The Ladies of Horror Fiction have several new titles to recommend to you this week!
The Apocalyptic Mannequin
Doomsday is here and the earth is suffering with each breath she takes. Whether it’s from the nuclear meltdown, the wrath of the Four Horsemen, a war with technology, or a consequence of our relationship with the planet, humanity is left buried and hiding, our bones exposed, our hearts beating somewhere in our freshly slit throats.
The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection that strips away civilization and throws readers into the lives of its survivors. The poems inside are undelivered letters, tear-soaked whispers, and unanswered prayers. They are every worry you’ve had when your electricity went out, and every pit that grew in your stomach watching the news at night. They are tragedy and trauma, but they are also grief and fear, fear of who–or what–lives inside us once everything is taken away.
These pages hold the teeth of monsters against the faded photographs of family and friends, and here, Wytovich is both plague doctor and midwife, both judge and jury, forever searching through severed limbs and exposed wires as she straddles the line evaluating what’s moral versus what’s necessary to survive.
What’s clear though, is that the world is burning and we don’t remember who we are.
So tell me: who will you become when it’s over?
Goodreads | Amazon | Better World Books
Tracy’s Teaser Review
These vary in length and all boast what I have come to love most about the shortest form of horror fiction. Every word counts. Sometimes it’s slow. Often it’s a gut punch. But whether these pieces are insidious or brazen, the result is the same. I am unsettled, entertained, and left thinking. I will be seeking out more from Wytovich in the future.
Click here to read Tracy’s full review at Goodreads.
False Bingo by Jac Jemc
Named a Fall Read by The Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune
The mundane becomes sinister in a disquieting story collection from the author of The Grip of It
In Jac Jemc’s dislocating second story collection, False Bingo, we watch as sinister forces—some supernatural, some of this earth, some real and some not—work their ways into the mundanity of everyday life.
In “Strange Loop,” an outcast attempting to escape an unnamed mistake spends his days taxiderming animals, while in “Delivery,” a family watches as their dementia-addled, basement-dwelling father succumbs to an online shopping addiction. “Don’t Let’s” finds a woman, recently freed from an abusive relationship, living in an isolated vacation home in the South that might be haunted by breath-stealing ghosts.
Fueled by paranoia and visceral suspense, and crafted with masterful restraint, these seventeen stories explore what happens when our fears cross over into the real, if only for a fleeting moment. Identities are stolen, alternate universes are revealed, and innocence is lost as the consequences of minor, seemingly harmless decisions erupt to sabotage a false sense of stability. “This is not a morality tale about the goodness of one character triumphing over the bad of another,” the sadistic narrator of “Pastoral” announces. Rather, False Bingo is a collection of realist fables exploring how conflicting moralities can coexist: the good, the bad, the indecipherable.
Goodreads | Amazon | Better World Books
Audra’s Teaser Review
Jemc is solidified in my mind as one of the strange and unusual, and I’m always looking out for the authors willing to take a risk on something entirely different.
Click here to read Audra’s full review at Goodreads.
When I Arrived At The Castle by Emily Carroll
“A castle, a killer, and prey all bound and blurred by lust and blood.”
Like many before her that have never come back, she’s made it to the Countess’ castle determined to snuff out the horror, but she could never be prepared for what hides within its turrets; what unfurls under its fluttering flags. Emily Carroll has fashioned a rich gothic horror charged with eroticism that doesn’t just make your skin crawl, it crawls into it.
Goodreads | Amazon | Better World Books
Toni’s Teaser Review
As always the illustrations where STUNNING. Absolutely beautiful!! I really enjoy the color palette that Carrol uses. I enjoyed the premise of the story and the gothic leanings that were present. I appreciated the nod to Dracula. But what I really get here is Elizabeth Báthory.
Click here to read Toni’s full review at The Misadventures of a Reader.
Thanks for joining us today and we hope you found something to add to your tbr list! Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.
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