Genre: Horror

Review – Love Everlasting, vol 3

Posted February 4, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Love Everlasting, vol 3

Love Everlasting

by Tom King, Elsa Charretier, Matt Hollingsworth, Clayton Cowles

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Horror
Pages: 136
Series: Love Everlasting #3
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The next epic chapter of the acclaimed Eisner, Harvey, and Ringo nominated series!

Love Everlasting goes West, exploring the tropes and thrills of Old West Romance as everything shifts perspective and we discover the Cowboy's secret origin. Following the Cowboy as he follows Joan, we learn how Joan was first trapped in these stories...and how she might finally escape! The answers to the questions you've been asking are here in an addictive page-turner that will make you laugh and cry at the story of Joan and her Cowboy.

Collects issues #11-15.

I really really love the art in Tom King et al’s Love Everlasting — I’m glad it’s been consistent, it’s a style I’ve enjoyed. Buuuut the story is getting really frustrating: whenever you think you’re getting somewhere, Joan gets reset and goes through another love story.

I get that the repetition is part of the point, and it’s probably a lot of fun coming up with the multiple love stories in different styles (and the funny titles), but we really really have to start getting somewhere for real.

I’d read a volume four, but it’ll need to feel like a step forward for actually understanding why this is happening.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Walking Practice

Posted February 3, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Walking Practice

Walking Practice

by Dolki Min

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction
Pages: 166
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human.

After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious.

Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shift their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attack at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal.

Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits...

Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different--the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience.

Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout.

Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle.

Dolki Min’s Walking Practice (as translated by Victoria Caudle) was not to my taste, but interesting all the same. The alien narrator’s story is very much a metaphor for queerness (inasfar as something so obvious is still a metaphor) and transgression, and maybe also disability/neurodivergence too. There are observations about gender which aren’t particularly fresh/startling/unusual for a queer narrative, but nonetheless, pretty well expressed. The alien’s physiology and issues on earth are thought out enthusiastically, aiming for wildly non-human and doing a pretty good job of it.

Buuut the gore/sex was just a lot, and the scene which seemed kinda fatphobic where it wasn’t clear if it was a critique or joining in was… offputting, and the formatting when the alien is in its own form was a bit maddening and difficult to read. I did appreciate the translators’ note about the orthographic choices in the original and trying to find a way to mirror that in English — she didn’t have an easy job here!

So not a total success for me, but it was interesting.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – Into the Dark

Posted December 7, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Into the Dark

Into the Dark

by Jordan L. Hawk

Genres: Horror, Romance
Pages: 227
Series: OutFoxing the Paranormal #3
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

OutFoxing the Paranormal’s benefactor, Ms. Montague, has a new assignment for the team: to investigate the haunted asylum Oscar’s grandmother died in. But upon arriving at the site, they find a rival duo of ghost hunters already there.

Between unexpected competitors and the murderous ghost of a former nurse, the pressure is on for Oscar to live up to his family’s heritage and lay the asylum’s ghosts to rest. Can he prove himself by putting an end to the nurse’s reign of terror, or will the asylum claim yet another victim?

Oof, Jordan L. Hawk’s Into the Dark genuinely creeped me out in a way the previous two books didn’t really. It was some of the details, I think, and the fact that the haunting partly manifested via illness. Also, “insane asylums” are genuinely terrifying places, and I can well imagine the horror of them even still, even without a haunting.

I’d have loved to see a bit more of Oscar’s grandmother — we get a glimpse of her in the prologue, but her ghost doesn’t appear. Still, we learn a bit more about Patricia’s deal, see a bit more of Chris’ life in the form of their ex, and even maybe a bit of a romance for Tina. I wonder if the group will see more of Zeek, which could be very fun, though I did feel like Oscar’s worries about his presentation of the show etc kind of petered out as a plot thread, and could rear up again if we do. I wasn’t really a fan of his self-doubt. Too real, ahaha.

I did think a bit ahead of the characters in a few details (e.g. if something stops happening if you get away from the creepy haunted asylum, maybe it has something to do with the haunting?) but the twist was still handled nicely, even if I saw it coming.

