see why your GPA is so high. Nothing gets by you, Brockman.”

Cam had stirred beside her, then sat up and looked out the window. “Are we there yet?”

“Well, we’re somewhere,” Allie had said, trying to draw on her patience. She’d had no idea where Brad had driven them, and since he was the only one in the vicinity with a car, she needed to convince him to stop fucking around and take them to the cottage.

“Is this the woods?” Cam had said. “A cabin in the woods?”

“Just like the movie!” Madison had squealed, jumping out and slamming the door behind her. Steve had followed, chasing her around the clearing in front of the cabin’s porch.

“Everyone died in that movie,” Allie had muttered. “Like, actually everyone.”

Excerpted from Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry Copyright © 2023 by Christina Henry. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author:

Christina Henry is a horror and dark fantasy author whose works include Horseman, Near the Bone, The Ghost Tree, Looking Glass, The Girl in Red, The Mermaid, Lost Boy, Alice, Red Queen, and the seven-book urban fantasy Black Wings series.

She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on, and watching movies with samurai, zombies, and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Learn more online at www.christinahenry.net.

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Blog Tour Review: THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE WILD by Peggy Townsend

Synopsis from the Publisher:

The dangers of Alaska aren’t limited to storms, starvation, and grizzly bears. Sometimes the most dangerous thing is the person you love.

It’s summer in Alaska and the light surrounding the shipping-container-turned-storage shed where Liv Russo is being held prisoner is fuzzy and gray. Around her is thick forest and jagged mountains. In front of her, across a clearing, is a low-slung cabin with a single window that spills a wash of yellow light onto bare ground. Illuminated in that light is the father of her child, a man she once loved. A man who is now her jailor. Liv vows to do anything to escape.

Carrying her own secrets and a fierce need to protect her young son, Liv must navigate a new world where extreme weather, starvation, and dangerous wildlife are not the only threats she faces. With winter’s arrival imminent, she knows she must reckon with her past and the choices that brought her to the unforgiving Alaskan landscape if she is ever going to make it out alive.

A story of survival in the wilds of Alaska, The Beautiful and the Wild explores the question of whether we can ever truly know the person we love — or ourselves.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: 4 Stars

My Thoughts:

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE WILD is a compulsive domestic thriller set on a remote Alaskan homestead. The protagonist Liv is trapped there, held prisoner by her husband. As winter quickly approaches, she has to figure out a way to escape with her young son in tow.

I thought this would be a “chased through the wild” thriller, but it was quite different from what I was expecting, and I enjoyed it. Liv processes a lot of heavy secrets and emotional baggage as she struggles to survive on the homestead, learning much about herself and her husband. There aren’t a lot of big twists, and most of the action takes place at the very end, but I was still on pins and needles waiting to see how everything would play out.

I would recommend this introspective and engrossing survivalist tale to thriller readers looking for something a bit different.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

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Blog Tour Review and Excerpt: THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE by Carissa Orlando #20booksofsummer23

Synopsis from the Publisher:

A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: September 5, 2023
Source: Review copy from NetGalley
Rating: 4 Stars

My Thoughts:

Wow, this book was wild! Margaret and Hal are finally able to afford their dream home, a lovely Victorian purchased for a steal, but there’s a catch — it’s haunted. Even with a malevolent presence stirring up trouble, especially during the month of September, Margaret refuses to move out. After a few Septembers, Hal has had enough and leaves. Then their daughter Katherine (unaware of the hauntings) arrives looking for her dad, and oh, dear!

This was an entertaining yet disturbing horror novel that managed to pull the rug out from under me. I was truly invested in the plight of these characters and their complicated relationships, particularly the mother and daughter. Secrets are gradually revealed, and puzzle pieces click into place, or so it seems! At one point I did feel like things were getting repetitive, and I wanted to give the plot a push forward. Overall, though, I enjoyed this darkly humorous and unsettling gothic horror debut.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE Excerpt:

The walls of the house were bleeding again.

This sort of thing could be expected; it was, after all, September.

The bleeding wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been accompanied by nightly moaning that escalated into screaming by the end of the month like clockwork. The moaning started around midnight and didn’t let up until nearly six in the morning, which made it challenging to get a good night’s sleep. Since it was early in the month, I could still sleep through the racket, but the sleep was disjointed and not particularly restful.

Before Hal absconded to wherever it was he went, he used to stretch and crack what sounded like the entirety of his skeleton. Margaret, he would say, we’re getting old.

