I Know a Place by Nat Cassidy

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Shortwave Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

This book was off to a promising start with the opening novella but unfortunately the rest of the stories were a bit hit and miss for me. I'll go through some of my favourites and then talk about some of the ones I didn't like.

Rest Stop: This is a novella about a man who stops at a gas station to use the bathroom on a long journey and gets trapped inside. Then things get increasingly worse. I am hesitant to say too much about the plot because I was pretty gripped by the uncertainty in this one but I found it went in such a unique direction and I think it will stick with me for a long time.

Run For Your Life: A man goes back in time and replaces the Beatles. This was a super interesting and fairly detailed story. I think I would have liked this expanded into a novella as well but I really enjoyed it as it stands.

Jubilee Juncture: A failing children's entertainer begs his friend for one last chance as he shows him his new ventriloquist puppet. This was a little predictable but deliciously dark and had some interesting ideas.

Nice: A boy gets a visit from Santa's elf who begs him to be naughty this year. Another story which was a little predictable but it made up for it in creativity.

Come: What if the girl from the Ring didn't kill you in seven days but instead when you did...something else? This was actually a very intriguing premise and again, almost had novella potential.

Stories I enjoyed less: Meet Cute #1 The Unluckiest Girl (too predictable and nothing but the twist), The Art of What You Want (honestly a little transphobic almost?) and A Fruiting Body (not a short story).

Overall, the writing style was enjoyable and I am glad I read this anthology. I would read more by this author but I think I would stick to their longer stuff as they have some really good core ideas, they just needed fleshing out a little.

Overall Rating:

3.5/5

So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

Harrison is a fairly new author to me and one whose work I am immensely enjoying. Black Sheep was one of my favourite books of the year. I thought The Return was a little lacking but I loved the themes and writing. So Thirsty is kind of a revisit to The Return, albeit with a different lens and focus.

So Thirsty is the story of two friends, Sloane and Naomi. Sloane is the calm, meeker of the two who is currently in a somewhat unhappy marriage. Naomi has always been wild and never thinks about the consequences of something before she does it. Whilst on a trip for Sloane's birthday, Naomi insists they go party with some strangers in an isolated house which triggers a chain of events leading to them both getting turned into vampires.

I did really enjoy both the writing and general atmosphere of this book. It continues the 'toxic friendship' line of thought from The Return, though I felt this could have been more strongly tied into the vampire aspect. Maybe the author wanted to avoid the obvious but it makes sense to link metaphorical bloodsucking with literal, no? Everything was still a little bit vague, a little bit abstract. Even by the end of the novel, I couldn't tell how Sloane really felt about Naomi or vice versa. I wanted a deeper exploration of the nuances of the friendship, of how a situation like that really affects people emotionally.

Having said that, this book is still well worth the read. I feel like Harrison is so close to releasing my favourite ever horror book about toxic female friendship. So Thirsty isn't quite that, but it is an interesting and strong vampire horror novel and those in themselves are rarities in my opinion. If you've not read anything by her before, I'd recommend Black Sheep over this but if you've enjoyed her other works, this is perfect to pick up

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Slasher Witch at the Waterpark by Penny Moonz

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op in exchange for an honest review.

What an absolute blast this book is!

Slasher Witch at the Waterpark is a farcical horror comedy book about a witch killing a bunch of people at a waterpark. It is equal parts ridiculous and fun, with a lot of creative deaths and details which made this book such a delight to read. An ancient witch getting drunk off frozen margaritas whilst she murders dozens of people? Timeless.

There's honestly not much else to say about this book. The title tells you what you are in for, and it certainly delivers. I will say, I genuinely did love the range and creativity behind the deaths and the horror. Parts of the waterpark start coming to life, sea creatures reign terror and the skies open up to meteorological horrors. There are a few gross moments to be aware of but I am usually quite sensitive to certain elements (bodily fluids etc) and I found it manageable. If you're looking for a fun horror read that is goofy in all the right ways, I cannot recommend this more!

