Bark At The Ghouls

  My Favorites of the Year I have been working my way through my tbr in 2025 and unfortunately dnf'd quite a few. I have so many books I purchased ages ago and I think my taste might have changed a bit. I'm slowing down on physical book purchases in 2026 so I can get through more of the books I already own before my taste changes again.  But it wasn't all dreary dnf's. I read quite a few gems in 2025 too! Most of them happened to be newish books. I was mostly into gothic horror novels in 2025 and that doesn't seem to be slowing down. Fortunately, I have a bunch sitting here so 2026 may look similar. In no particular order, these were my favorite reads of 2025. "Hazelthorn is a gorgeously written tale of a gothic mansion and a terrible garden filled with secrets but it’s so much more. It’s lush and grotesque and imaginative and filled with physical and emotional pain and it all comes together in the loveliest way." Complete review here . "I really enjo...

Bloom is a beautifully crafted nightmare. My 2 Cents for Free! Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson Released October 2023 Source: Spotify Audio Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads This story lulls you in with what appears to be a sweet, healing romance but soon enough the dark undertones start rising to the surface. Ro(semary) meets the most beautiful girl in the world, an elfin cottagecore dreamgirl come to life, at the farmers market. She is smitten. She’s also recovering from a breakup from a guy who ruined her self-esteem and gave her an issue or two. Ash is very private but allows Ro into parts of her life but Ro is consumed by wanting to know everything about her and her nosiness and insecurity and complete lack of boundaries (ugh) has her snooping where she shouldn’t be snooping . . . I loved and adored everything about this book. It’s a lovely romance on its surface but there are sinister moments that peek through and the slow burn really pays off in the last few ac...

So much cottagecore coziness. My 2 Cents for Free! The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst Released July 2024 Source: Spotify Audio Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads I'm giving this a five because I didn't want it to end. It is a bit rushed at the end which is my only complaint but it's going on my favorite shelf so five stars it is. If you want something that is magical and leaves you with that cozy feeling, this one is probably meant for you too. I originally picked it up because I requested The Enchanted Greenhouse from Netgalley not realizing that it was a sequel. I'm not sure if they need to be read in order but I didn't want to take a chance. The Spellshop tells the story of Kiela, an introverted and sorta grumpy librarian who is forced to grab her sentient plant, hop in a little boat and leave her beloved safe place when the overlords who want to hoard all of the magic start destroying everything, as overlords tend to do. She sails over to the i...

Looking for a book that you can fall into? I found one! My 2 Cents for Free! Hungerstone by Kat Dunn Released February 2025 Source: Aardvark Book Club Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads I very much loved Hungerstone. It took me ages to finish it but that's my fault. I was reading several other books for various reasons and had to keep putting it down, but I always wanted to grab it first and reading isn't a race anyway.  It is and it isn't a Carmilla redo. I thought the two were very different (in the best of ways). Carmilla's shadow certainly lingers over quite a bit of Hungerstone but it manages to be its own unique story and I loved that. The author credits Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu but also Coleridge's Christabel, Miss Havisham and Estella in Great Expectations, Keate's Lamia, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and The Moonstone as well as several other texts of historical fiction. Lenore is married t...

So much has changed,  yet so little has changed. Le Sigh. My 2 Cents for Free! The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke Released October 2022 Source: Purchased Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads This is my favorite of the three CJ Cooke books I've read. The other two were The Lighthouse Witches and The Book of Witching . I think I gave them both a three. One of them had two timelines which is sometimes tricky when they don't connect for the majority of the story. It often drives me nuts but that wasn't a problem at all in this one. The timelines here are only a few years apart and they meld somewhere at the midway point.  The Ghost Woods tells the story of several young women who are sent "away" when their pregnancies become an inconvenience that their families just want to shove under the rug. Why is society always so awful to women? Ugh. Anyhow, sometimes they're allowed back but more often than not, especially for the ones without means, they'r...

Botanical horror is having a moment and it's a beautifully disgusting thing. My 2 Cents for Free! Hazelthorn by CG Drews Released October 2025 Source: Netgalley Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads Hazelthorn includes everything that bugged me a little about Don’t Let the Forest In because I am she of little patience, including the endless pining, the memory gaps and small glimpses of pained but forgotten histories and it is very angst heavy, but I loved all of it. Maybe I was just in the right mood? Or perhaps it's just a very good book. It’s earthy and mysterious and sometimes pretty bloody and gross and all of it is pretty damn haunting. Evander is a lonely, sickly teenage boy who has been wasting away in an old mansion. His door is locked until one day it isn’t . . . The writing is beautifully evocative. Or at least I think so. At one point Evander thinks about himself, “He is an autumn leaf. Meant to be pressed between the pages of an old book and forgotte...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 🎄 My 2 Cents for Free! Hark! The Herald Angels Scream edited by Christopher Golden Released October 2018 Source: Purchased Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads This was a bit of a mixed bag with many of the stories lacking in the scary Christmasy feelings I was expecting but there were a few standouts worth checking out. Absinthe and Angels by Kelley Armstrong A couple are spending a quiet Christmas at a remote cabin here when they hear a knock at the door. This was super creepy and filled with nightmare fuel. It was a great start to the collection and is definitely worth a read. Christmas in Barcelona by Scott Smith A tired couple with a new baby head out for a vacation they booked when they were still childless. Now they’re rethinking things because everything that could add stress to the trip has happened. Screaming baby, lost bags, no food, etc. and so on. When they arrive at their destination, the husband decides to wander a...