Blog Tour: CRIMSON IN QUIETUS by Eugen Bacon

 

We're happy to help Meerkat Press support the release of their latest title CRIMSON IN QUIETUS by Eugen Bacon by participating in their blog tour. 

For our portion of the tour, Eugen has decided to participate in our indie spotlight, sharing some insight into fear... fear of writing, fear of rejection, and overocming imposture syndrome.

Confessions of a literary magpie

I had a lot of fear writing this book. My fear was about rejection—how would the audience receive this book? I was nervous, why? Because it was the first time I was writing such a big work set in the Afrocentric Sauútiverse.  

 

True, I’d already written stories set in this universe, including award winners, as in The Nga’phandileh Whisperer: A Sauútiverse Novella that recently won the Foreword Indies Book of the Year, was a finalist in the same award for the Fantasy category and was a finalist in the British Fantasy and Aurealis Awards. It also made the preliminary ballot for the 2025 Bram Stoker Awards. 

But, as writers, we only feel as good as the last book. We tell ourselves: The publisher is expecting… The audience is expecting… Awards are expecting… And we are also expecting…

 

There was already so much expectation for this book, the development of which was supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund as part of the University of Tasmania’s three-month Hedberg Fellowship. I spent three whole months in Tassie researching the novel, whose fiction borrowed from the island’s natural beauty of rocky outcrops, stalactite and stalagmite caves, cascading waterfalls, rivulet trails and fiery auroras that now found themselves in an Afrocentric Sauútiverse novel.

 

In writing it, I connected with the characters, found order in their disorder. I worried if my new kind of speculative literary mystery where the investigator was not a detective, but a sound magic specialist held. The opening of the book was reassuring, as were the publisher’s comments: “This is such a wonderful book!”

 

The story opens with the afterlife, a dimension of the dead, where the souls of our ancestors lurk:

Prologue: Crossing to Eh’wauizo

 

The crossing to Eh’wauizo, the spirit realm, is in the backwaters of a black river. Put a pinch of shadow and blood salt in your pocket, or sew it in a hem. Slip a button, a tooth, a chicken bone, a crystal or a small, shiny thing under your tongue for Ze-ne to collect. The ear of a ghost orchid, or the twig of a dragon-no’s blood tree is also good. It will ward off omens.

 

Tie a blindfold with a spotless garment—ebony or crimson—and listen for light. You will see silver specters in nondescript shapes turning to wine colors. Don’t mind them. Tend away from echoes and negotiate towards ripples of gentler waters whose lick at your calf then your waist then your chest then your neck especially frightens you as you submerge. Keep treading underwater even as your lungs swell.

 

Resist an urge to scream. Don’t struggle or hold your breath, even as your arms and legs begin to feel laden with rocks. Relax your body, think of the potential. Your chest is tearing, everything inside burning, but it isn’t. Your head will feel light, lighter still as you recognize the approaching Ze-ne-nazala, dear Ze-ne—the demigoddess of death—who will float you to a place of no fear.

 

This is Eh’wauizo, the dimension of our ancestors.

 

Protagonists Muso’mi and Fin’Lei each reminds me of myself in their own different way. Muso’mi is gifted and sometimes wishes she wasn’t. She’s not consumed with vanity and doesn’t like confrontation. She doesn’t need a mirror to tell her what she looks like, because she’s studied many mirrors and decided she likes her jaw, she doesn’t like her jaw. She likes the shape and fullness of her lips, she doesn’t like the shape and fullness of her lips… It varies with moods, how she feels about herself.

 

Like Muso’mi, Fin’Lei is curious about the world, she’s exploratory. She’s had the best and the worst of worlds. She’s had Granmaé, someone to look up to, clear-eyed, honest-faced Granmaé whose entire being said trust me, because you can. On the other hand, Fin’Lei has never known familial love. Her parents are hardworking, doing the best they can as humans would in a world where robots and enhanced humans perform better. Such is the iron of life—Fin’Lei didn’t choose it.

 

It’s natural, then, that these two misfits, Muso’mi and Fin’Lei, find kindredhood in each other. But the universe is warped and has other ideas.