I read it almost in one go, ’cause there was no putting it down and going to bed until I knew everything worked out okay, yeeesh. I do wonder if Oscar and Nigel are going to end up paying a serious price given what they keep throwing themselves into…

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Posted November 30, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Nothing But Blackened Teeth

by Cassandra Khaw

Genres: Horror
Pages: 128
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Cat joins her old friends, who are in search of the perfect wedding venue, to spend the night in a Heian-era manor in Japan. Trapped in webs of love, responsibility and yesterdays, they walk into a haunted house with their hearts full of ghosts.

This mansion is long abandoned, but it is hungry for new guests, and welcomes them all – welcomes the demons inside them – because it is built on foundations of sacrifice and bone.

Their night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as the house draws them into its embrace. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.

I’ve found that Cassandra Khaw’s work is a bit hit and miss for me, and Nothing But Blackened Teeth was more of a miss. The setup is really creepy, and there are some beautiful and fascinating descriptions and scene-setting, but the relationships between the characters were a tangled mess. Intentionally so, interpersonally, but I mean that it was difficult to parse out who hated whom and why, and whether any of these people liked each other even a little bit.

The richness of the writing also tipped over into purple prose, or… at least being more distracting than functional, which is a problem I’ve had with Khaw’s work before. Sometimes it’s hard to even tell what’s going on… which again, does go hand-in-hand with the main character’s mental state, but still, it was a rough read because of it.

It’s all a bit messy and didn’t make for the most pleasant read, sadly. Just didn’t gel for me.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)

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Review – Hold Back The Tide

Posted November 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Hold Back The Tide

Hold Back The Tide

by Melinda Salisbury

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult
Pages: 297
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Everyone knows what happened to Alva's mother, all those years ago. But when dark forces begin to stir in Ormscaula, Alva has to face a very different future - and question everything she thought she knew about her past...

Melinda Salisbury’s Hold Back the Tide has a heck of a first line, and a rattling pace from there on. It took me only just over an hour to read, despite being 300 pages long, which I hadn’t really expected. I’d forgotten most of the reasons I grabbed a copy, just that I’d enjoyed The Sin Eater’s Daughter, so it’d been kind of languishing on the TBR, but it surprised me.

It does feel a bit YA-ish, and there’s a touch of a love triangle — sort of, maybe. There’s sort of an impending potential threat of one, anyway, or you can read it as such. But this is definitely a thriller too, with more of a horror vibe than I was expecting: not only is the main character living with the constant fear of being killed by her father (which we learn immediately), but there are monsters coming out of the loch, people going missing from the village, and the obsessive sliminess of a man who loved her mother and now wants to have control over her. The tension and atmosphere is done really well.

I was enjoying the book well enough, but wasn’t sure whether it was really going to stand out, especially when one of the character survived what looked like a certain death; it just felt like things were going to resolve all too easily, leaving the book kind of toothless. I won’t spoiler, but the ending — while classic in its way — definitely fixed my impression that it was going to shy away from a bad ending.

Overall, I’m glad I finally got round to this; I had a lot of fun.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Forgotten Dead

Posted November 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Forgotten Dead

The Forgotten Dead

by Jordan L. Hawk

Genres: Horror, Romance
Pages: 178
Series: OutFoxing the Paranormal #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Parapsychologist Dr. Nigel Taylor doesn’t work with psychic mediums. Until, that is, a round of budget cuts threatens his job and an eccentric old woman offers him a great deal of grant money. The only catch: he must investigate a haunted house with a man she believes to have a true gift.

Oscar Fox, founder of the ghost-hunting team OutFoxing the Paranormal, has spent his life ignoring the same sort of hallucinations that sent his grandmother to an insane asylum. When he agrees to work with the prestigious—and sexy—Dr. Taylor, he knows he’ll have to keep his visions under wraps, so his team can get a desperately needed pay day.

