Well, you can cross off any desire for me to engage in intergalactic travel in my lifetime! This book focuses on Rice, a filmmaker who is travelling for work to a new planet called Kynaria for a TV episode. He is a pretty horny guy and Kynaria is extremely odd. He goes to a local brothel and realizes his entertainment is a sex-slug that crawls out of a vat of mud. Being human and not into that at all, his drunken self stumbles outside to encounter a gorgeous nymph-like creature. Her smells are intoxicating, her skin glows as they get more intense, and basically the most sensual sexual experience I have ever read takes place. Then he wakes up with parasitic shrimp and mushrooms in his nasal passage and urinary tract. YIKES! Turns out she was a loathsome creature even to the aliens. Oopsy! What a wild ride full of sexual no-nos! Wear condoms, gents!

Spider Bunny is a fun, quick read that centers around false memories as well as a throwback to those nostalgic 70s/80s cereal commercials and their fun and perky mascots. Pete is our protagonist here and starts remembering this one mascot, Berry Bunny, that no one else does. Is he going crazy? Are these real memories? Is this an evil scheme? Soon Pete and his friends are transported into Berry Bunny's world/commercial and must fight to remain alive. It's a wild time surviving not being eaten by a bunch of chonker cartoon children while the cereal mascot is raving about nutrients and balanced breakfasts!

Leave it to Mellick to write about sexy bio-mech demons fighting robot angels in the afterlife! . This is a roaring fun story of good vs evil and heaven vs hell. These battling mechs use human souls as fuel and this is as unique a story as ever from him!

This book had LOTS of information. For me it was almost too much... if that is even possible? Well, for me it it. Some of the information came across as a lot wordier than it needed to be for my taste and I would have enjoyed a little less dry-ness. In reading like a textbook/encyclopedia at times, I never made a connection with anyone or anything in particular. I was never able to establish any sort of emotional bond that drew me in deeper. Perhaps this would have worked for me better if it had been split up into a few different books or something, but I just could not find myself fully invested in this book. I think the author is brilliant and will definitely be checking out more from her because she is definitely talented and cares about her work. 2.5 stars for me!

The Gatherings is not your average apocalyptic story. The world does not seemingly begin ending the way we have seen in the past. It's not brought on by a virus, aliens, world war, etc. And that is just one of the many reasons this short story is a step up above others I have read!

So what does happen?? Well, a collection of simultaneous worldwide events are being hosted by celebrities and politicians (think Hands Across America meets "We Are The World" meets Live Aid almost) called The Gatherings. These events are promoting world peace, but what unfolds when the gatherings and dancing begin is anything BUT peaceful. Body parts will be dropping from the sky, children will be devoured by something unknown, and life as we know it will be smothered from all existence.

Author Jeremy Ray has such a wonderful style of writing full of descriptive imagery. And a lot of the imagery evokes childhood memories. Without giving too much away, two images resonate off the top of my mind. There's one about stretching bubblegum with your tongue and another about watching water zig zag down the sides of the shower/bathtub that totally took me back to the innocence of being a kid... and it's kind of wild that I thought I was the only person who noticed those types of things?!

Ray developed a sense of isolation with our main character, Emily, and I was rooting from her from the beginning... and I really needed to know the rest of her story! I felt the same fear and desperation she did the whole time. I can definitely see this as a setup for a larger body of work, set of short stories, novellas, etc. I had a great time reading this... it was haunting, disturbing, and would be my worst nightmare! 4.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads!

Thank you to the author for this free copy in exchange for an honest review.

