What I Read in May

 

Here's what I read in May. Twelve books total, not counting one I read for publicity purposes. Not too shabby. 

There were no 5 star reads, but the last three were 4 stars so I ended on a high note. Seven of these were review copies. Three were print copies, and I listened to four of them on audio. The longest read was tied at 400 pages for both The Dorians and Headlights. The shortest read was 83 pages.  For a total of 2929 pages read.

Tillinghast by Clare Cavenagh

After I finished reading Tillinghast, I immediately hopped over to Goodreads because I knew this one was going to ruffle some feathers. The lenses through which readers experience books always amazes me — the words on the page don’t change, but the way they hit us absolutely does. So I was dying to see what everyone thought.

A Rhode Islander with deep personal ties to the area’s 1800s vampire panic connected with the book on that level. Someone compared it to A Man Called Ove, which I've never read, and said it’s basically that book… if Ove were a vampire. And another reader referenced a review of Pride and Prejudice that described it pretty much as “a novel about people going to each other’s houses,” and said: samesies. And there was one person who was hilariously hung up on all of the situational things that were completely unplausible, as if the fact that the main character was a vampire wasn't unplausible enough, haha.

As far as vampire lore goes, Tillinghast is definitely a slower burn. We spend most of the novel inside the mind of a man who has learned to quietly manage his urges and pass as a priest and caretaker of a sleepy, retired church. It’s a very internal, introspective take on the monster myth — one that humanizes him and leans into the emotional and psychological toll of his condition.

Everything shifts when he receives a call from a local hotel claiming that a woman named Sarah — calling herself his niece — is gravely ill and asking for him. He has no idea who she is, but curiosity gets the best of him, and he brings the nearly unconscious woman back to his home. It doesn’t take long for him to realize he’s no longer the only one of his kind… and he becomes determined to help her survive. Together, they begin unraveling the threads that bind them.

It’s contemplative and surprisingly tender, but also undeniably slow. The introspection works, for the most part, though the pacing sometimes drags the story down instead of deepening it.

In the end, Tillinghast is a thoughtful, offbeat twist on the vampire tale — not a new favorite, but with enough charm and melancholy to keep me turning the pages.

Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford

Took a break from the endless review copies to sink into a low pressure read while fighting a cold.

You and a group of young cousins are hanging out a relative's house for a party. The adults are chilling with drinks on the back deck, doing their chatterbox adult thing while you kids basically run around the property unsupervised. One of you notice the youngest of you is missing and you run up and down the stairs, into and out of all the rooms, looking for them. No luck. Then you decide if they aren't inside, they must be outside, and take it upon yourselves to go outside and look around at all the places you probably are not normally allowed to snoop, like inside the barn, and the chicken coop, and the inside all of the cars in the driveaway. Still no luck. So you decide to inform the grownups. But they ignore you. And poo-poo you. And swear they just saw them around here somewhere, go look harder. So you do. You go to the only place you haven't searched yet. The woods. Only you thought you saw something zip zip zipping out there and you're kind of scared. So the biggest of you decides to go. But after a while, they don't come back. And now the rest of you have to be brave and suck it up because you've lost two of you and they are counting on you to rescue them.

Reviews have called it unsettling, unnerving, and intoxicatingly sinister. Uhm... what book were you all reading because what I read was a very prettily written book about asshole parents who let their kids get themselves into trouble because they were too preoccupied drinking and gossiping about each other to bother keeping an eye on them. And the kids were just doing unsupervised bored kid things and exploring and getting worked up over their wild imaginations and spooking themselves until something actually goes wrong.

Bad parents, curious kids, and that nostalgic kick in the gut as it brushes off some of our own moldy old memories.

Finished while chilling on the couch over one afternoon, in between a big ass nap, while fighting a gnarly head cold... this is a super light on the brain, no mental energy required kind of read.

Dopefoot by Joshua Millican (DNFd - not counted)

ery appreciative to the author for reaching out with a review inquiry.

Sadly, I tossed this one to the side at the 40% mark. I'm not sure what I thought it was going to be but it whatever it is, I wasn't into it. And if there's a horror aspect to it... it was taking too long to get there.

All I could think about were the hundreds of other books I had sitting there waiting for me to pick them up.

The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim

Boo! Why is this book obsessively being praised all over the internet? I just don't see it (lol).

The audiobook narration was just fine. Jaine Ye did a nice job but the storyline... really?!

