Bark At The Ghouls

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to poke my head in here quick to let you all know that I'm not on hiatus, I'm just super busy with projects for Ladies of Horror Fiction, and I will be back next week with reviews if all the stars align. I have SO many sitting in drafts right now.

We will be announcing the LOHF Award Nominees in each category throughout the month on the website and on Twitter and we're super excited!

The nominees for Best Collection have been revealed. If you want to check them out the post is here:
https://www.ladiesofhorrorfiction.com/2020/07/03/lohf-award-nominees-for-best-collection/

We're also hosting a Readalong on Goodreads during the month of July for Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas. You can join us here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21529633-july-2020-readalong


I hope you're all reading amazing books and finding some time to relax!

Uh oh, it's a low three-star review *sorry in advance*



You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks & Sarah PekkanenReleased March 2020

Thriller  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Library Loan The thrilling new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of An Anonymous Girl and The Wife Between Us.

Shay Miller has three strikes against her: no job, no apartment, no love in her life. But when she witnesses a perfectly normal looking young woman about her age make the chilling decision to leap in front of an ongoing subway train, Shay realizes she could end up in the same spiral. She is intrigued by a group of women who seem to have it all together, and they invite her with the promise: "You are not alone." Why not align herself with the glamorous and seductive Moore sisters, Cassandra and Jane? They seem to have beaten back their demons, and made a life on their own terms—a life most people can only ever envy. They are everything Shay aspires to be, and they seem to have t…

There be monsters here!



The Festering Ones by S.H. CooperPublished October 2019

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Received for Review Consideration A monster lurking in the mountain.

A mysterious cult seeking a doorway.

An otherworldly evil waiting to be unleashed.

Faith York was a young girl when she saw her father dragged into the ground by a spider-armed woman, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, the events of that day continue to haunt her, and her need for answers has only grown stronger with time. After her estranged mother's death forces her to return home, old wounds are reopened and Faith finally decides to face her demons. What started as a search for closure soon pits her against a shadowy cult known as The Gathered and the eldritch beings they worship. With reality becoming more blurred by the day and the thousand eyes of an alien deity fixed on her, Faith must decide if the dark secrets of White Crow Mountain are really worth losing herself over
My 2 Cent…

I should probably call it quits on this author.



American Queen by Sierra SimoneReleased October 2016

Romance  |  Goodreads   |  Amazon

Source:  Overdrive Borrow It starts with a stolen kiss under an English sky, and it ends with a walk down the aisle. It starts with the President sending his best friend to woo me on his behalf, and it ends with my heart split in two. It starts with buried secrets and dangerous desires…and ends with the three of us bound together with a hateful love sharper than any barbed wire.

My name is Greer Galloway, and I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States.

This is the story of an American Queen.
My 2 Cents For Free!
This author likes to jam a lot of stuff into her books and into her heroines and this story is no exception. She also likes to set up preposterous plot lines and run with them. I said this about her book Priest but it totally fits here too:
“This story is not based on any sort of reality. If you know that going in you’ll likely be …

This collection of dark fiction has a little bit of everything.



On The Night Border by James ChambersPublished September 2019

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Received for Review Consideration Dark things stir in the night. When the world sleeps and quiet settles in, shadows assume sinister shapes, guilt and regret well up from the mind’s deepest recesses, and the lonely face their greatest fears. Darkness bares the secret truths whispered on the lips of the lost and the desperate. At night, terrors come alive. For those who journey too far into the dark, no escape remains—but there is a place from which to view these nightmares, a place…on the night border.

The fifteen stories collected here come from the last edge of the light and deliver glimpses into the dreadful, the mysterious, and the strange. These stories offer readers unsettling and weird visions from across the border, visions out of history and from the world around us, visions of cosmic horror, personal madness, a…

Here's a lovely little story to brighten your day. ♥  Just kidding!



Full Brutal by Kristopher TrianaPublished June 2018

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Purchased Kim White is a very popular cheerleader. She’s pretty, healthy, and comes from a well-off family. She has everything a girl of sixteen is supposed to want. And she’s sick to death of it.

In search of something to pull her out of her suicidal thoughts, she begrudgingly decides to lose her virginity, having heard it’s a life-changing event. But Kim doesn’t want to do it the same way her peers do. She seduces one of her teachers, hoping to ruin his life just for the fun of it. This starts Kim on a runaway train of sadism, and she makes every effort to destroy the lives of those around her. But soon simple backstabbing is not enough to keep her excited, and she nosedives into sabotage, violence, and even murder.

When Kim finds out she’s pregnant with her teacher’s child, a new madness overtakes her, and she realizes t…

Even though everyone seems to adore The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor, I liked this one better.



The Other People by C.J. TudorReleased January 2020

Thriller  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Library Loan She sleeps, a pale girl in a white room . . .

Three years ago, Gabe saw his daughter taken. In the back of a rusty old car, covered in bumper stickers. He was driving behind the car. He watched her disappear. But no one believes him. Most people believe that his daughter, and wife, are dead. For a while, people believed that Gabe was responsible.

Three years later and Gabe cannot give up hope. Even though he has given up everything else. His home, his job, his old life. He spends his days and nights traveling up and down the motorway, sleeping in his camper van in service stations, searching for the car that took her. Searching for his daughter.

Katie spends a lot of her life in service stations, working as a waitress. She often sees Gabriel, or 'the thin man' as she has nicknamed him. She …

I'm back with another unasked for PSA! This time I tackle how to approach a reviewer. Or, more accurately, how not to approach a reviewer.
I've been doing this for a good 85 years or so it seems like, and though people come and go, there are some mistakes things that never seem to change in bloglandia.
Mistake #1: Addressing me by "Reviewer", "Mr. Bark" or "Dearest Bark" (though I admit that one warms my heart a little). This tells me that you have not taken 5 minutes to read my review policy of which I agonized over. How do I know? Because I tell you my real name in the first few lines. It's the simplest test ever and you just failed.  I know we are all busy little bees but my policy is pretty brief and to the point and it's there to help you avoid wasting your time with me.

Mistake #2: Attempting to personalize an email with the wrong information:


I'll never be the kind of person to tell others how to conduct their business (especial…