drakaina16's Reviews (2.21k)

Thank you to Cemetery Dance for providing a review copy.
I don't know why it took me so long to read a John Mantooth book, but I'm so glad I did. This book is everything I love about literary horror. The prose is absolutely beautiful, the characters were so well-drawn. Most of all, it made me feel emotions - dread, sadness, hopeful. I will be reading as many John Mantooth books as I can get my hands on.

I quite enjoyed this novella. Daphne inherits a creepy old house in a creepy old neighborhood and thing go quickly awry. The whole book is permeated with an aura of dread, and there were some genuinely creepy moments. I really liked Daphne and wouldn't mind reading more about the character in the future.

Winter's Legacy picks up pretty much directly after the events of Winter's Myths. I expected to love this book as much as I loved the first one; I in no way expected that I would love it more. 
Reading these characters again very much felt like coming home. That same feeling of love and familiarity I get when I reread The Dark Tower or The Sandman. And just like The Sandman, at the heart of Winter's Legacy is a story about stories and the importance of them. I have a feeling that (also like The Sandman) I will reread these stories over and over again, each time finding something in them I didn't see before. 
Gage Greenwood has created something so very special in this world. These characters and stories are indelibly etched in my heart. 

Jingle Hells contains two Christmas themed short stories, one by each author. I enjoyed both tales, Do You Hear What I hear was my favorite. Driving Home For Christmas was a lot of fun. This is a very solid creature feature collection.

This book was... not great. The premise is a fairly standard paranormal investigator/haunted house book and the story was fine. Or at least it started out fine, but then ended so abruptly it made my head spin. I know there are two more books, but I honestly don't care enough to read them. The book is also riddled with both spelling and grammar errors.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a review copy.
4.5 stars, rounded up. This collection of 11 short stories was so much fun! Inside you'll find plenty of gore, black-as-pitch humor, and some truly great social satire. I enjoyed every story, but my favorites are It Was Probably Just the Wind, In Here With Us, Me The Jury, and Mick Winkerson's Awfully Big Day. Bonus: I have some new films to check out as well.

I would call The Island Mother more thriller than horror, until the last third of the book. Then things escalate quite quickly, leading up to the very satisfying conclusion. I sympathized quite a lot with Leigh by the end of the book. Then I wanted to stand up and cheer for her in the epilogue.

Thank you to Cemetery Dance for providing me with a review copy.
4.5 stars rounded up. I really enjoyed reading this book. I even found myself thinking, "wow this is really good" while reading it. I appreciated the old-school vibe. I easily could have been reading a book published in the 80s or 90s, except this one has cellphones and laptops. I do love a good cursed object book. I did find myself thinking that it ended a bit abruptly, but the epilogue made up for that somewhat. This is my first Philip Fracassi book and it definitely won't be my last!

I discovered Norman Prentiss last year after reading (and falling in love with) his Odd Adventures With Your Other Father. I immediately started reading the second book, Haunted Adventures With Your Other Father. All this to say, I already knew this collection would contain great stories with beautiful prose full of unsettling imagery.
In the Porches of My Ears is a collection of 15 stories, as well as the full text of the previously published novella Invisible Fences (which won a Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction). I enjoyed all of the stories, but my particular favorites are Interval, The Quiet House, and The Everywhere Man.

This is a collection of 3 medieval horror stories, plus one bonus story. All the stories take place in the plague years of the 14th century, but the plague isn't the only horror that lurks here. My favorite story is the first in the collection but the others were very enjoyable as well. I didn't even know how badly I needed some Viking and Arthurian horror in my life!