 

I wrote this novel as stories-within-stories. It’s a creative composition that’s both spontaneous and researched. My writing was discovery, lived experience and more. I layered the novel story by story, creating a longer piece of work using a discipline of short story writing already familiar. I paid attention to the short story and embedded vignettes and tales that could be continued, carefully placed within the novel, interlinked them and layered with characters, events, motifs and interplays—a sum of the parts.

 

In hindsight, I can say imposter’s syndrome be damned! The reviews are coming and they affirm that, in Crimson in Quietus, I did something right.

 

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Crimson in Quietus 

Release today!

Science Fiction | Horror | Afrofuturism

From the queen of genre-bending speculative fiction, comes the newest Sauútiverse offering, a mystery like no other, where the investigator is not a detective, but a sound scientist. 

In a world where sound is a tangible force, Muso’mi is a maadiregi—an expert in the art of consuming it. At the prestigious Mahadum, she researches the language of silence, seeking to master the gift her mother calls theft. But academic intrigue turns to deadly peril when her friend vanishes after unearthing a hidden truth. Pursuing clues through pools of quietude across worlds, Muso’mi stumbles upon a horrifying discovery: a pattern of carnage left in fields of harvested silence. Now, the hunter becomes the hunted, as her unique expertise draws her into the orbit of a serial killer who understands the power of sound all too well. 

Includes a glossary of Bantu, Afrocentric and made-up words from this cross-cultural tale written in gorgeous lyrical language packed with emotion. 

Meerkat Press | Bookshop.org | Amazon

“Bacon has one of the most unflinchingly unique voices in modern fiction, be it in the speculative field or anywhere else. Crimson in Quietus is her most lyrical, ambitious work to date.” 

—Keith Rosson, author of Coffin Moon

“Eugen Bacon has crafted a unique and utterly fearless literary mosaic that gleefully defies genre traditions and rejects all conventional standards of classification. Unflinching and written with such powerful poetry and lyricism, Crimson in Quietus is raw, intense, and captivating. One of the most extraordinary, mesmerizing, and magnetic novels I've ever had the honor of reading.”

—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“Bacon’s prose is as rich as the worldbuilding, studded with neologisms derived from African language and legends (a helpful glossary provides both meanings and derivations).

—Publishers Weekly

 

 

Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She is a Solstice, British Fantasy, Ignyte, Locus, Foreword Indies and BSFA Award winner. She’s also a twice World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and a finalist in the Philip K. Dick Awards and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and was announced on the honor list for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.

 

The 40 but 10: Roie Oknin

 

I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!

Today we are joined by Roie Oknin. Roie is a writer, artist and medical student. He holds a BSc in Neuroscience and a BA in Psychology and works as a research assistant in ophthalmology. Ramen, Existential Crises is his first novel.

Why do you write?

I think I write for the same reason I make anything. I like taking something that only exists in my head and giving it form. Writing also lets me spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about very small things, which suits me quite well, as an overthinker.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I enjoy far too many things. My personal motto is trying to unlock the 25th hour of the day. I paint, sculpt, take photographs, travel, hike, play the piano, code, and generally start more projects than I have hours to finish. I’m also a medical student and work as a research assistant in ophthalmology. I drink plenty of coffee.

Describe your book poorly.

Several people work in a shop. One of them is extremely bad at making decisions. Noodles are involved.

If you met your characters in real life, what would you say to them?

No spoilers, but: “It’s going to be alright.”

(Or is it?)

Would you and your main character(s) get along?

I think Koji and I would get along very well, which is probably not an entirely reassuring thing to admit.

If you could spend the day with another author, who would you choose and why?

Dead or alive? Dostoevsky. I’d like to know what he was like when he wasn’t being Dostoevsky. I’d probably spend half the day asking him questions about his masterpieces, and the other half trying to find out whether he was actually enjoyable company.

What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?

Dostoevsky is one of my favourites, especially Notes from Underground. I also love Camus, Kafka, Beckett and Virginia Woolf. I’m drawn to absurdism, stream of consciousness writing, and contemporary Japanese writers such as Banana Yoshimoto, Sayaka Murata and Mieko Kawakami, to name a few.

