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BookStrology Weekly Forecast: May 5 ��� 11, 2025

When the cosmos gets cryptic, crack open a book.

Welcome back to BookStrology! This week crackles like static before a summer storm. With the Taurus Sun cozying up to Jupiter, and Mercury finally behaving, we���re in our main character era ��� but it���s giving emotionally complex and dramatically unbothered. Add a Pisces moon midweek and we���re spiraling in slow motion (with great lighting).

So, whether you���re plotting your escape or orchestrating your glow-up, let the cosmos curate your next read.

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ToggleBookStrology Weekly Forecast: May 5 ��� 11, 2025 Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius PiscesBookStrology Weekly Forecast: May 5 ��� 11, 2025 Aries

This week: You���re flirting with burnout and calling it productivity.

You’re not bored. You���re starved for something to shock your system. Find a story that runs wild and refuses to be tamed.

Read: Dead Eleven by Jimmy Juliano

An island stuck in the ’90s, a woman unraveling a conspiracy ��� creepy, culty, and just unhinged enough.

Taurus

This week: You���re resisting change while craving transformation.

Jupiter���s expanding your comfort zone ��� but gently. You need a book that���s beautiful, broody, and a little dangerous.

Read: A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan

Obsession, social media, and surreal horror. It���s satire with teeth, and it���s quietly devastating.

Gemini

This week: Your personality split is on speaking terms.

You���re not two-faced, you���re multi-faceted, and you need a book with layers. Lots of them.

Read: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Gothic, medical horror, haunted house vibes ��� think Crimson Peak meets Grey���s Anatomy with blood magic.

Cancer

This week: Your emotional support water bottle is judging your life choices.

You���re longing for connection but also hiding under ten blankets. Read something that understands your need to ache softly.

Read: A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

A Shirley Jackson���sanctioned haunted tale with theatre kids, ghosts, and emotional rot. Absolutely perfect for your haunted little heart.

Leo

This week: You���re giving ���lead in a prestige miniseries.���

The drama is high, the stakes are personal, and your inner monologue deserves an Emmy.

Read: Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas

Coastal obsession, coming-of-age ache, and prose so cinematic it might ruin you.

Virgo

This week: You want control, but the chaos keeps making itself at home.

You���re tired of fixing everything. Let go (a little) and dive into a slow, eerie unraveling.

Read: The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

A haunted house story that doesn���t play by the rules ��� unsettling, architectural, and deeply psychological.

Libra

This week: You���re curating your crisis.

You can make heartbreak look like high art, but wouldn���t it be nice if someone else fell apart for once?

Read: Tremor by Teju Cole

Lyrical, intellectual, and quietly explosive. This book leaves elegance smudged with smoke.

Scorpio

This week: You���re seductive, suspicious, and two seconds from uncovering a truth you weren���t ready for.

Indulge your taste for the twisted, but make it meaningful.

Read: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Motherhood, madness, metamorphosis ��� primal and oddly empowering.

Sagittarius

This week: Your body is here, but your soul is hitchhiking across dimensions.

You need adventure, but not the Instagrammable kind. No, you need something that gets weird fast.

Read: The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Brutal, bizarre, and utterly original. This one will punch you in the brain (lovingly).

Capricorn

This week: You���ve got ambition poisoning and a God complex in remission.

You want a story that mirrors your silent chaos. Something smart, intense, and deeply human ���

Read: Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

Messy women, self-destruction, and the economics of love. It���s brutal but surgical.

Aquarius

This week: You���re building a worldview and dismantling another all before breakfast.

Tap into your prophetic weirdness with a story that defies genre and logic.

Read: The Employees by Olga Ravn

Sci-fi workplace existentialism with poetic dread. Perfect for your future cult syllabus.

Pisces

This week: You���re emotionally porous and the veil is thin.

Get lost in something that feels like a dream, a memory, and a premonition all at once.

Read: The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Reality bends, memory lies, and there���s a cat narrator. It���s beautiful. It���s terrifying.

Trust the stars. Burn the map. Read weird.

Catch you next week for more literary astrology chaos.

 

Hall of Horror: Sleep Paralysis Demons Across Cultures

It���s the middle of the night. You wake up, but you can���t move. You���re fully conscious, eyes wide open, but your limbs are locked in place. A crushing weight settles on your chest. And then you see it ��� There���s something in the room. Watching. Waiting. Maybe it���s crouched on your chest, breathing against your skin. Maybe it���s lurking in the corner, smiling just a little too wide. Whatever it is, you know you���re not alone.

You���re not imagining this. You���ve just slipped into the strange, terrifying world of sleep paralysis. And here���s the truly bizarre part ��� you���re not the only one. People across the globe, throughout history, have experienced the same thing. Different names. Different faces. Same nightmare.

Table of Contents

ToggleWhen Nightmares Step into the RoomThe Demon Has Many FacesScience Doesn���t Explain the Shadows CompletelyFinal Thoughts

When Nightmares Step into the Room

Sleep paralysis is a real and well-documented phenomenon. It happens when the brain wakes up during REM sleep, but the body hasn���t caught up yet. You���re stuck in the space between dreaming and waking, fully aware but still paralyzed. For some, it���s a brief inconvenience. For others, it���s a portal into absolute terror.

