Got My Eye On All of These!

Need more books? Maybe something here will tempt you :)

I saw a post over at Mailbox Monday that was encouraging readers to share their best finds of the week via their Books That Caught Our Eye posts. I love, love, love that idea so this is my warped version of it.

Here are the six books I've added to the very top my wishlist with credit to my lovely enablers :)

Char's Horror Corner

My horror reading friend, Char, has given me not one but four must read books to seek out this week. Click the linky above to check out her blog.

October by Michael Rowe

Char says, "OCTOBER will join Rowe's last two books on my list of favorites. It's beautifully written, evocative, brutal and surprising all at once. I only wish it could have been a little longer. 

Highly recommended to fans of LGBT and dark , dark fiction!"

Here's what it's about:
The time: the waning years of the 1990s at the dawn of the millennium.

The place: an isolated rural town called Auburn, which could be anywhere at all—a town where everyone knows everyone else—where dark secrets run through its veins like blood.

Everyone knows that sixteen-year old Mikey Childress is “different.” A target for bullies since he was a small boy, everything Mikey does attracts abuse: the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks. Everyone knows he’s not like the other boys in Auburn—the boys who play hockey, who fight, the boys who pursue girls. Only his friend Wroxy, a girl almost as isolated as he is, can even guess at the edges of his pain, or the depths of his yearning for love.

But even the people who hate Mikey couldn’t dream of how many secrets he has, or how badly he could hurt them if he wanted to.

Until the night Mikey is pushed beyond endurance by his abusers. The night he makes a pact with dark forces older than time to visit a terrible vengeance on his enemies. The night he inadvertently opens a doorway that should never, ever have been opened, and unleashes something into the world that should have remained damned.

From Michael Rowe, the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Wild Fell and Enter, Night comes a Faustian tale of the horrific cost of the murder of innocence in a small town, and of the vicious price extracted for the ultimate revenge.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

Char says in her review, "I loved the main character in this novel. Yeah, she swore a lot, was bisexual and independent. (These are a few aspects other reviews have pointed out as being negative; I actually enjoyed them.) I liked how her previous work as a nurse and midwife helped her to try to save other women she came across in her travels. I also respected her intelligence-dressing as a man to disguise her gender and doing whatever else needed to be done."

Here's what it's about:
When she fell asleep, the world was doomed. When she awoke, it was dead.

In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth’s population—killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant—the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power—and the strong who possess it.

A few women like her survived, though they are scarce. Even fewer are safe from the clans of men, who, driven by fear, seek to control those remaining. To preserve her freedom, she dons men’s clothing, goes by false names, and avoids as many people as possible. But as the world continues to grapple with its terrible circumstances, she’ll discover a role greater than chasing a pale imitation of independence.


The Night Child by Anna Quinn

Char says in her review, ". . . this was a touching and disturbing story dealing with heartbreaking situations and I believe that it deals with mental illness, (or coming to terms with difficult, horrendous circumstances) in a stark, but believable way. For that reason, I recommend this book to those who think they can handle the worst of humanity."

Here's what it's about:
Nora Brown teaches high school English and lives a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl's face appears above the students' desks -- ''a wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora's body -- the kind of raw terror you feel when there's no way out, when every cell in your body, your entire body, is on fire -- when you think you might die.''

Twenty-four hours later, while on Thanksgiving vacation, the face appears again. Shaken and unsteady, Nora meets with neurologists and eventually, a psychiatrist. As the story progresses, a terrible secret is discovered -- a secret that pushes Nora toward an even deeper psychological breakdown.

This breathtaking debut novel examines the impact of traumatic childhood experiences and the fragile line between past and present. Exquisitely nuanced and profoundly intimate, The Night Child is a story of resilience, hope, and the capacity of the mind, body, and spirit to save itself despite all odds.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

Char says in her review, "I've been thinking about this book since I finished it and because of that I've decided to change my rating to the full 5 out of 5 stars!

WYLDING HALL is a fun novella that doesn't neatly fit into any single category other than, perhaps, dark fiction.

A thousand other people have already written reviews so I'll just say: this is a beautifully written example of a quiet horror story with building tension and dread."

Here's what it's about:
When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again.

Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?

Kristen @ Metaphors & Moonlight

Slowly We Rot by Bryan Smith

Here's what Kristen said: "This dark post-apocalyptic zombie book is, surprisingly, not about zombies. It’s about a guy struggling with alcoholism, obsession, and mental illness trekking across the country to find a girl he used to date. Despite the premise, and despite a small romantic encounter, you’re just going to have to trust me that it’s not a romantic book. "

Sounds good to me!

Here's what it's about:
A novel of the zombie apocalypse that's NOT about the zombies. Long after a plague that wiped out most of the human race, a young man named Noah resides in a remote mountain cabin. Several years have passed since he last saw another human being. The long period of isolation and loneliness has fostered a deep despair in Noah, who also struggles with suicidal impulses. But Noah is a man who was struggling even before the end of the world, a seemingly helpless slave to his addictions. When the vindictive sister he has long believed dead unexpectedly returns, events transpire that prompt him to leave his mountain refuge and embark on a cross-country trek to find the lost love of his life. It doesn't matter that she’s probably long dead. He just needs a purpose again and this is it. Along the way, he experiences moments of hope and profound tragedy. Soon Noah’s sanity begins to fray and his ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality starts to disintegrate. Through it all, he keeps trying to reach the one he lost long ago. And he’ll continue no matter what, even if it costs him his life, because it’s a big, empty world and this is all he has.

AJ @ Read All The Things

This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee

AJ says,  "Guys, I love this book so much! My first five-star read of 2018. It’s not a mind-blowing, brilliant piece of literature, but that doesn’t matter because I basically inhaled this book. It’s compulsively readable. It kept me awake for most of the night because I had to know how it ended." 

Yes, I must have it!

Here's what it's about:
‘This wildly creative, critically acclaimed retelling of Frankenstein is perfect for fans of Cinder by Marissa Meyer and the Yellow Brick War series by Danielle Page. Now available in paperback.

In an alternative fantasy world where some men are made from clockwork parts and carriages are steam powered, Alasdair Finch, a young mechanic, does the unthinkable after his brother dies: he uses clockwork pieces to bring Oliver back from the dead.

But the resurrection does not go as planned, and Oliver returns more monster than man. Even worse, the novel Frankenstein is published and the townsfolk are determined to find the real-life doctor and his monster. With few places to turn for help, the dangers may ultimately bring the brothers together—or ruin them forever. 

Did you find something irresistible during your blog perusals this week? Please share! We all need more books, right?