Monday, November 20, 2023

November 2023 Horror Spotlight Shelf Edition: Cormack Baldwin

Shelf Edition: Cormack Baldwin

Today we welcome Cormack Baldwin and his shelves!

Do you have any recent favorite Horror Spotlight books?

Too many! Not enough! I’ve been on a nonfiction kick recently for some reason, but most recently I finished Jamison Shea’s I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me (YA horror, body horror! Ballet! Everything you could want!) and Jackal by Erin E. Adams (psychological horror! Thriller! Mother-daughter relationships!). I really loved both of them, albeit in very different ways.

Which Horror Spotlight books do you currently have on your TBR?

My library hold for Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau just came down, so that's first up! After that, Ashley Deng's Dehiscent and Tiffany Morris’s Green Fuse Burning.

Where do you find recommendations? Are there any Horror Spotlight books that have been recommended to you that you loved?

My recommendation system is pure chaos. I read almost exclusively through my library, which means I have no qualms about picking things up at random and DNFing the moment I decide I could be reading something else. I’ll take recommendations from social media every so often. In general, though, I like to ask people for recommendations. If they know me, they generally have a sense of what I might like—which, to be fair, covers a lot of ground. I love getting weird, niche recommendations for books whose target audience appears to be me and two other people who’ve already read it.

Are there any upcoming Horror Spotlight releases you're excited about?

I am so behind on figuring out what’s coming out. I listed four different titles here before realizing that a) they’d already been released, and b) I’d already read them. Time is a flat circle. However, I have now gone on an adventure to find what is coming out, and I discovered that E.M. Roy's Let the Woods Keep Our Bodies came out last month. I don't have it yet, so that makes it upcoming as far as I'm concerned.

Let’s get a little adventurous. Answer one or both: What Horror Spotlight book (or story, or movie, etc) would you like to see turned into a Muppet Movie? And/Or Who would play you in a horror movie based on your life?

I think every book should have the opportunity to be a Muppet movie. I think the world would be a better place. But assuming the spirit of Jim Henson has vested unto me the power to pick ONE title for my magnum muppus, I'm choosing Victor LaValle's The Changeling. There are puppets in it already; it'll be meta. It'll be daring. People are going to walk away changed.

Note on the Archive of the Odd illustration: The author of the piece is Ellen Edwards, and the illustrator is Alina Gottbrecht.

In regards to your own work, tell our readers a little bit about what’s new and/or coming up for you.

Not a ton coming up immediately! Late summer/early fall was pretty big for me this year, with the release of Soul Jar (a speculative fiction anthology by disabled authors) on the author side of things, and publishing Cat Voleur’s Revenge Arc on the publisher side of things. I’m immensely proud of both releases, as well as Archive of the Odd issue 3 (from this summer) and Fish Gather to Listen from Horns & Rattles Press, which was the perfect home for an extremely bizarre co(s)mic horror cowritten with my partner EV. Right now I’m reading for issue 4 in terms of Archive of the Odd, and otherwise planning and scheming.

Where can people find you on social media and/or find your work?

If you're going to find me anywhere, it's going to be @cormackbaldwin. Generally I just use social media for press stuff, though, which is @archiveoftheodd (https://archiveoftheodd.com/). In either case, I welcome messages, tags, anything! Share a weird book you’ve read recently! Give me a fun fact about bugs! I do like talking with people, despite the warning signs.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Horror Spotlight's Readalong December 2023

Horror Spotlight’s Readalong December 2023

In December we will be reading White Horse by Erika T. Wurth for the readalong in the Horror Spotlight discord. You can join the discord with this link.

White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut from Erika T. Wurth about an Indigenous woman who must face her past when she discovers a bracelet haunted by her mother’s spirit.

Some people are haunted in more ways than one.

Heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and the occasional beer at the White Horse have defined urban Indian Kari James’s life so far. But when her cousin Debby finds an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, it inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, and her willful ignorance about her past is no longer sustainable…

Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.

Goodreads | Bookshop

The readalong begins December 1, and discussions will take place throughout the month of December on the Horror Spotlight discord server. Everyone is welcome to join. See you there!

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Horror Spotlight's Readalong November 2023

Horror Spotlight’s Readalong November 2023

In November we will be reading Rouge by Mona Awad for the readalong in the Horror Spotlight discord. You can join the discord with this link.

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

Goodreads | Bookshop

The readalong begins November 1, and discussions will take place throughout the month of November on the Horror Spotlight discord server. Everyone is welcome to join. See you there!

