ARC

Review: Nightjars by Michael Wehunt

~ megs14malloy

NightjarsNightjars by Michael Wehunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nightjars exceeded all of my expectations. I absolutely lost myself in this gritty and gripping story that beautifully blends Horror and Crime Fiction. At the end, I was brought to tears! Me! Brought to tears.

I hardly even realized how attached I had become to this group of characters until the very end, as everything was coming to a head, it made me so emotional. Wehunt definitely sneaked up on me with that.

How dare you, Michael.

This story follows Luke, who at the start of the novel is out on a first date with a woman he met at his bookstore. They’re having solid conversation, when she gets up and excuses herself to the restroom. She never returns.

Luke is confused, and even more so when he discovers that she’s left a disturbing photograph underneath her napkin. A photo that shows Luke, as a child, with a clearly dead body in his bedroom, and a grown man wearing a mask. He has no recollection of the event depicted in the image.

Following this unsettling evening, more photos arise, shaking Luke to his core. His brain is whirring as it tries to make sense of these gruesome photos. We find out Luke has a dark past. His father was a killer, and Luke has struggled his whole life trying to come to terms with his father’s legacy, but is there more to it than even he realized?

We also follow Luke’s ex-wife, Kristen. They have a young daughter, and although they are no longer together, Kristen still cares about him. When Luke is accused of a current string of murders, Kristen knows it’s not true and sets out to help him prove his innocence.

The Publisher’s synopsis describes this as Memento meets Dracula and that’s absolutely accurate. The Crime Fiction vibes that Wehunt delivers in this are excellent, and the way he blends in the Horror, OMG, it’s so good.

I would comp this to titles such as Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson, Bone White by Ronald Malfi, The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias, Blood Like Mine by Stuart Neville, or even The Outsider by Stephen King.

If you’re a fan of novels like this, mixing gritty Crime Fiction with potentially Supernatural Horror, I would absolutely recommend that you check out Nightjars.

Additionally, I highly recommend the audio format of this book. It’s dual narrated by Matt Godfrey and Zura Johnson, providing the voices for Luke and Kristen respectively. There’s also some disturbing voice effects in some of the creepier moments. I was jump scared more than once when they would pop up, which was fun.

Overall, this is such a riveting read. I got to the end and let out the proverbial breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. It was that powerful and compelling. I loved it.

Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio, for providing me copies to read and review. I definitely need to pick up a hard copy of this one for my collection. After this, I cannot wait to see what Wehunt comes up with next!

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Review: That Which Feeds Us b Keala Kendall

~ megs14malloy

That Which Feeds UsThat Which Feeds Us by Keala Kendall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

That Which Feeds US is a Gothic Hawaiian YA Horror story that follows a young woman, Lehua, searching for her missing twin sister, Ohia.

Lehua and Ohia, like many other native Hawaiians, are part of the Hawaiian diaspora, meaning they no longer live in their ancestral homelands. Lehua and Ohia were moved to Arizona by their Mom, and spent a good part of their childhoods living there with their grandparents.

Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the home of generations of their family, luxury resort locations abound, providing dream vacations for the world’s wealthiest citizens.

Kōpaʻa Island Resort is just one of those exclusive destinations, and Lehua discovers it’s also Ohia’s last known location. She ends up following her sister’s trail there. The luxury wellness retreat is known for its persimmon orchard and promises of rejuvenation.

There’s no wifi, and no cell service. Visitors are completely cut off from the rest of civilization. While the rich and famous may find this refreshing, Lehua finds it unsettling and stifling. Nevertheless, she has to see it out. She needs to find Ohia and this could be her only chance.

As Lehua investigates, she learns more than she ever expected about the former plantation’s dark past, as well as the history of the people that lived there. Through haunting visions and mysterious warnings, Lehua fights to find the one she loves, but will she be successful, or end up swallowed up like so many others before her?

This is an important story, and it’s equally a very good story. This is representation that we don’t see a lot of, or at least I haven’t come across a lot of it, particularly in the YA Horror, or Thriller/Dark Fiction space.

