Bark At The Ghouls

The Hounding is out today! My 2 Cents for Free! The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis Released August 5, 2025 Source: Netgalley Get it at your local library or see more @  Goodreads All it takes is one sonofabitch to stir up an entire village. Grrrr. The Hounding is a historical fiction novel about five sisters living on a farm in a small village filled with superstitious people. The sisters have been raised by their grandparents after being orphaned and are mourning their recently deceased grandmother. Many of the townsfolk are wary of them because they’re not demure, mild-mannered creatures. Their grandfather has allowed them to run free and wild. They’re a little loud, they laugh freely, and they keep themselves to themselves. So, OF COURSE, that makes some of the local men feel a certain way. One day their grieving is mistaken for howling and rumors spread that they are able to change into dogs. They then get blamed for everything ailing the town. It’s an infuriating look at human natu...

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...

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...

This is another great book I read a bit ago but never managed to get up on my blog. The Wild Dark by Katherine Silva Released October 2021 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads  | Amazon Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Raleigh has lost everything: her job as a police detective, her partner, her fiancé, and her peace of mind. After a month of solitude at a cabin in the woods, she finally feels as though she’s ready to move on. But in one terrifying night, everything changes. Liz's partner, Brody, appears in the form of a ghost. He's one of millions that have returned to haunt their loved ones. Brody can't remember how he died and Liz is determined to keep the secret of it buried, for it means dredging up crushing memories. Along with him comes an unearthly forest purgatory that swallows up every sign of human civilization across the world. The woods are fraught with disturbing architecture and monstrous wolves hungry for human souls. Brody says he escaped from them and that t...

Need a fun action-packed horror novel in your life? Here's one for ya: Frost Bite by Angela Sylvaine Released October 2023 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads  | Amazon Remember the '90s? Well...the town of Demise, North Dakota doesn't, and they're living in the year 1997. That's because an alien worm hitched a ride on a comet, crash landed in the town's trailer park, and is now infecting animals with a memory-loss-inducing bite--and right before Christmas! Now it's up to nineteen-year-old Realene and her best friend Nate to stop the spread and defeat the worms before the entire town loses its mind. The only things standing in the way are their troubled pasts, a doomsday cult, and an army of infected prairie dogs. My 2 Cents for Free! Frost Bite is a wild action-packed tale set in the 90’s that gets gruesome but doesn’t forget to create memorable characters too. It would make a fun B movie for sure and I hope we see it someday. Maybe with a d...

I love finding new writers via anthologies and I found a few here! In Darkness Delight Released May 2019 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads  | Amazon Midnight strikes like an invocation, clock hands joining in prayer to the darkness. After the twelfth chime, there’s no escaping the nightmare. Fear reigns supreme. In Darkness, Delight is an original anthology series revealing the many facets of modern horror—shocking and quiet, pulp and literary, cold-hearted and heart-felt, weird tales of spiraling madness alongside full-throttle thrillers. Open these pages and unleash all-new terrors that consume from without and within. Midnight is here. It’s now time to find . . . In Darkness, Delight. My 2 Cents for Free! This is a collection filled with nightmarish images and stories. As with collections of these types, there are always some you’re going to love and others you might not be quite as crazy about. A few of them were so deeply depressing that I had to take breaks ...

This was a bit of fun on audio. It's a mini-review because sometimes I don't have a lot of words for how I feel. Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood Released June 2023 Source: Borrowed from Library Goodreads  | Amazon The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs. My 2 Cents for Free! This was a cute romance but the heroine was a bit too doormatty for my tastes for most of the story with both her family and her mentor. Woman you are grown. All the way grown up. It is ok to put your annoying mother on mute/ignore FOREVER or to finally tell her she's a mess. She needs to hear it. Grrrrr. Anyhow, th...

