WHEN DARKNESS LOVES US by Elizabeth Engstrom

 

When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading Paperbacks from Hell, I was very interested in checking out some of the many intriguing and bizarre books Grady Hendrix featured in that lovely book. And this is one of them.

This book consists of two novellas.

WHEN DARKNESS LOVES US is such a creepy and twisted tale about a young girl who gets trapped inside some underground tunnels. She lives a lonely and blind life while knowing every second of the day that her husband and family are getting on with their lives above. And none of them know she's there, right beneath their feet. Not that it changes anything once they do.

Yikes! 😳

Sally Ann Hixson starts out as a frail teenager pining after her husband and eventually becomes someone—something—very different. It was fascinating to watch what happens to her as the years move along. And totally terrifying when the story takes a turn for the very unexpected. It's actually quite sickening and gross, but considering everything that happened, that ugly ending made total sense.

BEAUTY IS... turned out to be such an amazing novella! AMAZING. It's sad and wonderful, creepy and inspiring. It's also dark and horrendous. Martha is such a great character. A grown woman with a learning disability and a facial deformity that keeps her at a distance from a town full of people willing to help her because of her mother's legacy. Well, most of them. And her mother Fern is a great and strong woman with an otherworldly ability she ultimately couldn't use on her own daughter. 😞

I absolutely LOVED the incredible pacing of this story. Everything unfolds in the alternating POVs of Martha and Fern, leading us down two different timelines that perfectly complement each other. All the pieces of the puzzle fit together so well and eventually reveal the most awful secret.

Like the first novella, this has a soul-crushing ending that made every moment spent with these struggling women so worth it.

The true monsters in both of these tales are the cruel humans who selfishly destroy everyone who gets in their way or doesn't fit into their idea of what is owed to them.

Elizabeth Engstrom has a beautiful and macabre way of telling stories that I found very appealing. I will definitely have to read more of her books. Definitely.

Oh, and one last thing. I love this cover because creepy dolls are my thing, but didn't realise exactly how perfect it is until I was reading Martha's lonely story.

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THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: Women of Horror Volume 3 is now available!

 

Last year, I was lucky enough to be included in the first Women of Horror anthology released by Kandisha Press, as well as the second volume.

Today, I'm super excited to announce that my short story, Lady of the House, appears in Volume 3..

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: 2020 WOMEN OF HORROR ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME 3

Kandisha Press

What doesn't kill me, might make me kill you!

30 women authors from around the world were challenged to write about The One That Got Away. Here you'll find tales of unrequited love, blind dates gone wrong, stalkers and their prey, cursed guitars, alien symbiotes, sinister letters, and bitter acts of revenge. Dive into these murky depths and discover what hides inside the minds of women scorned.

Featuring chilling tales from:

Carmen Baca
Ushasi Sen Basu
Demi-Louise Blackburn
Ashley Burns
R.A. Busby
Amira Krista Calvo
Dawn DeBraal
Shawnna Deresch
Ellie Douglas
Amy Grech
KC Grifant
Meg Hafdahl
Rowan Hill
Stevie Kopas
Michelle Renee Lane
Catherine McCarthy
Villimey Mist
Mocha Pennington
Faith Pierce
Janine Pipe
Lydia Prime
Paula RC Readman
Marsheila Rockwell
Lucy Rose
Rebecca Rowland
Yolanda Sfetsos
Hadassah Shiradski
Barrington Smith-Seetachitt
J Snow
Sonora Taylor

 Edited by Jill Girardi

With Foreword by Gwendolyn Kiste (Bram Stoker award winning author of The Rust Maidens)

With cover art design by Ilusikanvas.

 It's now available:
Kindle | Paperback | Kobo | NOOK | Apple

ADD TO GOODREADS

GRAVEYARD SMASH: Women of Horror Anthology Volume 2 is now available!

Back in January, I was lucky enough to be included in the first Women of Horror anthology released by Kandisha Press. 

Today, I'm very excited to announce that my short story, Love You to Death, appears in Volume 2...

GRAVEYARD SMASH: 2020 WOMEN OF HORROR ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME 2

Kandisha Press

Step through the prettiest cemetery gates you've ever seen and experience tombstone raves and widow's dances, Japanese snow-spirits, Aztec bruja and temple goddesses, vengeful ghosts, djinn and cannibals, vampire hunters, plague bearers, graverobbers, and terrors beyond reason.

Read through the night as the dead rise from boneyards all around the world! 

Featuring chilling tales from:

Christy Aldridge 

Carmen Baca 

Demi-Louise Blackburn 

R.A. Busby 

V. Castro 

Dawn DeBraal 

Ellie Douglas 

Tracy Fahey 

Dona Fox 

Cassidy Frost 

Michelle Renee Lane 

Beverley Lee 

J.A.W. McCarthy 

Catherine McCarthy 

Susan McCauley 

Ksenia Murray 

Ally Peirse 

Janine Pipe 

Lydia Prime 

Paula R.C. Readman 

Yolanda Sfetsos 

Sonora Taylor 

 Edited by Jill Girardi
With foreword by Doc Holocausto (Evilspeak Magazine, Harvest Ritual, Creepy Crawls)

With cover art by Jep Knulle and cover design by Ellie Douglas

 It's now available:
Kindle | Paperback | Kobo | NOOK | Apple

ADD TO GOODREADS

BUNNY by Mona Awad

Bunny by Mona Awad

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As soon as I found out about this book, I knew I HAD to get my hands on it. I mean, readers were comparing it to Heathers, Mean Girls, even The Craft. Which made me want to read it even more!