I feel like I first heard the term, ‘priced out of paradise’, when Iam Tongi, a Hawaiian singer, who was a contestant on American Idol, mentioned it when explaining to the judges why he and his family no longer lived in his native state. This novel does an amazing job of exploring that very real life concern of many native Hawaiians.

I love Iam Tongi, and I’m so grateful that he won. I hope he’s been able to fulfill his dream of moving his family back to Hawaii, but not a lot of people are going to blessed enough to come into the kind of success he has in order to move back with costs the way they are currently.

In this story, Lehua and Ohia are orphaned by the time they’re teens. They come up in a system that has no connection to their cultural heritage. Ohia, in an effort to reconnect with their past, finds a spot working in this resort that’s essentially exploiting the lands of her ancestors. That was her only choice, she felt.

I liked how Kendall framed this story as Lehua’s hunt for Ohia. I think that set up really well a situation where Lehua could travel to this place and really dig into all aspects of it in order to find clues of Ohia’s fate. With this, it was an easy jump for Kendall to incorporate the real life horrors of the colonial past of the island, and the true ramifications it had on generations to come.

For me, that was the aspect I most appreciated about this novel. The exploration of those topics and the way that Lehua was able to come face to face with those realities via her investigation.

The weaker points for me were the pacing and the descriptions of the horror bits. I found the plot to be a bit meandering and I would have liked Kendall to lean even more into the botanical side of the horror elements, or as an alternative, more into a sense of place for the resort.

The horror at the resort, or the unsettling aspects of the resort, seemed to be the people. It wasn’t as much for me the atmosphere that was making it disturbing. I would have liked even more exploration of things that Lehua was feeling, smelling, sensing just around the place in general.

However, this has excellent bones and I think for Young Readers, the audience for which it is intended, this could be an incredible introduction to Supernatural Thrillers.

I also think there should be a copy of this in every high school library in the country for teens to have access to this type of critical representation.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Random House Books for Young Readers, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m definitely planning to read more from Keala Kendall and I hope she keeps on this same track. I’m sure we’re going to have a long and beautiful relationship.

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Review: The River Runs Black (North Country #2) by Tessa Wegert

~ megs14malloy

The River Runs Black (North Country #2)The River Runs Black by Tessa Wegert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The River Runs Black is the 2nd-book in Tessa Wegert’s North Country series. I loved her entire Shana Merchant series, the series previous to this one, and highly recommend it if you love Police Procedural Mysteries.

I haven’t yet read the 1st-book in this series, In the Bones, but I did end up checking it out from my local library after I started this one. I’m really looking forward to getting to it!

I actually knew nothing about this going in. I thought it might be set in the same area geographically as the Shana Merchant series, but I had no idea that it’s a spin-off of sorts. I was so stoked to discover that.

While Shana isn’t a main character in this story, her husband, Tim Wellington, is and Shana does make appearances. I’ve really grown to love Shana over the course of the 6-books in that original series, so was delighted to have more access to her and her life.

You might be asking, do I need to read the Shana Merchant series first? My answer to that would be, no, definitely not. This is completely it’s own thing.

You may be inspired to go back and pick up the books in that original series if you end up enjoying this as much as I did, but it’s definitely not a necessity.

The mystery in this novel has a few different pieces. It begins when a local teenager dies of a drug overdose, and subsequently one of the deputies in Shana and Tim’s department ends up making a record-breaking drug seizure along the Canadian border.

While initially celebrated as a victory for the investigative team, little do they know it’s but a pebble in the pond of what is actually going on in Alexandria Bay.

After Lab results end up showing that the drugs that killed the teen, and the drugs recently seized, are not of the same origin, it indicates they have a much bigger problem on their hands than they initially realized.

Once they start seeing it, the evidence of drug activity is everywhere. Adding fuel to the fire of the investigation, two young women end up going missing, and it seems like this mysterious drug ring could be involved.

It’s a race against the clock as Tim and the rest of the team try to find the young women before it’s too late, and rid their town of these dangerous criminal elements.

