Books I Read in June

It's July already, the half way mark. How is 2023 half in the bag already?!

Looking back at what I managed to read last month, I clocked in a total of 8, (with one book that I read for publicity purposes which I will not list below). Clearly not the best I've done, but it was a pretty month so I'm cutting myself some slack!

Let's see what I read, shall we? 

Fever House by Keith Rosson

When you pick up a Keith Rosson book, you know you're guaranteed a good time. And Fever House is no exception. This one took me by surprise, and took me places I hadn't expected.

It starts off simply enough - Hutch and Tim are out on the hunt for people who owe their boss Peach drug money. But after kicking the door in at one particular junkie's place, they discover more than they bargained for. The dude had a severed hand hidden in the freezer. And not just any severed hand, mind you. This one starts messing with your head. The closer in proximity you are to it, the darker and more violent your thoughts turn.

Scared of the thing, and desperate to get rid of it, Hutch calls his buddy Nick, a man who makes his living locating rare items for clients. Meanwhile, dark goverment agents are employing the remote viewing skills of a "subject" by the name of Saint Michael to narrow down its whereabouts, hot on the hand's trail. We learn that it once belonged to them and they are not going to stop until its back in their possession.

Hutch, Nick, and everyone else who crosses paths with this cursed thing are now running for their lives. A strange hell is about to be unleashed in Portland, and they are going to have front row seats when the madness begins.

Rosson seamlessly weaves multiple narrative threads together throughout the book, building character backstories that just continue adding layer upon layer to the main storyline, culminating in one big spider's web of death, deception, and destruction.

Be warned: there are some intentional loose ends here, as this book is part of at least a two-book series. You won't find a fully realized end, but the one we were served up should hold us over nicely until the next book drops.

House of Rot by Danger Slater

Danger Slater does it again! Body horror and fungal fiction for the win!

In House of Rot, we meet newlyweds Eleyna and Myles. They are happy, and in love, and moving into their first apartment together. It really feels like it's too good to be true, and well, that's probably because it is. Eleyna wakes up in the middle of their first night in their new place to the sound of footsteps moving through the rooms. Doorknobs being jiggled. Cabinets being opened. A toilet flushing. She wakes Myles up but after a thorough check, they find nothing. Noone. They try to explain it away and salavage what sleep they can before dawn breaks.

In the morning, they wake up and find the house is being overtaken by mold. Filaments have sealed the door and windows, snuck up through the floorboards, and no amount of disinfectant or posion seems to affect it. In fact, it appears to be regenerating faster than they can kill it. And to make matters worse, their strange next door neighbor seems content talking his face off at them through their front window, rather than come to their rescue.

Before long, Eleyna and Myles begin to change. The fungus is inflitrating everything, including their bodies. There seems to be no way out of this mess. Until there is. It's a path they are not sure they want to travel down. But really, what choice do they have?

I read this book cover to cover in nearly one sitting. I had to know what was happening and couldn't put it down until I did. It's a story of not losing hope, of still finding beauty in one another no matter the circumstances or conditions, and of determining whether you have what it takes to face your fears when that means leaving what you know behind - do you hang on to the cards you were dealt, or risk it for what's behind door number one?

And oh lordy, you guys... that ending!!

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica

I am a huge fan of TitF so I could not wait to get my hands on this one. I listened it on audio. The collection is made up of mostly very short stories so it ran a total of 3 hours at 1.5x, omg that's blink-and-you-miss-it short! And the narrators they chose were paired up sooo well. Each one is such a mood! Dark, speculative, and ewwww why does she like referring to spiders so much?! Arachnids aside, I really enjoyed where these stories took me.

Is this one on your radar? If it's not, it really should be.

Song of the Sandman by JF Dubeau

Song of the Sandman is the second book in the 'A God in the Shed' series. So of course I ordered it, used online, the moment I finished God / Shed because I didn't want to waste any time in between... my memory isn't what it used to be and if I read too many books in between these, I knew I'd forget half of what happened and would feel compelled to reread the first book again to make sure I clearly remember everything that happened before cracking open the new one and who the hell has time for that when your TBR pile is longer than the days you might have left on this planet? Huh? Tell me. Who?

But guess what? Now I'm done reading Song/ Sandman and just fml because the third book isn't even ANNOUNCED yet so with my luck it could be YEARS before I can finish this thing and now I'm sad. Because the second book was JUST AS GOOD as the first. JF Dubeau isn't messing around, and I'm hooked!

The god is no longer in the shed, and the two cults are still killing one another trying to get their hands on it, for two completely different reasons, while Venus and the gang, still battling their own demons and licking their initial wounds, are searching for a way to kill it once and for all.

