Twilight Seeker is the kind of urban fantasy that I devour. Fast-paced, exciting and filled with trouble around every corner, this novel is a delicate dance of danger and intrigue. Plenty of secrets surrounds both the Station itself and the guests inside. You can't possibly know who to trust. Just when you think you actually have it all figured out, it changes again. Filled with vampires, demons, succubae, fae and more, this cast of characters gets more complex as the story is told. While some of them stick to traditional typecasting like the vampires being cold and seductively lethal, others turn the typical on its head.
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Catherine Cavendish brings us yet another atmospheric read with The Garden of Bewitchment. While the Victorian Gothic style is one with which many authors flounder, Cavendish's prose flows, clearly proving her niche. The country cottage set on the bleak and remote Yorkshire Moors—as well as a connection to the Brontës—simultaneously romanticizes and grounds the novel. She gently prods the story onward while still exhibiting an acute awareness of the period. While at times the Garden reads like a tenuous laudanum dream, it doesn't take long for the encounters to turn menacing, evoking uncertainty and dread. Cavendish has dreamt into being our two female protagonists, whose impassioned individuality surely establishes them as unique as the Brontës sisters themselves. Surprisingly, the subject matter is never given a chance to become cumbrous as the increasing presence of the sinister game exerts its influence. As is often the theme with gothic fiction, neurosis versus actual paranormal is at first difficult, if not impossible to discern. It's up to the reader to decide if the Garden of Bewitchment and its inhabitants are all in the mind or if there truly is an esoteric or even demonic power at hand.

Reviewed for Unnerving Magazine

What would you do if you woke up 40 and seeing dead people? It’s a Wonderful Midlife Crisis is a Paranormal Women’s Fiction book with the emphasis on paranormal but still has plenty of heat! Quirky and unique, this book was tons of fun. Daisy sees dead people. She’s completely losing her mind, right? It would be a lot nicer if she could understand them, and if they’d stop having body parts fall off. But, hey, who knew that superglue worked on ghosts?

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Another entry in the Paranormal Women’s Fiction category, Writing Wrongs has a lot going for it. Cricket, our MC is 48, may be a little older than some of the other protagonists in the PWF universe, but she’s in the same situation. Except unlike the others whose husbands have died or cheated, Cricket decides to step away from her marriage herself. She moves back to the little town she grew up in, with her Meemaw and starts work for her cousin’s bakery. Not so glamourous fresh start. However, when she sees an antique typewriter, something in her knows that its for her.

I really enjoyed the characters in Writing Wrongs. Meemaw is abolutely hilarious and Zoe, her cousin, brings sass to the storyline. I had trouble connecting with Cricket. She had a LOT of internal dialogue which may have been the reason why I had trouble, but she felt much younger and insecure. Cricket has not one, but two men that are suddenly interested in her but they are strange enough that it’s obvious something isn’t quite right with them.

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Second Chance Magic by Michelle Pillow is another book in the Paranormal Women's Fiction by the FAB13. So far I've read Sucks to be Me and Wrong Side of Forty. Second Chance Magic fits in that group well with characters that are in their forties and finding themselves again after something big comes and shakes up their life. In the case of Second Chance Magic and Lorna Addams, that very big thing is that her husband dies. Bad enough, right? Now imagine that at the funeral, you find out that your husband of twenty years and the father of your two children had another wife! It's no wonder that Lorna needed a fresh start.

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Marina comes home one day to find hubby in bed with the town hussy, who happens to have gone to school with her daughter and stole a few of her boyfriends during her school years. Yikes. Oh, and we should mention that she's wearing the new lingerie that Marina bought thinking she needed to spice things up! Can you even imagine? Truly insult to injury!  In short order, Marina finds herself starting a new chapter in her life, one she never even saw coming. She moves into her mother's old fishing cabin with her dog and tries to figure out what she's going to do with herself. Enter Alexios: a demigod claiming that she's a seeker, chosen to find a powerful artifact in the form of a ring. If she doesn't, Alexios' world and hers will end. Talk about your midlife crisis! At 48, this was not how Marina saw things happening!

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I don’t typically go for mob-related books but I was intrigued by Sucks to Be Me. I’m always down for a vampire story, especially when the main character happens to NOT be a twenty-something. It’s refreshing to have an entire series devoted to the erm…mature adult woman.

Belladonna Barrone is married to the mob, quite literally. She’s actually trying to find a way out and has been secretly feeding information to an FBI agent in hopes that he can make that happen and give her a new life. Except things don’t always go as planned.
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Steampunk is not a genre that I find myself gravitating towards. I'm not sure what it is about it that just doesn't suit me. That being said, I'll read anything that Kat Ross writes. I don't know that I even read the blurb before I said yes.

