Bark At The Ghouls

This started out amazing but lost me along the way.  My 2 Cents for Free! Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou Released April 2025 Source: Purchased from local indie bookstore Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads Sour Cherry is a retelling of the murderous Bluebeard, he of the penchant for collecting and murdering wives. He's no different here. The story starts out when he's just a "little lord". He's an odd child, whose nails grow at a frightening pace, and he can't seem to fit in with the other children. His wetnurse cares for him when no one else can quite bring themselves to. Is he an evil seed, is he truly cursed or is it the lack of nurturing? We shall never know but as the story goes along any sympathy I was able to dredge up for him was soon lost. The book has some beautiful language, but the story is oddly composed. It takes its time getting started. We get to know Bluebeard as that strange child I mentioned above. This section is a goo...

This wasn't quite what I was expecting which was actually a nice surprise. My 2 Cents for Free! The Undoing of Violet Claybourne by Emily Critchley Released November 2024 Source: Library Audio Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads I picked this up from the library thinking it was a gothic mystery and, though it features a once fine manor that is in disrepair, it’s definitely a historical tale of friendship and tragedy and secrets that ultimately is mainly about young women who weren’t free to live their lives as they’d like due to their own mistakes and class wars but mostly because of the way society is set up to give young women very little agency in their own lives and then there's the fact that mental health issues continue to be woefully dismissed. Whew, that was a mouthful. Fifteen-year-old Gillian befriends a friendless girl at the posh school she attends. She isn’t nearly as wealthy as the rest of her classmates and jumps at the chance to spend a holiday...

 A mini review for my archives My 2 Cents for Free! Wake Up And Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman Released January2025 Source: Library Audio Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads This was bleak and there’s a scene I’ll never forget early on but it’s definitely not a book I’d read again. It’s just too much with everything that’s going on here in the US. The audio is very good except for the repetitive kid baby ghost show iPad thing which got on my last nerve when it was in my ears over and over again but I’m sleep deprived and short of patience so you may have a different experience. It’d make a good companion read with CJ Leede’s new one, American Rapture, if you’re into delving into sex plagues and bumming yourself out. I borrowed this audiobook from my local library. Final Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐1/2 Publisher Plot Synopsis (if you need one, be warned because sometimes they can spoil it all!) From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless a...

This was very cute on audio. My 2 Cents for Free! First-Time Caller by B.K.Borison Released February 2025 Source: Library Audio Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads This was a cute romance between a single mom and the host of a late-night radio show that answers random questions from its audience about relationships. Who knew those still existed? I looked it up and apparently they do. You can learn something new every day, I guess. I loved Lucie. She's been focused on raising her daughter and works as a mechanic with a bunch of men. Her ex lives across the way with his husband (? I think they're married but my brain fails me) and they co-parent their 12-year-old. She gets her fill of men that way but one night, unbeknownst to her, her daughter calls into the radio show and sets off a series of events that ends up with Lucie going viral for being so openly honest and hopelessly romantic. She hits it off with the host and is offered up a chance to allow the show ...

Would you just look at the lovely cover! My 2 Cents for Free! The Lamb by Lucy Rose Released February 2025 Source: Purchased from local bookstore Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads Are you feeling a bit gloomy? Want to feel worse? I have a book rec for that. This book was the Horror Spotlight discord pick for May and it took me all of May (and a few days of June) to force myself through it. If I weren’t so damn nosy and stubborn I might’ve done a dnf. And I nearly did but after reading the spoilers in the chat I had to know how it all got there and I switched to audio to finish and then back to the physical book when I ran out of hours (curse you again Spotify and your weird plan to get more $ out of me with “top offs”). So even though it took me half my life to finish, it kept pulling me back in despite my threats to quit it. And in the end, I have no regrets about sticking with it. It’s a bleak story about a little cannibal family. Before someone screams that I...