Soon after Nigel, Oscar, and the OtP team arrive at the house, the questions begin to pile up. Why is there a blood stain in the upstairs hallway? What tragedy took place in the basement? And who is the spirit lurking in the closet of a child’s bedroom?

One thing is certain: if Oscar can’t accept the truth about his psychic abilities, and Nigel can’t face the demons of his past, they’ll join the forgotten souls of the house…forever.

On re-reading this, I found I’d never posted my original review here! So here it is now.

I found The Forgotten Dead genuinely a bit creepy — not necessarily the ghost story, in fact, but the backstory, the way the ghosts of the story became ghosts. The human motivations, however twisted they were, which led to the haunting and created the whole situation in the first place.

The group set up here is cool. It doesn’t go much beyond it: this is clearly the setup for a series, so the characters are a bit sketched in, no doubt to develop further later. Likewise, the beginnings of the romance are just that: beginnings. Nigel and Oscar forge a connection, and there’s obvious potential for them to be a couple (and given the books Hawk normally writes, it’s obvious that’s where it’s going), but we’re by no means at our destination. I’m a little nonplussed at reviews complaining about insta-love, because I don’t see that there. Oscar’s clearly a kind guy who feels drawn to Nigel and — in a highly charged emotional situation where they’re in physical danger — forms a bit of an infatuation. The same happens for Nigel, who is also lonely and badly in need of the affection and closeness. I don’t think Hawk tries to make out that they are instantly soulmates, or anything like that.

I’m looking forward to more of this group, and especially to knowing more about the group’s sponsor. Obviously she has motivations of her own, and there’ll be more information about that to come. Likewise, I hope we learn more about each member of the group: this book showed us Nigel’s past, and some of Oscar’s, and I’m sure there’s more to see there — but I hope for more of the supporting characters, too.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Cackle

Posted October 7, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 7 Comments

Review – Cackle

Cackle

by Rachel Harrison

Genres: Horror
Pages: 320
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her long-time boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching job that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. Her new home is picturesque and perfect. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is lovely too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation.

Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend. More importantly, she wants Annie to stop apologizing and start living for herself. That’s how Sophie lives. Annie can’t help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the town seems… a little afraid of her. And, okay. Sophie’s appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power… but she couldn’t be… could she?

Rachel Harrison’s Cackle starts out feeling surprisingly cosy and familiar: a girl breaks up with her long-term boyfriend (who clearly doesn’t appreciate her enough), and strikes out on her own to a small town where everyone’s friendly and everything feels warm and welcoming. Life’s still hard and she’s grieving the relationship, but she meets a new friend who’s warm and encouraging and helps her open up to more of the world’s possibilities.

With spiders. And maybe ghosts? And curses? Everyone in the town is scared of this friend, Sophie, even though she’s always nice to Annie. The unease builds up slowly, and at the same time there’s still that cosiness: Sophie sees Annie and wants to bake with her, make her pretty clothes, watch Netflix with her. The spider is surprisingly endearing.

It all ends up feeling weirdly… ambivalent? Sure, Sophie scares the townspeople, and it’s fairly clear that she’s amoral and self-centered. At the same time, some comeuppance is deserved, and Annie does deserve to be valued, and to learn that she didn’t need that guy: some of the stuff that is unsettling is just that Sophie has power, without it being obvious that she’s actually going to do anything with it (whether that’s evict someone or curse them).

Cosy-unsettling is a fascinating vibe, and overall I really enjoyed this. Annie’s self-pity got a bit wearing at times, and Sophie’s attitude to others sometimes feels a bit too off — but you can’t help but be eager for Annie’s freedom, once she finally figures things out.

One thing I would say: if you’re struggling with depression or alcoholism, this probably isn’t the book for you. Annie’s definitely depressed and definitely self-medicates with alcohol.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – What Stalks the Deep

Posted July 28, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – What Stalks the Deep

What Stalks the Deep

by T. Kingfisher

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction
Pages: 192
Series: Sworn Soldier #3
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Sometimes I think people’s reactions to the three stories so far in T. Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series are very telling about what frightens them. My favourite — the one I think is best — is the first one, because it plays on all my fears about contagion. The second book didn’t fill me with as much enthusiasm, and this one hit a different note: if you’ve read it, on the Ingold-to-Denton scale, I’m definitely on the Ingold end in terms of my reaction.