There are just as many deaths, just as many wtf moments, and just as much blood and gore. I can't wait to see where he takes the god of death and hate next.

Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry

This was my first Kevin Barry and it was hand selected for me by a very wonderful fellow book reviewer, @drewsof who I've known for a crazy amount of years. And I can see why he chose it.

I love stories that don't follow the traditional he said/she said "quotations around conversations" kind of writing and this is sooo much that!

Here we have two aging Irishmen, Charlie and Maurice, sitting around a boat terminal one evening, waiting for a glimpse of Maurice's estranged daughter. They are crotchey, and assumptious, and gently terrorize disembarking boat terrorists. While the men don't really move from the bench, besides occasionally asking the desk clerk about the next boat due in or grabbing themselves a drink, the story swings from past to present and through it, we uncover thier dark history, and learn why it is they find themselves sitting, waiting, and hoping.

<spoiler>

I was really really hoping that this was a kind of pergatory for Charlie and Maurice, a way for them to make amends in the afterlife sort of thing, but it turns out it wasn't. And so I was a tad disappointed because, c'mon, how great would that have been??

<end spoiler>

I found it to be kind of similar in style to Cynan Jones and a bit Per Petterson-ish.... both writers I absolutely adore. If you like them, you'll really like this!!

Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Aw man. I wanted to like this one more than I actually did. It sounded so good, too.

There's a popular and super creepy children's program threaded throughout the book that teaches kids to be afraid of misbehaving or else Puckeen, an unseen entity that hides in a black box on the set of the show, will come out and get them.

There's a young woman named Etain who, on her way home from a party, comes across a dead man in the middle of the street being eaten by a stray dog and decides to drive the body to a nearby farmhouse, where she ends up being held for days before somehow making her way back home to her mother and fiance, forever changed by the trauma of it but unable or unwilling to discuss what took place there.

And then there's Etain's daughter Ashling, 20 years later, who struggles to understand and undo the strange curse that's been haunting her family ever since that night.

Sounds wild, right?! While the book definitely has its moments - creatively blending the Irish forklore and horror aspects - it bounced too frequently between Etain's storyline and Ashlings, sometimes going a little too heavy on Ashling's relationship with her girlfriend, which frequently interrupted the flow and had me questioning why so much time was being spent on it when it didn't appear to be immediately connected to the spookier parts of the storyline.

I'm so disappointed. Usually I end up loving Tor books. But this one really dragged for me. So much so that I nearly DNFd it three times. While I don't regret sticking it out and seeing it through to the end, it's not one that will linger with me. There weren't any 'gasp' moments that shocked or wowed me. Honestly, looking back, DNFing wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing.

Weft by Kevin Allardice

Weft is Madrona Book's debut release, hitting shelves this August. Nostalgically set in the 90's, it involves a con artist named Bridget who bounces around from motel to motel with her teenaged son. They haunt malls and small town festivals pretending they are casting directors for the upcoming star wars prequels, looking to squeeze some fast cash out of unwitting parents before moving on to a new town, for a new sucker.

The scam life seems to be working out pretty ok for them. That is, until her son Jake gets bored with his role and strikes out on his own, sinking his con claws into a kid named Caleb. Going along with it, even though she's not thrilled with the deviation from the plan, they arrive at Caleb's home to record him reading from the fake script. Only, Caleb and his family are in the midst of turing the entire place into a haunted house for halloween.

Bridget finds herself stuck there, quite literally, and is forced to come to terms with her poor decisions. Has she finally gotten in over her head? Will she make it out of the creepy house of horrors alive? And where the fuck did Jake disappear to?

Don't mistake this book for horror. The only scary things you'll find in these pages are the gross advances some of the men make on Bridget, lol. But the deeper we get into the book, the longer the latest scam plays out, the more we're asked to suspend our belief, and the more interesting things get for our con lady!

I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I think you will too!

Consumption and Other Vices by Tyler Dempsey

Naughty girls go to Papa's house down roads made of dirt that curl like curliques. A pen is where he hid the thing naughty girls like best. He asked do they want to get down. Fuck yeah, they are going to get down. They are going to get in trouble.

Tyler's latest, a novelette clocking in at just under 70 pages, is some of the tightest, darkest noir I've ever read. Two detectives find themselves in a small town investigating the strange deaths of two girls. The townsfolk might know more than they are letting on, but that doesn't stop our guys from digging through the detritus to uncover the mystery and identify who's behind the murders.

I mean fuuuuck, even the writing's hiding something! I love its twisted, sing-song style. This is what stands out. (If you read it, you'll know, and you should totally read it!)