But what makes it fascinating is how predictable it is. A shadowy figure. A feeling of pressure on the chest. A sense of impending doom. Why does the same nightmare show up all over the world, over and over again? Because our brains, in this in-between state, default to something primal. Something ancient. Something shared.

Cultures have names for these visitors. And once you know them, you���ll start to wonder just how much of it is biological ��� and how much is something else entirely.

The Demon Has Many Faces

In Japan, it���s called kanashibari, a state where a vengeful spirit binds your body, rendering you helpless. Often described as a female ghost or y��rei, the figure appears when guilt, shame, or unresolved emotions linger too long in your subconscious.

In Newfoundland, Canada, it���s the Old Hag ��� a crone who sits on your chest and steals your breath. People believed that if you failed to ward off evil spirits before bed, the hag would come for you in the night.

Across parts of West Africa, the experience is linked to supernatural attacks from enemies or witches. In the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria, it���s sometimes seen as a spiritual battle ��� your soul under attack while your body lies still.

In South Asia, particularly in Pakistan and India, it���s churail (vengeful female spirit) and djinn (spirit beings in Islamic belief) ��� vengeful spirits or demons who pin you down, whispering in tongues only half-remembered after you wake. And in parts of Latin America, it���s called se me subi�� el muerto, literally ���a dead person climbed on top of me.��� Charming, right?

Even in ancient Greece, they had a word for it: epial��s, a spirit that presses on you during sleep. The Romans had incubus and succubus ��� demons who visited at night for less-than-holy purposes.

The names change. The forms shift. But the fear? That stays the same.

Science Doesn���t Explain the Shadows Completely

Yes, we know what sleep paralysis is in a clinical sense. It���s a sleep disorder. A misfire between the sleeping and waking parts of the brain. It often occurs when people are sleep-deprived, stressed, or experiencing trauma. The hallucinations are a mix of leftover dream imagery and the panic response triggered by not being able to move.

But here’s the kicker. Knowing that doesn’t help when you’re in it. You can know every clinical explanation under the sun, but when you’re lying there, frozen, and something walks across the floor toward your bed ��� well, rational thought takes a backseat.

Science explains the how, but it doesn���t explain the consistency. It doesn���t explain why cultures that never interacted somehow describe the same type of entity. Or why people who don���t believe in anything supernatural still swear they saw something watching them. The old woman. The hooded figure. The thing with too many fingers. They���re everywhere, always just vague enough to remain universal.

That���s where the weird part lives. In the liminal space between neurology and folklore. In the stories we pass down and the experiences we never quite forget.

Final Thoughts

Whether you chalk it up to overworked neurons or otherworldly visitors, sleep paralysis is one of those rare phenomena that walks the line between fact and myth. It���s real, measurable, and well-documented. But it also feels ��� ancient. Like a shared dream passed through generations. Like a warning whispered in a hundred languages.

So, the next time you wake up and can���t move, and your breath catches in your throat, and you know something is standing just behind your head, don���t panic. You���re not alone. You���ve joined an international club of unwilling night travelers.

Just don���t look too closely.

You might not like what���s staring back.

If you liked this instalment of Monique Snyman’s Hall of Horror, make sure to subscribe to her newsletter so you don’t miss a single post!

 

 

Uncover the Dark Truth Behind the Disappearances in The Quarry Girls

The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey doesn���t ease you in. It grabs you by the collar and drops you into 1970s Pantown, a town where fear clings to every sidewalk and girls go missing without warning. On the surface, it���s all small-town charm and summer nights. But something���s rotting beneath that perfectly constructed facade, and Heather Cash is about to uncover it.

Heather isn���t your average teenage protagonist. She���s a drummer with a sharp mind and a relentless sense of loyalty. When two of her friends vanish, she doesn���t retreat into denial. She leans into the fear and digs into the cracks no one else wants to look at. Through Heather, the story becomes less about finding out what happened and more about what it means to know the truth in a world where no one wants it exposed.

Pantown feels complicit in every awful thing that happens. The adults are either turning a blind eye or actively covering up the danger. The sheriff, Jerome Nillson, is particularly disturbing in his quiet control. The way authority is portrayed here is chilling. Lourey captures that suffocating power imbalance perfectly. It isn���t the darkness that���s scariest. It���s the way it hides in daylight and calls itself safety.

Girls Who Refuse to Disappear

What makes The Quarry Girls stand out isn���t just the mystery. It���s the emotional punch packed into every scene. Heather���s relationships with her sister Junie and her best friend Beth feel so grounded and raw, relatable in some weird way, too. There���s love, pain, frustration, and a need to protect each other even when the world refuses to protect them.

Beth���s storyline is especially gripping. After surviving an abduction, she refuses to become a background figure. She isn���t fragile or broken; she���s furious and determined. And while she doesn’t need saving, she does need someone who believes her. That���s where Heather steps in.

Together, Beth and Heather carry the emotional weight of the story, and their bond feels like a lifeline. It���s an honest, imperfect, and real bond that comes from facing down monsters and refusing to be quiet about what they���ve seen.

