Closing out 2025 with a strong December! I read a total of 13 books - some were hot as fuck, others were cool as a cucumber. Why not just jump into them all? Did you read any of these, and if you did, did they hit the same?
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield
I’ve had my eye on this book for ages, and I'm so thrilled to have finally gotten my hands on a review copy. Queer southern gothic speculative fiction with fractured family trauma and survival? Sign me up.
From the very first page, it pulls you under. It’s packed with everything you’d hope for—twisted, atmospheric darkness, abusive mothers, a decaying house hidden in the woods, restless haints, and horrors that linger in the shadows.
But what makes it unforgettable is its humanity. This is one of the most haunting, visceral novels I’ve read in years. At its core, it’s the story of a woman clawing back control after a lifetime of suffering, rising from the wreckage of her past to seek beauty in a world that has offered her only cruelty.
The result is a resonant, traumatic, and deeply unsettling read.
We Call Them Witches by India-Rose Bower
We Called Them Witches is a striking spin on the post-apocalyptic novel. Think Bird Box. Think A Quiet Place. Think any horror story where terror arrives out of nowhere and annihilates humanity in grotesque, unstoppable ways.
But here, the menace is stranger. These are eldritch monsters that morph into a mixture of whatever they’ve consumed and whatever is in their environment. Imagine a silently shifting mass of twigs, insect legs, moss, human parts, fox skulls, dirt—an ever-changing nightmare that refuses to give up its search for prey.
We follow Sara and her family as they endure this new world by turning to old pagan practices: wards, adder stones, protective circles that hold these creatures at bay. But their fragile safety shatters when they discover an unconscious girl lying just beyond their defenses.
Parsley can't remember how she escaped the "witches" and Sara is simply mesmirized by her. As their friendship blossoms, a horror hits home - the creatures capture her brother Noah and everyone is relying on Parsley's knowledge of the beasts in order to rescue him from their otherworldy clutches.
What unfolds is a frustratingly devious exploration of just how far we're willing to go to save our family. And what we learn is that, in the end, survival isn’t just about keeping the monsters out—it’s about facing the ones we’ve already let in.
I really liked it but I also hated how much it toyed with me lol.
Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker
Ok. The last 11 books I've read were all review copies. I thought it was time to give myself a break and dip into my massive tbr pile!!
I picked up Composite Creatures on a whim at a used bookstore—partly for the cover, but also because of its ambiguous, allusive description and the fact that it’s published by Angry Robot, a small press known for sharp, inventive sci‑fi. The description wasn’t screaming science fiction, but oh gosh, you guys. This thing!
Hardaker thrives on withholding information, so we’re pulled into the story with only the barest sense of what’s happening. If you prefer novels that lay everything out up front, this might not be for you. But for me? Totally my jam.
We’re introduced to a world ravaged by climate change, where most animal species have vanished and where the majority of people face a slow, inevitable death from “the greying”—a form of incurable cancer born of polluted air and dwindling resources.
Norah and Arthur, strangers to one another, want desperately to live longer, healthier lives. Enter Easton Grove, an elite and painfully expensive health system that pairs them based on genetic compatibility, hoping their partnership will blossom into a press‑worthy love story. That compatibility matters: it grants them the right to receive an ovum organi to raise together.
And what is an ovum organi? Think of it as a genetic replica of both partners, beginning as a strange, pet‑like ball of fur that—if cared for properly—develops into something far more familiar over time.
I won’t say more, because the book’s power lies in its slow reveal. But I will say this: Composite Creatures deserves your attention. I wasn’t expecting it to punch me in the gut, and oh boy did it ever!
A quote on the back calls it “wistful” and “wonderfully strange.” It’s that, and so much more. It sneaks up on you, claws out, and leaves a mark you won’t shake off. Come for the weird little furball, stay for the existential sucker punch.
25 Days by Per Jacobsen
Did I just tear through a 300‑page book in a single day, even though the author intended it to be savored one chapter at a time over the 25 days of Christmas? Why yes. Yes, I did. And what delicious brain candy it was.
