Welcome to a new edition of Ladies of Horror Fiction reading recommendations. Take care of yourselves. ♥
Hexis by Charlene Elsby
I’m not relentless. “Relentless” makes it sound like there’s something called “relent” and that I’m lacking it. In that sense, I’m not relentless, but perhaps I’m unrelenting. I could relent if I wanted to. But he always has to die. I mean “always” in two senses: at all times and all of the time. I can’t kill him all of the time. That would take too long. But all of the times I did, I did. I’d do it again. I could relent if I wanted to, but instead I’d do it again. If he’s different, then he’s the same and if he’s the same, he’s got to go. If he were different and not the same, then there would be two things and I’d only have to kill one of them. If only I only had to kill one of him. What a life I would live, if only I only had to kill him the one time. But death doesn’t always do him in.
Audra’s Teaser Review
This book goes to some dark places and was uncomfortably descriptive on more than one occasion. But that is the joy of good horror—it gives us something to shy away from while at the same time we confront it. Again and again. A hexis type of struggle.
Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.
Tracy’s Teaser Review
About 20 years ago, I read Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being for an upper level English major course. It came on the heels of Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, and I felt like I was wrapped in a whirlwind. Zhivago is a dense Russian novel of love and loss. Kundera’s book is lighter in terms of length but is mentally heavy. Why this trip down memory lane? Charlene Elsby’s debut novella, Hexis, is as dense and heavy as both Pasternak and Kundera’s books. It’s a head trip of love, loss, hatred, and murder.
Read Tracy’s entire review at Scifi and Scary.
The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters
A supernatural thriller in the vein of A Head Full of Ghosts about two young girls, a scary story that becomes far too real, and the tragic–and terrifying–consequences that follow one of them into adulthood.
Red Lady, Red Lady, show us your face…
In 1991, Heather Cole and her friends were members of the Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with the macabre, the girls exchanged stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters, like the Red Lady, the spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that, until her best friend Becca began insisting the Red Lady was real–and she could prove it.
That belief got Becca killed.
It’s been nearly thirty years, but Heather has never told anyone what really happened that night–that Becca was right and the Red Lady was real. She’s done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca, and the Red Lady, behind her. Until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace Heather hasn’t seen since the night Becca died.
The night Heather killed her.
Now, someone else knows what she did…and they’re determined to make Heather pay.
Jen’s Teaser Review
One timeline is set back in the 80s when the Dead Girls Club would get together and tell scary stories and do spooky stuff. It reminded me a lot of my spooky childhood when my friends and I were obsessed dark shit. Those were the days, and I loved reliving some of that through reading The Dead Girls Club. This timeline was my favorite, and it read like a dark Goosebumps novel.
Read Jen’s entire review at Book Den.
River of Souls by T. L. Bodine
Undeath is a manageable condition.
That’s what the media says, anyway: with the help of the miracle life-extension drug, Lazarus, the Undead can retain their humanity and live normal, happy lives. Without it, they become violent, mindless walking corpses.
Davin Montoya was eager to believe all of that. Forced to drop out of college to take care of his teenage sister, Zoe, after their father drank himself to death, he was more than happy to sign the no-good alcoholic over to the government’s Lazarus House for treatment. That was one less thing for him to worry about.
Until an accident left him joining the ranks of the freshly deceased himself.
Now, keeping his death a secret is the only way to keep his sister out of foster care. But to do so, he must venture into the underground society of Unregistered Undead – a dangerous world of drug deals and government resistance. But when their access to Lazarus begins to run dry, the truth starts to unravel…and it’s not what anyone expected.
Laurie’s Teaser Review
There is adventure and, more importantly, some humor here and I’m always there for some humor. It’s a little gross and a lot of goodness and I can easily recommend it to you even if you are sick to death of zombies. I hope there will be a sequel because I want some more of these characters and their adventures, and that’s not something I say often because I already own a zillion books!
Read Laurie’s entire review at Bark At The Ghouls.
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.
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