The 40 But 10 Interview Series: Paul Michael Anderson

 

I have decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, 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 Paul Michael Anderson/ Paul is the author of the collections Bones Are Made To Be Broken and Everything Will Be All Right In the End: Apocalypse Songs, as well as the novellas Standalone and the upcoming The Only Way Out Is Through.

 

What do you do when you’re not writing?

The big obvious answers is that I'm a parent and teacher, but I don't think that's what's intended here.  I read a lot, obviously, and I'm a huge music fan, so going to concerts or fucking around on my guitar (currently trying to figure out how to play Modest Mouse's "Little Motel" in a way that doesn't sound dopey) take up a chunk of my time.  I like to walk in the woods, sometimes with our mutts and sometimes alone (I have no patience for hiking, but long walks are just the speed for this born-and-raised city kid). 

 

What’s the best money you’ve ever spent as a writer?

First time I was able to pay for the entirety of Christmas, or use the sale of a short story to pay utilities.  It sounds boring, I guess, but there's something about the fact that whatever talent I possess allowed me to take care of the basic functions of life in latter-day capitalism.  Sure, my day job handles all of that, but to have my writing manage to pull off that trick?  That's just fucking cool. 

How do you celebrate when you finish writing a new book?

Depends.  When I finished a novella recently, I took our dogs on an hour's long walk.  Sometimes I order food from local Thai or Indian places (we rarely go out to eat).  Pretty minimal stuff.  Here's the thing—I tend to downplay my writing.  Not the work or the effort or the successes, but to see them as just...part of the basic package.  I'm a writer.  It's something I'm programmed to do.  I stopped seeing it as a hobby and, instead, saw it as my job around the time we had our daughter—about twelve years ago.  When I changed my mindset, I had much more success, but it also led me to take a more working-man approach to the whole thing.  I don't tend to do anything special after the end of a semester of my classes, so the idea of doing something really out there when I finish a long piece of writing doesn't come naturally to me.  

What is your favorite way to waste time?

Reorganizing my collections—books, music, movies, the few comics I have from my childhood collection.  I'm hopelessly anal-retentive about the order of things, so if I'm directionless during the day at all, I reorganize something. 

I know I'm sounding less and less cool the longer this interview goes on. 

What is your favorite book from childhood?

The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub.  I'd grown up around genre films and what-have-you, but that book was the first time I felt like any of it was mine.  More, because King & Straub had a very approachable style, it was the first time, also, that I felt like I could do this, too.  I'd always liked writing, but that was typically couched in childishly sophomoric comic scripts about monster-superheroes.  The Talisman showed me I could create worlds. 

What genres won’t you read?

Being an English teacher who tries to keep up with the reading tastes of my students (who always stay the same age), there's little I won't read.   Given the books I carry and how I am, it tends to unnerve my students when I proffer opinions on, say, Sarah Dessen (she's good!).  Sports novels tend to be a harder pull for me, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.  I tend to just read everything. 

 

What’s on your literary bucket list?

I've already hit a few of them.  Jack Ketchum, the author of novels like Red and The Girl Next Door, praised my first collection of stories back in 2016, and, man, I was on Cloud 9 for the next two weeks because of that.  In shorter works, I want to see my stories in venues like Fantasy & Science Fiction and Nightmare magazines. 

 

What songs would be on the soundtrack of your life?

How much time do you have for this question?  Pick a moment in my life, and I can find a song that will take me back to that time, regardless of how inconsequential.  In any event, if we're sticking to big moments of my life, here's five songs, without context:

 

"I-95" by Fountains of Wayne

"Invented" by Jimmy Eat World

"First Day of My Life," by Bright Eyes

"Antonia" by Motion City Soundtrack

"The Future Freaks Me Out" by Motion City Soundtrack

 BONUS: "Walls (Circus)" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

 

What scares you the most?

I've written a lot about the horrors of parenting—the pits and cliffs that exist because of this little thing you've brought into the world.  Nothing scares me more than something happening to my kid. 