Also in November, Join us for Nonfiction November!

Do you have a Nonfiction book that is horror or horror adjacent that you would like to have a reason to read? We are having a discussion over on the discord server about our Nonfiction picks in November. Grab a book and join us, we'd love to have you!

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

What We've Been Reading | November 1, 2023

Need a mid-week dose of horror? We're here for you.

Silent Key by Laurel Hightower

A detective, supernatural mystery with elements of Nick Cutter’s The Deep, Peter Benchley’s Jaws and Stephen King’s Firestarter.

After the loss of her husband under mysterious circumstances, former Detective Cam Ambrose learns how little she truly knew him. Reeling with the grief of her loss and the realization that the man she loved was a stranger, she must learn how to keep her young daughter safe from a world of the supernatural she never knew existed. With the help of her best friend Dimi and reclusive neighbor Eric Morgan, she sets out to solve a decades-old mystery entangling the machinations of an obsessed killer, her husband’s mistress, and a series of deadly hauntings.

Amazon | Goodreads

Heather's Teaser Review

"This book had me dreaming about water. I think because I was thinking about it so much. It's a bit mystery meets ghost story. I didn't know who to trust until the last page. I was questioning everyone."

Read Heather's entire review at Goodreads.

Saint Grit by Kayli Scholz

One brooding summer, Nadine Boone pricks herself on a poisonous manchineel tree in the Florida backcountry. Upon self-orgasm, Nadine conjures a witch that she calls Saint Grit. Pitched as Gummo meets The Craft, Saint Grit grows inside of Nadine over three decades, wreaking repulsive havoc on a suspicious cast of characters in a small town known as Sugar Bends.

Goodreads | Amazon

Teresa's Teaser Review

"This novella packs a punch in a small space. There are scary moments, filthy moments, off-putting moments, all delivered in a wry, fresh way."

Read Teresa's entire review at Goodreads.

The Shoemaker's Magician by Cynthia Pelayo

A fabled lost movie. An increasing body count. How much do you risk for art?

Paloma has been watching the Grand Vespertilio Show her entire life. Grand, America’s most beloved horror host showcases classic, low-budget and cult horror movies with a flourish, wearing his black tuxedo and hat, but Paloma has noticed something strange about Grand, stranger than his dark make-up and Gothic television set.

After Paloma’s husband, a homicide detective, discovers an obscure movie poster pinned on a mutilated corpse on stage at the Chicago Theater, she knows that the only person that can help solve this mystery is Grand. When another body appears at an abandoned historic movie palace the deaths prove to be connected to a silent film, lost to the ages, but somehow at the center of countless tragedies in Chicago.

The closer Paloma gets to Grand she discovers that his reach is far greater than her first love, horror movies, and even this film. And she soon becomes trapped between protecting a silent movie that’s contributed to so much death in her city and the life of her young son.

Goodreads | Amazon

Tracy's Teaser Review

"Wow. Just wow. This book me hooked me immediately and I followed Pelayo wherever she planned to lead me. A mash up of crime and horror and mythology and Chicago and film history; I was here for it all. It grabbed my horror heart and my mom heart and I loved every second of it."

Read Tracy's review at Goodreads.

Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

Our Reviewers

Heather is a contributing reviewer and helps out with the Horror Spotlight Instagram account. Find her online at Goodreads, Twitter as @HSquared_13, and on Instagram as @h.hellion.

Teresa creates the Shelf Edition posts, creates bookish lists and is a contributing reviewer at Horror Spotlight. You can find Teresa on Goodreads, and on Twitter.

Tracy is a contributing reviewer. You can also find Tracy on twitter as @tracy_reads79, on Instagram as @tracy_reads79 and on Goodreads.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

October 2023 New Horror Book Releases

Happy Halloween, and welcome to Spotlight on New Releases where we shine a spotlight on a few recent horror releases! We hope you find something wonderful to read.

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

From three-time Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Hand comes the first-ever authorized novel to return to the world of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill a suspenseful, contemporary, and terrifying story of longing and isolation all its own.

Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play The Witch of Edmonton , she may finally be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the ornate, if crumbling, gothic mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s enormous, old, and ever-so eerie—the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play.

Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house out for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made strange creatures stalk the grounds, disturbing sounds echo throughout the halls, and time itself seems to shift. All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself. It seems something has been waiting in Hill House all these years, and it no longer intends to walk alone . . .

