Bark At The Ghouls

Not as marketed but still good! My 2 Cents for Free! Marion by Leah Rowan Released June 2026 Source: Netgalley See more @ Goodreads This a book inspired by Hitchcock’s Psycho, but it twists things around and a modern-day Marion survives and does so with a vengeance! From there it is a completely different story. It’s more thriller than any kind of creepy horror so keep that in mind if you’re looking for an atmospheric slow burn horror tale like Psycho because this isn’t it. But what it is is fun. It’s not quite what I was expecting from the blurb - it’s not any kind of “alternate history” but I thought it was imaginative, over the top and fun in a very dark way. The “Marion” in this book was raised to fight back, to survive, and to protect. When she discovers her sister is married to a man who abuses her it sets off a chain of events that lead her to Norm’s motel/cabin rental b&b kind of thing and from there she sort of goes into a murder spiral. “Marion wasn’t someone to be fucked...

 If you enjoy modern day retellings of fairytales you might want to check this one out. My 2 Cents for Free! How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann Released May 2022 Source: TBR Pile See more @ Goodreads This is a fiendishly weird book that takes several known fairytales and puts a modern spin on them. It adds in a story that twists up “The Bachelor” as a bonus, weirdly enough. That inclusion felt strange but it makes a sort of sense because all of these women become famous for their very public run-ins/relationships/downfalls with men and the public's perception of them turns out to be not at all the full story, of course. The women, all dealing with various trauma, answer an email which leads them to group therapy sessions where they share their stories. Each story seems stranger than the last or at least as strange as each other with the exception of “The Bachelor” one. That one didn’t really work for me and Ashlee (ignore my spelling if it’s wrong as I listened to the audio) got on ...

A slow burn, atmospheric tale of dread and duty. My 2 Cents for Free! The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea Released February 2019 Source: Library Borrow See more @ Goodreads I've been reading a lot of dark and dreary gothic novels lately and realized there have been quite a few that flew under my radar in the past. This is one of them and I'm glad I finally found it! It's never too late to find a book, right? Rosa is in love with her childhood friend but marries an older man with means in order to save the life of her mother who is ailing from sickness and poverty. Set in Iceland 1686 she doesn't have a lot of options. She travels to this stranger's manor with one of his gruff men when he leaves immediately after their marriage to "care for his people". This is clearly going to be mostly marriage in name only. Once she arrives at his abode, she's isolated and told to obey and to spend her days cleaning, cooking, and slaving away while he's out doing wha...

This was great on audio. My 2 Cents for Free! Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce Released April 2026 Source: Netgalley See more @ Goodreads I listened to Dark Is When the Devil Comes on audio over two days in broad daylight, and surprisingly it really creeped me out. Most books leave me feeling eh when it comes to the creeping dread but this one did get under my skin a few times. The narrator did a fantastic job with the characters too; expressing their fear, anxiety, bitchiness and sometimes confusion about events past and present. A meh narrator can break a book like this but in this case the narration enhances the story perfectly. This is one of those books that is best going into blind. Even the blurb here is vague about events. Too many of them lately compare everything to something else and/or give it all away and I’m so glad this one didn’t so I won’t either. So all I’ll say is this: Hazel returns to her childhood home and attempts to reconnect with her estranged siste...

This is a strange little folk tale. My 2 Cents for Free! The Cellar Below the Cellar by Ivy Grimes Released March 2026 Source: ARC See more @  Goodreads This is a strange little coming into your own story about a woman who finds herself trapped at her grandmother’s house by circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Jane was visiting her grandma when a loud pop awakened her from sleep to find the sky glowing. It’s not aliens (that we know of!) but a mysterious aurora-like light arrived and apparently doesn’t have plans to leave. It knocked out power and forced them to live off the grid. This actually feels like a not so bad option in 2026. Technology has gone poof and they learn to help out their walkable neighbors in their teeny community. Well, some of them anyway. Some are just bossy, entitled and excellent at overstepping but that’s how some people are so it felt realistic. This is a slower paced, odd little book with some quirky characters. Jane is the main character. She’s 30ish ...

I envy those of you who compose thoughtful reviews of everything you read! I tend to be an all or nothing type of person and when I'm feeling worn out I just stop reviewing and blogging which isn't the best thing for a blog. I may start doing a quickie wrap up post and including short snippets of the books I didn't fully review or finish for whatever reason. That way I won't feel the pressure of utter failure. This is what April looked like and below are the books I've (so far) missed including on the blog due to no fault of their own. *I've just started The Last Witch & Girl Dinner for the Horror Spotlight discord readalong. The Last Witch is making very angry at the men and I have zero thoughts on Girl Dinner as I'm only on chapter 2. Full review is coming for The Cellar Below the Cellar. *I've since finished (or attempted to) these two books and added them to this round-up. And here's my joyful reading partner, Benny Ben Ben who is so h...