As mentioned above, even though this doesn’t follow Shana Merchant, it does include many of the characters from the original series, such as Tim, Val and Mac.

I loved that it was set in the same town and I felt like I was already attached to them. It made it very easy for me to just settle into the mystery and get invested.

The setting is the Thousand Lakes region of upstate New York, which sits on the border to Canada, and offers up plenty of room for intriguing cases being on a prominent border. I always love Wegert’s mystery elements. They’re well-plotted and I love the way she paces her reveals and clues. You can always count on plenty of twists and turns.

I feel like the stakes are always high and propulsive. I’m usually at the edge of my seat by the end, wondering how everyone I care about is going to make it out unscathed.

Wegert always does a great job as well developing her characters and sense of place. I feel like after you read this, you’ll want to know more about all of them. I can’t sing Wegert’s praises enough. I’m a big, big fan and highly recommend checking out either series.

Thank you to the publisher, Joffe Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m locked into this series for the long haul now!

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Review: Wildewood by Jessica Thorne

~ megs14malloy

WildewoodWildewood by Jessica Thorne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wildewood follows Alex as she returns to her ancestral home, Wildewood, after the passing of her twin brother, Theo. Alex has made it a point to stay away from the family’s sprawling gothic estate, and this is her first visit in years.

She lost her father there, and now her brother, both in mysterious circumstances. She wants nothing to do with the property, and just plans to assess it and sell it. It would certainly be a desirable location for a luxury hotel.

Arriving at the property, she encounters Nick, the handsome groundskeeper and her late-brother’s best friend. Nick seems determined to stop Alex from selling the property, but what business is it of his anyway?

After Nick saves her from a near fatal fall, Alex begins to feel an unnatural pull towards the man. It’s like whispers in her ear, thoughts suddenly in her head, it’s overwhelming.

As Alex digs into her family history, and the history of the house, she makes some disturbing discoveries. She may be forced to face some dark truths, and will Nick end up being a help or a hindrance? Time will tell.

This is a good story. I don’t real a lot of Fantasy Romance, but I thought I would give this one a try because of how prominent it sounded like Wildewood, the property, was in the plot. I do love unsettling gothic stories where a place becomes a character unto itself.

This definitely checks that box.

The property itself was very well developed, and included a dark, mysterious forest surrounding the house. I loved the atmosphere and the way unsettling things start occurring during Alex’s stay, increasing as each day passes.

Alex started to feel unmoored, and she was anxious to figure out what was going on with this house, and I liked the mystery surrounding that. The aspect that lost me was unfortunately, the romance. It was okay initially, but then just got a bit heavy-handed for my tastes.

And I hear you, maybe I shouldn’t read Romantasy then, and while I mostly agree with you, I have found some Romantasy novels that I’ve loved, so I know it’s possible. I think it just all depends on the romance itself. Once it borders into cheesy territory, I’m out.

Nevertheless, I know a lot of people are going to love this. Particularly, if you’re more into Paranormal-type Romance stories. This property is very creepy, and Thorne does deliver that atmosphere and sense of uncertainty.

Thank you to the publisher, Bookouture Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. The audiobook is very well narrated. Aoife McMahon’s voice and style of narration was perfect for this story.

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Review: Heart of Glass (Wonderland #2) by Jennifer Hillier

~ megs14malloy

Heart of Glass (Wonderland #2)Heart of Glass by Jennifer Hillier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heart of Glass is a follow-up to Jennifer Hillier’s twisty 2015-release, Wonderland. Set at an amusement park, Wonderland ended up being a 5-star read for me. I had a blast with it.

I never expected to be returning to the world of Wonderland, so was delighted when I first heard about Heart of Glass. After all this time though, could it stand up?

This worked great for me!

I’d heard some mixed things about it, so was a little nervous going in, but yeah, I had such a fun time with it, and would recommend it to anyone else who loved Wonderland.

In this book, there’s a few different things happening. It kicks off with a True Crime podcast that interviews The Carnival Killer, the man who was sent to prison for the killings from the 1st-book.