Published October 3, 2023 by Mulholland Books | A Haunting on the Hill on Goodreads | A Haunting on the Hill on Amazon

Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead

From the critically acclaimed author of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife and The Last Housewife comes a gothic Southern thriller about a killer haunting a small Louisiana town, where two outcasts—the preacher's daughter and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—hold the key to uncovering the truth.

For fans of Verity and A Flicker in the Dark, this is a twisted tale of murder, obsessive love, and the beastly urges that lie dormant within us all...even the God-fearing folk of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist.

Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners' bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar—and Ruth realizes only she and Everett, an old friend with a dark past, have the power to comb the town's secret underbelly in search of true evil.

A dark and powerful novel like fans have come to expect from Ashley Winstead, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is an examination of the ways we've come to expect love, religion, and stories to save us, the lengths we have to go to in order to take back power, and the monstrous work of being a girl in this world.

Published October 3, 2023 by Sourcebooks | Midnight Is the Darkest Hour on Goodreads | Midnight Is the Darkest Hour on Amazon

When Ghosts Call Us Home by Katya de Becerra

Haunting of Hill House meets found-footage horror in this edge-of-your-seat thriller that explores the power of family ties and the trauma that lurks there.

When Sophia Galich was twelve, she starred in her older sister Layla’s amateur horror movie Vermillion, which recorded raw footage of her very real reactions to scenes her sister concocted in their old Californian house on the coast―Cashore House.

In the years after the film’s release, Sophia’s relationship with her sister became more strained, while her memories of the now-infamous house fueled her nightmares. Vermillion amassed an army of fanatical fans who speculated about the film’s hidden messages, and it was rumored that Layla made a pact with the devil―her soul in exchange for fame and arcane knowledge. Sophia dismissed this as gossip…until Layla disappeared.

Now, Sophia must study the trail of clues Layla has left behind, returning to the very place where it all began. As she gets closer and closer to Cashore House’s haunted heart, she must once again confront the ghosts of her childhood. But the house won’t reveal its secrets without a fight.

Published October 3, 2023 by Page Street YA | When Ghosts Call Us Home on Goodreads | When Ghosts Call Us Home on Amazon

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

Published October 3, 2023 by Tor Books | Starling House on Goodreads | Starling House on Amazon

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror by Author

The visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.

A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.

Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.

Published October 3, 2023 by Random House | Out There Screaming on Goodreads | Out There Screaming on Amazon

Last to Leave the Room by Author

A new novel of genre-busting speculative horror from the acclaimed author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world. As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Published October 10, 2023 by St. Martin's Press | Last to Leave the Room on Goodreads | Last to Leave the Room on Amazon

The Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen

In this ingenious and subversive twist on the classic gothic novel, the mysterious past of an island mansion lures two sisters into a spiderweb of scandal, secrets, and murder.

Two sisters, strangers since birth yet bound by family secrets, are caught up in a century-old mystery on an isolated island.

After arriving on Block Island to find her birth mother, Blake Bronson becomes convinced she’s the heroine of a gothic novel—the kind that allowed her intermittent escape from a traumatic childhood. How else to explain the torrential rain, the salt-worn mansion known as White Hall, and the restless ghost purported to haunt its halls? But before Blake can discern the novel’s ending, she’s found dead, murdered in a claw-foot tub. The proprietress of White Hall stands accused.

Summoned by a letter sent from Blake before she died, Thalia Mills returns to the island she swore she’d left for good. She finds that Blake wasn’t the first to die at White Hall under suspicious circumstances. Thalia must uncover the real reason for Blake’s demise before the forces conspiring to keep Block Island’s secrets dead and buried rise up to consume her too.

Published October 10, 2023 by Thomas & Mercer | The Daughters of Block Island on Goodreads | The Daughters of Block Island on Amazon

Silent Key by Laurel Hightower

A detective, supernatural mystery with elements of Nick Cutter’s The Deep, Peter Benchley’s Jaws and Stephen King’s Firestarter.

After the loss of her husband under mysterious circumstances, former Detective Cam Ambrose learns how little she truly knew him. Reeling with the grief of her loss and the realization that the man she loved was a stranger, she must learn how to keep her young daughter safe from a world of the supernatural she never knew existed. With the help of her best friend Dimi and reclusive neighbor Eric Morgan, she sets out to solve a decades-old mystery entangling the machinations of an obsessed killer, her husband’s mistress, and a series of deadly hauntings.

Published October 10, 2023 by Flame Tree Press | Silent Key on Goodreads | Silent Key on Amazon

A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper

When a summer storm sweeps through a sleepy town unleashing a monstrous and otherworldy power that threatens to break reality, Olivia will stop at nothing to find her best friend and get them to safety.

