Review to come!

The Night Silver River Run Red is the 4th installment to the Splatter Western series from Death's Head Press. It delivers everything and then some! Christine Morgan brings us something a little different with this chapter as she includes more children in the mix - it's got this horrific coming-of-age vibe in parts. These kids are growing up in a conservative little town and a traveling show begins setting up just on the outskirts. "Oddities, the signs promise. Marvels. Grotesqueries. Exotic attractions and mysterious magics." But little do they all know there is another group of people... way more dangerous with some nasty intentions!

Something about Morgan's writing style kept me in a trance. Her descriptive imagery remains fresh throughout and her engaging and wildly entertaining dialogue are just two reasons this book flew by. While there is certainly enough Western gore in this to justify it being in the Splatter series, Morgan has a different approach to where it is placed. These scenes are placed perfectly in the spots that will make your skin crawl the most. While I did not let go of the book with my fingers stained red and dripping as much as others in the series, I left more freaked out. Some of these characters are truly scary - Horace Cochran aka Horsec*ck is not someone I would want to be left in a room with unarmed. He is one of those people who can just get right under your skin and dig until it hurts.

The Night Silver River Run Red gets a strong 4 stars from me! The book started out a little slow/difficult for me to get into... and by the end I definitely wanted more of these traveling carnies. I wish they had been explored more and played a more prominent role throughout the entire story.

Thank you to Death's Head Press for allowing Night Worms the opportunity to book party this!

Wow!! What is there to even say about this STUNNING book (both inside and out) that hasn't already been said?! This is one that I've been eyeing for months and I TORE through it. Kacen Callender crafts a powerful book about what life is like for Black, queer, and transgender youth in NYC. I learned so many new things and lots of new terms (to me). There's so much acceptance, love, pain, energy, and anger in this one. While reading I found myself experiencing EVERY emotion from heartache to giddy excitement to pure joy. I witnessed self-growth, first love, transphobia, true friendships, talent unfolding, bravery, loyalty, and so much more. The raw conversations... the accurate internal struggles of identity... WOW! WHAT A BOOK!! Obviously this one is getting a triumphant 5 star rating from me. I'm a Callender FAN now! I urge all readers to pick this one up and fall in love with Felix and to fall in love with Callender's amazing writing!

Holy chalupas another 5 star read! THEME MUSIC sits at just under 400 pages and I finished it in a matter of hours. I could NOT stop myself! It's the story of Dixie Wheeler, whose mother and brothers were butchered by her father before he ran a knife across his own throat when she was 18 months old. It's 25 years later and she's moved BACK into that house.

With a mixture of haunting/creepy elements, a bloody mystery, and a psychological horror story with a growing body count, this book has EVERYTHING! *insert SNL Stefon gif* Spicy as hell, this book had my heart racing and freaked me out more than once. My house, like many, makes weird and random noises quite often... so...

And the TWISTS in this, oh my goodness... the twists! Like The Isley Brothers, this book had me twist and shout over and over! I love when a book can still do that. This book is STELLAR! A must-read!

Review to come!

After thinking she banished the evil spirit in the first book, Corky has now come to a horrifying revelation that it still lurks in the darkness intent on killing her as it did her sister in the first installment. But who is the evil spirit inhabiting now? And why is this happening at all?!

We get some more backstory on Sarah Fear in this one - which is ALWAYS a fun experience because we definitely need all the Fear and Shadyside history we can get in these books! We also read the word "evil spirit" about 666 times in the book (which got a little repetitive and lost its effect after a while).

But oh honey we have a death that is as memorable as that iconic one from the first book!

Good times and fun to be had as The Cheerleaders series progresses!

I could not decide whether or not I was going with 4 or 5 stars throughout a lot of this book... but as I finished that final page I am landing with 4. Don't get me wrong - I still really enjoyed this book and tore through it! But there was just some repetition I could have done without and the end -- let's just say it was from total left field... so far out into left field that I was left wondering the validity of it. BUT... I still never would have totally guessed it... I had a lot of theories and some of them half panned out while others were dead in the water.

The writing definitely pulled me in to the story. I felt like I was there and part of the wedding party. I felt like I was on this dreary, wet island. I just felt it all. I love the setting of this book and the tone. I will definitely be reading more from Lucy Foley!

While I do enjoy the podcast from these guys, I expected more from the book. It did not fully deliver in the way I had hoped. On one side, the chapters and cases are extremely informational and very well put together. To learn something new about some of these serial killers when their stories saturate the markets is a good thing. I would like to see these guys take on LESS notorious crimes but with people just as evil and methodical. I would have been fine with just the normal narrative flow. BUT... this book is playing on their podcast some and so the audio version is just loaded with loud and obnoxious interjections with ridiculous commentary and jokes that are not funny because you can tell they are 100000% canned, planted, and staged. You can't have one person reading all calmly, matter-of-fact, and with the intent on educating us while the other two seem drunk, obtuse, and have a tone that totally contradicts the main story while seeming organic. The audio just did not work for me here. I would rather have read this one - but even then, I feel like these guys should just stick to podcasts as their medium. They can do that well - why rock the boat and muddy the waters? 3 stars here!

Well... it pains me to say I definitely did NOT love LOVE, CREEKWOOD. This novella is catching us up on the lives of Simon, Bram, Leah, and Abby as they navigate college away from each other over emails. Sounds good?! Wrong. This novella is painstakingly over-the-top with mushy gushy wovey dovey love.

Examples:
1) I always forget your emails have the ability to take my breath away. I'm so bewildered by it.
2) I just miss you so much honey. Baby. Sweetie... I love you so much, Brammy Bram.
3) You're holding my hand while I write this, which has to be the biggest advantage of being a lefty

Yikes. Those are just a couple examples... these emails read like a 65 year old cat lady who never had a first kiss or an actual relationship. Sorry for that insult to cats. Idk any kids these ages here who EMAIL these types of things to each other, but this novella is LOADED with this... it has none of the charm, mystery, complexity, intrigue, heart, growth, character association, struggle, joy, and ACTUAL love that the other Simonverse works have. It is so over-the-top it seems fake?? I did not need this saccharine collection of emails, but maybe someone does. I'll stick to the real sweetener in the other Simonverse works

Review to come!