This is a slow burn story with a creepy undertone. My 2 Cents for Free! The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton Released March 2026 Source: Netgalley See more @  Goodreads The Fourth Wife is a haunting historical story set in 1882 about a heartbroken young woman who marries a man who gave me some serious Bluebeard vibes early on. But a man killing wives and accumulating new ones isn’t the focus of this book. Though this man does accumulate wives, it’s because he’s allowed to do it by his religion even if it’s illegal. Hazel is a young woman with impossible dreams of marrying her love and playing her piano but instead she’s forced into a plural marriage with three other sister-wives and their offspring because men rule over all positions of authority and she’s been born into this hell. The Fourth Wife explores her life with these women in his creepy moldering manor as he dips in and out doing whatever the eff he wants to do. Toss in some terrible nightmares/visions, some secrets (y...

Loved the book but not so much the narration. My 2 Cents for Free! Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher Released March 2025 Source: Netgalley See more @  Goodreads Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio and T. Kingfisher for providing the arc! T. Kingfisher horror novels are one of my favorite things and this new book is no exception. It’s earthy, it’s creepy, it’s full of bugs and decay and snark and suspicious characters and there is nothing here that I didn’t enjoy about the writing. I am reviewing the audio narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, however, and I’d recommend you maybe read it in paper if you’re picky about your narrators. There was something about the narration that didn’t seem to fit the historical time period of 1899, and the voices of the men were, I’m sad to say, dreadful in the most terrible of ways. So much so that they made me smirk in places where I really shouldn’t have been smirking and would almost always throw me out of the story. I tried speeding up and slowin...

This was really fun on audio. My 2 Cents for Free! Dollface by Lindy Ryan Released February 2026 Source: Netgalley See more @  Goodreads This is a fun thriller/slasher with a horror writer as the main character that grabbed me from the chilling opening scene. It’s not heavy or depressing, even though it could have been due to the content, and it’s pretty fast paced and a fun slasher is always a good way to escape the world for a few hours. If you enjoy audio, it’s definitely the way to go with this one. The narrator does a fantastic job voicing all of the characters but especially the main character who sounds appropriately stressed and relatable. Jill, her husband, their young son and their golden retriever Lugosi have recently moved to a creaky not creepy house in suburbia for his job. She’s a horror writer struggling with a new story idea and has some insecurities about fitting in and being known as the horror tee wearing weirdo mom. But she is who she is, and I liked that she d...

Have you read CG Drews yet?  My 2 Cents for Free! Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews Released October 2024 Source: Purchased See more @  Goodreads I'm not going to lie, this book tested me. I used to live for angst-filled books, the longing, the pining, oh how I LOVED it. I would've given this book every single star in the sky when I was a teen and throughout my 20's too. But now I'm crabby and my patience wears thin quickly for that kind of thing and this book has that kind of thing. A lot of it. The main character is in love with his best friend, and he believes and fears he is in love with his twin sister and oh my dogs the absolute agony of it all. It's a mess and no one bothers to communicate which can be frustrating when you're in the thick of it and as grumpy about this stuff as myself. However, I thought the writing was quite beautiful in many spots and I never wanted to quit. I was frustrated by the lack of reveals and confusion I felt and probably...

This is a good choice if you want to escape the world for a bit. My 2 Cents for Free! The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst Released July 2025 Source: Purchased Audio See more @  Goodreads Once upon a time, Terlu was lonely because people always thought her “too much” and she used magic when she wasn’t supposed to (because magic is reserved for the “well-schooled”) and created a sentient plant to keep her company. She was discovered, made an example of, and harshly turned into a statue and stuffed into a closet for years. This all happened previously and is spoken of in “ The Spellshop ” (which you don’t have to read in order to enjoy this story, but you'll probably love it if you enjoy this one). This story begins when Terlu is awakened six years later. There’s a lot of bad self talk going on in Terlu’s head. She feels she’s too much, and that she pushes her friendship on people when they don’t really want it and she beats herself up a whole damn lot. She doesn’t come acros...

This was originally published in 6 installments. I'm reviewing it as a novel because that's how I listened to it. My 2 Cents for Free! Blackwater by Michael McDowell Released August 1983 Source: Audible Purchase See more @  Goodreads Wow, this was a long one! My attention span of late has been dismal but despite that I decided now would be the best time to tackle a 30-hour saga. I mean, it was either going to hold my attention or I could DNF yet another one. 2025 was the year for getting through my old tbr's so why not? Surprisingly, this absolute doorstopper of a book that often went on about nothing at all but daily dramas featuring a wealthy and very dysfunctional family, that was less horror than family drama, managed to grab me and hold me all the way through to the very end. It has a little weird thread running through it but it's very much a southern family drama where the women are the ones in control. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much. These people were...