What are you currently reading?

Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe.

What’s the single best line you’ve ever read?

I know, I know, it’s an obvious one, but I have to go with the opening of Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

What would you do if you could live forever?

Eventually, I’d try to win every prize there is. The Nobel, an EGOT, everything. Given an infinite amount of time, even the statistically improbable is inevitable. I’d also finally have enough time for all my hobbies.

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August 8, 2026

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HDFG28SF

Koji is twenty-seven and one module short of a degree in Politics and Government. The missing module is Crisis Management. It feels appropriate.

For six years, he has worked in a tiny ramen shop with eleven seats, one dish and a broth whose flame has not gone out in thirty-two years. The noodles cook for exactly eighty-five seconds.

Then the timer fails. A stranger gives Koji his business card. Someone from his past walks into the restaurant. Around him, other people make decisions and continue with their lives.

Koji has always known what should be done.

Doing it is another matter.

Indie Spotlight: Eugene Costello

Welcome to our Indie Spotlight series, in which TNBBC gives small press authors the floor to shed some light on their writing process, publishing experiences, or whatever else they'd like to share with you, the readers!

Today's spotlight shines on Eugene Costello who released Puta Madre on August 5th.

Why I Made a Colombian Migrant and Former Sex Worker the Heroine of My Novel

I arrived in Spain to begin my new life just a couple of weeks before the country entered one of the strictest pandemic lockdowns in the world. Arrangements to connect the electricity, water, gas and Wi-Fi in my rented apartment ground to a halt. For weeks, I was permitted to leave only to walk the hundred metres to my nearest grocery store for essentials.

 

Shortly before lockdown, I had decided to employ a cleaner and, through word of mouth, found a Colombian single mother then in her late thirties, with a four-year-old son.

It proved a wise decision for reasons that had little to do with cleaning. We became immediate friends, her infectious laughter and singing filling the apartment like sunlight. When restrictions permitted, she welcomed me into her home, where I could take my laptop and work in her son’s bedroom using her Wi-Fi. Love is as love does, and she made me feel at home when I was far from my own family.

Valencia is compact enough to feel less like a metropolis than a collection of barrios and interconnected villages. It is also home to sizeable communities from Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America. As I applied myself to learning Spanish, my friend introduced me to people, stories and food that revealed lives very different from my own.

There was always food.

Somebody died? We’ll cook.

Won the lottery? We’ll cook.

A son scored a goal at his football match? We’ll cook.

Food marked sorrow, celebration and all the ordinary moments between them. The voices, jokes, anxieties and ambitions I encountered began crowding my imagination. Over time, elements of them were made flesh in the characters I tried to create—not as portraits of particular individuals, but as fictional people shaped by the world in which I was now living.

The story of the world is the story of migration. People leave because they are hungry, frightened, ambitious, trapped or simply convinced that another life must be possible somewhere else. Usually, it is a mixture of all five. They arrive carrying recipes, memories, obligations and expectations, and begin the exhausting business of constructing a new life.

Daniela emerged from that world, but she was never intended to represent every Colombian woman, every migrant or every mother. No character could bear that burden, and no writer should impose it. She is one woman confronting a particular set of circumstances and making choices that are sometimes courageous, sometimes questionable and always her own.

Through Sofía — whose name I have changed — I met several women whose circumstances had led them into sex work. They were among the warmest, funniest and most generous people I encountered. What also struck me was how little moral judgement they faced within their own communities. Migrant life can mean badly paid work, insecure housing, uncertain legal status and almost no employment protection. People do what they need to do to survive, and their friends understand that.

I did not want sex work to define Daniela, still less to present her as either a fallen woman or a helpless victim waiting to be rescued. It is something she does during a difficult period of her life; it is not the sum of who she is. She remains a daughter, sister, mother, friend and, eventually, entrepreneur.

That is why I gave her the idea for Empanadas de Puta Madre, the food business through which she transforms her life. She does not escape poverty through luck or the intervention of a benevolent man. She builds something from the skills, recipes and determination she already possesses. Her son’s eventual literary success extends that story into the next generation: the child of a migrant woman who was denied an education becomes an acclaimed writer.