Overall Rating:

.5

The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

It should be no surprise that I absolutely love everything Christina Henry writes at this point, and The House that Horror Built is no exception. This book tells the story of Harry, a single mother who begins cleaning the home of famous horror movie director, Javier Castillo. This involves cleaning all of the creepy props which adorn his home and following a very strict set of rules. Harry manages to successfully keep a professional distance from her boss until one day, she and her son are forced to move in with him due to her limiting financial circumstances. She then has to balance maintaining her boundaries whilst also suspecting there is something very odd about the house...

This is a hard book to pinpoint. If I had to, I'd say it was a slow-burn ghost story with a few psychological elements. Most of the book is focused on a creeping sense of dread, with only minimal horror 'stuff' actually happening. This was more than enough for me as a reader though. I found the characters interesting and I wasn't really sure where the story was going to go. I think the climax more than makes up for the slow pace of the beginning. The story gets very intense and troubled, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I am a huge fan of horror as a way of exploring human emotion and trauma, and this book does that very well in my opinion. I also like books which keep you on your toes. Which characters can you trust? Are things are sinister as they seem? This book plays with that well, and that's where the more psychological aspect comes in.

It should also come as no surprise that I am going to recommend this book. It's admittedly a little different than Henry's other, more-action filled works but I think that's a strength rather than a detriment. I think there's a lot here for horror fans to love

Overall Rating:

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

 

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Random House UK in exchange for an honest review.

Every so often a thriller comes along that gets a ton of hype. Listen for the Lie is one of those books and I actually think that this hype is in detriment to it.

Listen for the Lie is the story of Lucy, a woman who was accused of killing her best friend 10 years ago and could never be proven innocent or guilty. She returns to her hometown at the request of her grandmother, only to discover that a podcaster is making a series about the murder. Everyone in the town thinks Lucy did it and she has very few friends as a result. She is also prone to wild fantasies of constantly murdering those around her.

In a vacuum, this book is great. It has fantastic pacing and a nice steady plot which makes it very easy to read. The characters, the mystery, the general events are all excellent. But I have some issues and almost all of them stem from things I have read about this book. Do I wish I could ignore them? Absolutely. Does the modern marketing world make this impossible? Yes.

Firstly, I've seen this book advertised as having 'an epic twist' multiple times. This is just not true. It's not that kind of thriller and doesn't need to be. It has great pacing as I mentioned and a number of interesting surprises that crop up throughout the plot, but none of them are a gut punch 'this changes everything' twist. Expecting a twist disrupted the reading experience for me and almost put me on edge, and I worry this marketing will leave a lot of people disappointed.

Secondly, this book is allegedly a dark comedy. Humour in books is so hard to pin down. There are almost no books which make me laugh out loud and I am one of those weird people who will cry-laugh at TV shows when I'm entirely alone. I honestly didn't even know this book was supposed to be funny which I think is a bad sign. Does the humour come from the fantasy murder sequences? If so, these needed to be actually elaborate escapades and not one or two lines of repetitive dialogue.

I feel like I've ragged on this book quite a bit and I want to stress, I did really enjoy it. It's a great example of how to write a thriller without a huge twist, and books of this kind honestly deserve more credit. I loved the messaging around family, and the relationships between Lucy, her parents and her grandmother. There was some thought-provoking stuff around how you can let down those around you by thinking them capable of terrible things, and that was explored from several different angles.

Overall, this book is definitely worth picking up if you enjoy thrillers. Just try to go in without the expectations pushed on by the marketing or other readers, and there's a lot to enjoy here. Tintera is a great writer and I look forward to more thrillers from her

Overall Rating:

Try Not to Die on Slashtag by Jon Cohn

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Vincere Press  in exchange for an honest review.