That, and heights. 

 

Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?

Unhauler.  I grew up moving a lot, so I'm used to being extremely compact.  I hold onto the books only if I know I'm going to re-read them (and if I don't reread them within a certain set of years, I donate those, too).  Everything else, regardless of how much I enjoyed it, gets donated or given away.  I just don't want that much clutter in my life.  My TBR pile is never more than twelve or so books deep because otherwise it sets my nerves on edge. 

 

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

Charlie Brooks, a newly-minted State Trooper, hoped to begin a new life in the still-wild edges of northern Virginia at the dawn of America's Interstate Age.  President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System is supposed to reshape not just the American landscape, but also its way of life, but there are shadows and people that resist this change, and Charlie finds himself in the middle of the conflict.  Hunted and haunted by the secrets his colleagues, the citizens he was sworn to protect and serve, and even the land itself have held onto for centuries, Charlie has only one chance for survival, and it means revisiting the very trauma that sent him to this corner of Virginia in the first place.

 

"Originally published in an anthology as I Can Give You Life, this revised road-tripping cosmic horror novella appears under the preferred title of The Only Way Out Is Through as a standalone book for the first time.

Blog Tour: The Measure Of Sorrow

 

We're happy to help Meerkat Press support the release of their latest title The Measure of Sorrow by participating in their blog tour. And if you're at all into winning free stuff, they're running a giveaway where you can potentially win a $50 book shopping spree.

Click here to enter!

For this leg of the blog tour, J. AShley Smith is putting his new collection, 

The Measure of Sorrow, to the test. 

Set up Page 69 for us: 

This is a bit of a mean extract to share. It comes in near the end of the novelette The Family Madness, about two kids, Leo and Cam, who go to live with their eccentric uncle after their mentally ill mother is taken away. Uncle Nathan disappears and the children find out his home is not the haven from insanity they had hoped... The extract comes at the end of a scene where they try to recreate a favourite meal in remembrance of their mother, only to have it come out all wrong. The return of the storm is the herald of an unseen and terrible threat, against which they are, apparently, entirely defenceless. (I said it was mean.)

Tell us what the story is about: 

The Family Madness is about the bond between siblings abandoned by the adult world. It's also about how children are hardened and can be broken by adult responsibility thrust on them too young; the responsibility of caregiver, for example. The children may be alone, they may be powerless against the horrific, ancient thing in the darkness outside, but they still have agency; they can still build an island of meaning, however small, to shield them from the cold vastness of the universe beyond their uncle's house. This theme—of the need to create your own meaning in a universe that at best doesn't care and at worst wishes you harm—is one that comes up again and again, in different forms, throughout the collection.

Family itself is another obsession shared by many of the stories. The painful complexity of parent-child relationships, the way children connect with one another, the kindness, the cruelty. The impacts on a person, on a family, when someone leaves, or is lost. The way friends and lovers may connect, perhaps without realising, over shared absences, shared anguish. There is something so foundational, almost primal, about our relationships with our parents, our relationships with our children. Even without the justifications of psychology, without invoking this or that complex, it's plain how seismic the impact these relationships—or their lack—have on our lives and the lives of those around us. Characters throughout the collection are struggling with ruptures in their most fundamental connections—death of a parent, death of a partner, separation, abandonment, grief—doing what they can to hold their lives together. All too often, their attempts to fix what's broken do more harm than healing.

Do you think this page gives the reader an accurate sense of what the collection is about? 

The Measure of Sorrow is a collection of horror stories; however quietly, obliquely or unsettlingly that horror may be evoked. Whether it's the writhing secret at the heart of a black reef, or the devouring urges of a forest regrowing after bush fire. Whether the pervasive seep of dark water that envelops the home of a mother-to-be, or the nameless melancholy that descends on a suburban community. The spread of an eldritch drug that darkens a once-vibrant party scene. The presence in the derelict barn that invites you to wallow—forever—in your most private shame. Or, as here, the featureless cosmic terror invoked by the madness of your uncle and his unusual 'instrument'. This extract, though random, somehow strikes to the very heart of the collection—and that heart is dark indeed.