I wanted to celebrate the contribution migrants make to the societies in which they settle without pretending that migration is easy or that every struggle produces a triumphant ending. Above all, I wanted Daniela to be permitted the same complexity that fiction has traditionally granted more privileged characters: to make mistakes, take risks, survive compromises and create a life larger than the one circumstances appeared to have allotted her.

I hope I have done her justice.

 

 

You can buy the English paperback of Puta Madre here and the Kindle version here.

The sequel Beyond Puta Madre is available in paperback and Kindle.

 Daniela Arango arrives in Valencia from Colombia with little money, limited choices and a determination to create a better life.

After surviving through sex work and cleaning jobs, she becomes a mother and begins building something of her own: Empanadas de Puta Madre, a food business rooted in the recipes, resilience and communal spirit she brought with her from home.

As Daniela’s fortunes change, so does the life of her son, Daniel, whose literary ambitions carry the family’s story into another generation.

Set against the streets, neighbourhoods and migrant communities of Valencia, Puta Madre is a novel about motherhood, migration, friendship and the stubborn human capacity for reinvention.

Eugene Costello is a British-Irish journalist and author based in Valencia, Spain. During a career spanning more than thirty years, his work has appeared in numerous British national newspapers and magazines. He is the founder and editor of Valencia Life and writes about Spain, migration, public health and the glorious absurdities of everyday life. His novels Puta Madre and Beyond Puta Madre follow a Colombian migrant who rebuilds her life in Valencia through motherhood, friendship, food and formidable determination.

So Close Yet So Far: Brian Fitzgerald

 

I've always been curious to know who authors get star struck over, and whether they've brushed shoulders with the people they most admire. So...we're starting a cool new author series in which they get to share their six degrees of separation or close calls with celebrities/authors/musicians.... 

This story comes from author Brian Fitzgerald, who has a very unique and interesting family history:

During World War Two a mysterious phenomenon developed. The phrase ‘Kilroy Was Here’ started appearing wherever American soldiers and sailors went. It was scrawled on walls and ammunition boxes. Painted on airplanes. Scratched into bricks. It became so commonplace that Adolph Hitler was said to inquire to his staff about ‘who is this Kilroy man who seems to be everywhere?”

 

After the war a search was conducted by Yankee Magazine to get to the root of the mystery. The originator, it turns out, was my grandfather on my mother’s side, James Kilroy. He was an inspector at the Fore River shipyard in Quincy Massachusetts, where the ‘Liberty Ships’ were being built that ferried soldiers and supplied across the oceans to the front lines. His boss, the story goes, had criticized him for not inspecting all the areas of the ship during construction. So he began scrawling ‘Kilroy Was Here’ on the panels of the ship as he inspected them, to prove he was doing his job. Soldiers spent weeks on these vessels and saw the saying in air ducts, on deck plates and in places no human could reach. As mystified as anyone as to the origin of these writings, they took the saying with them across Europe and the Pacific.

 

Today the saying appears on T-shirts, the Duck Boats in Boston, and still exists in thousands of places across Europe and the Pacific.

 

Even more strangely, after the contest had been solved by Yankee Magazine, the Boston Transit company gifted my grandparents a trolley car as a recognition of his role in the story. The car was converted to sleeping quarters for my uncles at their small house in Halifax Massachusetts, as the family had fallen on hard times during the war.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten years of frustration and heartbreak caring for his son John, born with a catastrophic heart defect, have convinced Rick Morrow that the world is stacked against his family. And on what should be the best day of their life -- the day when John will finally get a new heart - an even worse nightmare begins, when the helicopter carrying the heart crashes, destroying the heart and the hopes of the Morrow family.

Rick's heartbreak turns to rage as he begins to suspect that the accident was no accident at all. His pursuit of the truth puts him on a collision course with the giant Cera Corporation and the powerful family that runs it, who have an agenda of their own and will stop at nothing to make it come true. The escalating conflict threatens Rick's reputation, his safety and even his marriage. It reaches its gut-wrenching climax with Rick and his wife Mary facing and even more terrible question; will they sacrifice all they believe in to save their own son, at a cost almost too high to imagine?