Ji-won is in college and still living at home. The book basically opens as she and her younger sister are processing their feelings after their dad walks out on them, leaving their mom in shambles. And then they have even BIGGER feelings when their mom starts dating a white guy who grosses them out, and even more gross is how submissive their mom is with this guy. But Ji-won is not one to stew and simmer in her feelings. She's planning to get George out of the picture, and dear lord in heaven does it take a painfully long time for her to warm up and get the heck going.

This is basically the slowest burn birth of a villian story I have ever read. Did I know where it was going? Yeah, of course. The reviews all allude to it. The mom eating the fish eye balls and shaming her kids for not liking them sets the stage in a very obvious way. So there was no secret there. But man... the long, drawn out build up was just not worth the payoff.

I went in with low expectations because I know myself.... me and the internet darlings don't typically hit it off. So while I'm not shocked, I can't pretend I wasn't a little disappointed. I was open to being wrong. Sigh.

Homecoming by Micah Castle

I feel genuinely bad about this one, especially since I requested the audiobook directly from the publisher. I went in wanting to like it. The premise sounded cool. The length was mercifully short. And yet… oof. Rough doesn’t begin to cover it.

The narrator definitely didn’t help. The performance was flat and distracting, but even with a stronger voice, I'm not sure the story could’ve been saved. It’s essentially a cautionary tale - Don’t go home again or your old high school friends might force you into their satanic cult. Which should've been fun. It should've been unhinged. It should've been campy or creepy. On paper, it sounded like my kind of chaos. In execution, it was just… not.

A 10 out of 10 do‑not‑recommend from me.

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

As a proud Gen Xer who was born in 1976, raised on cereal and Saturday Morning Cartoons, boomboxing it to Madonna and Michael (and dark wave stuff like The Cure and Depeche Mode), aquanetting the hell out of my teased out hair, and skating my butt off at the roller rink, this book should have been a nostalgic homerun for me, and I'm not quite sure that I can explain why it wasn't.

The narration for the audiobook was good. I enjoyed listening to it on my drive to and from work. And it was cute enough - a story about two young girls who grow up as best friends until one of them becomes possessed by a demonic spirit. Only, it's high school, and girls are catty and weird and nasty to each other for no reason, friends today, frenemies tomorrow, so maybe she isn't possessed and she's just being a bitch?

Maybe I'm just too far removed from my youth to have an appreciation for how evil girls can be towards each other. Maybe I'm just too desensitized by all my years in HR to gasp and cringe at the horrid things that take place in this book. Or maybe I'm just not ga-ga- for Grady, which would suck - because I bought this audio as part of a bundle deal on Chirp, along with Horrorstor and Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Overall, a nice way to pass the time in the car, even if it was a little disappointing. And - SPOILER - why do the dog dirty like that? God how I hate when authors do that.

Headlights by CJ Leede

I had such high hopes for this one. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Maeve Fly... I nearly DNF’d it at the start but ended up liking it by the end. Headlights, however, was the exact opposite. It hooked me immediately, and then somewhere in the last quarter it took a hard, swerving nosedive straight into supernatural nonsense I wanted no part of.

And that bathroom scene… genuinely, what was that? Why?! For who?!!!!

The Shining references were cute at first, then mildly eyerolly, and then suddenly we were beating the metaphor to death with a snow‑covered bat. Yes, yes, he SHINES. I get it. Please move on. And the "other-space" stuff? Ok, now just stop. Seriously.

A great start that just kept sliding itself towards a disastrous finish. By the time the supernatural circus rolled in, I started mentally packing my bags. I wanted tension and atmosphere but instead... I got chaos in a funhouse mirror.

Alien's Attack! by Dave Housley

It’s the end of the world as we know it and not one person on Earth feels fine.

A novel‑in‑stories, Aliens Attack! gives us first‑hand accounts of what a bunch of random people were doing the day the aliens blew everything to hell. In the moments before their lives change forever, we meet a husband about to have “the talk” with his wife, a drug‑addicted priest on the brink of withdrawals while hiding in the basement with his choir, a group of grownups drowning in nostalgia as they realize how old they’ve become, and a man who leaves his wife and kids in the car so he can run into a McDonald’s to make sure it’s safe for his son to pee. And that’s just scratching the surface.

But Dave doesn’t stop there — we even get the inside scoop straight from the aliens themselves as they joke about our “extra chromosome” and fall head over heels for our yapping four‑legged friends.