Hello, everyone! I'm back after my brief but much needed hiatus. I've decided to stop accepting ARC's and am focusing on my tbr for a bit because it was all becoming too stressful and unfun. We'll see how this goes, lol. Anyhow, here's a very good book you might want to read (and it's on Kindle Unlimited if you subscribe)  ↓  A Woman Built by Man edited by S.H. Cooper & Elle Turpitt Released February 2022 Source: My TBR Pile Goodreads  | Amazon A Woman Built by Man is a collage of 21 horror tales that seek to crawl under the skin and deconstruct the many ways women are built up and broken down by a patriarchal society. And the many ways they're finally saying, "Enough." My 2 Cents for Free! I was going to do a write-up on each story but decided to focus on the ones that I liked best instead. Call it laziness or call it not wanting to sit with the content of some of them for too long. Probably a bit of both. I read every one but I had to take a ...

This was fun but it left me with some questions. Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste Released August 2022 Source: Library Borrow Goodreads   | Amazon For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature--from Lucy Westenra, a victim of Stoker’s Dracula, and Bertha Mason, from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre--as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967. Reluctant Immortals is a historical horror novel that looks at two men of classic literature, Dracula and Mr. Rochester, and the two women who survived them, Bertha and Lucy, who are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967 when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Combining elements of historical and gothic fiction with a modern perspective...

This was, dare I say it without losing my horror membership card, a cozy feeling little horror-romance story. The Ghost and Mr. Moore by Wendy Dalrymple Released July 2021 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads   | Amazon Joseph Moore is looking for a fresh start for himself and his son River after the recent death of his wife. With the ink already dry on the purchase of a rambling rural Victorian-era home in St. Augustine prior to her death, and family in close proximity, he decides that the property will be the perfect place for him and his son to heal. However, almost as soon as they arrive, Joseph realizes that they aren't proud new homeowners, but unwanted visitors. Carolina Braun knows that she's dead... she just doesn't want to accept it. Free-spirited in life, her family always held her back from living the way she wanted. Now, more than a hundred years after her death, Carolina is still holding on to the fact that she never got to really live and wants...

Gods and serial killers and some amusing moments, what's not to love? No Gods for Drowning by Hailey Piper Released September 2022 Source: Purchased with my own $ Goodreads   | Amazon IN THE BEGINNING, MAN WAS PREY. WITHOUT THE GODS, THEY'LL BE PREY AGAIN. The old gods have fled, and the monsters they had kept at bay for centuries now threaten to drown the city of Valentine, hunting mankind as in ancient times. In the midst of the chaos, a serial killer has begun ritually sacrificing victims, their bodies strewn throughout the city. Lilac Antonis wants to stop the impending destruction of her city by summoning her mother, a blood god—even if she has to slit a few throats to do it. But evading her lover Arcadia and her friends means sneaking, lying, and even spilling the blood of people she loves. Alex and Cecil of Ace Investigations have been tasked with hunting down the killer, but as they close in—not knowing they're hunting their close friend Lilac—the detectives realize...

This was a very cute romance.  Book Lovers by Emily Henry Released May 2022 Source: Borrowed from Library Goodreads   | Amazon Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and i...

A great thriller horror hybrid that takes a stab at murdering the wellness industry. And tosses in some creepy dolls for added fun! Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel Released May 2022 Source: Borrowed from Library Goodreads   | Amazon A girl would be such a blessing... The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything—and everyone—at a safe distance. When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had. Soon she’s spending more time at Andrea’s remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn’t even mind that her cousin’s wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry—baby fever comes with the territory. The more Maeve immerses herself in Andrea’s world, the more disconnected she feels from her li...

Subtle devastation.  Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Released March 2022 Source: Library Borrow Goodreads   | Amazon Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home. Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp. Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of salt slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea. My 2 Cents for Free! “The deep sea is a haunted house.” This bo...

Surprises are sometimes very good! Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen Released October 2022 Source: Borrowed from Library Goodreads  | Amazon A "Best Of" Book Amazon * Buzzfeed * Rainbow Reading * Library Journal * CrimeReads * BookPage * Book Riot * Autostraddle A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist. Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret―but it's not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they've needed to keep others out. And now they're worried they're keeping a murderer in. Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police...