Over the course of career in marketing and technology Brian made his living through storytelling, communicating in print, online and national broadcast TV. During that time, as head of communications for a billion-dollar information security firm, he had a role in some of the most tumultuous events in cybersecurity including major breaches and global privacy issues. Brian has worked with (and at times been at odds with) the media, academia and even America’s intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. These experiences have informed his fiction writing, as he strives to bring to life the human consequences of advances in technology, medicine and social media.

What I read in July

 

Here's what I read in July. Nine books, not counting two that I read for publicity purposes.

Of the nine, there were no 5 star reads. But five of them were 4 stars, three were 3 stars, and one got 2 stars. Another not super great, but not horrible, month.

Six of them were review copies. Two were audio. One was print. The longest book was
336 pages. The shortest was 99 pages.

A total of 1892 pages read. (I read a lot of a short books, which makes the fact that I only read 9 a bit funny to me)

The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson

"Hindsight was just a multiplier of regrets."

Creepy Welsh folklore for the win — and one of my most anticipated reads of the year.

The novel centers on Carwyn, the last in a long line of Welsh sheep farmers, and his wife Rhian as they struggle through a brutal winter. After rescuing two lost trespassers on his land, Carwyn discovers a partially buried stone head — the hint of a much larger set of ruins hidden beneath a mound at the far edge of his property. As he abandons his daily routine with the sheep to dig deeper, his obsession grows, and Rhian becomes increasingly afraid she’s losing her husband to something she may not be able to pull him back from.

If you've been following my reviews, you'll know I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump, where the books have been fine but forgettable, and Higginson’s novel was the breath of cold, clean air that I so desperately wanted. I needed something to clear the cobwebs, and this absolutely did the trick.

It's slow‑burn folklore done right... atmospheric, tender (until it isn't), and deeply unsettling. It layers the tension carefully, shifting POVs at just the right moment, and building a creeping sense of dread that settles in your bones. At its core, it’s about a husband and wife bound so tightly that the thought of leaving is almost unimaginable.

"They were not made for each other as much as they were made of each other."

Mule Boy by Andrew Krivak

I read The Bear five years ago and it pierced my heart. Naturally, I was anxious to see what this book would do.

I tried to snag a copy on netgalley before it released but my request was left on hold, so I ended up buying it in print and it was kind of lingering in my TBR stacks so when I saw it on Chirp for cheap, I bought it there, too, and I'm glad I did because I listened to it much sooner than I ever would have gotten around to reading it.

And I love how he starts every chapter with "And".

And I love that it's set painfully close to my backyard - Scranton, Wilke-Barre, Hazleton - I know those places. I've been to those places, I've bought books from the Barnes and Nobles in those places, though obviously not in Ondro's timeline.

And Ondro, he's the sole survivor of a horrific mine collapse in 1929. A young kid who quickly moved up the ranks to Mule Boy, working alongside the miners, loading up carts and dragging them away with Wicked, a mule who only ever listened to one other miner and it was because he, like Ondro, spoke Slovak to it.

Trapped for days with dead and dying men, Ondro carries the memories of thier last moments with him for the rest of his life - through his marriage to one of the dead miner's daughters, through his refusal to serve in the war because he was done with dead bodies, all the way through his older years, when the sons and daughters of the other miners seek him out to hear the stories of their fathers who died, and to hear their final words.

Krivak's writing reminds me of Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and Paul Harding's Tinkers. This is a story that begs to be read. It's an exercise in pain and isolation and punishment and guilt and...

and...

and...

Plant Lady by Monyoung Kang

If you cross The Eyes Are the Best Part with Dexter and Eat the Ones You Love, you’ll get Plant Lady. That’s the ecosystem this book grows in — a revenge fantasy with potting soil under its nails and a woman who knows plants can solve problems people can’t, using her shop and her botanical expertise to help other women escape violent partners.

Men, consider this your horticultural PSA: if you hit her, belittle her, or try to break her down, she might just know a philodendron that can take care of the cleanup.