25 Days is the perfect winter holiday horror novel to sink into on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it knows exactly how to keep the pages turning. Told through alternating chapters from each family member’s perspective, we witness the horrors inflicted on them from every angle. And if I ever thought vacationing in an isolated cabin on a mountain sounded appealing, this book cured me of that fantasy real quick.
Rompy, twisted, and as frigid as the inside of an icebox, 25 Days is a chilling delight—a must‑read if you’re looking to kill a few hours before the festivities begin.
What Christmas horror novel would you recommend?
Nowhere Burning by Catronia Ward
This one was rough for me—not because it’s bad, but because it never quite reached the level of Sundial’s full‑tilt wtf‑energy, even though Ward still delivers her signature twists toward the end.
So what exactly threw me off? Maybe it was the sheer number of twists, some of which felt designed to provoke a “Gasp!” moment that didn’t quite land. Maybe it was the way the story tried to straddle both “haunted house” and “cult” territory without fully committing to either lane.
And I can’t lie: the entire time I was reading, I kept thinking about Michael Jackson—specifically the parallels to Neverland Ranch and the swirling child‑related rumors.
Intentional? Coincidental? Hard to say, but it definitely muddied the experience.
Am I being too grumpy because it didn’t meet my expectations? Possibly. But here’s the thing: I still enjoyed it. It just didn’t hit me with the same intensity as her previous book.
So… a mixed bag, but a compelling one.
I Bought a Haunted Christmas Tree Farm by Sam Whittaker
Haters gonna hate, unless, of course, you walked into this expecting a fun, rompy Christmas horror story. In which case… congratulations, because that’s exactly what this book is.
So what if there are typos sprinkled throughout, like those rogue strands of tinsel you keep finding weeks after the tree is gone.
So what if the story takes its sweet time and then hurls the ending at you like a runaway train, leaving an ectoplasmic smear of blood and bodies in its wake.
I still thought it was cute... a festive little horror snack perfect for a lazy December afternoon. And no, I didn't read it advent‑style. Sure, it’s a charming idea in theory, but are there reaaallly people out there who crack these things open on December 1st and then dutifully read one chapter a day all month long. Pssshhh. Couldn’t be me.
For all you holiday themed readers out there... sometimes you just want a book that’s merry, messy, and mildly unhinged. This one delivers.
The North Sun by Ethan Rutherford
Just when you think you’re settling into a run‑of‑the‑mill historical novel about a whaleship sent to locate the missing captain of another vessel lost in Arctic waters… North Sun veers gloriously off the map. What begins as a straightforward maritime rescue tilts into something stranger and far more intoxicating than I had expected.
Told in sharp, stunning chapters, the novel follows Arnold Lovejoy, a whaleman recruited by the powerful Ashley family to find their missing son‑in‑law, Leander, and retrieve a prized heirloom believed to be stranded with him on the ice. Lovejoy—hopelessly smitten with the Ashleys’ daughter, Leander’s wife—leaps at the chance to return to sea, chase a little whale, and maybe win her favor along the way.
But the farther the ship sails, the more the story mutates. What starts as a simple search‑and‑rescue spirals into a gruesome, violent, fantastical descent into the deep. Think Moby-Dick with a heavy pour of McGuire’s North Water, Rawson's From the Wreck, and Nahill’s From the Belly—a dark, atmospheric, haunting debut that only grows more feral and hypnotic the deeper you go.
By the final pages, you’re not just reading a whaling tale—you’re swallowed whole by it.
Love love love!
The Body by Bethany C Morrow
Soooo… this book. It’s totally bingeable, but wow is it triggering. Have I mentioned how much I loathe infidelity as a plot device... especially when the female MC refuses to ask the questions she needs answered and instead spirals through every horrible scenario her brain can conjure?
Raised under the thumb of strict religious parents and now terrified that her husband Jerrod might be cheating, Mavis is already mentally spiraling when she gets into a car accident rushing home to beat him there. She’s mid–panic attack, her mind a cyclone of worst‑case scenarios, desperate to get inside, shower, and start dinner, but the universe has other plans. She survives with only minor injuries, but her luck? That’s another story.
