Bark At The Ghouls

This one releases next Tuesday and you can pre-order it now. My 2 Cents for Free! Morsel by Carter Keane Released April 14, 2025 Source: Netgalley See more @  Goodreads Comparisons are such a wild thing. I realize they’re trying to sell a book to a targeted audience, but they almost never feel quite right to me. “The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, in Morsel, a delicious folk horror novella perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.” To be totally honest, the cover is the reason I chose this as a READ NOW pick from Netgalley. I was thinking it would lean heavily into the bog/fungi horror trend of late especially when they invoked T. Kingfisher up there, but it never goes there. Morsel is such a weird little story. It sort of fits some of those comps but only for brief moments in time. Instead it’s more of a mashup of many things including taking a scathing look at the late stage capitalism that works peopl...

If anyone has some patience to spare, I am in desperate need. My 2 Cents for Free! The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark Released June 2025 Source: Purchased @ Gibson's Bookstore Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads The Ghost Writer is a book for people who have endless patience. I’ve discovered that person is not me. This story is about Olivia who is a ghost writer who has changed her name because her father is a famous writer with murder accusations from the past that surround him like a haze. She doesn’t want anything to do with him because he was a terrible father. Can’t say as I blame her really. Anyhow, now he is penning his last book, suffering from Lewy Body Dementia and needs her assistance to bring it all together. She accepts because she needs money. Can’t blame her for that either. The book then bounces back and forth between the present day and the past as she attempts to make sense of his scribblings and clues that may or may not reveal the murderer of the u...

 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...

You'll love this if you dig a little side of romance with your gruesome body horror. Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison Released October 2022 Source: Library Borrow Goodreads  | Amazon A young woman in need of a transformation finds herself in touch with the animal inside in this gripping, incisive novel from the author of Cackle and The Return. Rory Morris isn't thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby's father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she'd put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she's attacked. Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She's unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver--and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She's ch...

This was a lovely romance. A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera Released May 2022 Source: Library Borrow Goodreads  | Amazon Paris, 1889 The Exposition Universelle is underway, drawing merchants from every corner of the globe. Luz Alana Heith-Benzan set sail from Santo Domingo armed with three hundred casks of rum, her two best friends and one simple rule: under no circumstances is she to fall in love. The City of Light is where Luz Alana will expand Caña Brava, the rum business her family built over three generations. It’s a mission that’s taken on new urgency after her father’s untimely death and the news that her trust fund won’t be released until she marries. But buyers and shippers alike are rude and dismissive; they can’t imagine doing business with a woman…never mind a woman of color. From her first tempestuous meeting with James Evanston Sinclair, Earl of Darnick, Luz Alana is conflicted. Why is this man—this titled Scottish man—so determined to help her? And wh...

This book some weird turns. Infamous by Lex Croucher Released July 2022 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads   | Amazon 22-year-old aspiring writer Edith 'Eddie' Miller and her best friend Rose have always done everything together-climbing trees, throwing grapes at boys, sneaking bottles of wine, practicing kissing . . . But following their debutante ball Rose is suddenly talking about marriage, and Eddie is horrified. When Eddie meets charming, renowned poet Nash Nicholson, he invites her to his crumbling Gothic estate in the countryside. The entourage of eccentric artists indulging in pure hedonism is exactly what Eddie needs in order to forget Rose and finish her novel. But Eddie might discover the world of famous literary icons isn't all poems and pleasure . . . My 2 Cents for Free! Infamous is set in the Regency period and is a story about emotional growth, learning some very hard lessons, and discovering what (and finally who!) is truly important in lif...

It's more of a girl eat boy world, tbh. This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham Released April 2023 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads   | Amazon Four best friends, one music festival, and a cooler filled with human organs: this summer is about to get gory. ​​​ Jennifer’s Body fans will clamor for this new sapphic horror standalone from New York Times bestselling author Kayla Cottingham. Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a resul...

Guys can be so gross, eh?  Mandy by Stephanie Sparks Released August 2022 Source: Received for Review Consideration Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   | Bookshop Mandy Fisher is not like other girls… Awoken one night by a stranger at her door, Mandy reluctantly lets him in. The stranger begs for help for his friend Robbie, recently killed in a drunk driving accident. To make the pushy, distraught stranger go away, Mandy taps into her secret gift to bring Robbie back from the dead. Her gift is more like a curse when Robbie turns out to be anything but the golden boy Mandy expected. Corrupt and violent, Robbie has an insatiable hunger for death and destruction — and he will stop at nothing to exploit Mandy’s secret for his own gain. But Robbie soon discovers that when you mess with the weird girl, you get more than you bargained for. My 2 Cents for Free! Mandy is alone in the home attached to the mortuary where she works with her dad, it’s the middle of the night, and...

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...

So many of these dark stories made me laugh and for that this book gets SO many points! Resisting Madness by Wesley Southard Published November 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration What drives a man mad? Maybe it’s the death of a loved one...or the petrifying fear of hands around your throat…the dread of rejection…or maybe it’s the black, soulless eyes of a child that shatters your sanity… Within these pages, delirium reigns supreme. You’ll discover how far a prisoner will go to be with his dying wife, and what lurks between the walls of that Louisiana jailhouse to keep him there. You’ll find out how deep a man can cut himself to dig out the past. You’ll meet a college professor whose fear of flying might be the least of his worries. And you’ll learn how a sister’s love for sweet treats can reunite a broken family…whether they want it or not. Aliens and lot lizards…disembodied lips…the vo...

I am back to my archive project! Look for some golden oldies. Hopefully you'll find something new to you to help topple your tbr pile! My Life As A White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland Published July 2011 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Library Borrow Angel Crawford is a loser. Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken. That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in a horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse. Bef...