Samantha Mackey is a bit of an outsider in the selective MFA program she attends at Warren University. She's on a scholarship and isn't rich like a lot of the other students, so she mostly keeps to herself. She often gets lost in her imagination, or hangs out with her fellow outcast friend, Ava.

They both hate the pretentious Bunnies. A group of snobby, seemingly perfect girls in her writing program. The Bunnies mostly ignore her during Workshop. Until the day they invite Samantha to their 'Smut Salon' and everything changes...

Holy shit!

This book was an addiction I couldn't fight. Didn't want to fight because I enjoyed the hell out of every single weird and wondrous thing that happened. And trust me, there's plenty of weird within these dark pages.

Samantha is quite the narrator. Unreliable. Confused. Determined. Creative. Delusional. Loyal. Messed up. And totally likeable.

I loved the writing style because it captured the bizarre and truly horrifying things that happened so well. I constantly found myself saying: WTF? Because, just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder, I fell deeper into the rabbit hole and didn't know what to expect next. 😳

It takes talent to write a story that is so unpredictable every step of the way. To tell a tale full of seemingly magical situations able to blur the edges of reality before bringing you back to what's really going on. And then, when you start to get comfortable and think you've finally got a grip on what's real and what's not... the story pulls you down again.

This book is surreal and disorienting. It's like having a waking nightmare. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not.

Regardless of the constant confusion established throughout, I thought the wild and violent imagery was as awesome as the metaphors and commentary on the creative mind. Not to mention on the snobby attitudes of the privileged.

Another thing that I really liked was how the Bunnies were described. They dressed like Stepford Wives, behaved like cult members, ate like mini versions of themselves, and were saccharine to the point of being disturbing. These girls were super creepy and I had a blast spending time in their fucked-up world.

This book is deliciously wicked, dark af and often hilarious. Oh, and it's awesome. I loved it SO much. And there's definitely a lot of other really cool things going on--like Max--but it's better not to give too much away.

I'll definitely be thinking about this one for a while.

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UNDER HER BLACK WINGS: 2020 Women of Horror Anthology is now available!

I'm super excited to announce that my short story, Somewhere to Belong, has been published in an awesome anthology featuring women of horror...

UNDER HER BLACK WINGS:

2020 WOMEN OF HORROR ANTHOLOGY

Kandisha Press

- A glamorous actress whose very flesh is reanimated by a beloved Hollywood icon

- A Boy Scout Troupe encounters a frightening mythological creature in an American forest

- A lonely woman finds a home among a group of lost-and-found souls, all cared for by a tentacled sea-creature called Mother

- A Faceless Woman attacks like a virus and takes on the identities of her victims

- A post-apocalyptic battle for survival rages between human and insect

- A Shadow Woman leads the spirits of the murdered to take revenge in the desert

These are just some of the stories nineteen women came up with when tasked with creating their own Women Monsters. Step inside and experience tales of bloodsucking entities in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Cuban river goddesses, an Aztec bruja, werewolves, mermaids, soul-stealers, obsessive lovers, furious spurned wives, bloody murder in Gothic manors and on Southern plantations... and so much more...

With Foreword by Brandon Scott (Author of Vodou and Sleight, Devil Dog Press)

Featuring:

Christy Aldridge

Carmen Baca

Somer Canon

Andrea Dawn

Dawn DeBraal

Michelle Garza

Sharon Frame Gay

Alys Hobbs

Tina Isaacs

Stevie Kopas

Marie Lanza

Melissa Lason

Malena Salazar Macía

Charlotte Munro

Lydia Prime

Paula R.C. Readman

Copper Rose

Yolanda Sfetsos

With cover art by Corinne Halbert

 

  It's now available from Amazon:

Kindle | Paperback

   

ADD TO GOODREADS

WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've had this weird and wonderful book on my TBR pile for a while, but I'm glad I decided to make it my first read for 2020.

Firstly, I have to comment on the cover because it's beautiful. And eerie and oh-so creepy. Not to mention absolutely perfect for the story.

For eighteen months, the surviving students at Raxter School for Girls have been under quarantine on what's become a dangerous and wild island. The Tox has changed everyone, infected them in a way that has transformed their bodies.

Hetty, Byatt and Reese are close friends who don't always agree on things. But when one of them goes missing, the other two are determined to find her...

Wow. This book is really something special.

I was hooked from the beginning. This story is full of intriguing characters and a savage landscape. These young girls are forced to do some pretty feral things to survive.

Hetty's voice is strong and interesting. She reveals the relevant information at a good pace. Sometimes, we discover new things at the same time. But I really enjoyed getting to know the strange place she's forced to live in, how complicated her connection with her friends is, and learn how she deals with the physical changes that make everything harder.

The horror in this book is awesome. Raw and grisly, awful and beautiful in its parasitic way. The descriptions were done so well that every detail bloomed vividly inside my mind, and I could see everything playing out perfectly.

Even though it's very different, so much about what was going on reminded me of Annihilation. In the best way possible. And just like Annihilation, I loved how some of the answers unfold, eventually revealing themselves. BUT at the same time, many more questions arise and are never answered.

I'll never understand why anyone has any problem with YA horror. Some of the grittiest and best horror I've read has been YA horror.

And I have so many more on my TBR pile... 😈

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ADDITIONAL NOTES:

I LOVE this cover so much I took a bunch of photos of the book the other day.

I'm really glad that I finally read this fantastic book as part of the #LadiesFirst20 Challenge hosted by Ladies Of Horror Fiction. 

It was the best way to start my 2020 Reading. 😊