It’s funny and endearing and, yeah, a little terrifying too. The whole thing showcases just how wildly unprepared we are for a hostile extraterrestrial takeover. It definitely made me wonder whether I’d have what it takes to survive… or if I’d just go up in flames with everyone else.

A delightful reminder that we are absolutely not surviving an invasion, but we’ll make great stories for whoever does.

Inhaling Feathers by Chris Burton

Easily digestible in one sitting, Inhaling Feathers is a compact little mind‑fuck of a novelette. Think Jesse Ball’s The Repeat Room. Think Helen Phillips’ The Beautiful Bureaucrat. And of course, the obvious nod to Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

A man leaves his dead father’s body and heads to the document building to change his name. Once inside, he’s shuffled from service desk to service desk by a parade of disengaged, vaguely incompetent employees — until one of them invites him through a back door and down into the basement.

From there, our narrator becomes trapped in a maze of hallways and doorways, time slipping in strange ways as he wanders with only his memories of his father and the bizarre discoveries behind each door to anchor him.

Weird. Intriguing. Exactly my flavor of strange — and the perfect page count for it.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

While I wasn't completely in love Stone Yard Devotional, I didn't hate it either. It was the kind of audiobook that felt like a quiet companion, sitting beside you on the drive to work, talking softly about life, belief, and the strange comfort of routine.

It's a beautifully subdued story that follows a woman who retreats to a remote monastery, where she spends her days scrubbing floors, tending chores, and thinking her way through her atheism. There’s a mouse plague of biblical proportions, the resurfacing of a murdered nun’s remains, and a familiar face from her school days that stirs up old memories — but the plot is secondary.

The real story is the interior one: the slow churn of grief, the solace of repetition, the way silence can become its own kind of shelter.

It’s quiet. It’s contemplative. So what that it didn’t sweep me away... it kept me company, and sometimes that’s enough.

Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt by Ben Reeves

Was I afraid this book was going to make me cry? Yes.
Did I make it all the way through 95% of it without feeling emotional? Yes.
Was it as life changing as some of the reviewers claim it was? Naw.
But did those last few pages kill me? Fuck yes, they did. I'm dead.

I went in expecting this to tug on my heart a little. I mean, it's about death personified. He's a dude, living in an apartment, repairing old photos for people in his free time. And apparently death has a lot of free time. He's here, but he's also everywhere. Haunted by the souls he's taken, aware of every single person around him and what they'll die of, aching with the weight of the responsibility, but when they are ready, he'll appear at their side to comfort them, or berate them, or listen to them, as he ushers them out of this life and into something else.

Against his better judgement, he befriends his neighbor and her daughter, letting them get closer than he should. Because he's death. And because when he's around, he's taking someone away. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but he will take you.

If you were told you had twenty minutes left... you know you can't change what's left of your life in twenty minutes... but if you had twenty minutes, what would you do? Who would you call? Who would you kiss/hug/punch in the face? What would you spend those precious final moments doing?

You now have nineteens minutes left...
... now eighteen...
... get the hell up and do something...

The Dorians by Nick Cutter

Now this is a buzz book I can get behind.

Five elderly people, all on the brink of medically assisted suicide, are approached by a young girl and a bioethicist who claim they can reverse the aging process — maybe even cheat death entirely.

Quarantined on a remote Canadian island and cut off from the world, the volunteers place their trust in Astrid and her mad‑scientist methods, clinging to the hope that the risk will be worth the reward.

But if you’ve read Nick Cutter before, you already know better. There are no happy endings here. This slow‑burn sci-fi body horror digs into the terrifying resilience of living organisms — how they adapt, mutate, and fight to survive under any circumstances, no matter the cost.

A solid 4 stars... and a perfect reminder of what you get when you mess with mother nature.

Also, I matched my shoes and socks to the cover!

The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros

A quiet, tender story about a mother and her son trying to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.

Dylan was six when the birds vanished, the lights went out, and the cloud came to the Welsh village of Nebo. While everyone else fled, including the neighbors they’d grown so close to, he and Mam stayed. Together they learned to hunt, to garden, and to rely on each other for every scrap of comfort and company.

As Dylan grew older, he and his mother began writing their lives into a blue notebook Mam found while scavenging a nearby house. His entries capture the present; hers reach back to the world before The End. What we’re reading now is their shared record — The Blue Book of Nebo.

It’s more than a story about enduring the end of the world. It’s about carrying loss and returning to the rhythms of the natural world after everything else has fallen away.