The Truth No One Wants to Hear

As the story unspools, Lourey pulls no punches. Heather starts to piece together who the real threats are. The picture she uncovers is horrifying, not because it���s shocking but because it feels so plausible. The people she���s supposed to trust are the ones she needs to fear most.

There���s no safe adult here. No one coming to the rescue. The only path forward is the one Heather and Beth carve for themselves. When they decide to confront the men behind the disappearances, the tension skyrockets. This isn���t some neat little thriller where everything falls into place. The Quarry Girls is survival. This is rage turned into action.

And that final confrontation? It���s terrifying. Not because of what happens, but because of how high the stakes feel. Lourey doesn���t go for cheap twists or easy victories. She gives us something far more powerful. The quiet triumph of girls who were supposed to disappear but didn���t. Girls who were told to shut up but didn���t. Girls who understood that silence is what keeps the monsters fed.

Final Thoughts

The Quarry Girls is sharp, fearless, and impossible to forget. Lourey doesn���t write horror for shock value. She writes it to make you feel the weight of the world these girls live in and to show what it takes to fight back against it. This book is a reckoning.

With a keen sense of character and an unflinching look at the dangers that lurk behind familiar faces, this novel grips you from the first page and never lets go. If you���re looking for a story that isn���t afraid to face the darkness head-on, this is it. It will leave you haunted, angry, and deeply moved.

And it will remind you that sometimes, the bravest thing a girl can do is speak. And keep speaking. Even when no one wants to listen.

About the Author

Jess Lourey writes about secrets. She’s the two-time Edgar-nominated, two-time Goodreads Choice Awards shortlisted, Amazon Charts bestselling, International Thriller Award, Anthony Award, and Minnesota Book Award-winning author of crime fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, YA adventure, and book club fiction. She has surpassed over a million readers and her books have been translated into a dozen languages..

She is also a retired professor of creative writing and sociology, a recipient of The Loft’s Excellence in Teaching fellowship, a Psychology Today blogger, and a TEDx presenter (check out her TEDx Talk below for the surprising inspiration behind her first published novel). When not reading, traveling, or fostering kittens, you can find her drafting her next story.

Writing Tip: Lure Readers with Innocence

There’s something dangerous about innocence. Not in the obvious, corrupted kind of way, but in that quiet, goosebump-raising sort of sense. The kind that makes you lean in, lower your voice, and second-guess your own instincts. And when it comes to storytelling, nothing draws a reader in more effectively than a character who seems pure… until they’re not.

As writers, we often reach for the dramatic, the wild, the twisted. We think shock value is the ultimate hook. But there’s more power in subtlety. A lot more. Sometimes, the most effective way to sink your claws into a reader is to wrap your story in sugar, lace it with charm, and whisper secrets through a character who seems harmless. That’s the trick. That’s how you lure them in.

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ToggleStart Soft to Hit HardLayer Motives with HoneyKeep the Glow but Twist the RootsIn the End …

Start Soft to Hit Hard

Let’s say you’re writing a psychological thriller or a slow-burning gothic romance. You’ve got tension simmering just under the surface. What’s the fastest way to unsettle your reader? Introduce a character who seems angelic. Maybe it’s a child with a doll and big, glassy eyes. Maybe it’s a woman with a gentle laugh and a fondness for baking. Maybe it’s a man who rescues stray cats and never raises his voice. Give them that soft focus, that idyllic glow, and let the reader fall for it.

Then start turning screws.

When you weaponize innocence, you set up contrast. And contrast is everything in storytelling. The more innocent someone appears, the more jarring it is when they snap. The more polite someone is, the more shocking it is when their lies unravel. Readers love to be fooled, even when they don’t know it. And they love it even more when they look back and realize you left them breadcrumbs the entire time.

Layer Motives with Honey

The trick is not to make your characters perfect. Perfect is boring. Instead, give them believable innocence. Let their kindness feel real. Let their actions be grounded in empathy or survival or love. The neighbor who brings over fresh muffins every week? Maybe she’s genuinely lonely. Maybe her mother told her to be useful to be loved. Maybe she’s been watching you through the curtains since you moved in.

See the difference?

You don’t need your sweet character to be evil. You just need them to be interesting. Readers don’t fall for caricatures. They fall for layered motives. They fall for people who are trying their best… even if “their best” leaves a trail of destruction. And when those motives come coated in sugar, they become that much harder to see — and that much more satisfying to uncover.

That’s the beauty of it. You’re not giving your readers a villain in disguise. You’re giving them a puzzle. And when they realize they were charmed into letting their guard down, that’s when the story starts to linger. That’s when they start flipping back through the pages to find the moment the mask slipped.

Keep the Glow but Twist the Roots

If you’re worried this kind of character won’t work in your genre, don’t be. Innocence isn’t genre-specific. It thrives in crime fiction, horror, romance, fantasy — even dystopian worlds. You just need to anchor it in your setting.

In horror, innocence sharpens the fear. In thrillers, it builds paranoia. In romance, it complicates desire. Even in contemporary fiction, the tension between surface and shadow gives your character more weight, more nuance.