A Feast of Phantoms is a strange matchup of western, steampunk, and paranormal fiction. As always, Kat Ross's worldbuilding is immense and totally enveloping. From the dirt town that Ruth lives to the technology ladened city, the details encompass you and draw you in. There's an account of this alternate history that we get details of along the way, little by little. The Phantoms are an interesting twist to this American Old West retelling. They threatened everyone until the Carnavons managed to learn their language and wrangle them to do their bidding. Mixing spooks and spaghetti western is a bold move but I have no doubt in the author's ability to devise a compelling tale.

The characters are wonderfully animated. Ruth, while young, is a real humdinger. She's brash and brave and a firm believer in law and order, which makes her a perfect deputy for the small frontier town of Lucky Boy. Her relationship with Sebastian is complex since he keeps his motivations and thoughts quiet. He's cautious but isn't as much for the straight and narrow as Ruth. Lee, however, is chaos in both of their lives. He has a good heart but is very much a free spirit. He proclaims to be innocent of his crimes. While there are typical elements of the white hat vs. black hat gunslinging western, Kat Ross's characters are always complex. What you see isn't always what you get in the end.

This one ends on a serious cliffhanger. This isn't a book that gives you a gratifying all-ends-tied up completion, proving that sometimes it's not about the destination in fiction, it's the journey.


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Mother Nature has long been a subject of horror and with good reason. Given enough time, plants have proven that they will take over, insinuating themselves into every nook and cranny. You only need to look at the nearest sidewalk to see a tree persevering, slowly breaking through the concrete. There's also a wrongness in disrupting the natural order of things, allowing vegetation an exalted spot in the human-dominated hierarchy. As part of the Black Shuck Shadows micro-collection series, Green Fingers demonstrates that short stories of nature gone awry can still have deep roots. These six unsettling stories will slither and ooze themselves into your subconscious.

"Invasive Species" is the first story in this collection, demonstrating that plants can have a very insidious nature as they quietly infiltrate everything. A transplanted homeowner tries to familiarize themselves with the foreign fauna of their new home, choosing dirt under their nails above unboxing the house. When a mysterious plant arrives in a cardboard box with no note, they assume it's a gift and plant it in the garden as well. There's a wonderfully stealthy feel here. While the plant doesn't actually do anything but grow—as plants have a tendency to do—it's never felt so menacing.

Written through an interview, the event occurring in "By Black Snow She Wept" has an added survivalist quality to it as a couple stumbles upon an unconscious stranger in the snow with a disquieting scaly black lichen growing in his wounds. When he regains awareness, he begs them to amputate his arm to stop the spread. The origin of this creeping black organism is unknown. However, the refusal of the stranger to drink anything but boiled water gives us an inkling. The first-person recounting of the survivor years later gives validation to the story, even though we are later told that the interviewer doesn't believe the occurrence happened as told. He does, however, say that he doesn't plan to drink of the water while investigating.

In "The Pale Men", a son comes home for the funeral of his estranged father and to settle his affairs. After meeting his father's friends at the local pub, he realizes that there might be more to his father and his cronies than he knew. This one was odd but still interesting. While it doesn't have the same threatening quality as the first two stories, a giant gastropod, the only non-vegetative inclusion in the collection, still ensured an engaging, if odd, read.

The discovery of a VHS tape labeled EYEWITNESS TO MURDER buried within an enormous mushroom sends the mayor fleeing to the town's old mine in "We Live in Dirt". The mine is not only the origin of the fungi but the scene of something nefarious many years ago. The mayor has a lot at stake if the truth were discovered. Did someone plant the tape to be unearthed by his daughter, bringing to light things that should stay hidden? While the payoff for this story isn't unearthed until its ending, the apparent anxiety of the mayor made this one worth reading.

The folk tale feel of "Green Fingers", the titular story in the collection, focuses around an old oak tree whom some say is the oldest oak tree in Britain. It also happens that it is the location of an unusual seemingly ritualistic and possibly satanic murder. An errant dog scampering after woodland creatures leads to the startling discovery of the tree still ringed with police tape from the murder investigation, leading to a prickly entanglement for, sadly, both the dog and its owner.

In the final offering, "Among the Pines", bizarre and eerie screaming for nights on end sends campers out into the woods seeking the source. This one was the most speculative fiction leaning piece of the six, while still creating chills. It wasn't difficult to see where it was leading but concluded on a remarkably creepy note.

Green Fingers offers up six distinctive tales to give you pause. The author imbued the characters with realism and depth despite their short length. There’s a uniqueness to the stories despite the common theme. Unlike a lot of eco-horror, there is really no explanation of why things have suddenly turned sinister. These plants aren't sentient (that we know of) and they aren't motivated by a sudden need for revenge for the sins of humanity against them. They just...are, which might make that the most terrifying reason of all.


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