It would have been a good book except for... A Review of They Drown Our Daughters

Creepy. Suspenseful. Gothic. Stormy seas. A curse. Disappearing girls. And, a lighthouse with a red light that must never go out. How many generations of women will the strange female in the sea drown?

They Drown Our Daughters has a lot going for it. One more thing it needed was a search and delete button. I swear, nearly every character smirked. Sometimes one person smirked on one page followed by another person smirking on the next page. I have a feeling that, if we could see the creatures under the sea, they'd be smirking, too. My smirk-o-meter got so over heated while reading this book that I had to pour ice water on it to cool it down.  This seems to be a thing now, that characters respond to everything by smirking.

The next way characters respond is by rolling their eyeballs. There was so much eye rolling that I started rolling my eyeballs at every roll. There was so much eye rolling that my eyes got stuck and I had to lube them. There are lots of books out now where the characters all react the same way--please, just anything but smirking and eyeball rolling. Every time it happens, it pulls me out of the story because I'm thinking, "There it is again."

I liked the plot. It was creepy, and I'd give this a higher rating had most of the characters reacted differently than  the hordes of characters in so many books today.

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for allowing me to read and review They Drown Our Daughters.

                                                        Nice cover. She's not even smirking on it.

What's more frightening? Spiders or being stuck behind barbed wire in an internment camp? A review of The Fervor.

 

or driving an AMC Rambler on a dark, deserted road?

The Fervor has some fantastic strong female characters who fit the description, "yet still she persisted." These are two women and a girl who keep looking for the truth even though things get stranger and more dangerous minute by minute. I especially like Fran, the reporter who won't give up on a story through threats, stalking, and having to drive lonely dark highways in a broken-down Rambler. Going anywhere in an AMC car is enough to make this a horror story.

But there's more! Spiders!  A ghost in a kimono who urges people to hold her baby. A deadly epidemic. The tragedy of racism and internment camps. All with the background of World War II.

Two problems I have with this book is that occasional explanations came across as info dumps, especially toward the end where the FBI wraps everything up neatly. After action, shootings, fires, explosions, plague, death, a nice man comes in and explains the past events. The other thing that bothered me was that Fran, the reporter, was such a huge piece of the puzzle only to become an afterthought. Instead of babysitting, Fran should be writing a non-fiction book blowing this story sky-high! (Not that you can't babysit and write a Pulitzer Prize winning book at the same time, but still.)

Science fiction and horror are used often to make comments on society. The hatred shown to Asians in The Fervor, especially when the disease is blamed on the internment camps, mirror the kind of hate speech and hate crimes we see today. There's a lot more to The Fervor, from Japanese myths, to the science of the Jet Stream, to military misconduct.

Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam for allowing me to read and review The Fervor.  And thanks to the American Motor Company for making Ramblers. They were cute but didn't run worth crap.

When you blow a bunny's head off and it still comes walking toward you, you have problems. A review of What Moves the Dead

 This is the second book I've recently read that has lagomorphs in difficult situations. It's still a wonderful horror book, even if the little beasties have close encounters of the fungal kind. Excuse me now. I must spray my entire house with Clorox. Twice. I suggest you do the same.

    P.S. I would so put a print of this mushroomy hare on my wall. It would cover up the mold that's already there.

When Maddie's head flops around on her shoulders...gasp, OMG!, is my own head on straight? Slimy strings of goo come out of fish anuses (worse than the usual stuff in fish poo) and there's not a dustpan in the world big enough to contain all the little white hairs shedding everywhere. Speaking of hares, there are icky zombie jerking rabbits that stare and stare and stare. 

I know crowds will throw mold covered tomatoes at me, but I have to say it. T. Kingfisher's version of The Fall of the House of Usher is better than Poe's. Don't show up at my house with pitchforks and torches. What Moves the Dead is that good. 