Let’s say your story is set in a small town. Great. Now, give your innocent character a flawless reputation. Everyone loves her. She volunteers, smiles, knows every dog’s name. And then let someone go missing. Suddenly, the sweetness feels off. Suddenly, the reader isn’t so sure anymore. But they want to believe. They want to hold onto that glow.

That push and pull? That’s the good stuff.

Even better, you don’t have to reveal everything. Sometimes, the ambiguity is more chilling than a full confession. Sometimes, leaving the roots of their innocence a little twisted is what gives the story its staying power. Maybe she didn’t do anything wrong. Or maybe she did. But she still brings muffins. She still smiles. And you, as the writer, get to decide how close the reader gets to the truth.

In the End …

Innocence is not weakness. It’s not fragility. It’s a smokescreen. A mirror. A trap. Used intentionally, it can be your story’s most magnetic element. So next time you’re building a character or shaping a narrative, don’t start with rage or revenge. Start with sweetness. Start with vulnerability. Start with someone readers want to trust.

Then start peeling it back.

The best monsters, after all, are the ones that hide in plain sight.

Check out some other Writing Tips, and make sure to subscribe to Monique’s newsletter so you don’t miss a single post!

The Horror of Being Seen: Why Female Characters Fear the Mirror More Than the Monster

In horror fiction, mirrors are rarely neutral. They���re portals, tools of self-confrontation, and sometimes literal gates to the other side. But for female characters, mirrors hold a special kind of terror ��� not just supernatural, but societal. In a world where the way women look is both currency and curse, the mirror becomes less of a household object and more of a loaded weapon.

In these stories, what���s reflected isn���t just a ghostly double or shadowy figure lurking behind them. It���s the crushing weight of expectations, the silent fear of being too much or not enough. These women aren���t running from the boogeyman ��� they���re running from the version of themselves the world demands they be.

Table of Contents

ToggleMirror, Mirror, on the Wall ���Why Are You the Scariest One of All?Social Media, Surveillance, and Self-DestructionBeauty as Curse, Body as BattlegroundThe Scariest Monster Is the One in the Glass

 

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall ���Why Are You the Scariest One of All?

From Carrie to The Babadook to Black Swan, female characters often confront themselves more than the actual antagonist. In Carrie, the real horror isn���t her telekinetic powers ��� it���s her shame, her isolation, her own reflection soaked in pig���s blood while the world laughs. Darren Aronofsky���s Black Swan is a fever dream of feminine performance, where the mirror becomes a battleground for identity, control, and perfection.

It���s not just about appearance. It���s about the tension between how others see you and how you see yourself. In Mona Awad���s Rouge, a woman becomes obsessed with a high-end skincare cult promising eternal beauty, only to find herself unraveling in the pursuit of flawlessness. The real terror isn���t the rituals, but rather the idea that your worth is skin-deep, and that someone else gets to decide if you���re beautiful enough to matter.

Social Media, Surveillance, and Self-Destruction

Social media has turned the mirror into a performance stage. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have created a new arena where beauty is both a personal brand and a battlefield. The curated selfie, the soft filter, the ���no makeup��� makeup, every post is a frame within a frame, reinforcing the pressure to be effortlessly flawless.

This obsession with appearance bleeds into modern horror. In Bodies Bodies Bodies, the horror is both physical and digital. The characters are constantly performing, for each other and for their followers, and when the performance slips, things get ugly ��� fast. The idea of being perceived becomes a source of existential panic. Who are you when the camera���s off? Who are you when someone sees the version you didn���t edit?

American Psycho may not be about a woman, but it gets something right about the relationship between identity, surface-level perfection, and rot underneath. And in female-led horror, that rot is often internalized. Women are not just afraid of what lurks outside, they fear what they see in the mirror when no one���s looking.

Beauty as Curse, Body as Battleground

Beauty standards, shaped and perpetuated by media, are designed to be unattainable. That���s what makes them profitable. But in horror fiction, we see what happens when those standards become not just unreachable but downright monstrous.

Think of The Stepford Wives. The women in that idyllic town are too perfect, and that perfection comes at the cost of autonomy. Or Cam, a techno-horror where a camgirl discovers she���s been replaced by an AI clone who does her job better ��� more seductive, more compliant, more ���ideal.��� These stories tap into the horror of being erased by a version of yourself that fits the mold more comfortably than you ever could.

Even in My Best Friend���s Exorcism, there���s this tension between who you are and what people want you to be. Abby is messy, awkward, insecure ��� real. And as her best friend becomes possessed, the horror is wrapped in layers of expectation, image, and girlhood performativity.

The Scariest Monster Is the One in the Glass

In a world where beauty is power and being seen is both a thrill and a threat, it���s no wonder horror has taken such a long, hard look at the mirror. These stories don���t just want to scare you ��� they want to show you the cost of living in a world where your body isn���t entirely your own. Where perfection is demanded, but authenticity is punished.

So, yes, the monster under the bed is still scary. But for many women, the bigger fear is waking up, looking in the mirror, and wondering: ���Am I enough?���

Because the mirror doesn���t lie. It just doesn���t tell the whole truth either.

