Bark At The Ghouls

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...

Just like Rumfitt's previous book, this book will upset you. Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt Released October 2023 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads   | Amazon From Alison Rumfitt, the author of Tell Me I’m Worthless — “a triumph of transgressive queer horror” (Publishers Weekly) — comes Brainwyrms, a searing body horror novel of obsession, violence and pleasure. When a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, Frankie tries to cope with the carnage: binge-drinking, fucking strangers, pushing away her friends. Then she meets Vanya. Mysterious, beautiful, terrifying Vanya. The two hit it off immediately, but as their relationship intensifies, so too does Frankie’s feeling that Vanya is hiding something from her. When Vanya’s secrets threaten to tear them apart, Frankie starts digging, and unearths a sinister, depraved conspiracy, the roots of which go deeper than she ever imagined. Shocking, ...

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...

I wasn't really expecting this level of body horror, yikes! Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang Released April 2023 Source: Library Borrow Goodreads   | Amazon Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost. Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City. Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and th...

Lots of goo inside this house! House of Rot by Danger Slater Released June 2023 Source: Received for Review Consideration Goodreads   | Amazon The pink mold growing on the walls isn’t the worst thing about Elenya and Myles’ brand new fixer upper. There’s also the inexplicable footsteps in the night; the sealed-over windows and doors; the neighbor that hears their screams but can’t be bothered to help. Soon, there’s no leaving at all. No hope of cleaning. And that encroaching mold? It’s practically become a second skin. Welcome to the House of Rot . You’re never getting out. My 2 Cents for Free! If you’re craving a read that will make you go “ewwwww” for pages on end and just when you get to thinking it can’t get any worse IT DOES, do I ever have a book for you! Newlyweds Elenya and Myles are all wide-eyed and optimistic about their new apartment and they stay far longer than I ever would’ve! On their first night they hear an extremely loud intruder so they go around and turn on eve...

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...

Be careful with your doodles! Cool S by Die Booth Released August, 2022 Source: ARC received for review consideration Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   | Buy It Here Tracy Forrest has it all. A great boyfriend, loyal best mate, good job and new house. But something is missing. There’s a wistful longing for good times gone by that Trace just can’t lay to rest. When she spots a ubiquitous and mysterious teenage doodle in an old schoolbook, she becomes obsessed with finding out what it is. You know Cool S? Yeah, you do. Cool S. Super S. Pointy S. THE S. That thing we all doodled on notebooks and schoolbooks and pencil cases, maybe graffitied on a park bench or a bus stop if you were frisky. Ever wondered what it was? Where it came from? What it means? Well, I’m here to tell you. Are you sure you want to know? Cool S. Some things should stay lost. My 2 Cents for Free! I don’t know if I ever drew the graffiti “S” aka “Cool S” while I was in school b...

This book was released on July 12 and although I finished the book and reviewed it in plenty of time, I forgot to schedule the blog post (ahhh). Anyway, better late than never, I guess! What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher Released July 12, 2022 Source: ARC received for review consideration Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads  |   Amazon   |  Bookshop From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher." When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a...

This book is so perfectly warped! Super Ghost by Scott Cole Published November 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration Mad Science, Phantom Limbs, Giant Monsters, and Ice Cream! Darren Legend is a former construction worker who's lost his right arm. Michelle Mayfair is a former Olympic runner who no longer has her legs. And Dr. Griffin Rains wants to talk with both of them. He's a "phantom limb therapist"... who may also be a megalomaniacal mad scientist. When Dr. Rains assembles a giant ghost-monster from the phantom limbs he's stolen from hundreds of amputees, the city is in for the most bizarre nightmare it's ever seen. And it's up to Darren and Michelle, with the help of a few friends, to stop Rains and the strange terror of the SuperGhost! This newly-revised edition of Scott Cole's bizarro/sci-fi/horror novella also features a brand-new prequel short story, "The Science F...

Hi everyone, I remembered I have a blog and am back with a review. My apologies for the slacking during this apocalypse but it's been hard to find structure and motivation. The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling Published April 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Purchased A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival. When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em...

Behind that beautiful cover is a book filled with glorious body horrors! Wilder Girls by Rory Power Released July 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Purchased With My Own $ It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything. But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that t...

Have you read Bunny?! Bunny by Mona Awad Released June 11, 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: R eceived for Review Consideration The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?" Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one. But everything changes when Samantha receives a...

Skin is still a five star read all these years later! Skin by Kathe Koja Audio Released June 24, 2019 Dark Fiction   |   Goodreads   |   Amazon   Source: Received for Review Consideration Tess spends her days picking through scrap yards and arc-welding her strange, jagged metal sculptures. Bibi is a dancer, who pushes her hardened body beyond endurance, sculpting every movement and every muscle, basking in the warmth of the pain...Then the two women come together, and together they create a new underground art form of metal and flesh, a dance of whirling bodies and whirling sculpture, a dance of pain and blood... Breaking the boundaries of art, Tess and Bibi are plunged deeper and deeper into a realm of obsession - until the lust for pain grows beyond all their control... My 2 Cents For Free! I originally read Skin when it was first released in 1993 by  Dell Abyss   back when they had their horror...