Book Review Round-Up
Hey there, hi there, ho there! I hope everyone is doing well this beautiful October afternoon.
That most wonderful time of the year - Halloween! - is almost upon us, and here at the Shirey house we can hardly contain ourselves (especially my 2- and 4-year-old daughters). In preparation, I’ve been watching a mixture of my favorite horror films as well as ones I haven’t gotten around to seeing, so that’s what I’ve doing most evenings after we’ve put the girls to bed.
Other than that, I’ve been working away at my dark fantasy novel, Black Coral. Funny story about that, actually: I’d written about 32K words of the book when I hit a wall and realized I wasn’t writing the story I really wanted to tell. I took some time away from the project, then came back and tried a couple things to get back into it. There was some trial and error involved, but eventually I found my way back in, and I’m happy to say I’ve already got about 11K words down, and I’m feeling MUCH better about it as a whole. Sometimes you just got to get out of your own way and let the story tell itself.
© Pexels.comAnyways, I wanted to do something a bit different for October’s newsletter. I’ve read some great books recently, and thought it’d be fun to do a “book review round-up” this month, as opposed to my usual format. So if you’re looking for something new to read, you’re absolutely going to love this edition of Strange & Fantastic!
(The following reviews have been arranged by author in alphabetical order.)
X’s for Eyes Laird Barron
“Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms should have it made as fair-haired scions of an impossibly rich and powerful family of industrialists. Alas, life is complicated in mid-1950s USA when you’re child heirs to the throne of Sword Enterprises, a corporation that has enshrined Machiavelli’s The Prince as its operating manual and whose patriarch believes, Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds, would be a swell company logo.
Consider also those long, cruel winters at the Mountain Leopard boarding school for assassins in the Himalayas, or that Dad may be a supervillain, while an uncle occasionally slaughters his nephews and nieces for sport; and the space flight research division of Sword Enterprises “accidentally” sent a probe through a wormhole into outer darkness and contacted an alien god. Now a bloodthirsty cult and an equally vicious rival firm suspect the Tooms boys know something and will spare no expense, nor innocent life, to get their claws on them.
Between the machinations of the disciples of black gods and good old corporate skullduggery, it’s winding up to be a hell of a summer vacation for the lads.”
It’s no secret that I’m a big Laird Barron fan—his cosmic horror-infused harboiled noir Isaiah Coleridge books are some of the very best modern pulp fiction has to offer (if you haven’t read them, stop reading this and go pick them up!). X’s for Eyes is a trippy, rollicking cosmic horror riff on the pulp adventure tales and Saturday morning cartoons of yesteryear. Think Jonny Quest/The Venture Bros., but set firmly in Barron’s personal Old Leech mythos. Fans of Barron's Isaiah Coleridge series will definitely want to read this one, as there's a lot of connective tissue here. It's a blast!
They Are Cursed Like You Holley Cornetto & S.O. Green
“Escape is only one spell away…
Courtney and her friends dream of escaping Shady Acres Trailer Park, a place of broken dreams and rusted out cars. Their wishes seem to come true when Courtney meets an older woman who promises to give them their heart's desires, but as the girls wind up in over their heads, Courtney begins to doubt the older coven's intentions while she and the girl she loves drift further apart.
But there is a force at work behind the scenes, darker and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined; the Wolf is owed four rabbits, and he’s come to collect.”
Holley is a dear friend of mine and writing partner, so trust me when I say she’s THE BEST, and one of my all-time favorite writers, full stop. They Are Cursed Like You is the kind of book I could see being the next big show on Netflix. It's a dark and witchy, bloody, heartfelt, edge-of-your-seat coming of age tale filled with nuanced, relatable characters and an abundance of twists, turns, chills and thrills. Cornetto and Green remind us that all magic comes with a cost, and that cost is often ugly, but trust me on this: the couple of sleepless nights you'll give in exchange for finishing this incredible book will be well worth the trade.
Grime TimeIvy Grimes
“This edition of Tales from Between Presents features a collection of strange stories from Ivy Grimes, one of the most exciting new voices in genre fiction.”
Ivy Grimes is another writer whose work I’ve fallen in love with, and Grime Time—her debut chapbook of stories—is one of my favorite things I’ve read all year. It’s a wonderful collection of stories, in every sense of the word. Ivy’s writing effortlessly exists in that liminal space between sleeping and waking, dream and nightmare, and much like the work of Leonora Carrington and Franz Kafka—two writers with whom Grimes' style shares a lot in common—there's a beautiful strangeness to these stories that both captures your imagination and refuses to let go, almost like the lingering tendrils of a half-remembered dream. An absolute joy to read.