He shocks the nation when he claims that one of the victims, a local high school girl, wasn’t killed by him. He was with her that night, he admits, but he did not kill her.

It’s been 25-years. Why would he be saying this now?

Regardless of his motives, this startling recantation sends shockwaves through Seaside, the small town home of Wonderland. We then get the perspectives of Barb and Nicolette, the two best friends of the murdered girl, Lorelei.

We find out what has become of them since their best friend was brutally murdered. They were with her that night, they met The Carnival Killer, who was calling himself Sam at the time. They witnessed him and Lorelei making out, but what else happened that night? Lorelei never returned home, and their lives were forever impacted by that fact.

Not only do we get the podcast, and the two women’s perspectives, but we also get flashbacks to the past and what really happened on the night that Lorelei disappeared.

I found this to be incredibly well-plotted. I was hooked from the start. The audiobook production was fabulous and featured some of my favorite narrators. It also included fun sound effects, which made it extra engaging, IMO.

I do think perhaps the audio format would be the best way to take in the story actually. So, if you have that available to you, I highly recommend it.

Another notable aspect of this is the reality show angle. Nicolette, in her life since Seaside, has become a star on a popular reality show, think Real Housewives. So, there’s a lot in here just about that and her life, which was fun.

Even though I don’t watch reality television, the exceptions being some competitions shows like Survivor, DWTS and The Traitors, I have found that I really enjoy the incorporation of reality tv characters in my fiction for some reason.

It was fun for me too just seeing Barb and Nicolette as adults. Their lives had both changed so much since they were teens, and it was interesting watching them coming together again for a common goal.

I love Hillier’s writing. She’s great at character creation, and always has fantastic pacing and fun reveals. She never fails to draw me in and keeps me invested and at the edge of my seat. This was such a delightful and engrossing read.

Thank you to the publisher, Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I look forward to whatever Hillier has coming next!!!

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Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun

~ megs14malloy

Teddy Bears Never DieTeddy Bears Never Die by Yeeun Cho
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Teddy Bears Never Die is a translated Horror novel that follows a girl set on revenge, who pairs up with a possessed teddy bear in order to get it. Sound intriguing? I agree.

Hwayoung is the young woman in question, and the revenge she seeks is in regards to her mother’s death.

There was a mass-poisoning attack at the Seaview Parc, a luxury high-rise apartment residence, and her mother was reportedly one of the victims.

The poison was said to have been transmitted via tainted rice cakes, but Hwayoung knows that her mother hated rice cakes. Like really, truly hated them. There’s no way she would have eaten rice cakes willingly.

Hwayoung is determined to find out the truth of what happened to her mother, and bring those responsible to justice. This type of thing takes money though. Something she doesn’t really have, but she’s been hustling hard, saving her pennies, and her determination is unwavering.

As for the teddy bear, you’ll need to read it to figure that out.

I enjoyed this. The concept is great and I feel like Cho Yeeun explored some very heavy topics with grace and care, however that’s where I sort of lost interest, for lack of a better way to describe it.

It’s hard to explain. I appreciate the topics explored, however for me, when I was picking this up, I thought it was going to be light, fast-paced, fun and gruesome.

Even though I’ve been told my whole life, never judge a book by its cover, clearly I do. Because of this, I had a sort of expectations versus reality face slap with this one.

Nevertheless, a 3.5-star rating is a good rating. It’s a great book, just my personal experience with it wasn’t as high as I expected. Now that I have a better understanding of the author’s style though, I think future works that I pick up from her will be a better experience for me.

I would recommend this. As mentioned the concept is great and the hard-hitting topics, if expected, I think could make this a memorable reading experience. I think this would be an excellent fit for Readers who enjoy more Literary Horror.

Thank you to the publisher, Run For It, for providing me a copy to read and review. I’m happy to have been introduced to Yeeun’s work. I’m looking forward to more.

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Review: I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy

~ megs14malloy

I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark DetoursI Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours by Nat Cassidy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a Horror short story collection from Nat Cassidy. This collection starts out with his previously published novella, Rest Stop.