It Will Just Be Us is a gothic story focusing on a creepy house, Wakefield Manor, and a mother and her two daughters who live there. One daughter, Elizabeth, had to return to the house after domestic dispute and she's pregnant. The other daughter, Sam, is now remembering that their house is not quite so normal. It can show you things... memories. "It is a house haunted by memory; it digests us, all of us, and spits us out again at random." Wakefield Manor is creepy enough as it is near a swamp with its own dastardly legend attached to it. Wakefield Manor has some similarities with Winchester House. Rooms appear and corridors disappear. Memories emerge at any given time as... hallucinations? Real events? It's all shrouded in mystery. Sam starts seeing a future memory... a faceless boy capable of horrible and creepy things. And he calls her.... Auntie. *gasp*

So the second half of this book was really good. It was quite intoxicating and unputdownable. We got to see more of the faceless boy, see his actions, and he got to freak us out just like he was freaking out our main character, Sam. The language is more intentional and the tone just has a creepier feel to it than the beginning. The first half of the book, however, was extremely wordy and overly descriptive for my taste. There were just too many atmospheric vibes going on. Sometimes a whole sentence was used to say something that could be boiled down to one or two words. Building the house up as a character and setting the stage for the final act is almost always a slow burn in a gothic story, but it was just a little too much for me in this one. I know so many of my friends who loooooove the atmospheric buildup, so I am sure there will be many who absolutely adore the first half of this book!

In the end, however, I do recommend this for fans of ghost stories, haunted houses, and gothic literature. It checks off all the boxes you would expect. The second half and ending, however, definitely saved me from rating this lower because I just did not connect with it up front. 3.5 stars!

A solid 4.5 from me! I love this book- the 80s references, nostalgia, chapter titles, etc. I loved how it felt like an 80s horror movie building. I enjoyed all the sassy banter between the characters. I just REALLY enjoyed this book!

I finished LULLABY, the second installment in the Nightmareland series, by Daniel Barnett and I already can't wait for Volume Three! In this story, we briefly meet a new character who I am sure will play a much larger role as the series progresses. After our quick introduction we get to hang back out with our faves: John and Mariah! They are fresh off their exodus from Volume One traversing Death Valley towards John's family... and this trip is full of revelations, tragedy, and EXTREME darkness! One scene seriously made me gag - but might just be me! I absolutely LOVED Mariah's character growth in this one and she has solidified herself as my fave! If you've not done so already, definitely check out these books! 4 stars!

Ring Shout is a powerful novella blending together dark fantasy, horror, and historical fiction. In this story, we are thrown into a world where the Klan and Ku Kluxes are literal monsters. They are beastly and have lots of eyes, mouths, fingers and some even have tentacles. Body horror galore in this story! We have a group of Black hunters with magical weapons on a mission to end their reign and the spread of hate in the white supremacist south. I think it is definitely intentional that Ku Kluxes took on such Lovecraftian guises (given all we know going on there) and P. Djèlí Clark did not hold back one bit. Our female heroines were a total blast to hang out with and I really could read even more stories featuring them. This is literal Black girl magic! This book explores deep rooted racism, all-consuming hate, fear, power, resilience, love, and so much more. There are so many "in your face" and unapologetic scenes and descriptions, but there are also endless lessons under the surface. Clark created a whole new world with this novella, but at the same time, did he really? I had to stop and think about the world quite a few times while reading this magnificent story. Ring Shout is just totally mind blowing in how it's told and how it makes the reader think and feel. You are meant to squirm when reading this. You are meant to read this. Period. 5 stars!

Recently orphaned children, unstable caretaker/uncle, ancestral mansion-like home, swampy ghouls, past secrets, family curses/generational mental illness, and more?! SIGN ME UP! The Plot is a fantastic horror graphic novel by Tim Daniel and Michael Moreci with totally rad drawings and coloring by Joshua Hixson and Jordan Boyd topped off with lettering by Jim Campbell. I was hooked from the first few pages and stayed engaged the entire time. Part One is setting us up for an epic conclusion by giving us characters we care about and enough history and atmospheric vibes to keep us shrouded in a little mystery. There are some solid creepy scenes throughout and I am extremely antsy and interested in Part Two being released so I can see how everything culminates. I want to know all the answers to the many questions we have been teased with thus far. And most importantly, I want to know what the family motto TRULY means and how it pieces together all the horror that has befallen this family: "In order to receive... first you must give." 5 stars!