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

Page 69 from The Measure of Sorrow:

 

...remember the bad times. Broken glass. Lentils. And the constant, unwavering vigilance.

Grim silence had descended over the kitchen. Leo and Cam leaned over their plates, ice cream pooling, pancakes untouched. The room was heavy with the memory of Cassandra, her presence, her absence. From outside, beyond the wood, thunder rolled, deep and long and filled with menace. Leo swallowed.

He took their plates to the sink, caught his reflection in the dark window. With the lights on, he could see nothing beyond the glass. Only the room behind him, Cam at the breakfast bar, and himself in the foreground, looking anxious and tired. He could see nothing outside. But anything outside could see them—could see everything.

Thunder rumbled again, closer this time. Leo’s reflection in the window was splintered by a blue-white crack of lightning.

“Turn off the light,” he said to Cam, his voice a croak. “We need to turn off all the lights.”

“Why—” Cam started, but Leo cut her off.

“Just turn off the lights!”

She hopped down from the stool and over to the switch. Leo ran into the corridor, flicking off lights as he passed. Cam called from the darkness behind him. “Leo? What is it? Don’t leave me alone!”

He felt his way back toward her. Even before his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, her hand found his. Lightning burst again like a camera flash, illuminating the breakfast bar, the stools, the dining table and chairs. Leo pulled her from the room.

“What, Leo? What is it?”

Leo’s throat was so constricted he could barely speak. “It’s coming.”

“What, Leo? What’s coming?”

Fumbling along the wall with his hand, he tugged her along the corridor, past the workshop, toward the bedroom. He almost fell through the open door, dragging Cam after him. The curtains were open, as they had left them, and the room was lit brief and stark by another flash of lightning. A shadow passed before the window.

Without a word they both dived to the floor, crawled beneath the bed. Side by side, they squeezed together as far under as they could fit, hidden but for the glint of their black eyes peeping from the shadows. It was dusty under the bed, and airless. The little gasps of Cam’s breath were hot against Leo’s face. His heart beat so hard...

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

Released Today!

Collection | Dark Fantasy | Horror

Shirley Jackson Award-winning author J. Ashley-Smith’s first collection, The Measure of Sorrow, draws together ten new and previously acclaimed stories of dark speculative fiction. In these pages a black reef holds the secret to an interminable coastal limbo; a father struggles to relate to his estranged children in a post-bushfire wilderness; an artist records her last days in conversation with her unborn child; a brother and sister are abandoned to the manifestations of their uncle’s insanity; a suburban neighborhood succumbs to an indescribable malaise; teenage ravers fall in with an eldritch crowd; a sensitive New Age guy commits a terminal act of passive-aggression; a plane crash opens the door to the Garden of Eden; the new boy in the village falls victim to a fatal ruse; and a husband's unexpressed grief is embodied in the shadows of a crumbling country barn. Intelligent and emotionally complex, the stories in The Measure of Sorrow elude easy classification, lifting the veil on the wonder and horror of a world just out of true.

BUY LINKS: Meerkat Press | Amazon | Bookshop.org

J. Ashley Smith is a British–Australian author of dark fiction and co-host of the Let The Cat In podcast. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. Other stories have won the Ditmar Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. He lives with his wife and two sons beneath an ominous mountain in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires. You can find him at spooktapes.net, performing amazing experiments in electronic communication with the dead. His debut collection, The Measure of Sorrow, is out now from Meerkat Press.

 

The 40 But 10 Interview Series: J.D. Smith

 

I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, 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!

Joining us today is J.D. Smith. J.D. has published six collections of poetry, one humor collection and one collection of essays, as well as the children's picture book The Best Mariachi in the World. He has received a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his work in several genres has appeared in publications throughout the English-speaking world. In other areas of his life, Smith has held jobs including office temp, newspaper stringer, adjunct instructor, grocery bagger and market research analyst. He was the model for the cover art of the 34th edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, and in 2004 he appeared on Jeopardy! Educated at American University, the University of Chicago, Carleton University and the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, Smith currently works as an editor in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife Paula Van Lare and their rescue animals.  Transit is his first book of fiction.