Mona Awad’s Bunny meets Stranger Things in this mind-bending and terrifying examination of female friendship and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love, from the Bram Stoker award winning author of Queen of Teeth.

Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower.

Olivia figures she’ll die in Chapel Hill, if not from boredom, then the summer night storm which crashes into town with a mind-bending monster in tow.

If Olivia’s going to escape Chapel Hill and someday reconcile with her parents, she’ll need to dodge residents enslaved by the storm’s otherworldly powers and find Sunflower.

But as the night strains friendships and reality itself, Olivia suspects the storm, and its monster, may have its eyes on Sunflower and everything she loves.

Including Olivia.

Published October 10, 2023 by Titan Books | A Light Most Hateful on Goodreads | A Light Most Hateful on Amazon

The Nighthouse Keeper by Lora Senf

Evie once again leaves her world behind to rescue Blight Harbor’s ghosts in this second book in the bone-chilling middle grade Blight Harbor trilogy that’s reminiscent of Doll Bones and Small Spaces.

Evie Von Rathe has been home for only a few weeks from her adventure in the strange world of seven houses when Blight Harbor’s beloved ghosts begin to disappear. Did they leave without saying goodbye, or has something gone horribly wrong? Soon Evie is invited to a mysterious council meeting, where she learns about the Dark Sun Side and a terrible secret.

Yes, the ghosts have gone missing. And that means serious trouble.

With the help of an eleven-year-old (or 111-year-old, but who’s counting) ghost named Lark, trusty Bird, and a plump ghost spider, Evie must find a way to defeat the vicious Nighthouse Keeper responsible for the missing ghosts, save her otherworldly friends, and find her way home from the Dark Sun Side before she’s trapped there forever.

Published October 17, 2023 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers | The Nighthouse Keeper on Goodreads | The Nighthouse Keeper on Amazon

All These Sunken Souls: A Black Horror Anthology by Author

Welcome to the Dark.

We are all familiar with tropes of the horror genre: slasher and victims, demon and the possessed. Bloody screams, haunted visions, and the peddler of wares we aren’t sure we can trust. In this young adult horror anthology, fans of Jordan Peele, Lovecraft Country, and Horror Noire will get a little bit of everything they love—and a lot of what they fear—through a twisted blend of horror lenses, from the thoughtful to the terrifying.

From haunted, hungry Victorian mansions, temporal monster–infested asylums, and ravaging zombie apocalypses, to southern gothic hoodoo practitioners and cursed patriarchs in search of Black Excellence, All These Sunken Souls features the chilling creations of acclaimed bestsellers and hot new talents, with stories from Kalynn Bayron, Donyae Coles, Ryan Douglass, Sami Ellis, Brent Lambert, Ashia Monet, Circe Moskowitz, Joel Rochester, Liselle Sambury, and Joelle Wellington.

Published October 17, 2023 by Amberjack Publishing | All These Sunken Souls on Goodreads | All These Sunken Souls on Amazon

The Reformatory by Author

A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

Published October 31, 2023 by Gallery / Saga Press | The Reformatory on Goodreads | The Reformatory on Amazon

Jen is one of our Horror Spotlight admins. Jen manages the technical side of the Horror Spotlight website. She also keeps a spotlight on new horror releases each month.

You can also find Jen on her blog Book Den, Twitter as @bookden, Instagram as @bookdenjen, on Goodreads, and Letterboxd.

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

What We've Been Reading | October 18, 2023

We're back to help you find a new favorite creepy novel! Check out our latest reviews below 🠇

Rouge by Mona Awad

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

Amazon | Goodreads

Laurie's Teaser Review

"This book is effortlessly sinister. Everything about it is unnerving, especially the “Tom Cruise” appearances 😂 and that’s all I’m saying. Read it and freak yourself out. That’s my advice."

Read Laurie's entire review at Goodreads.

The Collector by Laura Kat Young

A frightening dystopian horror novel where grief is forbidden and purged from the mind – a nightmarish mix of 1984 and Never Let Me Go

The Bureau has your best interests in mind

Some people kill themselves first. Dev is the Collector of the month. His job is to record memories of grief for the Bureau’s catalogue before the person is Reset. After all, sorrow is unproductive, inefficient.

But after Dev records the memory donations, he returns home and secretly preserves them for himself in a notebook, kept hidden behind a wall in his tiny apartment. But the Bureau is always watching. And Dev’s small transgression leads to a terrible betrayal from which there is no way back.

Goodreads | Amazon