I love a good Christmas horror story, and while my tastes for holiday frights usually leans more into the fantastical or blood-splattered sort, there's nothing like a classic gothic tale to creep into your bones and settle there on a winter night.

I've loved Gemma Amor's work ever since I was introduced to it by the NoSleep Podcast years ago, and I was so excited to receive a review copy of Christmas at Wheeldale Inn. This is an eerie historical novella of a couple who gets lost out on a desolate moor in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve and finds themselves at Wheeldale Inn, where they believe they've found salvation despite the somewhat unusual nature of the inn's occupants.

Wheeldale is a difficult read at times, as it features heavy themes of grief and domestic abuse in a marriage gone sour, but there's also an underlying element of magic in the way Mrs. Wilcox views the inn and its innkeeper that I was mesmerized by. I loved to hate Mr. Wilcox and found myself desperately flipping the pages in hopes of seeing him get his comeuppance, and while I won't spoil a thing for you, I'll say that I was both surprised and delighted by the final twist in this story.

If you want a cozy, quiet horror story to keep you company for the holidays, I highly recommend this one!

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.