Why do you write?

I can’t not write. It’s an existential imperative and all that. If I spend a significant amount of time away from writing, I feel like I am wasting my life. I also believe I have something unique to offer readers, and something that holds value, so it would be wonderful to reach more readers. I wouldn’t turn down big prizes, big sales or money, but those things can’t be counted on. 

 

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I have a day job as an editor, so that continues to take up my time for the next two to three years, when I’m scheduled to retire. Otherwise, I take a lot of long walks, read far too much news, and play/lounge a lot with our two cats (Pantera and Mr. Clean) and our dog (Charley). I haven’t developed my thinking on this point, but I believe time spent with animals is never wasted.

 

What’s the most useless skill you possess?

The ability to remember lots of obscure and useless facts. That got me on Jeopardy! in 2004, where I unsurprisingly lost to Ken Jennings, but otherwise I understand why they call it trivia. My biggest strength is probably popular music, since I’ve been listening to the radio since about kindergarten, more than 50 years ago. If I didn’t know so much about 1970s death songs and one-hit wonders (there’s considerable overlap), I might have filled the mental parking spaces with Sanskrit or something.

 

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

This will come as no surprise after a previous answer, but I would want to talk to the animals—the whole Dr. Dolittle, Sheena, Beastmaster thing. Living apart from rather than with our fellow travelers on the planet deprives us of both knowledge and wisdom, and I would gladly reduce my deficit.

 

Describe your book in three words.

Actions with consequences.

 

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

Although he is more of a filmmaker than an author, I have to go with Werner Herzog. This wouldn’t involve conversation so much as following him around and writing down what he says.

 

What genres won’t you read?

Horror. I am sensitive, arguably to the point of being porous, and it doesn’t take much for me to imagine all sorts of horrors on my own. This clearly has nothing to do with the great achievements of authors in that genre and everything to do with my own weakness.

 

Do you read the reviews of your books or do you stay far far away from them, and why?

I’m still reading review of my books. There haven’t been that many so far, so the novelty has not worn off. Nor has the sting of negative comments.

 

Do you think you’d live long in a zombie apocalypse?

My survival could be measured with an egg timer, and it wouldn’t have to be set for hard-boiled. Then again, zombies don’t climb or swim. Mostly, though, I would not bet on myself.

 

What is under your bed?

Dust and cat hair, and whatever the cats have nudged under there. Then again, there isn’t that much space, since our bedframe has drawers under the mattress. The drawers on my side contain, among other things, miscellaneous possessions that belonged to my father. I don’t know exactly what’s in the drawers on my wife’s side, but I have no doubt the contents are neater and better organized.

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

[Transit, J.D. Smith’s debut fiction collection, ranges from Central Mexico to the Asian side of Istanbul, with stops in Houston, Chicago and Washington, DC. Working in flash fiction, the traditional short story and a series of linked stories, Smith takes on race, ethnic identity, class and disability, along with the power dynamics of how they play out in everyday life. He also skewers the pretensions of those who think they are—somehow—above the fray.

Heartbreak leads to a drunken foray into vigilante justice, and the stresses that underlie achievement in high school come to light. A brick from a nineteenth-century city hall in Illinois finds a new place in twenty-first century Texas. Commerce shapes character, but not without resistance. Smith's fictional world has more than a little in common with other parts of the world—what some continue to call the “real world,” with all its sham and venality. Decisions made in a moment, with incomplete information and uncertain judgment, have permanent consequences. The sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon both sons and daughters.


With intelligence and compassion, as well as illuminating flashes of wit, Smith shows us how character, faith and sheer guesswork collide with circumstance. If Flannery O'Connor and Mickey Spillane had spawned a love child—whose godparents included Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges—it would look a lot like Transit.]