Readers who loved I Cheerfully Refuse, Nothing But the Rain, The End We Start From, or These Silent Woods will find much to love here.

Where Writers Write: Zoé Mahfouz

 Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

 

Where Writers Write is a series that features authors as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Zoé Mahfouz. 

Zoé  is an award-winning French actress, content creator, screenwriter, and writer whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She holds a Master’s degree in Screenwriting from the London Film School. Her comedy screenplays have been recognized at international film festivals, including Canadian Screen Award-qualifying events. Her voice, described as “very tongue-in-cheek” and “kookie,” is reflected in work published in over 80 journals worldwide, with pieces translated and anthologized in Japanese print publications, notably Ginyu and The Asahi Shimbun. Her media appearances and coverage include BBC Radio, Yahoo, CBS, and Times of San Diego. She is the author of ADHD in D Minor (North Meridian Press, 2026), highly praised with a 5-star review by Reader Views, and Borges Must Be Rolling in His Grave (Dancing Girl Press, 2025), described by poet Diane Sahms in North of Oxford as “a surreal archeological dig revealing fractured truths with inventive, haunting intensity.”

Where Zoé Mahfouz Writes

I like to write at home, in my bed, because that is the only place where no one talks to me, stares at me with a dumb smile, asks me if I want sugar in my green tea, or asks if the seat across from me is empty and if he could sit there; see, my great mind does not mix with that of the common man.

My bed is great. It is from this fancy French furniture shop called Roche Bobois and is called the “Backstage Bed” because it was designed like a theater stage, with red curtains that feel like a soft furry cat, which is way better to pet than any actual cat, who would either talk to me, stare at me with a dumb smile, leap into my green tea, or sit in the seat across from me; see, my mind does not mix with that of someone who throws up fur balls on the floor.

The glass-canopy, architect-designed room I live in is fantastic. It really does cover the sound of my daily nocturnal terrors with an efficiency nothing else matches. Also, it keeps foreign visitors separated from my area. The key to lock the glass canopy door is unfortunately broken, so I have to use this horse head on a wooden stick to close it.

That’s how I get to meet my best friend: Silence.

Silence doesn’t talk to me, stare at me with a dumb smile, ask me if I want sugar in my green tea, or ask if the seat across from me is empty and if he could sit there. Being an only child, Silence sometimes gets acquainted with Boredom, and that’s when magic happens and I write faster than the speed of a backstage light.

  

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North Meridian Press

Amazon

ADHD IN D MINOR is a high-speed, television-flavored mixtape of sketches, manifestos, character monologues, rage letters, and love notes that orbit the unhinged core of a mind too fast for traditional structure. As it turns out, Zoé Mahfouz did not come to literature to heal. She came to dominate. Raised by a Montessori mom, groomed by reruns of Frasier, Will & Grace and Family Guy, and diagnosed with a God Complex, the self-declared long-lost third Coen Brother (or Sister) believes in scenes, not chapters, and punchlines, not conclusions. This is not autofiction. This is Zoé Mahfouz’s multiverse. A dramatic reenactment written with the rhythm of a cold open and the philosophy of a sugar-high Woody Allen character. Every chapter is a freeze frame. Every voice sounds like it might burst into a song from Cats or yell “Cut!” mid-sentence.

This is not a book you read so much as attend. Take your seat. Silence your phone. The curtain rises on the inner life of someone who can’t stop noticing, narrating, overthinking, oversharing, or auditioning for roles she made up herself.

And yes, it’s in D Minor, the funniest of all the melancholy keys.

 

Zoé Mahfouz

She/Her/Hers

Paris, France

 

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/fr/name/nm8051766/

TikTok @Lessautesdhumeurdezoe

 

Blog Tour: Outsphere

 

A distant colony world becomes the setting for Outsphere by Guy-Roger Duvert, a large scale science fiction story built around discovery, survival, and the tension between two radically different versions of humanity attempting to coexist after Earth’s collapse.

Amazon | Goodreads

Questions of identity and progress drive the conflict at the center of Outsphere. Humanity believed it would recognize its greatest threat, yet the settlers arriving after decades in deep space quickly learn that assumption may not hold. What begins as an attempt to create order on a new world shifts when evidence of an ancient intelligence emerges beneath the surface.

