Book Review: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix

A fun vampire novel whose setting was one of its strongest features, divided between middle class white suburbs and poor black communities; it built tension well in the first half but revelled a little too much in visceral body horror to the point where it became inadvertently funny.

Book Review: Woman Eating, Claire Kohda

A fresh and compelling vampire narrative with an incredibly compelling vampire protagonist: this is a novel about people caught between cultures, caught between self-loathing and self-respect; caught between a domineering mother and her own life.

The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden

Disclaimer: I was provided with an ARC / Proof Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. How exciting! My first ARC review! My first ARC review! My first ARC review! This is the third in Arden's Winternight Trilogy which commenced with The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower,… Continue reading The Winter of the Witch, Katherine Arden

Storm Front, Jim Butcher

literary lineage going back to Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade and Philips Marlowe. Dresden is in that line of hardboiled detectives; however, Butcher is not a writer of the same calibre as Hammett, Chandler or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Strain, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Oh dear. What a let down. I was really looking forward to this one. And now I feel just... let down. I've read some great books recently: emotional, lyrical, beautiful. I wasn't expecting any of that from The Strain. I was looking forward to an enjoyable, rollicking horror vampire fantasy in the style of del… Continue reading The Strain, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Feed, Mira Grant

I'm a sensitive soul, me. I like books and words; I wear my heart on my sleeve. I cringe at the sight of gore and blood. So why have I been immersing myself in gore recently? The Passage and The Twelve by Justin Cronin and now Feed, book one of the Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira… Continue reading Feed, Mira Grant

Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindquist

Its odd how my book reading lurks in certain genres for a while: after a crime spree, I notice a range of horror books collecting on the pages of this blog - with more on my to-be-read list. I wonder what it is with Scandi-Lit. Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy; Jo Nesbø; Mons Kallentoft ... There… Continue reading Let The Right One In, John Ajvide Lindquist