Buy a copy here: 

 https://www.unsolicitedpress.com/store/p403/transit.html

Books I Read In May

 Another month here and gone and some really good reads to show for it, if I do say so myself! I managed to read a total of 10, (with one DNF in there, what a shame!!), which is not the best I've done, but also not the worst!

Let's see what I read, shall we? 

Night's Edge by Liz Kern

I wasn't expecting this one to read as quickly as it did. I cracked the cover and before I knew it, there were 40 pages left and it was bedtime!

Night's Edge does for vampires what A Questionable Shape did for zombies... it humanizes the monsters. And it does it quite well.

In it, we are introduced to Mia, a twentysomething year old woman who still lives at home with her mother, has no social life, and a very tight curfew. Because Mia's whole existence, ever since her early teens, revolves around helping her mother Izzy maintain a semi-normal lifestyle. Because that's when her mother got infected by an incurable virus. A virus that caused Izzy to become deathly allergic to the sunlight and to require fresh human blood for sustenance. So she's relied heavily on Mia to help keep her secret, keep her fed, and keep her out of the "recovery" centers.

So yeah, co-dependency and mentally and physically abusive relationships are all up in here! Kerin also manages to delicately balance sexual identity, societal treatment of a "lesser" race, and yup, even gun law, in a way that adds to the tension rather than detracts from it.

I don't want to ruin the ride, but ultimately there are good and bad vamps - those who go out and hunt and desire to buck the system and reclaim their rightful place in society, and those who prefer to fly under the radar and simply survive. The longer Mia supports her mother, the more she begins to question which side Izzy is on and whether Izzy's been keeping secrets from her, especially when an sleezy old flame, the man who 'turned' her mother, re-enters her life. Which then causes Mia to question how much longer she's willing to put up with the life she's been forced to live.

And I'll let you wonder where it goes from there....

The Bird Eater by Ania Ahlborn

Haunted house fiction for the win.

This one has been on my to-buy list for a while so I finally snagged it on Kindle. I was expecting it to be a little creepier, but I'm also coming to realize that I might have a slightly higher tolerance for the horror genre than I expected. I mean, put a horror film on, and I'm cringing and squirming and likely going to have nightmares when I go to bed. But reading horror... meh. For some reason, unless it's gross ass body horror, or has spiders doing spidery things, it doesn't seem to hit the same.

That said, this was pretty darn good. In it, a man survives a horrible car accident that takes his 7 year old son Ryder. Unable to cope with the grief and loss, he pushes his wife away with alcohol and pills. His therapist recommends visiting his childhood home in Arkansas, which has remained vacant ever since his aunt, who raised him, died after a terrible fall. The suggestion was meant as a way for Aaron to work on himself while he works to renovate the house, but he ends up getting much more than he signed up for. The house is legandary for being haunted, and though Aaron doesn't much buy in to the paranormal, it seems dead set on proving him wrong. Something sinister has been waiting for him to return.

The Bird Eater is a cautionary tale that will make you think twice about going home again.

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

I was really blown away by Eric's novella Things Have Gotten Worse. I was so impressed with it that Eric immediately became an auto-buy author for me. So when I saw that Clash Books was putting out their debut novel, onto the wishlist it went, and when I saw that Eric was seeking reviewers for it, I showed no shame in the request game and recieved a gifted kindle copy.

If you're looking for dark and bleak, you've come to the right place. You'll meet Ghost, a widower who continues to suffer physical and mental damage after a car accident claimed his wife and unborn child; Gemma, mother to a young blind girl and whom Ghost meets during one of his routine visits to the hospital; Malik and Brett, a young gay couple who recently moved into the neighborhood and are finding the place less than welcoming; and Heart Crowley, who has discovered a way to harness a god-like power and who will forever change the lives of these very different but very necessary people.

