Morren Aconite

May was the final nail in the coffin for me. I gave up on everything, forced myself to rest, and binged a bunch of novels. Even if the month was terrible for me personally, it was great when it came to reading.

*I’ve also decided to include annotations from Goodreads for your convenience if you want to find out more about each book.

Diavola, Jennifer Thorne

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘It was pointless, absurd, dizzyingly stupid. Her whole existence, a joke told to an empty auditorium.’

A fun Gothic horror about a woman who joins her wildly judgmental family for a vacation in Toscana. The classic Gothic elements here are (haunted dilapidated villa, morbidly cautious villagers, etc.) beautifully written, while the family dynamics are relatably annoying. I’m ready to bet that at times you’ll want ghosts to take some of those characters.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.

It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two kids—falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.

The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

(Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)

The Bad Ones, Melissa Albert

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In a small town, four people go missing in one night under extremely strange circumstances. The MC is trying to find her best friend, who’s one of those four, but the deeper she digs, the creepier the whole mystery seems, and it might be connected to the dangerous ‘goddess game’ the girls in town sometimes play.

First things first, Melissa Albert is an excellent writer. She flawlessly pulls off the dark and creepy vibes in every novel she writes.

On top of that, this story was very entertaining and actually took some surprising turns.

I’d recommend this to anyone who loves fairytale-ish atmosphere, YA mysteries, and/or dark magic.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Goddess, goddess, count to five
In the morning, who’s alive?

In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town.

Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local folklore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games…

Bless Your Heart, Lindy Ryan

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a really delightful read. It combines everything I love: quirky women, a Southern atmosphere, and non-sparkly vampires. Generations of Evans women have been running their funeral home and, unbeknownst to townsfolk, keeping nightmares at bay. Or, more accurately, the Restless Dead.

Sometimes the dead just don’t want to stay that way, and it’s these women’s job to fix it.

I loved the characters in this one. Despite a bunch of dark things happening, the book was truly heartwarming. Until the ending broke the said warmed heart, that is.

I would excitedly recommend this to anyone who likes this type of books, but beware – it gets brutal.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.

It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.

But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.

As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.

Big Swiss, Jen Beagin

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Greta is a transcriber for the local guru/sex therapist. She’s privy to all the secrets in the area, but that never got her in trouble. Until she hears a new patient. An intriguing woman with a devastating story. She calls her Big Swiss and becomes unhealthily interested in her.

The vividness of the prose is one of the best things about this novel. But then there are the characters: lost, traumatized, sometimes unhinged. The relationship between Greta and Big Swiss is transformative for both of them, though the change will not come easily.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Greta liked knowing people’s secrets. That wasn’t a problem. Until she met Big Swiss. Big Swiss. That’s Greta’s nickname for her – she is tall, and she is from Switzerland. Greta can see her dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. She’s a including the heads of infants and dogs. Well that’s how Greta imagines seeing her; they haven’t actually ever met in person. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland. Greta and Big Swiss are not in the same room, or even the same building. Greta is miles away, sitting at a desk in her own house, wearing only headphones, fingerless gloves, a kimono, and legwarmers, transcribing this disembodied voice. What Greta doesn’t know is that she’s about to bump into Big Swiss in the local dog park. A new – and not entirely honest – relationship is going to be born. A relationship that will transform both of their lives.

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The best way to describe this story is: it’s like watching a train wreck but not being able to look away.

Lavinia is a true star. In her life and in this novel. She’s loud, eccentric, chaotic. She can do whatever she wants, though most often she wants to party. Her proclamations of great aspirations would’ve sounded ridiculous coming from anyone less beautiful or less rich, yet she gets away with it. Until some point. Until Louise.

It’s quite an infuriating tale where you want to slap at least one character in any given chapter. It’s glamorous, it’s wild, it’s painful. I liked watching Louise get drawn into the whirlwind of Lavinia’s life. She went from ‘utterly enchanted’ to ‘positively fucked’ real fast, and it’s a twisted road through obsession, pretense, and high society.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense, and possibly toxic friendship. A Talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, this seductive story takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it irresistibly new.