Because the accident is just the beginning. That night, she spots a neighbor in a nightshirt digging a hole in her backyard. The next day, while she and Jerrod are buying an outdoor camera, a man tries to drop a ceiling fan on her and ends up brutally attacking two shoppers who intervene. Then comes the break‑in… and… well, the hits keep coming.
The Body takes the marriage vow “till death do us part” and twists it into something more sinister — and far more deliciously unhinged. Morrow pushes you to confront the darker side of devotion, both religious and marital. By the end, you’re not sure whether to look away… or turn the page faster.
Poor Damned Souls by Charlene Elsby
It looks like I’ve accidentally signed myself up for an infidelity marathon with these last two review copies. If The Body was hauntingly religious, Poor Damned Souls is its godless, feral counterpart.
Holy hell… what did I just read? I thought Elsby’s Musos was twisted, but this one is unhinged on an entirely different level.
Honestly, men should treat this book as a cautionary tale about what can happen when you stray — especially if your spouse has access to online verification software and the instincts of a detective. Lord help you.
We follow a woman who realizes her husband is cheating. That discovery sends her spiraling into a brutal mix of self‑loathing, obsession, and very understandable rage. Yet she keeps quiet, not wanting him to change his patterns or hide things more than he already is. Instead, she becomes consumed with uncovering every detail — the how, the why, and the who.
But be careful what you go looking for, because you will find it… and what you find might shatter your spirit and scramble your sanity.
This book is a fireball of chaos. It’s triggering, visceral, raunchy, and unapologetically gory.
Here's a taste:
"I try to gauge from the volume of semen how long it's been since he's last ejaculated."
"Sometimes it's easier to get used to something than it is to change it."
"Getting to know a person as meat does not reveal thier essence... getting to know a person, on an emotional level, is also a disappointing theme park."
It will make you look at relationships — and the dark corners people hide in — very differently. If you read and appreciated Chandler Morrison’s Dead Inside, or Maude Ventura's My Husband, you’ll feel right at home here (and might want to start clearing out your browser history... just in case).
I Found Christmas Lights Slithering Up My Street by Ben Farthing
Meh. Cute idea, but the execution just fell flat for me. Honestly, as a fan of strange and bizarre stories, I’m not sure why this isn’t being marketed as a YA novel, because that’s where it feels it sits — and where it might’ve actually worked better.
I read this in one sitting yesterday evening, hoping for a fun, light Christmas horror romp to close out the holiday. Instead, I got a story weighed down by subpar writing: extremely surface‑level and repetitive, like Farthing was trying too hard to sound like a kid that it pulled me right out of the moment. The descriptions were muddy enough that I sometimes had to stop and reread, still unsure what Farthing was trying to show me.
At its core, the book follows Douglas, a young boy grieving the loss of his sister, who died the previous Christmas Eve. His parents’ holiday spirit has died with her, and he’s desperate to revive it. While he and his friends are decorating a half‑built house in the newer section of his neighborhood, he spots strange not‑red, not‑purple lights glowing from a storm drain. Thinking he’s found the perfect addition to his display, he reaches in and pulls out something far more sinister. Something dark. Something creepy. Something looking for an empty vessel… and Douglas and his neighborhood are full of possibilities.
In the end, it’s a story with a solid premise that never quite grows into the horror it promises... a spark of an idea buried under writing that is trying too hard to sound young, and feels too thin and too repetitive to truly scare. A festive fright‑lite that could’ve shined, but instead flickers out long before the final page.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu
Never buy a house without knowing exactly what you’re getting yourself into. If The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts teaches you anything, let it be that. Unless you’ve seen The Money Pit, in which case, you should’ve learned that lesson ages ago.
Eleanor’s mother has just died, and with her last breath she makes Eleanor promise to use the money she's left her to finally buy a home. So Eleanor, who has lived under her mother’s watchful, overprotective eye her entire life and has never made a single adult decision on her own, is suddenly, naïvely tossed into the housing market.