 

The Last Party Unveils Suburban Secrets with a Killer Twist

If you���re looking for a story that crawls under your skin and stays there, The Last Party by A.R. Torre delivers. You���ll never look at a birthday party ��� or a mother���s smile ��� the same way again.

Perla Wultz has everything a picture-perfect suburban life should come with: a successful husband, a bright daughter, and a Pinterest-worthy party plan for a twelfth birthday bash. But what���s simmering beneath that polished surface is anything but ordinary. This chilling domestic noir rips the curtain straight off the rod and lights it on fire.

From the very first page, this book dares you to look deeper. It whispers that something is off, then lets that dread blossom slowly until it becomes a full-blown scream. It’s unsettling in the best way, written with a clinical precision that mirrors its protagonist���s own disturbing clarity.

Table of Contents

ToggleWelcome to the Suburbs, Where the Real Monster Lives UpstairsA Party With Confetti, Balloons, and the Ghosts of Mass MurderGuilt, Grief, and the Unraveling of a Beautiful MindAbout the Author

Welcome to the Suburbs, Where the Real Monster Lives Upstairs

We meet Perla as she mentally catalogs the details of her life: the napkin folds, the floral arrangements, the way her daughter Sophie breathes in her sleep. Is this obsessive homemaking? Nope. Perla is orchestrating something far darker than a surprise party.

Her obsession isn���t with perfection. It���s with control.

The book unfolds through Perla���s eerie internal monologue, swinging between poetic longing and cold-blooded calculation. She resents her husband Grant���s distance, bristles at how devoted he is to work, and has started to dissect her daughter���s every movement like she���s studying a lab experiment. Everything and everyone is competition. What’s more, Perla’s inner dialogue makes the reader squirm, not because it���s overtly violent, but because it feels plausible … Honestly, I felt uncomfortable diving into Perla’s mind!

The brilliance of The Last Party lies in how it weaponizes the mundane. Every family photo becomes a falsehood, a mere show of this so-called “picture perfect” life. Every lovingly baked cupcake is a potential clue. Perla isn���t losing her mind ��� she���s reclaiming it. And her chosen battleground? Her daughter���s birthday party.

A Party With Confetti, Balloons, and the Ghosts of Mass Murder

The real horror begins when we realize what Perla has been planning a chilling reenactment of the infamous Folcrum Party Murders all along, and worse, she���s staging it in her own backyard.

This twist elevates the novel from domestic drama to psychological thriller territory, and it lands with a sickening, surreal weight. The references to the original crime are subtle at first, but they build like a slow-rolling storm. And while you may want to yell at the characters ��� especially Grant ��� for not noticing the signs, that���s kind of the point. They���ve tuned Perla out for so long, her screams fall on deaf ears until it���s too late.

The presence of Paige, the nanny, is a genius move from the author, too. Paige has her own secrets and eerie connections, and the prison tie-in is layered with ominous symbolism. That being said, Perla���s manipulation of her blurs the lines between victim and accomplice, which is a masterclass in psychological warfare.

By the time Sophie���s birthday arrives, the tension is unbearable! Readers know something terrible is coming, but the question isn���t if it���ll be bad ��� it���s a question of how bad it���ll be. And when it happens? Let���s just say you’ll never look at a clown cake the same way again.

Guilt, Grief, and the Unraveling of a Beautiful Mind

The fallout from Perla���s actions is brutal, but not in the way you expect. The climax pulls the rug out from under you, revealing that even Perla can���t control the chaos she���s unleashed. Her carefully curated world crumbles, and what���s left is raw, messy, and oddly ��� human.

This book isn���t interested in simple villains but rather digs deep into the duality of motherhood, particularly the idea that love can be both nurturing and all-consuming. Perla loves her daughter fiercely, but she also sees Sophie as an extension of her own legacy. That duality becomes the engine of the story, and it���s what makes the character so terrifyingly real.

The writing is razor-sharp, balancing elegance with brutality. The pacing never lets you breathe too easy, and the psychological insights hit hard. There’s a quiet brilliance in how it uses the lens of family to explore trauma, manipulation, and the cost of suppressing your darkest instincts.

You���ll leave this book feeling like you need a glass of wine, a long walk, and maybe a therapist. But you���ll also be itching to talk about it ��� to dissect every clue, every lie, every moment Perla stepped closer to the edge.

About the Author

A.R. Torre is a pseudonym of��Alessandra Torre��and is her dark alter ego. While Alessandra writes spicy romances, A.R. focuses on twisted stories filled with secrets, suspense, drama, and danger.

Alessandra/A.R. is a multi-time Goodreads Choice Nominee. Her books have hit the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestseller lists. Over a million readers have enjoyed her novels in more than thirty countries.

In addition to writing, Alessandra teaches online courses to aspiring and published authors via��www.alessandratorreink.com. She hosts an annual conference (Inkers Con) and has built a community of over 40,000 authors.

Alessandra is also the CEO of BingeBooks.com.

Books Featuring Cults, Secrets & Lies

Do you think you wouldn’t join a cult? Most of us like to believe we’d see the red flags. That we’d walk away at the first sign of manipulation. But the truth is, cults rarely look like cults from the inside. They feel like safety. Like belonging. Like finally being seen. These stories tap into that unsettling truth and ask the hard questions: What would it take for you to stay? And what would it take to break free?