Somehow, it’s unclear to me how, I hadn’t yet read Rest Stop prior to this, and I loved it. What a way to kick off a collection. It really set the tone for the numerous stories that would come thereafter.

I loved the variety in this collection, but also the overriding theme of these locations. I felt like it was a clever idea to frame a collection around. I really enjoy reading fiction with a true sense of place, think The Overlook in The Shining, a place that becomes a character unto itself.

And while not every story reached that level of place for me, I think you could see the idea of that in each story. How these various places, most seemingly normal, under the right circumstances could bring all the horror we crave.

So many of these stories gave me thrills and chills. I was locked in once I started, excited to see what each new story was going to present.

The audiobook was also very well done. There were some cool, fun sound and voice effects, and I felt that helped to elevate a few of these stories for me. My favorite was Laughlines. I love Epistolary format anyway, and found that one to be creepy AF.

I would definitely recommend this collection, both to fans of Cassidy, and to new Readers of his work. I think this could be a great introduction to his writing style if you’ve never read from him before.

Thank you to the publisher, Shortwave, for providing me with a copy to read and review. As always, please be sure to read Cassidy’s Author’s Note, and in this case, Story Notes. He’s the king of the Author’s Note for me.

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Review: Cards on the Table by Lana Harper and Jilly Gagnon

~ megs14malloy

Cards on the TableCards on the Table by Lana Harper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**3.5-stars**

Cards on the Table follows two witchy sisters, Tori and Cassie, who find themselves down on their luck when their tarot reading business is no longer able to sustain them. They’re late on the rent for their subpar Salem apartment and are on the eve of eviction.

It’s in this time of need that an apparent windfall is presented to them. A woman tracks them down and offers them a massive sum of money to travel to the Berkshires and play ‘witches in residence’ to an elderly widow.

They have mixed feelings, but honestly don’t see a lot of other options. This is their chance to get the money they need to finally have stable housing. Therefore they agree to the terms and head to Western Massachusetts.

Upon arrival they’re stunned by the opulence of the property. Surely, not just one family owns all of this. Then they meet said family. Oh boy, they’re some toxic folks, except for Rose, the widow they’re there to help.

She actually seems like a lovely woman, who called upon them because she has some unresolved spiritual needs before she passes, which seems imminent.

The dynamics in the house are complex though, and helping Rose without family intervention proves more difficult than one would expect. Tori and Cassie feel dangers around every corner. The house is a hotbed of competing motives, with everyone seemingly in it for themselves.

One fateful night, it happens. Rose dies. After her death, millions of dollars disappear from the estate overnight, and Tori and Cassie are instantly suspected as the culprits. The sisters were just there to try to help Rose, and get the money offered them for doing so. They wanted nothing else, but someone is clearly using them as the perfect scapegoats.

Can the sisters find out who the real thief is and prove their own innocence, or are they about to go down for a crime they didn’t commit?

This is a cute book. I always enjoy the vibes of Lana Harper’s books, as well as the character interactions, but unfortunately, the plots tend to feel a tad lackluster. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I tend to zone out with Harper’s writing at different points over the course of the stories.

I know this is cowritten, but honestly, I couldn’t tell. It felt very much in-line with The Witches of Thistle Grove series, which I’ve also enjoyed and continued one with, but never loved, if that makes sense.

The set-up of this was really fun. I did love the down on their luck sisters being offered this incredible opportunity and them taking it. The setting of the Berkshires and the atmosphere of this mansion were also very well done.

Some of the family drama got a little confusing and overused for me. I know that part of the story was important for where the plot was going, but it was almost too drawn out, causing my attention to wax and wane.

After Rose’s death, that’s when I became locked in, as that was when Tori and Cassie were put to the test. There were suddenly heavier stakes and that was the bit I found the most interesting.

I didn’t care for the romance aspects of the story, and feel like it would have been better without those bits. Let’s just have the family drama and the mystery. The romance to me felt forced and in no way enhanced my enjoyment.

This is a solid story though, and if you’re someone who enjoys romance in your mysteries, that part may be a win for you. Overall, it was a fun way to kick off my Spooky Season reading, and I’m glad I gave it a shot.