Enter an aggressively enthusiastic real estate agent who all but shoves a pen into her hand. The house is a gorgeous model home, one of only two in a brand‑new development that won’t resume construction until next year. Eleanor falls instantly in love. She signs wherever she’s told, skips the fine print, waives the inspection, and agrees to buy it as is. And she’s about to learn exactly what 'as is' means as rain begins leaking through the windows, the walls (and the sweat runs down... oh gosh, sorry, wrong time and place lol), and inconveniently, the boundary between the living and the dead, where her mother starts dropping in for visits.
Think Julia Armfield’s Private Rights. Think Nicky Gonzalez’s Mayra. This isn’t quite horror, though it does have some eerie undertones. It’s cozy and tender until it suddenly isn’t, and you root for Eleanor to find her footing… until you’re not so sure you want her to.
At its core, this is a story about consequences — a “you get what you paid for” and “what goes around comes around” kind of tale, wrapped in ghosts, grief, and the price of wanting more than you’re ready to handle.
Scratch by Steve Himmer
Have you noticed that I tend to read in themes — even if it’s just a few books in a row? Earlier this week I accidentally paired two novels that both used infidelity as their inciting incident. Totally different vibes, same doorway in.
And now, apparently, I’m on a “new housing development in the woods with something uncanny lurking nearby” streak.
Two books ago, I read a christmas themed horror novel that took place in the new section of an already existing comminuty of homes where something evil climbed up out of the storm drain. And the last book I read followed a woman who buys a model home in a new housing development tucked waaay out of the way, complete with subtle ghostly undertones. Scratch shares that woodland‑development premise, only Steve Himmer takes it somewhere stranger, older, and far more folkloric.
Here, a developer named Martin decides to carve a neighborhood out of the woods. What he doesn’t know is that these woods already have a resident, an ancient entity known in local lore as Scratch — a shapeshifter parents invoke to keep kids from wandering too far. Scratch has been here long before humans started bulldozing their way through his home, and he’s more than a little tired of watching us stomp in, tear things up, and move on. So when Martin arrives, Scratch decides it’s time to intervene.
The story is told from Scratch’s perspective, in the same spirit as Henry Hoke’s Open Throat. He’s manipulative, ancient, observant, and bone‑deep weary of human disruption. Seeing the world through his eyes gives the book a wonderfully off‑kilter, uncanny tone.
And here’s the thing. Scratch is really, really good — and it’s flying under every radar. If you love folkloric fiction, creature‑narrated stories, or books that start grounded and slowly slide into the strange, this deserves a spot on your list. It’s the kind of quiet, clever weird fiction that should have a much bigger audience than it does.
You Have to Let Them Bleed by Annie Neugebauer
I’ve been really picky about short story collections this year. It’s a mood thing for me — or maybe more of a vibe thing — and when I requested You Have to Let Them Bleed on NetGalley, I wasn’t entirely convinced I’d be in the right headspace for it. Great title, great cover, great premise… but what if I just wasn’t in a short‑story mood?
Turns out I had absolutely nothing to worry about.
These stories are dark, haunting, and fabulously freaky in all the best ways. Redless follows a woman who would kill — literally — to see the color red again. The Little Drawer Full of Chaos starts with something as mundane as digging through a junk drawer for a hammer and then veers into a direction that’s wildly, delightfully unexpected. Several pieces feature unseen monsters stalking you from the shadows. There’s a deeply Kafkaesque tale about a woman whose husband falls ill and begins to transform in ways that are… let’s just say unsettling. And another about a woman who wakes in the night to the sound of a crying baby — which would be fine, except she doesn’t have one.
They’re creepy and cringey in exactly the right proportions. Neugebauer is a captivating storyteller, and the imagery she conjures in just a few pages is astonishing. This collection hits that sweet spot between uncanny and irresistible — the kind of stories that get under your skin and stay there.
And that's a wrap for 2025. 139 books read in total.
Not too shabby!!!
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