These novels peel back the glossy façade of spiritual communities, wellness retreats, and secret societies to reveal what really happens when belief becomes control. They explore the psychology of devotion, the hunger for meaning, and the quiet, creeping dread that builds when something isn’t quite right. Leaders become deities. Rituals become weapons. And lies are treated as gospel.

What makes these books so compelling isn’t just the twists or the betrayals. It’s the atmosphere. The tension. The way truth is buried, gaslight by gaslight, until the line between faith and fear disappears completely. If you love fiction where the horror is psychological, the setting is claustrophobic, and the secrets are sacred, this list was made for you.

The Girls by Emma Cline

It’s the summer of 1969, and fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd is lured into a ragtag group of girls following a magnetic cult leader. Loosely inspired by the Manson Family, The Girls isn’t just about the horror — it’s about the slow, seductive pull of belonging. Cline’s writing is dreamy, disarming, and unsettling in the best way.

Buy it on Amazon

 

The Medusa Psalms: Welcome to Walpurgis County by Kyle Toucher

Welcome to Walpurgis County, where the line between reality and nightmare blurs and every shadow hides a darker truth. This collection of ten stories and two novellas dives into haunted mountains, deranged cults, cosmic horrors, and ancestral vendettas. Here, monsters roam, conspiracies fester, and the landscape itself becomes a battleground of madness. Dark, chilling, and relentlessly atmospheric.

Buy it on Amazon

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker

Set in a drought-ridden California town ruled by a garishly dressed cult leader named Pastor Vern, Godshot follows 14-year-old Lacey May as she’s pulled deeper into a twisted religious community. As the adults preach submission and salvation, Lacey’s world begins to unravel—and so does her blind trust. It’s an unflinching, lyrical look at girlhood, desperation, and the way belief can become a trap.

Buy it on Amazon

 

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes

After escaping a brutal cult in the Montana woods — with her hands cut off — seventeen-year-old Minnow ends up in juvenile detention. There, she finally begins to unravel the truth behind the Prophet who ruled her life. This YA thriller is raw, haunting, and powerfully told, with questions about justice, belief, and resilience. This book was also made into a TV series titled Sacred Lies, which streamed on Facebook Watch.

Buy it on Amazon

The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns

In a quiet town in upstate New York, three teenage girls go missing. Panic sets in, and neighbors begin turning on one another. What starts as a mystery soon transforms into a study of mob mentality and groupthink—the breeding ground for any cultish behavior. This one’s less about organized religion and more about the cult of fear, conformity, and suspicion.

Buy it on Amazon

The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon

Phoebe Lin is a brilliant college student grieving her mother’s death when she’s drawn into a secretive cult of young radicals. Her boyfriend watches helplessly as she’s pulled further away, ultimately vanishing after a violent act of terrorism. This is a quiet, literary novel that tackles devotion, identity, and the seductive power of purpose.

Buy it on Amazon

 

What Hell May Come by Rex Hurst

Set during the height of the Satanic Panic, What Hell May Come imagines a world where every unhinged claim was real. Sixteen-year-old Jon St. Fond discovers his parents are part of a secret occult religion—and the deeper he digs, the darker the truth becomes. A brutal, paranoid dive into religious hysteria, occult conspiracies, and the cost of survival.

Buy it on Amazon

BookStrology Weekly Forecast: April 27 – May 4, 2025

As above, so on your bookshelf … Welcome back to Bookstrology! If last week was a gothic fever dream, this one’s a slow-burn thriller with unexpected plot twists. Pluto’s retrograde in Aquarius (starting May 2) is stirring up our collective shadows, and the Scorpio moon hangover hasn’t quite worn off. Translation? We’re all spiraling, but make it literary.

So whether you’re mood-reading with reckless abandon or methodically attacking your TBR like a Virgo with a spreadsheet, let the stars be your bookseller.

Table of Contents

Toggle Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces

BookStrology Weekly Forecast: April 27 – May 4, 2025

Aries

This week: You’re trying not to start drama, but people keep handing you monologues.

Mars is flexing its muscles and you’re riding the emotional rollercoaster without a seatbelt. Burn off the chaos with a character who’s even more unhinged than you (in a good way).

Read: A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

Because vengeance tastes better with vintage wine and gothic prose.

Taurus

This week: If it’s not luxurious, haunting, or emotionally catastrophic — you’re not interested.

Venus is vibing in your sign, and it’s giving dark academia but make it decadent. Indulge in something lush, literary, and quietly feral.

Read: The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Art, obsession, tarot, and a museum of secrets? You’ll be in your element.

Gemini

This week: Your brain is tabs-on-tabs, and half of them are haunted.

Mercury’s still playing mind games, and your attention span is in retrograde. Lean into the chaos with a twisty story full of unreliable narrators and shifting realities.

Read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Because no one spirals like a morally ambiguous intellectual.

Cancer

This week: You keep saying you’re fine, but your dreams are screaming in Latin.

