An assemblage of horror tales and somber verses that frighten and fascinate.
Supernatural menaces, body thieves, and ferocious killers pervade Allen’s grim collection of stories and poems.
John Starkey, in the tale “Strange Wisdoms of the Dead,” sails a rotting ship out to sea carrying victims of the Plague. Far away from the surviving villagers of Bliss, he can set the vessel afire and burn the corpses. Along the way, however, something else takes the helm, turning Starkey into a passenger with no idea of the ship’s new destination. These assembled short stories feature such spooky conventions as ghosts, a witch, and someone trying to bring a creature to life, but the prevailing theme of this book is body horror—grotesque depictions of torn or modified flesh and impossibly contorted bodies. That’s just where the title story leads, with Aaron Friedrich and his online publication for Owlswick County; he’s always looking for material for his website, and Aaron’s own town of Grandy Springs, Virginia, has an especially bizarre history. Locals like Aaron bear scars on each side of their faces but have no recollection whatsoever as to what caused them. As Aaron inches closer to a terrifying hidden truth, he may prefer to forget all over again. Characters from “Slow Burn” also pop up in the equally gruesome and novella-length “The Comforter,” which takes place in another Virginia town. The story focuses on 13-year-old foster kid Maddy, who’s receiving cryptic notes (“my mom stole your mom’s skin”) stuck to her school desk. Even with someone looking out for her, Maddy may be unable to elude the terrors awaiting her.
It won’t surprise readers familiar with Allen’s work (Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: Stories, 2020) that he doesn’t shy away from violent bits. Descriptions include viscera, teeth (not just in mouths), and tortured limbs of all shapes and lengths. Many passages are outright disconcerting even out of context: “She fills his mouth and plugs his throat, his tongue slapping uselessly against a column that tastes of blood and raw river silt.” The author’s gleefully vibrant prose animates these stories; this also holds true for the collection’s free-verse poetry. The poem “The Windows Breathe” gives life to an old house with “hungry shuddering groans” and a hall that’s “rounded, glistening, so much like a gullet”; “The Sacrifices” makes an abstraction tangible, as “shriveled souls brushed our skin, / like dried leaves.” As in many works in this genre, the monster or brooding presence often reveals itself only at the end or opts to remain ambiguous. This narrative approach injects these stories with nerve-racking anticipation and dread over what may happen to characters like friends Andi and Celine in “Machine Learning,” in which an early-morning casting call leads to a mysterious detour. Owen’s black-and-white digital illustrations accompany each of the stories and poems, though there are only five unique pieces with multiple repeats throughout. These stark images (a monster peeking over a horizon; tendrils emerging from a skeletal chest) nevertheless enrich the dark tales herein.
An assemblage of horror tales and somber verses that frighten and fascinate.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781956522037
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For readers who like their fun laced with skin-crawling weirdness.
A comic-strip artist loses first her cat and then, possibly, her mind.
Working with artists Horner and Staehle, as he did for Hidden Pictures (2022), Rekulak uses illustrations to support a paranormal thriller plot. Penny Padgett, a 27-year-old cartoonist living in Philadelphia, has published three beloved graphic novels about her life with her cat, Popcorn, and is working on a fourth when Popcorn darts out the window during a snowstorm and disappears. When all efforts to locate him fail, Penny spirals into unproductive despair. Her live-in boyfriend, Dean Everhardt, who works in finance, insists she accompany him to a cocktail party at the Brandywine Valley estate of his most important client, Evelyn Bruehl. At the party, Penny hears mewing that at first she’s sure must be Popcorn, but which turns out to be a very different cat named Godfrey. Godfrey immediately attaches himself to Penny, and when Evelyn—who’s about to take an extended trip to Europe—asks her to cat-sit, Dean pressures her to agree. Though at first Godfrey’s presence helps Penny break through her writer’s block, she’s completely disgusted by his custom-made food, which is delivered by his equally repugnant private veterinarian. And then something very strange starts happening to her artwork, which is suddenly filled with macabre and demonic imagery she can’t remember producing. Also, she’s losing weight and something terrible is happening to her skin. At this point the plot pivots into full-on horror, with a disgusting infestation of giant beetles and revolting odors taking over Penny’s house and a horrific murder next door. Penny finds some clues about what’s happening in a biography of Evelyn Bruehl’s grandfather, illustrator Barnabas Godfrey—the cat’s namesake. The 80-plus pages of illustrations include both Penny’s comic panels and Barnabas’ 19th-century images, the latter also filled with hints of what will emerge in the dramatic, screamworthy climax.
For readers who like their fun laced with skin-crawling weirdness.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781250895875
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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