The arrival of a second expedition changes everything further. Unlike the original settlers, these newcomers represent a version of humanity engineered to eliminate conflict, uncertainty, and individuality itself. Their presence introduces a different vision of civilization, one built on unity at a cost many may not accept.

As both groups struggle to define their future, Eden itself begins to respond. Hidden systems, remnants of a vanished civilization, and the planet’s growing influence push the conflict beyond survival and into a deeper question about what humanity should become if given another chance.

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Chapter 2

The corridor was narrow and short. At one end, it stopped abruptly at a bare, flat wall. At the other end, it appeared to open to emptiness, but the darkness made it impossible to judge. As in the rest of the ship, red pilot lights installed at the foot of the walls bathed the surroundings in a reddish hue. On either side of the corridor, cylinders made of metal and glass were encrusted into the walls. Some of them started to vibrate and lower, slowly. Once they were almost horizontal, lids opened in a cloud of vapor. At the same time, powerful lights, installed equidistantly in the ceiling, popped on. 

The gases gradually disappeared, allowing the place to return to its previous stillness. But it did not last. Jake Bowman opened his eyes; beautiful, gray, hard eyes on a square face. Cropped hair. His muscular frame almost naked, except for plaid boxer shorts. He sat up and exited his cryogenic capsule. Once standing, it took him a moment to regain control of his senses. He thought the worst had passed, before being violently struck by a massive headache. He couldn’t suppress a grunt. 

“They told us the awakening would be difficult.”

Bowman turned around to see who had spoken, and saw Tanakashi Yamakama, also getting out of his metallic coffin. Although he looked a bit fragile, he appeared to have tolerated the after effects of the awakening well, in spite of his smaller build. They were calm, having prepared for this situation. But experiencing it for the first time felt new, strange. He smiled at Bowman, as if to help him with his headache, which was already starting to vanish. 

“I’ve never had a hangover like this!” 

“Let’s see if Suleiman is awake.” 

Tanakashi quickly reverted to protocol, which was a good sign, Bowman thought. He didn’t feel any particular affinity for the Japanese man, but he knew he was reliable, and that was more than enough for him. 

Bowman took a few steps, passing before a capsule where Leo Folks was slowly emerging. Much less brawny than his companions, the pilot was his usual self: gentle, smiling, a man of few words. He merely observed his senior officer, while focusing on his own awakening. 

Bowman leaned on another capsule, its occupant having more difficulty than the others in coming to his senses, most likely due to his age. Well into his fifties, Admiral Abdelrahman Suleiman was a handsome man who exuded natural authority. Normally, he was quite elegant, though wearing only boxer shorts like the others didn’t exactly flatter him. 

“Admiral? How are you feeling?”

Suleiman tried to focus on Bowman, but his eyes kept fluttering. It took a few moments before he could stabilize them. 

“Colonel…” he started, then hesitant, as if his memories were slowly coming together “...Bowman?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“What day is this?” 

“No idea, Sir. I was just awakened.” 

“Let’s check.” 

Bowman was surprised; he had expected that the ship’s captain would take longer to regain full consciousness. But the man was strong. 

Bowman helped him to his feet, while Folks was doing the same with another traveler, Ivan Igovitch, who smiled when he saw the Admiral. 

“Happy to see you again, Admiral.” 

“Colonel Igovitch.”

After a salute to his second in command, the Admiral looked at his four companions, taking stock of the situation. 

“Well it looks like we’re all here.” 

Tanakashi tapped buttons on one of the walls, and a small computer appeared, sliding toward him. Tanakashi tapped quickly on the keyboard, looked at the screen, before concluding: “Everything has gone according to plan, Sir. Estimated time of arrival forty-eight hours…” 

The Admiral took note of the information, and headed toward the end of the corridor, followed by the others.

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Guy-Roger Duvert is a French science fiction author, filmmaker, and composer whose work spans literature, cinema, and interactive media.

After studying political science and business, he began his career composing music for films, television, and video games before writing and directing the cyberpunk feature Virtual Revolution (released internationally as 2047: Virtual Revolution).

He made his literary debut with Outsphere, which became a bestseller in France and was later named by Audible France as one of the Top 10 Greatest Science Fiction Novels of All Time, alongside Dune, 1984, and Foundation.

Duvert has since published around twenty novels, establishing himself as a prominent voice in contemporary European speculative fiction. His work is recognized for its scale, layered world-building, and exploration of power, technology, and human evolution.

He is currently based between Los Angeles and France. Follow Guy on Instagram.