You’re feeling things so deeply, you might need a content warning. Time to crawl inside a book that mirrors your soft heart and monstrous thoughts.

Read: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Melancholy, marine horror, and the slow disintegration of love — dive in.

Leo

This week: Your crown is slipping and you’re wondering if you ever needed it.

The Sun is side-eyeing Pluto, and you’re craving reinvention. Step into a story where identity is fluid, power is precarious, and every chapter could be a costume change.

Read: Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Dark, dirty, and artfully deranged … just how you like it.

Virgo

This week: You’ve got a to-do list and a thousand-yard stare.

Reality is feeling a bit glitchy and your inner perfectionist is glitching harder. Embrace the surreal and surrender to a narrative you can’t control.

Read: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Alienation, social expectations, and a plush hedgehog named Piyyut. It’s weird — you’ll love it.

Libra

This week: You’re torn between curating aesthetic perfection and emotionally combusting.

With Venus whispering sweet nothings and Pluto dragging skeletons from your closet, balance feels like a fever dream. Time for something elegant, eerie, and emotionally savage.

Read: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Because gothic glamour and ghost wives never go out of style.

Scorpio

This week: You’re emotionally raw and spiritually radioactive.

That full moon aftershock? Yeah, still vibing. You’re craving depth, danger, and prose that bleeds. Let yourself fall into something seductively twisted.

Read: You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

Folklore, murder, and fae-fueled mystery — just your kind of bedtime story.

Sagittarius

This week: You want to disappear into the wilderness, but like, with Wi-Fi.

Restlessness is high and reality’s feeling way too pedestrian. Find a story that blurs fantasy and survival — something wild, weird, and unapologetically fierce.

Read: Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray

Jungle magic, mythical monsters, and a hunt that might change everything.

Capricorn

This week: You’re not brooding — you’re strategizing your villain origin arc.

Work is chaos, emotions are inconvenient, and you’ve got a kingdom to build (metaphorically or otherwise). Read something ambitious, intricate, and darkly glorious.

Read: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Pain. Power. War crimes. And a protagonist who stops apologizing.

Aquarius

This week: You’ve got conspiracy theories, a dream journal, and a mild god complex.

Your mind is orbiting somewhere between “genius idea” and “full-blown cult manifesto.” Ground yourself in speculative fiction that challenges everything.

Read: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Weird nature, shifting identities, and science that doesn’t care if you survive.

Pisces

This week: You’ve been crying over poetry again, haven’t you?

You’re extra sensitive, extra psychic, and extra in need of a story that speaks to your soul. Wrap yourself in something beautiful and brutal.

Read: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Secret libraries, timeless love, and prose that feels like a dream you half-remember.

Trust the stars. They know your reading vibe.

And may your week be full of strange encounters, found families, and prose that leaves a mark.

See you next Sunday for another round of cosmic recommendations.

 

BookStrology Weekly Forecast: April 27 ��� May 4, 2025

As above, so on your bookshelf … Welcome back to Bookstrology! If last week was a gothic fever dream, this one���s a slow-burn thriller with unexpected plot twists. Pluto���s retrograde in Aquarius (starting May 2) is stirring up our collective shadows, and the Scorpio moon hangover hasn���t quite worn off. Translation? We���re all spiraling, but make it literary.

So whether you���re mood-reading with reckless abandon or methodically attacking your TBR like a Virgo with a spreadsheet, let the stars be your bookseller.

Table of Contents

Toggle Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces

BookStrology Weekly Forecast: April 27 ��� May 4, 2025

Aries

This week: You���re trying not to start drama, but people keep handing you monologues.

Mars is flexing its muscles and you���re riding the emotional rollercoaster without a seatbelt. Burn off the chaos with a character who���s even more unhinged than you (in a good way).

Read: A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

Because vengeance tastes better with vintage wine and gothic prose.

Taurus

This week: If it���s not luxurious, haunting, or emotionally catastrophic ��� you���re not interested.

Venus is vibing in your sign, and it���s giving dark academia but make it decadent. Indulge in something lush, literary, and quietly feral.

Read: The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Art, obsession, tarot, and a museum of secrets? You���ll be in your element.

Gemini

This week: Your brain is tabs-on-tabs, and half of them are haunted.

Mercury���s still playing mind games, and your attention span is in retrograde. Lean into the chaos with a twisty story full of unreliable narrators and shifting realities.

Read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Because no one spirals like a morally ambiguous intellectual.

Cancer

This week: You keep saying you���re fine, but your dreams are screaming in Latin.

You���re feeling things so deeply, you might need a content warning. Time to crawl inside a book that mirrors your soft heart and monstrous thoughts.

Read: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Melancholy, marine horror, and the slow disintegration of love ��� dive in.

Leo

This week: Your crown is slipping and you���re wondering if you ever needed it.

The Sun is side-eyeing Pluto, and you���re craving reinvention. Step into a story where identity is fluid, power is precarious, and every chapter could be a costume change.

Read: Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Dark, dirty, and artfully deranged ��� just how you like it.

Virgo

This week: You���ve got a to-do list and a thousand-yard stare.

Reality is feeling a bit glitchy and your inner perfectionist is glitching harder. Embrace the surreal and surrender to a narrative you can���t control.