I was a huge fan of Choose Your Own Adventure books as a child. I particularly loved the Goosebumps ones and I was super intrigued when I discovered a whole series focused mostly on taking horror properties and turning them into Choose Your Own Adventure books. The first one I read was a little bit of a disappointment but I am so glad I tried again.

Try Not to Die on Slashtag is the story of two people who get invited to playtest a horror reality TV show focused on outwitting an evil ghost. To do so, they will have to overcome horrific puzzles and deathtraps, like a mix of Saw and an escape room. This is already a great premise and I really enjoyed how it was integrated into the CYOA format. Admittedly it is a shame that there is only one right path, but the correct choice was obscured fairly well throughout most situations and I enjoyed not knowing whether I was making a good call or not. The Kindle version is also fantastically formatted, with quick links to take you directly to the correct choice you didn't make, after your grisly death of course.

I believe this book is based off a fiction book (which I now fully intend to pick up) but it absolutely did not matter in the slightest for knowing what was going on. I went in blind and I fully enjoyed the story and the characters. I didn't feel lost at any point and I was able to slip into the world seamlessly. Overall I would say the writing was strong, with good emotion, peril and plenty of fun horror content throughout. I already mentioned how the right choice wasn't always predictable, and that made it more rewarding when I did manage to make a good call.

Overall, this book is a ton of fun and I strongly recommend it for any fans of the CYOA genre, particularly if you want to recreate the Goosebumps feel with a more grownup novel. It was an absolute blast and I am definitely going to give others in the series a try

Overall Rating:

The Launch Party by Lauren Forry

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bonnier Books UK in exchange for an honest review.

A murder mystery set on the moon sounds like exactly my cup of tea, so I was very excited when I got approved for this book. The Launch Party is about what happens when you take a bunch of people into space, abandon them in a luxury moon hotel and then one of them is murdered. It is an interesting blend of a traditional murder mystery with a modern sci-fi twist, although I was hoping for a little more of the former than this delivers.

I'm not sure quite what it was about this book that meant I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. I think it is partially that the murder mystery elements are not as strong as they could be. For logistic reasons, the cast are left abandoned in space as soon as they arrive but this introduces an additional 'survival' element and immediately implies there is something going on.

The interaction between characters is also a little limited, albeit only a little. I did get a strong sense of each character but mostly through second-hand observations or from the POV narratives, not through actions or interactions. It took me a while to get my head around who everyone was and get a sense of who they were, which again weakens the mystery aspect a little.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read but it definitely lost some steam for me about halfway through. Perhaps with faster pacing or more defined characters, it would have kept my attention more. Having said that, it's an enjoyable concept and worth picking up if you like murder mysteries with a conceptual twist

Overall Rating:

.5

His & Hers by Alice Feeney

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

His & Hers is the story of two exes and their respective involvement in a murder investigation as a reporter and a police officer. When Anna's ex-friend and Jack's current lover Rachel is found murdered in a car, it becomes the start of a murder spree focused around people from their past. As they both try to figure out what's going on, trust begins to wane on both sides and neither knows exactly who to trust.

This was an enjoyable thriller, albeit one which suffers a little from its own simplicity in plot. Due to the author and general blurb, I was expecting a twist going in and so I spent a lot of the time trying to work out what it was instead of focusing on the story being told. The story itself is a decent one but if you're used to other works by the author, you might be disappointed by the relative 'straight-forwardness' of the thriller element. It is engaging and surprising, but doesn't have a huge trick like some of the other works.

As an audiobook, this mostly worked well but there was some confusion in the voices. There are two narrators for Anna and Jack, and then additional sections narrated by the killer. Presumably to prevent it being obvious who is the killer, they are alternatively narrated by Anna and Jack's voice actors using a distortion technique, but this only serves as a distraction. I do wish they'd just gotten in a third voice actor rather than swapping between them, as again it just primes you for a twist at best and is distracting at worst. I found myself just ignoring these sections mostly as they weren't particularly insightful or interesting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable enough listen. The narrators did a great job with the material and the story is interesting enough to keep your attention. If you go in expecting a typical (well-written) thriller, then you're in for a good time

Overall Rating:

Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Random House UK Children's in exchange for an honest review.

