Tag: spooktober
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The Dark Academia Read of the 2020s is R.F. Kuang’s Babel
Dark academia is a popular genre among young readers, and it has made a resurgence over the last decade or so. Babel, R.F. Kuang’s powerhouse of a novel published in 2022, is the dark academia book of the 2020s, sitting next to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and M.L Rio’s If We Were Villains of…
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The Red Scrolls of Magic is a Cute Shadowhunter Adventure
The Red Scrolls of Magic has been out for years, but I never got around to reading it until now. Why it took me so long, I don’t know, but what I do know is that this is an absolutely adorable addition to the Shadowhunter universe. There are so many parts of this novel that…
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H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a Lush, Vivid Nightmare
I mentioned in a Spooktober 2023 post and in my Haunting Author Recommendations post earlier this month The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a renowned H.P. Lovecraft tale not to be missed. I abided by that sentiment and read The Shadow Over Innsmouth to get a feel for the truly horrific and disturbing during this month…
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Andrea Penrose Returns with Murder at King’s Crossing
An Andrea Penrose book has finally come across my bookshelf once again. Murder at King’s Crossing, the eighth instalment in the Wrexford and Sloane Mystery series, brings with it a mix of joy and heartbreak, love and betrayal, and political intrigue and family ties. Thankfully, I was able to pick this up before the end…
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The Hound of the Baskervilles is a Classic Hair-Raising Read
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perhaps his most well-known novel within the Sherlock Holmes Chronicles, and for good reason. It stands out among his other works – A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, and The Valley of Fear – in its themes, setting and eerie imagery,…
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Marissa Meyer’s Cinder is My Kind of Fairytale Retelling
When it comes to fairytale retellings, I hold Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles in high favour. When I first read Cinder I was astounded by the brilliance of this story world and the simple what if? What if we took Cinderella and made it sci-fi? What if we took cinderella and made her a cyborg? What…
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Clockwork Prince – My Favourite Cassandra Clare Book
The title speaks for itself, but it wouldn’t be a good book review if I didn’t note a few things. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare is the second in the Infernal Devices trilogy, following Clockwork Angel and leading up the the riveting finale Clockwork Princess. It has the action of a good ya fantasy novel…
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Spells, Murders and Poe in Hester Fox’s The Widow of Pale Harbour
The Widow of Pale Harbor by Hester Fox has been interesting with its inclusion of some iconic Edgar Allen Poe stories and references, but it falls short in delivering an atmospheric and thrilling gothic read. I wish it wasn’t so, but things didn’t pan out quite how I expected them to, and the story feels…