Thank you to the publisher, Bantam, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I would recommend this as a fun witchy story. Bonus points if you enjoy tarot included in your Paranormal Mysteries.

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Review: The Seventh Sister by Dawn Kurtagich

~ megs14malloy

The Seventh SisterThe Seventh Sister by Dawn Kurtagich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Seventh Sister is a Folk Horror novel from Dawn Kurtagich that’s written like a dark fable. This story follows seven sisters, hence the title, who after the tragic death of their parents, are sent to live with their Grandmother on the remote island of Beltane.

As the girls start to put the pieces of their lives back together, the island twists their experiences in a way that’s difficult to suss out fact from fiction.

We get snippets of their time as children navigating the dark depths of the island, but we also get their perspectives many years later, after all of them but one has tried to break themselves free of the island’s pull.

Ummm, this was a mixed bag for me. I don’t really know what was going on. I mean I do, but in the most general sense, and I don’t feel comfortable trying to summarize it.

For me, this was a case of the writing overshadowing the plot. I’ll be honest, I’m giving it 3-stars, but my experience was more of a 2-star kind of thing. Kurtagich’s writing is soooo good, but this story just did nothing for me.

As far as the content, I couldn’t have cared less. The sisters all blended together for me, and the whole Daudir thing, yeah, just not for me. I did enjoy the island setting though, so that was a good atmosphere. And that’s it. That’s all I have to say. I’m pretty ambivalent about it actually.

Thank you to the publisher, Brilliance Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I do love Kurtagich, so this isn’t going to stop me from picking her other works. I feel like this is more just a miss for my personal tastes.

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Review: Ten Years Gone by Wendy Walker

~ megs14malloy

Ten Years GoneTen Years Gone by Wendy Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ten Years Gone is the story of Clare and Griffin.

When they were teens they fell madly in love with one another. It’s the classic boy meets girl story, where the boy is from the wrong side of the tracks.

They risk a lot to be with one another, but the relationship doesn’t last as long as they would’ve hoped. Unfortunately, it ends abruptly with Griffin being incarcerated for murder.

After he’s locked up, Griffin refuses to remain in contact with Clare. It’s not that he doesn’t still care for her, he just doesn’t want her wasting her life on him. She’s hurt, but she’s also young and resilient. She does move on, but you never forget your first love. We all know that.

Ten years later, Griffin is finally being released. He doesn’t know what to expect from life on the outside and he could never have expected what happens to him. Newly released, he’s abducted, and he barely escapes with his life.

He finds himself on the run, hiding from who, he doesn’t know, but he needs to figure out the truth about the past if he has any chance of surviving for the future.

Clare is startled when she hears the news of Griffin’s release. She days away from her own wedding, but she’s never forgotten Griffin. When she starts getting cryptic text messages bringing up the past, she decides it’s time to figure out the truth of that night.

Alternating between the past and present, Walker did an amazing job weaving together this tense and exciting Thriller. I had so much fun with it. It’s definitely a Popcorn Thriller, juicy and enticing, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the Reader engaged.

There were so many times that I thought I knew the answer to it all, and while I was picking up on little things, it was much more complex than I originally anticipated. Walker was bringing the layers and I was sat.

I liked the sort of star crossed lovers aspect that Walker created here as well. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks, rich good girl dating outside her parents’ comfort zone, and the night that changed it all.

It was almost a bit too romantic for me, in regards to the way the characters thought about one another, but I think a lot of Readers will eat that aspect up.

Walker is such a great writer. There’s a fantastic flow and pace in all of her books, and this one is no exception. They’re just highly readable and so gripping. Once I started this, it was all I could think about. I just wanted to keep going.

It wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t need it to be. It was fun. It was entertaining and I had a blast learning the truth at the heart of Clare and Griffin’s story.

I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced and drama-filled Popcorn Thriller. Bonus points if you enjoy a little romance with your thrills!

Thank you to the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This book doesn’t release until 2027, but I couldn’t wait.

I love Wendy Walker!

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