It has been a hot minute since I fell so completely in love with a book the way I did with this one.

Their Vicious Games is the story of Adina, a young black woman who has had her future snatched away after an unfortunate incident with a fellow classmate and ex-friend. Desperate to reclaim her spot at Yale, she persuades the richest guy at her school to let her join a prestigious competition that happens yearly to help propel the winner into their ideal future. What she doesn't know is that this year is a particularly special year for the competition, and things are far more deadly and intense than she expected...

This book has a fantastic premise. It is essentially The Bachelor meets Hunger Games in all the best ways. Unlike some YA thriller/horrors, it does not shy away from the dark stuff and I adore it for that. This kind of plot deserves real stakes and horrible deaths, and this book provides buckets of both.

Many YA books have a message but this one is woven so solidly through every detail of the book that is really is executed impossibly well. Every character is deliciously complex, with even those who aren't around for very long feeling like they could be real people. This in turn provides the heart which really propels the message of the book. This is 'rich people suck' done right and, despite the fictional extremities, it reflects the real world chillingly well.

Overall, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It really is the best YA thriller I've read in a long time by quite a large amount (and might be the best one I've ever read tbh) and I genuinely could not put it down. I am so excited to see what this author does next and I hope this book gets the praise and attention it deserves

Overall Rating:

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

There are some books when you start reading them, you know you are going to fall in love. Daisy Darker was one of them.

The tone of this book is much more gothic than thriller. Daisy has been summoned to her grandmother's house for her 80th birthday. Her grandmother was told she was destined to die at the age of 80, and so she has gathered the entire Darker family for a reading of her will. Her grandmother lives on a remote island which gets cut off by the tide periodically, so once the family arrive they are immediately trapped there. After the will reading goes badly, terror strikes when one of the family members is found dead. And it doesn't end there...

This book has incredible atmosphere. It really reminds of What Remains of Edith Finch, both in tone and plot. I was completely sucked into the sleepy, subtly creepy story being woven. From the offset it is very clear there is something deeply wrong with the family, but there is also this fantastic unwillingness to address the abnormality. There are hints of Agatha Christie with the huge, isolated house and the unhappy family residing inside.

I don't want to say too much about this book, but it does have a certain plot element which I think makes it a bit like Marmite. It's actually the kind of thing I usually hate, but I think it is executed well here and I personally enjoyed it a lot. I think it did knock it down from a 5 star read and I understand why people aren't a fan, but for me personally it wasn't enough to spoil the book.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book if you enjoy creepy, gothic horror/murder mystery vibes. It absolutely delivers on that front and manages to have a unique identity of its own whilst evoking other work in a welcome way. I know I will remember this book for a long time and it has definitely become one of my favourites

Overall Rating:

.5

The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pushkin Press in exchange for an honest review.

The Inugami Curse is the story of a wealthy family who gets thrown into disarray when the contents of the patriarch's will get revealed. To the family's shock, the money gets left to a seemingly unrelated female guest of the house, with additional caveats that she must marry one of the grandsons within a set time period. The only way to escape this clause is if all three grandsons die, or if the woman herself dies.

The setup to this book is a lot more complicated than the Honjin Murders, though this also allows for a lot more interpersonal conflict and character interactions. It is an intriguing mystery once you get into the swing of it, with lots going on and plenty of dramatic reveals throughout. I particularly enjoyed the sense of threat throughout. It's like an Agatha Christie with more bite, with the rich family members all treating each other with suspicion and gruesome deaths round every corner.

Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying these translated mysteries and I really hope for more in the future. They're a great way to branch out your murder mystery tastes, and it's always good to read more detective fiction from the golden age

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