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Ways, Eve Kellman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘Panicking, much like sadness, is pure self-indulgence. However, I’m allowing myself this particular self-indulgence for this afternoon.’

After her sister was assaulted, Millie is full of rage. As she watches her sister waste away, she decides to set up an emergency line for women who find themselves in dangerous situations, but saving a few of them per night doesn’t even begin to cover it. So she takes it a step further, fueled by her need for revenge.

The events here unfold at a breakneck speed as Millie basically goes on a wild killing spree in search of her sister’s rapist. I’m very partial to women serial killers and their adventures, so this was just right for my taste, though I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

After one too many terrifying encounters, Millie Masters sets up a hotline for women who feel unsafe walking home alone at night: Message M.

But very quickly she realises that there’s much more to be done to help the women who call in. Because the men just do it again the next night, and the next, and the next…

And when her own sister is assaulted on a night out, the temptation to take the law into her own hands becomes too much to resist.

Black Sheep, Rachel Harrison

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘You know, you’re not pretty enough to get away with being as mean as you are. And you’re really pretty.’

Growing up, Vesper was treated as special by everyone around her, except for her mother, whose love she craved but never received.

Now, she works away from home and has no relationship with her family to speak of. So when Vesper gets an unexpected invitation to her childhood BFF’s wedding, she’s reluctant to return to the odd community she was raised in. She decides to go anyway, and it sure will be a visit she’ll never forget.

I don’t want to say anything about this novel but: 1. Vesper’s not necessarily a pleasant character, but she’s really fun to read about; 2. this book keeps spinning out of control with every chapter, and it’s awesome.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. 

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Bad Men, Julie Mae Cohen

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another ‘woman serial killer’ novel, easy to read, has a couple of well-executed plot twists and is a good way to spend an afternoon.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Saffy Huntley-Oliver is an intelligent and glamorous socialite; she also happens to be a proficient serial killer. For the past fifteen years, she’s hunted down and dispatched rapists, murderers, domestic abusers—bad men all. But leading a double life has left her lonely—dating’s tough when your boyfriend might turn out to be your next victim. Saffy thinks she’s finally found a truly good man in Jonathan Desrosiers, a true-crime podcaster who’s amassed legions of die-hard fans for cracking cold cases and bringing justice to victims­­.

When a decapitated body shows up on Jon’s doorstep the morning after his wife leaves him, he becomes the chief suspect for a murder he insists he didn’t commit. Saffy’s crush becomes an obsession as she orchestrates a meet-cute and volunteers to help Jon clear his name, using every trick up her sleeve to find the real killer and get her man—no matter the cost.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really thought I would love this one. I don’t know if it was too slow-burn for me, or maybe it was too generic, but I couldn’t quite get into it.

The book isn’t by any means bad. It’s creepy, it’s mysterious, and it has an interesting MC, so if it’s something that is up your alley, definitely check it out.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. 

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. 

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

My Darling Dreadful Thing, Johanna Van Veen

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Same as with ‘Mexican Gothic‘, it was fine.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the only good thing in Roos’ life, which is filled with sordid backroom séances organized by her mother. That is, until wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop attends one of these séances and asks Roos to come live with her at the crumbling estate she inherited upon the death of her husband. The manor is unsettling, but the attraction between Roos and Agnes is palpable. So how does someone end up dead?

Roos is caught red-handed, but she claims a spirit is the culprit. Doctor Montague, a psychologist tasked with finding out whether Roos can be considered mentally fit to stand trial, suspects she’s created an elaborate fantasy to protect her from what really happened. But Roos knows spirits are real; she’s loved one of them. She’ll have to prove her innocence and her sanity, or lose everything.

A Bit Much, Sarah Jackson

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story is just sad. It deals with some very heavy topics, so it’s not the best read if you’re sensitive to serious illnesses, grief, etc. I feel like it’s the case where my expectation (completely unreasonable, I realize in hindsight) didn’t match the reality of the story and the vibe at all.