Read: Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Alienation, social expectations, and a plush hedgehog named Piyyut. It���s weird ��� you���ll love it.

Libra

This week: You’re torn between curating aesthetic perfection and emotionally combusting.

With Venus whispering sweet nothings and Pluto dragging skeletons from your closet, balance feels like a fever dream. Time for something elegant, eerie, and emotionally savage.

Read: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Because gothic glamour and ghost wives never go out of style.

Scorpio

This week: You���re emotionally raw and spiritually radioactive.

That full moon aftershock? Yeah, still vibing. You���re craving depth, danger, and prose that bleeds. Let yourself fall into something seductively twisted.

Read: You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

Folklore, murder, and fae-fueled mystery ��� just your kind of bedtime story.

Sagittarius

This week: You want to disappear into the wilderness, but like, with Wi-Fi.

Restlessness is high and reality���s feeling way too pedestrian. Find a story that blurs fantasy and survival ��� something wild, weird, and unapologetically fierce.

Read: Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray

Jungle magic, mythical monsters, and a hunt that might change everything.

Capricorn

This week: You���re not brooding ��� you���re strategizing your villain origin arc.

Work is chaos, emotions are inconvenient, and you���ve got a kingdom to build (metaphorically or otherwise). Read something ambitious, intricate, and darkly glorious.

Read: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Pain. Power. War crimes. And a protagonist who stops apologizing.

Aquarius

This week: You���ve got conspiracy theories, a dream journal, and a mild god complex.

Your mind is orbiting somewhere between ���genius idea��� and ���full-blown cult manifesto.��� Ground yourself in speculative fiction that challenges everything.

Read: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Weird nature, shifting identities, and science that doesn���t care if you survive.

Pisces

This week: You���ve been crying over poetry again, haven���t you?

You���re extra sensitive, extra psychic, and extra in need of a story that speaks to your soul. Wrap yourself in something beautiful and brutal.

Read: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Secret libraries, timeless love, and prose that feels like a dream you half-remember.

Trust the stars. They know your reading vibe.

And may your week be full of strange encounters, found families, and prose that leaves a mark.

See you next Sunday for another round of cosmic recommendations.

 

Hall of Horror: The Tragic Exorcism of Anneliese Michel

The exorcism of Anneliese Michel isn���t just one of the most disturbing cases in modern history, it���s one that continues to raise difficult questions about the collision of faith, medicine, and personal belief. In 1970s Germany, a young woman who was diagnosed with epilepsy became the subject of 67 sanctioned exorcisms ��� Needless to say, she didn���t survive them.

The debate over what really happened ��� demonic possession or untreated mental illness ��� has never fully gone away. And maybe it never will.

Table of Contents

ToggleA Quiet Life, a Violent ShiftExorcism as TreatmentWhat the Courts DecidedLegacy or Cautionary Tale?

A Quiet Life, a Violent Shift

Anneliese Michel grew up in a small Bavarian town, part of a deeply religious Catholic family. Her life took a sharp turn in her teenage years, however, when she began experiencing seizures. Doctors diagnosed her with temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition which is known to cause vivid hallucinations, intense emotions, and, in some cases, a kind of religious intensity.

But her symptoms went beyond what doctors ��� or her community ��� seemed able to explain. Over time, her behavior grew increasingly erratic. She began hearing voices, became aggressive, and reportedly saw demonic faces. Desperate for answers, her parents turned away from medicine and toward the Church. They were convinced something darker was at play.

Exorcism as Treatment

By 1975, Anneliese had stopped responding to medication. At least, that���s how it appeared. Her family and two priests, Father Ernst Alt and Father Arnold Renz, believed she was possessed. Over ten months, they conducted 67 exorcisms, some lasting hours. She was subjected to prayers, physical restraint, and long periods without food.

She became emaciated, bruised, and withdrawn. Audio recordings from the sessions, which are still available online, reveal her screaming for hours, her voice distorted and raw. By mid-1976, she weighed just 68 pounds.

Annaliese died in her home on July 1 from malnutrition and dehydration.

What the Courts Decided

The fallout was immediate. Her parents and the priests were charged with negligent homicide. During the 1978 trial, arguments bounced between science and faith. The prosecution pointed to epilepsy and psychosis. The defense insisted that possession was real, and that Anneliese had asked for the exorcisms herself.

In the end, the priests received suspended prison sentences. The parents were spared punishment. The court acknowledged that everyone involved believed they were helping her.

But belief didn���t save her. And the medical system, by then pushed aside, never had the chance to ���

Legacy or Cautionary Tale?

In the years since, Anneliese Michel���s story has been fictionalized, analyzed, and mythologized. Films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose were loosely based on her case, further blurring the line between fact and fiction. Religious groups saw her as a martyr. Skeptics saw a system failure.

And somewhere in the middle is the truth of a young woman who suffered, perhaps from a treatable illness, perhaps from something we still don���t fully understand, and died because no one could agree on how to help her.

Her story endures because it forces a confrontation. Between science and superstition. Between care and conviction. Between the idea of evil, and the more mundane, more tragic reality of being misunderstood.