Bark At The Ghouls

Recent Mini Reviews I'm putting some "lovely" back into my blog today. Here's the rest of what I've read sorta recently (this has been sitting in my drafts for far too long!) in mini review form because life has been crazy and I might also still be a little lazy.   Red, White & Royal Blue  by  Casey McQuiston ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I apologize in advance to this book because I have no mental energy left today to compose a thought. I read this book to escape from the world and let me tell you it worked. This is the most adorable, sexy-sweet romance and I LOVED it. It's set in some sort of alternate world where a woman is the president and her son falls in love with a prince and there isn't a lot of pain and suffering (not that there's anything wrong with the pain and the suffering!) but seriously, right now, I could read this sort of thing all the live long day. T he Herd  by  Andrea Bartz ⭐⭐⭐ I think maybe I've read one too many of these "...

This is a quirky and creepy read with an amazing ending. Horrid by Katrina Leno Published September 2020 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration  From the author of You Must Not Miss comes a haunting contemporary horror novel that explores themes of mental illness, rage, and grief, twisted with spine-chilling elements of Stephen King and Agatha Christie. Following her father's death, Jane North-Robinson and her mom move from sunny California to the dreary, dilapidated old house in Maine where her mother grew up. All they want is a fresh start, but behind North Manor's doors lurks a history that leaves them feeling more alone...and more tormented. As the cold New England autumn arrives, and Jane settles in to her new home, she finds solace in old books and memories of her dad. She steadily begins making new friends, but also faces bullying from the resident "bad seed," struggling to tamp down...

This one sneaks up on you! The Possession of Natalie Glasgow Published August 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon  Source: Received for Review Consideration  Margaret Willow has never met an eleven-year-old as dangerous as Natalie Glasgow. Natalie spends her days comatose, but at night she prowls her mother’s home, unnaturally strong and insatiably carnivorous. With doctors baffled, Natalie’s mother reaches out to Margaret, an expert in the supernatural. But even Margaret is mystified and terrified by Natalie’s condition. She’s dying, and before she dies, she might kill someone. Has a demon clawed its way inside an eleven-year-old girl? Or does the source of this nightmare lie with Natalie’s dead father? A tight, tense novella, The Possession of Natalie Glasgow twists the exorcism tale at every turn down to its final grave confrontation. My 2 Cents For Free! A desperate widow is at her w...

Free creepy stories for your ears! Come Join Us By The Fire Season 2 Published October 2021 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |  GooglePlay   Source: Freebie! Come Join Us by the Fire Season 2 is the second installment of Nightfire's audio-only horror anthology, featuring a wide collection of short stories from emerging voices in the horror genre as well as longtime fan favorites. The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of genre luminaries including Laird Barron, Indrapramit Das, Shaun Hamill, Daniel M. Lavery, Matthew Lyons, T. Kingfisher, Seanan McGuire, Nibedita Sen, and Nightfire’s own Cassandra Khaw and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.  My 2 Cents For Free! I don't know if I have it in me to review this collection in any proper way so I'm throwing a 3.5 at it (bumping up for GR) It is huge and there so many stories and though I'm than...

Gruesome and hard to put down! The Fourth Whore by EV Knight Published March 2020 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration  Kenzi Brooks watched The Scribble Man collect her brother’s soul after a hit and run when she was seven. He gave her a present that day - a lucky rabbit’s foot. Sixteen years later, she no longer believes in The Scribble Man, she believes in survival and does what she has to in the slums of Detroit. When thugs kill her mother and beat Kenzi to near death, she accidentally releases Lilith from her prison within the time-worn keychain. And Hell hath no fury… Lilith is out for revenge. Revenge against God, Sariel (Angel of Death and Kenzi’s Scribble Man), and all of mankind for relegating her to nothing more than a demoness for refusing to submit to her husband. She’s put together an apocalyptic plan to destroy everyone who has forsaken her. Forget the Four Horsemen, Lilith...

Looking for something a little different in your horrific books?  Hexis by Charlene Elsby Published February 2020 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration  I'm not relentless. "Relentless" makes it sound like there's something called "relent" and that I'm lacking it. In that sense, I'm not relentless, but perhaps I'm unrelenting. I could relent if I wanted to. But he always has to die. I mean "always" in two senses: at all times and all of the time. I can't kill him all of the time. That would take too long. But all of the times I did, I did. I'd do it again. I could relent if I wanted to, but instead I'd do it again. If he's different, then he's the same and if he's the same, he's got to go. If he were different and not the same, then there would be two things and I'd only have to kill one of them. If only I only had to kill one of him. What a life ...

Sorry I dropped off the planet for a bit there. Why are there never enough hours in the day?! I hope to get back to posting reviews and features and visiting blogs again because I've missed it all so much. Anyhow, now I'm even further behind than I was previously so here's a way overdue review. Housebroken by The Behrg Published March 2015 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration  "It was a kidnapping, but in all the wrong ways. No ransom, no demands; there was nothing they wanted -- other than to observe." When Blake Crochet and his family are taken hostage in their own home, they are forced to act out their everyday lives under the observance of two psychotic kidnappers. They soon learn that the consequences of both action and inaction are more terrifying than they imagined. As the motives behind the home invasion are revealed, Blake must sacrifice everything to hold on to the ever-shifting d...