Gore and mushrooms. An amazing strong and interesting female secondary character and mushrooms. Wit and humor amongst the slime and mushrooms. Fantastic main characters, fantastic secondary characters and mushrooms. A really cool horse. Did I mention mushrooms? You don't want to make an omelet with these babies, not unless you want to find a fungus among us.

T. Kingfisher is one of my favorite authors. One of the reasons is that in all of her books, family, friends, even newly met people work together and are fond of each other. No snarking and insulting that seem to haunt so many books today. A story can be frightening, bloody and gross and still have pleasant characters. The fellowship between characters is wonderful to behold with a subtle humor running under the grim business. Easton is the kind of friend everyone should have. Even the interactions with Hob the horse are charming.

And yet the story is so very scary. It will make you take bleach to that little patch of mold in the corner of the bathroom sooner rather than later. After all, that fungus is creeping, creeping your direction.

I love this book and I'm grateful to Netgalley, T.Kingfisher, and Tor/Nightfire for allowing me to read and review an eARC of What Moves the Dead.

I've read two books in a row that involve bunny abuse. What's the deal? Review of Our Crooked Hearts

 How come nobody ever sacrifices a tick?  They're full of blood. How about mosquito or chigger sacrifices? Bedbugs anybody? Nobody likes these creatures and they're not cute and fluffy like Bunnykins Hop Hop. You can bet when I write a witchcraft book, characters will leave their houses and find dead mosquitoes on their driveway.  That'll put the fear in them.

I may have led you astray. The other book I'll review had ill lagomorphs (you didn't know I knew big words like that) but not sacrificed fluffybutts. 

Here is the review of Our Crooked Hearts.

 I thought this was a book about a brass bunny door knocker. Instead, there were dead fuzzy bunnies scattered hither and yon. Watch where you step in this novel if you don't want bunny ick on your feet! I, myself, would rather sacrifice rabbit-shaped Easter peeps because, c'mon, live bunnies?

But this is a story about teenagers who, like many teenagers, let things get out of control. In this case, it's witchcraft, the dark scary kind. And then, just like a bad hairdo in a yearbook picture, their evil choices follow them into adulthood. Can Dana protect her own teenage daughter from the spell she thought she'd buried decades ago? Can witchcraft be for the good of humanity instead of only for personal gain as in can healing lip balm stand up against the forces of evil? Does anybody know where I can get one of those brass bunny door knockers?

I don't know why, but towards the end the story seemed to drag for me. Bringing a boy in, even a nice boy like Billy, was an intrusion into a female power book. Plus, instead of renewing their friendship, Ivy and Billy were suddenly lovers after ignoring each other for years. Though they understood there was a reason they weren't friends, the romance was rushed. Everything is hunky-dory now and Billy doesn't mind at all that his once and future girlfriend attracts bunny ick.

Aunt Fee is my favorite character because she is good and kind, has more sense than the rest of the characters combined, and makes a hell of a lip balm.  Thanks to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for allowing me to read and review Our Crooked Hearts. I'll be looking forward to a sequel called The Brass Bunny Knocker Book.

Whar's worse? Being eaten by a monster or eaten by society? A Review of Hide.

 Hide is a story that will stick with me a long time. It has characters that I cared enough about that I was frightened for them. Each of the doomed characters had their own background story, their own doubts and hopes that made them more than just throw-away devices. The author weaves in some social commentary without preaching, without throwing it in our faces. Is the friendliest gas station attendant in Idaho disposable because he's poor? Is a veteran who had her leg blown up in Afghanistan now worthless to society? Basically, is it moral for the rich to sacrifice the poor and disabled to make themselves richer?

Like I said, it's not preaching, though. The setting is a decrepit fairgrounds wherein a monster lurks. Unfortunately, monsters are outside the amusement park, too, in families, in homeless shelters, online, and in society.

Nonstop scares, nonstop action, nonstop thrills. Good twists. A lot of stuff to think about disguised as a horror story. Hide is my favorite book so far in 2022.  Thank you to Netgalley and Del Rey for allowing me the chance to read and review this eARC of Hide.