There were some cranky plotlines that bugged me a little and a few moments where I REALLY had to let go of my inner critic, because this IS a horror novel, so there's the implied expectation to suspend reality while reading it. Each time I encountered one of those moments, I treated them much like I do when I'm watching a scary movie and keep screaming at the stupid actors to not go into the basement or get pissed at the people who can't seem to run without falling every five seconds while they're being chased... I breathe out an "I told you so" or just shake my head and shrug and move on.

Going into this, I had really high hopes, and while it didn't fully meet them, it was still a heck of a read. Everything the Darkness Eats is part cosmic horror, part missing persons mystery, and part smalltown secrets you're better off not uncovering.

Chaotic Good by Lee Klein

Chaotic Good, Klein's follow up of sorts to Neutral Evil))), finds our narrator/author recounting a day spent preparing for, and attending, a Phish concert at Madison Square Garden right at the cusp of the covid pandemic.

For those familiar with Neutral Evil))) it seems not much has changed - he's still concert going solo, still getting high and drunk in anticipation of the show, still falling down deep mental rabbit holes... and yet everything has changed - he meets up with a friend who is going through a bad time, he's recently relocated to a new home, his father's health is ailing, he's obsessing over his daughter, and people are catching the "Times Square Flu".

Honestly, Chaotic Good won't be for everyone. It's very much an auto-fictionish, stream of consciousnessish, disconnected yet intricately interconnected internal dialouge with oneself. An assessment and projection of self during the lead up to and the come down from. But for those of you who like to spend time with yourself, chat up strangers on the train/ in the bar/ in the seat next you at the show, and psych yourself up for what you know will be a good time, this will feel like home.

To give you a taste of just how all over the place this book can be:

- consideration is given to the renovation of the Penn Station bathrooms
- the smell of shit on the train causes him to wonder if he stepped in some
- there's a pair of headphones that never gets fully untangled
- and a co-worker's desktop background that annoys the shit out of him
- the overthinking of a momentary pedestrian interaction
- a reference to his other concert novella Neutral Evil)))
- a discussion about non competitive soccer games
- and some random dude in the big box store parking lot who popped out the dent on his bumper with a plunger
- and oh so much more

Chlorine by Jade Song

Chlorine was an impulse buy while I was browsing the new fiction section at B&N. I typically don't buy hardcovers, unless the book was something I was highly anticipating and planned to read immediately (cause lord knows, with the gigantic tbr piles I have, I most likely won't get to it in this decade and can wait until it comes out on paperback). I hadn't heard of it, but the cover was intriguing and the description even more so - it claims to be a "dark, unsettling horror tale". And having recently read Cassandra Khaw's The Salt Grows Heavy, I was 100% down with reading another horror mermaid tale. Only....

This. was. not. that.

Not to say that it's not a good read, because I read it cover to cover in one day. It's a very compelling read, and it pulls you along with practiced anticipation - it opens in the second person, with the narrator speaking directly to you, dear reader, informing you that something has happened, something that will be revealed over the next 200 pages, and GODdamn if we don't want to know what it is. Like right now. I mean... peep this opening "You are not here of your own free will. You are here because I desired you first. I lured you to me using my intentional charms: my ethereal beauty, my siren song, my six pack, my tail with scales embroidered in flesh." You see what I mean?!

I don't want to spoil the book in the event you choose to read it, but you should know this... it is not horror. At least, not in the conventional genre way. But what takes place within its pages could certainly be considered unsettling. It explores mental health issues, sexuality, body mutilation, and the devestating impact of the adult male gaze in relation to young coming-of-age women.

Quite a stunning debut, once you realize the only horror here is the misclassification on the inside flap.

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers

I was really hesitant when it came to picking this one up. The food critic piece kept throwing me. Reading about writers writing and foodies fooding is not my idea of a good time. It didn't sound like something I would enjoy reading, despite the cannibalistic nature of the narrator. And I was partially right. A solid read, if a little meandering and long winded, though definitely not making it to any of my favorite lists.