Plant Lady balances the cuteness of a cozy mystery with the darkness of a horror novel, tossing in some closed‑door gore for good measure. It’s definitely more “tell” than “show,” with Kang playing magician — giving you the setup, then leaving you to infer what happened to the bodies. The timeline occasionally bends backward to fill in gaps, and while it tripped me up a few times, the pieces eventually click.

Not the best book I’ve read this year, not the worst. If you’re into weird‑girl revenge stories, this one will give you a little thrill.

Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia

I bought Of Cattle and Men back when it blew up on Bookstagram, but I let it sit on my shelf for years. I didn’t want the hype to get in my head. So why now? Because I have an advanced copy of Ana Paula Maia’s next book, Bury Your Dead, coming in August — the one that follows Edgar after he leaves the slaughterhouse — and it felt like the right moment to finally step into the blood and smoke of this one.

As a fan of Tender Is the Flesh and I Who Have Never Known Men, I knew I’d love this book, but I also knew it would hurt. I hate reading about animal death and abuse. But Maia handles her characters and the cows with a strange, solemn grace. Edgar is gentle in his brutality, a repentant murderer who carries his shame like a second skin. Before each killing blow, he prays over the animals, hoping God will tend to their souls in a way he knows his own never will. If they have to die, he wants to be the one to do it, because he knows he’ll do it right.

But his mind-numbing routine fractures when the cows begin acting strangely — miscarrying, drowning themselves, even hurling their bodies off cliffs. Edgar and his crew of slaughterhouse misfits can’t make sense of it. Is it the polluted river? An unseen predator? Or something deeper than even he can come to terms with?

If this book doesn’t put you off meat for a few days, nothing will. And if it doesn’t haunt you a little, you might already be working inside the slaughterhouse.

Bury Your Dead by Ana Paula Maia

Just two road crew dudes picking up dead animals from the side of the road, who keep stumbling across dead bodies in the woods. In between dropping the roadkill off at the grinder, they make it their mission to give the corpses they find a good send-off, but nothing is ever easy and this seemingly simple task ends up becoming quite the journey.

Rot, decay, and decomposing flesh has nothing on these two.

Bury Your Dead is a slow, plodding, and also strangely relaxing read, and I mean that in the best way. It's super chill and I adore Edgar and Tomas, they have the best laid back 'let's just get through the day without getting killed' energy.

I assumed this was a sequel to Of Cattle of Men since it's a continuation of Edgar's storyline, but when I look at goodreads, this appears to be the first book in a triology that has yet to be translated. Can't wait to get to the others... Ana Paula Maia's got my attention now.

The Unheld by Luke Larkin

Western horror is my kryptonite. I see it, I grab it, I devour it. So when I picked up The Unheld, I was ready for dust, dread, and danger.

The beginning delivered. Webber and his daughter Charlie are living off the land, fending for themselves in the woods on the outskirts of town — self‑isolated, relying on each other for survival — until the woods start spitting out disfigured nightmare creatures. You’d think losing their main source of food would be the problem, but that ends up being the least of their worries. Because with these strange animals comes something much larger and much scarier, and it seems to be stalking their cabin. Webber manages to catch it and chain it up in his shed, even turning it into a money‑maker by selling tickets to townspeople who want to see the thing up close. But it breaks loose and drags Webber away.

The setup was killer. I was convinced I was holding a five‑star book.

And then… the vibes shifted. Hard. What began as western horror slowly morphed into historical weird fiction and started feeling like a mashup of Stranger Things and Pan’s Labyrinth. I held on, but I wasn’t fully sold. And when the ending went a little Wizard of Oz on me, I was out.

I finished it, but not happily. More like stubbornly.

If you’re into genre chaos, this might thrill you. I just wanted the western horror I was promised, not a surreal carnival of plot detours.

Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi

There was a bundle deal on Malfi’s audiobooks over at Chirp, and I had just finished The Hive, which wasn’t horrible, but definitely would’ve benefited from a 200‑page chop LOL.