In other words, this one is barely horror to me and doesn’t scare me at all. I do appreciate it more than the second book (which, to be clear, I did also enjoy), but it was the finding of kin in Ingold, his fascination with what’s happening and with the mines, that was the key here. Which is fine, because I’m not necessarily interested in being scared, but I think it does add an edge and make things memorable. For me, the tensest thing about the book was actually Alex’s claustrophobia.

We do also see the aftermath of the first book for Denton — it’s good to link back up with him, and to understand how it affected him too. Differently, somewhat, but deeply, to the point where the best comfort he can imagine is summoning Alex to join him when weird shit starts going down again.

I continue to love the world-building about sworn soldiers, though there wasn’t that much of it in this one.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Carmilla

Posted May 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Carmilla

Carmilla

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Genres: Classics, Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 122
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

In a lonely castle deep in the Styrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her elderly father for company – until a moonlit night brings an unexpected guest to the schloss. At first Laura is glad to finally have a female companion of her own age, but her new friend’s strange habits and eerie nocturnal wanderings quickly become unsettling, and soon a ghastly truth is revealed.

Suffused with gothic horror and sexual tension, Carmilla predated Dracula by 26 years, has inspired generations of writers and is the foundation of the lesbian vampire myth.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a classic, but not one I’d actually read yet, so I picked it up via Serial Reader to get myself acquainted ahead of reading a retelling that I’m curious about. As expected (and fairly typical of a vampire narrative), it’s homoerotic and full of confused desire between the victim and the vampire (in this case Laura and Carmilla), but it’s really open here.

Not a lot happens, the page count mostly occupies itself with building up atmosphere and that tangled, repulsive attraction that Laura has for Carmilla. Though the narrative is from Laura’s point of view, and she wasn’t aware of what was going on at the time, it’s very very obvious, to the point that the clues seem almost too spelled out at times… It’s perfectly readable, but a little long-winded at times.

I’m glad I got round to reading it, but I’m fascinated to see what modern retellings might make of it, more than anything.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Strange Pictures

Posted April 22, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Strange Pictures

Strange Pictures

by Uketsu

Genres: Crime, Horror, Mystery
Pages: 240
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance...

A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbithole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.

Uketsu’s Strange Pictures really is an odd one. If you think a weird mystery based around interpreting drawings made by characters sounds like your thing, I think I’d recommend experiencing it without reading any further than the end of this paragraph. I’m not going to give outright spoilers, but I went in only knowing that it was supposed to be weird, that it was based around weird/creepy drawings, and that it was a mystery. I normally like spoilers, but actually I think it’s worth coming to it with an open mind in this case. I will say that you might want a physical copy, though, rather than reading it on an ereader (though I did).

So, for those who’ve stuck around to keep reading, what to say? First, the translation: it feels like a pretty plain, bare-bones translation, nothing flowery, nothing extraneous added. It’s hard to say whether that’s true since I can’t read the original, but it’s certainly the impression I get. The drawings aren’t particularly beautiful or astounding either, in part because they’re not meant to be drawn by super great artists — they’re drawn by characters who are part of the mysteries.

The reason I suggested you might want a physical copy is that it can benefit to be able to turn the pictures around, if you’re trying to join in on solving the mystery. You can read it and just wait for the solutions, it doesn’t do anything gimmicky like leave you without answers, but if you want to join in then a physical copy might give you a bit more convenience in doing so, potentially tracing the images out, etc.

The format is an interesting one, too. At first it seems like a collection of unconnected short stories, but the stories actually connect into a greater mystery — and each answer might change your mind about the outcome of a previous story, too.

I found it a fascinating read, and I’m interested to read Uketsu’s Strange Houses, which is coming out later in the year.

Rating: 4/5

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