When you boil it down (eh heh heh heh), we've got a woman who loves good sex almost as much as she loves good food. She sleeps around A LOT, with her bosses, with her co-workers, with married men, and gets butt-hurt when the men decide to start stepping things back. During one particularly strange incident in which she accidentally hits her boyfriend with his own car and sends him flying over a guard rail to find him impaled and dying, organs and guts exposed to the great wide open, she impulsively removes his liver, brings it home with her, and cooks it up. No tears, no guilt, just a yummy meal and a full stomach.

And thus begins a new chapter in her life... if you can't live without them, kill em and eat their tasty bits. Gotta love a woman who voraciously goes after what she wants!

Piercing by Ryu Murakami

I'm beginning to think that some of ya'lls definition of horror is much different from my definition of horror (yes, I'm looking at all of YOU who have this shelved as horror here on goodreads).

I picked this one up after seeing it on one of @baker_reads reels. His quick 10 second summary of it made it sound so much better than the actual book summary. And I'm quite glad I did (false horror shelving notwithstanding, lol)

This book is psychological horror, without a doubt. It's certainly unhinged. But it's 100 percent not straight up HORROR horror.

Here we have a father standing over his four month old daughter's crib contemplating stabbing her with an ice pick, while his wife rests peacefully on the other side of the room in their bed. He feels pretty certain he won't actually go through with it, but every night for the past ten days, he finds himself here, hovering over the crib, with the ice pick in hand, contemplating it. He worries himself sick over it, can feel the sweating and smell the charred tissue and then the prickling feeling all over his skin that makes him want to scream. He's in control, but for how long? Maybe if he stabs someone else, he thinks. Maybe that will satify the urge? Yes. Stabbing someone else will bring him calm. But where would he do it, and to whom, and how, without getting caught?

As he puts his plan into action, a series of odd events lands him face to face with someone just like him - someone hiding a dark disturbing past, someone who's also on the brink of losing control. And readers, we are content to sit back in our front row seats, shoveling popcorn down our throats, letting this fucked up story play itself out.

Wild Spaces by SL Coney

I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to like this book. It's so full of love and tension and confusion and atmosphere and the cosmic horror aspect blended so well into the storyline... it was just * chef's kiss *.

And hello? How in the heck does it manage to pack so much into so few pages!

I don't want to say too much about it because I want you to go read it and nothing I say will do it justice. But ultimately, it's a coming of age story about a boy who's existing pretty happily with his mom and dad and his dog Teach until his estranged grandfather shows up out of the blue. The boy can sense the changes his arrival is causing... not only to the family dynamics, but also to him, deep down inside... something that feels as though its trying to get out.

(and yes, I subtracted one star because of the dog. Damn you, Coney!)

A God in the Shed by JF Dubeau

This is one of the better horror books I've read in a while. When I saw it on one of @baker_reads' reels, I had no idea that it was part of a triology, and just ordered book two. I'm not normally a fan of series but since I started this one, and liked it, I've got to see it through!

A God in the Shed is set in a small town with a big ass secret. Inspector Crowley has just identified the Saint-Ferdinand Killer, a man responsible for over 20 deaths in nearly as many years. You would think this would put the townsfolk at ease, but it doesn't. Because the deaths were serving a greater purpose and now the very thing they were meant to contain, a god of death and hate, a god who eats human souls, will be let loose again. And the villagers fates end up in the hands of a fifteen year old girl named Venus, who manages to unknowingly trap it.

It's creepy, it's gory, and it's steeped in centuries-old dark magic. A God in the Shed unravels its mysteries slowly but is also incredibly well paced.. I flew through the 400 pages in no time as it continiously dragged me deeper and deeper into its dark underbelly!

And the DNF...

Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

I tried listening to this on audio and it just wasn't working for me at all. I hung in there for about 4 hours but had to call it quits. I really liked the narrator's voice but the chapters are told out of sequence, which made it really difficult to keep track of what was happening when.

Maybe it works better in print, but I'm just not interested enough to give a different format a try.

How long do you give an audiobook before shutting it off for good?