Speak for yourself, I would reply, but he was right. I was starting to feel a bit like the house itself sometimes-grand but withering, shifting in the wind and making questionable noises when the foundation settled. All the moaning-and-screaming business in September certainly didn’t help me feel any younger.

That is to say, I was not looking forward to late September and the nightly screaming. It was going to be a long month. But that’s just the way of things.

As for the bleeding, it always started at the top floor of the house-the master bedroom. If I wasn’t mistaken, it started above our very bed itself. There was something disconcerting about opening your eyes first thing in the morning and seeing a thick trail of red oozing down your nice wallpaper, pointing straight at your head. It really set a mood for the remainder of the day. Then you walked out into the hallway and there was more of it dripping from in between the cracks in the wallpaper, leaking honey-slow to the floor. It was a lot to take in before breakfast.

As early as it was in September, the blood hadn’t yet made it to the baseboards. Give it a week, however, and it would start pooling on the floor, cascading down the stairs in clotting red waterfalls. By the end of the month, deft footwork would be required to walk down the hallway or descend the stairs without leaving a trail of prints throughout the house. I had grown practiced in dodging blood over the past few years, but even I had slipped up on occasion, especially once the screaming was in full effect. Sleep deprivation really takes a toll on your motor functioning.

I used to worry over the walls, getting a bucket and soap and scrubbing until my arms were sore, only to see my work undone before my eyes. I would rub the sponge over a crack in the wallpaper and watch a fresh blob of red leak out of the open wound that was the wall over and over again. The wallpaper is ruined, I fretted, but it never was. It all went away in October. So now I just allowed the walls to bleed and waited patiently.

The first year we were in the house, Hal tried to convince me that the bleeding was just a leak. An oozing red leak. He carried on with that line of reasoning much longer than was logical. By the time the blood poured down the stairs and Hal was almost ready to admit that maybe it wasn’t a simple leak, October hit and the blood vanished. Hal considered it a problem solved. I suppose he thought it was an isolated event and never considered that such a thing might be cyclical. He seemed surprised when the blood returned that second September. There’s that leak again, he mused, fooling nobody. Everything, of course, changed after the third September, and Hal’s opinions about the bleeding during this fourth September could be best summed up by his abrupt absence. I supposed I ought to feel trepidatious about facing September alone. However, I was never quite alone in this house, now, was I?

Excerpted from The September House by Carissa Orlando. Copyright © 2023 by Carissa Orlando. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author:

Carissa Orlando has a doctorate in clinical-community psychology and specializes in work with children and adolescents. In her “day job,” Carissa works to improve the quality of and access to mental health care for children and their families. Prior to her career in psychology, Carissa studied creative writing in college and has written creatively in some form since she was a child. It was only a matter of time before Carissa, an avid horror fan for much of her life, merged her understanding of the human psyche and deep love for storytelling into a piece of fiction.

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A LIKEABLE WOMAN by May Cobb #20booksofsummer23

Synopsis from the Publisher:

Kira’s back in her affluent hometown for the first time in years and determined to unravel the secrets of her mother’s death–hidden in the unpublished memoir she left behind– even if it kills her…

After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home. . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like sexy Jack, her childhood crush. But more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that make it look an awful lot like murder.

When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, Kira is drawn into the past and all the sizzling secrets that come along with it. With few allies left in her gossipy country-club town, Kira turns to Jack for help. As she gets closer to discovering what—and who—might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.

And they might come after Kira next.

Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: July 11, 2023
Source: Review copy from the Publisher
Rating: 4 Stars

My Thoughts:

May Cobb has penned a simmering domestic thriller with her latest novel, A LIKEABLE WOMAN. Was anyone truly likeable in this book? No! But the author’s suspenseful storytelling kept me glued to the pages.

Main character Kira has returned to her hometown in Texas after a 20-year absence. She left not long after her mother’s alleged suicide, though Kira has long thought there was something more to it. Though she has no desire to visit her estranged sister and former friends (who seem to despise her now), Kira’s grandmother has lured her back with possible information on her mother’s death.

I enjoyed the dual POVs/time periods between Kira and her mother Sadie years before. I loved the tidbits of wisdom that Sadie left behind for Kira to discover, wisdom that readers should take to heart as well.

After finishing this book, I’m left with a few pesky questions, like why was Kira invited back for the event if she was so unliked by everyone? Just mean girl spirit? And though I enjoyed the surprising, twisted ending, does it make sense? Maybe.

The story is set in October in East Texas, and I could definitely feel the chill in the air reading this atmospheric mystery. Definitely pick this one up if you enjoy slow-burn suspense with lots of juicy drama!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book. Opinions are my own.