Since I found The Hive enjoyable enough, I figured I’d take the risk, and this was the first audiobook I chose from the bundle.

For starters, the narrator was not doing this book any favors. I really didn’t care for his voice or delivery, and I had to work hard not to let that influence how I felt about the story itself.

Small Town Horror is basically a giant billboard for why you should never go home again. Andrew is a NYC lawyer who escaped his hometown years ago but gets pulled back when a childhood friend calls in a panic. He reluctantly agrees to return — lying to his pregnant wife about where he’s going, lying to his old friends about his relationship status — and once he arrives, the old gang reunites: the single mom who owns a bar, the cop following in his father’s footsteps, the druggie trying to clean up, and the one under suspicion for his wife’s recent disappearance. This ragtag group also shares a dark secret from twenty years ago, and since they’re all back together on the anniversary of the incident, a lot of their time is spent rehashing the past and side‑eyeing each other.

I was pretty proud of myself for thinking I had things figured out early on, but then it all got so complicated. Malfi pulls twist after twist after twist, and eventually I gave up trying to track who was setting up who or how their old secret tied into everything. Kudos to Malfi for keeping my head spinning and proving just how off‑base I was.

Even though it kept me on my toes, I wasn’t totally in love with the storyline, and by the end it felt like it had a little too much going on for its own good.

I’m landing squarely in the middle on this one. And I’ve still got two more audiobooks from that bundle to go. Here’s hoping one of them finally blows my socks off, because between this and The Hive, I’m not super impressed yet.

A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young

Oh man. This started out so strong — eerie atmosphere, weird body horror, pandemic panic, seriously... all the right ingredients — and then the back half of the book just… unravels. It swerved from cosmic dread into full blown absurdity so fast I had to stop and reacclimate myself.

The setup is fantastic. A woman and her niece arrive at a quaint coastal town on the worst possible day, just as an underground volcanic eruption releases something into the air that begins transforming the residents. Hair falls out, skin erupts in sores, jaws warp under the pressure of newly sprouted teeth — and in the worst cases, their bodies morphing into increasingly grotesque, fish‑adjacent forms.

Our protagonist becomes an outcast twice over: trapped as a tourist and immune to whatever’s infecting the locals. She’s drafted into quarantine enforcement, ushering the sick back indoors when they try to flee. And then one routine visit ends in a killing, and the story takes a turn so bizarre it derails the momentum the book worked so hard to build.

If you’re into books like Wife Shaped Bodies, Reef Mind, or The Unfamiliar Garden, there’s a lot here to enjoy. And knowing now how heavily this draws from Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which I haven't read by the way, I think I get the intention but, for me, the execution doesn’t quite stick the landing.

Bloodbound by Anthony Lee Herd

Have you ever finished a classic and thought, waaaait… why didn’t we spend more time with THAT character? To many people, Quincey Morris (the Texas cowboy who helps destroy Dracula) has felt like one of literature’s underused heroes. And Anthony Lee Head heard the call loud and clear!

Bloodbound gives Quincey the spotlight he deserved all along. Head takes us through his childhood, showing us how he developed his grit and moral compass, how he ended up being one of Lucy’s suitors, and walks us down the path that leads him into Van Helsing’s circle... and ultimately... the hunt for Dracula. It’s a behind‑the‑scenes expansion that feels both fresh and faithful, adding depth without disturbing the bones of Stoker’s original.

Retellings can go sideways fast, especially when they mess too much with a beloved story. But shifting the lens to Quincey doesn’t distort Dracula. It actually enriches it. Sure, the vibe is different, but it's firmly still anchored in the world Stoker built. It's creative as hell and a lot of fun, too.

If this wasn’t already on your radar, consider it officially added. And honestly? You don’t need to remember every detail of Dracula to enjoy this. I had forgotten more than half of it and I'm ashamed to admit that I barely remembered Quincey until I looked him up. Now... I’m itching to reread the original with this new perspective still buzzing in my head.

As a sidenote: if you like these kind of retellings, check out Julia by Sandra Newman, which takes the story of 1984 and tells it through the eyes of... well... Julia, the original main character's girlfriend, basically shoving Winston into the background.