I do have to say, though, it’s a well-crafted novel.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Alice is twenty-four and falling apart. She’s lost her job, her appetite, her ability to sleep. And now she’s worried she’s going to lose Mia, her closest friend, who’s being treated for a serious illness. On the days Alice can get herself out of bed, she visits Mia at the hospital. While they sink into familiar patterns—Alice makes Mia laugh, Mia tells Alice she needs to get laid—they know their friendship is changing, and they can’t control what will happen in the days ahead.

Still focused on Mia, while trying to convince others she’s a stable, happy person, Alice meets her neighbour James—someone she used to try to avoid. They’re interested in each other, but Alice, who is a lethal combination of judgmental and insecure, is hesitant; she has never had luck with dating, and she thinks now is a weird time since Mia needs her. And Alice figures he probably sucks anyway. Mia encourages Alice to be social, while attempting to hide her own loneliness and fear as her body breaks down. But as Alice tries to push herself to do more, including allowing herself to get close to James, she struggles to move forward knowing Mia can’t.

Stargazer, Laurie Petrou

⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘Money isn’t everything, perhaps, but it smooths and eases things; like butter, it greases the joints, it dulls noise and gives everything a glossy shine.’

A deeply emotional tale of a friendship between two very different girls. What starts as their mutual desire for support and understanding mutates into obsession, exploitation, and duplicity.

Just as with a few previous books, this one was good, but I don’t feel like spending energy on a review. It’s something that I read, moderately enjoyed, and will completely forget in 3 to 5 business days.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Summer 1995. Diana and Aurelle are inseparable, living together in Diana’s parents’ cottage on the edge of the Rocky Barrens University campus, about to start freshman year. The strength of their bond is undeniable, if unexpected: Diana is a highly ambitious, socially awkward art student while Aurelle is a more likeable, more fragile literature student and the daughter of famous artist Marianne Taylor. Plus, despite having lived next door to each other their whole lives, the girls have only grown close in the last twelve months.

As the college year progresses, their relationship becomes increasingly unstable, as do the girls themselves, threatening to unravel due to the intense feelings and complicated circumstances that underlie their bond. Yet, the biggest threat is posed by a secret one girl is keeping…

The Witches of Bellinas, J. Nicole Jones

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The MC and her husband are brought into a cult run by wealthy and artistic leaders. By the end, her life is completely transformed, though not in the way she was promised.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Tansy and her husband Guy are the newest arrivals in Bellinas, a lush oasis tucked into the coast of northern California where a reclusive, creative community is beginning to take shape. Helmed by Guy’s cousin Mia, a famous model -turned -wellness -luminary, and her tech mogul husband, the group renounces the outside world in pursuit of purity, fashioning their own rules about what to eat and how to live.

Mia and the other women drape Tansy in expensive clothing and spend their days fawning over their babies, while the men surf and dive for abalone. Everything seems perfect in Bellinas: food is abundant, flowers are always in bloom, and nearby wildfires leave the town remarkably unscathed.

While Guy is happy in their new lives, Tansy becomes more and more suspicious of the community and increasingly desperate to save her already-fragile marriage. And as lonely women have throughout the ages, she wants to believe in what may only be a beautiful lie.

The Witches of Bellinas unfolds as a confession from Tansy, filled with anguish over the life, and sense of self, she’s surrendered in her desperation to belong. In J. Nicole Jones’s clever reimagining of cult power and groupthink, the question isn’t why join, but rather, what happens when you understand the danger, but can’t conceive of a way out?

Rainbow Black, Maggie Thrash

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book started off with a super intriguing promise but turned out a bit too rambly and drawn out for my taste. Still, it sure was an interesting look into the 90’s Satanic Panic and the ways this mass hysteria wrecked innocent peoples’ lives.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Rainbow Black is part murder mystery, part gay international-fugitive love story—set against the ’90s Satanic Panic and spanning 20 years in the life of a young woman pulled into its undertow.

Lacey Bond is a thirteen-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades.

Wild Houses, Colin Barrett

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really don’t think my review would do this novel justice. The prose was polished and sharp, but I’m afraid this book was not the right pick for me this month. I couldn’t get into the story, so ultimately I sort of skimmed through.

However, you should definitely check it out if you’re looking for new contemporary Irish authors.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried

As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo’s fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian’s bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother’s dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias’ revenge fantasy.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can’t shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.