The Massacre at Yellow HillC.S. Humble
“When George Miller is killed in the mines of Yellow Hill, his wife and children are left to try and piece their lives back together. Tabitha Miller, George’s widow, is thrown into deeper chaos when she discovers that George’s death had nothing to do with the cave’s collapse, but was caused by some terrible predator deep within the earth. His death covered up by the mine’s Proprietor-Jeremiah Hart.
In nearby Big Spring, freed slave-turned-occult bounty hunter Gilbert Ptolemy arrives with his adopted son in search of a murderous vampire. New revelations in Yellow Hill draw the duo toward the struggling Miller family, the strange mine, and the horrors lurking within.
The Miller and Ptolemy families are pitted against mundane and supernatural forces in this Weird West adventure. Family struggles, heart-stopping gunfights, and nightmare creatures from dark realms abound in this first novel from C.S. Humble, The Massacre at Yellow Hill.”
After picking up All These Subtle Deceits, the incredible first book in Humble’s excellent Black Wells supernatural thriller series, I became a fan for life. I’ll read anything Humble writes—it’s as simple as that. And The Massacre at Yellow Hill, the first in his weird West That Light Sublime trilogy, is yet another great example why: Nobody writes harrowing, rip-roaring supernatural adventure filled with big ideas, wonderfully human characters, and bold, beautiful, emotive prose quite like Humble.
This is the only book I’ve read that somehow manages to capture the spirit of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books while remaining its own unique thing.
(P.S. You can pick up the sequel, A Red Winter in the West, now; the third and final book of the trilogy; The Light of a Black Star, releases in November. I, for one, CANNOT wait to finish the trilogy!)
The Donut LegionJoe R. Lansdale
“In this standalone, Edgar-award winning author, Joe R. Lansdale, whom "few can match" ( Booklist ) beams a light on an East Texas town where a QAnon-style, evangelist cult is brewing trouble.
Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she’s running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as ‘The Saucer People’; a space-age, evangelist cult who believe their compound to be the site of an extraterrestrial Second Coming.
Along with his brother, Felix, and beautiful, randy journalist Amelia “Scrappy” Moon, Charlie uncovers strange and frightening details about the compound ( a massive, doomsday storehouse of weapons, a leashed chimpanzee!) When the body of their key informer is found dead with his arms ripped out of their sockets, Charlie knows he’s in danger but remains dogged in his quest to rescue Meg.
Brimming with colorful characters and Lansdale’s characteristic bounce, this rollicking crime novel examines the insidious rise of fringe groups and those under their sway with black comedy and glints of pathos.”
This is the second Joe R. Lansdale book I’ve read (and loved!) this year. (By the way, anyone wanting a southern Gothic thriller should check out his book, Moon Lake, immediately.) I’m a huge fan of writers who have their own unique voice and style, and Joe R. Lansdale’s got that in spades. His newest novel, The Donut Legion, is a funky and suspenseful crime thriller filled with wonderful, larger-than-life characters, darkly absurd situations, and crisp, snappy writing. It’s a novel only Lansdale could write.
Dark HarvestNorman Partridge
“Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest by Norman Patridge is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."
Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.
Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He's willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror—and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy...”
I’ve been wanting to read this book forever—I mean, just LOOK at that cover—but hadn’t gotten around to it. Usually I like to read a Halloween-themed book in October, and often re-read Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes or Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, but this year I decided now was the perfect time to read Dark Harvest. And I’m SO glad I did—it’s some of the most fun I’ve had reading this year. Partridge’s style immediately draws the reader in; it’s sharp, crisp, and almost noir-ish in the way it gets right to the point—not a word is wasted. It’s a potent mix of Bradbury, Jackson, and John Carpenter, and in my opinion, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the perennial Halloween classics I’ve mentioned above.
The Last House on Needless StreetCatriona Ward
“In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three.
A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time.
A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.
And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.
An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.”
Man, this book got under my skin. I’m not going to say much about it because I don’t want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say The Last House on Needless Street is without a doubt one of the most unsettling, and, at times, disturbing books I think I've ever read. But it also just so happens to be one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking, and hopeful books I've ever read. It's an intricately plotted, breathlessly paced, and gorgeously written novel that absolutely lives up to the hype, and I look forward to reading more of Catriona Ward in the future. A “true nerve-shredder” indeed.
Signing OffWell folks, that’s it for October 2023. Hope you found something from this list that piqued your interest, and if you do give any or all of them a read, please let me know what you think! I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks again for stopping by and reading!
Take care, and stay strange.
—Austin
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please subscribe—you’ll get a free eBook of my short story, “Magus,” available EXCLUSIVELY for subscribers!
I’d also love it if you considered checking out my new illustrated chapbook, Goodly Creatures, a weird sci-fi thriller for fans of Jeff VanderMeer and Jurassic Park.
